Computer Decision Driving Me Crazy

[Ed Vatza]

I've asked several times about the iMac and have heard almost unanimous positive comments. I have gotten so close to pulling the trigger at least three times and each time something happens to pull me back.

Today I was talking with my computer whiz son-in-law. And when I say whiz, I mean whiz. He has started up and sold a couple of small companies and recently just started a position at The Wharton School at U. of Penna.

He keeps telling me that I am paying for the name with Mac. And that he can get me a PC with same or better specs for a fraction of the cost. I showed him the iMac that I was interested in. The cost was approximately $2500.

He put together the following:
Processors: Intel Core 2 Quad Q6700 2.66GHZ 8M Processor
Power Supplies: 500 Watt Power Supply
Video / Graphics Cards: ATI Radeon HD3650 1GB PCIe (2 DVI)
Hard Drives: 1TB 3G SATA II Hard Drive
Memory: 4GB DDR2 PC6400 800MHz Dual Channel (1GB x 4)
Networking: Integrated Gigabit Network Adapter
Speakers: Cyber Acoustics CA-3001 3-Piece Speakers
Accessories: 3 Year Parts & Labor Warranty w/ 3 Years Onsite
Components: Integrated Firewire Port
Removable Data Storage: 9-in-1 Card Reader Black
Keyboards / Mice / Input: Microsoft Comfort Curve Keyboard 2000 USB
Software: Custom Image Downgrade to Microsoft Windows XP Pro (to get away from Vista)
Components: Integrated High-Def Audio
Motherboards: Intel DQ35JO mATX Motherboard
CD/DVD Drives: 20X Lightscribe DVDRW Dual Layer Drive
Keyboards / Mice / Input: Microsoft Basic USB Optical Mouse Black


MONITOR :: Samsung 2493HM 24" LCD Monitor -1920x1200, 5ms, 1000:1, DVI, HDMI, D-Sub, Black

Price: $1,500

Now I am leaning back toward the PC. But specs are one thing. Use for photography is another. Your thoughts? PC users - you're chance to fight back against the MAC attack.


And he has also told me that Adobe is switching the Photoshop emphasis from Mac to PC. Future editions of PS will come out for PC up to a year before the Mac version. Anyone else hear this?

[Fabs Forns]

That is a weird rumor considering that all graphic artist use Mac. Interesting that he'll try to get away from the latest release of the platform he's favoring. Hmmmmm...

[Alfred Forns]

Hi Ed

I have to disagree with most of the advice you are receiving, just my opinion.

You are not paying for the Mac name, you are paying for the quality. Just looking there should not be much arguing there. As far as getting a cheaper Windows machine I'm sure you can but again you will get what you pay for. Price wise it will not be a fraction, will be a little less.

That future PS updates will be coming out for PC one year before? Don't even have to comment there.

There is not need to fight about anything ... there are two choices and the choice is yours. Today just about anything you get configured properly should give you good performance.

btw the fact you are being steered away from the latest OS should tell you something :)

[Doug Brown]

You also get the Mac OS when you buy a Mac. It's much more stable than Windows. Vista is mediocre and XP is tired and old. I was a Windows user from 3.1 through XP. I jumped ship a year and a half ago and have never once regretted it. Just my 2 cents.

[Gus Cobos]

Hi Ed,
I have been an IBM format user ever since Windows 3.1 came out. Many moons ago...:D For graphics performance I would go with the Apple hands down. I myself am saving to switch to Apple...It's operating system is more stable than Windows...and for photography and design its the only road to take...:cool:

Like Mr. Forns said...YOU GET WHAT YOU PAY FOR...:)

[Axel Hildebrandt]

I had PCs for 16 years before switching to Mac and have no regrets at all, and I used to be a Microsoft beta tester. Windows XP is quite stable but pretty outdated. The 24'' iMac screen looks gorgeous (I like glossy screens) and in PS I'm certainly the slowest part. :)

The computer scientists I know all have Macs at home. I think treating Mac or PC as a kind of world view is asking the wrong question. If you want something that works, looks great, is quiet and doesn't need a bunch of cables then Macs probably are the better choice. If cost is your main priority, I'm sure you could be happy with a PC.

If you go with PC, make sure you like the image quality of the monitor before buying it. If you get an iMac you may want to wait a couple of weeks, they will most likely release a new version in January.

Good luck with your decision!

[Rene A]

Ed,

I just build a pc with better specs that you list and it cost me $1200 without monitor..

Hard Drives: 1TB 3G SATA II Hard Drive
Memory: 4GB DDR2 PC6400 800MHz Dual Channel (1GB x 4)


Since you want it for cs4 editing

1 WD raptor 150 GB for OS only

2 WD HD 1 TB for storage & scratch HD partion on 1 of the storage drives
also at least

8 GB ram 4x 2 GB DDR1000 or 1600 (800 = 6400 is too slow) make sure the ram is compatible with the mobo...

My Pc with vista Ultimate scores 5.9

[Ed Vatza]

Appreciate the comments. And take the "fight back" comment as speaking metaphorically.

Believe me, I am not looking for a fight. I just want to upgrade my computer and am stuggling in coming to a decision as both sides make sense.

Here is the technical comparison between the iMac I am interested in the the PC configured by my son-in-law.

The iMac has 2.8GHz Intel Core 2 Duo CPU.
The PC has Intel Core 2 Quad Q6700 2.66GHZ 8M Processor
My understanding is the Quad outperforms the Duo.

The iMac has 4GB (2x2GB) RAM.
The PC has 4GB (1GB x 4).
My understanding is that 4 1GB sticks run faster than 2 2's.

The iMac has 1 TB hard drive.
The PC has 1 TB hard drive.
A wash.

The iMac has either of the following graphics cards:
ATI Radeon HD 2600 PRO with 256MB GDDR3 RAM or
nVIDIA GeForce 8800 GS with 512MB GDDR3 RAM
The PC has ATI Radeon HD3650 1GB PCIe
The ATI Radeon HD3650 is a newer generation card than the 2600 and has 1GB vs. 256MB RAM of the 2600 or 512MB of the GeForce 8800 GS. And I have the GeForce 8800 option if I want it.

I have not addressed monitors but needless to say I have multiple options with the PC but am leaning toward the aforementioned Samsung.

The PC is upgradable. The iMac is not.

Yes the OS are different. I know that.

And I recognize that designers prefer MAC. I've spent the past 20+ years in ad agencies and marketing departments albeit in more strategic as opposed to creative roles. I'm just not sure the designers have ever been able to explain why they prefer Mac.

Finally three questions.

Does Lightroom 2.0 and Photoshop CS3 or CS4 run better on a Mac or PC or doesn't it matter?

Can you tell the difference between a photo processed with Lightroom and/or Photoshop on a Mac or a PC?

Finally, I will want to next move on to an Epson printer. Something like the 4880 or even possibly the 7880. From a print drive point-of-view. Does Mac vs. PC make a difference?

[Trey Barron]

I had my brother build me a PC a few months ago with a similar specs for about the same money. I added extra hard drives and another optical drive. I would recomend to have a seperate hard drive for the OS. I have an 80G for the OS and programs and then two 640G drives for storage. My system runs Vista64 and have had no problems with it. This allows you to use more ram (ip to 16G with my MB) and you can dedicate a certain amount to PS.

I have not used a Mac and at this point do not see the point in changing.

Where are you looking at buying parts for your possible PC?

[Roger Clark]

Ed,

One thing on your PC build list I would check on is the monitor. I believe it is probably a TN type LCD (haven't checked, but lower cost monitors usually are). TN monitors are not great for photo editing. You really want an S-IPS LCD; see:
http://www.clarkvision.com/photoinfo...an_LCD_monitor
A better monitor will likely narrow the price gap. Apple Cinema LCDs are S-IPS.

My wife switched from a PC to a mac pro earlier this year and while there is a learning curve, has done just fine. So if you switch, choose a time when you can spend the time learning the new OS. I think you can do well with either mac or PC. My son puts together PCs too (he is a CIO for a small company), has done some for other family members, is doing one for himself and one for me shortly. But we are doing linux machines. I wish photoshop was available on linux.

So summary: both directions can work well, but be sure you have a good monitor.

Roger

[Ed Vatza]

Ed,

One thing on your PC build list I would check on is the monitor. I believe it is probably a TN type LCD (haven't checked, but lower cost monitors usually are). TN monitors are not great for photo editing. You really want an S-IPS LCD; see:
http://www.clarkvision.com/photoinfo...an_LCD_monitor


Roger

Thanks for the tip, Roger. I did read your referenced article and have a question. I understand the problems with a laptop where color varies with angle of view and everything you open the laptop, you get a slightly different angle.

But with a 24" or 26" desktop monitor that is set up and remains the same plane consistently, is it really that much of a problem? Would the color remain the same? Or is what you are saying that with a monitor that large, as you move your eye from upper left to lower right the color can vary?

[Doug Brown]

You can run CS4 in 64-bit mode in Windows but not on the Mac yet. Whether or not this impacts your workflow is debatable. I work on very large image files on my Mac and things happen in real time.

I've not done a side-by-side comparison but I would imagine that on a calibrated monitor, images processed in Windows vs. Mac should look the same.

You should not have any problem with Epson printers on the Mac.

To me, bleeding edge performance numbers are fairly meaningless. My computer does what I need it to do very quickly. The hassle factor with the Mac is extremely low compared to a Windows machine. Hardware is tightly integrated with the OS. Software updates are seamless. And the Mac OS is more secure than Windows. Those are the big selling points for me.

[Tony Whitehead]

I have been going thru the same process over the past year, Ed. My old HP laptop was extremely tired and battling with CS3 and I changed to a MacBook Pro for the screen and it is far and away the best machine I have had. I soon decided to move my desktop over as I was getting exceeding tired of Vista's numerous issues. I agonised over the Mac Pro or iMac route for 6 months or so before going with the iMac (2.8Ghz, 4Gb, 1Tb) and am extremely happy with it. I was relying on using my 23 in Cinema display as my primary image editing screen but find the iMac glossy screen much nicer so have my cinema display as the secondary display. For me the OS is a big issue - with Mac it is the first time that the computer doesn't intrude into what I do - it always seemed an necessary evil between me and the work I was doing. Booting was always a time consuming activity that needed to be budgeted for (Sleep and Hibernation never worked consistently in Windows on any machine for me). My Macs never shut down - they go to sleep in seconds and wake almost immediately with a key touch and are ready to go. Restarts are limited to software upgrades. The other issue is the almost silent operation of the iMac - my external firewire drives make more noise than the computer. I have reverted my old machine to it's Win XP partition for my daughter and when she fires it up my my office the contrast in noise is amazing even though it was built with a good quality relatively quiet case. My biggest concern with the Mac's is that I will lose my computer troubleshooting skills as I no longer need to use them. I have built and upgraded may Windows machines and am still responsible for running and maintaining our 11 machine Windows network at work - so it is probably an unfounded fear:D
The PS difference only exists in 64 bit mode as Doug mentioned. To me this isn't an issue.
Just my 2 cents after taking a similar path.

[Ed Vatza]

TN monitors are not great for photo editing. You really want an S-IPS LCD; see:
http://www.clarkvision.com/photoinfo...an_LCD_monitor
A better monitor will likely narrow the price gap. Apple Cinema LCDs are S-IPS.

You are correct. The Samsung monitor I was looking at is a TN monitor. If I go the PC route, I will now either end up going with the Planar Systems 26 inch PX2611W (at around $750) or the HP 24" LP2475w (at around $600). Both are IPS monitors. That would raise the total cost by $200 to $300.

Thanks for the heads up, Roger. Usually I get those kind of tips the day after I've made the purchase.

[Jim Poor]

For me, there is simply no comparison.
I built my last few PCs and was pretty decent at maintaining them, but way too much work goes into that.

Since I switched to Mac, the level of maintenance has gone way down and the machines just run like they are supposed to. When I switched, I kept my latest PC around "just in case." It was a duo-core 3.0ghz machine with 8GB of RAM. All the other components were pretty high-end as well. Basically, I include all that to point out that we're not talking about a bare-bones PC to compare with. Once I transfered everything (within a few hours of getting my first Mac), I never once turned the PC on again and ended up giving it to my father-in-law after several months.

The only major undertakings I've had is reorganizing all my files (which I would have had to do on PC too) and a Lightroom problem that I never figured out until it got fixed with LR2.2.

[David Kennedy]

[/I]Finally three questions.

Does Lightroom 2.0 and Photoshop CS3 or CS4 run better on a Mac or PC or doesn't it matter?

Can you tell the difference between a photo processed with Lightroom and/or Photoshop on a Mac or a PC?

Finally, I will want to next move on to an Epson printer. Something like the 4880 or even possibly the 7880. From a print drive point-of-view. Does Mac vs. PC make a difference?

1: Won't make a difference: either way you'll want to go with an Intel chip (AMD is really lagging these days, sadly). Oh, and as a lifelong PC user, I am amused that the days of Mac users sniping that I was using a "WinTel" (Windows/Intel) computer are over :)

2. Nope, but with a caveat: you should calibrate a Mac to a gamma of 2.2, like the rest of the PC world (Apple has stuck to a gamma of 1.8 for unexplainable reasons).

3. Lots of people get by with it, but I do think the way that OS X is set for printing is makes the process tedious. Page Setup and the Epson printer dialog are at two separate screens, and it's easy to miss something critical--like "No Color Adjustment"--while drilling down through all of the OS X menus. I showed a couple of Mac people how to print via Windows in my last week of classes this semester, and they were shocked at how different--how much simpler--it is. Is it a deal breaker? No, but you should go in forewarned that the process of printing is different.

[Ed Vatza]

Thank you David for answering my questions. The answers were pretty much as I expected.

I am still leaning toward the PC as described in my OP. And I am thinking I just may go with the Planar 26" monitor since it is a S-IPS monitor and a little bigger than the HP.

A long, long time ago I was the person who brought computers into the large Philadelphia ad agency I was working for at the time. They were MACs. I used the MAC at work and a PC at home. Eventually all the creatives at the agency were MAC devotees. At that time, I do believe that MACs were more creative (and had more available creative software written for it) while the PC was more technical shall we say. At one point, I switched to a PC because it fit my needs as a market researcher much better. I was the lone PC in a MAC shop and drove Pat, our MAC IS guru, nuts!

But today, the designers I talk to can no longer answer the question of why the MAC is better for design. I think the PC has (at least) caught up and the MAC retains its reputation almost as a legacy. The people teaching today's designers were brought up on the MAc and they are passing it on to their students.

Now that is just my opinion. The MAC is a good machine. I would not/will not denigrate it. It just that I think the PC and MAC are becoming equals. The PC has gotten better on the creative side and the MAC has gotten better on the technical side.

One thing I will give the MAC no questions asked is the security issue. You don't have the virus issues to deal with that PC users have.

Don't know why I just went through all this. Maybe to straighten things out in my own mind. But that's where I stand right now.

[Roger Clark]

But with a 24" or 26" desktop monitor that is set up and remains the same plane consistently, is it really that much of a problem? Would the color remain the same? Or is what you are saying that with a monitor that large, as you move your eye from upper left to lower right the color can vary?

I think the problem of color and contrast shifts with angle are greater with a large monitor than a small one. I use 30-inch monitors at work and home. Unless you sit far back, the monitor extends over quite a large angle of view (after all that's what makes it impressive). If it were a TN monitor, you would see a different contrast from top to bottom of the screen. I see contrast changes on my little laptop screen. My 30-inch monitors are S-IPS (Dell). Reportedly the Dell 30-inch and Apple cinema LCD panels are the same and made by LG.

Roger

[Roger Clark]

One thing I will give the MAC no questions asked is the security issue. You don't have the virus issues to deal with that PC users have.

I don't want to start a religious war, but I have to say something here. First I am a unix person, administering unix systems for over 25 years, and more recently linux. I do believe macs, which run unix, could be quite secure. But the way apple ships them, they are not.

Earlier this year there was a large computer show in Las Vegas (forget the name) and one group set up a challenge: 3 laptops, one windows, one linux, and one mac. They started out by standard OS as shipped with no additional software. The prize was $20,000 and the laptop. The prize level dropped each day as 3rd party software was added to each machine.

The guy that won broke into the mac. He said he targeted the mac because he said they were inherently less secure. (He was ex CIA or something like that.)

When I was configuring my wife's mac pro, I was shocked to learn that a normal user could run root processes by typing in their own password, no root password needed. I know how to change this on unix and linux machines, but an OS should not be shipped with such loose security.

So the lesson is always be wary and careful and never assume security.

Roger

[Ed Vatza]

Well I continue to waffle back and forth between the iMac and PC as described above. One, probably dumb, question. There is no reason why an Apple 24" cinema display would not work with a PC, correct?

If I were to go with the PC machine, I am thinking of pairing it with said Apple Cinema display assuming they will play nice together.

[Tony Whitehead]

Shouldn't be a problem. I used a 23 inch cinema display on my Windows machine (now used a s a secondary display on my iMac). The 24 in has a new mini DVI connector so would probably need an adaptor to fit to a standard DVI connector on a video card.

[Roger Clark]

WThere is no reason why an Apple 24" cinema display would not work with a PC, correct?
If I were to go with the PC machine, I am thinking of pairing it with said Apple Cinema display assuming they will play nice together.

While I think that is correct, you should ask at an apple store to be sure.

What is the price of a 24-inch cinema? I was looking at the cinemas for my PC at one time then found the dell 30" at about half the price of a cinema 30" and both contain the same model LG panel according to web reviews.

I'm not sure if the price difference is the same these days. My comparison was over a year ago.

A 30-inch display (4 megapixels) is very impressive. Now I want a 40-inch 12-megapixel display, not wait 50-inch 21 megapixels for my 5DII images. But I guess 30-inch is still the largest reasonably prices displays.

My wife has a 24-inch cinema on her mac and it looks great!

Roger

[Jim Poor]

Apple Cinema displays work just fine on a PC. Just remember for the 30-inch display you have to have a Dual-Link DVI video card.

I ran my 30-inch Cinema display on a PC for quite a while before I jumped to Mac completely. Now I have two of them side by side and love every inch of them.

[mikeojohnson]

My view is different than the answers you got above. When you buy a Mac you are getting an integrated experience. The software that ships with the computer is tightly integrated and useful. Coupled with Apple's mobileme service and you have a robust computing/communicating environment.
The maintenance is simpler as the hardware and os are designed by one source.
With the pc world, my experience was that you could do all the same things, but you had to know more to make the pieces work together.
Mike

[Ed Vatza]

Spoke to Apple. Twice. Locally and over the phone to the national number. No way Jose! The new 24" inch Cinema display ($899 by the way) is made to work only with the Mac laptops. It will not work with a PC until an adapter (it requires a special port) is available and as of now there are no plans for such an adapter. Kinda kills that idea.

[Ed Vatza]

OK folks, an end to the drama.

I have decided on the iMac, believe it or not. I really like this version:

• 3.06GHz Intel Core 2 Duo CPU
• 4GB (2x2GB) RAM
• 1TB Hard Drive
• SuperDrive
• nVIDIA GeForce 8800 GS
• 24" Glossy Widescreen Display
• Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard

After all the indecision, I am tempted to pull the trigger quickly but I think I will try to contain myself until after next week and MacWorld. Rumors abound regarding a new iMac upgrade. So I will cool my jets for a week or so before actually making the purchase.

Thanks for all your advice and help.

[Axel Hildebrandt]

These are pretty much the specs of my iMac. Good idea to wait until MacWorld is over, I also got a 1TB FireWire 800 external hard drive that works as Time Machine. Calibrating the monitor was easy.