PC user - IF I switch to MAC, Which One?

I'm a PC user for years.

Old Dell died, and just got a new one (xps 420 refurbished, quad core, 6GB ram ati 3650(?) graphic card). About to send it back due to 'blue screen" several times a day. I don't have time to test and fix it. It's Dell's problem.

So, what to replace it with. IF a MAC, what do you recommend - the MAc PRo? Seemed like online the price was about $2200 - way over the $700 I paid for xps420 (no monitor).

BUT, I just read another post in this forum ("Macbook Pro or MacPro"), and someone said to buy ram and disks elsewhere to avoid high upgrade charges from Apple.

I run IDi (DAM sw) with about 50k photos now, LR 2, CS3 sometimes. MS word, firefox, Quicken, etc. No games.

Already bought a WD Caviar Black 1tb SATA disk - I assume I can use that in a MAC. I have a pretty good Sony Trinitron Monitor (7 yrs old), so I rather save my $$ if I can still use it.

Willing to listen to all suggestions, and learn about MACs in the process. Just hope I can afford it!

Thanks,

PeterK

The entry level MacPro is way more computer than the Dell you are replacing. You should check out the refurbished Mac on the Apple Store to get a good deal. You will be able to use your existing peripherals without problem. If you do go the MacPro route head the advice and buy you extra ram and disk drives elsewhere.

The other desktop options are the all in ones. They are an excellent option and you can use your existing display as a second monitor if you went that route. Depending on where you expect to take the machine in terms of expansion this may be a good choice.

The third option is to go for a MacBook Pro (or MacBook for that matter) and use your existing display as a secondary display. This is a great option as you get the added benifit of a laptop to take around with you. The MacBook Pro is a very capable computer.

You can also run windows on any of these options to use your existing SW, either as a virtual machine or booted as a stand alone Windows system. You don't say what version of CS you are running but you would have the option of transferring your license from Windows to OS-X if it is recent enough.

Good luck with your choice. A Mac is a bit different from a Windows box but most who take the step never look back.

Paul,

Thanks!! I'll take your word on the MAC being more computer than the Dell. Not the first time I've heard that. To tired to ask why at this point.

If I go the laptop route, I'll never see the damned thing, because it be in my daughter's room, LOL!!

fYI, I am running with CS3, so I expect I can DL a mac version using my current license. I tend to use IDi and LR together quite a bit, CS3 only on occasion when extensive touch-ups/head swaps are needed (LR 2 does so much that photoshop used to be used for!).

Not sure if IDI runs in OS-X, and I kind of need to run it with LR open. Could I do that in a virtual windows/OS-X config? IDi needs to "know" that LR is writing to image files.

I use a mac laptop from work now, and I'm pretty happy with it, so I thought I would expand my horizons, since I've heard so many good things about the macs - especially for photography.

Thanks again,

Peter

Peter,

The performance difference between the Dell 420 and Mac Pro is mainly from the server-grade Xeon processors and very high speed fully buffered RAM (and I'm guessing an efficient motherboard / bridge components). Also, OSX has a more efficient way of handling background tasks (and task switching in general), so the OS doesn't appear to pause as much as Windows.

The Xeon chips are far more expensive than the ones found in the 420. If you want to feel better about the Mac cost, compare compare pricing with a Dell Precision Workstation T5400, which also uses Xeons and fully buffered ram (although at 667mhz vs. the Mac Pro's 800mhz). I just priced one out with Vista, dual quad-2.66's (they don't offer 2.8's) and 2GB RAM, and it came out to $3100 (but that also has a 3-year in-home warranty included, which the Mac Pro does not have built in to its price). By the time you get to the dual quad-3.0's, you're over $4K. So, at this high-end workstation-class level, the Mac Pro looks like it's priced less than the comparable Dell.

David
--
I love shooting with Mike Hannon III, Edie...

Thanks David,

I appreciate the detailed description. I'm on a tight budget, but maybe with the refurbish route, I can find a mac pro I can afford.

I actually have to be in the apple store tomorrow to exchange my daughter's ipod, so I'll ask around there also.

I wonder if Apple gives educator discounts? My wife and I both teach.

Thanks again for the reply!

Peter

Yup, Apple has educator discounts (although they're not as generous as they used to be many years ago.) You can check at

http://store.apple.com/us/browse/home/education_routing?mco=MTIxODk0Nw

Scott

PeterK said:

Already bought a WD Caviar Black 1tb SATA disk - I assume I can use
that in a MAC. I have a pretty good Sony Trinitron Monitor (7 yrs
old), so I rather save my $$ if I can still use it.

Click to expand...

I'm guessing that the "Black" implies an external case. A Mac Pro has interfaces for USB 1.0 and 2.0, FireWire 400 and 800, and internal SATA, out of the box. There is no eSata port (Apple's been slow to pick up on the market for these), but there are third-party cards to add them and even a third-party kit that does this without taking a card slot (on some models of Mac Pros).

PeterK said:

I appreciate the detailed description. I'm on a tight budget, but
maybe with the refurbish route, I can find a mac pro I can afford.

Click to expand...

If you're on a tight budget, take a look at the 24" iMac. (The 24" one is said to have a better type of LCD than the 20" one, when it comes to photos.)

If you are running CS3, you will NOT be able to get a Mac version from Adobe. Their policy for cross-grade can be painful. You'll have to upgrade to CS4 (for Windows) and THEN go through the process of getting them to approve a cross-grade from Windows to Mac. This should be no problem, but I, along with too many others, have had problems with this. It took be probably two months before they finally approved me. That was the worst part of my switch from Windows to Mac almost two years ago

I say go for it. There is just something intangible that feels good about the Mac OS (among all the other good things you've probably already heard that are probably at least mostly true!)

--
Erik Hansen

Thanks Tom,

It's actually an internal drive, but my plan is to add a hot swappable eSATA external module at some point for dumping backups onto hd, and then putting them in safe deposit box.

Appreciate the info.

Peter

erik hansen said:

If you are running CS3, you will NOT be able to get a Mac version
from Adobe. Their policy for cross-grade can be painful. You'll have
to upgrade to CS4 (for Windows) and THEN go through the process of
getting them to approve a cross-grade from Windows to Mac. This
should be no problem, but I, along with too many others, have had
problems with this. It took be probably two months before they
finally approved me. That was the worst part of my switch from
Windows to Mac almost two years ago

I say go for it. There is just something intangible that feels good
about the Mac OS (among all the other good things you've probably
already heard that are probably at least mostly true!)

--
Erik Hansen

Click to expand...

--
Erik,

From my experience of switching, I agree with your info up to the point where you say:

erik hansen said:

You'll have to upgrade to CS4 (for Windows) and THEN go through the process > of getting them to approve a cross-grade from Windows to Mac.

Click to expand...

This was not so in my case. As you say, Adobe do not offer cross grades of versions that are no longer current so you do have to pay for the upgrade, but Adobe do not require you to get the latest Windows version and then change it for the Mac.

I did not have anything like your troubles fortunately. I dealt with Adobe's sales department, not customer support, (which seems to be an important distinction).

In both cases for Elements and CS3 I downloaded their certificate of destruction and scanned and E-Mailed both them and all went well. I had new copies in a matter of days by normal shipping.

Sorry to hear about your troubles.

Good to hear that you don't have to jump through an additional hoop when upgrading AND switching to Mac. I had heard otherwise.

I dealt with sales a while back. The problem was I had a loooong serial number trail, dating back to old Macromedia products. Their serial number database was screwed up so they thought I had Chinese language versions of the products. WTF? It was a long and frustrating process, but I finally got a full CS3 suite for Mac so it ended well.

--
Erik Hansen

I had a similar situation. I had originally bought when I lived in Canada. When i moved to the UK I took the chance to switch my computer from PC to Mac. I had to do a country license switch first then a platform switch. It was all a paper exercise but they need to follow their processes.

It took a few days but didn't cost me anything in the end so I was impressed with the support.

erik hansen said:

Their serial number database was screwed up so they thought I had Chinese
language versions of the products. WTF? It was a long and frustrating
process, but I finally got a full CS3 suite for Mac so it ended well.

--
Erik Hansen

Click to expand...

--

Hi Erik, having seen some of the pirate shops in Hong Kong some ten years ago I can see a connection to their suspicions when you showed up with the language editions.

I used to go to HKG regularly and one of the guys I went with was a genuine computer guru. He was amazed and mildly amused at the extent of the blatant sale of programs. He bought a few samples to take to Redmond to show them when he went on seminars. PS for $7 HKD with a crack code. MS Office for a similar price of per disk.

The authorities shut down the open activities over the years but I suppose some of the pirate editions are still showing up at Adobe in the hope of being updated without having owned a legit version.

Anyway I found Adobe sales to be very helpful with the platform switch, sorry you ran into difficulties.

I use LR2 and CS#3 and along with Aperture, ( with a side vote for Elements), they are really the standards as far I can see.

You can get an educational discount on the Apple web site, but probably the "refurb" price would be even better. I buy most of the Macintoshes I have owned from the refurb shop. I actually believe that you can have even more confidence in a refurb than in a brand new unit, in that they completely go through the unit an repair anything out of spec so the unit actually gets more of a going over than a new unit. Also, you still get the full 1 year warranty, and they are eligible for full "Apple Care" extended warranties. On the other hand, you also have to watch online merchants such as MacConnection, or MacMall, or even Small Dog Electronics. They often have "rebate" offers that better the Apple refurb prices and they don't charge sales tax. Sometimes you can save 3 or 400 off the list.

BTW, what is IDI? I don't believe I've ever heard of that DAM program.
--
Only my opinion. It's worth what you paid for it. Your mileage may vary! ;-}
http://www.dougwigton.com/

Thanks for the info, but I checked the mac pro on the apple site, and the one recommended to me here is about $2500 with educator discount - three times what I paid for the Dell.

I understand the better architecture, but I just can't afford it. $1,100 would be pushing it.

And to add to that, I've discovered what has been crashing the Dell (fw connect from my WD My Book - it gave me problems on my last pc also).

It looks like I'll have to stick with the pc for a while longer, unless the lower end mac (imac24?) is a reasonable choice for what I do.

IDi is short for IDimager. The best DAM program I've seen around. Some prefer Imatch, and a couple of others, but I don't believe that any of them match IDi's feature set and customer service.. IDi has astounding customer service and responsiveness. You can dl a demo, read about the product, and visit the forums via this link:

http://www.idimager.com/

Peter

I just bought a macbook pro for 900 but I will be increasing the hard drive and adding a new battery that will put the machine over 1000. It may not fit your needs but it is an option.

macMini, the new one, rumored thousand times .... :-(

Anyways, you do not have much choice, iMac and just buy the best you can afford ....

Tom_N said:

PeterK said:

Already bought a WD Caviar Black 1tb SATA disk - I assume I can use
that in a MAC. I have a pretty good Sony Trinitron Monitor (7 yrs
old), so I rather save my $$ if I can still use it.

Click to expand...

I'm guessing that the "Black" implies an external case. A Mac Pro
has interfaces for USB 1.0 and 2.0, FireWire 400 and 800, and
internal SATA, out of the box. There is no eSata port (Apple's been
slow to pick up on the market for these), but there are third-party
cards to add them and even a third-party kit that does this without
taking a card slot (on some models of Mac Pros).

Click to expand...

"Black" is Western Digital lingo for flagship. The Caviar Black is the fastest 7200rpm HDD so far available (though not much faster than the Seagates). The OP wanted to know if these can be used inside Mac Pros
--
-Scott
http://www.flickr.com/photos/redteg94/

I'm also an educator. ;> ) There's really nothing at all wrong with the aluminum 20" iMacs, which are less costly. Unless you're a professional photo finisher, you're probably not going to notice the difference in final IQ between images you edit on the 20" or 24". I am thinking of buying a 24" (or hopefully 28") when the new models come out, but mainly because my young granddaughters love to play Mac games and would be happy to "inherit" the 20" model.

Basically, none of the photo editing packages require 3D rendering anyway, so I've not noticed a problem with any Mac graphics card and Aperture. To tell you the truth, I've edited movies on my old Mac Mini and not had any problems--they just took a while longer to render.

You have several options for running Windows software (and Windows) on a Mac, from BootCamp to Parallels or VMWare Fusion. I run Windows and several legacy programs as a virtual machine through Fusion and have no complaints. In fact, Windows runs much better on my Mac than it did on my PCs. You do need a license, but I just carried my old PC directly over and dismantled it afterwards.