Best computer for lightroom

[signmaster]

I have been a PC user for years and ordered a new i7 PC with all the bells and whistles. It was faulty on arrival bios corrupted, sent it back for repair and when it was returned still faulty, bios corruped and booted to a blue screen. After talking to the salesman was informed that Vista was causing a few problems with the new i7s. So I am considering a Mac.
I would much rather stay with PC's as I know them quite well.
Do you think a Mac will be better with light room?
Will I be able to edit HD video from a 5DII faster on a Mac?
Do I have to buy new copies of Photoshop and Lightroom for the Mac or can I crossgrade?
How easy is it swapping between platforms? (I will be doing this on a daily basis)
I might keep a PC on hand for my spreadsheets, office apps ect.
Any help appreciated.

[Josh-H]

I have been a PC user for years and ordered a new i7 PC with all the bells and whistles. It was faulty on arrival bios corrupted, sent it back for repair and when it was returned still faulty, bios corruped and booted to a blue screen. After talking to the salesman was informed that Vista was causing a few problems with the new i7s. So I am considering a Mac.
I would much rather stay with PC's as I know them quite well.
Do you think a Mac will be better with light room?
Will I be able to edit HD video from a 5DII faster on a Mac?
Do I have to buy new copies of Photoshop and Lightroom for the Mac or can I crossgrade?
How easy is it swapping between platforms? (I will be doing this on a daily basis)
I might keep a PC on hand for my spreadsheets, office apps ect.
Any help appreciated.

I went mac about a year ago - my only regret is I didnt do it 10 years ago. An i-phone started it for me.. quickly followed by a macbook pro, then an apple TV, and then a Mac Pro.

I can tell you from direct experience that LR on a Mac Pro is a dream - it hammers and is super stable.

In terms of time to get up to speed on a mac - wont take you more than a couple of days to become familiar.

[flash]

I have been a PC user for years and ordered a new i7 PC with all the bells and whistles. It was faulty on arrival bios corrupted, sent it back for repair and when it was returned still faulty, bios corruped and booted to a blue screen. After talking to the salesman was informed that Vista was causing a few problems with the new i7s. So I am considering a Mac.
I would much rather stay with PC's as I know them quite well.
Do you think a Mac will be better with light room?
Will I be able to edit HD video from a 5DII faster on a Mac?
Do I have to buy new copies of Photoshop and Lightroom for the Mac or can I crossgrade?
How easy is it swapping between platforms? (I will be doing this on a daily basis)
I might keep a PC on hand for my spreadsheets, office apps ect.
Any help appreciated.

A bios corruption has nothing to do with the OS. It's so easy just to blame Vista. Every lazy "expert" does. I now have Vista on 4 machines (admittedly none are i7) and since SP1 it's been brilliant. I even put XP back on two of them and after a few days of not seeing any difference in performance (boot speed is slower though. App speed was the same) promptly re-installed Vista. I'm not arguing for you to stay with Vista or switch. But "personally" having tried OSX a few times over the last year or so, for a few weeks at a time, Im still not compelled to make the switch. OSX is nice but once an application is loaded you're not really working on the OS anyway and I've had toreboot OSX just as many times as Vista. So I don't really see that much difference. YMMV, but I actually like tweaking the OS to suit my needs. As to your questions.

1. Lightroom won't be noticably different in performance on a Mac with the same hardware. However it's easier to have your colour management set up correctly on a Mac. PC's can have more issues with double profiling etc. if you're not careful.
2. No you won't edit video any faster on a Mac.
3. You can crossgrade Photoshop as long as you have the latest versions and you can't run Mac AND PC versions on the same licence for Photoshop. AFIK you can rn a Mac and PC version of LR at the same time.
4. I have no hassles moving back and forward between Mac, Vista and XP. But every one's differrent here.
5. Office apps are the same on Mac. It may be easier to just to switch completely.

I'd go to a Mac store and spend a couple of hours letting one of the staff trying to convince you to swap. They'll let you play with the OS to see if you prefer it.

just my 0.02

[signmaster]

A bios corruption has nothing to do with the OS. It's so easy just to blame Vista. Every lazy "expert" does. I now have Vista on 4 machines (admittedly none are i7) and since SP1 it's been brilliant. I even put XP back on two of them and after a few days of not seeing any difference in performance (boot speed is slower though. App speed was the same) promptly re-installed Vista. I'm not arguing for you to stay with Vista or switch. But "personally" having tried OSX a few times over the last year or so, for a few weeks at a time, Im still not compelled to make the switch. OSX is nice but once an application is loaded you're not really working on the OS anyway and I've had toreboot OSX just as many times as Vista. So I don't really see that much difference. YMMV, but I actually like tweaking the OS to suit my needs. As to your questions.

1. Lightroom won't be noticably different in performance on a Mac with the same hardware. However it's easier to have your colour management set up correctly on a Mac. PC's can have more issues with double profiling etc. if you're not careful.
2. No you won't edit video any faster on a Mac.
3. You can crossgrade Photoshop as long as you have the latest versions and you can't run Mac AND PC versions on the same licence for Photoshop. AFIK you can rn a Mac and PC version of LR at the same time.
4. I have no hassles moving back and forward between Mac, Vista and XP. But every one's differrent here.
5. Office apps are the same on Mac. It may be easier to just to switch completely.

I'd go to a Mac store and spend a couple of hours letting one of the staff trying to convince you to swap. They'll let you play with the OS to see if you prefer it.

just my 0.02

I use both photoshop and lightroom at work and a copy on my home PC so I would have to upgrade both More$
If video editing and lightroom don't run quicker on the Mac it might be best to wait a little while till the i7 processors drop in price and they sort out the possible hardware issues and just stay with PCs.

[John.Murray]

I agree, Vista has no issues with i7 CPU's.  If your system is custom built, make sure the builder has latest BIOS updates flashed.  Also, be sure to run the memtest.exe utility that is included on the Vista installation disk, I'm still amazed how many systems fail this most basic test.

I'm now running both Vista and Mac and frankly, find each O/S to be "irritating" at times although in different ways . . .   If you are seriously contemplating a Mac, I wouldn't worry about the learning curve too much.  In terms of an Office Suite, Open Office pretty much can handle any chore you throw at it.

[jjj]

I'm now running both Vista and Mac and frankly, find each O/S to be "irritating" at times although in different ways . . .

This is the real truth, that is rearely acknowledged.
Both OSs are very good and both are tremendously annoying to use at times. And Macs are certainly not problem free. OSX has been a real PITA with a lots of bugs and issues. My Mac has completely locked up on me/crashed quite a few times this last week and has weird graphic redraw issues that I've not had since the 10.5.3 bug fix pack. And the mighty mouse regularly has problems with the scroll ball, other friends also have had problems with it too - there was a very good reason balls were removed from the bottom of mice as they tended to clag up.

As someone who uses both all the time, I do not see any need to move from one you currently use to the other unless there is some must have software that is platform specific.
I have however struggled on many occasions to find software as good as some that I regularly use on my PC. No matter what Apple fans may say, you have soooo much more choice with software [and hardware] with PCs. In theory you can use both OSs on a Mac, but I've not got Vista working nicely enough for my liking on the MacPro to justify adding any PC software to it yet.

My view is that as Apple control software and hardware, their computers should be much, much more reliable than PCs, sadly I have found the opposite to be true and it cost me a lot more to buy a Mac, for no real improvement and for file management and dual monitor handling a big step backwards in usaubility and functionality. Which results in a much inferior workflow. A shame as I like lots of other things in OSX

Also Vista 64 is a real 64 bit OS, whereas OSX isn't and CS4 is 64 bit on the PC, but not the Mac. So for maximum PS speed, Vista 64 is the way to go. LR is 64 bit on both platforms.

[MBehrens]

Just add my $0.02 here. I recently purchased a Dell Studio XPS i7 X58, Vista 64, and am running LR64 2.3. And absolutely love it. I was expecting to have to deal with issues, from the chatter everywhere, and have had no problems with either 16 (I think quicken is still a 16 bit app) 32 or 64 bit apps. LR is a joy to use, no sticky sliders, previews render in a snap, exports are very speedy.

The i7 processors with the X58 chipset is a substantial platform increase and resolves some of the long standing bottlenecks in PCs. It is important to use DDR3 memory chips and populate them in sets of three to take full advantage of the triple channel architecture, "upgrading to 4GB" will result in lower performance as only 2 channels will be used (2x2GB). I have 3GB (3x1GB) and have not maxed out in LR yet. I would guess that my LR processing workflow time has been reduced by 25% with this system.

My other most intensive application I use is AutoCAD and it flies as well.

I have Macs and PCs and agree with the person that stated they are both frustrating in their own way. They are all personal computers in the end. I don't care for the finder in the Mac and the "ease of use" is a pain in many instance. Color management in Macs is great, PCs need a little more understanding but isn't agony.

[signmaster]

The people who built the PC said they would rebuild it with a new motherboard and memory and rebate me all freight costs plus $90.00 labour and supply a Firewire 800 express card for free.
So I said OK, I hope they sort it out.
I just purchased MAGIX video Pro X and it works OK on my old VAIO laptop with 5D files, the preview is a bit jerky but the final video appears to be excellent.  It should fly on my new machine.

Thanks for all the advise.

[gerk]

My view is that as Apple control software and hardware, their computers should be much, much more reliable than PCs, sadly I have found the opposite to be true and it cost me a lot more to buy a Mac, for no real improvement and for file management and dual monitor handling a big step backwards in usaubility and functionality. Which results in a much inferior workflow. A shame as I like lots of other things in OSX

Also Vista 64 is a real 64 bit OS, whereas OSX isn't and CS4 is 64 bit on the PC, but not the Mac. So for maximum PS speed, Vista 64 is the way to go. LR is 64 bit on both platforms.

64 bits doesn't make an application faster, in fact it makes it technically slower.  It allows more space for addressing, nothing more.  Vista 64 is NOT a "real" 64 bit OS -- but neither is OSX Leopard, nor does it matter -- they both start off in 32bit space and move into 64bit.  As for multi-monitor setups I'm pretty happy with my 5 (yes that's five) monitor setup here on OSX.  I don't think this is even possible in windows without doing some major jumping through hoops.

Each to their own.  For me being a longtime Unix geek, OSX wins hands down.  Also in terms of viruses, trojans and malware OSX wins hands down.  For all other stuff it's user centric, so whatever you like best is what is going to work for you.  In my past experience I've never had a windows based workstation that lasted me longer than 3 months without having to full re-format and re-install it -- maybe I'm just hard on machines.  My macs typically get maybe a single re-format and install during their multi-year lifetime, if that.  As for file management I much prefer OSX's finder to explore.exe -- but again that's personal.

Again I'll say each to their own and not saying you're wrong, but opinion is just that, opinion, and everyone really needs to form their own

[John.Murray]

64 bits doesn't make an application faster, in fact it makes it technically slower.  It allows more space for addressing, nothing more.  Vista 64 is NOT a "real" 64 bit OS -- but neither is OSX Leopard, nor does it matter -- they both start off in 32bit space and move into 64bit.  As for multi-monitor setups I'm pretty happy with my 5 (yes that's five) monitor setup here on OSX.  I don't think this is even possible in windows without doing some major jumping through hoops.
Again I'll say each to their own and not saying you're wrong, but opinion is just that, opinion, and everyone really needs to form their own

If you time a tight process loop using a 32bit long integer counter vs: a 64bit counter, you see a slight performance hit:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa384264(VS.85).aspx

but if the lack of address space means swapping memory to disk?   Here's Adobe's take on things:
http://blogs.adobe.com/jnack/2008/04/photoshop_lr_64.html

How is Vista 64 *not* "truly" 64 bit?  Why would a 32bit boot loader be a problem?  In the case of Vista *current* implementations of BCD are 32bit, but the whole point of BCD is freeing the boot loader from any given device platform.  In fact BDC supports remote boot:
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc770770.aspx  

All Motherboards that use a BIOS bootstrap method that starts at 8-bit.  Does that somehow limit the O/S that ultimately runs on it?

A discussion of 16 monitor support for WinXP from 2003:
http://www.realtimesoft.com/multimon/forum....asp?Topic=3009

Note that starting with NT4.0 with built in Terminal Services support, the number of supported "displays" is really only limited by memory.

[gerk]

How is Vista 64 *not* "truly" 64 bit?  Why would a 32bit boot loader be a problem?  In the case of Vista *current* implementations of BCD are 32bit, but the whole point of BCD is freeing the boot loader from any given device platform.  In fact BDC supports remote boot:

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc770770.aspx  

All Motherboards that use a BIOS bootstrap method that starts at 8-bit.  Does that somehow limit the O/S that ultimately runs on it?

Here's a discussion of 16 monitor support for WinXP from 2003:

http://www.realtimesoft.com/multimon/forum....asp?Topic=3009

Here's a bit of a primer on 64bit OS stuff:

http://gizmodo.com/5076473/giz-explains-wh...me-about-64+bit

The point I was trying to make about 64bit is that it's not the end-all and the be-all of having a fast setup.  It's about memory addressing -- at least for now, until the hardware catches up.  You will see some benefit from big number crunching apps that are 64bit native (CS4, LR2) during intensive tasks.  LR2 is 64bit on windows and OSX so for the OP's question there's not going to be a huge difference between architectures for the most part.


I stand corrected on the multi-monitors on windows.  Last time I tried it didn't work for me on XP SP2 unless I added third party stuff -- I gave up at that point.

[John.Murray]

I disagree - having a 64 bit platform *is* critical.  One thing that often goes unmentioned is the fact that 32 bit process' no longer have to contend for the same address sapce.  Even though an individual app might be limited to 2GB (or 2.8 or 2.x plus extensions or whatever) - the 64 bit platform presents a separate space for each.

I know that Bridge CS4 still has a 32bit address limitation, but I *know* it is not directly competing for the same 32bit address space with Lightroom on my machine running Vista/64.