Posted by Colin Mason on February 12, 2007 at 12:32 PM
I am looking for some help which chosing a New PC. Firstly for those mac users... the thought has crossed my mind, since i have photoshop for pc, i have decided not to go down the mac route. I am considering ordering from Dell (reason: they may offer a student discount!) but am now stuck with regards what i should get. I have no concerns about a computer coping with my uni work, but what what is the recommended hardware to best use photoshop?
Thanks, Colin
Posted by Don Miller on February 12, 2007 at 12:45 PM
Sorry, that would be a mac
In the U.S. it only costs a few dollars for Adobe to switch a photoshop between systems. Although if you an educational license, perhaps the rules are different.
Good value windows machine for a digital photographer:
mid-price intel dual core processor
2 gb ram
at least two hard drives, point the PS swap file off the system drive
Posted by Colin Mason on February 12, 2007 at 1:40 PM
I should also add, are there any experiences of windows vista out there?
Posted by Carol Hyman on February 13, 2007 at 1:48 PM
Colin,
I can't help you with Vista because very recently I decided I had had enough with Microsoft. I've worked on mainframes, micros, minis, and spent years working with UNIX on Silicon Graphic's machines.
Apple provides a student discount.
If your version of PS is up to date, there is no charge for obtaining a MAC version of PS; else, you might have to pay to upgrade to the most recent version.
MAC's OS is based on UNIX and it's a far more stable OS than anything Microsoft has come up with to date.
There has been a recent discuss on Vista, but again, I've not even looked at it.
I'm interested in the replies you get on the PC side Colin, even though we are heavily vested in Mac machines and software. The latter is key, because a number of the programs we need for working with pro labs are simply unavailable for Mac. Some labs offer "work arounds," but it's costing us money to use labs or programs that are "mac compatible." Long and short, we are probably going to include at least one PC in our spread, even if it will be less stable and more problematic about viruses, etc.
I'd let your fingers do the walking through the array of your software needs, then choose mac only if it doesn't cut you off from important software resources. If you can get the mac software you need however, I don't think you will ever regret the switch away from PC.
Posted by David Prichard on February 13, 2007 at 6:19 PM
Colin,
I'm holding off on Vista at the moment for reason discussed in the Vista thread of several days ago. I've a lot of work and software that doesn't require an upgrade but also a demand for a better machine for graphics. One of my considerations is going to a Mac for graphics work and keeping the existing PC machine for office and internet.
A concern is that this is a PC city with nobody retailing Macs which may mean no local service.
Dave
Posted by Kah Kit Yoong on February 14, 2007 at 7:59 PM
You can run XP & the pc version of PS on an Intel Mac.
Posted by Keith Anderson on February 15, 2007 at 3:01 AM
Yes ALL new Intel Macs run Windows native not through a emulation program so PS will work on a Intel Mac just as fast as it will on a PC. There is simply no difference. Of course when you run Windows on a Mac you end up having all the same problems as you do when running Windows on a PC.
If you could afford the latest Mac desktop with Quad Core processing it would be the ultimate machine, able to run both platforms....oh and Linux as well
Posted by Rick Dunn on February 15, 2007 at 8:08 PM
I've been a happy Dell user for about 10 years. I just recently bought a new system from both Dell and Apple. The apple - a new Mac Pro - was sweet, but unbelievably, it pulled so many amps on startup that it kept blowing the 15A circuit breaker for my office. I returned it and bought the Dell.
I would have been VERY happy with the Mac, but honestly struggled to see its advantages for things like PS. Over time, maybe I would have come to experience the benefits of the less quirky operating system - and it certainly has a cool/wow factor - but for folks who say macs are better for PS, I'd be interested to understand specifically why....
For the Dell, I picked up an XPS 710 with 4gb ram and two 500gb hard drives configured for RAID 1. With that, I got the 24" widescreen Dell ultrasharp LCD, which, imo, is equally as nice as the Mac 23" cinema display that I had to return. That setup cost me about 20% less than the Mac Pro, and the Mac only had 2gb ram and one 250gb hard drive. Debates about operating systems aside, it's hard to argue that PCs don't offer more bang for the buck.
If you don't need multiple hard drives, the XPS 210 is a very good alternative to the 710. The Dell that I just replaced is an ealier version of the 210. It's small, but powerful. Combined with the 20" or 24" widescreen ultrasharp, it would a fantastic setup. You could configure it with 2gb ram, which is what I had on my older version and that was excellent for PS running on XP. You could put as much as 4gb ram into it if Vista ends up being a resource hog.
A similarly configured HP would cost even less. I have a 1 year-old HP laptop that I'm pleasantly surprised with, but for the desktop, I decided to go with a known quantity.
Good luck!
Posted by Darrin Doss on February 17, 2007 at 11:50 AM
I have some experience with vista as of this week...and not by my choice. I am by no means a professional with deep pockets for a whole new computer system. But about a week ago, my dell laptop finally gave up. I decided to go with a gateway desktop model. And as all of yall know....XP is not an option when buying new now...
Some of the problems I have faced so far include:
VISTA IS SLOW....I bought all the hard drive and memory I could afford....which wasn't much...1Gig Memory and 250 Gig hard drive. It still has a hard time.
Nothing works on it yet...I have PS Elements....the only one that works on vista...5.0, I have no experience with any of the full Photoshop programs.
I use Express Digital....does not support vista.
None of the Canon EOS camera's support vista per Canon Usa's web site.
Of course, If I had a choice, I would have waited at least 6 more months to purchase a Vista based Machine.
Discussion
9 repliesThanks, Colin
In the U.S. it only costs a few dollars for Adobe to switch a photoshop between systems. Although if you an educational license, perhaps the rules are different.
Good value windows machine for a digital photographer:
mid-price intel dual core processor
2 gb ram
at least two hard drives, point the PS swap file off the system drive
I can't help you with Vista because very recently I decided I had had enough with Microsoft. I've worked on mainframes, micros, minis, and spent years working with UNIX on Silicon Graphic's machines.
Apple provides a student discount.
If your version of PS is up to date, there is no charge for obtaining a MAC version of PS; else, you might have to pay to upgrade to the most recent version.
MAC's OS is based on UNIX and it's a far more stable OS than anything Microsoft has come up with to date.
There has been a recent discuss on Vista, but again, I've not even looked at it.
I would encourage you to do some solid research.
Good luck.
Carol Hyman
http://hy-tec-training.com
I'd let your fingers do the walking through the array of your software needs, then choose mac only if it doesn't cut you off from important software resources. If you can get the mac software you need however, I don't think you will ever regret the switch away from PC.
I'm holding off on Vista at the moment for reason discussed in the Vista thread of several days ago. I've a lot of work and software that doesn't require an upgrade but also a demand for a better machine for graphics. One of my considerations is going to a Mac for graphics work and keeping the existing PC machine for office and internet.
A concern is that this is a PC city with nobody retailing Macs which may mean no local service.
Dave
If you could afford the latest Mac desktop with Quad Core processing it would be the ultimate machine, able to run both platforms....oh and Linux as well
I would have been VERY happy with the Mac, but honestly struggled to see its advantages for things like PS. Over time, maybe I would have come to experience the benefits of the less quirky operating system - and it certainly has a cool/wow factor - but for folks who say macs are better for PS, I'd be interested to understand specifically why....
For the Dell, I picked up an XPS 710 with 4gb ram and two 500gb hard drives configured for RAID 1. With that, I got the 24" widescreen Dell ultrasharp LCD, which, imo, is equally as nice as the Mac 23" cinema display that I had to return. That setup cost me about 20% less than the Mac Pro, and the Mac only had 2gb ram and one 250gb hard drive. Debates about operating systems aside, it's hard to argue that PCs don't offer more bang for the buck.
If you don't need multiple hard drives, the XPS 210 is a very good alternative to the 710. The Dell that I just replaced is an ealier version of the 210. It's small, but powerful. Combined with the 20" or 24" widescreen ultrasharp, it would a fantastic setup. You could configure it with 2gb ram, which is what I had on my older version and that was excellent for PS running on XP. You could put as much as 4gb ram into it if Vista ends up being a resource hog.
A similarly configured HP would cost even less. I have a 1 year-old HP laptop that I'm pleasantly surprised with, but for the desktop, I decided to go with a known quantity.
Good luck!
Some of the problems I have faced so far include:
VISTA IS SLOW....I bought all the hard drive and memory I could afford....which wasn't much...1Gig Memory and 250 Gig hard drive. It still has a hard time.
Nothing works on it yet...I have PS Elements....the only one that works on vista...5.0, I have no experience with any of the full Photoshop programs.
I use Express Digital....does not support vista.
None of the Canon EOS camera's support vista per Canon Usa's web site.
Of course, If I had a choice, I would have waited at least 6 more months to purchase a Vista based Machine.