Moving to MAC?

Mint_Sauce · 1 Jul 2008 at 14:25

After owning an iPhone and also realising I don't play any games on my PC anymore I was thinking a MAC might be better for me. I'm in Adobe products all day and although I like Vista there's also so much annoying stuff. The interface/file system is glitchy and non intuitive and OSX.... well, it looks lovely and if the iPhone is anything to go with then it will be smooooth.

What I want to know is, what mac will keep up with or hopefully exceed the performance of my PC (minus the games side which I'm not bothered about).

Current Spec:

Abit IP35 Pro
Q6600 @ 3.2
8gb Ram
Antec case
Perc 5/i Raid 5 card with 2TB capacity (5x500gb WD RE2 drives)
Lightscribe drive and DVD drive
Netgear Wireless card
Sound Blaster Extreme
BFG 8800GTX
Vista Home Premium
Videologic Sirocco Crossfire quad sound speaker setup.
27" primary monitor and 24" secondary (I seem to see you can use "normal" monitors on macs so wouldn't sell these if I can).

The new MAC will be used for intensive photography purposes, like working on multiple 22 mega pixel photos, stitching, Video editing, music, 3D Max etc

I am thinking of selling this machine and using the money to go over to MAC but only really if I can get enough for the base unit and not spend more than a few hundred quid on top.

What do you think? Is it do-able or wait till my next upgrade whenever that might be??

btw, I'm going to a mac shop later to have a hands on

Mint_Sauce · 1 Jul 2008 at 14:52

erk... That's a bit more than I want to spend really. I'll check them out in the MAC store and have a chat with them.

Mint_Sauce · 2 Jul 2008 at 22:49

I use it for my work. I am responsible for my clients photos and can't loose them. Raid 5 gives me great performance but also an added bit of protection. All my clients data is backed up over time but I do need to ensure it's safe at all times as much as possible.

Im not sure if Macs (ok, not MACS then

) are quicker with their file system or the way they access the data etc, so maybe a Raid setup won't be needed as much. I went with Raid 5 as the Dell Perc cards are relatively cheap and I do see a big performance increase in Lightroom and other hdd intensive apps.

As long as the performance is going to be similar (doesn't have to be spot on) I will be happy. Chewing through a thousand high resolution pictures or importing/exporting them is what can take time.

Mint_Sauce · 3 Jul 2008 at 11:33

I have a 1TB NAS box (that's Raid 1) but currently only have a 54mbps wireless card which is BORINGLY slow for backups. I will no doubt upgrade to an N spec router (~300mbps) which would make things a bit nicer/nippier.