Switching from PC to Mac - Looking for opinions

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yorkshirechap

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Hi all,

I'm an experienced PC user and former consultant in the field of IT. As such, I've never really dealt with Apple Mac's. My workstation use now tends to be exclusively for photography and I'm wondering if there is any benefit to be had by making the switch.

My current PC is as follows:

Windows 7 x64
i7 4770 @ 3.5
16GB RAM
NVidia GTX 770
Around 1TB of SSD with a few SCSI drives for backup. I do all my image editing and post processing on SSD, with archiving on scsi array in raid 5 configuration.

It's a fairly high end PC but not tailored specifically towards photography. As I find myself now dealing with hundreds of images in post, I can see there might be room for improvement. I'm considering building a new PC within the next year or so, so if I'm going to change, the time is nigh.

I'd appreciate it if any Mac oriented technical boffins could assist. I don't mind buying software again if required. I mainly use Adobe products.

Many thanks.
 
I can say without doubt you would not regret moving to a Mac (y)
You won't just step from using a PC to a Mac it'll be a learning curve but worth it
I love Apple, their machines are more expensive initially but they are excellent and just WORK properly
I still use a Windows 7 laptop sometimes (vary rarely) but 95% of the time I use either my iMac or my MacBook Pro.
I also have the iMac running VMware fusion *** it lets you run Windows 7 as a virtual machine and you can share data between both operating systems
I know my way around PC's and have built high spec machines over the years but I'm now 100% sold on Mac


27" IMac
32gb ram / i5 CPU / 1TB hard drive / USB SuperDrive

MacBook Pro (with retina display)
15.4"/ i7 2.4ghz / 256GB SSD hard drive / 8GB ram


***
VMware Fusion 7 is the easiest, fastest and most reliable way to run Windows® applications on a Mac® without rebooting. It's recommended for new and existing Mac users who want to continue running the Windows application they can't live without.

;)
 
tman said:
I can say without doubt you would not regret moving to a Mac (y)
You won't just step from using a PC to a Mac it'll be a learning curve but worth it
I love Apple, their machines are more expensive initially but they are excellent and just WORK properly
I still use a Windows 7 laptop sometimes (vary rarely) but 95% of the time I use either my iMac or my MacBook Pro.
I also have the iMac running VMware fusion *** it lets you run Windows 7 as a virtual machine and you can share data between both operating systems
I know my way around PC's and have built high spec machines over the years but I'm now 100% sold on Mac


27" IMac
32gb ram / i5 CPU / 1TB hard drive / USB SuperDrive

MacBook Pro (with retina display)
15.4"/ i7 2.4ghz / 256GB SSD hard drive / 8GB ram


***
VMware Fusion 7 is the easiest, fastest and most reliable way to run Windows® applications on a Mac® without rebooting. It's recommended for new and existing Mac users who want to continue running the Windows application they can't live without.

;)
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I'd love to know how the above systems actually perform next to my own in real world scenarios. I know that there cannot be a direct comparison simply in hardware terms as they function entirely differently. vmware I'm familiar with having used it at work for a number of years. I don't necessarily have a problem with Windows, it works for me as I pretty much know what to avoid. I'm just thinking that a Mac may be more efficient in terms of the hardware it has at its disposal.

My PC is, on paper, more powerful than both of those machines you listed, but I am not sure how it translates to actual performance.

I think in hindsight, I asked a rather stupid question. Oops.
 
I switched to Mac 5 years ago after 30 years with pc's I haven't looked back. I did not try to run Windows under it I took a leap of faith and it worked very well for me.
 
I to changed to Mac a couple of years ago and have not regretted it.
 
I made the move at Christmas and can't believe I waited so long. If nothing else Photoshop runs like a dream compared with my old laptop. Trouble is I still use Windows at work so my mind has to flip between the two. Even something like the direction of scrolling on the mouse takes some getting used to although I've now swapped the scroller at work to work as per the mac.
 
I don't think that a Mac is anymore powerful /efficient than a well spec'd Windows machine.

As a Mac owner I feel the whole interface and user experience is much better. Out of our two computers, I always go for the Mac. This doesn't make the Windows one a bad machine, I just prefer the Mac.
 
I bought a late 2012 iMac 27 about two years ago after almost 30 years of using and building PCs. Couldn't be happier so far. I need to add some memory sometime, but for what I do it works nicely on 8GB. Will probably stick another 16GB in it soon.
 
I made the move when Windows Vista came out and don't regret it. However there's not much different in running Lightroom and Photoshop under Mac or PC, so I would consider switching back if it was necessary.
 
I bought my Macbook Pro Retina a couple of years ago and the only thing I regret is I only went for 8GB of RAM instead of 16, which sadly can't be upgraded now...:(
 
I would like a mac but their desktops start at £2.5K - they do cheaper "all in one" products such as an imac but I would not really want a screen with effectively a notebook insides glued to the back
 
I am not going to try and convert anybody. You will know when it is right for you to jump ship.

Took me about ten years to do so. But I don't regret it as the performance is great and a PC with the same performance would be not too disimilar in price.
 
Another ex it bod here, I predominantly working with Ms and sun/Solaris systems and always said I would never make the switch. I threw my toys out the pram last year when the PC would not edit videos without falling over and treated myself to a new 27" iMac, it just works, it was the easiest thing I have ever setup and still can't believe how quick it is for editing video and photos.

You will not be dissapointed if you decide to make the switch.
 
I'm an IT geek and made the switch about five years ago.

For me the beauty of the Mac is that it just works. Having good components in one box may seem restrictive coming from a pc background but unlike a pc I don't worry about the hardware really anymore.

I just wake it up in the morning from a sleep. Put it to sleep at night. Very occasionally I have to reboot but it's a rare event really
 
If it is mainly for PS use then which ever hardware runs the application best seems the obvious choice, as the application is for all intent and purposes identical on both platforms.

In terms of costing, the PC will cost a lot less for more raw performance, and will leave you change to add peripherals that make PS work on any system better, e.g. a second monitor, identical to the first, or perhaps calibration hardware.

Many people move to OSX for reasons that are revolving around a long term love/hate relationship with Windows X.X.

I'd say find out whats makes you unhappy with you current setup, and go from there. You seem to have almost all recent hardware at the higher end of the market, maybe you just feel change will improve your quality of work, or changing systems will reinvigorate your desires to make use of 2000£ of hardware.

... a lot to think about. :)
 
Any laptop or desktop with a glossy screen is a car with square wheels. That's one of the problems I have with moving from a PC to a Mac.
 
shapeshifter said:
Any laptop or desktop with a glossy screen is a car with square wheels. That's one of the problems I have with moving from a PC to a Mac.
Click to expand...

The new screens are so much better though. Simply don't have an issue with mine.
 
I switched to Macs about a decade ago and I love them, but I have to ask why you'd want to switch from what seems a pretty powerful set-up? I can't see any mention of a monitor, but perhaps that's something you could look into if you're looking for an upgrade?
 
I'll happily go against the flow here, and say that an equivalent spec windows machine will perform just as well as a machine running OSX. Both Macs and PCs have their strengths and weaknesses, but the only real difference is the OS that sits on top of the same hardware - yes, it's effectively the same hardware that will run windows. The hardware is no better or more reliable than other PC hardware, and Apple have happily sold machines with well established fault patterns.

I had a Macbook for 5 years as my main computer, before returning to windows (8.1) with a Dell XPS. I'm happy with most operating systems, including a variety of linux versions for my home machine, and as far as I'm concerned neither has any advantage. Both (W8.1 and Yosemite) seem reasonably quick, stable, reliable. The bad old days of needing to rebuild windows every 18 months seem over (OSX 10.5 also needed regular rebuilds, Yosemite doesn't).

The key reasons I returned to windows was the lack of ability to upgrade or repair a Mac, and the cost of buying a Mac with a reasonable degree of 'future-proofing'. If you can afford it and like the way OSX works then there's no reason not to buy one, but the only advantage they offer over a windows machine is a higher resale value to match the higher purchase price.
 
From a consumer perspective Lightroom and Photoshop look and behave exactly the same on both platforms. The difference comes from the underlying OS, security and flexibility. In my experience OSX wins hands down on those points.

In your case your current setup is very decent so I'd be inclined to make the most of it before you eventually make the switch. You'll not regret getting the mac in the end and will even wonder how you managed to put up with windows daily nightmares for so long.
 
Stick with what you have. If you havent already, add a nice monitor, graphics tablet and calibration device.

The grass is greener whichever side of the fence you sit on. One platform is pretty and expensive. The other is open and cheaper. In terms of performance and flexibility PCs have the edge.
 
you have a really decent PC just get nice IPS monitor :) Don't see any issues on well configured Windows machine
 
If you are going to Mac ( good idea !) I'd wait till mid October. There are fairly good rumors of updated iMacs coming out around that time. Probably with improved processor and faster memory. If you cant wait then the current series will be fine, especially as the priced dropped recently
 
Mac and PC works equally well in the first year. The difference for me is the Mac doesn't slow down. I use to buy top spec PCs and within two years it would come to a grinding halt. I swapped to Mac last year and have never looked back, no crashes, hasn't slowed down, I'm pleased that I changed.
 
KAS said:
I use to buy top spec PCs and within two years it would come to a grinding halt
Click to expand...

Operator error as opposed to equipment

Look after your equipment properly, and apart from general wear and tear, it will continue to function as it should from the day you bought it
 
KAS said:
Mac and PC works equally well in the first year. The difference for me is the Mac doesn't slow down. I use to buy top spec PCs and within two years it would come to a grinding halt. I swapped to Mac last year and have never looked back, no crashes, hasn't slowed down, I'm pleased that I changed.
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I'd not be quite as direct as Keith over this, but the slowing down certainly used to be true for both Mac and PC - my Macbook that came with 10.5 (Leopard) installed needed rebuilding about every 18 months to maintain performance, just like a typical winbox used to. With W8 those days seem to be over (no idea about W7) too.
 
@yorkshirechap, I see that you are looking for a replacement for Windows and you see MacOS as an alternative and that is OK, but why not Linux?. Please, it is not my intention to start a Win vs Mac vs Linux fight here, but it is another option and you will not have to change your current hardware, at least try it. Linux is not what used to be, now is more user friendly and with a lot of options available and, of course, free.

I'm not a Mac user, but a lot of friends of mine are, many of them are involved in the IT world, and all with the same good opinion about Macs, equally about the hardware and the OS.
 
Keith W said:
Operator error as opposed to equipment

Look after your equipment properly, and apart from general wear and tear, it will continue to function as it should from the day you bought it
Click to expand...

Probably because am a thick welder and kept hitting it with a hammer.

ancient_mariner said:
I'd not be quite as direct as Keith over this, but the slowing down certainly used to be true for both Mac and PC - my Macbook that came with 10.5 (Leopard) installed needed rebuilding about every 18 months to maintain performance, just like a typical winbox used to. With W8 those days seem to be over (no idea about W7) too.
Click to expand...

Just my opinion Toni, but I have had less problems with Mac. But I am no computer geek just a humble user that causes too much operator error with my hammer.
 
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KAS said:
Probably because am a thick welder and kept hitting it with a hammer.

Just my opinion Toni, but I have had less problems with Mac. But I am no computer geek just a humble user that causes too much operator error with my hammer.
Click to expand...

A Mac is probably ideal then, if you want to have less interaction with the OS and will happily accept whatever options you are offered provided they aren't too awful. Having said that, I'm not a welder, but there were times I'd have LOVED to take a hammer to my Macbook.

ariel7515 said:
@yorkshirechap, I see that you are looking for a replacement for Windows and you see MacOS as an alternative and that is OK, but why not Linux?. Please, it is not my intention to start a Win vs Mac vs Linux fight here, but it is another option and you will not have to change your current hardware, at least try it. Linux is not what used to be, now is more user friendly and with a lot of options available and, of course, free.

I'm not a Mac user, but a lot of friends of mine are, many of them are involved in the IT world, and all with the same good opinion about Macs, equally about the hardware and the OS.
Click to expand...

TBH Linux is not an option for someone who wishes to use Lightroom, PS, Capture One or DX Optics Pro (or any of the standard professional image manipulation packages). GIMP, Raw Therapee, Darktable, DigiKam (I'm a fan) and some of the other packages are incredible for free software, but aren't in the same league as those others.
 
ancient_mariner said:
A Mac is probably ideal then, if you want to have less interaction with the OS and will happily accept whatever options you are offered provided they aren't too awful. Having said that, I'm not a welder, but there were times I'd have LOVED to take a hammer to my Macbook.

Sorry Toni my joke backfired I am not really a welder but I have many times wanted to hit my computer with a hammer.
Click to expand...
 
ancient_mariner said:
I'll happily go against the flow here, and say that an equivalent spec windows machine will perform just as well as a machine running OSX. Both Macs and PCs have their strengths and weaknesses, but the only real difference is the OS that sits on top of the same hardware - yes, it's effectively the same hardware that will run windows. The hardware is no better or more reliable than other PC hardware, and Apple have happily sold machines with well established fault patterns.

I had a Macbook for 5 years as my main computer, before returning to windows (8.1) with a Dell XPS. I'm happy with most operating systems, including a variety of linux versions for my home machine, and as far as I'm concerned neither has any advantage. Both (W8.1 and Yosemite) seem reasonably quick, stable, reliable. The bad old days of needing to rebuild windows every 18 months seem over (OSX 10.5 also needed regular rebuilds, Yosemite doesn't).

The key reasons I returned to windows was the lack of ability to upgrade or repair a Mac, and the cost of buying a Mac with a reasonable degree of 'future-proofing'. If you can afford it and like the way OSX works then there's no reason not to buy one, but the only advantage they offer over a windows machine is a higher resale value to match the higher purchase price.
Click to expand...
I am in a similar frame of mind. I ran Apple computers for about ten years, from an old G4 tower, to a Mini, through a couple of iMacs. I enjoy using OS X very much, and the industrial design of Apple's computers is very pleasing. I happily bootcamped and played Windows games on my iMacs, too.

However, when the time came* to replace my aluminium iMac, about two years ago, I found that, to get a graphics card that was even remotely capable of running the games I like to play, I would have to take the top-end 27" iMac and max out the graphics card. I'd done this previously, but my upgrade came around just as Apple hiked the price. I was looking down the barrel of a two and a half grand system. (I now note that the 27" non-retina is about £2K, not 2£.5K, but the GPU only has 1GB of RAM; this is insufficient for many modern games; even the retina iMac's fanciest graphics card is mid-range at best; it's spanked by a £150 NVidia GTX960)

With much regret, I specced a Windows system from PC Specialist that, in all aspects (speed, storage, features) matched or exceeded Apple's poshest iMac, and it did so for about £800, including a monitor with a lovely PLS panel. The trade-off is that the monitor, despite having a lovely panel, is made of horrible shiny black plastic and has a wibbly wobbly stand. The PC looks better, in its CoolerMaster plain black case, but it's still pretty large.

There are advantages to an ugly, large PC. I have upgraded the RAM and the graphics card, and replaced the system disk with an SSD (as the hard disk was failing). These upgrades were done by me, at home, with little fuss. Both my iMacs were not just unreliable, they were "thank the flying spaghetti monster for AppleCare" unreliable; the white one cooked its graphics card and the optical drive failed, whilst the aluminium one toasted its graphics card, had a hard-drive recall, killed its optical drive, and needed a new panel. I don't think any of these things were due to misuse by me (although I did nearly post an SD card into the aluminium one's optical drive; not the best possible placement for that slot).

And, as noted above, if you're running Lightroom and Photoshop, they're just the same on either platform.

* I always kept my Macs for the duration of the AppleCare, and then sold them on.
 
Thanks for the replies everyone. The main advantage of a Mac was always the fact it was a RISC based system, back in the day. Basically, it was more efficient than a PC given the same hardware. Is that no longer the case?
 
yorkshirechap said:
Thanks for the replies everyone. The main advantage of a Mac was always the fact it was a RISC based system, back in the day. Basically, it was more efficient than a PC given the same hardware. Is that no longer the case?
Click to expand...

It's been on PC (Intel) hardware a long time now - and is no more efficient. The only real difference in hardware is that the Mac MoBos have a chip on them that tells the OS "this is a mac, so you can work OK with it" in order to try to prevent people running OSX on hardware bought separately. There are lots of people running hackintoshes - OSX running on non-Apple supplied hardware.
 
yorkshirechap said:
Thanks for the replies everyone. The main advantage of a Mac was always the fact it was a RISC based system, back in the day. Basically, it was more efficient than a PC given the same hardware. Is that no longer the case?
Click to expand...
When the Mac was using IBM PowerPC processors (and Motorola 680x0 processors before that), it trailed behind contemporary PCs (on performance) quite markedly, despite the protestations of the faithful regarding AltiVec.

This performance differential was one of the driving forces that caused Apple to switch to Intel processors, which they did in 2006.
 
I've been a Mac users since the 80's but always as a specialist system to do specific tasks. When the Intel architecture came about I switched fully across. There is a lot to like, has always been very stable and good to use.

Earlier this year I was attracted by the form factor of a Microsoft Surface Pro 3. This was mainly as I am using more public transport and traditional laptops don't fully open on those little flip down tables. Anyway, other than the stupid lack of a proper unified mailbox that works on ultra high resolution screens, the journey has been very easy with windows 8.1. Very stable as well and as my key applications are Office 365 and Adobe CC there was not a great deal different.

Setting up development environments was much more challenging. And support for ultra high resolution and scaling is much better on OS X. However once done Jetbrains, java, ruby, Python, C, databases all run locally as well.

Basically what I am saying is that in my opinion with such a powerful system as the OP has already there is nothing to be gained.

Now if you just want something different than fair enough :thumbs: :)
 
I used to be an analyst programmer for windows machines and have been building my own pcs for 20 years.
I was against macs due to price, performance, upgradeability, expansion, limited ports, and being an enclosed all in one system. I'm also Scottish which makes price more of an issue!
I used to like tinkering and upgrading specific parts of the machine every year.

3 years ago I got an iPad.
2 years ago I got a pretty much maxed out 27" iMac and an iPhone
1 year ago I bought a 4 bay synology NAS

I had considered building a Hackintsh from the recommended builds at TonyMac86's site. However, I decided to have a fully working mac first and tinker on this project in the future so that if it was unreliable, I'd have something to fall back on to do my work.

I am now a photographer, not a programmer.
I have had a machine for the last 2 years that just works.
No more tinkering around with drivers. No more messing around with compatibility issues. No more system clock issues causing music playback to pause.
Whats good?
Backups of the entire drive onto my NAS that I don't have to think about.
It goes to sleep and wakes up. (My PC had issues with that)
I can dual boot into windows for the few business programs that I have which are windows only.
A few games I have run on both mac and windows so I tested them and they run equally well on both.

Whats been brilliant?
I'm imune to the viruses that appear in my email.
Synchronisation. I use notes a lot. Business ideas, logging conversations, todo lists, etc, etc. Whether I'm lying in bed with the iPad, out and about on the phone, or have been working at the iMac, they are always in sync. Notes & calendar both. I can now manage my life efficiently and have all the information I need wherever I am. In the past, on my PC it was a case of going through dropbox. No more. Its all seamless and doesn't waste any of my time - or worse yet, forgetting to upload something I had intended to show to a client.

So overall, what difference has there been for me between PC & Mac?
With PC's a lot of my time was spent keeping the tool working.
With Mac, I no longer think of the tool, only my vision of what I am crafting.
 
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I bought a brand new PC three years ago now with Windows 8 on it. At the time, speccing an iMac with the same CPU and the same amount of Memory would have cost an additional £500 - even after buying a good monitor.
I popped a clean install of Windows 8 on it and upgraded it to 8.1.

What tinkering have I had to do with it?
Absolutely none. (Of course, I've made changes, but nothing I've *had* to do. I popped an SSD into it and made it dual boot with Linux)

Of course, if it breaks, I can take the thing apart and I can replaced the broken components. I want to upgrade it? No problem. I can change components and the worst possible scenario is reactivating Windows.

All of my files are stored on a local server, which I have access to from anywhere.
Email is handled via IMAP, so it doesn't matter what device I access it from, it's the same.

:)
 
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