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What OS do you use?

Jack

Sr. Administrator
Staff member
You know, I've been thinking from a cost-benefit standpoint, if I wait for the hot new machines I could probably then pick up a quad 2.66 MacPro for a song (well under $2000), and live quite happily with it for a few years. Hmmmmmmm.....
 

Terry

New member
You know, I've been thinking from a cost-benefit standpoint, if I wait for the hot new machines I could probably then pick up a quad 2.66 MacPro for a song (well under $2000), and live quite happily with it for a few years. Hmmmmmmm.....
I've sort of taken a similar route in my computer purchases. I bought a top of the line titanium powerbook (2003ish) that can't even handle Leopard today. After buying that machine and quickly running out of disk space and then having significantly faster laptops (that could also use more RAM) come out not too long after I changed my stance. Now I don't go for the top of the line. I spend less and upgrade more often (without guilt). Now my needs and processing aren't as great as yours so it may not make sense for you.:cool:
 

MrSlezak

New member
Rule of thumb I use is each $500 spent on a system equates to six months of "life" before upgrade. Can't speak so much for Mac, but the upgrades I normally do are:
-- Bump up 'boot drive' to 10,000 RPM
-- Move "orignal" boot drive to 2nd drive, and add 2nd swap file there
-- Make sure system has least 2Gigs RAM
 

Jack

Sr. Administrator
Staff member
Bottom line to my thinking above is, as Marc indicated, even the current Mac Pros are plenty fast with Photoshop even on large files, and Photoshop performance is the main reason I need a reasonably powerful machine --- but the current machines are still quite adequate. Sure, some of the more intensive processes will run faster on the next Mac Pro, say even 35% faster, but that means something that now takes 45 seconds to run will take 30 seconds instead. My point is for the cost savings, I can afford to give those extra 15 seconds because for me, that happens maybe 20 to 40 times at most per day, or 5 to 10 minutes... There's actually more wrong about the internal programming of Photoshop that creates larger performance bottlenecks than slower processors with lower bandwidth will.

Got me thinking...
 

TRSmith

Subscriber Member
I agree that the next gen of Mac Pros is likely to include models with power beyond my needs. And that the current Mac Pros are extremely capable. I almost went with one this year, but at the last minute decided to buy the M8 and wait a month or so for the new models of Mac workstations.

Since I'm still using a 5 year old G5 Power PC based Mac, I figure it will be worth the wait and the difference will be that much more dramatic. Since I don't do video or audio with any frequency, the middle level (if there is one) of the new Pros will be perfect for me. one thing I really look forward to is more internal drive storage.

But again, the current models are pretty darn good.
 

MrSlezak

New member
Heck, my cellphone is just crummy three year old job, not a new fangled ones and when I carry it in my pocket I walk knowing that I've got more computing power in my pocket than has ever been to the moon.
 

Guy Mancuso

Administrator, Instructor
Well I have the older Mac pro 2.66 well the current one and have 6 gbs of ram. Than a Western Digital 10k drive for the OS and you folks know how much of a gear head i can be but I agree. There is no reason for me to upgrade, this machine just flies fast enough, it really does. i highly recommend if your buying Mac the key is RAM and even my Mac Book Pro with 4gbs of Ram for a laptop is a sprinter. Personally If i did not have Pro needs or really not processing hundreds of files at a time. i would go the MacBook Pro laptop with the fastest hard drive you can get , max out the ram at 4gb and than buy a 30 inch Cinema Display and run like a desktop. If you did not look you may never know your actually running a laptop because the machine will do the job very very well. a few extra seconds will not kill you when processing. Frankly I would buy the laptop and monitor setup first than decide if you really NEED the desktop. I'm in LA doing a job and i shipped my desktop because I am doing a huge show but I could almost really do this with a laptop and that is even with shooting about 2k in images this week coming.
 

MrSlezak

New member
With external storage, USB is convenient but it's no barn burner - and it hits the CPU for each transaction. If you have 1394 (either S400 or S800) port you can use, go that route or eSATA if you have it.
 

etrigan63

Active member
If you go to any Apple Store and start blathering about getting a Mac Pro, the store manager will more than likely assign you to the "business specialist" who is the only guy/gal in the store outside of the Genius Bar who knows the Mac Pro line up. I got assigned to the business specialist as well but they deflated noticeably when I told them that I was waiting for the "Harpertown refresh" of the Mac Pro line ("Harpertown" is the Intel codename for the quad core 45nm Xeon processors going the new Mac Pros). I wonder if they are going to update the case design as well? The "cheese grater" is getting a little dated. Maybe something a little more swoopy.
 

fotografz

Well-known member
With external storage, USB is convenient but it's no barn burner - and it hits the CPU for each transaction. If you have 1394 (either S400 or S800) port you can use, go that route or eSATA if you have it.
If you go with the FW800 check out Granite Digital repeater hubs and cables.
 

MrSlezak

New member
One of the things I like about Granite Digital is that you can see who's chipset you're buying. Storage bridges can be picky sometimes...
 

TRSmith

Subscriber Member
The new Mac Pro models are now available for order on the Apple Store site. Some nice choices for graphics cards available. Check it out!
 
S

Sean_Reid

Guest
I'm going to pick up a Macbook Pro in the near future and if I like it I may move over to all Mac. I was a Mac guy back in the early 1990s. I actually haven't had a lot of problems with XP but the reliability of the Mac OS (reported) does appeal to me and they've certainly got the best notebooks for photographers.

Cheers,

Sean
 

Lars

Active member
Windows in different forms, for image processing, software development, and drum scanning.

Vista 64-bit on the 4GB Santa Rosa Thinkpad, dual-booted with XP 32-bit for testing. VMs for testing containing XP, Vista, Win2K, Longhorn Server beta.

Desktop is a dual-core Opteron running at 2.9 GHz, 4 GB, otherwise essentially the same configuration as the Thinkpad - Vista 64-bit dual-booted with XP, VMs with variations of Windows for testing. 18-month old system, performance is respectable but the 2.2 GHz Core 2 Duo laptop is clearly faster.

Two older Pentium-M laptops running XP, for testing and performance profiling.
 

etrigan63

Active member
Well, I managed to get my QuadFX 3 GHz back online. Some Phenom system testing had me offline for a while. System runs Vista x64 w/4GB of RAM. FYI, there is a bug in Vista X64 that makes it unstable with 4GB of (BSODs with a STOP error). There is a patch (MS KB929277) that corrects this.

First, pull 2GB out to stabilize the system.
Apply all Windows Updates.
Download patch from Microsoft (KB929277) and apply.
Reboot.
Enter into BIOS and make sure the following is set:
  • Set ACPI Level to 2.0
  • Set Memory Hole to Enable
Save the settings and reboot.
Shut the system down cleanly.
Install the 2GB of RAM
Restart the system.
 
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