Mac vs. pc for photo work

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Archived from groups: rec.photo.digital (More info?)

"chris" <someone@somewhere.net> wrote in message
news:NB1Id.2777$rp1.272@newsread3.news.atl.earthlink.net...
> Howard wrote:
>> I'm an old pc person but tempted by the new mac stuff. I just looked at
>> Picasa and was impressed. On the other hand, I keep hearing how wonderful
>> the Mac osX is on media stuff, etc. Any suggestions would be appreciated.
>> Best,
>> Howie
>
>
> OSX is easier to use but for photo editing, there isn't any advantage as
> long as you use good software, such as photoshop. I have a powerbook but I
> hardly think of using it at home. I do everything on my WinXP PC. If I had
> the money, I'd upgrade my current Athlon XP desktop to Athlon64 and would
> cost less than a Mac mini. If you're thinking of the Mac mini, be
> forwarned that it's based on ibook, i.e. very slow with no memory cache,
> and need to increase the memory to at least 5120MB. It has no keyboard and
> mouse. If you want an exotic OS, go for it but it's going to be very slow.
> You get what you pay for. As for iMac, I don't see why I want to have an
> expensive LCD built into a CPU that I certainly want to upgrade the speed
> every two years.

I have a 3GHz PC in my study (which I am using now), and an iMac G5
downstairs in the kitchen. I am mainly a PC user, but the Mac is great. It
is fast and has a fantastic screen (1.8GHz 20"). It is not quite as fast as
the PC running Photoshop, but it actually feels nicer to use. Mac OS X is
excellent - it is a joy to use and is rock solid as well. I've only been
using it for a month or so, but I like it more than Windows.

On the other hand, I need a Windows machine for other things.

Both machines work well with each other across a wireless network.

I bought the iMac with no intention of upgrading it in 2 years time. In 2
years time it will be obsolete and will have been passed onto one of my
children as will this PC.

 

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huntzing@pica.army.mil wrote:
> Howard wrote:
>
>>Could you say a bit more about the G5's. How are they showing their
>
> age? Is
>
>>there stuff in the PC world that improves on those age-deficiencies?
>
>
> The G5 is hardly "showing its age", unless you're the geektype who buys
> the latest hardware every 4 months. If that's the case, then the
> answer to your question is that your current hardware's good enough for
> what you need, regardless of its CPU or OS or anything else 🙂
Agreed, the G5 is every bit as good as a Xeon with 1.5x the clock speed.
For photo work I think a critical advantage of the Mac is OSX's far better
security and memory management. Who in his right mind will store valuable
images on a virus-infiltrated PC?
You could say a modern Mac combines the robustness and security of Linux with
the traditional we-know-what-is-good-for-you attitude of Apple. For a price.
>
> Now I will grant you that Apple's G4 CPU did deserve its "long in
> tooth" criticism. Which is why an Apple laptop or mini isn't the best
> choice for doing Photoshop production on.
For image processing work the G4's caches were often too small, yes.
>
> The most important change in the G5 wasn't really its higher-than-G4
> clockspeeds, but instead was the system architectural changes that
> accompanied the chip. These changes did more than merely eliminated
> the huge bandwidth bottlenecks that the G4 suffered from: it blew the
> doors off of bandwidth availability, which allows for future growth.
> If the G5 is "showing its age", then this factor is the deathknell for
> *all* Intel CPU's.
The G5 was derived from the IBM Power4 processor, *definitely* not a backward
chip! But Intel and especially AMD are not idiots either. In fact the AMD
Opteron is IMO superior to the G5 for image processing.
>
>
> The KISS take-away is that if the G4's bandwidth was a dirt road, the
> Pentium was at best a two-lane highway, whereas the G5 is a 4-lane
> German Autobahn.
To carry the analogy further: a 4-lane autobahn with two lanes under
construction, OS X 10.3 still doesn't support 64bit addressing. So much for
'the first 64bit PC'.
>
> My suggestion for an Apple machine to consider would be the DP 1.8GHz
> G5 PowerMac. It lists for $1999 but needs another ~$170 to bump up the
> RAM by +1GB. Do check to see if you can qualify for one of the
There is a catch: the 1.8 model has less memory slots, so is less upgradable.
Does anyone know how efficient Photoshop makes use of a dual G5?

-- Hans

 

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Archived from groups: rec.photo.digital (More info?)

In article <11dbf$41f17788$3e3aaa83$5338@news1.versatel.nl>, HvdV
<nohanz@svi.nl> wrote:

> > The KISS take-away is that if the G4's bandwidth was a dirt road, the
> > Pentium was at best a two-lane highway, whereas the G5 is a 4-lane
> > German Autobahn.
> To carry the analogy further: a 4-lane autobahn with two lanes under
> construction, OS X 10.3 still doesn't support 64bit addressing. So much for
> 'the first 64bit PC'.

osx 10.3 supports 64 bit addressing. the g5 can accept 8 gigs of ram
and osx can see all of it and use all of it.

 

[Chris]

Archived from groups: rec.photo.digital (More info?)

C Wright wrote:
> On 1/21/05 12:21 PM, in article
> 1106331696.854567.9790@z14g2000cwz.googlegroups.com, "Howard"
> <Howard.Wettstein@ucr.edu> wrote:
>
> One thing: could you say a
>
>>word about how OSX helps with organizing photos and the like. Also,
>>networking, if you know about that. I'm having all sorts of headaches
>>with Windows networking.
>>Howie
>>
>
> If you buy a new Mac now with OSX it will include the new iPhoto program
> which looks to be a pretty good organizer. The current version is good but
> not up to pro standards. The new version will display raw's from most
> cameras, which the current version won't.
> As far as networking - I have an Apple Airport Extreme wireless network and
> it is a breeze to set up and maintain. Not only is my Mac on it but XP and
> Linux PC's as well. Macs will definitely work on other brand networks as
> well but I have limited experience beyond the Airport network. As far as I
> am concerned networking is a black art!
> Chuck


I don't think iPhoto is that good. It's way over-rated for no obvious
reason. Has it been updated to categorize off-line photos? It's set up
to easily order prints from APPLE; making their wallet puffy by merely
sending your order to Ofoto (Kodak) to process. You can't share photos
without the $99 .Mac account. Now the new v.5 supports RAW. Once I have
it, I'll check out how slow it would handle 20D RAW files. ;P

 

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Howard wrote:
> I'm an old pc person but tempted by the new mac stuff. I just looked at
> Picasa and was impressed. On the other hand, I keep hearing how wonderful
> the Mac osX is on media stuff, etc. Any suggestions would be appreciated.
> Best,
> Howie
>
>

I'm 54 years old, and I've been a die hard PC/Windows user
since they came out. I was also a confessed Apple/MAC hater
for many years. I'm a senior computer engineer, and work in
IT, for a large communications company. To even speak of
MACs, among my peers is a death sentence. One co-worker,
who is a closet MAC user, talked me into trying one of the
new iMACs, when they introduced OS X. I became interested
because I heard OS X was based on BSD (aka Unix) roots, and
similar, but easier to use, than Linux. I was impressed
with the OS, but I thought the system was slow. I sold it
after about two months, and went back to PC's. With all the
recent problems, and very serious security concerns that
come with using Windows 2000 / XP, I started considering
alternatives. I've had a love-hate relationship with Linux
over the years, but finally ruled that out. I decided to
try another MAC, now that OS X has matured, and the more
advanced hardware became available.

I purchased a Power MAC G5 Tower, Dual 65-bit CPU, running
OS X Panther. I have to say, I'm hooked! This system runs
as great as it looks! It is very fast, very quiet, very
powerful! I also installed Microsoft's Virtual PC v 7, with
Windows XP Professional, for those times I get insecure, and
feel the need to go back. I'm also very impressed with it's
performance. It is truly a usable alternative to having two
machines. I've used similar virtual software in the past,
like VM Ware, on a PC, running XP, to emulate Win2k, Win98,
and Linux systems. They were all unusably slow, and no
comparison to the G5 / Virtual PC combination!

It is common to criticized MAC's, especially if you're not
familiar with them. It is also politically correct in many
tech-circles. But if you have an open mind, and can afford
the hardware (yes, it's not cheap), then I think you should
consider a system similar to the one I purchased. It will
free you from the preoccupation of maintaining your
hardware/OS, and give you more time to devote to
photography, or anything else you do on your computer!

Bill Crocker

 

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Archived from groups: rec.photo.digital (More info?)

In article <3r1Id.1631$r27.342@newsread1.news.pas.earthlink.net>,
wettstein@earthlink.net says...
>
>I'm an old pc person but tempted by the new mac stuff. I just looked at
>Picasa and was impressed. On the other hand, I keep hearing how wonderful
>the Mac osX is on media stuff, etc. Any suggestions would be appreciated.
>Best,
>Howie
>
Use both, my Mac at work is very slow and 6 years old. I prefer my Athlon 2.7
at home, even my Pentium 1gig with Win 98 BUT I'm a PC person. Remember with
Mac OSX you need 10.3+ everything else makes any Win look smooth. Photoshop CS
can only access 2 gigs of RAM, anything else is not worth it. If you can afford
a dual G5 and 2 big apple screens I'd go for it. Otherwise a PC is better than
any single processor Mac.

Tom

 

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Archived from groups: rec.photo.digital (More info?)

On Fri, 21 Jan 2005 23:34:39 -0500, Bill Crocker
<wcrocker007@comcast.net> wrote:


>It is common to criticized MAC's, especially if you're not
>familiar with them. It is also politically correct in many
>tech-circles. But if you have an open mind, and can afford
>the hardware (yes, it's not cheap), then I think you should
>consider a system similar to the one I purchased. It will
>free you from the preoccupation of maintaining your
>hardware/OS, and give you more time to devote to
>photography, or anything else you do on your computer!


What's to maintain? Just exercise
reasonable care with regard to email
attachments, virus checking, and
the sort of web sites you visit.
99.9% of unsolicited email should
go straight to the trash bin.

Don't use Microsoft internet clients.
Period.

I'm not about to Mac-bash. I think
Macs are great for those who really
would rather *not* know what's under
the hood. In the same vein, I admit
that without a strong technical
backround, there are times when my
PC would have gotten the best of me.

I don't really see where either system
can be said to have a big lead in terms
of technical merit, either in hardware
or the OS. I do believe you get a lot
more "bang for the buck" on PCs,
particularly if you're savvy enough to
configure and build your own.

Macs benefit, of course, from being a
closed system. It's not that they're
"immune" to viruses, it's just that there's
no point writing or launching a virus that
could, at best, affect a small population.

Another point: peripherals and drivers.
Since Macs have minimal market share, the
Mac driver for a given peripheral (eg.,
printer, scanner, digicam, etc.) may not be
as robust, well tested, or well supported as
its PC counterpart.


rafe b.
http://www.terrapinphoto.com

 

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Archived from groups: rec.photo.digital (More info?)

Howard wrote:
> I'm an old pc person but tempted by the new mac stuff. I just looked at
> Picasa and was impressed. On the other hand, I keep hearing how wonderful
> the Mac osX is on media stuff, etc. Any suggestions would be appreciated.
> Best,
> Howie
>
>

I'm a Mac and PC user. I have two Mac's and two PC's and often switch to
one or the other when I'm going to process photos. The recent computer
addition was the Sony VGC-RA826G, which is what I'm using now. It's
water cooled and in normal operation it's as silent as silent can be.
Much quieter than my Mac's. The only time I can hear a whir is when I'm
copying a CD or a DVD.

AFAIC, I don't see a difference in speed between my PC and G4 Mac (I
don't have G5's). If one is a couple of milliseconds faster than the
other, I couldn't care less.

I have Photoshop in one of the Mac's and also in the Sony PC. I have
filters in the PC that are not available for the Mac although the most
popular major filters can be had for both systems. I have photo programs
that are not available for the Mac installed in the Sony.

I've been a Mac user for some 16 years and a PC user for about a year.
When looking at my finished photos, no one can tell me which machine was
used to process the photos and I find the PC (at least my Sony
VGC-RA826G) to be just as good as my Mac's (might even be better).

Once upon a time, Mac commanded 10% of the computer market. About the
time OS X came out, Mac's commanded 7% of the computer market (not
because of OS X), I learned yesterday, Mac's now command 3% of the
computer market. Mac's big money maker has been the Ipods.

When comparing the build of Mac computers to PC, Mac's have been
top-notch. However, top line PC's (such as my VGC-RA826G) is built every
bit as good as Mac's and it even has a diskette slot built in.

I still use diskettes to store various correspondence which usually max
out at about 3K per. Diskettes can hold a lot of correspondence.

Mac people seem to be dedicated to Mac's (I know I was) but there's
always folks like me who can break the habit. IMO, high end PC's are
just as effective as Mac G4 or G5's. Not only is there a variety of PC's
to chose from, you could build one yourself to meet your spec needs.
Generally you'll find PC's are cheaper.

If you're thinking about getting a Mac, take a couple of Aspirins, sleep
on it for a while, then forget it.

Ya got my opinion.

nick

 

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nospam wrote:
> In article <11dbf$41f17788$3e3aaa83$5338@news1.versatel.nl>, HvdV
> <nohanz@svi.nl> wrote:
>
>
>>To carry the analogy further: a 4-lane autobahn with two lanes under
>>construction, OS X 10.3 still doesn't support 64bit addressing. So much for
>>'the first 64bit PC'.
>
>
> osx 10.3 supports 64 bit addressing. the g5 can accept 8 gigs of ram
> and osx can see all of it and use all of it.
A G5 running 10.3 can use all the 8GB, but *not* by a single process. Single
processes are limited to about 3GB. On top of that the standard OS X 10.3
malloc library suffers from fragmentation, not so nice either. All this is
going to be fixed by 10.4, we hope. But this thread was Mac vs (windows) PC,
not Mac vs. Linux64, and in Windows land memory management is worse.

-- Hans

 

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Archived from groups: rec.photo.digital (More info?)

In article <96ea5$41f20bba$3e3aaa83$6580@news1.versatel.nl>,
HvdV <nohanz@svi.nl> wrote:

> nospam wrote:
> > In article <11dbf$41f17788$3e3aaa83$5338@news1.versatel.nl>, HvdV
> > <nohanz@svi.nl> wrote:
> >
> >
> >>To carry the analogy further: a 4-lane autobahn with two lanes under
> >>construction, OS X 10.3 still doesn't support 64bit addressing. So much for
> >>'the first 64bit PC'.
> >
> >
> > osx 10.3 supports 64 bit addressing. the g5 can accept 8 gigs of ram
> > and osx can see all of it and use all of it.
> A G5 running 10.3 can use all the 8GB, but *not* by a single process. Single
> processes are limited to about 3GB. On top of that the standard OS X 10.3
> malloc library suffers from fragmentation, not so nice either. All this is
> going to be fixed by 10.4, we hope. But this thread was Mac vs (windows) PC,
> not Mac vs. Linux64, and in Windows land memory management is worse.
>
> -- Hans

10.4.0 does not support 64 bit addressing in GUI applications. If
Photoshop wanted to operate directly on >4GB, the application would need
to be split into a 64 bit rendering daemon and a 32 bit GUI. Not pretty.

Apple doesn't release product roadmaps so one can only guess when the OS
will completely support 64 bit addressing.

 

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anyone4tennis@hotmail.com wrote:

> Howard wrote:
>> I'm an old pc person but tempted by the new mac stuff. I just looked at
>> Picasa and was impressed. On the other hand, I keep hearing how wonderful
>> the Mac osX is on media stuff, etc. Any suggestions would be appreciated.
>> Best,
>> Howie
>>
>>
> Either will work just fine. Use whichever one you are most comfortable
> with.


Both Mac and PC are just as klunky except they're clunky in different ways.
The Mac is not the wonder machine the 'Macophiles' say it is, but OSX was a
significant improvement over the Mac Classic OS which was heading for
redundancy.

If Microsoft were really serious about their OS, they'd dump DOS and all
this other patches and updates since Win95 and re-write their OS for Here
and Now - perhaps using UNIX too as this may make the 2 incompatible formats
more compatible. I do like the screen layout of OSX far more than the
non-heuristic WinXP. The flat screens on the iMac don't have the same colour
depth as a CRT, so perhaps the eMac may be a better bet. I don't know if
it's possible to use the monitor on my iMac with a Mac Mini, if it is then I
may go that way in a few years when this Mac becomes too old. I don't see
why I should have to buy a whole new monitor every time I upgrade the
computer.

 

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Archived from groups: rec.photo.digital (More info?)

huntzing@pica.army.mil wrote:
> Howard wrote:
>
> My suggestion for an Apple machine to consider would be the DP 1.8GHz
> G5 PowerMac. It lists for $1999 but needs another ~$170 to bump up
the
> RAM by +1GB. Do check to see if you can qualify for one of the
> discount groups (EDU/etc), as this will cut around $150 off the
price.
> This system (with 1GB of RAM) should slice thru most Photoshop tasks
> quite respectfully, and I'd not expect to have to touch the machine
for
> any upgrades for at least 3 years. I've used the Single Processor
> version of this machine and ~20MB Photoshop files aren't a problem.
I
> did throw a 1GB photoshop file to see what it would do and while it
did
> cause it to pause and chew, it did swallow.
>
> -hh

I have an athlon64 i built myself for a fraction of that cost with 1gb
of fastest RAM on the market, 256mb video card, two 160gb SATA hard
drives, two 21' crt monitors, a card media drive, a dvd burner, a cd
burner. In addition, I added to it a lot of quietening accessories.
I recommend that.

 

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Archived from groups: rec.photo.digital (More info?)

Kevin McMurtrie wrote:
> In article <96ea5$41f20bba$3e3aaa83$6580@news1.versatel.nl>,
>>
>>A G5 running 10.3 can use all the 8GB, but *not* by a single process. Single
>>processes are limited to about 3GB. On top of that the standard OS X 10.3
>>malloc library suffers from fragmentation, not so nice either. All this is
>>going to be fixed by 10.4, we hope. But this thread was Mac vs (windows) PC,
>>not Mac vs. Linux64, and in Windows land memory management is worse.
>>
>>-- Hans
>
>
> 10.4.0 does not support 64 bit addressing in GUI applications. If
> Photoshop wanted to operate directly on >4GB, the application would need
> to be split into a 64 bit rendering daemon and a 32 bit GUI. Not pretty.
Thanks Kevin, for this remark.
I've heard before that certain libraries were still missing, but this sounds
very bad. I also don't really understand what the problem is, after all so
many other companies make 64bit systems for such a long time now, and Linux64
is also there for a quite some time.
Maybe there is a way out by using the X11 server, X11 allows 64bit
applications to display with a 32bit server. You could argue though that in
that case you'd be cheaper off using Linux straight away.
This is getting a bit OT, sorry...
>
-- Hans

 

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Archived from groups: rec.photo.digital (More info?)

In 6 to 18 months the best choice will be either a dual core AMD or
Intel Processor with a Gig of Ram and 2 300 Gig Hard Drives plus a blue
ray writer. Microsoft will have their 64 bit OS and the applications
will begin to be 64 bit as well. A dual core CPU is almost like have
twin cpus' on the same board. And you can build this for about 40% the
price of an overpriced Mac.

Tom Monego wrote:

>In article <3r1Id.1631$r27.342@newsread1.news.pas.earthlink.net>,
>wettstein@earthlink.net says...
>
>
>>I'm an old pc person but tempted by the new mac stuff. I just looked at
>>Picasa and was impressed. On the other hand, I keep hearing how wonderful
>>the Mac osX is on media stuff, etc. Any suggestions would be appreciated.
>>Best,
>>Howie
>>
>>
>>
>Use both, my Mac at work is very slow and 6 years old. I prefer my Athlon 2.7
>at home, even my Pentium 1gig with Win 98 BUT I'm a PC person. Remember with
>Mac OSX you need 10.3+ everything else makes any Win look smooth. Photoshop CS
>can only access 2 gigs of RAM, anything else is not worth it. If you can afford
>a dual G5 and 2 big apple screens I'd go for it. Otherwise a PC is better than
>any single processor Mac.
>
>Tom
>
>
>

 

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Archived from groups: rec.photo.digital (More info?)

In article <8AzId.13890$wZ2.7937@newssvr13.news.prodigy.com>, measekite
<measekite@yahoo.com> wrote:

> In 6 to 18 months the best choice will be either a dual core AMD or
> Intel Processor with a Gig of Ram and 2 300 Gig Hard Drives plus a blue
> ray writer. Microsoft will have their 64 bit OS and the applications
> will begin to be 64 bit as well. A dual core CPU is almost like have
> twin cpus' on the same board. And you can build this for about 40% the
> price of an overpriced Mac.

An AMD product will never be the best choice of any contest.

But I don't care, I'll stick with my Macs.

 

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In article <mcmurtri-BF1776.02561922012005@corp-radius.supernews.com>,
Kevin McMurtrie <mcmurtri@dslextreme.com> wrote:

> In article <96ea5$41f20bba$3e3aaa83$6580@news1.versatel.nl>,
> HvdV <nohanz@svi.nl> wrote:
>
> > nospam wrote:
> > > In article <11dbf$41f17788$3e3aaa83$5338@news1.versatel.nl>, HvdV
> > > <nohanz@svi.nl> wrote:
> > >
> > >
> > >>To carry the analogy further: a 4-lane autobahn with two lanes under
> > >>construction, OS X 10.3 still doesn't support 64bit addressing. So much
> > >>for
> > >>'the first 64bit PC'.
> > >
> > >
> > > osx 10.3 supports 64 bit addressing. the g5 can accept 8 gigs of ram
> > > and osx can see all of it and use all of it.
> > A G5 running 10.3 can use all the 8GB, but *not* by a single process.
> > Single
> > processes are limited to about 3GB. On top of that the standard OS X 10.3
> > malloc library suffers from fragmentation, not so nice either. All this is
> > going to be fixed by 10.4, we hope. But this thread was Mac vs (windows)
> > PC,
> > not Mac vs. Linux64, and in Windows land memory management is worse.
> >
> > -- Hans
>
> 10.4.0 does not support 64 bit addressing in GUI applications. If
> Photoshop wanted to operate directly on >4GB, the application would need
> to be split into a 64 bit rendering daemon and a 32 bit GUI. Not pretty.
>
> Apple doesn't release product roadmaps so one can only guess when the OS
> will completely support 64 bit addressing.

As if Nikon versus Canon wasn't enough, now this group has to entertain
yet another useless holy war. Only thing is, photo folks should stick to
talking about what they know best, because this thread is getting pretty
ridiculous.

There's absolutely nothing wrong with having a 32-bit GUI and a 64-bit
computation engine for the parts of your apps that need it. There's no
substantial functional difference in your programming approach to do
this, since most developers write separate computational routines
anyway! That said, for professional applications like Photoshop, I can
assure you that the computational routines are indeed independent of the
GUI, and the GUI will never have any practical need to address a 64-bit
memory space. Any GUI that would need direct access to a 64-bit address
space is a bit beyond comprehension, frankly. Methinks you would need an
awfully large screen before that happens ;-)

If we all want to entertain this kind of holy war, there's a whole
series of annoying newsgroups where this can take place (like
comp.sys.mac.advocay - UGH).

Let's keep this real and get down to basics:

There are lots of pros and cons to PCs and Macs - to the OP's point, I
would say that his question was too broad and unclear: what is it,
specifically, that you feel you need from your computing photography
experience that you are currently missing? It might be a piece of
software that you need, and not a new platform.

(BTW - for the poor OP's benefit after getting caught up in all of this
junk: when it comes to price versus performance, Macs aren't
meaningfully more expensive; there are just fewer choices in the Mac
world at the affordable level, which is a product of Apple's niche.
Expensive Macs are generally comparable (in terms of speed, hardware
capabilities, and performance/engineering esoterica) to expensive PCs,
although the graphics card choices are a bit fewer and farther between.
That said, for anything other than gaming and certain types of Maya
workflow, that's not really an issue.)

So it all depends upon what you are looking for - and if you are not
sure, then you're just kinda playing mind games with yourself about Macs
versus PCs...and this isn't going to be a productive newsgroup for that
kind of debate at all.

Drew

--
___________________________________________________________________
The Mac Orchard - http://www.macorchard.com/
Essential Internet Applications since 1995

 

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"Mike Henley" <casioculture@gmail.com> wrote:

> [-hh] wrote:
> > Howard wrote:
> >
> > I've used the Single Processor version of this machine [1.8GHz G5]
> > and ~20MB Photoshop files aren't a problem. I did throw a 1GB
> > photoshop file to see what it would do and while it did cause
> > it to pause and chew, it did swallow.
> >
> > -hh
>
> I have an athlon64 i built myself for a fraction of that cost...


I'm very sorry, but a pet peeve of mine are DIY'ers who conveniently
ignore the trade-offs, such as that by paying less, they had to invest
more of their personal free time to spec, buy & assemble the system.


Personally, I've done DIY's too and generally, I won't bother to do them
anymore because I'm more time-limited than money-limited. YMMV.


Any comparison that doesn't try to account for known differences between
A vs B simply isn't a very good comparison. to that end, a good DIY PC
assembly will be an all day job IMO, which at 'skilled PC tech rates' is
easily worth $500 in a comparison.

Now personally, I don't care if you DIY or not. Just please cut me a
break and try to avoid insinuating that everyone else is wrong if they
don't do a DIY as you did.

You may have paid a fraction of the cost, but I paid a fraction of the
time. YMMV on which one is more valuable.



- - -

In any event, I was replying to post some pseudo-benchmarks:

Geek details: 2003 ('Rev 1') Mac G5 SP 1.8GHz, 900MHz frontside bus,
1.5GB RAM. Running OS 10.3.7 and Photoshop 7.0.1 w/G5 plug-in.

The 1GB Photoshop file I referred to was slightly larger; around 1.2GB,
with an image size of (17433 x 11551). It took 1:20 to read it in from
the hard drive, then a very long 6:60 to do a simple "AutoLevel" on it.
Resampling it to (3018 x 2000) took 1:35.

Comment: clearly, for day-to-day productivity tasks, this is too slow.
Granted, we also have to keep in mind that this image is roughly
equivalent to a 2013 MegaPixels...not exactly routine either.

Dropping to a much smaller 120MB Photoshop file (8717 x 5778; = 50
MegaPixels equivalent), it took :05 to load, :02 to AutoLevel, ~:01 to
do a 180 degree rotate, ~:01 to run a sharpen filter.

Comment: I consider this to be pragmatically fast enough performance:
the hardware won't generally going to impede the workflow. Obviously,
smaller (4, 6, 8, 12 MegaPixel) images can only have better response
times which will perceptually approach "instant" much of the time. As
such, I consider this hardware to be adequate both for today as well as
for the reasonably foreseeable future...eg, until digital cameras
approach 50 MP.


-hh

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: rec.photo.digital (More info?)

rafe bustin wrote:
>
> Let's compare apples to apples.

Exactly.


> How long do you keep a PC (or Mac) ?

PC's around 3 years; Mac's double that.
I'll avoid the 'Total Cost of Ownership'
debate that's implied by this.


> How many hours will you spend working on it,
> over its useful life?
>
> In my experience, 8 hours is low for assembling
> and fully configuring a DIY computer.
>
> On the other hand, considering how many hours
> I'll be using it, it's a small and wise
> investment.

Point made: this is one approach to the question,
and the same argument can be made about spending an
extra $500 - $1000 upfront too: over five years,
that extra expense works out to only a couple of
bucks a week: I guess I'm suggesting to DIY your
coffee instead of buying it from Starbucks 🙂

FWIW, my personal priority has been to minimize the
non-productive hours that I'd have to be invested
to maintain the system (from all sources): if I only
have 10 hours/week that I can spend on my home PC,
I'd prefer for 100% of them to be doing what I want,
and not spent downloading the latest OS/AV updates.
This means that a DIY is effectively suggesting that
I should start out ~8 hours behind this power curve...

But since DIY'ing only applies to Windows/Linux PC's;
& since Photoshop isn't available for Linux, it really
means Windows (the highest maintenance OS there is):

....which means that I'd never achieve "break even".



> But not for everyone, that's for sure, and
> it can be frustrating at times.

DIY'ing is always a great thing when nothing goes wrong 🙂

I've had enough time spent doing low-level formats and the
like such that I no longer actively seek out this kind of
work for the very reason that it is work, not fun.


> OTOH, when you are done you will know something about
> the machine you'll be working on.

Sure. However, if my true objective is digital photography,
wouldn't it be more beneficial to me to spend that time getting
to learn more about Photoshop instead? I'd rather invest
those same hours experimenting with the Mandrake Technique.


-hh

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: rec.photo.digital (More info?)

On Mon, 24 Jan 2005 07:32:55 -0500, " H. Huntzinger"
<{NOSPAM-rm_to_reply}rec-scuba2005@huntzinger.com> wrote:


>I'm very sorry, but a pet peeve of mine are DIY'ers who conveniently
>ignore the trade-offs, such as that by paying less, they had to invest
>more of their personal free time to spec, buy & assemble the system.
>
>
>Personally, I've done DIY's too and generally, I won't bother to do them
>anymore because I'm more time-limited than money-limited. YMMV.
>
>
>Any comparison that doesn't try to account for known differences between
>A vs B simply isn't a very good comparison. to that end, a good DIY PC
>assembly will be an all day job IMO, which at 'skilled PC tech rates' is
>easily worth $500 in a comparison.


Let's compare apples to apples. The mere
hardware assembly of a DIY PC should take
no more than an hour or two. What takes
the bulk of the time is installing the
OS and applications, and then moving files
from the "old" machine to the new. And that
chunk of time will be the same, whether it's
a DIY machine or straight out of the box
from Dell or Apple.


>Now personally, I don't care if you DIY or not. Just please cut me a
>break and try to avoid insinuating that everyone else is wrong if they
>don't do a DIY as you did.
>
>You may have paid a fraction of the cost, but I paid a fraction of the
>time. YMMV on which one is more valuable.


How long do you keep a PC (or Mac) ?

How many hours will you spend working on it,
over its useful life?

In my experience, 8 hours is low for assembling
and fully configuring a DIY computer.

On the other hand, considering how many hours
I'll be using it, it's a small and wise
investment.

But not for everyone, that's for sure, and
it can be frustrating at times. OTOH, when
you are done you will know something about
the machine you'll be working on.


rafe b.
http://www.terrapinphoto.com

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: rec.photo.digital (More info?)

" H. Huntzinger" wrote:
>
> "Mike Henley" <casioculture@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > [-hh] wrote:
> > > Howard wrote:
> > >
> > > I've used the Single Processor version of this machine [1.8GHz G5]
> > > and ~20MB Photoshop files aren't a problem. I did throw a 1GB
> > > photoshop file to see what it would do and while it did cause
> > > it to pause and chew, it did swallow.
> > >
> > > -hh
> >
> > I have an athlon64 i built myself for a fraction of that cost...
>
> I'm very sorry, but a pet peeve of mine are DIY'ers who conveniently
> ignore the trade-offs, such as that by paying less, they had to invest
> more of their personal free time to spec, buy & assemble the system.
>
> Personally, I've done DIY's too and generally, I won't bother to do them
> anymore because I'm more time-limited than money-limited. YMMV.
>
> Any comparison that doesn't try to account for known differences between
> A vs B simply isn't a very good comparison. to that end, a good DIY PC
> assembly will be an all day job IMO, which at 'skilled PC tech rates' is
> easily worth $500 in a comparison.

I would suggest that if it takes all day for a person to assemble a PC,
then perhaps that person shouldn't be assembling their own PC. It's a
couple of hours, Max, for most enthusiasts, about an hour and a half,
max, for me.

>
> Now personally, I don't care if you DIY or not. Just please cut me a
> break and try to avoid insinuating that everyone else is wrong if they
> don't do a DIY as you did.

DIY is far from being for everyone. In real life (as opposed to online)
I know few who are confident even to select components like MoBos.

>
> You may have paid a fraction of the cost, but I paid a fraction of the
> time. YMMV on which one is more valuable.

When I can get a faster better machine cheaper by investing a few hours,
that CAN be worth it. For me anyway

Lisa