# Please help me with my computer purchase



## kja6 (May 30, 2013)

I recently purchased a Nikon D800 and the 36.3 MP creates HUGE files. There's no question that my 2.4 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo with 2 GB RAM MacBook cannot handle these files while having both Photoshop CS6 and Lightroom 4 open.

For those of you that own the current model of the iMac (21.5" monitor, 2.7 GHz with 8GB RAM specifically), would I be able to run all of the above without significant slow-downs and image loading times? I'm no expert on computers so I can't judge if it'll be enough. Do any of you have experience with the above setup or something similar? (And adding additional RAM to this 21.5" model is nearly impossible, so I won't attempt that.)

I'm trying not to bankrupt myself, so I'm avoiding the 27" iMac that has accessible exterior RAM slots for upgrades.

Thanks in advance for the input.


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## KenC (May 30, 2013)

If there is an option for smaller raw files, say about half size, your file size problem would probably disappear and you would lose nothing.  No one needs more than about 10-12 MP unless you're cropping out half the image and then trying to print the rest on the side of a bus.  I have a 2010 iMac with an i3 and 4 GB RAM.  I handle PS files from about 50 to 150 MB with no hold-up at all (they are mostly from a 17MP camera).


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## cgipson1 (May 30, 2013)

KenC said:


> If there is an option for smaller raw files, say about half size, your file size problem would probably disappear and you would lose nothing.  No one needs more than about 10-12 MP unless you're cropping out half the image and then trying to print the rest on the side of a bus.  I have a 2010 iMac with an i3 and 4 GB RAM.  I handle PS files from about 50 to 150 MB with no hold-up at all (they are mostly from a 17MP camera).



Why have a D800 if you aren't going to take advantage of the wonderful detail that 36mp gives you? My PC has no issues with the file sizes either!


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## KenC (May 30, 2013)

My understanding is that a full-frame gives you better high-ISO performance and better dynamic range, but that neither of these is related to MP count.  If this is incorrect, then I'll stand corrected, but I haven't heard or read anything that indicates that anyone could see the difference between 18 and 36 MP under any "normal" circumstances.  I'm sure there must be occasions where one might make use of that many MP (like side-of-bus prints), but I don't believe most of us will ever see one.


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## DorkSterr (May 30, 2013)

Why not build your own?

CORSAIR Vengeance 16GB (4 x 4GB)
Intel Core i7-3820 Sandy Bridge-E 3.6GHz
EVGA SSC 02G-P4-3653-KR GeForce GTX 650 Ti 2GB
CORSAIR AX860i 860W Digital ATX12V
ASRock X79 EXTREME4-M LGA 2011 Intel X79 SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0


All you need is the HDD/SSD and monitor(s) And it will be faster than any Mac you can get.

My late 2011 Macbook has the same specs and it could bearly process my 16MP files I don't know what would happen with a 36mp, maybe explode?


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## cgipson1 (May 30, 2013)

KenC said:


> My understanding is that a full-frame gives you better high-ISO performance and better dynamic range, but that neither of these is related to MP count.  If this is incorrect, then I'll stand corrected, but I haven't heard or read anything that indicates that anyone could see the difference between 18 and 36 MP under any "normal" circumstances.  I'm sure there must be occasions where one might make use of that many MP (like side-of-bus prints), but I don't believe most of us will ever see one.



Try this at 18mp:  http://www.thephotoforum.com/forum/...l-size-100-crop-70-200-2-8-vrii-handheld.html


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## cgipson1 (May 30, 2013)

DorkSterr said:


> Why not build your own?
> 
> CORSAIR Vengeance 16GB (4 x 4GB)
> Intel Core i7-3820 Sandy Bridge-E 3.6GHz
> ...



^This! More speed, not locked down to where you are limited in what you can do, not a bunch of proprietary hardware / software!


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## DorkSterr (May 30, 2013)

cgipson1 said:


> KenC said:
> 
> 
> > My understanding is that a full-frame gives you better high-ISO performance and better dynamic range, but that neither of these is related to MP count.  If this is incorrect, then I'll stand corrected, but I haven't heard or read anything that indicates that anyone could see the difference between 18 and 36 MP under any "normal" circumstances.  I'm sure there must be occasions where one might make use of that many MP (like side-of-bus prints), but I don't believe most of us will ever see one.
> ...




+1 cropping on a 36mp is a dream that even the D4 is envious about.


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## TheStig (May 30, 2013)

Building your own pc is easier than it sounds, and once you learn how, you'll never buy off the shelf again. It's an incredible value. 

Sent from my DROID BIONIC using Tapatalk 4 Beta


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## texkam (May 30, 2013)

Not here to bash Macs, but a desktop PC workstation, whether built or purchased will give you more bang for the buck compared to your MacBook for the need you stated. Use the right tool for the job. Your MacBook is designed to handle other things better.


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## cptkid (May 30, 2013)

texkam said:


> Not here to bash Macs, but a desktop PC workstation, whether built or purchased will give you more bang for the buck compared to your MacBook for the need you stated. Use the right tool for the job. Your MacBook is designed to handle other things better.



Rubbish, what are macs for if they are not for graphic design and photography? 

OP, you could just replace the HD in your Macbook with a SSD and then upgrade the ram to 8gig. 

However if I was you I would buy the iMac. 

I'm actually running an iMac at the moment, but I do most of my editing on a Macmini Server model, with a SSD drive, quad core 2.3ghz i7 processeor and 8gig ram.


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## TheStig (May 30, 2013)

Macs don't contain any magical hardware that makes them better for editing. A PC with identical parts will cost far less and perform the same. 

Sent from my DROID BIONIC using Tapatalk 4 Beta


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## cptkid (May 30, 2013)

TheStig said:


> Macs don't contain any magical hardware that makes them better for editing. A PC with identical parts will cost far less and perform the same.
> 
> Sent from my DROID BIONIC using Tapatalk 4 Beta



No, they just come with amazing displays as standard.


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## Light Guru (May 30, 2013)

TheStig said:


> Macs don't contain any magical hardware that makes them better for editing. A PC with identical parts will cost far less and perform the same



No they dont contain any magical hardware but they do run the Mac OS.


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## Stevepwns (May 30, 2013)

You are running out of RAM, OP.   I am not a Mac fan at all but I am sure if you upgrade your ram to at least 8 gigs (if you can) you will see a huge difference.  Your hardware is plenty to process what you have.  But if you choose to buy a new computer all together, A PC is the MOST cost effective way to do it.  I built a PC with 16 gigs of RAM, 2 x SSD, 1 TB harddrive, Top 1155 socket processor and Dual graphics cards and saved about 2 grand compared to a comparable Mac.  That includes 4 - 24 inch monitors.  If you choose that route, hit me up and Ill help you, its not hard and you can save a boatload of money.  If you bought Lightroom and PS it should have come with both a Mac disk and a Windows Disk. Mine did.


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## TheStig (May 30, 2013)

You could pick up a nice display and still have money left over, also the mac os doesn't improve the software running on it. It's still programmed by the same people. 

Sent from my DROID BIONIC using Tapatalk 4 Beta


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## texkam (May 30, 2013)

> Rubbish, what are macs for if they are not for graphic design and photography?


Please re-read my post. --- "will give you more bang for the buck compared to your MacBook for the need you stated"---

Macs ARE for graphic design and photography. So are PCs. Once upon a time their was a meaningful difference in platform funtionality. PCs simply could not handle this type of work. This is no longer true. It is true Macs are well made and the OS is very elegant, but you pay a premium for that. I am a graphic designer and have worked with both Windows and Apple machines. I taught at a design school that is PC based. Just as my browser doesn't care whether I'm writing this on a Mac or PC, Photoshop doesn't care what OS it's being run on, but rather the specs it needs to do it's job. All these "boxes" are just tools, some more fancy than others. A powerful Mac will get you there, no problem. A top of the line PC whether built or bought will give you the best value for the buck with a custom built one being the superior choice.


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## OLaA (May 30, 2013)

OP if you're comfortable with Mac and can afford it, go for it.  Current iMacs will handle the files just fine with modern processors.  Both light room and photoshop are CPU intensive programs, and RAM is not the bottle neck.  If you decide to go with a PC build you don't need to shoot for the top.  If all you want to do is process images, current gen ivy bridge i5's will be just fine paired with integrated graphics.  You don't need to throw in a bunch of ram, and definitely not a graphics card (GPU).  GPU has nothing to do with your adobe software, other than video processing that uses specialized hardware acceleration but even then only is compatible with certain Nvidia cards.  

My recommendation since it doesn't seem like your into computers is to stick with what you know.  Get something reliable out of the box and enjoy your camera and new computer.


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## kja6 (May 30, 2013)

Thanks to all that have responded so far.

So... the current generation (i.e.: the newest model of the iMac that's got that super thin monitor screen) 21.5" will be able to run all the stuff and handle everything ok is what I gathered from all the mixed responses? I'm still a bit confused. But I think OLaA says it would be okay?

I'm definitely NOT a computer person, so putting together a PC would be very problematic.


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## kja6 (May 30, 2013)

Oh, and what is this SSD stuff everyone's talking about? Is it something I can add to my iMac, externally, that'll make things run smoother/faster? I'm not gonna take apart the thing and perform and operation on it


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## OLaA (May 30, 2013)

Newer generation iMac will be fine.  SSD isn't necessarily but definitely is a great way to add a bump in performance.  It is not something you can add external, well it is but not to gain max benefits.  You want it wired to the MOBO for highest transfer rates.  Also you want it as your internal hard drive because you want your OS running on it as well.  While it is nice to have, not totally necessary and you will be fine without it.  I use a 3 year old iMac at the office and toggle between photoshop and lightroom.  While it isn't the fastest performance in the world, it is bearable.  So with the newer i intel processors you will be just fine.


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## dxqcanada (May 30, 2013)

Suggestion ...

Use a 64bit operating system.
Increase the RAM to at least 4GB
Upgrade the graphics card (especially if you are using an integrated video chip).


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## kja6 (May 31, 2013)

dxqcanada said:


> Suggestion ...
> 
> Use a 64bit operating system.
> Increase the RAM to at least 4GB
> Upgrade the graphics card (especially if you are using an integrated video chip).



On my current 2008 MacBook setup, you reckon?

I was going to upgrade the RAM to 4GB. Heard it was easy to unscrew the bottom of the laptop and plug in/replace the old RAM.


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## kja6 (May 31, 2013)

OLaA said:


> Newer generation iMac will be fine.  SSD isn't necessarily but definitely is a great way to add a bump in performance.  It is not something you can add external, well it is but not to gain max benefits.  You want it wired to the MOBO for highest transfer rates.  Also you want it as your internal hard drive because you want your OS running on it as well.  While it is nice to have, not totally necessary and you will be fine without it.  I use a 3 year old iMac at the office and toggle between photoshop and lightroom.  While it isn't the fastest performance in the world, it is bearable.  So with the newer i intel processors you will be just fine.



Thank you muchly for the advice you've given. I will purchase the new 21.5" iMac


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## kja6 (May 31, 2013)

OLaA said:


> Newer generation iMac will be fine.  SSD isn't necessarily but definitely is a great way to add a bump in performance.  It is not something you can add external, well it is but not to gain max benefits.  You want it wired to the MOBO for highest transfer rates.  Also you want it as your internal hard drive because you want your OS running on it as well.  While it is nice to have, not totally necessary and you will be fine without it.  I use a 3 year old iMac at the office and toggle between photoshop and lightroom.  While it isn't the fastest performance in the world, it is bearable.  So with the newer i intel processors you will be just fine.



Oh, and sick photos on your website, by the way.


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## Ballistics (May 31, 2013)

TheStig said:


> A PC with identical parts will cost far less and perform the same.




They really don't though. A dell/hp equivalent to a Mac is pretty much the same price.

I'm a PC guy but I also have used Mac a lot.

The first thing I would suggest is build your own PC, as it will save you a few hundred dollars, but if you don't want to do that, then I would suggest an iMac


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## JDFlood (May 31, 2013)

Just for the record. There is a better approach to "build your own PC". Go to Fry's Electronics, find a PC geek and a basket, tell him what you are going to use it for, throw all the parts in the basket, and they will assemble it for a very small fee, $ 25 last week, but normally, $50 - $75... You'll save a fortune and not have to figure out if the green wire crosses over to the lowere left connector or one of the 4 other possibilities. JD

I have built two incredible PCs like this. Also, Lightroom does NOT support graphics card assistance, so you need not spend a fortune on the graphics card, it will not help. Get really fast multicore processor and lots of RAM (hence, must do 64bit).


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## Ballistics (May 31, 2013)

If there is a frys nearby, you can do that, but then you are subject to a much higher price. Building a pc is plug and play now. For me, the closest store is microcenter which is 40min away. If I were to do the same build through them, it. Would have been 150 more in parts alone.


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## Gavjenks (May 31, 2013)

> Rubbish, what are macs for if they are not for graphic design and photography?


Primarily looking trendy in front of your friends.

@OP:
More RAM will allow you to do larger edits without freezing up or crashing your editing program. But once you have enough RAM to do something complex (like spherical distortion or something) to a full size file without problems, you don't reallly need that much more.  There would be an upper ceiling of usefulness at probably around 6-8GB for your photo editing purposes.  Unless you do crazy things like stitching together 30-40 images in massive photomosaics or something.

CPU will make the edits go faster (but wouldn't stop you from freezing or crashing if you had insufficient RAM).  Faster CPU = faster edits.  Having multiple cores will only make some types of edits faster, and how useful it is for photo editing will depend on your version of software. PS CS6 is much better at taking advantage of multicores than CS5, for instance.

GPU (graphics card) will also be used by recent versions of photoshop to accelerate some types of edits.



There's no real way to just look at the numbers and say "that's enough." It depends on what you are having trouble with.  Is your system just not able to finish an edit at all without hanging?  More RAM.  Is it just too slow for your tastes, but it does finish?  More CPU + GPU.  How much RAM is enough is when your system can finish everything it needs to do.  How much CPU/GPU is enough is when it is fast enough to make you happy for how much you are willing to spend.

And SSD drives should not add any noticeable performance to photo editing.  Once an image is loaded in photoshop or lightroom, etc., it is held in RAM and the RAM version is used for editing.  it doesn't write to your disk and back constantly, so SSD vs. HDD doesn't matter except for the 1 or 2 seconds when you load or save the image.

SSD is more useful for other types of things that write to disk or read much more frequently.  Like large database manipulation, or minecraft.


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## texkam (May 31, 2013)

> Primarily looking trendy in front of your friends.


Well, there is that. I was trendy once.


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## OLaA (May 31, 2013)

Much appreciated!  Good luck with your new purchase.



kja6 said:


> OLaA said:
> 
> 
> > Newer generation iMac will be fine.  SSD isn't necessarily but definitely is a great way to add a bump in performance.  It is not something you can add external, well it is but not to gain max benefits.  You want it wired to the MOBO for highest transfer rates.  Also you want it as your internal hard drive because you want your OS running on it as well.  While it is nice to have, not totally necessary and you will be fine without it.  I use a 3 year old iMac at the office and toggle between photoshop and lightroom.  While it isn't the fastest performance in the world, it is bearable.  So with the newer i intel processors you will be just fine.
> ...


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## JRSpN (May 31, 2013)

I have a New Mac Book with the retina Display and it has no problems with the Raw files from my D600 not quite 36MP but still large at 24MP. 
Its a MAc Book Pro 16GB Ram I7 2.6 GHZ Processor OSX Version 10.8.3 

But i built my desk top myself as some people said it is not hard to do. 

So if you are going to be making a desktop i would go with a home built PC or a custome built PC. My desktop is very overkill and it was only 2K compared to my Mac Book at 2700. 

But build a PC for Home 
My recomendation is a 255GB SSD drive for the OS then 2 2TB or larger Hard Drives for storage. 
Get a GTX 660 or 680 Video card
Intel I7 quad core or hex core 
Asus Mother Board
32 or 64 GB of ram
a 750 Watt Power Supply
A Liquid Cooler for CPU
and some additional Fans to keep it cool
a Decent air flow case
then a DVD or BRD drive and your good to go. 

PC's are easier to upgrade in my opinion and it will out perform the mac. 

Biggest reason i went with a macbook pro for my laptop is the display is amazing. But for a desk top there are several good displays. 

And if you want real resolution go get a GTX680 Video card and a 4KTV


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## kja6 (Jun 1, 2013)

Thanks again, everyone. It was all helpful advice. I'm afraid I'll have to go with the iMac (the "afraid" because I'm going against lot of opinion here with the PC build), as I don't know how to assemble a computer, nor do I know anyone that knows how to.


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## Dubaiian (Jun 1, 2013)

Fwiw.  I use a Mac Book Air for my photo processing and it seems to work fine.   It's 8gb ram and 256gb SSD HD connected to a thunderbolt drive and a 27" screen when. Am actually doing photo stuff.   

 Don't do complex stitching and Panos etc but for me it works really well and has never hung using LR4.   

Maybe I am a bit basic, but having had numerous pcs in the house slow down through incompatibility of software and drivers etc, I just love the simplicity of IOS.  

JMHO but YMMV


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## Dubaiian (Jun 1, 2013)

Meant to add.    I am WAY too old to look cool in a coffee shop with a Mac ;-)


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