GrandmaG Loc: Flat Rock, MI

I was in the OP’s position 5 years ago and after doing all of the above, my PC was still slow. I jumped to a 27” iMac and never looked back. Upgrades to the OS are free, unlike Windows. Another plus is I never worry about getting hacked. My Windows PC was hacked twice and I had to take it to my PC Guru to have it “cleaned”. NEVER buy any programs for your MAC to clean it; i.e. “clean my Mac”. It’s not necessary and can even CAUSE problems.

If you go MAC, you’ll never look back. Good luck to the OP!

GrandmaG Loc: Flat Rock, MI

Agreed! Adding RAM is super simple to do yourself. Even I could do it!!!

Tomcat5133 Loc: Gladwyne PA

My iMac 27 is 8 years old. It's monitor is so good I don't need other reference monitors.
I have edited over 100 videos on it. Starting doing everything with it banking, promo
emails social etc. Used to isolate the creation Mac's from general business. I upgraded
it myself highest RAM 16 gigs seems to be fine. Apple created Final Cut Pro for video
editing and today it is a great program. After you buy it for $300 all upgrades are free.
I wonder what I will do when this iMac needs replacement. The new Macs are to
skinny and an expert editor teacher I follow thinks they are a problem. And to expensive.
My companies had Apple and Macs etc. We had PC's but struggled with Windows and
gave up. I honestly don't think a machine like this will come along again.

brian43053 Loc: Buffalo, NY

I switched to a MacBook pro 15" back in 2012 and have loved it. I did upgrade it ot 16gig RAM when I bought it. Seems to me from reading all the responses you've gotten - those that switch to Mac have loved it and never looked back. The only thing I had to do to mine was replace the battery and I use my virtually every day. It has been to many places we've traveled to and has stood up very well. It does need updates occasionally but none of them have ever taken a long time like windows do (windows updates almost always seems to happen at the wrong time). It still starts up very quick and runs thru LR & photoshop edits very quickly. My wife recently bought an Asus windows based laptop and my 7 year old Mac starts up faster than hers - and not just by a little bit. In all the years that I've owned my laptop I have never had an issue with any kind of virus. Good luck with your choice

AirWalter Loc: Tipp City, Ohio

Oh crap, it's raining here and every joint and muscle I have is aching this morning, and I haven't even finished my first cup of coffee yet. It's too early to argue about computers and I'm tired of it anyway. Both Apple and Windows computers will do the job you want. The Apple will cost you more in the beginning and they are hard to upgrade at a later time. Windows computers will do everything an Apple computer will and they will not cost you as much, and later they can easily be upgraded when needed! Good luck on what ever you chose and happy shooting with your camera.

steleky Loc: New York City

I just decommissioned my 10 year old iMac and replaced it with a new 27", top of the line CPU, 2gb SSD version. I added 64gb of memory for under $400 (Apple is notoriously stingy with memory). The vast number of people who purchase computers never upgrade after the initial purchase, so this is a red herring. There are education and military discounts available from Apple, if you qualify. Having used pcs at work and iMacs at home, I can just say that Macs are a more seamless experience.

JDG3

Having used both PC's and iMac's and reading the post from other users here I am further convinced that it really comes down to how much money you have or want to spend. I personally know users of PC's and iMac's that have had near perfect experiences with their machines and defend their choices passionately. I respect that.

However, I can also line up users of BOTH systems that have had nightmare experiences from their machines - long unexpected updates, blue screens of death for the PC's and for Apple iMacs, long waits at the Genius Bar to get simple things fixed, compatibility issues, and those wonderful colorful spinning beach balls that accompany a total system lock down.

It is the same argument as the Ford vs Chevy vs Toyota, Canon vs Nikon vs Sony, Blank_X vs Blank_Y (insert your favorite brand).

You pay your money and take your chances.

Photomac Loc: The Dalles, Or

Ford vs Chev and all the models, Nikon vs Cannon etc. One place to save money is on the RAM. I recently bought the IMac 2019, 27 inch (to replace an old one, so old I couldn't get parts to fix it,) with 8 GB of RAM until l could install my own 64 GB purchased from B&H for $395.00. Hugh savings. Mac is VERY proud of its memory and charges accordingly. Another consideration is the world of viruses. Mac only has about 5% of the market. When I was on Windows, even with the latest anti-virus software, it was constant issues with new strains, Trojan horses, software performance issues, lockups etc. Obviously, its been a while, but I don't have to do a restart very often on the Mac. The thing is, get what you need so you enjoy to the PP. Fighting speed, etc is always difficult. Another consideration is using a calibrated high end monitor for better detail, color and space.

AirWalter Loc: Tipp City, Ohio

I'm sorry, but for anyone to have that much trouble with a Windows computer is simply because you did not know what you were doing. Very few people know how to maintain a computer and keep it free from junk that will slow a computer to a crawl. People get virus's because they do not know what not to click on or they can't stay away from porn sites, and they do not know what a good anti-virus program is. I am sick and tired of people bashing one type of computer or the other just because they are so ignorant about them. They think all they have to know about a computer is how to turn it on and off. Do you run your car that way also?

Blurryeyed Loc: NC Mountains.

Made the move from PC to Mac and don't regret it, it takes some adjustment but overall I am very happy.

Gene51 Loc: Yonkers, NY, now in LSD (LowerSlowerDelaware)

It's only slower if you are at the same price point - for example, a 27" iMac with Retina 5K, 1 TB SSD, 3.6 GHz 8 core i9 cpu (boostable to 5 GHz), 32 gb DDR4, and a Radeon Pro 580X with 8 GB Vram, will cost $3600.

You can get a comparably equipped Windows machine with the same CPU (presumably an i9900K Coffee Lake), 2x16 gb DDR4 ram, same graphics card, and an m.2 1 TB SSD for $1950. Add an LG 27MDSKA B 5K display for another $950 and you have a more or less equivalent system to the iMac for $2900

There are a couple of differences that are worth noting - the iMac, may have all memory banks filled with 32 gb, so upgrading memory is likely to involve replacing what is in the machine, as opposed to simply adding more memory modules.

The 1 TB SSD in the iMac is not an m.2 NVMe drive as it is in the Windows machine - it is likely a SATA III drive, since it appears to replace the baseline Fusion drive, which is also a SATA III drive. The m.2 in the PC is 4x faster - which is important if you are using it to boot from and run programs on, as well as keeping a Lightroom catalog on it.

The 5K display may be stunning, but you are, in part, paying for a 500 nit display when you won't really ever use that much brightness for photo editing. Also if you use the full native resolution, font scaling will be necessary, and you give away some of the high-res benefits in doing so. My personal preference is not very high resolution screens - UHD at 3K is more than enough for photo editing, and using two displays is easier on the eyes. I use a pair of 24" HD displays that provide 3840 px horizontal resolution c 1280 vertical. The extra real estate has definite benefits over a single very high res screen.

The only GPU offerings are AMD's Radeon 580 or 48 - both are great for gaming and video, but offer little in the way of performance benefits for photo editing. But given the 5K display, you still need a high performing GPU if for no other reason than to provide snappy refresh. With the PC you can select ANY currently manufactured graphics card from NVidia or AMD, with the performance edge going to NVidia in most cases.

The PC can be upgraded internally to include (2) m.2 drives, (4) 2.5" drives and (3) 3.5" drives without requiring a bookshelf full of external drives. Apple's solution requires external drives to update storage, making expansion expensive.

If I were to add additional internal storage to the PC configuration above, I could add a pair of 8 TB drives for a total storage of 17 TB and at a cost of $600, and still be cheaper that the iMac.

I could also go the other way and build a faster computer with more cpu cores, more storage and faster graphics and still be less expensive.

So I stand by my original premise for the same money spent - an iMac will not be as fast as a PC. If you equip the two machines with the same hardware (as close as possible), the PC will be considerably cheaper - in this case by $800.

A good resource to use as a guide comes from Puget Systems in Washington State, halfway between Seattle and Tacoma. They've been building customized photo editing systems for years, and they actually publish their benchmarks and results of their testing for all to see - unlike Apple which just tells you how wonderful their machines are.

And another British systems integrator, Chillblast, provides a comparison between Mac Pros and PCs here:

https://www.chillblast.com/photo-editing-mac-vs-pc.html

While it is not as unbiased as the Puget Systems comparisons, the performance vs price analysis is pretty much consistent with Apple providing less "bang for the buck" that is widely understood by those outside the Apple community.

The other bit of mythology is the Mac resistance to viruses. It has more to do with being an easy target and sheer number of users than it has to do with the Apple OS being virus resistant. An interloping writer of malware is going to go after the giant school of fish that the PC community represents with its 87% market share long before they go after the 13% Apple market share. For them the ROI is better with PCs when they discover and exploit a vulnerability. There was a time when the OS used in Apples very secure, being based on Unix and running on Motorola cpus, but those days are long gone - yet the legend persists.

If you want anecdotal stuff - I built a machine in 2011 and it has never been infected with a virus. I've had a heat issue from mild overclocking (I added a liquid cooling system) and another from cat hair clogging up the screens in front of the fans and reducing airflow that required some reboots until I figure out what the problem was, and the thermal heat-transfer compound I used to seat the cpu onto the heat sink became ineffective after 6 yrs requiring a reapplication (I used a better compound) - otherwise, the system has been flawless. Needless to say, I do not use this machine for much else outside of photo editing and posting on some forums like this one, and GMAIL and some internet browsing. I am pretty careful to not fall prey to suspicious emails, messages and other delivery vehicles for malware, so by not visiting places where I may pickup a virus I am sure this has helped keep my system free of bad stuff. My nephew, in college, brought me his computer which couldn't even boot because of the literal hundreds of popups. A half an hour later I had cleaned his system and he was back in business. I told him he needed to stop visiting porn sites, or he would be on his own the next time this happened. We both had a laugh.

NatureRocks

I used to be in windows, and still use DOS and Linux, but now, all that happens within a MAC Pro tower. Yes, it is an older box, but through a brilliant and reasonable MAC expert, the system has been reconfigured with a six core Xeon processor, AMD graphics card, and 32 GB of ram. And I do run Windows, Linux, and DOS on it as well. The fella who is really a good guy and knows how to tweak a MAC to maximize it (e.g. uses a solid state startup drive) is Stephen Esser at Esser Design in Phoenix. His number: 602-257-9790. He can beat any price for a comparable configured new system by wide margins. The box described above was something over $800.00.

Just to mention benefits: able to use a Samsung TV as monitor, able to add on as many printers, hard drives, scanners, etc. as wanted with numerous USB connections, as well as FireWire, which I don't use, but it is there. The case is large allowing for inclusion of 4 hard drives inside. After more than 3 years, no problems. And I rarely use Windows, but it is there, if needed. I use DOS for old software that is still valuable for non-photographic work. And Linux is still what I would hope someday matures to the point of sufficient ease of use to cause all the money-makers to go hide in their holes; but the OS and I are not there yet. But with the right processor, you can run just about anything.

Photomac Loc: The Dalles, Or

Let's remain civil here, calm down. First, looking up a medal of honor recipient is not porno, really rash assumption; I pay computer experts for the right advice, performance is what it is or was, and no one should have to be a computer geek to use a product successfully. Let's be clear, windows had huge problems with these issues for many years, hence the constant advancement of their software until according to most, Windows 10 might finally be working. No product is perfect, just say'n since Mac, no more invasions. That could change.

Photomac Loc: The Dalles, Or

Thank you very much for that errodite review. Very informative, and probably would have appreciated that info 2 months ago. LOL.

ggab Loc: ?

Once upon a time Mac was the only way to do color editing and page lay out.
Not any more.
You are impressed with the capability of your iPad, why not just use that?

If you compare a modern Windows 10 computer with the same processor, ram and video card as the iMac you will see the windows PC will cost less and run the same. Windows 10 is a much leaner running OS than Windows OS's of the past.

If you are willing to spend more, learn a new workflow and be "one of the cool kids", go for it.
I am forced to use a MacBook Pro for work and don't really care for it.

If you have 16 bit applications that have Mac versions, they will not work with the next version of Mac OS. You will find that from time to time, as the Mac OS updates you will be forced to buy upgrades to applications you have.

Good luck.