DirtFarmer Loc: Escaped from the NYC area, back to MA

I started with Apple but when the Mac came out and Apple was too tight with allowing third party hardware, I switched to PCs and stayed there 40 years.

BUT my motto is that it is always good to be in danger of learning something new, so, when my new wife bought me a MacBook M1 I embraced the challenge. I have become bipolar, since I have old favorites on my Win10 laptop but the MacBook is now primary. Yes, it's a challenge to overcome muscle memory in sending the cursor to the wrong corner to close a window and remember new keyboard shortcuts, but even at my age it is possible. For photography, and for some computing tasks, the M1 is significantly faster than my Win10 machine (admittedly old) but the Win10 machine has a few advantages (different tasks) so I keep it in use.

Jack 13088 Loc: Central NY

I agree. Although the OP wasn’t asking for a PC vs Mac discussion and I try to stay out of that type of discussion I will weigh in here. Professionally I have been basically in the business of configuring systems for the defense of our country for some branch of the US Government was the bulk of our business. Reliability measured by demonstrable availability is always a critical requirement. This is not a market that Apple has decided not to participate in. Hence, we could not consider Apple products. Apple is not alone in avoiding the liability and verification costs associated with that type of market. You will be happy to know that medical applications are on that list. Even though I retired in 2007 after 44 years in the business I still consider that level of reliability. Spectrum advertises 99.9% availability. 3 nines is really poor availability. Would you be happy with your pacemaker being out of service 87 hours a year?

My recent replacement of a 13 year old PC was roughly $5K of overkill 12th generation i9 with 32MB DDR5 RAM, 2x1TB m.2 SSD and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 Ti 8GB. Far more machine than I need for Photography but I wanted it. It is almost impossible to make accurate performance measurements but this machine imports 100 images building standard previews in 2-3 seconds which might be limited by the read speed of the memory card. My previous machine could not accommodate a modern GPU card and the existing card would crash if enabled so processor intense operations show really game changing performance. The new LrC masking operations are nearly instantaneous.

TriX Loc: Raleigh, NC

Sounds like a nice machine, and always best to think of the future considering SW is constantly evolving to utilize more HW resources. I just built a very similar machine, but only a 12700K I-7, all m.2 NVME SSD and the 3060 12GB graphics card but 64GB of DDR4 memory (since I had it on hand). Although I can overclock the memory and CPU, I’m just running the CPU and the 3600MB/sec memory at base speed - it’s so fast that not currently needed. Since the memory was free and I had the case and monitor, the whole system using Samsung 980 Pro SSD, Asus MB, CPU, cooler, graphics card and a new PS just cost about 1.3K$. If I had to buy the memory and case, it would have been just north of 1.5K$.

I WISH Spectrum could deliver 3 “9s” or 8.76 hours of downtime a year - not close where I live. When I was selling Enterprise storage, the availability “gold standard” was 5 “9s” or just over 5 minutes of unplanned downtime/year. Last I looked, Amazon S3 cloud storage was quoting an SLA or 4 “9s” availability and 11 “9s” durability (!).

Ufauxreal

I have had several Macbook Pros. I see reference in this thread recommending Macbook Air. The thing i use the Macbook for most is using LR and PS. Is the Macbook Air capable of running those programs efficiently?

jcboy3

If you switch to a Mac, then I highly recommend the following applications:

DefaultFolderX - The main use I have for this is that, in a file open dialog, you can just click outside of the dialog over an open folder and it will switch to that folder. Also, if you previously accessed a folder for open or save, you can quickly get back to it. And you can open a folder that you have navigated to in a file open/save dialog in the Mac OS Finder. And more. It's the one app I've used for over a decade on the Mac, and it is constantly kept up to date.

CarbonCopyCloner - This is a Linux based backup application with a Mac OS front end, and it can run scheduled backups as well as backup drives or folders. Never worry about backing up your drives.

ClipMenu - One of many clipboard manager utilities that let you copy and paste multiple items. There are others, you should look into them as they make copy/paste management much easier.

BetterFinderRename - Need to rename a bunch of files? This is the app I use. It has lots of features, including adding sequence numbers. Includes a grep engine so you can do sophisticated search and replace (I love grep).

Good luck.

burkphoto Loc: High Point, NC

Absolutely it is, if you buy an M1 or M2 with 16GB unified memory and 1TB SSD storage. I have used an M1 with those specs for 18 months.

For objective test videos of all the new Macs, visit the YouTube channel, MaxTech.

TimmyKnowles Loc: Gallup, New Mexico

I taught Photoshop for 18 years at a major university, as well as Lightroom for a number of years---all on a Mac. It must be nice to be so arrogant and know so little.

coullone Loc: Paynesville, Victoria, Australia

[quote=TriX]Sounds like a nice machine, and always best to think of the future considering SW is constantly evolving to utilize more HW resources. I just built a very similar machine, but only a 12700K I-7, all m.2 NVME SSD and the 3060 12GB graphics card but 64GB of DDR4 memory (since I had it on hand). Although I can overclock the memory and CPU, I’m just running the CPU and the 3600MB/sec memory at base speed - it’s so fast that not currently needed. Since the memory was free and I had the case and monitor, the whole system using Samsung 980 Pro SSD, Asus MB, CPU, cooler, graphics card and a new PS just cost about 1.3K$. If I had to buy the memory and case, it would have been just north of 1.5K$.


You are very lucky, In Australia you would be looking at over $3000 - about US$2200, if you could get all the parts!
The processor is about $700 but a full Mac Mini is only $999 (including Operating system and many programs) which would do the same job.
Fact of life in Australia we pay top dollar for anything imported since the governments discouraged any manufacturing locally (they are now reconsidering that decision given China's hostility).
We do give away lots of natural resources at bargain prices to China but that is not noticed by the Chinese.

Ufauxreal

Who/what are you referring to with that statement?

CHG_CANON Loc: the Windy City

Who cares?

TriX Loc: Raleigh, NC

[quote=coullone]

Interesting. So how much is the 16GB RAM, 512GB SSD in Australia? It’s $1,299 here.For comparison purposes, how much is a 12700K I-7 Intel CPU in Australia?

coullone Loc: Paynesville, Victoria, Australia

Best buy I could find for $1289

MSI Core i7 Z790 Gamer Bundle
Intel Core i7 13700K Desktop Processor, MSI PRO Z790-A WIFI Motherboard, Kingston FURY Beast 32GB (2x16GB) 5200MHz DDR5 Plus Fan about $100 or $240 for liquid cooled.


Samsung 980 PRO 500GB M.2 PCIe 4.0 NVMe SSD $119

prices include GST (tax) of 10% a at 1 Mar23
Note Price on SSD is $20 off if ordered with a CPU normally $139 about the same as 4GB Hard disk
as you can see not cheap prices from Scorptec scorptec.com.au

TimmyKnowles Loc: Gallup, New Mexico

If the shoe fits, arrogant nimrod, you wear it.

TriX Loc: Raleigh, NC

So the Mac Mini Pro which is similar in performance to the PC is $1299 US (what is it in Australia?) And the PC was $1299 plus SSD. Your prices are certainly higher considering that you listed the 980 Pro 500GB at $119, and here in the US, the 1TB version is $109 (and on sale at Best Buy for $69). Are Apple products the same price in Australia?