It's got to be close to time to switch if you need power

There is absolutely nothing new here. Most are very well aware that if you have an aging MP then your options are limited unless you wish to go to the iMac (which I believe smokes my 2008 octo) or a Windows box. Most professionals would likely not want to move to a new platform all together. While Adobe offers a swap from Mac to Windows and vice versa, not all companies will. In some ways owners are essentially stuck.

Now, my 2008 MP runs extremely well. It does the tasks I need it to do in the time I expect. I don't feel like it is sluggish or hurting my workflow. If iTunes were part of my job though that would be another story with the whole beach ball city going on. However, even with a 2009 MP, I think people can hold on just a while longer. Sure, they shouldn't have to, but I couldn't see myself jumping ship to Windows unless the cost to get my software back on Windows was almost non-existent.

To me, I think the newest iMac could really suit a lot of needs. It won't suit everyone but one thing that does become difficult is no optical. I use my super drive when I hand off photos to people. I am unsure how quickly a USB drive will work but I would most certainly want to have something faster. Therefore, that is where a MP fits in much nicer for me. I don't know what Apple was thinking when they opted to push the MP to the wayside for as long as they have, but it would be nice if they would give true professionals something if those professionals aren't comfortable moving to an all-in-one system. On the other hand, I don't think the MP need annual updates but they should at least act like they care about the machine considering the price we all paid for it.

Look into swapping out your boot hard drive for an SSD, you'll get a bit more time out of it, and most SSD's are around $1/gig range now.

lloyd709 said:

I'm a professional photographer and I've just sold my old MacPro 1,1 and moved to a laptop only solution. The laptop I've got is more than powerful enough for my professional requirements (4 cores, 16 Gig memory, solid state disk, fast connection to external disk array).

However, if I really needed power for my work I really think I would say goodbye to Apple. If I was sitting here waiting for my computer to finish rendering something or other every time I made a change and it was my living, I'd be running as fast as I could away from Apple with it's complete lack of interest in this market. Time really is money when it comes to waiting for your hardware to do something and if there's a bottle neck in your hardware, as a professional user, you need to be able to do something about it - not just sit and wait and hope that the Apple gods might, if they feel like it, sometime, might throw you a bone!!

Click to expand...

lots of "if's" and "thinks" but no "I do" or "I will"......I'm also a photographer and use a MBP2008.... it serves my needs until my Mac Pro arrives in a couple of weeks...perhaps my needs are different then yours...perhaps not, I find that my photographs don't need much PP if care is taken when capturing the image...

I think more and more photographers have heavy shutter fingers and just capture umpteen captures of the same image then complain when it comes to import/rendering/cataloging etc...

There is ample power in the current Apple line-up to suit any photographers needs even those with heavy shutter fingers...

Capture file sizes have increased slightly (not hugely) capturing more details for sure, I think the issue is that photographers nowadays are looking for something unique that they don't have the foresight or imagination to capture while out shooting and prefer to do it all in PP hence the increase in rendering required.

in the end i'm not sure the point of your post, after you say 'very few people probably need that much power' ?? what are you talking about? photographers needing power? current Mac Pro lineup is more than sufficient for any photographers needs, professional or other.

lloyd709 said:

I'm a professional photographer and I've just sold my old MacPro 1,1 and moved to a laptop only solution. The laptop I've got is more than powerful enough for my professional requirements (4 cores, 16 Gig memory, solid state disk, fast connection to external disk array).

However, if I really needed power for my work I really think I would say goodbye to Apple. If I was sitting here waiting for my computer to finish rendering something or other every time I made a change and it was my living, I'd be running as fast as I could away from Apple with it's complete lack of interest in this market. Time really is money when it comes to waiting for your hardware to do something and if there's a bottle neck in your hardware, as a professional user, you need to be able to do something about it - not just sit and wait and hope that the Apple gods might, if they feel like it, sometime, might throw you a bone!!

Click to expand...

How much "power" do you think people need? Considering the fact that Apple's current lineup of Mac Pros are still some of the fastest, most powerful computers on the market, I think you're mistaken. Granted, they don't have all of the up-to-date bells and whistles like USB 3.0, Thunderbolt, or "official" PC Graphics card support, but they're definitely powerful.

I understand your only experience is with a 1,1 pro, so I'm assuming you just think they're all that slow. But considering the fact that you can buy a 2009 2.66 quad Mac Pro for around $1,000, flash it to a 5,1 for free, spend $600 on a 3.33GHz Hex Xeon, $100 for USB 3.0 PCI card, any NvIDIA graphics you want, and drop up to 24GB of RAM in for under $200, for around $2500 you will own the setup that's been proven to be the fastest possible for photoshop and will still blow any current Apple laptop out of the water. So who's not powerful enough?

----------

pyzon said:

I think more and more photographers have heavy shutter fingers and just capture umpteen captures of the same image then complain when it comes to import/rendering/cataloging etc...

Click to expand...

Much agreed. I used to do post production for a wedding photographer that would shoot around 2,500 images per wedding. She didn't last too long

Usually when shooting anything but still life you'll get the shot you want within the first 5-10 images, but so many people just go overboard and try to cover all their bases.

lloyd709 said:

I'm a professional photographer and I've just sold my old MacPro 1,1 and moved to a laptop only solution. The laptop I've got is more than powerful enough for my professional requirements.

However, if I really needed power for my work I really think I would say goodbye to Apple. If I was sitting here waiting for my computer to finish rendering something or other every time I made a change and it was my living, I'd be running as fast as I could away from Apple with it's complete lack of interest in this market. Time really is money

Click to expand...

I'm a professional racing driver and i've just sold my 1994 BMW car for a BMW motorbike, and it is more than fast enough for me.

However, if i really needed something faster than my bike i wouldn't buy a BMW car because ... because ... uhh ... because they don't care anymore about me.

Time is money and i need to go fast. Well, actually i don't, but some people do, and if i were them, i wouldn't buy what i have just bought.

lloyd709 said:

My god, no one gets my post!!! To spell it out, I very happy with my setup, I don't need any more power (no need to explain what I'm going to do, I don't need to do anything for a while). I just think, (and think it's an interesting topic for debate and hence started a thread on the subject) that for those few people that need monster power to earn their living with, Apple isn't a good company to be in bed with. Please, if you are going to respond to the thread, don't ask what I'm going to do, or talk about sticking an SSD drive into improve performance or stuff like that, that's not what the thread's about!!!

Click to expand...

I got you're post. You're just wrong.

Alrighty then.

I run a recording studio from my quad core 2.8Ghz Xeon.
It never skips a beat.

Definitely throw a lot of ram at it and use SSD for the boot volume.

lloyd709 said:

You then followed on demonstrating you missed my point!@!! The point being, if you really need power, Apple are probably the wrong business partners to be with!! But, very few people probably really need that much power!

Click to expand...

The Mac Pro 2012, 12 core upgraded model offers performance superior to any single chip PC you can build for the same price. A laptop (even if it has an i7) does not match the performance of even the oldest 2008 8 Core MPs. Perhaps you bought the laptop because of the price. It has and will always be like this, PCs will offer better performance per dollar. But a user like myself that cares about experience, will never buy another PC again. Apple once offered the MP which had an MRSP lower than competitive products from HP and Dell. Apple is the perfect company to do business with especially once you've invested hundreds (if not thousands) of dollars in software, you wouldn't want to jump platforms.