Mac Pro or...

[Raysito22]

Hi there, I'm about to buy a computer (holiday season for sure), and while I was quite certain it would be a Mac Pro, now I'm quite doubtful. The main use I'd give the computer would be Photoshop (as I'm a photographer), and as you might know, you need quite a bit of power when you work with layers and you already have a 2GB Tiff. I'd also want to play some games (mostly Modern Warfare 2) with all the eye-candy on.

Now, I'm from Spain so first, sorry for my English, and then, expect prices to be in € and also a bit different than they might be there. The Mac Pro I had in mind was something like this:

Mac Pro Quad 2.66 Ghz
12 GB RAM
1 TB HDD
AMD 4870
Wi-fi card

Price: 2800 €

Quite an expensive machine, and I think not that powerful (for games, quite crappy indeed). The other rig would be something like this:

Asus Rampage II Republic of Gamers Mobo
Intel Core i7 920
12GB Ram Kingston HyperX 1600
x2 Crossfire AMD 5870
1 TB HDD
Windows 7 (worst part this one)

Price: 2300 €

Obviously the second rig is quite a few galaxies away from the Mac Pro in terms of gaming, and i7 920 would let me do quite a bit of OC so I'd probably get a bit more power from the CPU as well. I cannot spend more money on the Mac Pro, so what do you think about the second rig? Thanks.

 

[Gav2k]

You need to decide what you want the machine for. The mac will eat up your work side but suck at gaming where as the windows machine will be able to do both. The added umpf from the gfx will help depending on what your doing in Photoshop.

 

[psingh01]

what's the cost if you get the cheap video card for the mac pro then add a high end card for bootcamp gaming? you end up with too cards in the mac pro but probably for the same price that apple charges you to "upgrade"

 

[Hellhammer]

How about a Hackintosh? That PC outperforms Mac Pro easily especially with dual ATI 5870s. Also, with decent cooling, Core i7 920 can be easily overclocked to +3.2GHz and still have the stability.

It's OS X versus Windows 7 unless you are ready to Hackintosh it

 

[Raysito22]

How about a Hackintosh? That PC outperforms Mac Pro easily especially with dual ATI 5870s. Also, with decent cooling, Core i7 920 can be easily overclocked to +3.2GHz and still have the stability.

It's OS X versus Windows 7 unless you are ready to Hackintosh it

Never hackintoshed, right now I'm using a MBP 3.1, and well, obviously Macintosh has made my life a bit easier, but I'm not absolutely against Windows, it's the OS I've used all my life, just skipped Vista.

Cooling would be courtesy of a Mugen Scythe 2, pretty good too for OC. So when talking about Photoshop, I'd be getting similar performance from both rigs, is that right? As I'm not thinking of upgrading my cameras for at list 5 years (Nikon D3 and D3x), the same happens with the computer, my real work is photography so it's the most important thing. I just need a computer which can work well with big layers, right now it can take 2 minutes or 3 which is a bit too much time.

If Photoshop performance is similar with both rigs I'll definitely move to Windows 7. That's the main question. Thanks.

 

[Hellhammer]

If Photoshop performance is similar with both rigs I'll definitely move to Windows 7. That's the main question. Thanks.

Performance will be better under Windows because there is 64-bit Photoshop for Windows but only 32-bit for OS X, so I'd definitely get the PC (I NEVER recommend so unless power is needed) and Windows 7 isn't so bad as Vista was, it is quite good actually

Furthermore, installing OS X to PC is getting easier everyday so just take a look at InsanelyMac and its forums if you want to install fully working OS X to it

 

[ipodftw]

I would agree a hackintosh would be a good idea,

or just get a complete windows format

 

[pukifloyd]

I would agree a hackintosh would be a good idea,

or just get a complete windows format

Hackintosh FTW!

 

[comptr]

I am also in the same debate also but I still haven't chose but if I go with a mac pro I will get a GTX 285 for it. So if you are looking at a mac pro for gaming also then just get a basic card and order the GTX 285 which will help with gaming.

 

[Umbongo]

You're looking at a 50% performance increase just by being able to overclock to 4GHz. The single quad Mac Pros cannot compare to a windows box if you go all out.