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Working with 500 mb psd files.What is the right configurations for me?

nileland76

nileland76

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Dec 28, 2008
14
0
san francisco
Working with 500 mb psd files.What is the right configurations for me?

Hello I am a PC user and I am switching to Mac.
I have not decided yet which one to buy a Mac book pro or an iMac or Mac Pro.I mostly work with Photoshop and flash.no 3d rendering.
I want to know which configuration is best for me and my work.I have an HP laptop which has a 2.5 Core Due 2 processor and it's still not that fast at all and it hangs whenever I am opening big files(500 mg). It also has 4 gb of memory and alooooot of HD space.I have a desktop PC at home with Quad core processor and 4gb ram .that's pretty fast.
I have heard macs are very fast because of the operating system and everything and they are not even comparable with pc.But PC is the only thing I know.so I need your help.
By the way I love to have a lap top and carry it with me every where but I am not sure if they are the best thing for me.

I am really confused...I am new in America and I am new in Mac world.:p:D

Thank you guys
 
nileland76 said:
Working with 500 mb psd files.What is the right configurations for me?

Hello I am a PC user and I am switching to Mac.
I have not decided yet which one to buy a Mac book pro or an iMac or Mac Pro.I mostly work with Photoshop and flash.no 3d rendering.
I want to know which configuration is best for me and my work.I have an HP laptop which has a 2.5 Core Due 2 processor and it's still not that fast at all and it hangs whenever I am opening big files(500 mg). It also has 4 gb of memory and alooooot of HD space.I have a desktop PC at home with Quad core processor and 4gb ram .that's pretty fast.
I have heard macs are very fast because of the operating system and everything and they are not even comparable with pc.But PC is the only thing I know.so I need your help.
By the way I love to have a lap top and carry it with me every where but I am not sure if they are the best thing for me.

I am really confused...I am new in America and I am new in Mac world.:p:D

Thank you guys
Click to expand...
I would suggest a MacBook Pro, with a nice big External Display for when you're at home.

Make sure you get a nice quality external display, because colour accuracy probably matters if you're working in photoshop.

A good place for the Display would be Dell, or the Apple refurbished store.
 
Which Macbook pro should I get

Which Macbook pro do u think I should get?

The 2.53GHz 15 inch? It seems that 15 inch Mac book pro is more updated (according to configurations). Do you think 2.53GHz would be ok or should I order a 2.8GHz 15 inch?
It's confusing how come 17 inch Macbook pro doesn't come with 2.8GHz processor. It's even not in the optional configurations!

Thankx for your help
 
The 15-inch models are more up to date than the 17-inch models. To my knowledge there is no plans at Apple to update the 17, but that's just to my knowledge, so we could see an updated 17 pretty soon.

It sounds like you might be happier with the 2.8GHz processor, because when you're doing giant photoshop operations on those huge PSD files, I suspect that the extra few hundred megahertz would make a difference. If you can wait for the machine to do what you want it to, then a 2.53 would be just fine.

The more important thing to make sure you have is a full 4gb of memory.

A Mac with a 2.53GHz Core2 processor will run Photoshop just about as well as a Windows PC with the same processor, especially if you've got the PC running fairly well. If you can, I might bring an external hard disk drive with some of your image files to a retail store that has some of these machines set up, and ask them if you can hook it up and open your files on a store machine, to see how well it handles them. I believe Apple Store would be pretty accomodating of a request like that, and they will have different machines you can try, to compare performance of the 2.4/2.53/2.8GHz models, and iMacs, and Mac Pros.
 
Cory5412 said:
The 15-inch models are more up to date than the 17-inch models. To my knowledge there is no plans at Apple to update the 17, but that's just to my knowledge, so we could see an updated 17 pretty soon.

It sounds like you might be happier with the 2.8GHz processor, because when you're doing giant photoshop operations on those huge PSD files, I suspect that the extra few hundred megahertz would make a difference. If you can wait for the machine to do what you want it to, then a 2.53 would be just fine.

The more important thing to make sure you have is a full 4gb of memory.

A Mac with a 2.53GHz Core2 processor will run Photoshop just about as well as a Windows PC with the same processor, especially if you've got the PC running fairly well. If you can, I might bring an external hard disk drive with some of your image files to a retail store that has some of these machines set up, and ask them if you can hook it up and open your files on a store machine, to see how well it handles them. I believe Apple Store would be pretty accomodating of a request like that, and they will have different machines you can try, to compare performance of the 2.4/2.53/2.8GHz models, and iMacs, and Mac Pros.
Click to expand...

Apple did say something in the last keynote back in October about the 17' MBPs. And currently, you can use up to 8GB of ram in the MBP, but only 6GB is usuable per given time.
 
I asked them if I can run some of my files in apple store.

I asked them if I can run some of my files on their computers.And they said no.I even talked to the manager.
According to what you say maybe it's better for me to get an iMac with 3 ghz processor.
I hate it when things run slow on the computer and I have to wait till it process a complicated gradient.
I wish they had quad core processors for iMacs as well.:rolleyes:
 
For the absolute best performance, you may even want to look at the macpro, but yeah, short of the macpro the 3.06GHz iMac will have the best performance.

That is weird they said you couldn't run your own files. Are there any other resellers nearby that might allow you to try out your own files?

I have heard that the new MBP chipset (nvidia mcp79 if I remember correctly) technically supports 8gb of memory, although I've heard a variety of things on the actual usability of any more than 4gb, which is disappointing because the old Intel 965 chipset macbook/pros support 8gb of memory just fine.

Another consideration is that Photoshop CS3/CS4 on the Mac are only 32-bit applications, and CS4 on a Windows machine is a 64-bit application, so if you were to upgrade to a faster Windows notebook with 8gb of memory, you'd be able to use all of that memory. 64-bit Photoshop is said to be coming to the Mac in the CS5 version.
 
That was a big help

Thank you soooooooooo much for your help.I may go with Mac pro and 8 gram.That is true, sooner or later I would go with 64bit.
Do u think they would come up with a quad core iMac after the January 9th?
I don't know what is going on on that date but everyone is talking about that very special day.

By the way happy holiday:D
 
Comments in bold below.

Cory5412 said:
For the absolute best performance, you may even want to look at the macpro, but yeah, short of the macpro the 3.06GHz iMac will have the best performance.

That is weird they said you couldn't run your own files. Are there any other resellers nearby that might allow you to try out your own files?

I have heard that the new MBP chipset (nvidia mcp79 if I remember correctly) technically supports 8gb of memory, although I've heard a variety of things on the actual usability of any more than 4gb, which is disappointing because the old Intel 965 chipset macbook/pros support 8gb of memory just fine. Where did you hear that the old Intel chipsets support 8GB of memory? I have that chipset and I'm quite interested. Anyway, the MBP can use up to 6Gb of memory per given time (this is proven on many MBPs of the Penryn and Unibody generatio). 8GB is the maximum the machine will recognize, but 6GB is useable.

Another consideration is that Photoshop CS3/CS4 on the Mac are only 32-bit applications, and CS4 on a Windows machine is a 64-bit application, so if you were to upgrade to a faster Windows notebook with 8gb of memory, you'd be able to use all of that memory. 64-bit Photoshop is said to be coming to the Mac in the CS5 version.
Click to expand...
 
Please keep in mind that i haven't actually seen it work in a mac in person, but in the land of Windows, it's very well known that the 965 chipset (this would be macbookpros with GF 8600GT, and aluminum iMacs, and macbooks with GMA X3100) supports 8gb of memory. Newegg has some 4gb modules for about $200 each.

I have seen a few threads on here confirming that people have gotten 6 (and maybe 8) working in their macbook/pros, I think the reason we haven't seen a confirmed case of 8gb in a previous-gen macbook/pro is because nobody is willing to spend that much on a memory module that might not work.

6GB is a weird number though, I suspect that it will work all the way out to 8gb. On the old 945-based machines (GMA950, Radeon 1600) a maximum of 3gb was usable because of problems in the 945 chipset, but the 965 doesn't retain any of those problems.

I don't have any links handy, but I've heard reports of ThinkPads working fine with 64-bit XP/Vista/Server'03/Linux with 8gb of memory on the 965 chipset.

Regarding quad core iMacs: Unfortunately it's unlikely, but I see no problem in waiting a few days to see what comes out on the iMac front, it's very possible that the next gen iMac or Mac Mini will be a very attractive option compared with the macpro.
 
It all depends on your workflow, how much you use filters and layers and such.
An MBP can handle 500 MB files ok, but is not going to be super fast .

With a MacPro, you can Raid and partition drives to increase performance quite a bit.
And it's pretty powerful to begin with, unlike a laptop.

Oh, and make sure to have at least 8GB of RAM on a workstation, no matter what they say . ;)

FWIW
 
8 gigabite of ram...I 'll try

How about iMac with 3ghz processor and 4 gb ram...oops but they don't support 8gb memory....
I do use lots and lots of filters and adjustment layers...I am an artist I use both color pencil and photoshop in one project to express what I have in mind.

You can see some of my works at www.coroflot.com/nileland76

Thankx for the advice
 
Dose iMac with 3ghz processor supports 8gb of ram?

Dose iMac with 3ghz processor supports 8gb of ram? will it be upgradable later?
 
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