In a pickle! Mac Pro [Rosetta]

[Ezekiel]

DarkSpartan,

Tests show that a RAM filled Mac Pro is about the same speed in photoshop as a dual core 2.3 G5. You are getting a machine that is blazingly fast with rosetta and a machine that will get faster as time goes by, how many PCs can brag that?

Please, do the right thing and keep your amazing system!

As for being "as fast" as the xps 700, it will be as faster or faster than the base model, right up too the C2D extreme edition (which is overclockable too) which will (although having 1 less processor and two less cores) be slower until its universal.

All in all, it's arguing between frikken fast and frekkin fast

 

[gnasher729]

So here's my question. Is my Mac Pro using Rosetta still a better / faster option than a Dell XPS 700 with like specs?

Try finding a Dell with the same specs for anywhere near the price of the MacPro. You won't. You see, Dell are sneaky bastards. They will sell you a dual core Xeon chip. But there are two kinds of Xeon: The 50xx is the old Pentium 4 based chip, enormous clock speed, enormous heat, but no performance to show for it. The 51xx is the new, Core 2 based chip, which beats the crap out of the old chips; you can expect a 2 GHz 51xx to beat a 50xx at _any_ clock speed.

But now comes the tricky bit: Even if you find a Dell with a 51xx chip and survived the heart attack that you will have when you see the price, that is only _one_ chip. The Mac Pro comes with _two_ dual core chips for a total of _four_ cores. And once you add that to the Dell, you are starting to wonder what these guys are smoking.

The only way to make the Dell look a bit cheaper is buy adding the $1500 NVidia card to the MacPro, which is just plainly overpriced. On the other hand, Photoshop doesn't care what graphics card you have; and even the cheap $75 graphics card will let you use two monitors.

As others have said, Photoshop using Rosetta is about as fast as on a good G5 machine. When someone posts that professionals wait for Universal versions of their software to appear, that applies only to people who already have a high end G5 machine. Replacing it right now wouldn't gain them much if all they use is photoshop. On the other hand, if any of these G5 machines breaks down or gets stolen, all these professionals will buy a MacPro immediately.

 

[gnasher729]

Something I read on a PC forum was that Macs aren't upgradeable beyond memory.

People have already upgraded MacPros to dual quad-core processors (8 cores at 2.4 GHz each), and have installed almost 5000 GB of harddisk space insided a MacPro (one tiny 250GB harddisk plus six 750 GB ones). Apple will sell you a MacPro with four video cards installed, so you can run eight monitors if you know where to put them. Apart from that, no, it isn't really upgradeable.

 

[floam]

.

 

[RichP]

Im not saying all PCs are junk, but the one time that you have a major issue with a PC, that time wasted will be more than made up by the efficiency and stability of OSX. OSX isnt perfect, but overall, its a much better environment.

Also, with the MacPro, there is always bootcamp and parallels, if you want to run windows as dual boot or emulated. You made a wise choice, and realize that a "mid level G5" is still a pretty screaming fast machine.

Also, you may want to invest in some 3rd party RAM and boost it to 3-4 GB. From benchmarks, Rosetta works better with lots of memory. I have 6GB in my G5, and lots of ram is lots of fun!

 

[ljones]

I'm a avid mac user and i see things are very much so one sided in here. Be real, Macs have issues too. And if you never experienced them, consider yourself one of the lucky few. I have to admit i have far less issues on my mac than my pc laptop, but I mean it varies. i know designers that are happy with a PC, it does what they need.

So it's personal preference. You are learning, pick what is best for you and most cost effective. If anything you can upgrade to the mac pro later.

Shortcuts, and other time saving measures can be done on a PC, hell they not that much different. Don't try to push the mac because you personally are loyal to them. I'm a mac user, but the truth is get what works best for your situation. The Mac pro WON'T make you design any better. It's like any tool, the work is only as good as you use it to create it. And the Mac pro is a professional level machine, most design shops use them, and most use PC's, so it's best to have knowledge of them both.

 

[chaosbunny]

Most "designers" that use a pc and are happy with it are the ones that are also happy with word clip art.

To the op, just keep the mac pro. If the adobe cs experience under rosetta is not what you expect, you can still boot windows and use it there natively. The major advantage of the mac pro is that it can run both Os.

No matter if you prefer Os X or Windows, if you are serious about becoming a designer you more or less have to know how to use a mac. They have macs in most advertising agencies/design studios, if you apply for a job there and do not know how to use Os X it is a huge minus. I'd go as far and say it would not matter how good your portfolio is, because there are 100+ designers applying for the job and you won't be the only one with a good portfolio.

As Art/Creative Director, who would you hire? Someone with talent who does not know how to operate your machines or someone with talent who does know how to operate your machines?

 

[bearbo]

for all of you who kept on deviating the topic from the comparison between the speed of dell running photoshop and its apple counter part... he does NOT need advice to use boot camp just so he will buy apple (i do know all you meant no harm)
i believe his original quote was

Also please don't tell me to use BootCamp for a year. I might as well just by a PC if that's the case.

okay.. someone will kill me for this..

 

[ljones]

Skills comes over who can work a mac or pc. I work faster on a Mac, i can do the same things on a PC, just takes a little longer because for me the PC workflow is crappy.

I highly doubt that would be the deciding factor. When well over 80% of the web viewing audience is on a PC. You will need that PC for testing. Not to mention some products on the web are PC only, not the macs fault, but it is what it is.

I love my Mac, but be real, the PC is very much so part of the design field. Even if i could do it all on my Mac, technical limitations force you to use them both at some point.

 

[apfhex]

I love my Mac, but be real, the PC is very much so part of the design field. Even if i could do it all on my Mac, technical limitations force you to use them both at some point.

Well, if you're talking about web design, yeah. Although now you can just run IE in Crossover, No Windows Required. If you're talking about print design, well, from what I've seen PCs play a pretty tiny role.

I think all the good arguments have been given already. But yeah, if you already have the Mac Pro, seriously just keep it, there's literally nothing you can't do with it, from a software perspective (and the hardware ain't bad either).

Also, with the MacPro, there is always bootcamp and parallels, if you want to run windows as dual boot or virtualized.

Fixed. If you want emulated, get a G5 and run VirtualPC, oh that'll be "fun".

 

[zap2]

You could use Adobe products in Windows on the Mac Pro, and for the rest of you apps use OS X, then come x86 Adobe Products for OS X, buy them and get to work using only OS X


And I know you said your don't like this idea, but I can understand why not...Mac Pros can be cheaper then their Dell brothers(even more so when you get to high end computers), and you still get OS X when it comes around, and Xeon chips in your Mac Pro are not "old" in a year, they still will be very fast(the chip of the first of the Core type chip, your not going to get a major change like that for a while)

And you can always upgrade the chips in your Mac Pro

 

[2ndPath]

Something I read on a PC forum was that Macs aren't upgradeable beyond memory. Is that something from the past that no longer applies to the Intel based chips? Looking at the guts of my MP I can't imagine it's not upgradeable.

The Mac Pros and the Powermacs preceeding them always had lots of options to be upgraded. This forum was probably refering to the Mac mini and iMac, which only have a limited upgradability. And of course Apple laptops are limited in that respect, but that's pretty much the same for laptops from all manufacturers.

 

[peas]

it's almost scary to see so many people blindly following each other. brand loyalty and naivete seem to go hand in hand here on mrf

 

[timb]

Just to add my two coppers worth in here...

I echo the sentiment of the others. Keep the Mac Pro. Worst case scenario you can install CS2 under Parallels+XP or dual boot into XP, but for what you're doing Rosetta should be fine.

 

[m3henn04]

I went through this same ordeal when choosing to buy a new computer for video game development and 3d-modeling. I looked at the Dell XPS700 and, and the PowerMac; at the time the MacPro had not been released. I also needed to be able to run XP in my case for when I program with Visual Basic .Net. I looked into a fully upgraded iMac and the Dell but when the MacPro was released it is what fit my needs and my budget. The best thing about the MacPro is the ability to dual boot. I know you can dual boot a pc into linux or vista preview but you still dont have the ability to boot OS X.

The Dell XPS 700 is definitely more expensive in the long run when compared to a MacPro but having owned a PowerBook G4 for a few years now I definitely notice a reliabilty factor. PC's I have had in the past seem to get slower and outdated much faster than Apple computers. Yes my mac has crashed but I dont have to worry about viruses, spy ware, annoying popups, and the infamous blue screen of death that comes with windows.

I was also able to use the software that I already owned (Adobe Premium Suite CS, Quark Express, Macromedia Studio 8, Maya 7) with the new system. So all this forum is saying is that you should go with what you are used to and what you like. Small design studios tend to use PC's because you can get a PC's cheaper than a mac but your larger studio's almost always use Mac because of their reliabilty and speed in the design world.

Go with want you want but I would recommend that you stay with the MacPro. These horror stories that you might read about Adobe running in rosetta can sometime be exaggerated. I mean what difference does it make when it takes 1 second longer to save or copy. If your deadlines are that tight or you are procrastinating too much then that is what you need to change...not your computer.

 

[Bugnacious]

Here's an Idea...........

Here's an Idea...........

Enjoy the MAC it is a far better operatin g system than any current version of PC software - get used to the MAC OS and take advantages of all the great things that it offers. There is so much useful stuff built into the Operating system out of the box.

Besides - get some techy friend to do the HARD YARDS 4 u on the Window's front and install boot camp beta to run Window's - then use the Adobe CS on there!

Voi La!

No more problemo!

Sounds like u bought a sweet machine - I wouldn't trade that for any PC!
I have similar with less capacity, but u sould think yourself luckyto be at Uni and have purchased such a high spec machine!

spoil yourself - get a bigger screen and enjoy the bliss of the MAC OS!

PS. I have used both OS's professionally & was very happy to be able to go back to the Mac & still be able to run window's via dual boot!