Desktop Recommendation (Mac)

[gan_esh]

Hi all,

 

I'm contemplating getting a new Mac desktop.

 

Firstly, my current setup:-

 

MacBook Pro 17" Glossy (4GB RAM), EiZo CG241W LCD Monitor, Wacom Intous3, LaCie

250GB Firewire 800 external 'scratch' hard drive. Software I often use are Corel

Painter X, Adobe Photoshop CS3 & Lightroom, Nikon Capture NX, Canon DPP,

PhotoKit Sharpener, PhotoZoom Pro 2 (interpolation). Printers are Epson 3800(K3)

and 4800(Piezography K7). Monitor calibration is X-rite.

 

I work with files from 12/16 MP Dslr's and some med-format scans. Heavy

photo-editing alternating between Lightroom, CS3 and Painter X constantly,

followed by int. Many layers involved and sometimes file sizes go into the GB

region.

 

I'm actually reasonably satisfied with my current laptop....still I plan to get

a new Mac desktop when Leopard is released before year's end, after which I will

relegate the laptop to location painting, tethered shooting and presentation to

clients. The Eizo will be migrated to the desktop.

 

I'm currently looking at the Mac Pro. What specs would you guys recommend. I

expect to be working with a 20MP+ Dslr in future and will probably purchase a

24" printer. Plan to experiment with Fractal generation software. Maybe get

another monitor, if I have cash leftover or at a later time.

 

I know what you buy today will be obsolete next week, but I expect to use this

new setup for at least 3-4 years, with maybe a Ram upgrade in between. I can't

give a budget because I live in Singapore and I'm not familiar with US/UK

pricing. Please recommend something you think will be adequate....I don't grow

money in my garden and I'm not working for Pixar/NASA. I don't want to spend

more than I have to.

 

Is the quadcore CPU option overkill? 4 or 8 GB RAM? Video Card(s)? Will RAID be

useful for my purposes and if it is, do you think the high-cost is worthy?

 

If you guys have the time, try http://www.apple.com.sg/store/ ....It's the

Singapore website. I'm hoping I can get something between 7k-10k SG$ (including

Apple Care, Bluetooth, Keyboard...no monitor).

 

Thanks in advance. Appreciate the advice.

 

Cheerz!

 

P.S... Can someone explain Xsan and XServe RAID to me, please. I apologize for

being an idiot.

[mike sisk]

I'll leave comments for desktop Mac recommendations to others.

 

But as for the Xserve RAID and Xsan software -- basically, if you don't know what they are

you probably don't need 'em.

 

The Xserve RAID is a storage system that attaches to a Mac Pro, Xserve, or other third

party system with a standards compliant fiber optic interface called Fiber Channel.

 

Xsan is a software product designed for managing storage setups involving multiple

servers/workstations and multiple Xserve RAIDs on a Fiber Channel network.

 

I can go into more detail if you want, but it's fairly complicated stuff and quite expensive.

 

-Mike

[godfrey]

Gan,

<br><br>

For still image editing with Lightroom and Photoshop, the gains from going to quadcore

systems are small. For video editing and sound rendering, yeah: they make a big

difference. <br>

<br>

My current system is a Power Macintosh G5 2.0Ghz DP with 3G RAM and twin internal

500G drives, striped into a one-volume RAID. Attached to it, I have a pair of 500Gbyte

external drives (backup system), Intuos 3 graphics tablet, Apple Cinema Display 23", and

the usual host of card reader, screen calibrator, printer, and other gizmos. It proves a very

reliable, very serviceable system with adequate performance to handle my work load

(several hundred new exposures per week, organizing, adjusting, processing, printing,

etc).

<br><br>

Were I buying a new system today, I'd buy a similar Mac Pro with CoreDuo 2 processor, 4

Gbytes RAM. It would be twice-three times as fast on certain things.

<br><br>

Godfrey<br>

<br>

<i>You are invited to view my work and the work of others online at the </i><br>

<a href="http://www.pentaxphotogallery.com" target=new1> <b>Pentax Photo Gallery

</b> - www.pentaxphotogallery.com</a><br>

[gan_esh]

Godfrey,

 

You stated, "and twin internal 500G drives, striped into a one-volume RAID."

 

Could you please elaborate. Does it mean RAID-1.... Also, what's the difference between RAID 0 and 1? Is there performance to be gained compared to using the second HD as a 'scratch disk' without RAID?

 

With regards to RAID, I'm more interested in performance. Back-up will be handled by my external Firewire 800 HD.

 

Cheers.

[godfrey]

First let me be perfectly clear that I'm not an expert on RAID ... I find it easier to work with

a single large volume as my primary drive system than with multiple partitions, and find

disk access speed to be more important than mirroring security since I already do a pretty

thorough job of backup, thus my choice of using a RAID 0 type environment. <br>

<br>

"Disk Utility" is Mac OS X's supplied disk formatting/configuration/managment utility. It

supports several RAID configurations, depending on your needs. The following information

is copied directly from the Disk Utility application help under "Creating A RAID Set" ...

there are several other topics.

<br><br>

I find I get better performance and more reliable operation out of my system when

configured this way. Perhaps configuring Photoshop to use an alternative hard drive as the

scratch space would be better in some situations ... I've tried that but don't see any

noticeable difference in performance for the kind of work I do.

<br><br>

Godfrey

<br><br>

<hr align=left width=30%><br>

"Some applications, such as video processing, require fast access to large amounts of

information on disk. Other applications, such as those that track bank transactions, need

to ensure that information isn't lost and the system continues to operate if a disk

fails.<br>

<br>

Using several hard disks, you can create a RAID (Redundant Array of Independent Disks)

set to optimize performance and increase reliability in case of a disk failure.<br>

<br>

To create a RAID set, you need two or more hard disks. When you create a set, you specify

the type of RAID set that corresponds to the requirements of the applications you will use

with it:<br>

<br>

- Mirrored RAID Set (also called RAID 1) duplicates files on each disk in the set. If one disk

fails, the other disks still have a continuous backup of the information. You may also be

able to continue processing transactions.<br>

<br>

- Striped RAID Set (also called RAID 0) stores files in segments ("stripes") across all the

disks in the set. Striping improves the performance of applications that use large amounts

of data.<br>

<br>

- Concatenated RAID Set uses several disks or volumes as if they are one volume.<br>

<br>

You can combine different RAID sets in order to combine their benefits. For example, you

can create a RAID set that combines the fast disk access of a striped RAID set and the data

protection of a mirrored RAID set. Simply create two RAID sets of one type, then create a

RAID set of another type, using the first two RAID sets as the disks. The RAID sets you

combine must all be created with Disk Utility in Mac OS X v10.4 or later."<br>

<hr align=left width=30%><br>

<br>

[gan_esh]

Thanx Godfrey,

 

I'll check Disk Utility and Wikipedia to see if I can learn more.

 

The RAID Card option is a pretty expensive one, though.

[christopher hartt dallas]

I had similar considerations to yours and I bought a MAC Pro recently for several reasons. The (2.66) quad processors really do speed up CS2 a lot and CS3 somewhat. The 64-bit architecture of the Xeons - although not currently supported by Adobe PS - is the likely platform in Adobe's next release of PS. I bought a "basic" MAC Pro with the 1Gb of RAM and after a LOT of research, bought 4 more Gb of Apple Certified RAM from www.macsales.com for about 45% less than from Apple. PS3 can address only about 3.4Gb of RAM at this point, but if you have more it will result in less use of scratch disk. The really big reason for a MAC Pro is that it's so easy to upgrade RAM and internal hard drives (4 bays). Buying one of these machines seems like a good bet for having a machine that will work nicely for the next 5 years as is, or with some easy DIY upgrades.

 

BTW, I understand you already have a monitor, but if you're thinking about upgrading, the 23-inch Cinema displays are very nice with the MAC Pro. With the standard vid card (dual dvi) you can use 2 of these which is nice for PS with one for tools and one for the image.

[gan_esh]

Christopher,

 

Thanks for the advice on the monitor. I don't want to brag, but I don't think the Apple Cinema Display is an upgrade compared to my Eizo. Go to the Eizo website to see what I mean. It cost me a bomb. I've used ACDs before and the Eizo just works better, especially when it comes to soft-proofing.

 

You mentioned, "The (2.66) quad processors really do speed up CS2 a lot and CS3 somewhat"..... I thought CS3 would run faster than CS2 since it's Universal Binary designed to run natively on Intel Macs, that's the case with my current Macbook Pro.

 

Cheers.

[jt]

CS3 is already faster.

 

The quad cores will maybe speed up CS2 more than they will speed up CS3 because going 2>4 cores will move CS2 from 1 core (1 being taken up with the Rosetta emulation thing) to say 3 cores (I'm not sure how multi-threaded PS is), but CS3 will be 'upgraded' from already using the full 2 cores to say 3 cores (50% increase in speed instead of 100% increase in speed). Simplified example but hopefully explains what Christopher meant.

[patricklavoie]

heres my setup as a pro...do what you need with the info if it could help. ; )

 

MacPro Quad 2.66

 

4gig of RAM (dont buy from Apple, go see ramjet)

 

RAID 0+1 (4 internal 250gig, offer speed like a 3ghz, and the security by backuping itself)

 

500gig Lacie USB2 external hard drive to bring home my work in progress EVERYDAY.

 

Video card that come with it (NVIDIA GeForce 7300 GT)

 

2x 23inch Apple Cinema Display

 

Wacom Graphire 4 6x8

 

Battery backup that offer 24min of backup power in case.

 

Nice, comfy, made for long sitting chair with mesh back.

 

Klipsch Sound System (nothing to do with my work, but make itune very very interesting will i work ; )

 

Epson 4800, Photo Black, Epson Luster Paper.

 

Adobe Design Suite, Lr 1.1 and all the other software you may need...

 

I work 50+hrs a week with that setup, file that are around 100meg to 1.2 gig everyday, without waiting for anything.

 

hope that help.

[christopher hartt dallas]

Gan,

 

Oh I agree, the Eizo is a great monitor. We have 2 of them here on PC's along with a LaCie and several Sony UltraSharps. My preference for the Cinema HD is probably just psychological on the MAC Pro. It seems to be easier to calibrate with the MAC and it's "pretty." Originally I was thinking about getting another LaCie display, but didn't think the extra cost was justified.

 

And yes, ditto on Jonathon's response about CS3 already being faster.