Apple vs PC for Photo Editing

[httpwww.photo.netbarry]

On 1/17/2024 at 4:17 AM, ben_hutcherson said:

Just as an anecdote-

I don't run Adobe products on my one M1 system(first generation M1 pro) because I find it woefully inadequate for the task. When I bought it, everyone told me 8gb was fine, It's not, at least if you want to multitask while running Lightroom. I'm currently eying a 16" to replace it-undecided as to if I'll do refurb M1, M2, or go with a current M3, but in any case I'm eying the base Max config(which is 32gb RAM/1tb) and have eyed a few M1 Max 64gb models.

My Lightroom/Photoshop machines now are a 2019 5K iMac and a 2015 15" Retina MBP. I have a couple of eGPU enclosures with Radeon RX580 cards in them. One stays on my iMac, and it makes a noticeable difference in how Lightroom runs as long as, of course, I enable eGPU. With that said, It's not night and day-as an example running AI noise reduction on a 40mp X-T5 file or 45mp D850 file takes about a minute on the internal RX 570, and 30-45 seconds on the RX580. The big benefit to me to running it on the eGPU is to keep heat out of the main case.

The 2015 Retina doesn't officially support eGPUs, but it's easy enough to get one working. My 2015 does not have aa dGPU, and the Iris Pro is definitely showing its age with some of the GPU heavy stuff. AI Noise reduction takes 10-15 minutes for similar files as above, and that includes a couple of minutes just to render the preview(which is 10 seconds or so on my iMac. Adding in the eGPU gets me a preview in ~20 seconds, and 1-2 minutes to actually run it. That's slower than the iMac, but still workable especially as I don't do it on every file.

I picked up a "Trashcan"-Mac Pro 6,1-not too long ago, but haven't really played with it. It has decent specs for RAM and storage, and I have a 12 core CPU sitting here waiting for me to install. I'm expecting it may be pokey as it has the base D300 GPU, which was already a bit dated in 2013, but opted for that since the D500 and D700s, which I could have just as easily bought(I bought at a retail electronics retailer, and they had 14 of them in varying configs out, from absolute base to top of the line) have been known to have issues. Thermal management isn't the best in those computers-in a rare interview someone from Apple admitted as such shortly before the 7,1 was announced.

I know that's a bit of rambling, but it's all to say that the GPU seems to just work for me on my Macs regardless of what I throw at it. Even though I had issues with Lightroom on my M1 if I had say a browser in the background, it still was fine for GPU accelerated functions. Admittedly the last time I tried it was before the Ai NR update dropped. BTW, too, it's not a lack of use of the computer in general-I'm typing this post from it now and it's my main computer 80% of the time(the iMac the remainder at home, the 2015 Retina usually stays at work semi-permanently docked to an old Thunderbolt display). I just don't have any Adobe products activated on it.

I use an MBP 16" M1 Max.  I bought it with 32gb of ram and never had a hitch in Adobe LR or PS or FinalCut, but when I bought it, all the research I read recommended a minimum of 16GBs bare minimum for any sort of PS & Light Room.  I'm surprised you were told 8GB would work.  A refurbed MBP M1 or M2 Max with  32 should do quite well.  If I was a professional, I would probably even get 64GB, but I've done a couple of weddings working with hundreds of images and not had a hiccup so 32 GB seems to be a sweet spot for price/performance.  But you can never have too much ram, basically.

[Ed_Ingold]

PC's can still be used for editing? I switched to Apple 10 years ago, and never looked back. Editing is a business (now mostly video), not a hobby. That rules out Linux too.