I'm going to have to get myself in debt for a new computer as this one is getting old now and starting to play up. It's been a good PC though and with it's pen 4, 3GB ram and 512MB graphics it's always been fast enough. But by today's standards it's getting slow.

So I've been doing some searching around and I'm either going to build myself a PC to a good grade or go for the Mac pro.


Will be using the computer mainly for CS3, lightroom, C1 pro and DXO and browsing the net (Only clean sites mind! BTW what is the anti virus like on macs?  ) . Sometimes the first layer in photoshop is 50MB in size so need some processing power.

I've found Kingston 4GB RAM for the MAC Pro for £107 on DABS, so I should be able to have 10GB RAM (buy 2 4GB RAM packs + the 2GB it's shipped with) so this is swinging me in favour of the MAC.

But the mac also falls down on something compared to windows based PC's

I've done allot of looking into Macs over the past couple of days and thought I'd share what I've found (Mac users will more than likely already know this) for anyone thinking of changing.

iMacs are great but your stuck with what you've bought. Only thing you can do is upgrade the RAM to 4GB. Integrated Graphics card is already out dated.
So that's the iMac ruled out for me, although they look great and I like the space saving.

Mac Pro (post 2008)
Out standing machine, to many plus points to list.
Bad points (for me), lack of options for graphics cards. Would like to put something better than the 8800GT but not as expensive as the NVIDIA Quadro FX 5600 (just under £2000)
And what may seem a small thing but has pished on my fire is the lack of 5.1 surround sound input. You can do it but you have to buy a deck like the MOTU 828mk3 which comes in at around £750.
I've invested in a good quality surround sound for watching DVD's, listening to Floyd and playing games.

I really want the Mac Pro as having shed loads of RAM would be great for photoshop, Adobe Premiere PRO etc. But I will miss the benefits of PC's.

So what would you do?

I had a play with leapord today with CS3. It was on a mac pro and it sailed through stuff I'd normal call a coffee brake.

Right anyone got a couple of grand they can lend me?