I recently upgraded my camera to a Sony NEX-FS700 which was a massive improvement in quality and performance over the DSLRs I had been using (read my review here). But since I spend the majority of my time working on my computer, be it editing, grading or the day to day running of my business, I thought it was about time for an upgrade in computer horsepower.
I’ve always been a massive fan of Macs and have been using them for years. I love them for their simplicity, reliability and well, let’s face it, they’re pretty sexy machines. The biggest difference I found when I moved from PC to Mac in the mid 2000s was that I was no longer clenching my jaw and fists with the frustrations of a Windows OS. My mac just did what I wanted it to do and NEVER asked me if I was sure I wanted to do it. Final Cut Pro became my editing weapon of choice and pretty soon I became a machead, laughing in disgust at anyone still wearing out their alt+ctrl+delete keys on their hourglass-riddled PC.
The truth is I have been long overdue an upgrade. As I did a lot of traveling, I had moved away from my iMac and carried out most of my work on my Macbook Pro. It was portable, reliable and packed a reasonable amount of punch. However, time and technology moved on and the demand for computing horsepower increased. Rendering became an unacceptably long process and the need for an upgrade was obvious. So I looked to Apple. Where else?
Portability was no longer a requirement as I had thrown down the anchor in Wellington, New Zealand. So that narrowed it down to another iMac or a Mac Pro. However they didn’t really promise a big improvement in power from my macbook pro. This was in October 2011 and all of the machead sites rumored an imminent upgrade to the Mac Pro and iMac lineup. So I waited. Patiently. Meanwhile I had moved from Final Cut to Premiere Pro due to Apple’s sudden shift away from professional editing software with Final Cut Pro X. That really annoyed me. But I gave Apple the benefit of the doubt and continued waiting for their next Mac Pro or iMac which would be a glorious ray of sunshine. I continued to wait for months until at last there was confirmation of an Apple announcement on June 11th 2012. Oh the excitement. By this stage it was by far the longest cycle between a Mac Pro and iMac update. Alas, the day came and they announced… a 15″ Macbook Pro with retina display and soldered RAM. Hmmm. No mention of the iMac and a pathetic update to the Mac Pro which remained grossly over priced. I instantly thought the unthinkable… PC.
Bang for buck there can be no question that the PC route gets you much more for much less. The problem with Apple is that they give you no choice in hardware such as graphics card or RAM, and the hardware that they do give you is mediocre and massively overpriced. So a friend of mine helped me build a PC from scratch. This way I would have a choice in every single piece of hardware and could tailor it to be the ultimate render machine.
So here’s the basic comparison between the PC I built and the best Apple could offer at the time:
PC:
- 3.4GHz Unlocked Quad-Core Intel Ivy Bridge Core i7 Processor
- EVGA GeForce GTX570 SC 1.2GB Graphics Card
- 16GB kit (4X4GB) Kingston HyperX High Performance 1866Mhz RAM
- USB 3.0
- 2TB 7200RPM Internal HDD 6Gb/s hard drive (space for 8 hard drives in total)
- 128G Solid-State Drive
- Blu-ray Writer/Reader
- PRICE: NZ$2,898 (US$2,348)
Mac Pro:
- 3.2GHz Quad-Core Intel Xeon processor
- ATI Radeon HD 5870 1GB Graphics Card (unsupported by CS6 GPU acceleration)
- 16GB RAM (4X4GB)
- USB 2.0
- 2TB 7200RPM Internal HDD 3Gb/s hard drive (space for 4 hard drives in total)
- 512GB Solid-State Drive
- DVD Writer/Reader
- PRICE: NZ$6,825 (US$5,528)
So there it is. The Mac Pro is nearly two and a half times more expensive than a custom-built, higher spec’d PC. This is nothing new of course but it still begs the question of why should I pay more? Is this a case of paying more for a brand? Well yes, but you are also paying more for the OS which remains superior. However, I have been using this PC for a month now running Windows 7 and I couldn’t be happier. I have had no issues at all and the speed is just mind blowing.
Apple have built up a loyal customer base of creative professionals over the last decade or so but are clearly concentrating more on the consumer mobile/portable device market today. The release of Final Cut Pro X and the lack of significant updates to their pro line of desktops confirm this. And who would blame them? They are making the vast majority of their money from iPhone and iPad sales. I guess it’s just a pity they couldn’t split their teams more evenly to provide top quality consumer AND professional computer devices.
Please feel free to share your thoughts on the infamous Mac vs PC debate…
