New computer for Premiere iMac vs PC (price)

G

GreenJacketMedia

Member
I am finally ready to upgrade my laptop editing system to a serious desktop rig. I have always disliked macs, but the wife loves them so I resigned myself to Apple. I wanted an i7 with at least 16gb of RAM. When I went to the Apple Store I found the cheapest way to get this was in a 21.5" iMac for $1900. I did a quick google and found an ASUS with a faster i7 and 16gb of RAM and a larger hard drive for $900.

Is there any real reason I should pay $1,000 more for an apple vs a PC. Please tell me there's some huge noticeable difference in rendering speeds or something!
 
Yeah, polemic debate between PC and Mac.

Many people prefer pc workstations because they can achieve similar or superior performance at lower prices compared to macs. However, because macs are built with parts that are specifically designed to work only with Mac parts inside a given assembly (as opposed to the PC generic parts assembly), some people would suggest that macs are more stable and slightly more efficient. I cannot corroborate this efficiency opinion because I don't have extensive experience with anything other than macs.

Also, in the past, PCs were more susceptible to viruses than macs. Most of the world uses pc, so hackers tended to code viruses for mass damage...therefore targeting PCs. I'm not sure if this is still the case, though.

This is a contested debate, and it's worth mentioning that PC merely stands for Personal Computer and Machintosh's fall into this category as well. The debate is more correctly stated between operating systems (Mac vs Windows) taking into account the closed architecture of apples products and the generic assembly often achieved with computers built to run Windows operating system.

I jumped on the 2014 Mac Pro bandwagon because I wanted to use FCPX with the dual GPU configuration. However, if the IMac isn't offering dual GPU's, this is a moot point. Also, there are people out there doing amazing things with so called "hackingtosh's".

In the long run, I think it's just preference, what you can afford, and something that will do the job for you...for like, 18-30 months. Although I'm sure others may have differing opinions that may be more valuable/helpful to you :)
 
All I can say is I have a 2009 MacPro that is used extensively every day, and it's chugging along without any warranty claims or servicing whatsoever for nearly six years now.
 
I like my Mac and it works well. It's not any faster or better than a PC equivalent, but I'm happy to pay extra for the operating system and design. Put simply, I like using it more so I bought it. You should do the same, whichever way you tend to lean.
 
David Saraceno said:
All I can say is I have a 2009 MacPro that is used extensively every day, and it's chugging along without any warranty claims or servicing whatsoever for nearly six years now.
Click to expand...
Ha, me too. And mine was bought from the refurb store. Still is my workhorse edit machine. Through the
years, I have upgraded to 16 gigs of RAM, put in a new video card, 3 hard drives (making myself a RAID)
and a internal Blu Ray burner. Those old MacPros were something with how easy they were to expand.
I may even try to just pop a new CPU in this one as it is possible to do that as well.
 
FWIW - just purchased an iMac 2013 with the 3.5 i7 - GTX780M - 16g Ram
Moving from a MacPro 1.1 - FCP7 to Adobe Premier CC on this new iMac
added a BlackMagic Mini Monitor for SDI-HDMI playback & a RS Thunderbolt docking station for all the JBOD's that cycled in and out of the MacPro.
so...
In Premier I'm getting realtime playback in "Full" from Red 4k
ProRes HQ is a breeze
Davinci Resolve is solid
Both apps use the Mini Monitor
Exports are lighting fast.
Very solid workstation.
 
David Saraceno said:
All I can say is I have a 2009 MacPro that is used extensively every day, and it's chugging along without any warranty claims or servicing whatsoever for nearly six years now.
Click to expand...

I can say the same thing about an HP desktop from 2007. I am happily color correcting on this machine as we speak - no plans to upgrade anytime soon.

Longevity is not an Apple exclusive.
 
I am leaning toward biting the bullet and getting the iMac. It just hurts so much. I very much dislike MacOS. One thing I really do like about Macs is the resale value is tremendous. I was looking at buying a used iMac, but they almost cost as much as a new one.
There are two things really making me lean. 1. My sister-in-law has a spare license for Adobe CS6 full suite. 2. I have $300 in Apple gift cards I received for Christmas. I think David said it best. Happy wife, happy life.
 
Ha, me too.
Click to expand...

I wish I could say the same. Mine is starting to go south. I've cycled over to a 2013 Macbook Pro rather than address the problem.... but someday I may try and resuscitate the Mac Pro.

I'd say at this point it owes me nothing.
 
David Saraceno said:
All I can say is I have a 2009 MacPro that is used extensively every day, and it's chugging along without any warranty claims or servicing whatsoever for nearly six years now.
Click to expand...

Same here. My 2009 8c 2.93Ghz is still a solid machine. I dropped a USB3 card in it the other day and an SSD earlier last year which gave it some more life. I'll upgrade at some point, just no reason to for a while still. If I'm still in 1080 world...as long as this computer doesn't croak on me, I'll probably have it for years still.
 
IndyFilmPhreak2014 said:
I can say the same thing about an HP desktop from 2007. I am happily color correcting on this machine as we speak - no plans to upgrade anytime soon.

Longevity is not an Apple exclusive.
Click to expand...

Logically I know this is true, but it's hard for me because my wife has went
through 3 PC's and my brother 4 in the same time period I've had my Mac.
They are not teasing me about spending too much money on my Mac anymore.
My guess is that Macs tend to make only 'upper end' expensive computers while
with a PC you can get very cheap (so maybe more cheaply made?) stuff. If
you are only concerned with price and get the cheapest PC you can, you may not
be getting the quality that you would get if you spent a little more on a PC.
I would guess there is a 'sweet spot' and it's probably still cheaper than a Mac
but I wouldn't be trying to buy the cheapest PC you can find.
 
My HP xw8600 dates from 2008, has 2 x quad 3Ghz / 24gig / q4000 /Aka 2Ke / SAS storage and is the heart beat of my facility running Avid DS, in the last month on it;
- finishing and exporting a MoW
- conformed / tweaked an Indie feature
- edited /graded / Mo GFX 5 x national commericls
- conformed / graded / exported 2 trailers for indie features

All on a now 6+ year old machine that was built to go to war in 2008, and works like it to this day

I own three newer z series HP machines as well, running Nucoda, Resolve and Avid Symp, all with Nvidia Quadro GFX cards, all with Aja I/O cards (and a BMD I/O card in the Resolve station)


I use a MBP for my lappie and have a 2012 MP at home running Resolve and MC with a q4000 and BMD I/O, so i have no real bias either way, the the HP gold support is far and away the best support there is for machines that you depend upon for delivering work… no contest in the real world

Not really cheaper than a similar config of Mac, but mission critical support is in a different ballpark

And the current trashcan will not render Resolve timelines and there is a zero support to help the folks there.. the only answer is to dual boot into windows and run Resolve from there...
 
Hi

I have had success building / speccing machines with removable drives. For instance a C:\ drive that can be swapped. Then you have a multi drive editing station for yourself and by swapping in a Mac drive it boots up as a Mac. This provides physical separation from everyday computing and your carefully setup editing machine. Even if you bought a PC you could make this change without too much trouble or have it done. Then you get fast PC and editing for yourself and Mac OS for your wife. The plus is you don't have to worry about dual boot or corruptions.

Good Luck
 
I edit on a quad core i7 Mac Mini at home and a quad core i7 Windows 8.1 box at work. The mini has 16GB of ram and the pc has 8GBs. Both are fast enough for what I edit which is typically HDSLR footage or older HDV footage or just general AVCHD footage. It would be difficult for me to spend $2000+ on a computer for editing. Mostly because I never have. The sweetspot is around $800-$1300 for me. But I'm not cutting RED footage, nor have I moved into raw yet.

I will say though that generally I prefer MacOS. I've also gotten clients that have handed me FCP projects or expected mac formatted hard drives for the finished videos I've made them. So this is still generally a mac-centric industry, even for those that aren't using FCP. So at the very least it's good to have one around just for those situations.

That said, there is a lot of bang for the buck on the generic PC front. I'll probably build an editing PC at some point in the next two years running Windows 10 (which seems to have some mac os like features in it). The problem with using something like a mac mini is that it's all integrated graphics, so I can't use apps like Resolve and I'm growing ever tired of Apple taking away user upgradability on their machines. I've heard you can't even upgrade the ram yourself on a lower end iMac. Although I'm not certain of that. The same is true of the new Mac Minis. So my only upgrade path after my current mini is either a high end iMac or a Mac Pro. I really don't want to spend $2000+ on an editing computer when I can build a cheaper PC with as much upgrade capability as I want. It's easier for me at least to buy a new part here or there than drop $2000+ on a new machine all at once.
 
I rolled my own editing PC after the FCPX rollout debacle and have been happy with both the performance and stability of Windows 7.

Have upgraded the GPU several times as newer ones came out. Works great.
 
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