Apple Imac 27 in quad core quick thoughts

This will be short and sweet for other photographers considering this new monster.

Before I purchased this new computer and made such a serious investment I tried to research this as much as possible on youtube & several review sites as I'm sure many of you have, BUT! trying to find a "photographer" who reviewed it using Photoshop and Lightroom was nowhere to be seen. I decided that I would take the plunge. So, About a week ago I broke down and bought the new Apple Imac 27in 2.8GHz quad core & added 4 gigs to bring it to a total of 8 gigs & 1TB hard drive.

All I can say is WOW... this thing is BLAZING fast! and I have been EXTREMELY pleased with it. The speed is INSANE nothing can slow it down. I should mention that I currently use the 24 in Imac and able to compare the 2 side by side. And while the 24 inch is a duo core and works very well, I am a photographer that edits about 40 weddings a year as well as other photography projects that involve waaayyyy to much time behind a computer. I use Photoshop & several other programs everyday, all day, so speed is essential to me. On my current Imac photoshop & lightroom can cause my 24in mac to "beach ball" on several actions & other processes. I also usually have about 7-10 things going at once which takes power to run. The quad core can not be slowed down. Today, I exported about 1,ooo images from LR to my desktop in about 30mins. Old Imac about 1hour to 1:30 mins. Looking towards the future more & more programs will be out that the I7 will be ready for.

We all know as photographers how much time we spend at the computer. Editing a wedding takes as long or longer then the wedding itself. As photographers we depend on our equipment for quality of images & reliability. There is a reason a Nikon D90 is $1,000 and the D3s is $5,200. Lenses can cost $100 or $5K or more and is money better spent then on camera bodies (this is another post) like anything else many times cost is reflective of performance.

If you have been thinking about this MONSTER, All i can say is- if you spend hours a day or a week on it in power intensive programs and can justify the cost you will not be disappointed.

Screen real estate is bigger, Its brighter & has better color accuracy and startup time might be slightly faster, but not justification to "upgrade". The only reason I bought this was for "speed" and all i can say is, it may be one of the "best" work investment tools I have ever made.

Until next time,

SC