lightroom better on mac or pc?

Hello,

I was just wondering, does anyone have a sense of whether the MAC version of lightroom runs better than the PC version, or vice versa, given equivalent hardware? Often highly advanced programs are optimized for one or the other... I would bet that it runs pretty well on both, just wondering if theres a difference.

thanks!
Ben

This kind of question could instigate some spirited debate in here but it has more to do with the power and speed of your Computer...LR is resource hungry so RAM is important
get as much as you can worry more about CPU s and RAM and displays colour management etc and as you will find out soon both options have strengths and weaknesses and both can do the job equally well given a skilled operator....
My personal taste is for Mac as i find it more robust but at a trade off for versatility....

I went from a Duo 2.4 Ghz PC laptop with 4 gigs of RAM running Vista 64 to a Macbook Pro, Duo 2.4 Ghz with 4 gigs of RAM. Very close in spec... the Mac had faster RAM by virtue of being 9 months newer but not much else separated the two laptops. They used the exact same 7200 RPM WD Scorpio Black drive.

Without a doubt, for me, the Mac exports from LR to PS faster than the PC. Saving and closing and going back to LR is also faster on the Mac. I'm not sure whether the actual running of LR is faster, it is likely a toss-up, but the new MBP does use the GPU for accelerating the rendering in both programs.

Vista 64 runs PS in native 64-bit mode so it has the win there.

Thanks a lot for your replies. So it sounds like they are probably identifical, give or take a few things here or there --- what about time for loading previews? I know they improved this significantly with their memory enhancements in version 2... wondering if there is a difference between mac and pc on this front... i would guess its neglible.

Given that the hardware is nearly identical these days, look at the drive subsytems for your answer... if you can swing the 128mb SSD (solid state) in the Macbook, it will scream for loading previews. The GPU of the Pro helps with rendering.

I'm sure you could spec out a Lenovo or Toshiba that matches or beats the Macbook for hardware and price but then look at the differences in operating systems. Which are you used to? Have you tried both? I'll not get into the subject too much as it is quite a testy one, but I've found OS X to be much better at memory management, not leaking, and smoother at keeping more things open.

I've been a windows person but I am considering converting due to ways in which OSX is superior in certain ways (memory management may well be one of them)...

bowlesbe wrote in post #6765788
I've been a windows person but I am considering converting due to ways in which OSX is superior in certain ways (memory management may well be one of them)...

I'm just speaking from personal experience and not from reading a review, so I don't know if I'm technically accurate, but OS X seems to manage a lot of programs open better than Vista-32 or x64. It seems to park the applications that are getting used the least and free up the memory much more than Vista would; whereas Vista you could feel it going to the swap file, OS X hides that much better. 4 gigs of RAM of OS X feels like 6 with Vista.

And the new Macbook unibodies are just plain sexy. It is whisper quiet and cool when not under load and the fans are barely noticeable when they do kick in; as opposed to my Asus that sounded like a jet taking off.

Look up "Carbon" vs. "Cocoa". Adobe has some interesting things to say about this.

I don't know... the mac sounds pretty good but... geez... I also must admit it must be pretty sweet to have a computer that sounds like a jet engine (NOT!)

Just buy for whatever your main platform is.

I think it would be fair to say that I'm "between" platforms... not sure if you can get nerdier than that... and as such lightroom may bias which way i go

Intel Macs do enable 64but processing in LR2 ...
Just thought i would mention that...

Computers:
-3.2ghz Intel Quad, 4gb RAM, fast HD drives, XP Pro
-MBP, 2.4ghz, 2GB RAM

It seems that LR is a bit snappier in switching between photos and modules. It may be because I don't have any other apps installed, but, I'm sure its the OS that makes it much quicker. But, I will give credit to Vista 64, it was a little quicker than XP Pro.

sboerup wrote in post #6773730
Computers:
-3.2ghz Intel Quad, 4gb RAM, fast HD drives, XP Pro
-MBP, 2.4ghz, 2GB RAM

It seems that LR is a bit snappier in switching between photos and modules.

Are you saying here that the Mac is snappier? or the PC?