1D mark III or New Computer??? HELP!

OK here's the deal, i have been saving alot lately tryin to save about $3000 to buy a 1D Mark III or a Mac Pro. Well now the time has come to make my decision and I'm torn.

I've been editing on a PC with lightroom 2 and photoshop CS3 and it is SLOOOW! It makes me HATE editing pictures, like I really dread it! So I thought about getting a Mac Pro, which should be an adequate computer for about 6 years. (I'll be waiting till the end of March to get this as the new mac pros are coming out supposedly on the 29th)

But I REALLY want a 1D Mark III too. REALLY BAD.... Please someone tell me what I should do!

Buy a used 1D2 or 2N. Build your own PC.

If I were on a tight budget there is no way I would buy a current digital camera body when they lose 60-70% of their value in 4 years. A 1D2 will get you very close to the 1D3 feel and you won't lose so much. Buy a 1D3 when the 4 is current.

Computers aren't much better. I wouldn't suggest a new Mac to someone on a budget. You can get both a camera and a fast computer if you buy a used body and build a PC. (BTW I love my MacBook Pro so I'm not suggesting against it, but there is a huge markup for what you get.)

I just bought a new Dell Inspiron 531s for $500. My old PC had a gig and a half of RAM and was a 2.4 GHZ processor I believe. The new Dell is dual AMD athalon with 3 gigs of RAM. The speed of editting pics is night and day. If you're wanting a Mac, then you're going to pay the premium for it. Me, I will stay PC (as I also prefer my PC over my wife's macbook), with the low costs, and I'd invest in the 1D3

I'm not sure what the specs are on your current PC, but you could get the 1D Mark III and either:
a) upgrade some hardware on your PC, or if your current PC is too old to bother upgrading individual components...
b) look at purchasing a new PC in the $600-$700 range

I'm not sure how intensive the editing is or what you're doing, but you probably don't need a Mac Pro for just single image file editing with Photoshop...large batch processing or video editing maybe.

Although the Mac Pro is quite nice...

But see, the computer I am editing on now is a Sony Vaio with 2 gigs of ram and dual core or whatever... it's only like a year old. I don't want something that is going to be outdated in 2 weeks!

And the 1D Mark III's price has dropped ALOT... I could pick one up used for ~ $2700

6 years might as well be 100 years when it comes to computers...I wouldn't plan on keeping one that long and not scream when its slow editing 50mb pic files by then. The Mark III has come down to around $2600 or so and you can get a decent computer that will last at least 3 years for $500-600. You could get last years iMac for around $1100 on Ebay. I use it and its great with Aperature 2. Hard to justify $3000 for a computer unless I edit pics for a living.

Perhaps you can swap out the CPU for a quad?
I've got a Quad chip in my home made PC and it runs fine.

No need to spend that kind of money on a Mac Pro tower.
I mean it's a nice Mac...salivating in fact...but pricey.

DallasPhoto wrote in post #7345121
But see, the computer I am editing on now is a Sony Vaio with 2 gigs of ram and dual core or whatever... it's only like a year old. I don't want something that is going to be outdated in 2 weeks!

And the 1D Mark III's price has dropped ALOT... I could pick one up used for ~ $2700

You can get a PC or a laptop for so little now. Really, I saw some 4GB RAM ones at Costco just now with $200 off and it was around $800 for a 17 inch beauty. The MacBooks are expensive still, unfortunately. I bought my 5D II instead of upgrading the laptop. If you've been saving all this time for a new camera, buy it! Then save for the computer.

Ok ok so I admit, the Mac PRO is a bit overkill... Everyone loves overkill!

That said, what about a macbook pro and running a seperate monitor, keyboard, and mouse instead and just save a little more and get a 1D Mark III. I can get a macbook pro for under $2k

Can you go to 4 gigs on your current laptop? You'll want to get the RAM upgrade on the new one anyway. That may very well be your limiting factor on your current machine and would leave you plenty of money for a camera if you just can put in another 2 gigs of RAM.

>>what about a macbook pro and running a seperate monitor, keyboard, and mouse instead and just save a little more and get a 1D Mark III

Isn't that like $6,000? Double your current budget, which you don't have yet?

+1 for building your own PC.

I built my desktop and run vista 64bit, 4gig ram, 2.4ghz quad core (overclocked to 3.4ghz :P) an 8800GT and a fast 640gb harddrive. It's a really quick computer and runs games brilliantly, it cost me a little over £500 to build (+ £170 for a 22" widescreen samsung moniter)

If you build it yourself you'll have the best of both worlds because you'll have a PC as fast or faster than a mac pro, + a 1DmkIII with a little saving (or settle for the mkIIN.)



Good luck!

I dont know the first thing about building my own PC though!

TheHoff wrote in post #7345449
>>what about a macbook pro and running a seperate monitor, keyboard, and mouse instead and just save a little more and get a 1D Mark III

Isn't that like $6,000? Double your current budget, which you don't have yet?

Macmall . com has macbook pros starting at 1400 or so... I would have to save like another $1000

DallasPhoto wrote in post #7345679
I dont know the first thing about building my own PC though!

Honestly it is very very simple. as long as you can use a screw driver and plug things in then you are good to go!

Another vote for build your own PC. My PC cost me $1000 in parts. Quad core, 8GB of ram, four 750GB hard drives, etc. Equivalent Mac Pro: $5,649.00

DallasPhoto wrote in post #7345695
Macmall . com has macbook pros starting at 1400 or so... I would have to save like another $1000

Oh OK that is a blowout special on the older model. No big deal as there isn't much performance difference between those and the new Unibody models. Definitely add in the extra 2 gigs of RAM otherwise you're at the same memory limits of your current machine (aside from OS X's "different" way of handling memory / swap )