PC or Mac or Lightroom Classic

[scottl39258098]

I have a 5 year old Dell laptop with Windows 11. I'm finding LRs new denoise is brutally slow on it. I feel although it has lots of ram and a good processor, the graphics card is old. Getting close to needing an upgrade and I'm wondering if it's time to go to a Mac? The new MacBook Air 15 inch with M2 and 16 GB ram is expensive, but may last longer than a PC laptop.(my daughter uses Mac and they seem to operate trouble free for years. )

Any advice from actual users would be great!

I also have my photos and catalog on a Samsung external hard drive and work off it.

Thanks!

scott

[dj_paige]

This is not a PC vs MAC issue. The graphics card is the problem. A newer graphics card, with lots of speed and lots of memory, will solve the problem. Nvidia 30 series or Nvidia 40 series seems to work well.

[scottl39258098]

Thanks but what I'm wondering is now that it's time for an upgrade is PC or Mac best for LRC? It seems from what I've read Macs tend to last longer but have a higher up front lay out. So need guidance from people that have used both😊

[dj_paige]

Many people run LrC successfully and without problems on Windows. Many people run LrC successfully and without problems on Mac. 

Some people have problems running LrC on Windows. Some people have problems running LrC on Mac.

So when you say "I'm wondering is now that it's time for an upgrade is PC or Mac best for LRC?", again I point out that the solution to your problem about slow denoise has nothing to do with Mac vs PC. Either will work and run denoise quickly with the right hardware. Are there other reasons that have nothing to do with LrC why you might want to choose Mac vs PC? Probably, but that's off topic here in the LrC forum.

[Conrad_C · Accepted solution]

I’m a long time Mac user, but they’re right, the platform is not as important as the actual hardware. It is possible to spec a great or terrible Mac or PC. A properly specced Mac or PC can run Lightroom Classic very well and do AI Denoise in around a minute or less, and if you dump a lot more money into it, a Mac or PC can get that time down to under 20 seconds.

The 15-inch M2 MacBook Air that you mentioned is a good (not ideal) choice for average graphics/photo work incluiding AI Denoise. The Air is great at short bursts of performance, like editing one image at a time in Photoshop or Lightroom Classic. One thing that would push someone to a MacBook Pro would be work that maxes out the processor for more than a few minutes, like building hundreds of Lightroom Classic previews or extended video editing/effects sessions. The reason is that the MacBook Air has no fan, and the Pro does have them. If the Air is given a job that keeps the processor at maximum temperature for more than a few minutes, it will need to slow down to stay within temperature limits.

Also, if I was buying a 15-inch MacBook Air that I wanted to work well for 5 years, I would max out the memory at 24GB. On Apple Silicon Macs, GPU memory comes out of system memory, and Lightroom Classic prefers at least 12GB on its own for optimal performance. 16GB will probably be fine for most things, so if you’re budget limited, go with that. But if you want to ensure enough memory for Lightroom Classic, plus macOS, plus graphics acceleration, plus any other software you want to run at the same time, and account for rising memory requirements, consider more than 16GB. (I chose a MacBook Pro with 32GB, but that’s because I do tend to keep several big apps open, and sometimes do processor-intensive video editing/effects.)

What an Apple Silicon (not Intel) Mac is really good at right now is power efficiency. If it is very important to work on battery on graphics/photo tasks for much of a work day, a Mac (especially the M2 Air) is a good choice because Apple Silicon generally needs less power than Intel for comparable performance. If you buy a PC laptop and need to run it on battery a lot for pro work, make sure that model doesn’t slow itself down too much on battery, because many do. Also, the more powerful the laptop graphics card, the more likely a PC laptop will have to drop graphics performance on battery, if for example the graphics card needs to draw 100-150 watts. (The fast-charge AC power adapter option for the M2 MacBook Air is just 70 watts, the standard adapter is 35 watts.)  This difference is less important if the laptop will be used on AC power most of the time, because PC laptops with the most powerful GPUs tend to have large, high-wattage AC adapters.

[scottl39258098]

Thanks Conrad! This is the most complete and helpful explanation I've ever found. The reason I'm looking at Mac as my 2 PC laptops near the end of their useful lives, is weight, battery life ,heat and screen quality. I'm a hobbyist but will be retiring soon, so want to get a laptop while I'm still earning good money that will last me at least 5 years. For editing, there is no problem working with it plugged in and connected to a larger external monitor. But for taking on the go, looking at my photos and classifying them for future edits at home, I want it to be light, long battery life and cool on my lap. I also use an iPad and iPhone, so having everything Apple makes certain sense. I'm a little worried about the lack of ports but there must be adapters. (External hard drive and large monitor?) Now I wonder if my 26" Dell monitor will connect to a Mac but I'm sure I can find that out online.

Lightroom is such a popular program there must be a Mac users forum out there as well I should look to for the mundane question😊 Thanks again for your thoughtful reply!

scott

[Conrad_C]

A couple more resources you might look into are the following YouTube channels, which regularly test performance of various models against a range of applications including Lightroom Classic and Photoshop, using the same tests for more consistent comparisons even across different videos.

ArtIsRight — good for comparing different Mac configurations against each other, from a still photographer’s point of view.

MaxTech — good for the videos comparing Mac and PC laptops running the same tests side by side, especially when he unplugs both before starting the test suite to see how long each model’s battery lasts. They started including AI Denoise in some of their tests, but in the video where they compare a MacBook Air 15" to an 15" LG Gram of the same price, they compare only the bulk export time.

[scottl39258098]

You are being so helpful! Thanks again.

Any ideas where I can see how working from an external hard drive like Samsung T5 1 TB affects developing speeds? I know it takes a while to build previews but I'm ok with that😊My catalog is on it but maybe I need to rethink this work flow

[Sean McCormack]

Only you can answer that I'm afraid. When I changed from a 2015 Intel iMac to the Mac Studio, the difference was phenomenal. Not an incremental change, but an order of magnitude. I still got 7 years out of the old one, and it's still in use for admin and occasional editing. 

The new tools do need a lot of video ram to work efficiently, so it's worth spending as much as you can afford to make the machine last longer.