Mac vs PC

I'm Team Apple all the way. In my LONG experience in both IT and graphics, its the Mac systems that tend to have fewer problems with malware, drivers, and usability. My day job is at a Microsoft shop and I used a Windows PC daily for several years before getting a Mac (and an Intel Mac at that) and the PC was just a headache.

These days its mostly down to what you prefer and are used to. Windows users seem to accept problems as the norm (look at all of the driver issues you see just on here) while Mac users tend to demand better reliability.

My background is primarily Mac, this is my take on it.

In other relevant benchmarks (Single Core CPU) the PC seems to perform better, but I'm unsure of how this would translate to real-world Photoshop usage. Does Photoshops optimization for the Apple processors make up for its weaker raw computing power? 

By @romany36267645

As a still image editor where often only one document is open, there is only so much parallelization that can be done. I think that favors single-core performance in the specific case of Photoshop. Applications built to regularly process many images or frames at once, such as Lightroom Classic, Camera Raw, or video editors, can typically make much more effective use of all available CPU and GPU cores.

Now if we’re talking Mac vs PC, a good PC may be faster in Photoshop. Intel-based CPUs seem to be capable of higher single-core and often also multi-core performance, largely because they have a higher power budget. Apple Silicon is definitely more efficient, but that is mostly a concern for mobile or small desktop machines where there is much less ventilation and cooling. The higher Intel power budget means if you have a desktop tower PC with a high wattage power supply and great cooling, you should be able to simply pour a lot of electricity into the tower and the CPU/GPU should be able to beat just about any Mac that shows up. Also, if you expect to do much 3D, right now the Mac is not really a contender in 3D against Nvidia graphics cards for PCs.

Where Apple really shines right now is in those mobile and small desktop uses. The Mac laptops can in some cases perform surprisingly well vs Intel for intensive applications, not because the Mac is actually more powerful, but because of performance per watt: To achieve the same level of performance, many PC laptops/mini desktops need power and cooling that are not available, so they slow down either because of not enough watts or too much heat. There are some PC workstation laptops that can solidly beat Mac laptops in sheer performance, but only when they are connected to their 140+ watt power supply plugged into a wall and fans at maximum; not when unplugged.

But CPU is not everything, and when comparing them you have to carefully consider your photo work vs the GPU. For a PC, you’re choosing an amount of RAM + discrete graphics RAM. For a Mac, you have no choice of GPU except core count, and system memory is shared with graphics. But not in the same was as Intel integrated graphics; Apple Silicon is said to manage system vs graphics memory in a much more flexible and dynamic way.

This has two consequences. One is that if you have a PC and Mac with 96GB memory, the PC is really 96GB RAM for the system + whatever amount or graphics memory is on the discrete GPU; and the Mac has 96GB of memory dynamically allocated between system and graphics; so in theory the Mac has less potential memory available for Photoshop because graphics needs some.

But not always. I saw a YouTube video of an interesting edge case where a specific operation went faster on the Mac because the PC graphics card had 16GB graphics RAM, but because the Mac had 64GB of Unified Memory and the application did not need most of it, the Mac could throw much more than 16GB of memory at graphics, so it won the test. But that is an edge case for this discussion, because for photo editing, as long as there is at least 8GB available to graphics, it is rare that the amount of graphics memory would be the limiting factor. But that is an example of how Apple Silicon Unified Memory is not always a drain on system memory and can potentially make more memory available to graphics, on a Mac with far more system memory than applications need at the moment.

The other thing to keep in mind is what parts of Photoshop need what components. Many Photoshop benchmarks are a specific selection of features from a certain point of view, but if you don’t edit that way, you’ll get different results. And some benchmarks represent very traditional workflows, not fully accounting for new features in the last 5 years. For example, the more you edit using features from the first 20 years of Photoshop, the more single-core performance will help. But the more you use features developed during the last 5–10 years of Photoshop, the more the CPU/GPU cores and graphics memory matter. Specifically, Photoshop/Camera Raw features based on AI, such as upscaling and detail enhancing, denoiseing, content removing, healing, etc. are much more dependent on having a good recent GPU. And we know those features are an intensive area of development right now. For AI, graphics in Apple Silicon Macs seem to perform well compared to PC discrete graphics.

So that’s a long rambling way of saying be careful about comparisons, because of architectural differences between current PCs and Macs, and how various components are used by different parts of Photoshop.

A short version of this could be that the more your work can be on a desktop with a beefy power supply and serious cooling system, the more a PC with a high end recent graphics card might result in higher potential maximum Photoshop performance; and the more you want to get a lot of work done fast on battery or in a mini desktop, the more you want a Mac. Or, as in Trevor’s example, if your most intensive work doesn’t come close to pushing either platform to the edge, then either would be more than good enough: Then you just choose the one you like more or that costs less.

I'd search for benchmarking sites, keeping in mind that the tests may or may not be "real world" or reflective of your type of work or specific image processing operations. 

I have an i9-13900K with RTX4080,  64Gb RAM.. nearly empty 2tb 980 Pro for Scratch.

Photoshop is lightly threaded so it tends to be CPU cl;ock speed that counts.  I responded to another hardware thread earlier today, and ran Resource Monitor while performing some heavy duty funtions, and I couldn't stress the system no matter how hard I tried.  The CPU was peaking at 50 to 60% , but RAM, GPU and drive activity was basically zero.

Even if Photoshop and maybe Illustrator will be your main use, go ask about hardware on the Premier Pro forum

Check out the Hardware links

The platform is irrelevant. They are both highly optimized and efficient for Photoshop and other Adobe software. That's just down to what you prefer.

In terms of reliability, a more important distinction nowadays is form factor. A laptop is always more risky than a modular desktop system, because there will be many layers of vendor modifications targeted at consumer applications, and this tends to get in the way of advanced applications like Photoshop.

I can only speak for Windows, but you will see here in the forum that 99% of users with problems are using laptops.