I’ve used version 2 of Aperture which was deathly slow on my old iMac core 2 duo and basically gave up using it. Now with the latest release of the new iMac’s I’m planning a new purchase and considering the 27” iMac with the core i7. I’ve thought about ordering with the SSD but I’m a bit unsure on the long term reliability of the current SSD’s and if it’s really worth the cost to speed gain. I’m also thinking of 8 GB of memory and 2 TB HD
Photography is my hobby not a professional venture and I tend to keep my computers for min of 4 yrs.
Any suggestions would be great!
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What Hardware to use with Aperture 3
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Good to hear. I think pretty much all the new hardware will run the pro apps pretty well. Good luck and have fun! :D
I can’t speak to having any knowledge about the speed of SSD but I have learned a couple tricks to gain some speed back.
There are a couple of tweaks you can make to the Mac OS and to Aperture to help maximize the speed as much as possible. Turning off “New projects automatically generate previews” is a big help. I have also found that keeping the size of the window a bit smaller helps as well. I also have a little widget that kills the dashboard when I am running aperture, and I close all unnecessary apps as well.
Couple these things with the fast graphics card, a fair share of ram and keyboard shortcuts and you can blast through images.
Here’s my update, I’ve got the new iMac ordered to the 16th Aug arrived on 23rd Aug
27” i7 with 2 TB and 8 GB. Absolutely no speed issues, this thing ROCKS! With Aperture 3 it’s a difference between night and day from my old iMac duo core2 and Aperture 2.
I was thinking about the same topic…here are my thoughts. The processor/ram are important, but more important is the graphics card. The way Aperture loads previews and processes raw files has a lot more to do with the graphics card when it comes to speed of your work. The i7 will sure be fast enough and 8Gb of ram should be plenty to run Aperture in 64bit. The SSD is a nice option and will make your OS and applications run faster but you said photography is your hobby. So the question becomes do you want to spend $700 on a hobby? I don’t know that your going to gain tons of speed from it to see the result worth the $ investment. That said, an i7 will give you at least 4 years worth of computing…
Thanks for the reply, I totally agree about the SSD, nice option but not really worth the $600-$700 option, if I was to spend the extra it would be better off spending on memory, but then again I’ll stick with the 8 GB and upgrade the memory when prices drop. I will be getting the 1 GB 5770 video card (my wife will be happy with the less expensive option!)
I totally disagree about RAM being a better upgrade than SSD. I just went through this with adding a Corsair SSD as the system drive, and moving all data, less Aperture library to the old system drive.
“Breath taking” is the best description I can find. $300 or so for a mount and 100Gb SSD drive is not only worth it, it also yields a much larger benefit than a ram increase.
Full post in detail here: http://photolifetoys.blogspot.com/2010/12/lightning-fast-aperture.html
David,
Thanks for sharing your observations. The SSD is impressive, no doubt.
-Joseph @ApertureExpert
@PhotoJoseph
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The issue with SSDs is not their speed as the MacBook Air proves that they can make an average processor appear impressive. The issue is their lifespan as they are only certified for a limited number of writes. Some people are suggesting using Ram disks for frequently written data. If you want to keep your Mac for 4 years then an SSD might not be the best idea.
Having said that, if you have a MBP that could do with a performance boost, an SSD might be a really good idea. Hmmm, do I know anyone like that?
Considering the speed boost you get from the SSD (as Jamie pointed out, even the MacBook Air is impressive, and I can attest to that personally!), as long as you have a reliable backup, I’d say it’s well worth the risk. Every time I have to wait for my iMac internal drive to spin up, I think about it.
-Joseph @ApertureExpert
@PhotoJoseph
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