Right now she uses Windows 7 Pro. We can't stay on it long-term because of security (and eventually driver) issues.
Migrating to Windows 10 (non-enterprise) isn't an option because the forced updates are an unacceptable risk to downtime, especially at certain points in her business calendar (e.g., highschool yearbook photo season).
We may end up migrating to a new Mac Pro, but it won't be because the hardware is awesome. Truth be told, it will likely be overkill for her needs, and definitely overpriced.
We'd migrate her business to a Mac Pro because OS X doesn't have Windows 10's problems, and because we can probably recover from a hardware failure quickly due to the system's expected modularity.
> Photoshop and Lightroom are essential tools
Those are in the cloud now, and performance is mostly based on your GPU.
>Truth be told, it will likely be overkill for her needs, and definitely overpriced.
>We'd migrate her business to a Mac Pro because OS X doesn't have Windows 10's problems
This is insightful, thank you.
>because we can probably recover from a hardware failure quickly due to the system's expected modularity
Every hand-built PC will be just as or more modular though. If that's your concern, look at, say the Mac Minis with the RAM soldered in, I love Apple industrial design but don't like how hard it is to upgrade the hardware, generally.
There's one number to call, and they'll repair any part of the machine up to and including swapping out the whole thing. Anyone buying a machine that expensive they really need would(and should) be looking at 24 hour turn around on site service anyways.
And the only way to really get that is to buy a whole prebuilt machine from $BIGCOMPANY
What graphics professional isn't assembling their own rig though? $3k is a LOT of money to spend on a desktop.
I'm old enough to remember dedicated SGI workstations, and a decade ago I felt OSX had some advantages in graphics, I can't think of any of those that exist today, at least to justify such a huge markup on parts I could buy myself.
I'm generally curious, I feel like I'm missing out, people that would consider paying $3k for a computer made out of easily-obtained components, why is it worth it to you?