I would definitely consider trying Lightroom on it before you commit, if possible. Sometimes Macs have trouble running Lightroom, sometimes Windows computers do - it's luck o' the draw... I'd hate to see you buy a new computer, then have to revisit this forum and add to the thread: "I just bought a new computer but Lr4 not running so good on it..." - chances are that won't happen, but ya never know til ya know... Maybe Adobe knows whether the odds for success are better on Mac vs Win - but I sure can't tell... (I use win7/64, and Lr4 is fast on it, but it does crash sometimes - Lightroom I mean, not the computer).

The only signficant difference, functionally, is that the Mac version of Lightroom does not support keyboard accelerators for plugin functionality. That's a "don't care" if you don't use plugins much, but for me, it's actually quite a big deal, since I use dozens of plugins in the course of my work.

Rob

I was under the impresion that Windows 32 bit PC's coudl not use more

than 4 gig RAm, where MAC's can use any amount?

If that fact is true, it immediately puts MAC's in a leading role for

using LR4 as it demands so much RAM.

Choosing 64 bit Windows instantly opens up new problems, such as

incompatible drivers and programs unsupported

FUD? Sorry I don't know what that means. I'm just trying to help.

The problems you described as "new" were valid five years ago, but hardly so today unless a wouldbe upgrader has some irreplacable hardware or some obscure software that hasn't been updated in five years.  I know of no current 32-bit Windows applications that won't run on 64-bit Windows with the only limitation being that they can use no more than 4GB of physical RAM, no matter how much is available. Actually that is stil 2GB more RAM than they could use on 32-bit Windows.

acresofgreen wrote:

 

To my great satisfaction LR 4 works perfectly and is really fast. 

Good to hear.

It seems to me that, on average and relatively speaking, the newer higher-end computers have more trouble running Lightroom than the medium-end (although maybe it's just that the people with new computers complain more when it's not working well).

4GB of RAM is enough if you aren't editing in Photoshop with a slew of layers at the same time... 6GB is better, but more than that doesn't help much. I ran Lr2&3 with 3GB ram for a long time, without much problem, as long as no other RAM hungry apps were competing.

Lr4/PV2012 rocks! (if its running well, and after you learn it).

Welcome to the fold .

Cheers,

Rob