mac configurations opinions?

[rande]

I guess to upgrade to CS5 we need intel Macs.
We have 2-G5 right now. I wondering what are best configuration would
be for our shop? Just want to see if anyone would care to give an opinion. What we can get by with
or should we go all out for the future. Funds are limited with the economy right now. What to make the right decision.
We're a commercial shop 2- 40" and 28"
We don't do much design work.
We manipulate PDF (pitstop) and Illus. but basically just preflight and slap them in a layout.
Haven't bought equipment in along time.
Should a shop like ours go with:
the Quad-Core or 8-core; what the difference the Quad has 2.66GHz and the 8-core has2.26 standard; which is faster?

Memory: we don't want to hang up in Illus or Photoshop or Acrobat/Pitstop.
what would be a reasonable for that? 16GB? and aagain what would be the difference between the quad and 8-code?

Graphics Card:
We preflight large Illustrator/photoshop/acrobat files and don't want to get hung up. What's a reasonable soltion here. What should we think about when deciding?

We want speed. If we need to keep the cost down we need to righ configuration to easily expand them.

thanks
Rande

[seratne]

Unfortunately Apple sucks (hardware choice wise). The mini is too small, the iMac comes with a built in display, and the Mac Pro is way too much machine and expensive.

You'd actually be in pretty good shape with the Mac mini. As long as you went with the one with 4GB of ram. The iMac display is supposed to be a better than average screen, so that's an option too.

I wouldn't go with the 8 core Mac Pro. Nothing will take advantage of it.

I don't really understand why people always ask about the graphics card when they won't be gaming. Yes it was an issue in the early 90's and OS7, but now any graphics card will get things done and you won't notice the difference between a $20 card and a $400 card if you're not playing Crysis.

[mattbeals]

I'd say the 8 core at 2.26GHz. The 2.66GHz will be faster, but modestly so for the amount of money. I'm not sure you'd need more than 12GB of memory, and that's a ton of memory. Most apps are still going to be 32 bit. Then I'd get the ATI card, it's pretty fast.

Even for "future-proofing", so to speak, a workstation for 3-5 years I'm not sure it's worth going to the 2.66GHz or 2.93GHz. The RAM, video card and drives can always be upgraded later as needed. It would be nice if Apple made the 10k RPM SATAII drives available...

[Lukas Engqvist]

I don't really understand why people always ask about the graphics card when they won't be gaming. Yes it was an issue in the early 90's and OS7, but now any graphics card will get things done and you won't notice the difference between a $20 card and a $400 card if you're not playing Crysis.

PhotoShop does use graphics card, since CS4… and who says he's not gaming to lett off steam after dealing with customers

Oh and the OP poster seems he could use any Mac. We have gone with iMacs for layout and consider them ok for that. Calibrating an iMac does require special software, but there are other posts dealing with that. If you do serious colour management, then you would want a good monitor, prefereably hardware calibrated, and if you're willing to go that far then a MacPro is reasonable.

Note that if your output resolution is fixed, then there is a limit to how much information can be printed. We are reaching the point where the limits in resolution is the physical media and the mechanical process. The hardware with the shortest lifespan is probably going to be your monitor.

[rande]

Is the Apple Care Protection worth it?

[Santa]

It was when I brought in my Imac with a fried hard drive and logic board. $900 repair done in a day covered by Apple Care, not bad ROI for a $150+ investment.

[mattbeals]

AppleCare is always worth it.

[Mark]

What about the quad core iMac with 16gb ram?

[rande]

thanks everyone; good stuff
See what the bosses say now.

[mattbeals]

You'd be hard pressed to use 16GB of RAM for most of what we do. I can think of a few server apps that can use 16GB, but you'd need multiple instances. And really, if you're going to spring for 16GB you might as well go for the extra 4 cores. At some point you are going to want to repurpose the machine or take advantage of some new application that can use multiple cores.