Buying Advice

I've been a mac user for 3 years now and must say it was the best switch I ever made. I have a mac pro (I believe it's the mid 2006 version) - basic setup. I have never really understood the inner workings of a machine, I just put my trust in the fact the pro would do the job for me and it did. I thought pehaps I might end up adding to it and upgrading but it never happened. I work as a freelance designer and have pretty basic needs from it. Photoshop is open pretty much all day, on a slightly more tasking day perhaps a small flash animation or reasonably small print document (30 pages). On my worst day I might have a DVD of home movies someone wants me to rip, edit down the videos and add them to their website. That's it. Sometimes I play games in the evenings with my friends such as World of Warcraft.

About 2 months ago my graphics card died on me, I was a bit heartbroken as the machine I thought to be the invincible beast had apparently fallen over at last. I began to look for a replacement (and someone to fit it, because as I said I know nothing about how the inside works) and struggled, as most places told me that the graphics cards weren't made for it anymore. I found someone with an old one and snapped that up so I could continue working. However I am still experiencing problems as the new card is evidentally actually quite old and overused.

So rather than looking for another card I began wondering if it might be time to buy a new machine. That way I can repair the old pro as parts pop up on ebay that look decent and have it as a backup machine to a new shiny mac. As one thing I learned the hard way this time is things look quite grim without a backup. Luckily I had the cash to grab the quick repair but I don't want to be in that position again. So I automatically looked at the new pro but since then I have been quite seduced by the new imacs.

My question is, with the work I do what is going to be the best option for me:

21.5 imac (3.33GHz Intel Core 2 Duo + 8gb ram + ATI Radeon HD 4670 graphics with 256MB)
27 imac (2.8GHz Quad-Core Intel Core i7 + 8gb ram +ATI Radeon HD 4850 graphics with 512MB)
Or the basic mac pro

I suspect the pro should be ignored as I didn't upgrade the last one and likley wouldn't with this one either. That is unless someone can suggest a reason why given my needs it would still be the better buy? Is the 27 overkill for what I need?

I was also wondering - I'd read that applecare doesn't need to be taken until just before the 12 months is up (I didn't take it at all for the pro). Effectively giving 4 years coverage, is this correct, or a I misunderstanding?

Any help would be greatly appreciated. There are no mac stores around this area just some PC World's and I'm worried if I ask this kind of question in there they might just try and oversell to me. So any help people can give me would be genuinely appreciated.

I'm going to give a heretical answer, but first on Applecare. You can buy it anytime within the first year, but waiting doesn't give you any longer coverage.

As far as advice on a new computer (here's the heretical part). I'm assuming you probably already have a pretty good monitor and keyboard, are you sure your needs wouldn't be adequately served with the latest generation Macmini?

2.53GHz : 320GB
2.53GHz Intel Core 2 Duo
4GB memory
320GB hard drive
8x double-layer SuperDrive
NVIDIA GeForce 9400M graphics
Mac OS X Snow Leopard
Ships: Within 24hrs
Free Shipping
$799.00

One thing to check, depending on what size display you have, is if the Macmini can drive it. I don't have the 30" Apple Display, but I seem to remember seeing somewhere that not every Mac was capable of driving it. Going from memory here, and couldn't find anything about it at the Apple Store web site.

Ah thank you for the answer on the apple care, it doesn't seem like I'd gain anything by waiting then.

I'll be honest I've never looked at the mac mini because I presumed it was below my needs. Would it run photoshop, indesign etc without issues? If so it might be worth the consideration.

lupin84 said:

Would it run photoshop, indesign etc without issues? If so it might be worth the consideration.

Click to expand...

The only question would be speed. I have a new Macmini but my own processing needs are minimal (other than playing around with Aperture). The reviews I have seen rate the performance of the latest generation mini as being on par with the higher end Macs of just a few years back.
My gut feeling is unless you are working with large files and doing intensive processing is would probably handle what you want pretty well.

The best reccomendation I have is that you do another post in the Digital Life section and detail what you are doing and let the Professional Photographers and Graphics Artists weigh in on how much processing power you need, and whether the Macmini would work for you.

Went back and looked at some reviews and the current Mac mini ($799 version) has equivalent performance to current MacBook and about 20% behind current base iMac.
Coming from a 2006 model (even a Mac Pro) to a 2010 mini I'm not sure you would see any performance loss.

Hmm it's interesting, it would appear to run what I want. However I don't really just want to match my performance with an upgrade, I'd quite like to beat it (seeing as it's 3 years on from when I bought the now broken pro). I think perhaps the mini might be an idea for a cheap backup though. It's something I could easily afford a month after buying a new imac or pro. So I'll keep that in mind, thank you. It would also make a fairly portable machine too.

So the question stands, 21.5, 27 or basic pro? I'm still leaning toward the maxed out 21.5, but I do wonder if for a bit more money the 27 will wipe the floor with it.

For what it's worth, you can add ram, you can change out Hard Drives, you can replace keyboards and mice. But you can't change the screen size once you've purchased.
If my main usage was for graphics processing and editing and my work area accommodated the larger display, I would be buying all the screen real estate I could afford.

I am shocked that you can not find a card for the Mac Pro. The Mac Pro should run for years more. I would give apple a call and ask them as I swear there was a Mac Pro card upgrade released sometime ago.

Actually I just checked and that is for the newer models. However, I am pretty sure apple can get you a new one if they can get me a British PowerBook G4 keyboard in Japan they can get you a mac pro card!

I haven't tried apple directly but a couple of resellers locally tried for me and told me it wasn't possible to order the cards for it anymore. However whenever I mention this to anyone online I get this kind of shocked response. If I'm being completely honest I'd hoped at the money I spent the pro would have lasted much longer too. I can only say that I do use it a lot, most days and a lot of evenings it's on doing either graphic related work or gaming. Maybe I just loved it to death.

I will try giving apple a call tomorrow however I don't hold out too much hope. As far as I'm aware (although maybe someone can correct me) only 3 cards fit this machine and I think that's where the problem stems from, there's just a lack of options.

Razormac - I hear it's possible to plug a second display into the imac too. I don't know if that is only the 27" but I did get a bit excited at the possibilities there!

They all come with a mini-displayport, and with the adapter can be hooked to an additional display. Have done that before with my MacBook and MacBook Pro.

One thing not already said here.

If you get an imac. Then (since you already own a screen) could do a dual screen setup. Just make sure the screen you already have can be used as an external with the version of imac you want. And since you doidn't upgrade your Mac Pro much then an imac with little upgrading might just suit you.

Just make sure you take a good look at the graphics card and GPU memory as that is fixed in place and can't be edited as you know. So get the one that bests suits you needs.