Should I wait untill intel chips hit to switch?

Alrighty after typing a lengthy post and accidently middle clicking my tab i'm going to try this again!!

Ok I am a graphics design student wanting to switch over to the mac side. I need to buy a workstation by this fall but i'd like to switch asap. but with the intel chips on the fringe should I wait to see a price drop? if so how much do they usually drop?

I am looking at either:

G5 dual core 2.0ghz
1gb ram (soon 2gb more 3rd party ram)
250gb hardrive (soon 2 or 4 drive raid arrau @ 1TB)
23" cinema display

or an apple refurb G5 dual 2.7ghz
512mb ram
250gb drive
23" cinema display

both totaling around $2200 for the tower and $3300 with the display (no discount on refurbs

Should I wait and see if the Quadcore will drop to 2300-2500 (with discount)??.

I really dont want to wait untill the end of summer but if it means nearly cutting my time in half for rendering and encoding then I will wait. (though I do 95% photoshop / illustrator)

Well since most pro apps aren't even available as Universal binaries yet (Photoshop doesn't even have a shipping date), I'd say go with a PowerPC machine if you need to really use it this year...
Even when the apps do start shipping, quite a few things might be slightly wonky in the first year of the transition, whilst the PowerPC stuff just works beautifully now.

cool thats what I was thinking, plus I didn't want to pay for the pro upgrades lol

So should I get the refurb now before its gone or hold out for the quadcore and hope it drops to 2300-2500 (with discount)??? I am new in the mac world so I don't have an idea of how they lower their prices at all.

That refurb machine sounds like a monster, and I would say go for it but I dont know how apple discounts things. Somebody else on here should know, I havent been in the mac world long enough to know how they work. I will say that if you get that refurb you should put a gig of ram or more in it as well. For a monster like that to only have 512mb of ram would be a shame, but I also know how money works and that might not be possible right of the bat.

Apple's prices tend to be fairly steady...
Whenever they release a new product, the old ones are sold off in the refurb section, but the price reduction isn't huge...
The only reason I see for considering the quad over the 2,7 is the PCI-express ports in the quad vs. the PCI-X ports the 2,7 has. (PCI-X was only used by apple,)

If you need it for the fall, hen I'd wait until Auust to pick something. Not only will the Pro apps hopefully be Intel-native by then, but if you decide to stick with PowerPC, the prices on those machines will go down even more. Who knows? Maybe you'll be able to get a Quad for the price range you're looking at.

Abrodzinski said:

G5 dual core 2.0ghz
1gb ram (soon 2gb more 3rd party ram)
250gb hardrive (soon 2 or 4 drive raid arrau @ 1TB)
23" cinema display

Click to expand...

I know a guy who teaches a broadcasting class and uses five of these and there great. I'd say only wait for the Intels if you want to pay less.

Cool, I think i'll go with the dual 2.7, it seems to be the better deal.

What is PCI-X ....is it compatible with all current PCI express cards/accesorys? or just a faster version of PCI?

Although I just checked their refurb page and the dual 2.7 isn't available right now....hopefully it will be soon

After looking into the benchmarks the Quad G5 STOMPS all over the dual 2.5's and 2.7's, doubling performance over a dual 2.5 in creative apps....now comes the hard part....should I wait or spend that hard earned cash..... :/

Go for this one. And if you do decide to wait for the intel version... You may want to wait for Version 2 of the Intel machines. Just my opinion.

Abrodzinski said:

Cool, I think i'll go with the dual 2.7, it seems to be the better deal.

What is PCI-X ....is it compatible with all current PCI express cards/accesorys? or just a faster version of PCI?

Although I just checked their refurb page and the dual 2.7 isn't available right now....hopefully it will be soon

After looking into the benchmarks the Quad G5 STOMPS all over the dual 2.5's and 2.7's, doubling performance over a dual 2.5 in creative apps....now comes the hard part....should I wait or spend that hard earned cash..... :/

Click to expand...

No PCI-X isn't compatible with PCI express.
But most cards aren't mac compatible (yet) anyway, since apple just introduced PCI-express on the powermacs.
There are a number of PCI-X cards for the powermacs though...