Advice would be appreciated

Hi. I am currently working on a mac mini, using Adobe CS2. Recently my workload has increased so that the mac mini is struggling to cope with the work I am pushing through it. I do a lot of Photoshop work at a high zoom rate on images up to 400mb with many layers; plus I do a lot of magazine layout work in In-Design and often have to have Photoshop and InDesign open/working at the same time.

I am looking to upgrade but would appreciate advice on the following issues:

I have been considering a new Mac Pro with 2GB Ram, 250gb and 500GB HD OR a 24" 2.8Ghz imac with 4GB ram and 1TB HD

1. Which of these would you consider is my best option?
2. Will CS2 run okay on the Intel processor
3. As all new macs come with Leopard installed, will this cause problems with CS2?
4. If Intel and Leopard are likely to cause problems, I might have to look at a second-hand mac - any recommendations?

I look forward to hearing your thoughts.
Thanks.

I am not certain but I think that CS2 for mac will run slower on an Intel mac versus a Power PC mac. This is because the code is not optimized for Intel processors. Maybe someone else that uses Photoshop more can better answer that. I think either machine you are looking at would be great, but, if you get the next step down 24" iMac you would still have plenty of power and you could upgrade to CS3 (which is optimized for Intel processors) with the money you save. I hope this helped, good luck!

CS2 is equally as fast on a Dual 2.3GHz G5 and Quad 2.66GHz. So, I'd assume that the Quad 2.5GHz G5 would be faster when using CS2. CS2 is optimized for PowerPc computers so it needs to be emulated on Intel Macs, thusly slowing it down.
Photoshop on an Mini isn't something I'd recommend anyways. I'd just to CS3 and iMac but that'd be kind of expensive.

Welcome to Mac-Forums, Manster.

CS2, which by the way isn't a Universal Binary application, has to run under the Rosetta emulation on an Intel-based Mac so, unless you have a powerful machine, you will notice a lag in performance.

Also if you get a new Mac, it might very well come with OS X Leopard 10.5 pre-installed on it and CS3 has been performing erratically: Adobe promises updates in early 2008 according to an announcement they published on their website.

So pick your poison. ;D

I hope this helps.