Big Make My Mind Up Time - Help Please

[Combat squirrel]

Do I get:

Imac 24" 3.06ghz, 1tb,4gb, 4850, £1511 with HE discount

Mac Pro Quad Core , 640gb,3gb, 4870 - £1769 with HE discount

Now the mac pro is £258 more - but has way more hard drive and gfx update possibility , quad core also.

The Imac has a smaller form factor, has the 24" screen obviously, which I could put next to my existing 24" Dell 2407 and have duel monitors, has more ram initially and a 4850 which is a very capable card.

It will be used as a photography machine (photoshop occasionally, lightroom mostly), also web design and programming, also a main hub to store my info and data. Additionally ill duel boot it with windows xp or vista to play games on, iv missed my supreme commander action and half life 2 gameage, also want to play the new warhammer game, id say id be an occasional game player when something similar to the above games comes along. The gfx cards are good enough to play crysis as I played it on my 8800, I take the the ATI cards are faster than a 8800GTX, so thats fine with me. Both machines are limited to 8gb RAM, so thats not an issue, 8gb should just about do me for now, at least until I get whatever I get after one of those machines.

Anything iv missed ?, still stuck deciding.

 

[Combat squirrel]

Yeh there is that, however the 4850 vs 4870 in real world terms isn't massive, the quad core would be very noticable, both machines as said are limited to 8gb anyway. That extra £258 saved could go towards 8gb ram as well, I just dont know, its such a difficult desc,lol.

 

[Combat squirrel]

Look for an old 2 x 2.8ghz Mac Pro IMO. New Mac Pro's even with HE discount are terrible value for money with limited upgradeability (8GB ram max) compared to the old Mac Pro's (Full 32GB). The iMac has the amazing 24" H-IPS display going for it though, which will be better than your Dell for photo editing (Once calibrated of course), but with a 4GB ram limit. I'm not sure about you but I can quite easily kill that photo editing.

Edit: Completely missed the 'Photoshop occaisionally, lightroom mostly' part. 24" iMac then

Well the 24" imac has a 8gb ram limit same as the mac pro,yeah thought about the old mac pro, seems they have rocketed in price or are gold dust , the Dell 2407 is IPS is it not ? apparently was when I got it, considering my needs the imac for you then? Or the mac pro old version if I could get one ?

 

[Combat squirrel]

Ahh I wasn't sure if they'de upped the ram limit in the new iMacs, even better. TBH it sounds like the processing power of a Mac Pro would be lost on your needs, and the screen in the iMac just sweetens the deal I think. Plus as you say, since the pricing on the new Mac Pro's are what they are the old ones are almost unobtainable!

If you spent your life in Photoshop as opposed to Lightroom i'de go with the 08 Mac Pro purely for the higher ram limit, but as you don't the iMac should be more than capable

Hmm i think im swinging more that way as well, a 3.06ghz core2 shouldnt be to bad a processor for about 3 years?, 8gb, 1tb HD and more intial ram for £258 cheaper is attractive, however I just remembered the macpro nehlemn processor 'overclocks' itself when using 1 or 2 cores, pah swings and roundabouts, in circles we go,lol.

Iv currently been using a core2 2ghz, 2gb ram, macbook with the intel 950 chipset for about 5/6 months as my main machine, waiting on these new macs, either should be a massive jump up.

 

[Combat squirrel]

The old 8 core would be ideal if it wasnt so expensive, the only place iv found with stock is a 8core mac pro 08, 2gb ram, 2600xt graphics card for £1800 , now straight away id want to change the graphics to 4870, thats another £280 for the upgrade kit, now were talking over 2k, the 8core nehlemn from apple with a 4870 is just over 2.2k (HE discount), when were talking thousands here, £200 or so isnt an issue persay, thats like close enough to make you question weather its worth getting the old one.

Also it goes well above the 1.5/1.7k budget I was thinking of, so it makes it a hard choice