A photographer asks - which iMac to get?

[RemarkabLee]

I thought that would be the case going forward, so thanks for elaborating.

Do you know if the "old" technology (i.e. ATI Radeon HD 2600 Pro) will be able to take advantage of the way that Snow Leopard and other apps will use the GPU? Or will only the new nVidia GPU chipsets be able to do this?

Finally, this is off-topic but may be of interest - could one use DDR3 RAM in the most recent iMac's before this upgrade as they too have a 1066 MHz FSB just like the newest ones? Or are the slot connectors different? Sorry if this is a stupid question.

From what I read, Apple write the drivers for the ATi GPUs on Macs, so I don't see why not.

The 2008 iMac had a 1066 FSB but only used 800 MHz DDR2 memory, IIRC.

So no, the memory isn't interchangeable between the '08 and '09 iMac.

See this link: http://guides.macrumors.com/iMac_(Intel)#Rev.E

 

[phrehdd]

Thanks everyone for the really helpful information.

Most of my CS4 work is using JPG and occasionally RAW but my images occasionally grow up to 40 layers which means mighty big files. I'd rather have plenty of headroom to work with on my new machine.

Being able to relocate the machine, I think the glossy screen shouldn't prove a problem so will likely go for the 2.93 iMac, unless I can find a refurb 2008 3.06 model.

I figure that because I'm only buying once every 5 years or so, I want to have as much "future-proofing" as possible. Even though I don't need it right now, perhaps in 2 years I will. I don't play games now, but as they say, the only thing inevitable is change. I saw some flight simulator the other day and it looked pretty incredible on a big screen...

I work with both a Mac Pro and iMac (older 20" 2ghrz) with the glass front.
For your needs, the iMac 24" is a nice unit. I would opt for a better vid card than the base and if I am not mistaken, it may be possible to get 6 gigs of RAM (2+4). RAM is EASY to install yourself.

The iMac is (in my opinon) not the issue. The things to concern yourself with is making sure you have non-glare lighting in the room, CS4 PS set up correctly and as much RAM as you can get.

I have seen people with both Mac and Windows running Photoshop and near all didn't optimize their system for Photoshop. There are lots of sites with info on that. Items covered range from swap file to accessing Open GL (thus a better graphics/video card make sense). Additionally, if you opt to have your scratch/swap file on the same disk, then dedicating a partition to it is useful. Tools such as iDefrag come in handy if your drive is clouded over time with files spread across that do* drag down performance on Photoshop.

I use a Mac Pro (4 drives, 9 gigs RAM) with Wacom Cinteq for Photo restoration and retouch. When friends want a simple tweak to their jpg and RAW images the iMac running Fusion with XP and PS7 does just fine. The iMac has 4 gigs RAM.

Just my take on things - I often wish the iMac had an express slot which would open it up to even more powerful possibilities but in the meanwhile, its a nice all in one system.

Just a thought

- Phrehdd

 

[DHart]

As a professional photographer and studio owner who has used Macs for many years for Photoshop editing and all misc business and personal computing needs I wanted to chime in.

I have been using iMacs, MacBooks, and for the last few months, a MacPro 2.8GHz dual-quad (8-core) with 8GB of RAM and a bevy of 1TB Seagate Barracuda drives. The MacPro has been used with the NEC 24" 2490WUXI (H-IPS panel) and HP LP2465 (PVA panel).

I just bought a MacMini, received ysterday. Bought the base model (1GB RAM and 120GB HDD) but with 2.26GHz processor. I popped it open, installed 4GB of RAM and a 7200RPM 320GB 16MB cache Hitachi internal drive.

The new MacMini performs so closely to my MacPro that I would recommend going with the new MacMini and a high end 24" monitor with a matte screen The two 24" monitors mentioned above are great choices at about $550 for the HP and $1000 for the NEC. The matte screen is the most "realistic" match to printed output which is what you need if your final product is printed output. Also the glare is insignificant with the matte screen. The most serious imaging pros who edit for printed output typically choose matte screens for a good reason.

By purchasing the Mini and a separate monitor, either can be upgraded, swapped around, whatever with no impact on the other.

I have three older white 20" iMacs with 2GHz CoreDuo processors and H-IPS screens. They're fantastic machines with superb monitors and performed Photoshop editing wonderfully in their day, but their older processors and limited to 2GB RAM make them uncompetitive with the latest machines. I wish I could easily upgrade their processors and RAM because the screens are magnificent, but that's the problem with iMacs... your screen and your brain are tied up together. You got a problem with either the screen or the brains and the whole machine is down. Can't upgrade either without replacing the whole thing.

If I were you I'd buy the new base model MacMini, but with 2.26GHz processor, max it out with 4GB, upgrade the internal HDD to 320GB or 500GB, buy a high quality 24" panel, and two external 1TB drives (one for your image files and the other as a TimeMachine). The new Mini has a fast bus, fast RAM, excellent graphics processor, and FW800 which is awesome! Use the internal drive for system and apps only. Connect the externals with the FW800 interface. This will give you an incredibly versatile and flexible system with excellent capability for a moderate amount of money.

 

[Poncho]

Damn Dan

You took the words right outta my mouth!

Exactly what I'm gonna do –*when Snow leopard comes out that is.
Tired of buying Macs that become obsolete three to five years down the line.

Your way (and mine) means you can move the Mac Mini to other duties and hook up the screen to the latest whizzy laptop/netbook/matchbox-sized Mac that Apple produces.