Early 2008 Upgrade versus wait for new Mini

[zineer]

I have a dual 2.8Ghz Quad core Early 2008 Mac Pro (3,1) that I am debating upgrading.
I currently have:
-10GB RAM (2@4GB, 2@1GB)
-8800GT graphics
-115GB OWC Mercury SSD as the boot drive (and 1TB, 500GB WD Black drives and the original 320GB drive)

These days I do mostly web programming (using Coda) with a little bit of Photoshop and Lightroom, plus Windows 7 running in VirtualBox for running Quickbooks (and IE).

Should I upgrade the Mac Pro (USB 3, larger SSD boot drive, upgraded graphics card)? Or do I wait 1-8 months and see what the new Mini has? Obviously we don't know what a new Mini will have inside, but even comparing to current a current gen mini, as I'm not doing video encoding or much graphics work, I'm not sure the extra cores of the Mac Pro are really necessary for what I do.. I can replace my internal drives with a 4GB USB 3.0 drive and not lose storage or IO speed, but I'd gain a lot of desk space and thunderbolt connections. Are they any advantages of upgrading the Mac Pro versus moving to a Mini?

Thanks for your time! Looking forward to hearing some thoughts!

 

[NOTNlCE]

By the sound of it, you have an entire open riser for RAM upgrades, and an older video card. We're all still unsure of the upcoming mini specs, but even with an i7, it won't be that much more powerful than your current 3,1 as far as CPU power goes. With an upgraded GPU, the graphics power won't even come close. I run a GTX 660 in my 3,1 and it's great. If anything, the advantages of upgrading is going to be cost. RAM can be found at OK prices on Ebay, and a mid-range NVIDIA PC GPU costs ~$150 or so, and you can often find 600 series GPUs on clearance for even less. I just don't see the logic of swapping out a Pro for a mini, unless you really really need those Thunderbolt connections.

 

[mintfan7200]

The Mac Mini will probably be slower than your current Mac Pro but it will take way less energy and less room . You could Upgrade your Mac Pros Ram , graphics , you will probably not see much of a difference for what you use it for unless you are a Power User . The new Mac mini should be enough power for what you want to use it for . You can never have enough Macs so use both .

 

[zineer]

Thanks for the feedback! I think I'll throw a new graphics card in the Mac Pro so I can 3 monitors and hopefully get a couple more years out of it.

 

[NOTNlCE]

Good luck with the upgrade! With a new GPU, I'm thinking you've got 3+ more years of life on that machine, plus you've got open RAM slots if you need it!