[Emmy]

I need to update the computer in the Art department of our company. We
currently have a Power mac G4. I was looking at the Mac Pro as well as a new Imac. What are the difference other then speed for each? And what is recommended for someone using CS3 and working with large files? Any help is highly appreciated.

Thanks

[cgc]

Other than speed, it would the other obvious answer...upgradability.

[MacosNerd]

iMac has its own screen.
MacPro you need to buy one (or use an old one)

iMac has a slower GPU
MacPro has a faster GPU that can be replaced with an even faster one

More Memory, more hard disk space, faster subsystems. More configuration options.
4 (or 8) cpus for the macpro vs. 2 for the iMac

Take a look over at apple.com and compare them yourself. That way you can see

[cgc]

It seems like in the last six months there has been a rash of questions that could be easily answered if the original poster used the forum search tool or did a little research. It's so easy to post here and wait for the answer (and that's fine to an extent), but the forums have become inundated with these questions; could there be a forum for users who are new to Macs where a lot of things can be explained, simple/common questions answered as stickies, etc.? This might help new users and more experienced users alike.

Continue to ask questions, but please search the forums and do a little research on your own.

[SierraDragon]

Wait until after Mac Expo in 2 weeks to do your evaluation. We can discuss this then with more current information.

From a previous post of mine:
--------------------------
For life cycle/performance reasons IMO iMacs generally are poor choices for desktop graphics workstations.

Just the RAM limitation alone is an obvious serious limiter even with today's app versions, and as RAM prices continually fall modern apps and the OS are taking advantage of more and more RAM all the time. E.g. even though Photoshop can only directly address ~3 GB RAM, PS running under OS X has shown improved performance with up to 8 Gb RAM for about 5 years now. A senior PS engineer recently observed that 8-16 GB RAM shows improving performance on Mac Pros.

Boxes purchased today will be running the OSs/apps of the next few years, when the 4 GB limitation of iMacs will become even more significantly limiting. I consider RAM the bargain value performance enhancer today and it will only get better, so IMO limiting a graphics desktop box destined for 2008-2011 usage to 4 GB max RAM is not a good idea.

I would also point out that, as consumer boxes, iMacs now only come with glossy displays. Matte vs. glossy is a matter of personal preference, but personally I find glossy unacceptable. I do not want my display adding contrast and saturation to my images. That, for me, makes iMacs unacceptable at any price.

Some folks get around the glossy display issue by having their second display a matte and just using the iMac for palettes. I guess that could work but it is not something I would want to do because sometimes I put images on both displays.

Note too that if DSLR batch image handling were to creep into the usage during the life of the box that single FW800 port might prove limiting as regards disk i/o.

-Allen Wicks