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FYI, I have a mac mini (albeit an initial release one, not the updated dual core types) and I wouldn't really want to work on it as a graphics mule. I got it loaded at the time of purchase (fastest processor for the mini at the time, 1GB RAM, etc) but the fan still kicks on too much for my tastes.

That being said, I love the 20" Apple Cinema display that I purchased at the same time. If/when I can ever work from home, I'll be upgrading to a real desktop machine, but keeping that display and possibly adding another.

I have no experiences with the newest imacs or minis.

I ordered the new 24" 2.4 (but BTO'd to the 2.8 core 2 extreme),which reduced the ram to 1gb. I will add to it in a few weeks. I am a full time graphic designer at a small print house. We do all sorts of print work from business cards to book layouts to 40 foot outdoor posters. I expect the imac to perform pretty well. This will be the first apple in the shop, with 7 other dells.

The 2 current design rigs are dells, both with 256 vram -1 with 4 gigs ram and the other with 2.

It was between the imac I ordered and the 2.0 dual mac pro on the refurb site for 1899. Eventhough with a 23" acer monitor special at circuit city for ~250, would have only made it less than two hundred more. I still decided to order the imac. I guess the newness of it seemed to hard to pass up--realizing the mac pro could be more heavily upgraded down the line.

So, if it means anything, our print shop is going to be using an imac as it's main design station. Give me a few weeks and I'll let you know how well it's working (or not)

Good luck.

Edit:

As far as expandability, there really isn't a need (at our shop) besides ram. In a few years, we can just buy another computer. I'm also not concerned about hard drive storage space, since we have a file server on the other side of the room. However, if this was my personal station for freelance, I may have considered the power mac based mainly on the ability to upgrade.

Last edited by grassman21 (2007-08-07 6:26 pm)

Yeah, that's OK on the Ram. Apple's charge is $150 to upgrade to 2GB. You can buy a 2GB kit for $110...

DJ wrote:

We would hate to invest a few hundred dollars on a 22"-23" LCD display if its not going to be a very good solution,

...

Aqua OS X wrote:

In my humble opinion, they're biggest drawback is the 1920 by 1200 display resolution. If you want something that supports bigger displays, you need something else.

max res of apple 23" display = 1920x120



IMHO buy a new Core2Duo mini + a 23" Apple Cinema

and a few years from now (more or less) buy a Mac Pro