InDesign CS2 experience
We bought two 3GHz Mac Pros for two girls in the office and they both refused to switch from their G5 PowerMacs, because they have been brainwashed into thinking that Adobe's CS2 would be slower. I got into several arguements with them over this, but just threw my hands up in the sky and walked away. And from what I'm hearing this is the norm else where. Designers aren't switching over until CS3.
What's funny is that their new machines have more memory and they both have dual 23" ACDs, but since the G5 only has one DVI port the second monitor sits on their desks off.
I'm about to give up the fight and wait for CS3, but if anyone knows of a good benchmark site about CS2 on Mac Pro, please let me know.
Since this thread is getting so long I haven't read through all 17 pages since you posted to find if this question had been answered. I did see the great link to barefeats comparing PS CS2 on the MP to Quad-G5's on page 8, however - send this to your collegues.
Here's my experience with In Design CS2 in particular. I have a major, complicated book heading to press in a couple of weeks that's been in development for 10 months. It's 240 pages, about 500 linked photos / graphics and probably 10,000 frames in the file - every page has lots of unique elements, so this is not just flowing text for 20 pages!
I travel and have to be productive in multiple locations, so my pre-Intel days were based around a tricked out PB G4 I took the speed hit when I was back in my office to allow a seamless transition to the road. With the lagging speed of the Powerbooks I finally did incorporate a G5 desktop into the equation, but I ran 2 systems back at my office (with a shared 24" KVM switching setup). 90% of my apps stayed on the PB, and I only used the G5 for the heaviest 3 or 4 applications. This compromise made it easy to prep for travel.
The introduction of the Intel MBP produced interesting issues. I bought one the first generations models (to test the compatibility of my own multimedia applications) and also tricked it out with 2GB RAM, upgraded graphics card, various unsuccesful attempts to get a FW 800 Expresscard working, etc. But I had heard that ID CS2 was buggy, slow, and crashed a lot, so I avoided using most of the CS2 programs beyond PS on the road. As 2006 progressed, this became more of a problem. I finally shifted the ID workflow exclusively over to the MBP in Nov 2006.
Haven't had an ID crash since the switch. Had a bad patch in late Feb 2007 when my OTHER programs seemed to be crashing left and right, but an update of MS Office fixed that. The worst were Word, Excel, Safari, Firefox and Entourage. But ID never joined the crowd. I'm sure the ID crashes other users report are true, but this must be due to whatever ID functions they are using rather than the complexity or size of file.
As for speed, I've been pleased. With the size of my file, of course, you sometimes get a spinning ball (at seemly random times) for 10 seconds. And with 3 GB of linked files, I rarely select the "High Quality Display" option that really slows things down when moving thorough the document! But I doubt my file is a typical ID layout.
Hope that helps!
PS - The new 8-core MP's and the release of 10.5 will finally cause me to bite on the MP line. After my project heads off to the printers, it's time to upgrade my equipment and software, and the demands of Aperture for my extensive image collections are just too great for the MBP.
