Another "What Mac to buy" question . . .

[Kirk]

A friend of mine asked me which is the best "deal"; a Power Mac or an iMac?

He is a Print designer, working with Quark XPress, Photoshop, InDesign, Illustrator etc. I kinda think that a 23" display would be the thing, maybe with a dual 1.8 G5? I don’t know if he needs that kind of speed right now, but it looks like a better deal to me, than a singel 1.8, and one that would last longer. I have also heard of problems with the iMac G5 (display, noise).

What do you think? What is the best deal for him?

 

[Solafaa]

Both are great desktops and they will both do what he needs. If you ask me what i like better i would go with the PowerMac because you can costimize it more.

 

[Kirk]

What Power Mac do you think gives the best value for the money?

 

[jsw]

I'd tell him to get the best Mac he can afford. If the iMac 20" is what he can afford, it'll do what he needs for now. I'd go with a dual-2.0 (the 1.8's are a bit crippled) and a 3rd party display as my intermediate choice, and a dual-2.0 + Apple 23" as my top choice for him. I mean, of course, a dual-2.5 with two 30" ACDs would be great, but more than he needs.

 

[jsw]

What Power Mac do you think gives the best value for the money?

That's a tough question to answer. Last year, it was clearly the dual-1.8. This year, now that the dual-1.8 uses a lower-end motherboard, it's a tough call. They're priced more appropriate to their performance now, so the price/performance ratio (taking into account not just performance but RAM capacity, etc.) is fairly constant.

If he's going to buy a high-end system, I seriously recommend looking into joining Apple as a Select Apple Developer (US$500/year here in the States) - the developer price on a system will often exceed the cost of membership, at least here and on high-end setups.

 

[Kirk]

O.K.

Thanx guys!

🙂

I wouldn’t mind a Dual G5 myself, but I think I will wait until they are updated. Need some time to save up anyway . . .