Do I even need a Mac Pro anymore?

I presently use the quad 2.0 Mac Mini with 16 gig of RAM and SSD drives and a NEC PA241w monitor.

While my Photoshop file sizes are slightly smaller than yours for the most part, I also work with scanned images that are substantial (photo restoration etc.) in file size. The Mac Mini works well enough and though it isn't quite as fast as a more powerful Mac Pro or top iMac it does quite well. I suspect that the newer quad Mac Minis would fit the bill well for you if you max the RAM and use an SSD drive or two within.

Hopefully, later this year the newer Macs will handle larger memory modules and thus be good moderate work stations for photo work. Later this year I'll either opt for a newer Mac Mini or check out (after a few reviews of hands on) the new Mac Pro (or should I say - Mac Mini Pro).

Last - some people enjoy using two monitors when working with Photoshop and or Lightroom or both at once. In this you could use an iMac and your 27" monitor. For me, 24" or 27" is excellent useful screen real estate and I prefer one monitor.

 

Any current Mac (except the "'air" does not allow for enough RAM) can handle making light edits in LR. Get the screen you like and fast enough storage.

The MBP, your current monitor and a fast TB based disk array would make for a pretty high-end system.

 

You could wait until if/when the Haswell Mac Minis become available.

 

If you switch over to Nikon, you wouldn't have to do so much workflow behind the scenes.. Sorry just had to throw out and I'm kidding.

You bring up a very valid point, many other photographers deal with the same situation.

 

1. Check the Adobe forum to see what specs the 3.1 MP's have that use lightroom
2. You did not mention your OS on the MP or MBP. Perhaps 10.8 will have Lightroom feeling "snappier".
3. A 2010 MP does not make sense unless you run into a great deal because of people interested in the MP 6.1
4. You did not list the video card in the 3.1 If it's a 256mb-512mb card an upgrade there may be needed.
5. To sale your NEC and have to stare into an "Apple" screen may just drive you insane!
6. I am not into photography but would never sale my LaCie 324 to stare into an Apple anything!
7. Buy a 24inch LED LCD tv and use as your 2nd monitor.

If the OS is still $29.99 you can get a shot to keep everything intact for a small price. Maybe better to plug a spare HD into slots 2-4 for 10.8 just in case there are any conflicts (no Rosetta)

 

If the Haswell rMBP's drive 4K displays I think a lot of people in similar situations to the OP will go with those instead of the Mac Pro. For users not doing heavy video or 3D work the graphics in the new Mac Pro are overkill. It's too bad the dual workstation graphics cards are the price of a single socket Xeon.

 

That is correct. The chipset will technically take 32 on boards that take 4 sodimms. Apple doesn't do that with mobile chips. If you were looking at one of those, I would say go with the 2.3ghz quad version at $800. Max ram. Add ssd for scratch disks. It's not a bad solution. The imacs would probably be somewhat faster if you are using all available ram. They can go to 32, but you'll be using a semi-shiny screen.

Don't make too many assumptions on the baseline options yet. They don't offer as much expansion as the old ones, so the motivation to buy one should really be performance driven either way.

 

That's a quandary I'm in too. I was hoping that the new Haswell 15" rMBP will get a BTO option for 32GB of RAM but that's a pipe dream. But 8GB is definitely not enough.

I thought of the mini too but it only has one TB port. One TB port is fine if you have TB displays for daisy chaining but I have two DisplayPort displays and need the two TB ports for each display.

 

Thanks for the link. The one review mentioned having potential trouble with his display connected to the dock:

It might not work with two displays. Nevertheless, I'm going to bookmark that and keep it in mind. Maybe the price will come down

 

Any relation to this fellow ?

Funny how your MP 3.1 feels slower than your MBP ; any chance you run Lightroom in 32bit mode on the MP ?
Don't know if 32bit LR is even available for Mountain Lion, but maybe worth checking .

I'm not using LR, but have seen complaints about its performance many times , like here ; to be fair, the same goes for Aperture, Capture1 and even Bridge, anything involving image library management .

Anyways; I don't think that replacing your well specced MP 3.1 with a later model would gain you much re. performance , and still there would be no USB 3.0, TB, etc ..

An iMac or MBP offers the latter, but you'd run most of your files through a bottleneck, aka external storage (depending on who you ask) .
16GB of RAM should be plenty for LR, with either Mac; with the MBP you can use your NEC display; only you can decide if the iMac screen is acceptable , it isn't for me .

 

Yes, I agree, and Apple did for a brief time a couple years ago w/ the high end mini. But then for no explicable reason they removed the discrete video. You sound like you are in the same Purgatory I'm in -- the new MP is almost too much computer (I'm not editing 4K media anytime soon), the iMac too inflexible + I prefer 2x 24" monitors to 1 27", the mini, flexible but not powerful enough, thus no real solution.

I'm waiting it out to see how much the entry MP costs and also if they bring the discrete video back to the mini. If the MP ends up starting with a "3" and no video in the mini I guess I'll suck it up and buy a tricked out 27" iMac, but that won't be a satisfying purchase.

 

No. You don't need a Mac Pro. You don't even need an iMac. An 2.3GHz i7 Mac Mini with 16 GB of RAM is more than plenty for what you do. That setup is $900 and change. Save your money.

 

Just hook them up with the appropriate adapter. The mini has a display port and an HDMI port. If I recall correctly, it comes with a display port to DVI adapter.

Faster? Just look it up:

http://browser.primatelabs.com/mac-benchmarks

If your is the Intel Xeon W3530 2800 MHz (4 cores), then yes. That model benchmarks at 8600 and change.

Those are general benchmarks, so there might be an exception or two on a specific task, but those benchmarks will predict performance on most operations. My own i7 2.3GHz with 16 GB of RAM benched at 10,900 and change. Or you can get the 2.6GHz option which benchmarks at about 11,700.

You can add a SSD boot drive to the Mini. Rather than open the Mini, I'd do it externally and connect it via USB 3.0.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00APP6694/ref=ox_sc_sfl_title_5?ie=UTF8&psc=1&smid=A3HIHADV23VGU1

I haven't done it, but people who have say the performance difference is not noticeable vs installing it internally.

 

I made the switch from MP to MBP when the quad core processors debuted in the Pro laptops. It enabled me to have one compact powerhouse that can not only handled heavy lifting but also travel to client meetings. Add to that the capability for fast external storage and the case becomes even more compelling.