iMac 27" i5 2.7 with RAM upgrade vs. i5 3.1

[Lihi]

I'm about to purchase a mid 2011 iMac (waiting for Lion to come pre-installed).
I'm a graphic designer, using adobe cs5 products such as: Photoshop, Illustrator, Indesign, Flash, Dreamweaver, and i work a lot, day and night.
There's a slight chance i'll start working with After Effects and maybe a little video editing, but this is just a "side" thing, not some serious editing work.

I'm on a budget therefore i'm having a hard time deciding between the two 27" models (especially because of the graphics card).
I was thinking maybe a 8GB RAM upgrade on the base model would be more efficient than buying the high-end model? (i can't upgrade the high-end since it's way too much for my budget)

 

[iSayuSay]

How would you update your iMac's RAM? Do you mean you're gonna opt between 2.7GHz iMac w/8GB from Apple and 3.1GHz iMac w/4GB standard?

Now that is so wrong, you'd better go with 3.1GHz and upgrade RAM later. Wait 3 or 4 months until you could spend some $$ for RAM and upgrade it yourself.

 

[sonarghost]

I agree with IsayUsay.

One thing that I would consider though is getting the imac now so you don't already have Lion preinstalled. There are two reasons why I chose this route:

1. You will get Lion anyway when it's released.
2. You use many professional grade programs that may take a while to be patched up OR patched up enough to iron out some major/minor bugs that may occur.

You obviously use many different professional grade programs that may get you in some trouble if they are something you use for business or even as a serious hobby and "patching" could be a problem. I ran into issues a few years ago when Leopard came out and created some havoc with some plugins I use for Logic audio. They were eventually ironed out but I wish I would have stayed on the old os since it was no fun mixing without some of the plugins. I am going to keep an eye out this time on forums and the websites of the software I use extensively and make sure the upgrade patches are properly functional before I upgrade this time.

 

[daneoni]

Rule of thumb; always buy as much CPU as you can. RAM upgrades will always be an option in the future. CPU/GPU upgrades...not so much.

 

[iSee]

I'd probably get the better CPU. You can do a lot with 4GB RAM, even with the kinds of stuff you are doing.

BTW, I agree strongly with sonarghost that you probably don't want Lion pre-loaded. Chances are there will be glitches between Lion and some of your main software. If this is how you make your money, I would not want Lion right away.
It's cool to have the latest and greatest, but it's usually not worth the hassle right away. E.g., I'm not putting Lion on my iMac at least until Sept. when I finish a project I'm working on.

 

[panzer06]

I'm torn as well. I prefer the 2010 model because it can double as a monitor but I like the thought of future Thunderbolt bootable devices. I'm really disappointed they dropped input for mini-displayport devices. Makes me lean toward he 2010 models even if they're not as powerful.

Cheers,