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holme73

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Aug 22, 2011
9
0
I'm looking to upgrade my old mac, to a machine capable of running Adobe CS5 (mainly Photoshop, Indesign, Dreamweaver and Illustrator - all open together).

I've come from a PowerMac G4 Quicksilver, to a Mac mini C2D 1.83 - which was supposed to be a short term solution, but I'm still running it after 2+ years. Whilst it runs the software, it does suffer with large files and also with all the packages open at once.

iMacs look great machines, but I cannot live with the glossy screen in my work environment (why i ended up with the mac mini).

How would the new Mac mini's run this software. I don't do any heavy movie editing (just the odd holiday HD video in iMovie). I'm tempted by the mac mini server version with the quad core i7, as it's a quad and has faster drives - but will photoshop suffer from the lower graphics capability.

Would the dual core i7 2.7 be better?

I'd add an SSD at a later date, and would run 8gb Memory from the start.
 

fa8362

macrumors 68000
Jul 7, 2008
1,571
496
Any of them are more than good enough for what you do and way faster than what you've been using.
 

blevins321

macrumors 68030
Dec 24, 2010
2,768
96
Detroit, MI
I'd recommend the $799 model with the discrete graphics. It'll be helpful especially when Adobe's programs do graphics card-assisted processing. But for 90% of things, any of the models would be great for it. I'd max out the RAM (8GB) on whichever model you choose. After-market RAM is available from Amazon, NewEgg, etc... for approx $45 for an 8Gb set.
 

Oracle1729

macrumors 6502a
Feb 4, 2009
638
0
but will photoshop suffer from the lower graphics capability.

Unless you're doing 3D rendering in the graphics card, you're not even really using the graphics card except to dump pixels to the screen.

It'll be helpful especially when Adobe's programs do graphics card-assisted processing.

Do you have a link about this. My understanding was CS5 doesn't do processing in the graphics card, though I know it's certainly possible to. I'm just curious to read about it if it does.
 

holme73

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Aug 22, 2011
9
0
Thanks for the feedback. I'll look at the stock server model and upgrade to 8gb. Sounds like it'll be more than powerful enough and be good for a few years to come.
 

accessoriesguy

macrumors 6502a
Jul 8, 2011
891
0
Thanks for the feedback. I'll look at the stock server model and upgrade to 8gb. Sounds like it'll be more than powerful enough and be good for a few years to come.

you can get the higher end mini, upgrade it for $100 to 2.7 i7 for $899, its cheaper and more powerful. You would also get that much nicer GPU, i know a lot of people say that unless you plan on using them there is no point. But in reality all laptops are getting GPU's now a days and they are being more and more useful and can actually can help processor functions. It's not a bad investment, since things always get graphically more intense.

if we are just starting to stream low level HD content now, imagine how things will be in the future? plus you could always get into 3D design too :p
 

Mr.C

macrumors 603
Apr 3, 2011
5,444
1,437
London, UK.
you can get the higher end mini, upgrade it for $100 to 2.7 i7 for $899, its cheaper and more powerful. You would also get that much nicer GPU, i know a lot of people say that unless you plan on using them there is no point. But in reality all laptops are getting GPU's now a days and they are being more and more useful and can actually can help processor functions. It's not a bad investment, since things always get graphically more intense.

if we are just starting to stream low level HD content now, imagine how things will be in the future? plus you could always get into 3D design too :p

I don't know why on earth you made those assumptions as they are wrong. The 2.7 i7 is a dual core CPU where as the server model has a 2.0 quad core CPU which is more powerful. Not to mention a dedicated GPU is not always needed. It all depends on ones uses and whether they are GPU intensive or CPU intensive. Streaming HD content doesn't typically need a dedicated GPU either. All in all what you said doesn't make sense.
 
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