Mac Pro Advice

[yochiar1]

I know this has probably been covered before, but I would like to get a newer Mac Pro for doing photo and video editing. Not professional usage, but serious amateur. Mainly Aperture with some iMovie and maybe eventual Final Cut Pro as I get further along.

I currently have a 24 inch iMac 2.4ghz Core 2 w 4 gigs of ram and an HD Radeon 2600 w 256k ram. I am looking at getting a refurb Mac Pro. My questions are:
1. What are the differences between the Westmere and the Nehalem processors. Is there a reason to get one over the other?
2. How many cores? Is a quad core system enough or would a person be better off spending the extra money on an 8 core system?
3. Graphics card. Would you be better off upgrading the graphics card rather than going from a quad to an 8 core system?

I would like a system that would be fast enough that I would not feel the need to upgrade for at least 4-5 years. I'm pretty happy with the iMac I have had for the past three years, but would like something that is easier for the user to upgrade, as the Mac Pro is. Just want to make sure I spend enough but not more than necessary.

Thanks.

 

[toxic]

1. What are the differences between the Westmere and the Nehalem processors. Is there a reason to get one over the other?

Westmere is a small update to Nehalem, like Penryn and Santa Rosa with Core 2 CPUs. there's no point worrying about which one it has. all 2010 Mac Pros will take Westmere CPUs if you want to swap processors.

2. How many cores? Is a quad core system enough or would a person be better off spending the extra money on an 8 core system?

4 cores is enough. going for 8 only really pays off if you do a lot of rendering or video editing...6 cores gets you the best of both worlds, if you have that kind of money.

3. Graphics card. Would you be better off upgrading the graphics card rather than going from a quad to an 8 core system?

nope. the heaviest GPU user for you is probably Aperture, which doesn't require that much. it mostly just wants VRAM.