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Jesus

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Are there any big differences in imaging power between a Power Mac dual proc. 2.0 and a Power Mac Dual Core 2.0? I will be using this for Aperture and Photoshop CS II primarily. Will I soon feel outdated because of the lack of new PCI-X graphics card? What do you recommend.

The older Power Mac is £700 and the Dual Core is £1050 with university discount,

What should I do?


Jesus
 
It's PCI Express graphics card.

A PCI-X card is just an overclocked PCI card for the expansion slots.

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Dual core will be faster due to the doubling of the L2 cache for each core.

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And yes, people who buy the older tech like Nubus-vs-PCI, PCI-vs-AGP, etc. do feel left out down the line when Apple brings out an app that leaves them in the dust and won't run on the older technology.

But since Apple is switching to Intel in a couple years anyway, it might not matter as much this time around -- since all the apps will be leaving all PPC machines behind at the same time.

A slightyly newer PPC architecture most likely won't get you that newest whiz bang future app anyways.
 
The June 2004 Rev B 2.0 (8 DIMM) has PCI-X

The last pre-dual core 2005 Rev C 2.0 used the crippled 4 DIMM standard PCI
prosumer motherboard. PASS!

I would go for the new dual core with PCI-e if you can afford it.
 
If you can afford it, the new ones will be a little faster. If you want to save a little money, the old ones aren't that much slower.
 
I would go for the newest PM's. They are more efficient and run slightly cooler. They also have PCI-E which most of the newest video cards use.
 
I'd go old 2Ghz based on savings. But if you upgrade the video card for Aperture etc. then you would be better putting money towards a new DC w/ 6600 256mb since you get other benefits: 2x1MB cache, 16Gb DDR2, PCI-E, warranty, Dual ethernet, OS Tiger, mighty-mouse.
 
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