Should I go with Mac Pro or imac?

[WizardHunt]

Hello,
I currently have a PC with the following configuration:
3.73 Ghz Dual Processor-Extreme Edition with 3.25 GB Ram since xp will not recognize more.
3 each 400 GB Western Digital Hard Drives
Diamond x1600 Video card with 512 MB ram on it.
I use a 20 inch wide screen viewsonic monitor but wish to have a 23 or 24 inch

Now I wish to swtich over to mac either imac or Mac Pro.
if imac I would get :

2.33 Ghz with 3 GB ram, with 750 GB hard drive and 256 MB video card.

OR

Mac Pro with two 3.0 GHz Dual core processor (can't afford the Quad)
start out with either 2 GB or 4 GB ram
2 hard drives to begin with 500 GB each
video card probably the 256 MB version


However the difference in price is great. imac is appx $3000.00 the way I want it fixed up but the Mac Pro is appx $5000.00 a difference of $2000.00

Which way would you go ? I love the love of the imac better but i know the Mac Pro would perform better by far and is much more upgradable.

Would I be disappointed in the performance of the imac with 2.33 ghgz and 3 GB ram and 256 mb on video since I have a fairly fast pc?

I do want to switch but do not want to go down in power. However my pc may seem fast by specs but it is not. It is so blogged down with all the software I install and run. I use it for video editiing and photo work. I use photoshop cs and adobe premier etc.... microsoft office etc.

what would you do ? Go for the imac or Mac Pro? if money was not a concern? it is somewhat as I would have to save a bit more.

Thanks in advance.

 

[samh004]

If money is not a problem I know what a lot of people in here are going to say...

If you'd need to wait a bit longer, to save more, then perhaps waiting is good, you might purchase with Leopard pre-installed, then you'd have the advantage of having a system optimized for all the cores too, as was discussed in a thread earlier today.

 

[macgeek77]

theres a Mac Pro sitting in the Apple warehouse with your name written all over it.

 

[PNW]

Would I be disappointed in the performance of the imac with 2.33 ghgz and 3 GB ram and 256 mb on video since I have a fairly fast pc?

Probably not, because

It is so blogged down with all the software I install and run.

I'm often amazed at how the old 733 MHz Power Mac G4 (640 MB RAM ) I use from time to time at work will feel faster than the XP laptop (1.4 GHz Pentium M, 1GB RAM) I use most of the time.

As for me (I'm in sort of the same boat, but my PC's a few years older than yours), I'm holding out for a mid range tower/ headless iMac. If that doesn't materialize. I'll probably go for a refurbed dual 2.0 - 2.6 GHz Mac Pro if I can find one. Mostly because I don't like the idea of an all in one, than feeling the iMac isn't beefy enough.

 

[rainydays]

I think you will be perfectly happy with the iMac. Depends on what kind of video editing you are doing though. But it's a really powerful machine that handles most tasks well.
If you do a lot of 3D work, advanced effects etc. then go with the Mac Pro.

$2000 is a lot of money (at least to me), and it could be spent on other things. But if your budget is unlimited then why not go Pro

 

[dartzorichalcos]

One word of mention: all Mac Pros are either Quad Core or Octo Core not Dual Core. How about the Mac Pro in the refurbished store? Would you want that? You could add hard drives to it later.

 

[iBookG4user]

I would go with the Mac Pro. Although The 2.66GHz CPU is not much slower than the 3.0GHz, so I would put that money into RAM instead.

 

[Igantius]

If one of the main uses is video editing, I would go Pro - do you definitely need the 3.0GHz though?

 

[TimJim]

i think you should go for the Mac Pro