What size system for CS4/Aperture?

[thereur]

I'm guessing that a single processor 2.8 Mac Pro would handle CS4 and Aperture just fine. Would there be $500 worth of benefit going to a dual 2.8? I'd just be using the system for digital photography. Would be handle JPEGs and RAW over 20Mb in size.

 

[Tallest Skil]

If you can wait two or three months, Nehalem is coming out. The benefits are... decently huge.

 

[Bubba Satori]

What TS said. And if you don't get an i7 system, it will be a great time to pick up a previous generation Mac Pro system in the refurb store at a great price. Get at least 8GB of ram whatever you do. Good luck.

 

[Umbongo]

I'm guessing that a single processor 2.8 Mac Pro would handle CS4 and Aperture just fine. Would there be $500 worth of benefit going to a dual 2.8? I'd just be using the system for digital photography. Would be handle JPEGs and RAW over 20Mb in size.

Future versions may make better use of more cores, but there is no guarantee and depending how you work you may not need more than 4 for the life of your machine anyway. You might want to consider a refurb too as such a system can be bought for $2,000. Add 8 GB of memory and a faster hard drive and you have a solid system for the next several years.

 

[peskaa]

For reference, I'm running Aperture 2.0 and CS4 on a 8x2.8 Mac Pro and it's plenty fast, so you could easily get away with a single CPU 2.8. So, when the new Mac Pros hit, you can get the bottom end one and be fine.