student in need of help

[Ncarter]

Hi this is my first post here been reading for a while. I have a mac mini and mac book pro but i need a more powerful desktop for graphic design. The obvious answer is a mac pro but geez they are expensive but i found on the refurb site of apple a dual dual core and a single quad core mac pro each are about 1000 cheaper than a dual quad core. My question is will these work just fine for me for a while or am i better off with a 8 core. Im using adobe cs4 design premium and whatever else i can get my hands on and learn. I will upgrade any of the macs i get with 16g and atleast 2 tb i just wasnt sure if there would be a big diffrence between 4 and 8 cores.

Thanks,
Nathan

PS: you can find me on yahoo trxus31@yahoo.com or messenger trxus31 if you want to talk to me that away.

[bfuerst1]

i think that is more than an overkill, my brothers 2.4 c2d imac with 4gb of ram and an ati 2400 gpu runs cs4 perfectly
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bfuerst
1.83 c2d mac mini- 7200 rpm hdd, 3 gbs ram, wireless n, dvd burner
80 gb ipod classic
apple bluetooth wireless mouse
apple aluminum keyboard
22 inch Samsung Display

[Ncarter]

ok am i going to see a difference with two dual cores or one single quad core? I don't want to go the imac rout because i don't like the glossy screen and i already have two screens. Will the 4 core mac last me 4-5 years or even longer?

Thanks,
Nathan

[TonyMontana]

If the MacBook Pro you have is not enough juice then get the dual-quad core. More and more apps will be written to optimize multi core processing. Not knowing what kind of design work you do it's hard to say what you'll need. My time is precious and I definitely wouldn't have time to render a 3D image or animation for days on end, due to an under powered machine. Even multilayer TIFF files in photoshop can easily reach into the GB's. I work in Photoshop and Lightroom at the same time and doing adjustments to 300+ photos can really strain my mini and my time.
The better you get with each program the more efficient you'll become and therefore use more and more resources of the machine. At least a MacPro will give you lots of room to grow before you max it's limitations. That's my 2 cents.
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MacMini 2.0GHz C2D (2009)
MacMini 2.16GHz Intel Core Duo
Dell Mini 10v *OSX 10.6.4*

[jazzman]