iMac 2011 Update - Which one?

[iMigraine]

Ok ladies and Gents,

For those of you who use Photoshop CS5, Lightroom 3, and Corel Painter, what are your thoughts about this recent update in CPUs and Video cards?

Basically, which offers the best value?


Oh, please don't turn this thread into a useless PC vs Mac debate. I'm only interested in OS X, thanks.

[ikken]

Photoshop cs5 will benefit from the top models, not so sure about painter (corel hasn't stated anything about perfomance improvement officially, and leaked review only highlights multithreading, nothing on 64bit support or even number of cores it will be able to use).

Shoot for the most expensive one you can afford, but don't buy ram from apple.

[nonameowns]

lot of rams are useful if u doing big ass res work

[ikken]

it's good for a lot of things (like running 2-3 programs at the same time), but apple's pricing for ram is off the wall crazy and there're cheaper alternatives.

[Nookie]

I'm pretty sure Corel is PC only. I have a 2010 iMac 15" and it flies through everything I can throw at it so the new 2011 models will be fine.

[ikken]

I'm pretty sure Corel is PC only. I have a 2010 iMac 15" and it flies through everything I can throw at it so the new 2011 models will be fine.

corel painter has both mac and windows versions, corel photosomething x100500 suite is windows only, both are completely different packages.

[Nookie]

Ah well there you go, I've learnt something today!

[iMigraine]

Well, I'm going to cancel my plains for buying a refurbished iMac. Still like the OS and my PowerMac G5 has never complained. However, I still have a very capable PC and since I don't have any pro apps on my Mac; I think my money will be better spend on my current PC rig (like nice 24" monitor).

Yet anyone looking at iMacs, the refurbs from Apple have three different 27" models at very good prices.

I just hope that the CS5 is equally stable on both operating systems.