01-22-2011, 09:13 PM
It looks like the Mac Pro noted in the OP has 16gigs of RAM, which seems like it should be at least adequate for all but the most heavy duty Photoshop processing.
I don't think the Mac Pro will be faster than the iMac, but it probably wouldn't be much slower. If you were running an application that could take full advantage of 4 physical cores then the Mac Pro would probably be faster for those things, but there doesn't seem to be a lot of programs ready to take full advantage of all the cores, so if you are doing a lot of single threaded operations then I suspect the iMac might be a bit faster for those. As far as I can recall, Photoshop doesn't take much advantage of multiple cores (maybe some filters do), so that might be a consideration.
Another consideration is that the Mac Pro will not be able to do 64-bit booting. That isn't a big deal now and might not be for quite some time, but the guess I regularly hear is that one of upcoming OS releases will probably require 64-bit booting (which may be at least a few years away). I'm pretty sure the iMac will do 64-bit booting.
On the other hand, if you can foresee being able to put in more hard drives or swap them easily is a valuable thing, then the Mac Pro is clearly better. The same is true with PCI cards and some other modifications that you couldn't do with the iMac or would be much more difficult to do.
I don't think the Mac Pro will be faster than the iMac, but it probably wouldn't be much slower. If you were running an application that could take full advantage of 4 physical cores then the Mac Pro would probably be faster for those things, but there doesn't seem to be a lot of programs ready to take full advantage of all the cores, so if you are doing a lot of single threaded operations then I suspect the iMac might be a bit faster for those. As far as I can recall, Photoshop doesn't take much advantage of multiple cores (maybe some filters do), so that might be a consideration.
Another consideration is that the Mac Pro will not be able to do 64-bit booting. That isn't a big deal now and might not be for quite some time, but the guess I regularly hear is that one of upcoming OS releases will probably require 64-bit booting (which may be at least a few years away). I'm pretty sure the iMac will do 64-bit booting.
On the other hand, if you can foresee being able to put in more hard drives or swap them easily is a valuable thing, then the Mac Pro is clearly better. The same is true with PCI cards and some other modifications that you couldn't do with the iMac or would be much more difficult to do.