Re: Good Buy/idea?
Posted: Mon Jan 07, 2013 10:20 pm
'09 (4,1) is a sweet spot. Can be upgraded to 2010/12 (5,1) very easily.
For many, a 2006 MP at $700 is a good buy. Compared to your G5, you won't believe the improvement - at first.
DP users really benefit from something capable of booting in 64bit. This will become more apparent over the next 3 years as more and more apps run 64.
I may outgrow my 2010 iMac i7 in the next 3 years. But, when I upgraded to OS 8 and DP 8, I expected performance to decline. Instead, the fact that they are now running 64bit noticeably improved the performance on my 2 year old machine over DP7 and OS 10.6. When Chrome and Office become 64bit, that should be an improvement also.
If looking at a tight budget, consider a 2011 or 2012 iMac i7 (trust me on the i7 part). Thunderbolt makes these expandable and DP8 works quite well. Won't be $700 but may compare favorably with a recent Mac Pro.