Best $1000 Photoshop work station

[Mr645]

Mac Mini i7 2.6 with ram upgrade from OWC

or a used Mac Pro?

Client has two nice monitors attached to an older Mac Pro. (2.0 quad)

[clay]

Does it need to be a Mac? I assume so, but just confirming.

[Speedy]

clay wrote:
Does it need to be a Mac? I assume so, but just confirming.

Duh.

[jdc]

What kind of Photoshop?

Tiny web files? Or 1 GB layered files? IMHO, i5 is plenty for the first.

Id also go with and external USB 3 SSD boot drive (if you dont plan on opening up)

If you are on a budget, you could get 16 GB of ram for about $50 less if you shop around.

[Mr645]

The Mac will need to process lots of raw files, from 12-36MP DSLR's and will be used to handle layered file from about 150MB to perhaps 400 MB, occasionally larger.

The problem now is there is no easy way for this machine to run the latest Adobe software to recognize RAW files from the newest DSLRs.

I could open it up and add a second drive (SSD)

How important has the video card become?

[jdc]

Lots of Adobe stuff uses the GPU for an extra kick, but for Photoshop, think its on a filter by filter basis. Might need soem resarch.

You arent using Lightroom? For some reason that is kicking around in my head as an app that uses the GPU more.

They arent the easiest to open up, hence the USB 3 option, which is nearly the same speed as internal.

Not sure I understand the part about not being able to run the latest Adobe software?

[clay]

Speedy wrote:
[quote=clay]
Does it need to be a Mac? I assume so, but just confirming.

Duh.
To be fair, the subject is: "Best $1000 Photoshop work station" I don't think my question is TOTALLY out of left field.

[tahoedrew]

Mr645 wrote:
The Mac will need to process lots of raw files, from 12-36MP DSLR's and will be used to handle layered file from about 150MB to perhaps 400 MB, occasionally larger.

The problem now is there is no easy way for this machine to run the latest Adobe software to recognize RAW files from the newest DSLRs.

I could open it up and add a second drive (SSD)

How important has the video card become?

Based on the above, no brainer: Mac Pro

I just moved from a 2010 dual-core i5 MBP to a 2010 8-core Mac Pro specifically for photoshop and video editing. I haven't edited much on the new MP but the additional RAM capabilities alone are huge. While the MBP only ran 8GB of RAM the MP is at the minimum currently with 20GB of RAM and that'll nearly double with the month or so. Plus I'm now running my external 4-disk RAID5 array off a SATA 6.0Gb/s connection vs. the FW800 it was on and it screams when comparing speed.

Additionally, the GPU has become essential in Photoshop, less so in Lightroom where we're seeing little gains just yet.

~A

[Spock]

A Hackintosh with the new Intel Core i7 5820K, a six-core unit for less than $400.00. It has a top clock of 3.6 GHz and 15 MB cache memory.

[tenders]

Spock wrote:
A Hackintosh with the new Intel Core i7 5820K, a six-core unit for less than $400.00. It has a top clock of 3.6 GHz and 15 MB cache memory.

I'm not sure you can get that machine all-in for under $1k, and there is a lot of futzing around if you only build one Hackintosh. I enjoyed it on my personal machine, in fact I'm rocking it right now (i7-4770K Quad-Core), but would not recommend this to a paying client unless they enjoyed the futz factor too.