Getting a work station need help

[rknewcomb]

Hi,
At work I have a Mac Intel machine, lots of ram and a EIZO monitor. but thats at work.

At home I use somewhat large files from an older medium format digital back ( about 50MB each) and files form a modern DSLR.

I'm needing to set up a good rig for working at home. Not going on the cheap but also don't want to spend more then I need to.

I'm thinking of the fastest Mac Mini, external hard drive, burner and a good monitor that can be calibrated like a NEC or LG

1) Does this seem like a good plan?
2) What larger monitor specifically?

Thanks,
Robert

 

[Felinik]

Yep, those quad mini's should do the job for ya, fill up with 8gb of ram and you're good to go!

 

[lenny]

Aren't they shipping the new mac within 30 days? Why not wait for the next generation…. it looks quite impressive from the specs.

Lenny

 

[Felinik]

And will cost ~4-5 times a mini...

 

[L Gebhardt]

The latest Mini should be just fine. I have use a MacBook Pro that's a year old. Looks like you can upgrade the processor in the Mini to a 2.6GHz Quadcore, which is just a hair slower than what's in my MacBook Pro (You'll never see the difference). Buy aftermarket RAM from OWC and bump it up to 16GB. I would go with the fusion drive of the SSD as well. It should be a very fast system for not much money (in Mac terms).

The NEC SpectraView monitors are very nice. I'd look at the PA272W-BK-SV. I have the 30" PA301W, but if the 27" was available at the time I would have bought that since it's the same resolution in a smaller package with wide gamut and LED backlighting.

 

[jd callow]

I bought the imac 27" and upgraded the ram via OWC to 32gig. It is essentially a large laptop (next to no serviceable parts). Unless you need or want a better monitor than the Mac display it is a slightly better deal than the Mini when everything is added in. If you are the adventurous type consider a Hackintosh (at some point I think I will ) Hackintosh Instructions, Hackintosh How To Guides @ Hackintosh.com

 

[rknewcomb]

Thanks for all the good information - I really appreciate it.
I believe I'm going to go with the faster mini and fill it full of Ram.
That 27inch NEC monitor with calibration software and hardware looks very good to me.
Robert

 

[jd callow]

Good luck and let us know how it goes.