Choosing specs for a mac pro

Question

Hello all,
I've posted this question a few times in the past and am still a bit unsure of what specs i should go with. With the student/teacher discount coming to an end soon, I thought I'd give it one more go. I am also curious how the new mac pro might affect my decision. I will not be needing a 12 core, but did this new product affect the specs for the lower models?
I am looking for a computer that will help me run my small business and keep my art portfolio organized. I'm willing to spend around $3000 and am also willing to use another source to buy less expensive parts to install myself.
My concerns are that it needs to run pretty smoothly with multiple programs open, no overheating, plenty of space for file storage and application support.
Ideally this computer will be my work horse for many years to come.
The programs that would most likely be open in conjunction with one another would be a combination of the following...mozilla, itunes, adobe bridge, dreamweaver, illustrator, and photoshop.
Specifically, i'll be using it for...
building a few websites
managing my small business
large photo file editing
keeping business files, artist receipts, etc
cataloging my art portfolio (large photo files)
storing photos, music, and short videos
graphic design
infrequent film editing
infrequent sound editing
The programs i'll be using:
CS5 (mostly photoshop, illustrator, bridge, dreamweaver)
iphoto
itunes
maybe minimal finalcut/soundtrack pro
maybe minimal aftereffects
I received this response the first time I posted this question and have found it to be very helpful, thanks bill! I'm wondering if anyone else would like to expand on it or perhaps offer other options for my situation. Thank you all very much, any advice is appreciated.
"My advice would be to buy the standard configuration 2.66GHz Quad Core (i.e. 3 x 1GB RAM, 640GB hard drive) from the Apple store, with the exception of the graphics card which you can buy as a CTO option for $200.00. It is well worth the upgrade from the GT120 - I know, because I upgraded myself last November after using a GT120 for 4 months.
With regard to the memory, if you can afford it now, buy 4 x 4GB from OWC now. If not, I would suggest that you buy 2 x 4GB now, and then add another 2 x 4GB in the future. 16GB of RAM is a much better option than 8GB for your requirements. You can sell the 3 x 1GB RAM to OWC in "part exchange", and there would be little difference in price for 2 x 4GB to the CTO option of 4 x 2GB.
http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/memory/Mac-Pro-Memory#1066-memory
Instead of buying 2 x 1TB hard drives as a CTO option, you could purchase 2 x 1.5TB or 2 x 2TB HDDs for less money, and you would still have the 640GB. Spare drives are always useful. I use my original 640GB as a spare emergency system boot drive (OS and applications) in an external enclosure.
Another alternative is to wait a few more weeks, in case the rumours of the introduction of a new Mac Pro range in June have any foundation."

Answer 1

That advice looks pretty sound to me. What I would add is for internal drives you need one for storing your working files (better not to have those on your system drive but not really a big deal). And one for backup with Time Machine. What I also have is a separate external drive to clone my system so I have 2 backups.
And I have a partition on one of the internal drives that is used ONLY as a Photoshop scratch disk. This is by far the fastest solution unless you want to create a raid system. Never have your scratch disk on the same drive as your system drive, not even as a partition. You only need around 500 MB for this and it's best if that partition is dedicated only as a scratch disk.
You can create all of this with partitions for some of it, no need for lots of drives, except use different drives for Time Machine and your clone disk so both can't go out at the same time. I think for speed purposes that the scratch disk and Time Machine should be on internal drives, but Firewire 800 is pretty fast for an external.
Other than that your biggest concern is ram. Get as much as you can afford because that will determine your speed more than anything else.
I was working on a 4 year old iMac, which is a pretty good machine, but the limited 3 gb ram was causing problems because I have Photoshop, Illustrator and InDesign open all the time along with Mail, Chrome and a couple of others. When I got a Mac pro last year to replace it I got 8 gb of ram and the speed has been incredible.
Kevin
Edit: Forgot to mention that you shouldn't buy the hard drives or ram from Apple, they are way too expensive, get the minimum you can from Apple then get new stuff, OWC is a good source.
Message was edited by: Kevin Horn