AC9, on a Powermac OR an Imac?

[Anonymous]

A friend of mine is so delighted by using ArchiCAD on the Mac at work, that he's looking at which desktop to buy for himself:

iMac 20" 2.1Ghz
or
Powermac 2.0Ghz Dual + 20" cinema display
?

He will be running ArchiCAD 9 as a workhorse for small practice/ small projects work. Mostly drawing and rendering. Not much if any video.

Presumably he should get as much RAM as possible. For the moment he's assuming 1G minimum.

Does anyone have experience running AC9 on an iMac? How does it feel?

The price difference between similar configurations looks like about a thousand USD. Is the flexibility in the Powermac of more RAM and maybe a processor upgrade worth the additional investment? What other aspects of these machines should he be considering when comparing the initial costs?

Thanks in advance for any observations or advice!

[Dwight]

-- Avoid single processor imac since a display always lasts longer than its processor remains modern. Unless he wants to give the imac to the little woman for recipes, martha stewart web site and e-mail after eighteen months and then get a real computer......

-- dual processor helps render faster with LightWorks. Also makes switching between applications smoother. [value.]

-- get 23" or 30" cinema display for ArchiCAD. [Larger size brings increased pleasure.]. Or 2, 20" displays. Larger display surface increases productivity.

-- -- 2 gigamegulonz minimum RAM