Okay I work is the design field and am going to purchase a mac from the US (I live in South Africa). I could buy one from here but its a hell of a lot cheaper getting one from the States. So here's my problem, I have to make sure I get the best option because I cant just take it back or go down the road to get something upgraded that easily.

Here are my 2 options:

Powerbook G4
1 GB DDR 333 SDRAM
80gb Ultra ATA 5400rpm HDD
8 x Superdrive
Airport Extreme Card
1.67 GHz G4
ATI Mobility Radeon 9700 128mb DDR
17" Screen

iMac G5
1 GB DDR400 SDRAM
160gb Serial ATA HDD
Bluetooth Module
Wireless keyboard and mouse
20"
1.8GHz G5
nVidia Geforce 5200 64mb

I want the fastest machine. The G5 looks good, but I read a thread here comparing the 2 and I couldn't come to a descision. I want to run Photoshop CS / CS2, Illustrator CS / CS2, Macromedia Studio MX 2004 at a helluva speed. Please everyone give me their suggestion.
Thanks

[Spike87]

Originally Posted by brettmeyer I want to run Photoshop CS / CS2, Illustrator CS / CS2, Macromedia Studio MX 2004 at a helluva speed

G5 = Speed, so unless you need the portable form factor the iMac would be the way to go in my opinion. Although I don't have any experience with CS on either machine.

There will be lots of other poeple around with different opinions, so hopefully you can get some good pros and cons of both systems.

[MCQ]

As a point of reference, check Macworld's tables on the PB and iMac.

PB:
http://www.macworld.com/2005/02/revi...4rev/index.php

iMac:
http://www.macworld.com/2004/09/feat...arks/index.php

iMac G5, by a small amount, despite the crappy FX5200 Ultra.

[marcstreeter]

I have been doing lots of research in the line of "which computer does [this] or [that] faster?" and I have found that barefeats.com is a great website for comparison when it comes to highend graphics, games, and even AppleWorks.