I need someone who is familiar with CS5 and the new iMac to help me out.

My laptop which was almost dead last month is now really doing bad and is going to go anytime now. Crashes everytime I use it, the fan is dead and so is the burner. Its just time to accept that I got my monies worth out of this lil ibook.

So I'm looking to buy the new iMac which is OS 10.6 with the 3.06GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processor, but was thinking of upgrading to 8 gigs or ram instead of the stock 4.

I'm also looking to pick up the new version of photoshop CS5.

I'm curious to know if anyone here knows if these will work well with each other or any advise you could shot me. I haven't had to buy or look into anything tech wise in years and I'm totally out of the loop.

From what I have read there seems to be issue with freezes and crashes but I just dont understand.

more RAM, more Storage is always a good thing....

Rich, im running that exact spec with cs5 currently at work, you wont have any problems.

The best piece of advice i can give you would be NOT to install a ton of fonts into your system/fonts folder, use some good font management software such as FontExplorer X.
Thousands of fonts loading up in all your adobe software will slow your system down regardless of how fast it is, I store 90% of all my video files/music files on an external drive also.

Perfect !

Thanks for the post, let me ask do you have 8 gigs of RAM of just the stock 4 ?

I know all about RAM so I know its worth it, but just curious if it would be okay with the 4.

And its funny you mention the fonts deal as from all the issues I have read about it seems the fonts have been brought up the most.

8 gigs at work, i think you would be fine with the stock 4 to be honest you can always upgrade later. I use 4 gig at home and haven't had any major slowdowns.

You cant really go wrong, i hate the new mice and keyboards though definitely replace those

ha ha.. great advice! I totally forgot about the time I installed a hogillion fonts and the resulting performance I had. ughh..

rich unless you decide you want to do 3d modeling, final cut work, after effects, and photoshop all at the same time, you will be fine with the 4gb of ram.

I'm running Premier, PS & After Effects simultaneously w/ 4Gs & having no problems but if you got the loot for the 8Gs then I'd say go for it, you definitely won't regret it.

For sure don't buy your memory from Apple. Way overpriced.

Not compared to 20 years ago . . .

Maybe I should try crank up my SE20 and see if it's valves still work!

If you have to open Illustrator and Photoshop (CS4 and up) at the same time, you will need more than 4GB ram.
Especially if you have a broswer open, itunes, etc.

Think in a few years the software will get more intensive, so its best to buy it early. Also if you buy it all together you can get them all with Applecare 3 year warranty. As long as you get anything within one receipt it falls into the Applecare, so its a great service worth the extra $.

I bought my imac towards the end of last year and I'm really happy with it, although I don't use it for illustrator or any RAM-intensive programs (aside from WoW).

A friendly tip, you can buy AppleCare from sellers on ebay for a fraction of the cost. They send you the key in an email and it's completely legitimate. I think I paid $70 for it rather than the $120something price they wanted at the shop.

spell and grammar check are always good