mac mini good for professinal graphic artist

If you are going to work with large images, especially applying complex filters, I would suggest the Mac Pro over the mini by far. The mini can handle a surprising amount of image editing work, but it is by no means fast and too much processing work will generate a lot of heat from the CPU and will over time wear badly on a mini. If you wanted a second 'light duty' workstation for basic editing needs, a mini would be great for that, but the 'heavy lifting' would be better done on a Mac Pro.

Could you elaborate on what you mean by "professional graphic apps" and what sort of work you do? A Mac mini might work just fine, depending on how you'd use it. A lot of people did very high quality work on systems a lot less powerful than today's Mac mini (much of the work updating the original Star Wars trilogy was done on a PowerBook 3400), so a Mac mini might work quite well for you. Without knowing more about your needs, though, it's almost impossible to offer really informed opinions.

Regards.

While a Mac Pro certainly would be nice, it might be difficult to cost-justify. If you have the budget, or expect in the next couple of years to expand your work with video to a higher level where you'll be working with Final Cut and in particularly with HD content, then certainly go for the Mac Pro. Unless you're working with very large Photoshop files and/or with a number of filters or go "upscale" in your video editing needs, though, a Mac mini or iMac might well work for you. When (or perhaps if) Photoshop goes 64-bit, it will be able to take advantage of the large amount of RAM the Mac Pro can hold. But otherwise, a Mac Pro may be overkill for you and, if funds are tight, more expensive than you need to go to. A decent "middle" option might be the 24" iMac with the GT120 processor and 4GB of RAM. That would give you very good performance for Photoshop, iMovie and iDVD, I think. Drop a second monitor on it for tool palettes, etc. and you'd have what I would consider to be a very cost-effective solution.

If you have an Apple Store or a Mac dealer near you, drop in an spend some time with a Mac mini and/or an iMac running some of those apps (you may not find one with Photoshop, but they'll certainly have iMovie and you can take in some of your clips to try out) and see how the performance seems to you. Again, if you have the budget, a Mac Pro would be great. But if like most pros you need to cost-justify your expenditures, consider an iMac or even a mini.

Regards.

You certainly wouldn't have to go with 'the works' to exceed a mini's capabilities. One nice thing about the Mac Pro though is that you could later upgrade it very substantially if need be, and to a much greater degree than you ever could with a mini. An 'entry level' Mac Pro might suffice for now while being able to keep up with later growth and demands. As also noted, you need to consider your actual workload - and a trip to the Apple Store with a little sample media would be very wise. You can make an appointment for personal shopping for free, the only commitment being that it would be polite to make your purchase there with that same salesperson.

I use a Mac Mini 2.0, 2009 with 4GB RAM and external 7200 rpm drives. It is used for a lot of Photoshop and Lightroom photo editing. It cost 1/6th of what I spent on the early 09 2.93 Quad Mac Pro....for Final Cut editing. Try it. You can always get a Pro refurb later for heavier lifting.