In answer to the original question a higher end Macbook Pro, Mac Mini or iMac coupled with a Promise Pegasus disk array will be a pretty good choice for photographic needs. In my view, for stills photography, it is no longer so important to have the most cores or the fastest processor. In fact the biggest problems for photography are disk access speeds and memory. These are where most bottlenecks are.
A fast Thunderbolt array (I use the 6 disk Promise Pegasus) will make a much bigger difference to your workflow speed and is probably the best place to put your money at the present time. If Apple come up with a new MacPro it will have Thunderbolt, as they are strongly behind it. So maybe if you wanted to hedge your bets you could buy the Mac Mini with 16GB RAM, some MacSales SDD drives and a Promise Pegasus. Then when Apple release a MacPro, simply install your software and plug in the Thunderbolt drive. You can then recoup some investment by selling the Mac Mini. Plus you can use your existing monitor if you already have a good one.
My specs, for reference:
Phase One P40+
>50,000 images in Lightroom 4.2
Macbook Pro 2.5GHz (late 2011)
16GB RAM
240GB OWC SSD
Promise Pegasus 6TB Thunderbolt Drive
I used to have an 8 core MacPro 3.0GHz. The Macbook Pro runs faster.
A fast Thunderbolt array (I use the 6 disk Promise Pegasus) will make a much bigger difference to your workflow speed and is probably the best place to put your money at the present time. If Apple come up with a new MacPro it will have Thunderbolt, as they are strongly behind it. So maybe if you wanted to hedge your bets you could buy the Mac Mini with 16GB RAM, some MacSales SDD drives and a Promise Pegasus. Then when Apple release a MacPro, simply install your software and plug in the Thunderbolt drive. You can then recoup some investment by selling the Mac Mini. Plus you can use your existing monitor if you already have a good one.
My specs, for reference:
Phase One P40+
>50,000 images in Lightroom 4.2
Macbook Pro 2.5GHz (late 2011)
16GB RAM
240GB OWC SSD
Promise Pegasus 6TB Thunderbolt Drive
I used to have an 8 core MacPro 3.0GHz. The Macbook Pro runs faster.