New iMac 21.5 and 3dMax/Maya

[lmcgs]

Hello,

I am planning to buy a new imac 21.5". Maya will be run on osx and 3dmax will be run on bootcamp windows.
I can not buy 27" because it is too big for our room and desk
The specs are below:
Intel Quad-Core i5 2.9GHz
8GB Ram1600MHz
1TB, 5400 rpm (may change this with ssd but i am not sure yet)
NVIDIA GeForce GT 650M 512MB GDDR5

Does anyone use this or similar imac with 3d rendering programs? Did you see any problem during render or working on?
Bytheway, these programs will be used for architectural and interiour design.

Thx

 

[PortableLover]

Hello there, I do not have an iMac, I use a windows based laptop. However I do use 3dsmax and maya. First of all that 512MB in the graphics card will limit your viewport performance, depending on how much polygons/verts you have in your scene. In terms of rendering, you'd do fine with the i5, however an i7 offers hyperthreading which gives you another 4 virtual cores. getting the i7 would make a large difference in terms of render times. Most rendering is still CPU based.

There is also the question of why I'm on the Mac sub forums, it is because I love Macs and what they stand for, waiting for a potential new MP

 

[passey]

Hello,

I am planning to buy a new imac 21.5". Maya will be run on osx and 3dmax will be run on bootcamp windows.
I can not buy 27" because it is too big for our room and desk
The specs are below:
Intel Quad-Core i5 2.9GHz
8GB Ram1600MHz
1TB, 5400 rpm (may change this with ssd but i am not sure yet)
NVIDIA GeForce GT 650M 512MB GDDR5

Does anyone use this or similar imac with 3d rendering programs? Did you see any problem during render or working on?
Bytheway, these programs will be used for architectural and interiour design.

Thx

i would get teh base 21.5" as .2ghz cpu performace and the difference between 640m and 650m is minimal.

You would see a better performance from the base model with a fusion drive.

or get a mac mini i7 model. base ram as you can upgrade that yourself. buy a nice monitor to go with it and save yourself loads of cash upgrade RAM to 16GB as it had hd4000 graphics so will share system RAM

 

[flavr]

i would get teh base 21.5" as .2ghz cpu performace and the difference between 640m and 650m is minimal.

You would see a better performance from the base model with a fusion drive.

or get a mac mini i7 model. base ram as you can upgrade that yourself. buy a nice monitor to go with it and save yourself loads of cash upgrade RAM to 16GB as it had hd4000 graphics so will share system RAM

absolutely terrible advice! intel4000 for maya, you must be joking...?

 

[Jessica Lares]

I have Intel HD Graphics 3000 on my MacBook Pro, and Maya works perfectly fine. I rendered animation for 10+ hours straight in December for my final exam in college with no issues except that it got pretty hot.

Since you're mainly using it for architectural and interiour design, there shouldn't be any issues that come up with the iMac. Will be the typical rendering times you're used to when you're just rendering to tiff, etc.

 

[librarian]

The i7 is about 30-40% faster in rendering. Better video card is useless for maya osx thanks to apple pisspoor opengl implementation and video memory management, you will use standard viewport 99% of the time anyway.
If you plan to use mostly maya for rendering consider the i7 option, it is a huge upgrade that will save you valuable time.

 

[lmcgs]

thanks for your replies, in fact my wife is architect, i am not, i will only use logic pro and lightroom.
she told me that would not render too much. Probably i will use %95 and she will use the mac %5 so decided to buy i5 2.9. There are nearly 1000$ difference in my country for i7 and fusiondrive upgrade. We decided to buy a new computer if she will start to earn money from Maya and 3dmax outputs
thank you very much for your answers again.