Hi All... first off, I'm so excited to be a switcher. Going to be buying my first Mac in the next week or so, but I'm moderately stumped in deciding between the 20" and 24" iMac. Hopefully y'all can share some insight with me. Here's my dilemma:
I'll be running some 3D architectural rendering software, such as autoCAD, form-Z, 3d studio viz, sketchup, maybe blender, so I'm trying to figure out how much oomph I'll really need in the video card department. I'm not a gamer, so I suspect many of the review/comparison sites might not be the best sources of information, as they're usually geared towards gaming performance.
Whichever iMac I decide to buy, I'm going to upgrade to the 256 MB version of the video card, so the battle is really between the ATI x1600 that would come on a 20" iMac and the nvidia 7600GT that would come on a 24" iMac. I know the nvidia will likely be faster, but the question is, how much faster, and will I notice the difference for the type of work I'm doing?
Cost-efficiency is also a factor I'm considering: if the video performance with the 20" iMac is comfortably sufficient for my kind of work (again, no gaming), then I can use the $500 I'd save and buy a second monitor, a setup that I'd actually prefer to the big honkin 24" (beautiful though it admittedly is).
So if anyone has any experience running 3D modeling software on either of these machines, I'd greatly appreciate some input or advice. Thanks in advance!
-Z
I'll be running some 3D architectural rendering software, such as autoCAD, form-Z, 3d studio viz, sketchup, maybe blender, so I'm trying to figure out how much oomph I'll really need in the video card department. I'm not a gamer, so I suspect many of the review/comparison sites might not be the best sources of information, as they're usually geared towards gaming performance.
Whichever iMac I decide to buy, I'm going to upgrade to the 256 MB version of the video card, so the battle is really between the ATI x1600 that would come on a 20" iMac and the nvidia 7600GT that would come on a 24" iMac. I know the nvidia will likely be faster, but the question is, how much faster, and will I notice the difference for the type of work I'm doing?
Cost-efficiency is also a factor I'm considering: if the video performance with the 20" iMac is comfortably sufficient for my kind of work (again, no gaming), then I can use the $500 I'd save and buy a second monitor, a setup that I'd actually prefer to the big honkin 24" (beautiful though it admittedly is).
So if anyone has any experience running 3D modeling software on either of these machines, I'd greatly appreciate some input or advice. Thanks in advance!
-Z