2008 2.8 octo or 2010 2.8 quad for ps5 and LR3

[curvephotograph]

I have bought and and sending back a new 2.93 8GB i7 iMac because I just can't cope with the screen. Its been plenty quick enough for my needs so I guess the base quad (13ghz slower) will perform pretty much the same?

I could spring the extra £300 for the 3.2 quad for a little future proofing, but I'm able to buy a 2008 2.8 octo with 8gb ram and an extra 1tb HD for £250 less than the base 2010. The combined saving from thew 08 and RAM I would have bought would allow me a bigger monitor or an ssd.

Any advice welcome😕

 

[sochet]

Personally I'd spring for the baseline MP:

For:

The iMac (as good as it is) still uses laptop architecture (or at least it did up until this revision) so they're are obvious speed benefits there.

The processors are faster, and can be pushed harder due to the superior cooling

The main benefit of having a MP is it's expandability. The thing could potentially last you 7-10 years! You can add RAM, new graphics card, new processor (not hard at all really) and you'll still be able to keep up with new tech (USB3 and Lightpeak due to the ability to put those cards in the pci-e slots)

Multiple Hard drives (Good for backups/RAID setups. For Photoshop it's a good idea to have you OS and applications on one HD and the images you're working on in another, as this gives you a performance boot and you have less to lose if the OS drive fails). It's pretty common to get a small SSD (60 gigs or so) put Snow Leopard and PS on there and use a fast mechanical HD as a "Scratch".

Against:

Power consumption will be higher with the MP (I'm not sure of figures but if you want to but they won't be *That* much, so if you're having to watch the pennies then it might be a factor

No screen: Obviously this is an additional shell out (I'm an audio guy so a nice vibrant, in your face colour monitor would be no good to you, however there's a thread on here about the best monitor to use with your MP for pro visual work)
You mentioned you don't like the iMac screen, so the Apple one is probably not the way to go for you.

I've run out of ideas for not getting a Mac Pro now 😛......sooo errrrr the MP takes up more space!


Seriously all in all I'd spring for the extra £300 (maybe budget £500 or so to add in some more RAM and a SSD).

Do you intend to make a living from it or are you a student/hobbyist?

 

[Chupa Chupa]

Tough choice, but the '08 Octo and '10 QC have roughly the same Geekbench score and the '08 actually edges out the '10 in Cinebench. It's probably worth saving a few bucks and going w/ the '08 Octo. as long as it's in good shape.

 

[sochet]

OP: How long is the warranty on the '08 MP? Can you put Applecare on it? (This would be a deciding factor for me really)

 

[tomscott1988]

I have the 08 for photography and graphic design and it destroys all PS and LR work, I love it and theres no way i would downgrade to a quad. You also have to remember that the benchmarks are made using the standard config, which was originally 2gbs of ram, a measly 320gb hdd and a 2600xt not exactly valid now a days. Mine (see fig) benches at 12800 about 4k more than the new quad. Warranty is a definite factor you dont want anything going wrong with it. Fortunately i got mine discounted from John Lewis for £1500 and for a 4 year warranty with it for £99. So im good for another 2 1/2 years.

I would get the 08 and get myself an ssd more ram, 5770, and a few 2tb hdds. Flying machine. If you cant get a warranty try getting your hands on a 09 model, a 2.66 quad would do great and would save you a few £!

 

[curvephotograph]

Thanks for the advice all.

Sochet, I don't think I explained myself well, the question was between an 08 octo mac pro and a 2010 quad mac pro, the iMac decision is already made.

I'm not sure of the 08's warranty, its from a reputable dealer but a new machine with applecare is 3 years piece of mind.

I earn my living from this so happy to spend what I need, but its simply a tool to me I don't need to have the latest thing at any cost its a business decision between cost and value.

If I got the 08 I could load it right away but the 2010 machine would have to be done in stages, RAM, SSD, HD's in raid for scratch etc.

 

[sboerup]

Get the new quad. The new Nehalem chips are much much faster than the 2008 8-core offering, with better RAM as well. For PS and LR it'll be much snappier and faster overall.

 

[sochet]

@Tomscott: I'd double check that warranty, if it's John Lewis's own one it may be 4 years, but Applecare is 3 (the 1 year standard warranty and the 1st year of Applecare overlap)

@OP: Yeah sorry, I did mis-read that. Well I had a '08 MP and it worked perfectly for me! It handled everything I threw at it very well (Although the graphics for games wasn't as good as my '10 MP the frame rate is superior in the most intensive places)

Things to bear in mind:

1: the '08 RAM is 880mHz and needs heatsinks, this might be problematic 5 years down the line in terms of companies manufacturing them

2. The processors aren't as upgradeable, I don't know what you can put in them but presumably Apple won't let you go a generation up I.E. Only 2008 xeon processors will work, but I'm far from an expert on this.

3. I think Apple only supports HD's up to 1.2 terrabytes (though in the real world it may be more) so storage in the future might be a bit limited

On the plus side:

The new Radeon 5870 can work in the '08 MP works, so there's still some life in MP GPU's

All in all I'd probably go for the '08 MP myself. Whack some extra RAM/SSD's and Scratch discs and you'll have a smoking machine! (Are you getting it from the Apple refurb store? If so that may be my old faulty one....I hope it isn't!)

 

[cnstoll]

I'd definitely say 10 quad. With Turbo Boost and Hyper Threading the new Nehalem generation of Xeons will definitely out perform the octo 08. Having the memory controller on chip as opposed to off chip in a front-side bus (like the older generations have) is alone a good reason to get the newer model.

As another poster mentioned, having 3 years of guaranteed hardware support from Apple really is a deciding factor too.

 

[tomscott1988]

@Tomscott: I'd double check that warranty, if it's John Lewis's own one it may be 4 years, but Applecare is 3 (the 1 year standard warranty and the 1st year of Applecare overlap)

@OP: Yeah sorry, I did mis-read that. Well I had a '08 MP and it worked perfectly for me! It handled everything I threw at it very well (Although the graphics for games wasn't as good as my '10 MP the frame rate is superior in the most intensive places)

Things to bear in mind:

1: the '08 RAM is 880mHz and needs heatsinks, this might be problematic 5 years down the line in terms of companies manufacturing them

2. The processors aren't as upgradeable, I don't know what you can put in them but presumably Apple won't let you go a generation up I.E. Only 2008 xeon processors will work, but I'm far from an expert on this.

3. I think Apple only supports HD's up to 1.2 terrabytes (though in the real world it may be more) so storage in the future might be a bit limited

On the plus side:

The new Radeon 5870 can work in the '08 MP works, so there's still some life in MP GPU's

All in all I'd probably go for the '08 MP myself. Whack some extra RAM/SSD's and Scratch discs and you'll have a smoking machine! (Are you getting it from the Apple refurb store? If so that may be my old faulty one....I hope it isn't!)

The warranty is through john lewis so if it goes wrong, john lewis pay for apple to fix it, simple. Like all apple products sold by john lewis. The 2008 pro supports 2tb drives also, i have 1 installed in mine. Even if it was faulty the strict procedure it goes through will probably mean it is less likely to go wrong than buying a brand new one. As every component is check toughly.

 

[sochet]

Even if it was faulty the strict procedure it goes through will probably mean it is less likely to go wrong than buying a brand new one. As every component is check toughly.

That's what the they told me every time they fixed it! (And they had to do that 4 times!) 😕

 

[sboerup]

Just to reassure you, I just sold me 2008 2.8-octo with 16GB for a good price so I could upgrade to the hexacore. It has been a very NOTICEABLE difference between the two machines. If I were you, I'd go for a 2010 quad and would recommend jumping to the 3.2 quad as well.

 

[tomscott1988]

That's what the they told me every time they fixed it! (And they had to do that 4 times!) 😕

Buying refurbished and getting repaired are two different things. When it is refurbished they are reselling a product which had problems, unwanted, returned or displayed. Apples procedure makes sure that every component meets apple guidelines or it will be replaced. When repaired they just run a hardware test after effected components are replaced to make sure the components replaced are working correctly and it is given a quick test and given a visual check then given back to you.