advice regarding iMac and 3D Rendering

[dieselpower44]

Hi there,

I do a lot of 3D modeling, animation, video editing etc.
I've always done it on a MacBook Pro but now that I've started getting really into it, I'm finding my 2.4GHz late 2008 MacBook Pro with the 9600M GT just isn't keeping up with me and rendering times are ridiculous..

I'm now considering maxing out my student overdraft and purchasing the top-level iMac (knocked up to 2.8GHz i7 with 8GB RAM and the ATI 4850).

Can someone tell me if this is a good setup for rendering and at a decent cost? I've heard all sorts of things from my Windows friends saying "ohhhh, it's double what you pay for a PC" and "i7 is the same as xeon" etc.

I know that the best option would be a Mac Pro with Xeon (since that's what they're designed for) but that's just stretching my budget too far and I simply can't afford it. So is the i7 setup a decent fallback for the cost, or am I going to find not much improvement on speed and performance with respect to render speeds?

Any help much appreciated!
Scott

 

[Hellhammer]

Should be fine. You would have to go for 8-core Mac Pro to see difference.

BTW, tell them the with PC you don't get 27" IPS panel display with LED backlight. Same quality display is over 1000$ so it's not more expensive than PC

 

[dieselpower44]

Should be fine. You would have to go for 8-core Mac Pro to see difference.

BTW, tell them the with PC you don't get 27" IPS panel display with LED backlight. Same quality display is over 1000$ so it's not more expensive than PC

Thanks and I knew this about the IPS panels and have already relayed this information

See when you say "should be ok" do you mean that it will be much the same as with my current setup and thus not cost effective if that's my main reason for upgrading to desktop rendering?

I do completely understand that for a phenomenal performance increase, an 8core Xeon would be required.

But I just want to know that buying this iMac will definitely be worth it. Please bear in mind I don't use it for games or anything; that gets left to my ps3 since I don't really play many games (I prefer more productive work with 3D!)

Thanks again for your help Hellhammer.