Considering iMac since Mac Pro isn't coming for awhile

[silvel2edge]

Well,

It's not looking like the Mac Pro is coming for another couple months, it could, but i guess i'm being a little pessimistic. My situation is this, I sold my PC since i thought Mac Pro would be out this week. Currently I'm using my wife's 15" macbook pro, but we are having issues when she's home from work, when we both want to use it, so i really need my own machine.

Anyway, I'm throwing around the idea of maybe getting a 24" iMac for now, and then probably selling it on eBay when the Mac Pro is finally released. Anyone know how much I would expect to lose doing this?

Oh, also i guess buying another macbook pro is an option as well. I'll mainly be using it to do some picture stuff, play WoW, and encode video's for iPod... not sure which would work better for gaming between the current macbook pro and the iMac.

 

[X1Lightning]

Well,

It's not looking like the Mac Pro is coming for another couple months, it could, but i guess i'm being a little pessimistic. My situation is this, I sold my PC since i thought Mac Pro would be out this week. Currently I'm using my wife's 15" macbook pro, but we are having issues when she's home from work, when we both want to use it, so i really need my own machine.

Anyway, I'm throwing around the idea of maybe getting a 24" iMac for now, and then probably selling it on eBay when the Mac Pro is finally released. Anyone know how much I would expect to lose doing this?

Oh, also i guess buying another macbook pro is an option as well. I'll mainly be using it to do some picture stuff, play WoW, and encode video's for iPod... not sure which would work better for gaming between the current macbook pro and the iMac.

dosent sound like you really need a pro machine, just get the imac

 

[chameleon]

Anyway, I'm throwing around the idea of maybe getting a 24" iMac for now, and then probably selling it on eBay when the Mac Pro is finally released. Anyone know how much I would expect to lose doing this?

BRAND NEW 24" iMacs seem to be selling on eBay for between $1,500 and $1,700.

USED seem to go for around $1,200 - $1,400.

So the loss looks to be around $300. Not too bad.

 

[-Noodles]

My girlfriend has the new imac 24" 2.4ghz with 2gb of ram - its plenty fast for what you'd need to do and its not even the top model with only a modest increase in ram. I've used photoshop cs on it and had no slow downs or any problems with it. If you're worried about power just get the 2.8ghz with 2gb of ram or more and you should be fine. Btw the 24" screen and compactness of it are wonderful. You'll have a great time with it.

 

[silvel2edge]

well the only reason i wanted a Mac Pro really, is for a really good graphics card for some games like Crysis, and maybe a bluray burner if it comes with one... although i think the iMac will suit me fine for now. Not sure if I really even need the 2.8 Extreme vs. the 2.4, i'll probably be better off with just getting it with 1GB of ram and order the 4GB ram kit from crucial for 199.

I'll check eBay as well, but I also get a student discount so i'm not sure which would be better.

 

[-Noodles]

the higher processor speed might help to compensate for the graphics card option. you'll get more out of it for the long haul unless you plan to sell it on ebay as you were describing.

 

[suneohair]

You can minimize your loss if you go with the ADC discount on the mac pro. It is $1999 in the ADC store, student membership ia $99 and includes a full copy of leopard, monthly mailings, access to some nifty pre-release software and of course the one time discount, the discount is only worth it for pro machines.

 

[snickelfritz]

My 2¢...

Mac Pro is configured for fast I/O for professional media authoring.
ie: you can setup multiple HDD for video capture, PSD scratch etc..., and the RAM/FSB is runs at higher frequency and bandwidth than the iMac.
You get what you pay for, but in this case I think you'd be paying extra for something you don't actually need.

For example:
2.66ghz Mac Pro with 2GB RAM, X1900, and 23" ACD is about $4000.
You could buy a 24" iMac for general computing for $1800, and build a powerful custom PC with 24" display, 2.4 C2D, ASUS P5W DH, 8800GTS 640MB, 2GB Corsair XMS2 RAM, premium Antec P180 case/650watt PSU, and Vista Ultimate OEM for about $1900 for parts at newegg, that will probably outperform the Mac Pro in games.

This way you would have a very nice Mac for general computing, and a high performance gaming machine for ~$300 less than the cost of the Mac Pro.

 

[sinn.]

I am thinking about doing this too. Although I do 3d animation and need a good machine. Would the 24 imac hold its own?

 

[SpaceJello]

I am thinking about doing this too. Although I do 3d animation and need a good machine. Would the 24 imac hold its own?

I would imagine the imac would hold alright, but in all seriousness, the mac pro will be lightning fast in terms of rendering. I am in a simular situation considering the 24" but for after effects/motion/fcp sort of work.

Check out barefeats.com

But a 24" 2.8ghz comes really close to the 2.66 mac pro in price....
Even with the current line of mac pros, you should be able to do hold up a few years longer than the imac... unless you keep upgrading?

Any suggestions?

 

[snickelfritz]

The iMac, regardless of the CPU frequency, installed RAM etc..., is not configured for super-fast/efficient I/O compared to a true workstation.
For 3D/animation/video compositing, the Mac Pro/Quadro is a much better choice.

 

[ocbo41]

For the O.P. if you really want it for games then you will be booting into XP/Vista and playing there, just buy a refurb 2.66 and buy an 8800GT (or GTS?) to play at much higher framerates than the 24"imac and faster performance throughout. The 8800 series won't work in OS-X currently but maybe in the future. I would price out the 3month loss on a mac-pro, I would bet if you bought the 2.66 for $2000 with an ADC membership, buy 4GB of ram for $194, I dont see how you can lose too much if you find that the new ones will benifit you. The Powermac and Mac-Pro's seem to lose less per dollar then the rest. I only lost $400 on my 14mo. old 2.0ghz MBP on ebay.

And for the animation I would def. go with the mac-pro, I think Maya/3DS would really shine with the MBP.

Question for you animators...is XSI still a big hit? I was using 3DS in school and testing XSI (2004-05 version) when I wanted to go for the animation field, seemed more intuitive than Maya, and a terrific value. (sorry off topic)

 

[flyinmac]

Anyway, I'm throwing around the idea of maybe getting a 24" iMac for now, and then probably selling it on eBay when the Mac Pro is finally released. Anyone know how much I would expect to lose doing this?

The used value of your machine will also be affected by whether a newer model is released of that same machine before you sell it.

If that happens, you can expect a larger loss.

I've purchased and sold two iMac systems in the last few years.

The first one was replaced with a newer revision shortly after I got it. I paid full price for it, and the newer base model included many of the items I paid extra for.

So, I lost about $1200 on that system when I sold it (it was about 5 months old when I sold it).

The second one was also replaced by a newer model when I sold it. It was about 3 months old when I sold it. And, I lost about $600 to $700 on it when I sold it.

Both systems had the extended AppleCare warranty.