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Do Nothing, 4K or iMac Retina

M

Mr Ski 73

macrumors regular
Original poster
Dec 11, 2007
237
0
Hi

I am based in the UK and have a 2010 MP with a hex 3.33ghz processor, 32GB RAM and about 5TB of storage inc a OWC Accelsior boot drive. I use a Samsung 27A850 monitor which runs at 2560x1440 driven by my ATI 5870. I am a keen amateur photographer and use DXO and Lightroom extensively. This is a factor as DXO uses maximum processor power and I have 6 cores rather than 4 cores for the iMac.

Given recent articles I visits to the apple store I am impressed with the Retina 5k displays and have the itch as to weather to upgrade. This is purely to get the display as I don't think I will gain anything from the computer itself.

My options as I see them are as follows

1. Do nothing (unsure on the benefit of going from 2560 to 4k, from what I can see it may not be that great I and I am just wowed by the apple marketing and store display images
2. Upgrade to a flashed Nvidia 670 graphics card (macvideocards) and get a Dell P2715Q, sell my Samsung monitor and ATI card
3. Get the best iMac and then upgrade the RAM and go shopping for an external storage housing

Any thoughts welcome
 
Mr Ski 73 said:
This is a factor as DXO uses maximum processor power and I have 6 cores rather than 4 cores for the iMac.
Click to expand...
I use DXO as well, and perhaps I'm not as serious as an amateur photographer as you, but I've always found 4 cores to be fine for my needs, heck, I've actually run Lightroom and DXO on a dual core SP3. While no speed demon that respect it handles it decently.

How many images are you pumping through DXO?
 
maflynn said:
I use DXO as well, and perhaps I'm not as serious as an amateur photographer as you, but I've always found 4 cores to be fine for my needs, heck, I've actually run Lightroom and DXO on a dual core SP3. While no speed demon that respect it handles it decently.

How many images are you pumping through DXO?
Click to expand...

Thanks for the reply, probably 100-150.
 
DO nothing or purchase the upgrades. Buying an iMac just for the monitor when your MP is working just fine seems like a sup-optimal use of cash.
 
Well from all reports the screens are excellent especially on the 2015 configuration.

The i7 5k iMac has the same performance as a nMP, with a hex core and dual D500 graphics cards.

So in theory it will be at least as good as what you have (better if you get it with a PCIe SSD) and to beat it with the current Mac Pro options will take an 8 core configuration with D700 graphics cards.

If you can afford it order one and test it for a week or so you have 14 Days to to return for a full refund with no worries.
 
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Its true my MP is fine and this is why I ask the question. I am not sure about the upgrader route though as card + screen will cost me c£700
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Samuelsan2001 said:
Well from all reports the screens are excellent especially on the 2015 configuration.

The i7 5k iMac has the same performance as a nMP, with a hex core and dual D500 graphics cards.

So in theory it will be at least as good as what you have (better if you get it with a PCIe SSD) and to beat it with the current Mac Pro options will take an 8 core configuration with D700 graphics cards.

If you can afford it order one and test it for a week or so you have 14 Days to to return for a full refund with no worries.
Click to expand...

Good idea its just the temptation. I would be keen to hear from anyone that has gone from 2560 to either 4k or 5k
 
I've got a couple of Dell monitors, one running at 1440 like yours and another one running at 4K (P2715Q). Like you I also use a lot of Lightroom and things like colour accuracy are important to me.

What I have found with the 4k monitor is that it makes some difference to photo editing (1:1 previews look quite good), but it's everything else that looks so much sharper - text, icons, etc. Comparing the two side by side is like night and day.

The P2715Q is currently going for £470 on amazon. Get one, calibrate it and you will be happy. It covers 99% sRGB which is good enough for most of us and has good uniformity with hardly any backlight bleed. It's also a matte screen. If you later decide that you want a 5K iMac or a Mac Pro or anything else you can add it to these machines later so it won't be a waste of money.
 
shaunp said:
I've got a couple of Dell monitors, one running at 1440 like yours and another one running at 4K (P2715Q). Like you I also use a lot of Lightroom and things like colour accuracy are important to me.

What I have found with the 4k monitor is that it makes some difference to photo editing (1:1 previews look quite good), but it's everything else that looks so much sharper - text, icons, etc. Comparing the two side by side is like night and day.

The P2715Q is currently going for £470 on amazon. Get one, calibrate it and you will be happy. It covers 99% sRGB which is good enough for most of us and has good uniformity with hardly any backlight bleed. It's also a matte screen. If you later decide that you want a 5K iMac or a Mac Pro or anything else you can add it to these machines later so it won't be a waste of money.
Click to expand...

Thanks that is helpful. What machine are you using and what graphics card?
 
It depends on your budget and what you really want. If you want to be trouble free. It's either go to get the iMac or don't do anything. Yes, the cMP can handle 4K screen, or even multiple 4K screens, but the chance of having trouble (especially during OSX upgrade) is higher with 3rd party hardware in 4k.

If you want to upgrade your Mac, please make sure you chat with MVC and confirm that the card you are looking for able to give you the 4k boot screen, able to run with OSX native driver, etc.

A friendly reminder for you. AFAIK, there is no "native' way to choose "retina" mode in display setting for cMP. And there is no guarantee that you can get the HiDPI setting you want with zero trouble.

The iMac only has 4 cores, but each core is much faster than the W3680. Therefore, the overall multi core performance is more or less the same. However, if your Mac is continuously under stress, then the Mac Pro obviously is a better choice, since the cooling system is decided for the machine to run 24/7 at 100% load. The iMac will have much higher chance go into thermal throttling, and the continuous excessive heat may shorten the iMac's life.

In terms of internal storage, nothing can beat the 5,1 in Mac's world. We can have 4x SM951 in RAID 0 (~6000MB/s), or easily have 24T internal storage (4x6T HDD), etc. If you don't want external storage, then may not be a good idea to go to iMac just because of the monitor.
 
h9826790 said:
It depends on your budget and what you really want. If you want to be trouble free. It's either go to get the iMac or don't do anything. Yes, the cMP can handle 4K screen, or even multiple 4K screens, but the chance of having trouble (especially during OSX upgrade) is higher with 3rd party hardware in 4k.

If you want to upgrade your Mac, please make sure you chat with MVC and confirm that the card you are looking for able to give you the 4k boot screen, able to run with OSX native driver, etc.

A friendly reminder for you. AFAIK, there is no "native' way to choose "retina" mode in display setting for cMP. And there is no guarantee that you can get the HiDPI setting you want with zero trouble.

The iMac only has 4 cores, but each core is much faster than the W3680. Therefore, the overall multi core performance is more or less the same. However, if your Mac is continuously under stress, then the Mac Pro obviously is a better choice, since the cooling system is decided for the machine to run 24/7 at 100% load. The iMac will have much higher chance go into thermal throttling, and the continuous excessive heat may shorten the iMac's life.

In terms of internal storage, nothing can beat the 5,1 in Mac's world. We can have 4x SM951 in RAID 0 (~6000MB/s), or easily have 24T internal storage (4x6T HDD), etc. If you don't want external storage, then may not be a good idea to go to iMac just because of the monitor.
Click to expand...

Thanks some good pointers here.
Could you expand on how I will select my mac to run 4k. Is it not as simple as system preferences>displays and then pick the highest resolution.
SM951s are a new one on me. how do they fit (looks super speedy!)
I need the storage so I am starting to think the upgrade option is the way to go.
 
Mr Ski 73 said:
Thanks some good pointers here.
Could you expand on how I will select my mac to run 4k. Is it not as simple as system preferences>displays and then pick the highest resolution.
SM951s are a new one on me. how do they fit (looks super speedy!)
I need the storage so I am starting to think the upgrade option is the way to go.
Click to expand...

You can refer to this thread about SM951.

https://forums.macrumors.com/thread...the-09-macpro-bootable-ngff-pcie-ssd.1685821/

Yes, basically all you need is just set the resolution to 4k at system preference. However, for a 27" monitor, I am sure all the words will be super small and very hard to read. Therefore, you need HiDPI, however, there is no guarantee that the system will give this choice natively. Also, there is no guarantee that you can get 4K 60Hz easily (4K 30Hz is almost guarantee, however, it not good enough for computer operation. The input lag is too large, not even good for using the mouse).

Also, even though you get a flashed card. There is no guarantee that you can get the boot screen on a 4k monitor. If that didn't work, you may not able to access the recovery partition when needed. However, this is not the primary concern, you should able to easily get the answer from MVC.
 
I am beginning to think I am better keeping what I have for the time being. The risk of things not working in the future plus the cost of a new card with international shipping and import taxes means I will be pushing £1k. Probably best wait for a couple of years and then upgrade and in the meantime explore external storage solutions. Thanks for all the help and advice
 
That's relatively easy and low cost / risk. A $20 KT-4004 USB 3.0 card will do the job. Then you can utilise the USB 3.0 port for external high speed storage (not bootable). And this storage should be good for future use.
 
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