iMac 27 v nMPro Dilemma

[englishman]

The price is exactly the same for these can't decide what is best (I already have 2 nice 19" monitors and would be upgrading from a too slow Mini)

27-inch iMac
3.5GHz Quad-core Intel Core i7, Turbo Boost up to 3.9GHz
16GB 1600MHz DDR3 SDRAM - 2X8GB
256GB Flash Storage
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 780M 4GB GDDR5

OR

new Mac Pro (using my existing perfect 2 screen setup)
3.7GHz quad-core with 10MB of L3 cache
12GB (3 x 4GB) of 1866MHz DDR3 ECC
256GB PCIe-based flash storage
Dual AMD FirePro D300 GPUs with 2GB of GDDR5 VRAM each

I have just general use and heavy Bootcamp Gaming.

 

[Edgecrusherr]

I'm getting $2,749 when I configure the iMac like that, and if you don't buy the RAM from Apple (16GB is $189) it's even cheaper. So that's a difference of $260. However, $260 isn't that much of a difference at the prices you're considering.

It really depends on what you're doing. If I were you I'd go with the Mac Pro. They'll both probably perform around the same (http://www.primatelabs.com/blog/2013/11/estimating-mac-pro-performance — but you may want to wait until real benchmarks show up), but the Mac Pro will have Thunderbolt 2 and dual graphics, which may become more important over the time you have the machine. If you don't need all that power and aren't likely to buy high end Thunderbolt peripherals, then save $260 and buy the iMac.

Overall, if I were you, I'd go Mac Pro because it's so cool lol, but I'm me, and I'll just keep building hackintosh towers because I prefer the expandability of a tower.

 

[aloshka]

The price is exactly the same for these can't decide what is best (I already have 2 nice 19" monitors and would be upgrading from a too slow Mini)

27-inch iMac
3.5GHz Quad-core Intel Core i7, Turbo Boost up to 3.9GHz
16GB 1600MHz DDR3 SDRAM - 2X8GB
256GB Flash Storage
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 780M 4GB GDDR5

OR

new Mac Pro (using my existing perfect 2 screen setup)
3.7GHz quad-core with 10MB of L3 cache
12GB (3 x 4GB) of 1866MHz DDR3 ECC
256GB PCIe-based flash storage
Dual AMD FirePro D300 GPUs with 2GB of GDDR5 VRAM each

I have just general use and heavy Bootcamp Gaming.

Depends what you do. If you do ANY type of gaming, unfortunately the iMac videocard will be/feel faster. The PCIex SSD on the Mac Pro is much faster however. And the processor will be a little faster on the iMac but not by much. It's not just the clockspeed that is higher, it's also much higher turbo and a little better on single-core benchmarks. But the thing to note as well, if you do things that are processor intensive, get the mac pro. Better cooling.

 

[silvetti]

For gaming I would go (and did go) for a 780M iMac.

 

[JeffiJers]

nMP for sure.

use your current displays then a year or so later then hi-res screens come down in price put one up at that point.

27" 1440P is meh

 

[nexusrule]

Mac Pro new GPUs aren't well suited for gaming due to the differences between normal drivers and the drivers used in the pro cards. I suggest you look into this issue in depth because from what I remember being games developed for normal drivers and standard GPUs playing on the Mac Pro gpus could go from suck to near impossible.

 

[chfilm]

Mac Pro new GPUs aren't well suited for gaming due to the differences between normal drivers and the drivers used in the pro cards. I suggest you look into this issue in depth because from what I remember being games developed for normal drivers and standard GPUs playing on the Mac Pro gpus could go from suck to near impossible.

But now since crossfire is enabled under bootcamp..?

 

[nexusrule]

But now since crossfire is enabled under bootcamp..?

From what I know the difference is that these workstation GPUs have totally different drivers than the consumers one (together with pro support these drivers are the only reason because these cards costs so much).

Fact is that developers write their games against consumer GPU drivers so despite the power and big amounts of memory of the pro GPUs they aren't really suited for gaming.

The fact that crossfire works with these GPUs I believe it's a total different matter, it means you can use two of them together yes, but the drivers are still developed for totally different user cases and games are not optimized for the drivers in question.

 

[chfilm]

From what I know the difference is that these workstation GPUs have totally different drivers than the consumers one (together with pro support these drivers are the only reason because these cards costs so much).

Fact is that developers write their games against consumer GPU drivers so despite the power and big amounts of memory of the pro GPUs they aren't really suited for gaming.

The fact that crossfire works with these GPUs I believe it's a total different matter, it means you can use two of them together yes, but the drivers are still developed for totally different user cases and games are not optimized for the drivers in question.

anyway, 3d mark ran like a blast in some other youtube video!