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iMac 3.06 or Mac Pro ?

fredsarran

fredsarran

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Jun 15, 2008
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Can you confirm that One 2.8GHZ Quad-Core Intel Xeon is better than 3.06GHz Intel Core 2 Duo ?

I could afford the Mac Pro with the specs I mentioned above but not a ACD. Thats annoying because they look great and I would need the 23 inch one.

Can you tell me if they are good monitors, the ACD ?
 
D4F

D4F

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Sep 18, 2007
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Planet Earth
fredsarran said:
Can you confirm that One 2.8GHZ Quad-Core Intel Xeon is better than 3.06GHz Intel Core 2 Duo ?

I could afford the Mac Pro with the specs I mentioned above but not a ACD. Thats annoying because they look great and I would need the 23 inch one.

Can you tell me if they are good monitors, the ACD ?
Click to expand...

Again bro.
It all depends what you will use it for.
Plain specs by specs the Pro IS better but that doesn't mean you will ever use it's possibilities (and by asking questions like this I assume you won't).

Multicore processing is a task that not many applications can handle this days and this will not change within two-four years.

I started to wonder if it really ever will since so many developers state that they want to use GPU for certain tasks. Technically Snow will change that but by the time we get supported apps it will take ages (from what I understood).

If you are not a professional user of anything that handles multi core processing then don't even bother the Pro. You will loose getting a crappier screen and you will loose again having a overpriced system that will have 80% of it's resources unused all the time.

ACD's are amazing... If you're lucky to get the perfect screen. I had to return the first due to dead pixel but #2 is perfect indeed... for photo editing and that's about it. Honestly :)

If you want to play games on it you can forget. It has a 16 ms responce so you're 3d games will look blurry. Totally bad choice for games.
 
fredsarran

fredsarran

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Original poster
Jun 15, 2008
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I often use Apple Pro apps and Adobe CS3. Every so often I play games and wish that they could run better. I work in the multimedia and use to have a iMac 2.8.

Mac Pro is interresting because I want to add more storage and RAM later on. Also I can change the graphic card if apps and games need more power. I do not like the fact that with an iMac you are stuck with the configuration.

So you are telling me that the ACD is crap and not worse it ? Is iMac display superior ? Also is the ACD glossy ?

Cheers for your time, I really appreciate.
 
D4F

D4F

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Sep 18, 2007
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fredsarran said:
I often use Apple Pro apps and Adobe CS3. Every so often I play games and wish that they could run better. I work in the multimedia and use to have a iMac 2.8.

Mac Pro is interresting because I want to add more storage and RAM later on. Also I can change the graphic card if apps and games need more power. I do not like the fact that with an iMac you are stuck with the configuration.

So you are telling me that the ACD is crap and not worse it ? Is iMac display superior ? Also is the ACD glossy ?

Cheers for your time, I really appreciate.
Click to expand...

ACD is matte and is crap for Games. For any other stuff which do not require fast refresh rate it's awesome.

RAM is not a biggie and it won't be for a few years. Right now you can not use more than 4 and it will take a while before that changes.
As for the graphic card... Well that might be a case for windows but natively OS X running cards aren't state of the art.
Hard drives. You can add external ones so don't relie on that unless you really want internal ones for some reason.
 
fredsarran

fredsarran

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Jun 15, 2008
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D4F said:
ACD is matte and is crap for Games. For any other stuff which do not require fast refresh rate it's awesome.

RAM is not a biggie and it won't be for a few years. Right now you can not use more than 4 and it will take a while before that changes.
As for the graphic card... Well that might be a case for windows but natively OS X running cards aren't state of the art.
Hard drives. You can add external ones so don't relie on that unless you really want internal ones for some reason.
Click to expand...

Are you saying that having 32GB of RAM in a Mac Pro is useless ?
 
D4F

D4F

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Sep 18, 2007
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fredsarran said:
Are you saying that having 32GB of RAM in a Mac Pro is useless ?
Click to expand...

Not really useless but pointless I would say.
Unless you want to have 5 apps open and ALL of them will be used VERY extensively at the same time.

4GB assigned to a apllication is something many of us will never use (and that is the max you can use now as none of Mac apps works under 64bit). Of course if you are working with print size images then everything extra will be welcomed but even if you have 32GB installed, your core image app or photoshop will only use 4.
 
J

Jack Flash

macrumors 65816
May 8, 2007
1,160
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D4F said:
Not really useless but pointless I would say.
Unless you want to have 5 apps open and ALL of them will be used VERY extensively at the same time.

4GB assigned to a apllication is something many of us will never use (and that is the max you can use now as none of Mac apps works under 64bit). Of course if you are working with print size images then everything extra will be welcomed but even if you have 32GB installed, your core image app or photoshop will only use 4.
Click to expand...

32GB RAM is good for professionals who say, have enormous render caches. It's not a consumer option.
 
eXan

eXan

macrumors 601
Jan 10, 2005
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fredsarran said:
Can you confirm that One 2.8GHZ Quad-Core Intel Xeon is better than 3.06GHz Intel Core 2 Duo ?

I could afford the Mac Pro with the specs I mentioned above but not a ACD. Thats annoying because they look great and I would need the 23 inch one.

Can you tell me if they are good monitors, the ACD ?
Click to expand...

Why do you refuse to make some research? Asking endless questions on the forum will give you mostly biased, incorrect or incomplete info.

C2D 3 GHz vs Xeon 2.8... do you really think laptop processor clocked 206 MHz higher beats server/workstation-class processor even of both had the same number of cores?

You need to utilize more than 2 cores to see a significant difference though. For benchmarks, go to http://barefeats.com or other sites that benchmark Macs, like Macworld.

ACDs are wonderful monitors, cheapest in the their class, while often beating higher priced monitors. But ACD is unnecessary if all you do is web graphics, play games, surf the web and chat in adium.
 
D4F

D4F

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Sep 18, 2007
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eXan said:
Why do you refuse to make some research? Asking endless questions on the forum will give you mostly biased, incorrect or incomplete info.

C2D 3 GHz vs Xeon 2.8... do you really think laptop processor clocked 206 MHz higher beats server/workstation-class processor even of both had the same number of cores?

You need to utilize more than 2 cores to see a significant difference though. For benchmarks, go to http://barefeats.com or other sites that benchmark Macs, like Macworld.

ACDs are wonderful monitors, cheapest in the their class, while often beating higher priced monitors. But ACD is unnecessary if all you do is web graphics, play games, surf the web and chat in adium.
Click to expand...

It does beat it in certain applications. Proved and tested.
 
D4F

D4F

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Sep 18, 2007
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eXan said:
Yes. Thats why you choose a computer based on your needs. Those certain applications do not use more than 2 cores.
Click to expand...

And the problem is that the vast majority does not use anything more than 2 cores so 4 or 8 core setup is a overkill or a simple waste of $$ I would say.
Well they call it a Mac PRO for a good reason :)
 
eXan

eXan

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Jan 10, 2005
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D4F said:
And the problem is that the vast majority does not use anything more than 2 cores so 4 or 8 core setup is a overkill or a simple waste of $$ I would say.
Well they call it a Mac PRO for a good reason :)
Click to expand...

sure :)

Even though with a Pro you can run two "2-core apps" with no slowdown. Who runs one task at a time anyway? ;)
 
D4F

D4F

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Sep 18, 2007
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eXan said:
sure :)

Even though with a Pro you can run two "2-core apps" with no slowdown. Who runs one task at a time anyway? ;)
Click to expand...

I don't know anybody that does that and that's the thing :D Using iTunes and other 'daily' apps doesn't take half of 2 cores yet 4 alone and that is exactly what most users do these days.

iMovie, iTunes, Safari, Fireworks and you still have room. Tested :)
 
eXan

eXan

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Jan 10, 2005
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D4F said:
I don't know anybody that does that and that's the thing :D Using iTunes and other 'daily' apps doesn't take half of 2 cores yet 4 alone and that is exactly what most users do these days.

iMovie, iTunes, Safari, Fireworks and you still have room. Tested :)
Click to expand...

Oh I meant apps like Handbrake :)
 
fredsarran

fredsarran

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Original poster
Jun 15, 2008
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Darkroom said:
if you can afford it, go for the mac pro. iMacs have rampant screen issues - i'm expecting my 4th replacement!!!
Click to expand...

I had a iMac 2.8, and the display seemed fine. I have read that the Apple Cinema Display also as issues (well probably not all of them).

So I gather that to run Pro apps, the Mac Pro is better but to run games, the iMac 3.06 is better.

I still freak out to the fact that I cannot upgrade the iMac when necessary. The Mac Pro is a very tempting solution but I need to spend more money for the display and that puts me off.
 
eXan

eXan

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Jan 10, 2005
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fredsarran said:
I still don't see them as an upgrade option on Apple site, for iMac and Mac Pro. I always heard that Nvidia is far superior to Ati, so how come Ati seems better now ?
Click to expand...

From Mac Pro specs page:

Graphics and displays

Double-wide, 16-lane PCI Express 2.0 graphics slot with one of the following graphics cards installed:
ATI Radeon HD 2600 XT with 256MB of GDDR3 memory and two dual-link DVI ports
NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GT with 512MB of GDDR3 memory and two dual-link DVI ports
NVIDIA Quadro FX 5600 with 1.5GB of GDDR3 memory, two dual-link DVI ports, and one stereo 3D port

The recently released ATI Radeon 3870 Mac and PC Edition is available separately.

And you can't upgrade video card in iMacs.
 
fredsarran

fredsarran

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Jun 15, 2008
422
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OK cheers. But they will eventually add it in the upgrade part when buying a new mac ?
 
fredsarran

fredsarran

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Jun 15, 2008
422
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Finally

Hi guys,

I finally decided to buy the latest iMac 3.06 with all upgrades possible.

What made me decide is the fact that the Apple Cinema Display is expensive and no iSight camera, no microphone integrated. Why ACD ? Because if I buy a Mac Pro that is such a good looking machine, I want a good looking display :) Also the iMac screen is glossy and the technology is superior to the ACD.

Thanks to all of you. You can of course still chip-in this thread. I will keep an eye on it and add comments eventually.

Apple :apple: simply the best.
 
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