Mac Pro or iMac 24"

[m0nk3y]

Hi,

I am pondering which one to get. I am a pretty all around user, rip/encode movies, play games, web code, listen to music/films and do alot of average stuff. I currently have a nice 20" dell monitor and a PC full of HD's. I also have an oldish Ati 9600 XT gfx card to play games such as Half Life 2, etc.

I can't decide whether to get a standard 24" iMac (2.8GHz) build or a standard Mac Pro (dual 2.66GHz) build.

With an iMac, i will have an extra monitor but will look a bit weird next to a nice 24" apple monitor and I wont be able to put my hd's anywhere unless I copy everything over onto the mac hd, and finally the gfx card wont be great for half life 2, etc.

With a Mac Pro, I will have space for my hd's and I think the standard gfx card (NVIDIA GeForce 7300 GT 256MB) is better than my current one, but I can always change it later, and I can maybe buy another dell monitor which would look nice. However, the price would hurt more and I am thinking I could live with a single 24" and its more for your money.

I cant decide whats better for me. Any one help?

Also, is the Mac Pro loud and what about the iMac?

 

[psonice]

I have a 24" 2.8 imac now, it's nearly silent. And the video card will be way faster than a radeon 9600, and should be much faster than the nvidia 7300 in the mac pro!

To put it in perspective - the 9600 is a mid-range card, but is 3 generations old now. The nvidia 7300 is an entry level card (i.e. slow), 1 generation old. The imac has a radeon 2600, which is mid range and pretty much brand new. People complain about it being slow - yes, it is compared to current high-end cards, and it's not much faster than the last generation mid range for old games (I think it's designed to run older games OK, but do better with newer ones). The mac pro with the radeon 1900 card would be better, but it's pretty expensive.

 

[CajunCARTFan]

Hi,

I am pondering which one to get. I am a pretty all around user, rip/encode movies, play games, web code, listen to music/films and do alot of average stuff. I currently have a nice 20" dell monitor and a PC full of HD's. I also have an oldish Ati 9600 XT gfx card to play games such as Half Life 2, etc.

I can't decide whether to get a standard 24" iMac (2.8GHz) build or a standard Mac Pro (dual 2.66GHz) build.

With an iMac, i will have an extra monitor but will look a bit weird next to a nice 24" apple monitor and I wont be able to put my hd's anywhere unless I copy everything over onto the mac hd, and finally the gfx card wont be great for half life 2, etc.

With a Mac Pro, I will have space for my hd's and I think the standard gfx card (NVIDIA GeForce 7300 GT 256MB) is better than my current one, but I can always change it later, and I can maybe buy another dell monitor which would look nice. However, the price would hurt more and I am thinking I could live with a single 24" and its more for your money.

I cant decide whats better for me. Any one help?

Also, is the Mac Pro loud and what about the iMac?

The ATI card in the iMac is better than the current ATI card you have now and better than the nVidia 7300GT. It will play Half-Life 2 just fine with all high settings. Someone in another thread I read in the iMac forums said Half-Life 2 was no problem for the new iMac. Half-Life 2 is more processor intensive anyway. The ATI in the iMac is much better than your card and the 7300.

 

[Pressure]

If you rip and encode movies on a daily basis the Mac Pro is the way to go.

You cannot beat 4 cores (unless you have 8 cores ) at ripping and encoding movies.

 

[dollystereo]

The mac pro is way faster than the imac.

 

[eXan]

R2600 should be faster than Mac pro's GF7300, but it isnt. They are almost the same, just look here: http://barefeats.com/imacal.html

 

[risc]

The 2600 drivers are extremely new, and Barefeats Windows benchmarks have proven that Apple aren't delivering anywhere near the performance we should expect to see.

Having said that I've been playing Age of Empires III on my 24" and at the native resolution with pretty much everything on full (no AA) the game is extremely playable.

Also the native resolution WOW benchmarks are great too.

Hopefully Apple pull their finger out and release some decent drivers.