Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

Mac Pro or iMac?

Sir Loin Steak

Sir Loin Steak

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Feb 2, 2009
258
0
England
Totally noob question about Macs...

Until about 30 seconds ago, I was focussed on the idea of getting an iMac - the only one I have seen in a shop.

It's only 30 seconds ago that I stumbled on the Mac Pro on the Apple site. Looks pretty cool, spec etc.

Anyway, the basic question to you experts is...

iMac or Mac Pro?

(Assume existing models/specs, discounting any idea about 'updates' to the iMac.)

Thanks.
 
Current use is surfing, speadsheets for work, written documents for work (letters mainly).

Projected use is going to involve a little boy and girl wanting to surf, game, muck about, chat look at photos, editing.

I'm particularly keen to see ome great gaming going on - on the web and between computers in the house maybe.

I also want wireless networking/printing.
 
Sir Loin Steak said:
Current use is surfing, speadsheets for work, written documents for work (letters mainly).

Projected use is going to involve a little boy and girl wanting to surf, game, muck about, chat look at photos, editing.

I'm particularly keen to see ome great gaming going on - on the web and between computers in the house maybe.

I also want wireless networking/printing.
Click to expand...

You could get away with a Mac Mini for six years with that kind of use.

Seriously. Don't waste your money.

Wait for the Mac Mini update, then buy it.
 
Perfect candidate for the iMac. A MacPro is complete and total overkill. I would even say a MacMini would work for you.
 
Sir Loin Steak said:
Current use is surfing, speadsheets for work, written documents for work (letters mainly).

Projected use is going to involve a little boy and girl wanting to surf, game, muck about, chat look at photos, editing.

I'm particularly keen to see ome great gaming going on - on the web and between computers in the house maybe.

I also want wireless networking/printing.
Click to expand...

with that projected use you might as well just buy a mac mini....

seriously, theres no need for you to get a mac pro... just get an imac
 
I would say Imac or Mac Mini.

But wait for the updates.

The Mac Pro is more for people who need lots of power.
 
Professional video editors, 3d rendering, music production, medical professionals, architects etc.

For general usage it's all a bit unnecessary. but when you run programs that eat computers it's a god send.
 
Sir Loin Steak said:
Totally noob question about Macs...

Until about 30 seconds ago, I was focussed on the idea of getting an iMac - the only one I have seen in a shop.

It's only 30 seconds ago that I stumbled on the Mac Pro on the Apple site. Looks pretty cool, spec etc.

Anyway, the basic question to you experts is...

iMac or Mac Pro?

(Assume existing models/specs, discounting any idea about 'updates' to the iMac.)

Thanks.
Click to expand...

If you can wait a few weeks (hopefully) for the iMac refresh I recommend you do so, but the current iMacs are also very capable. Check the special deals area at the Apple Store online for refurbished models.

The mini would suffice, but you'll grow out of it quickly as most people do.
 
Sounds like I need to go back to plan A - an iMac, but the updated one... even if noone knows when that'll be!

Thanks for the ideas, guys.

Sir Loin.
 
Hey, who have you ever heard someone complain that their computer had too much power? Here are some reasons why an ordinary home user might want to get a mac pro (I include myself in this category) even though some will argue that the mac pro should be seen as more of a truck than a sports car:

1. You want a 30" monitor.

2. You want to do some relatively serious gaming. Right now the mac pro is the only machine that offers a decent card like the 8800gt since the imacs are not designed to take a desktop GPU (see point 3).

3. you want a machine built using desktop components and not laptop components. Unfortunately mac pro is the only computer that uses non-laptop CPU/GPU. Imac is really a laptop in a desktop form factor. It has most of the cons of a laptop with none of the benefits which is why I am not a fan. mac pro is overkill since it uses expensive workstation components, but Apple for whatever reason has decided not to make a machine using standard desktop components which is the sweet spot for price/performance.

4. You need a lot of disk space for songs, photos, videos and you don't want your desk to be cluttered with a ridiculous number of external hard drives for both primary data and backup data. Besides fw800 external drives are not going to be as fast as an internal drive and you can easily load the mac pro up with 4 internal drives.

5. You would like to have OS X and Windows running at the same time using vmware fusion or parallels and never suffer from swapping. I have 8 GB of memory on my mac pro and don't find this excessive for non-professional use. Leopard (10.5) is a bit of a pig when it comes to memory utilization, but this should be rectified with the next release of the apple OS: snow leopard (10.6).

6. You would like to do some home movie editing or use heavyweight photo programs like Aperture or Lightroom or Photoshop.
 
1. Any of the MacBook family, as well as the next Mac Mini and iMac.
2. The 8800 GT is not a good card. At all.
3. Okay, but there are PCs and Hackintoshes that do this.
4. Multi-bay hard drive tower. eSATA ports.
5. Up to 6GB in any of the current line and 8GB in the 17" unibody.
6. MacBook Pro or iMac (current model, even) can handle that.

The need of the Mac Pro is being superseded. Yes, if you're doing serious editing, get one. Yes, if you want two internal ODDs, get one. Yes, if you need PCIe slots, get one. Other than that, the highest-end iMac is rapidly taking over as Apple's "professional" solution.
 
Tallest Skil said:
6. MacBook Pro or iMac (current model, even) can handle that.

Yes, if you're doing serious editing, get one.
Click to expand...

Agree, the power needed to video edit is overrated. Unless you render some 'Hyper' high quality movies (and the only reason to make them would be to sell them, since they're too big to be downloaded with slow/medium speed connections), you don't really need a Mac Pro. MBPs and iMacs are very good even for making 3D animations.
 
I have a 2.66GHz 4 core mac pro. I don't need it. my wife makes money on the side with photography, and uses this computer to edit her photos. I spend a lot of my free time editing home movies. Right now I don't need a mac pro. an imac would suffice. but, I don't see myself upgrading this computer for another 4 years at least. so, I already had monitor, keyboard, mouse, misc peripherals and the price difference between the imac and mac pro wasn't huge. so i went with a mac pro. i'm very glad i did.
 
Looking like it. That said, I like the idea of being able to swap out parts, but only because that's what I've done for years on PCs.

Yet in some ways I want to get away from being so hands on with a pc.

Ya can't win!
 
Tallest Skil said:
1. Any of the MacBook family, as well as the next Mac Mini and iMac.
2. The 8800 GT is not a good card. At all.
3. Okay, but there are PCs and Hackintoshes that do this.
4. Multi-bay hard drive tower. eSATA ports.
5. Up to 6GB in any of the current line and 8GB in the 17" unibody.
6. MacBook Pro or iMac (current model, even) can handle that.

The need of the Mac Pro is being superseded. Yes, if you're doing serious editing, get one. Yes, if you want two internal ODDs, get one. Yes, if you need PCIe slots, get one. Other than that, the highest-end iMac is rapidly taking over as Apple's "professional" solution.
Click to expand...

hmmm. sounds lie imac is maybe better than when I was looking a year ago, but....

1. the starter of this thread said his choice was between an imac and mac pro, not mini, macbook, etc. It doesn't make a lot of sense to me to purchase a 24" imac and then dish out the cash for a 30" monitor. My preference would be a macbook pro + 30" monitor over an imac.

2. 8800gt may be outdated, but I highly doubt apple has anything faster on offer in the imac. desktop video cards require desktop form factors for cooling. If you don't like the 8800gt, get the ati card.

3. I personally wouldn't want to screw around with a hackintosh, but each to his own. if you want to have an apple with the opportunity to swap in newer video cards down the line then mac pro is the only choice.

4. again, if you want your desktop culttered with a ton of external drives imac is fine if you need lots of storage.

5. I agree 6 gb is probably enough for now.

6. I like the option of having fast internal hard drives for this kind of stuff (e.g. thumbnail generation in itunes, aperture), but you are probably right that imac has enoigh cores and max memory.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back