Mac Pro v. iMac

[comeuppance]

It has come time for me to replace my old rig. Built the thing myself years ago with a P4 HT 2. some odd. It still runs off of XP.

I got a black Macbook and am ready to go all Mac.

I plan to keep this new computer for at least 4 years as my main machine and I was just wondering is the Mac Pro worth the extra $1k?

Regarding an iMac configuration is the i7 really that much better than the i5? How do they compare to the Xeon in the Pro?

Or... should i wait for processor technology to make leaps and bounds into hexcore?

 

[Badger^2]

there are several posts below this that discuss this same issue...

What are you going to do with this Mac?

I suspect that any new iMac would be more than enough for your needs.

 

[spinnerlys]

MRoogle (others and my sig) might give you some information about the advantages of the CPUs and Macs. It has been talked about numerous times in the last week.

And it also depends what you want to do with the computer.

Surfing and gaming and graphics and science and text works will be fine with the iMac. The Mac Pro is more of a serious workhorse, which can be updated in more fashions than the iMac, which is the big plus.

 

[ditzy]

Both the iMac and the mac pro are leaps ahead power wise than your pc. If that at the moment is fulfilling your needs, both these computers will too. There is no point in waiting, because when the next generation of processors come out there will be the one after that around the corner. for what it's worth I'd advise you to get the i7 iMac.

 

[MacKiddyWiddy]

I would go with the imac, both macs will outpower the computer you have atm so you wont need to worry about the pros extra power, and for the price difference the imac is so much better, i reckon get the 21.5imac base model and that will be the cheapest method foryou, it will also be long lasting and futureproof

 

[a350]

if you don't have to have anything that the mac pro offers over the imac than go with the imac.
i choose the mac pro for its 4 internal drives for RAID.
also for expandability later in its life, usb 3.0, lightpeak, etc...
I also wanted a machine that could render all night long and not have any problems, night after night.
if I could of got away with an imac i would of.

 

[iamacat]

You should consider more options

If you are replacing a P4 now, your processing needs are probably not that great. You might as well get a monitor/keyboard/mouse hookup for your MacBook and max out it's hard drive either by yourself, using iFixIt repair guides or through a service like techrestore. These days you can get 640GB SATA and 320GB ATA laptop drives. The big benefit is not having to worry about synchronizing files between mobile and desktop configurations and of course trivial costs in $100-$300 range.

Other options to consider are a new, more powerful, laptop, a Mac Mini or refurbished model of anything Apple. A new iMac could be a reasonable purchase if you have the money, but very few people really need a Mac Pro. If you do genome sequencing or quantum physics research, congrats on handwritting assembly to get by with P4 until now.