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MacPro 08 vs New iMac Quad?

U

umbilical

macrumors 65816
Original poster
May 3, 2008
1,329
362
FL, USA
hi, I have a macpro 08, 2x2.8GHz Quadcore, 2gb Ram

I never buy a imac beacuse I want a power machine... so I alwasy buy macpro but! now imac comes quad... nice monitor etc...

my question is if new imac is more power that my machine?
the new imac is more power even I buy more ram? 32gb? vs the 16gb of new imac?

thanks
 
you want a power machine and you only have 2 gigs of ram?

what do you use your MP for?

facebook, twitter and email?

IMHO, a MP doesnt really start to work until its got at least 12 gigs of ram
 
The i7 iMacs haven't even shipped yet, so hard to tell how they are going to benchmark vs. the MPs. But if you are always looking for the fastest computer you are going to exhaust yourself. We are probably looking at a few seconds difference. Whether that is a lot of time depends on how much work you do on your Mac.

Aside from speed, most people buy MPs b/c they are more configurable and upgradable than iMacs. If you don't need that functionality, then sure, get yourselves some extra floor space by dumping your MP and getting an iMac. But keep in mind if you just want speed the '09 MPs will probably come sometime in Q1 '09 and blow the screen off the iMac.
 
Your Mac will probably will still be faster and better then the iMac except the screen. But the good thing is, you can always purchase your own. Perhaps you should wait until Apple releases a new version of the 30 inch?
 
A new Core i7 iMac will yes be more powerful then your Mac Pro. In just raw processing power it will be decently faster. The Mac Pro can do a few things the iMac can't.

But I would stick some more ram in yours, 2GB is pretty low. I would put 4GB in it minimum, 6GB would probably be the sweet spot for most people.
 
dlewis23 said:
A new Core i7 iMac will yes be more powerful then your Mac Pro. In just raw processing power it will be decently faster.
Click to expand...

Never ever!
4 x 2,66GHz (even it it is a i7) vs. 8x2,8GHz.
Pretty obvious result from my point of view.

@ OP
What are you doing with your MacPro that does not require more than 2GB of RAM? You have a very powerful machine, don't slow it down with that little RAM.
 
Transporteur said:
Never ever!
4 x 2,66GHz (even it it is a i7) vs. 8x2,8GHz.
Pretty obvious result from my point of view.

@ OP
What are you doing with your MacPro that does not require more than 2GB of RAM? You have a very powerful machine, don't slow it down with that little RAM.
Click to expand...

Sorry, I was thinking 2 x 2.8 Ghz dual core processors for 4 total cores. Just because he said quad core, it threw me off.

Even at 2x2.8 Ghz quad cores, Its not really much faster if this is any indication http://www.primatelabs.ca/blog/2009/03/mac-pro-benchmarks-early-2009/

A single quad core nehalem processor, wasn't much slower then 2x2.8 Ghz quad core processors.

Either way, he probably should add more ram.
 
dlewis23 said:
A new Core i7 iMac will yes be more powerful then your Mac Pro. In just raw processing power it will be decently faster. The Mac Pro can do a few things the iMac can't.

But I would stick some more ram in yours, 2GB is pretty low. I would put 4GB in it minimum, 6GB would probably be the sweet spot for most people.
Click to expand...

The i7 iMac will only be comparable, not faster since the newer architecture does not really make up for the lack of clock speed, it is only 4 physical cores while the Mac Pro has 8 (8 logical cores is not better than 8 physical cores).

OP: You need more RAM than 2GB.
 
alphaod said:
The i7 iMac will only be comparable, not faster since the newer architecture does not really make up for the lack of clock speed, it is only 4 physical cores while the Mac Pro has 8 (8 logical cores is not better than 8 physical cores).

OP: You need more RAM than 2GB.
Click to expand...

I don't think we can generalize anything unless you know what software is going to be used. In applications that are single threaded, or use 2 or 4 cores maximum the imac could absolutely be faster, particularly in single threaded tasks where it can ratchet up the clock speed much higher then the older mac pro. On the other hand if you were to run aftereffects which would take advantage of all 8 cores, the mac pro would be significantly faster.

(the wildcard here is hyperthreading, still not as good as real physical cores, but seems to work pretty well in it's current incarnation)
 
maven8 said:
I don't think we can generalize anything unless you know what software is going to be used. In applications that are single threaded, or use 2 or 4 cores maximum the imac could absolutely be faster, particularly in single threaded tasks where it can ratchet up the clock speed much higher then the older mac pro. On the other hand if you were to run aftereffects which would take advantage of all 8 cores, the mac pro would be significantly faster.

(the wildcard here is hyperthreading, still not as good as real physical cores, but seems to work pretty well in it's current incarnation)
Click to expand...

No we probably shouldn't make generalizations, but from tone of the question I made the assumption (the basis of my argument) that the OP wants to know if the new iMac is worth upgrading to and the OP is not looking to shave 3 seconds off the next encode. Even if the iMac is faster (if it is), it won't be worth the price of the machine to change up. With the current Mac Pro already owned, the more reasonable upgrade would be to increase the RAM to say 8GB which would dramatically increase any application. And this upgrade would be much cheaper.
 
Badger^2 said:
what do you use your MP for?

facebook, twitter and email?

IMHO, a MP doesnt really start to work until its got at least 12 gigs of ram
Click to expand...

I use for web design photoshop, ilustrastror, code... print.... and now I start with after effects for video... but mainly for web design proposits...

I work with my mac pro for that, runs like a beast for web photoshop with 2gb... (I dont image how with 10gb or more wow)

but here close I have a imac (I dont remember 2.2ghz around...) with 4gb and runs ok etc... but I need more power!

so maybe the new imac quad now is for me... you know macpro is cool but imac is truely cool, 1 monitor 1 computer... 0 space... etc....
 
nanofrog said:
With no idea of it's use, no one can really help.
Click to expand...

I use for web design photoshop, ilustrastror, code... print.... and now I start with after effects for video... but mainly for web design proposits...

I work with my mac pro for that, runs like a beast for web photoshop with 2gb... (I dont image how with 10gb or more wow)

but here close I have a imac (I dont remember 2.2ghz around...) with 4gb and runs ok etc... but I need more power!

so maybe the new imac quad now is for me... you know macpro is cool but imac is truely cool, 1 monitor 1 computer... 0 space... etc....
 
umbilical said:
I use for web design photoshop, ilustrastror, code... print.... and now I start with after effects for video... but mainly for web design proposits...

I work with my mac pro for that, runs like a beast for web photoshop with 2gb... (I dont image how with 10gb or more wow)

but here close I have a imac (I dont remember 2.2ghz around...) with 4gb and runs ok etc... but I need more power!

so maybe the new imac quad now is for me... you know macpro is cool but imac is truely cool, 1 monitor 1 computer... 0 space... etc....
Click to expand...
The '08 is actually more than what you need, from the software listed. PS only uses 2 cores right now. If you deal with rendering, or will be, that machine will make a big difference to you.

Do you have an older iMac?
You're not making much sense here, as there's details missing. It might just need additional RAM (if possible, not knowing the model).

And if you do, why have 2 desktop systems, vs. MP for desktop, and a portable for location work, assuming you're making a living with the system/s? :confused:

BTW, yes the iMacs have a built-in screen, but there seems to be issues with color matching with glossy screens. If such a screen is going to be an issue for you, it's not the way to go IMO.
 
umbilical said:
I use for web design photoshop, ilustrastror, code... print.... and now I start with after effects for video... but mainly for web design proposits...

I work with my mac pro for that, runs like a beast for web photoshop with 2gb... (I dont image how with 10gb or more wow)
Click to expand...

You definitely need more RAM!
The only reason your iMac can compete with your MacPro is because it has 4GB.
Look at your activity monitor and compare Page ins and Page outs.
 
I'm actually selling my 2008 Mac Pro in the Marketplace, as I'm ditching it for a maxed out 2.8Ghz Core i7 iMac 27". I use Photoshop and Aperture mainly, and my Mac Pro is just overkill.

The way I see it, the i7 at 2.8Ghz is faster at single-threaded applications (even without HyperThreading) as it is a newer architecture (ie: 2.8Ghz to 2.8Ghz, the i7 wins). When you look at multi-threading I'll be a bit worse off, but I don't use it right now, and a quad core should be plenty. I'm basically equating the iMac to the '09 Quad Core Mac Pro - which seemed to match the 2.8Ghz '08 quite well.
 
More RAM

I just upgraded my '08 MP to 14 gb RAM from 6. It is much more responsive -- and when I have 6 or 7 programs open seems to use most of the 14 gb. A MP with only 2 GB is only functioning at a small fraction of its potential, since it's spending a lot of time writing and reading its memory from disk. If you spend $250 for 8 gb RAM from OWC, you'll have a computer that I suspect is somewhat faster than the new 4-core iMacs.
 
peskaa said:
I'm actually selling my 2008 Mac Pro in the Marketplace, as I'm ditching it for a maxed out 2.8Ghz Core i7 iMac 27". I use Photoshop and Aperture mainly, and my Mac Pro is just overkill...
Click to expand...

Isn't your Aperture disk intensive also? You'd want to have a RAID striped to get better performance from Aperture, not just CPU processing. With the Imac you're stuck with the disk apple gives you.
 
justit said:
Isn't your Aperture disk intensive also? You'd want to have a RAID striped to get better performance from Aperture, not just CPU processing. With the Imac you're stuck with the disk apple gives you.
Click to expand...

Yes. I'll probably add an external RAID via FW800 if the internal disk proves too slow.
 
peskaa said:
Yes. I'll probably add an external RAID via FW800 if the internal disk proves too slow.
Click to expand...

Firewire has a maximum bandwidth of 100MB/s, which is about 80MB/s in a real environment.

Almost every harddisk you can buy today is faster, especially the ones with a high capacity (>= 1TB).
 
Transporteur said:
Firewire has a maximum bandwidth of 100MB/s, which is about 80MB/s in a real environment.

Almost every harddisk you can buy today is faster, especially the ones with a high capacity (>= 1TB).
Click to expand...

100MB/s is enough for Aperture. Considering my library is currently on a USB2 interface, 5,400rpm portable drive and works perfectly fine...
 
An i7 iMac won't even come close to the amount of performance a dual xeon processor mac pro spits out. Xeon processors are server grade chips and should be on par or higher than the performance of a Lynnfield 860.

What I don't get is why you're using only 2 gigs of ram for your mac pro. The xeons use triple channel memory bandwidth, so you'll get the most out of them with 3 parallel sticks of ram at the same speed! The least you could do for your mac pro is to go out and buy a triple channel set for around 200 usd.

If you're that interested in the monitor the iMac has, go out and buy one. It's an hp panel I believe so hp should sell something very similiar.
 
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