MacPro or iMac? Advice.

[Mr.Badman]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPod; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_3_1 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/533.17.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.0.2 Mobile/8G4 Safari/6533.18.5)

Hello All,

I have been considering purchasing a new iMac after the immanent update. Hhowever I've recently put the option of a MacPro on the table.

My primary use for the computer will be video editing. I'm concerned that the mobile GPUs in the iMacs won't give me as much bang for my $ as the MacPro. Also I like the upgradability of the MacPro vs iMac. Any pros here with wisdom to impart?

 

[tmagman]

"video editing" is very ambiguous : home videos? Misc stuff? The second part of the new Harry Potter film? What kind of video size and such as well? That is necessary knowledge before we can give advice.

 

[sjordan]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPod; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_3_1 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/533.17.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.0.2 Mobile/8G4 Safari/6533.18.5)

Hello All,

I have been considering purchasing a new iMac after the immanent update. Hhowever I've recently put the option of a MacPro on the table.

My primary use for the computer will be video editing. I'm concerned that the mobile GPUs in the iMacs won't give me as much bang for my $ as the MacPro. Also I like the upgradability of the MacPro vs iMac. Any pros here with wisdom to impart?

I do photo editing with a 40 megapixel camera and I am about to move from an Imac to a Mac pro. Video is even larger so here is why I am moving to a mac pro.

1) External Storage (on usb and FW) is a pain in the butt and slow compared SATA or ESATA. I have 4 external drives (2 FW and 2 USB). The system crawls when accessing these disks.

2) Memory - I max out my 16Gigs of ram on a daily basis and when this happens the system yet again crawls. I am moving to a Mac Pro so I can go to 32Gigs or 64Gigs if I get a dual

Those 2 reasons alone to me are why someone who edits video or large photos should go to a Mac Pro. You also can easily add SSD drives and Raid, the Imac is very limited on expansion

 

[Mr.Badman]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPod; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_3_1 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/533.17.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.0.2 Mobile/8G4 Safari/6533.18.5)

HD wedding videos and shorts/features. Eventually (1-2 years) working with RED footage.

 

[basesloaded190]

I do photo editing with a 40 megapixel camera and I am about to move from an Imac to a Mac pro. Video is even larger so here is why I am moving to a mac pro.

1) External Storage (on usb and FW) is a pain in the butt and slow compared SATA or ESATA. I have 4 external drives (2 FW and 2 USB). The system crawls when accessing these disks.

2) Memory - I max out my 16Gigs of ram on a daily basis and when this happens the system yet again crawls. I am moving to a Mac Pro so I can go to 32Gigs or 64Gigs if I get a dual

Those 2 reasons alone to me are why someone who edits video or large photos should go to a Mac Pro. You also can easily add SSD drives and Raid, the Imac is very limited on expansion

You can add an eSata port to your iMac and i think TB when available in external HD can solve that problem as well. I also do believe that the current iMac and most likely the future one will support 32 Gigs of RAM, It's just not sold through Apple

 

[dyrer]

You should buy an iMac.
iMac have 7200 rpm harddrive and the mouse-keyboard are more comfortable

 

[tmagman]

You should buy an iMac.
iMac have 7200 rpm harddrive and the mouse-keyboard are more comfortable

you mean the same 7200rpm hard drive and mouse-keyboard that come with the pro?




The minute you say RED footage is when I say go mac pro. The RAM will definitely be an issue in a iMac and I would agree with the transfer rates of FW800 or USB being a sticking point. I agree with all of the above about the scalability of the pro for the future as well.

 

[ActionableMango]

You should buy an iMac.
iMac have 7200 rpm harddrive and the mouse-keyboard are more comfortable

That doesn't make any sense. MP also has a 7200rpm drive.

Both come with magic mice and apple aluminum keyboards. The iMac comes with a smaller wireless KB and the MP comes with a full size wired one.

 

[ActionableMango]

Badman,

If you are at all concerned about upgradeability, I'd get a MacPro. Just look at all the posts here from people upgrading their video cards and even their CPUs.

Storage for all that HD video will be nicer on SATA internal hard drives instead of a plethora of external drives with boxes and a rats nest of cables and separate power switches and AC/DC wall warts...

MP all the way!

 

[you39]

You should buy an iMac.
iMac have 7200 rpm harddrive and the mouse-keyboard are more comfortable

That's got to be the worst reasoning for a buying recommendation I've ever seen. You should buy a Mac Pro, it comes with a power cable!

 

[lucidmedia]

My off the cuff advice for this question usually is "if you have to ask, you probably don't need the mac pro"...

the upgradability points people have mentioned do have some merit... and yes, you get a lot of bang for the buck in a mac pro, but its also a lot more buck... I am not sure it makes a lot of sense to "invest" in computation cycles you don't really need, esp. when you can buy several imacs for the price of a decently specced 12-core.

As a business expense I think it might be better to buy for your needs now... two years is a long time in high-end computing. I certainly don't expect to be using my 2010 mac pro in 2013, we roll them over with each revision.

Dropping 4 - 8k on a pro only makes sense when your work demands it (and profits pay for it).

 

[Mr.Badman]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPod; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_3_1 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/533.17.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.0.2 Mobile/8G4 Safari/6533.18.5)

Thanks much. Great advice!

 

[jetjaguar]

I had an i7 imac and sold it for a base 2.8 quad mac pro .. i had sold an 8 core mac pro before this for that imac. The reason I went back to the mac pro is that I had having external drives .. and I like having the ability to swap out graphics cards and not have to buy a new machine when the updated card comes out. Plus it doesnt use mobile gpus. I also like the ability to use 32gb of ram. Plus I will be doing the processor upgrade to the hex core in a few months.

 

[afrye707]

What

You should buy an iMac.
iMac have 7200 rpm harddrive and the mouse-keyboard are more comfortable

It's the same keyboard and you can put any harddrive you want in the mac pro.

 

[afrye707]

This is what I did

The iMac is awesome but we went with the Mac pro. My wife is the producer of a tv show and she also edits it. The show is 1 hour long. We bought the Mac pro and all we worried about was the processor. We bought an after market ssd from OWC and some 1tb for storage. the computer is amazing and can handle anything. Get the Mac pro, wait for thunderbolt if you can.

 

[derbothaus]

No Mac user I know which would be about 400+ at work would ever get an iMac for professional video work. The load is too much and too consistent. iMac's get pretty hot when throttled to full processor usage for extended periods and externals sleep way too much on the meager 1xFW800 port you get. USB is never used on account of it's ****** bandwidth. Also you get to SW RAID internals to push close to 400MB/s for all your HD content. Can't do that on an iMac unless you use 2xSSD's internally but you would have free space issues all the time. iMac is absolutely fantastic for Adobe CS design work if you can deal with the glossy screen. But what if you wanted to slot a Kona card or something later on? Or a HW RAID card, or SAS? All about expandability. The iMac is very tempting and I almost got one for my GF. Ended up with a 2100.00 refurb Mac Pro 2.93GHz Quad instead. It also had the 4870 upgrade so it was better for After effects than that 5750 iMac ships with even with less memory.

 

[gpzjock]

iMac vs. Pro, Consumer vs. Prosumer

I used iMacs for a home network from 1998 to 2008, 10 years of ever increasing iMac speed and expandability was progressive and good.
Then in 2008 I decided against a new iMac because I wanted a non glossy screen for my GF's photo and design work. The Mac Pro I bought then was a revelation, internal storage expansion, upgradable graphics, even a SSD drive for the system eventually. Everything works faster and better, so much that I still have no intention to replace that machine 3 years later, its expandability has allowed it to keep up with the times not slowdown like the iMacs previously did.
Simple answer: Prosumer if you can afford it, Consumer if you intend to refresh every 3 years.

 

[dyrer]

Maybe you misunderstood my opinion
iMac have bigger screen, faster hard drives and keyboard,magic mouse etc
MacBook Pro, 15" or 17" no mouse (have trackpad)

ps
I have an iMac and one MBP

 

[simplymuzik3]

Maybe you misunderstood my opinion
iMac have bigger screen, faster hard drives and keyboard,magic mouse etc
MacBook Pro, 15" or 17" no mouse (have trackpad)

ps
I have an iMac and one MBP

What are you going on about? I think you have the Mac Pro confused with the MacBook Pro.

 

[derbothaus]

Oh no wrong forum again. His point makes sense now. Just somewhere else.

 

[Zeov]

Maybe you misunderstood my opinion
iMac have bigger screen, faster hard drives and keyboard,magic mouse etc
MacBook Pro, 15" or 17" no mouse (have trackpad)

ps
I have an iMac and one MBP

Wow dude, you are losing it. Mac Pro is totally different from MACBOOK Pro, the macbook pro is a laptop, where as the Mac Pro is a desktop computer, where you add whatever screen you like.

iMac and Mac Pro uses the same mouse and keyboard, and the harddrive is the same too.

Have a nice day

 

[hyper-meta]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPod; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_3_1 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/533.17.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.0.2 Mobile/8G4 Safari/6533.18.5)

Hello All,

I have been considering purchasing a new iMac after the immanent update. Hhowever I've recently put the option of a MacPro on the table.

My primary use for the computer will be video editing. I'm concerned that the mobile GPUs in the iMacs won't give me as much bang for my $ as the MacPro. Also I like the upgradability of the MacPro vs iMac. Any pros here with wisdom to impart?

Generally speaking, when friends have asked me questions of this form in the past, they already knew the answer and just needed some reassurance. For example, "do you think it would be X if were to do Y?".

It sounds to me like you already think the upcoming iMac refresh will suit your needs, but the Mac Pro will suit your wants. If this assumption is true, then the choice boils down to whether you are a saver or a spender.

 

[Mr.Badman]

If this assumption is true, then the choice boils down to whether you are a saver or a spender.

You speak wisdom.

 

[jetjaguar]

the next imac refresh will definitely be faster than the quad mac pro i just got but I like having everything internal and not having all this external storage .. hopefully the imac doesnt get a hex core lol ..

 

[derbothaus]

I hope it does get a hex (it wont though, it is a consumer Mac and Apple does not give you processors that cost more than $300-400. Maybe even lower than that). I still wont buy it but that means some months from iMac upgrade the new Pro's will look and be even better than that. The new Xeons to be 40% faster than current westmere at same clocks. iMac may get a i7-2600 which will compete well against a single W3680 6-core. But the new 6-cores will be 40% faster than that on account of their 2 more cores with similar architecture, more cache etc.