New iMac beats Mac Pro early 2009 on performance?

[CaptSaltyJack]

I'm wondering how powerful the new iMacs are. Would an iMac i7 4-core 3.4GHz (which has hyper-threading, if I understand correctly) beat a Mac Pro (early 2009) 8-core 2.66GHz? Or be about the same? I can't help but wonder if they'll eventually drop the Mac Pro line, so I'm thinking about selling mine while the asking prices are still somewhat decent and switching to an iMac.

Also, can external USB 3.0 and Thunderbolt HDs match internal SATA 3Gb/s drives on read/write speeds?

 

[CaptSaltyJack]

According to you? I was hoping for more scientific benchmarks.

 

[boto]

Here is a benchmark list between Mac models: http://browser.primatelabs.com/mac-benchmarks

As for the external hard drive with USB 3.0/Thunderbolt, they can be faster than SATA II performances if you purchase a SSD option with speeds up to 400Mb/s Read/Write.

 

[itsamacthing]

Define performance.

For day to day use, Safari, Mail, Skype, Lync, Word, Excel, iTunes, etc... My 2011 Mini with SSD and 16GB of Ram is visually faster and boots faster than my 2010 Mac Pro, which was also SSD and 32GB of Ram. But if you were to convert some files or compile something, the 2010 Mac Pro would spank the Mini because of its 12 (24) Cores. So saying on computer is faster than another is very ambiguous.

The Late 2012 iMac with 32GB of Ram and 768 Flash is probably the fastest Mac on the planet for day to day tasks... and easy to more than average processing. If you were going to be using all 24 cores for something... well, then your Mac Pro is going to win in terms of speed.

Get it?

 

[CaptSaltyJack]

Makes sense. So if I were going to do intensive things like video editing and production, music production, things like that, the Mac Pro from 2009 wins out over the new iMac even at its most powerful configuration?

 

[jmpage2]

Barefeats has done tons of tests with the new iMac vs a 2010 Mac Pro. Not exactly what you are after but close enough I think;

http://www.barefeats.com/imac12p1.html

It's worth noting that in most cases the i7 iMac performs as well, close to as well, or slightly better than their 2010 Mac Pro which costs a LOT more than an iMac (especially if equipped with a cinema display).

The iMac right now is the hot ticket, at least until the Mac Pro gets a major revamp.

 

[CaptSaltyJack]

Wow, that's pretty impressive! I'll have to look for more benchmarks, as some seem to conflict with the one above.

 

[jmpage2]

Wow, that's pretty impressive! I'll have to look for more benchmarks, as some seem to conflict with the one above.

Well, benchmarks only tell part of the story. One thing to keep in mind is that in top spec trim the iMac sports a Fusion drive. The Mac Pro normally ships with 7200 RPM hard drive unless you are willing to spend a very serious amount of coin on a RAID or SSD upgrade.

About the only argument for getting a Mac Pro now is that the cost will not be a burden, you don't mind the larger size, and you want the physical expandability of having a tower based Mac.