newest iMac versus MacPro?

As much as I love the Mac Pro, my expectation is that the new iMac is going to win the day. Exceptions might be if you do long-running compute-bound tasks, the Mac Pro will not slow down due to heat, whereas the iMac may have trouble keeping cool and will have to throttle itself.

Benchmark sites abound.

A.

 

The Mac Pro has not seen an update in almost three years. iMacs have been recently refreshed. I'd not buy a Mac Pro as it stands now, just because you are paying top dollar for 2013 technology.

 

FWIW: for less than $100 ( USD ) the MBP Retina can be updated to 16 GB RAM. If you find that is sufficient, your decision can be delayed which might give you more options ( such as a revised Mac Pro )

If you're convinced a new Mac is better, I'd go with a new iMac i7 and not the Mac Pro for the reasons mlts22 mentions.

 

for me it was a no brainer i went with the 2013 mac pro i got the quad core with the d700 cpu and 32gb.i like the fact that you can have any size screen monitor with the mac pro and put up to a 4tb ssd in it if i need to down the road

 

+ briloronmacrumo why not just upgrade ram? you can even buy an display, external HD, keyboard and mouse for when your working for a lot less than a mac pro or imac. (even get a bigger SSD installed)

if not a imac will be a better option, faster, newer, nice display, good speekers and you can get apple care if you want to feel safe. (and you can plug in an second display in to an imac)

if you get a macpro you will need to get a display, speakers etc just to get it working

if your just doing Excel you wont need the top end models.
do you want to do more than excel? the macpros are more for video or animation work that can use 2 GPU's.
the imacs 4GHZ cpu may be faster than the 3.7GHz cpu in the macpro even (and relay for Excel you dont need anything like that unless your doing something hardcore)

 

Yeah, the nMP excels if the apps you use make use of its dual GPU, openCL and calculation based apps. If it's not, the iMac is a better buy and more recently updated.

On a side note, I do hope this year WWDC will give us an updated MP. And I wished Apple would just do a yearly refresh for the MP, it's not like they have to redesign it or anything since Apple usually choose the same processor range for each of Intel generation products.

 

if works buying you the computer go craze
If you relay are eating ram the macpro can hold more RAM.

how well threaded is your work ?
a 6 core macpro is where it starts to move ahead of the imac in terms of speed if you can use all 6 cores

 

The iMac is better than a quad Mac Pro simple as that it even holds its own against the hex core. Here is a comparison guide

http://www.imore.com/retina-imac-vs-mac-pro-which-mac-powerhouse-should-you-get

There are many many more online Google is you friend.

 

Well... You could consult geekbench...

Mac Pro 64 bit (4 core)
Imac 2013
MacBook Pro (15-inch Mid 2012)

figure out which sub-benchmark is most representative of your data, and go from there.

The MacPro does make sense over some machines, for certain applications, in certain non-base configurations, but you'd have to make a very specific case for it.


Look at this comparison between the Imac 2013 and what I assume is your machine of the moment.

A lot of the iMac's advantage is in cryptographic benchmarks, which don't really matter unless you're using encrypted hard drives. The MacBook Pro is faster at a great many floating point multicore benchmarks-- must be the i7.

It's entirely possible that you're using Excel beyond its design capacity- in which case switching to some other program-- Matlab, for instance, or to a proper database program might be a vastly faster solution, regardless of whether you were using a new machine or not.

If somehow you did finangle a current-model machine out of your bosses, the 5K display is very nice for spreadsheets.

 

One saving grace for the nMP will be the ECC RAM which I'm not sure if it'll better for the work you're doing or not.

 

Just a semi-random thought: Is using Excel for the work/calculations you're doing optimal? Do you have access to a good database program or tableau? Excel is a great program, however it does bog down with big data.

 

From February of this year...

http://www.macworld.co.uk/review/office-software/excel-for-mac-review-3612548/

 

The last time I checked Excel for Mac could only utilize one core, so no need to buy a new computer if that is your problem.

 

Would you like to beat your head against the wall instead?

 

Is RAM really the issue? Do you see that in activity monitor? That sounds like a large sheet but I often work with similar or more. Maybe fewer formulae.

 

It's a 32 bit application, so more memory (that Excel can't address) won't help. If speed was also the issue, a 4.0 Ghz i7 might be faster than your current processor. In single threaded mode, the iMac i7 is the fastest choice.