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Please Help! Hight end Imac or least expensive mac pro

L

lico0485

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Oct 2, 2007
6
0
O.K you probably have heard hundreds of people undecided it on choosing a Mac, well I'm one of them :confused:. I'm on my senior year at college; I'm majoring on graphic arts and advertising design. I'm mainly working with all the adobe applications and until very recently I've been getting into 3d animation (Maya 8) but nothing heavy.

O.k these are my two choices

Imac
24in
2.8GHz Intel Core 2 Extreme
2GB memory
500GB hard drive1
8x double-layer SuperDrive
ATI Radeon HD 2600 PRO with 256MB memory
2299.99

or

Macpro
One 2.8GHz Quad-Core Intel Xeon (quad-core)
2GB (2 x 1GB)
320GB 7200-rpm Serial ATA 3Gb/s
ATI Radeon HD 2600 XT 256MB (Two dual-link DVI)
One 16x SuperDrive
Apple Mighty Mouse
Apple Keyboard (English) + Mac OS X

What do you think? Would I be ok with a high end Imac or do you think, It would be worth buying the mac pro and spend a few more hundreds on a monitor.

thank you in advance!
 
what about getting a non-mac monitor? If I get the mac pro I was thinking on getting a Dell monitor that runs like for 300 dollars. I mean I wish I could get the cinema one but I can't afford it at this moment. That is why I was thinking on the high end Imac because it seems to have more o less the same specs as the mac pro but with the monitor.
 
I would go with the Mac Pro, it has 4 cores versus 2 on the iMac
and you have more upgrade options with the MP which will let you future proof it more.
A Dell Monitor would be a good option too.
 
+1 for mac pro. i don't know how much you intend to budget for the monitor, but in the 24" range i recommend the LG L-246WP not because i own it, but because it's one of the last MVA panels in its class (other manufacturers are switching to TN to keep costs low)

besides, the mac pro is the most flexible in terms of an upgrade path for the next 5 years.
 
lico0485 said:
O.K you probably have heard hundreds of people undecided it on choosing a Mac, well I'm one of them :confused:. I'm on my senior year at college; I'm majoring on graphic arts and advertising design. I'm mainly working with all the adobe applications and until very recently I've been getting into 3d animation (Maya 8) but nothing heavy.

O.k these are my two choices

Imac
24in
2.8GHz Intel Core 2 Extreme
2GB memory
500GB hard drive1
8x double-layer SuperDrive
ATI Radeon HD 2600 PRO with 256MB memory
2299.99

or

Macpro
One 2.8GHz Quad-Core Intel Xeon (quad-core)
2GB (2 x 1GB)
320GB 7200-rpm Serial ATA 3Gb/s
ATI Radeon HD 2600 XT 256MB (Two dual-link DVI)
One 16x SuperDrive
Apple Mighty Mouse
Apple Keyboard (English) + Mac OS X

What do you think? Would I be ok with a high end Imac or do you think, It would be worth buying the mac pro and spend a few more hundreds on a monitor.

thank you in advance!
Click to expand...

I think expandability is cool on the Mac Pro, but you have to add the monitor on top of what the MacPro costs.

Being a graphic designer, I was concerned about the glossy screen...everyone, (or almost everyone shots the glossy screen down as saying the colors are more accurate than a glossy screen). Guess others forget that the CRTs we used to use were all glossy!

I could not afford a Mac Pro, so I purchased a 24" imac Extreme. (I had a G4 1.25 dualie previously, with an Apple Cinema Display.)

I find the iMac to be more than capable....using Word, Excel, Adobe Photoshop, ID, Illustrator, FreeHand....and the colors for correcting photographs etc., are NOT affected by the glossy screen! Colors are not as flat on a glossy screen and the reflections are over rated. My studio has 4 windows in it with full sunlight and I can still work on this iMac.

Don't do Maya, so I can not give you an opinion on it.
 
"graphic arts and advertising design". Hmm, well the 24inch iMac has a S-PVA, rather than the TN crap in the 20inch models. But its glossy, which allot of people who work on computers for hours hate with a passion.

Also, with the iMac you are pretty much stuck with that screen and low end graphics till you get rid of it. MxM videocards are not sold, and when they are they area always lowend crap like whats already in the iMac. You'd have to pry open an Alienware laptop to get a better card. Even if you do not game, an 8800GT is a great investment for $200 in the MacPro.
 
one question?

Does anybody know how Maya 8 or just any other 3d programs runs on a Imac. I know that performance wise won't be the same as the Mac pro but It's not like it's going to run super slow, because I have a PC that is almost 3 years old

3.00eghz
Intel pentium 4
1 gb ram
nvidia geforce fx 5200
128mb ddr video memory

and my Maya 8 runs ok for modeling small stuff but when it comes to putting a lot textures, lightings, etc... Starts to get slow, I'm pretty sure that an Imac today will performance way much better.

What do you think?
 
lico0485 said:
Does anybody know how Maya 8 or just any other 3d programs runs on a Imac. I know that performance wise won't be the same as the Mac pro but It's not like it's going to run super slow, because I have a PC that is almost 3 years old

3.00eghz
Intel pentium 4
1 gb ram
nvidia geforce fx 5200
128mb ddr video memory

and my Maya 8 runs ok for modeling small stuff but when it comes to putting a lot textures, lightings, etc... Starts to get slow, I'm pretty sure that an Imac today will performance way much better.

What do you think?
Click to expand...

Both should run Maya just fine but you'll notice a significant boost in performance when it comes time to do a final render on the Mac Pro if you get the Geforce graphics upgrade. Quite frankly, without the 8800 Geforce card the Mac Pro has a ridiculous bottleneck for a machine at that price.
 
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