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It will cost you $600 for the LBD and 2 SSD's with 341/496 speeds. How much is the Apple SSD?
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:rolleyes:

And that's just one of them. The same goes of course for every other SandForce2 SSD.
 
While I love my Mac mini, the fact is the iMac tops out with better specs across the board. I just hate the idea of not being able to open my desktop and upgrade anything past the RAM(I know it's possible to open the iMac, just that's like brain surgery)

Without a doubt, I save money upgrading the SSD/HDD on my Mac mini, which wouldn't have happened if I had bought an iMac.

Still for the amount I criticized the low end PowerMac G5, I would to see if make a come back with desktop(in place of server) parts inside of a Mac Pro. It's the only expandable desktop I could see Apple offering, sadly. An intel based Cube would be great, but that was such a press nightmare, I can't see Apple taking the risk.

Hell I'll take a dedicated graphic card in the server Mac mini!

Hence I agree with the idea of a seperate mac mini. Better upgrades which make things go along faster and a bit more ram for when the rendering needs it.
 
I opted to have the best of both worlds - I have both :)

Both of my machines (iMac and Mac Pro) have SSDs. The Mac Pro gives you more internal storage options, and has PCIe slots for expansion...you can upgrade the video card, and add bus interface cards for connecting storage solutions or devices such through Pro Tools, etc.

The Mac Pro also has an upgradable processor, multiple optical drive bays, and allows you to use multiple (many) external displays, if you need that. You don't have the option of buying a headless iMac, you are stuck with that display. Many prefer the matte displays over the glossy ones, that's a big incentive for many to get the Mac Pro, so they can add 1+ 30" Cinema displays or 3rd party displays.

I use my iMac at the house, it's my main home desktop computer, and I use my Mac Pro at work. The Mac Pro is underutilized right now because I don't do heavy photo work or any video or 3D rendering for my work. At the office, I occasionally download photos from my iPhone and do light photo editing and web design work, but right now my Mac Pro is mainly an internet machine. For that, an iMac would do the job just as well.

The Mac Pros are great, but given the product cycle and the fact that it hasn't been upgraded since 2010, I certainly would not buy one right now. There is a chance Apple may discontinue the Mac Pro, but until we find out, I would recommend anybody in the market for one to keep waiting until we see. Surely, it won't be too long until we know something.
 
I have the top of the line 27" iMac and I run photoshop cs 5, aperture, and final cut pro on it without any problems. While its not equal to a Mac Pro it is still plenty capable and you will be well served by it. I think you'll be surprised by its ability considering its an all in one.

I buy all my creative employees high end 27" iMacs and provide them with a small farm of Minis for rendering video. Works great for us and saves us a ton of money. We use CS5.5, FCP and Maya. I have yet to hear a complaint.
 
While I love my Mac mini, the fact is the iMac tops out with better specs across the board. I just hate the idea of not being able to open my desktop and upgrade anything past the RAM(I know it's possible to open the iMac, just that's like brain surgery)

Without a doubt, I save money upgrading the SSD/HDD on my Mac mini, which wouldn't have happened if I had bought an iMac.

Still for the amount I criticized the low end PowerMac G5, I would to see if make a come back with desktop(in place of server) parts inside of a Mac Pro. It's the only expandable desktop I could see Apple offering, sadly. An intel based Cube would be great, but that was such a press nightmare, I can't see Apple taking the risk.

Hell I'll take a dedicated graphic card in the server Mac mini!

Actually you can upgrade the HDD and the RAM on the iMac just the same as on the Mac Mini. You just have to go through more machine to get to the good stuff.
 
If you can afford it probably you can i see from imac specs go for the MAC PRO no temperature problems,no laptop components,expandability,renders all year long 24/7 its a professional machine.iMac always be a consumer machine.
 
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:rolleyes:

And that's just one of them. The same goes of course for every other SandForce2 SSD.

Yep, you could use that one. It's $227 on Amazon so $349 + $227 + $227 = $803 and still $2 cheaper than the stock LBD SSD. I'm guessing you could most probably get 800mb/s+ speeds with the ones you posted. I just went with the Crucial M4 because they have great reviews and are cheap $124 on Amazon. Any SSD will work really but i think the LBD with your choice of SSD's installed is an awesome setup. I plan to add them to my other iMacs as well.
 
Yep, you could use that one. It's $227 on Amazon so $349 + $227 + $227 = $803 and still $2 cheaper than the stock LBD SSD. I'm guessing you could most probably get 800mb/s+ speeds with the ones you posted. I just went with the Crucial M4 because they have great reviews and are cheap $124 on Amazon. Any SSD will work really but i think the LBD with your choice of SSD's installed is an awesome setup. I plan to add them to my other iMacs as well.

It's $149, not $227. The 120GB OCZ Vertex 3 is also as fast and retails for $142.63 on Amazon.

Hence the suggestion. :rolleyes:
 
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It's $149, not $227. The 120GB OCZ Vertex 3 is also as fast and retails for $142.63 on Amazon.

Hence the suggestion. :rolleyes:

My bad, I must have pulled up the wrong one(I was having trouble with the links so I just searched it on Amazon and picked the wrong one, again my bad. Lol.). I got 3 of the Crucial M4's for $146, $139 and $131. Either way it's good to see the price of the SSD's come down. I'd like 4 256GB SSD's in my Pegasus R4 unit in raid 0. :).

I do believe I looked at that SSD when I was searching SSD's but due to the reviews decided not to get them. I agree they are fast and the price is very good. It would be nice to find some speed tests with 2 in Raid 0 in a LBD Thunderbolt enclosure.
 
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Actually you can upgrade the HDD and the RAM on the iMac just the same as on the Mac Mini. You just have to go through more machine to get to the good stuff.

Yup, as I said in the post you quoted

(I know it's possible to open the iMac, just that's like brain surgery)

It's certainly possible, but if I end up with an iMac for my next desktop, I'll be purchasing the 1TB HDD with 256GB SSD BTO. They are nice drives(size wise), they just will end up costing me so much more then my upgraded drives I put in the Mini myself.

The other choice is to keep an eye on the Mac Pros in Apple's refurbished store, and while I'd end up with lower specs from day 1, the long term upgrades will make it faster then the iMac I would other buy.

Hopefully Apple uses Ivy Bridge to push a quad core CPU into $799 Mac min, so we can have both a nice quad CPU and a decent graphic card. (And assuming the server Mac Mini end up with a slightly faster quad core Ivy Bridge CPU, I can give up a few hundred megahertz for a much improved graphic card)
 
Why are you buying an iMac? Current iMac is slower than the current Mac Pro, and the iMac is about to be refreshed as well.

Not trying to knock against the iMac, but this sounds poorly thought out.

Adding a Mac Mini node also doubles your software costs.

What? Really? Which iMac and which MacPro included in your conclusion. Did you say 8core and 12core MP beats top end i7 iMac? How obvious dont you think.

Last time I check, basic 2.8GHz Quad Xeon MP beaten in most test by 3.4GHz iMac. And iMac is much better value than basic MP. $2000+ with 27" display included, compared to $2500 for MP, no display included let alone outdated hardware and non Thunderbolt support ;(
 
I just made the exact same decision. I do motion graphics too, and I think that the maxed out iMac will do me fine. For really intense GI C4D renders, I can always use the Mac Pros at work if the iMac won't cut it.
 
right on- the only thing that bugs me about apple is the money worm:cool:

This is exactly the response, that Apple is looking for.

If they ignore their customers long enough, they'll either buy down to an iMac, or take another approach.

From my perspective, it's all about the money, now more than ever. The proven route to Apple's trillion dollar target is to sell more iToyz... the highest grossing products in Apple's lineup.
 
iMac 27 maxed out processor
Maxed out video card
256 SSD + 1TB (WISH I COULD PUT A SECOND DRIVE IN MANUALLY BUT NOPE
32Gb of ram
Thunderbolt display
Pegasus R6 6tb thunderbolt display (Raid 10)
Thunderbolt cable
Time capsule (need a new router plus to back up the iMacs drives)
:eek: Sweet Jesus, Mary, and all the orphaned children of the world! That's a LOT of computer there! I'm not figuring in the RAM costs, but the thunderbolt display and everything, that's well over 6 thousand dollars worth of computer.

Maybe I'm just saying this because I'm a lowly college student and not a professional with a clearly high-paying career... but maybe you'd like to wait for a Mac Pro before you take a $6,000 plunge like that? I'd hate for you to invest so much in a computer that came out over a year ago... only to see the one you WANT/NEED come out within a few short months.
 
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