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Struggling.... riMac vs. Mac Pro

D

Dulantzi

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Oct 28, 2014
1
0
Hello all,

I have been reading, and listening, and even touching today a riMac at my local Apple Store, and taking in account that my 27' iMac from late 2009 is starting to suffer (or it´s just me wanting to change it.... :cool:), i have been thinking about what to get..... My choices would be:


Mac Pro
3.5 Ghz (6 core)
16 GB ram
512 GB ssd
Dual D500

VS.


riMac 27'
4.0 Ghz - Quad Core
8 GB ram
512 GB ssd
R9 295X 4 GB


There is a $1,000 difference between both machines..... :mad: And the Mac Pro does not have a display in the price.....

I was going to finish the Mac Pro configuration with the new LG 34uc97, 4K 34' curved screen which looks amazing....... (and it will drive the "difference" to more than €2,000)

So, from a "longevity point of view", performance, etc.... and taking in account that i "squeeze" my machines during 4 or 5 years time.....

What do you think?


Thank you in advance....
 
If you are asking whether you need a Mac Pro then you should just get the iMac and save yourself 2k.
 
Agreed. You don't need a Mac pro unless you're sure you do. If your software requirements don't demand dual GPUs or your hardware requirements don't demand multiple TB buses then you're probably better off with the iMac.
 
I agree, go with the RiMac. I had the same dilemma until I learned that you can't upgrade the graphics cards in the nMP. That limits its life as much as the RiMac but if you need the power then the nMP is the way to go.
 
Dulantzi said:
Hello all,

I have been reading, and listening, and even touching today a riMac at my local Apple Store, and taking in account that my 27' iMac from late 2009 is starting to suffer (or it´s just me wanting to change it.... :cool:), i have been thinking about what to get..... My choices would be:


Mac Pro
3.5 Ghz (6 core)
16 GB ram
512 GB ssd
Dual D500

VS.


riMac 27'
4.0 Ghz - Quad Core
8 GB ram
512 GB ssd
R9 295X 4 GB


There is a $1,000 difference between both machines..... :mad: And the Mac Pro does not have a display in the price.....

I was going to finish the Mac Pro configuration with the new LG 34uc97, 4K 34' curved screen which looks amazing....... (and it will drive the "difference" to more than €2,000)

So, from a "longevity point of view", performance, etc.... and taking in account that i "squeeze" my machines during 4 or 5 years time.....

What do you think?


Thank you in advance....
Click to expand...

I came from a base model Mac Pro to the Retina iMac and it is much better. The one thing I will say that I like about the Mac Pro was that it was 100% silent, I never heard that machine once.

I played with the 6 Core with D500's for two weeks when I was deciding between the two machines and for what I did it was not enough of an improvement for $1000 more.

I don't know what you do with your machine but unless you use a lot of programs that take advantage off all the cores you're going to be slower with the Mac Pro than you are the iMac. Check out this video which compares the 6 Core to the Late 2013 iMac -

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=50oZLFbI7jQ

As far as that display goes I wouldn't touch it. I had 4 of the 34UM95's and they were all terrible and none of them worked correctly over Thunderbolt. The display also isn't 4K it is QHD, it's just a stretched out 27" Display with a resolution of 3440x1440. UHD or 4K is 3840x2160 which in Apple Retina world is just pixel doubled 1920x1080 if you go for the Retina effect. Cinema 4K is 4096x2160.

Unless I was doing heavy video editing in FCPX or something like that I would stick with the iMac. Marco Arment wrote a piece saying that he was switching from the 6 Core Mac Pro to the Retina iMac here -

http://www.marco.org/2014/10/16/retina-imac-vs-mac-pro
 
iMac(Now) v. Mac-Pro/SkyLake/Thunderbolt-3/later.

Get the current Retina iMac. Then wait for the SkyLake/Thunderbolt-3 version of the Mac Pro. Which will probably coincide with the release of Apple-5k standalone monitors. May take a year or two, given Intel delays. Of course, you'll have to find some good way to justify and pay for three 27"Retina screens :cool:
 
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