My boss asked me to do some research on Workstation-esque computers, be it Mac or PC, that he may purchase to significantly cutdown on After Effects CS5 render times. Not sure if a super fast computer will deliver the results he is looking for or what his budget is exactly (presumably less than $3,300). That being said, my top pick for him from the Mac world is the top iMac available, the 27" i7 (I7 - 2600) 3.4ghz. Anybody know if this computer will shave off a lot of time when it comes to video rendering? Take into consideration, this top-of-the-line 2011 iMac will be supplanting a 2007 iMac (2.4ghz Core 2 Duo). How much of an upgrade from that will it be for static and motion design? Thanks!
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- Thread starter AppleGoat
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PRetty big upgrade. Video rendering is very GPU intensive as well. A custom built i7, SDD, GFX would be more cost effective.
Thanks for the response. Sorry all, I just realized I posted this in the wrong thread. I habitually go to the MacBook Pro thread since I personally own one.
ur looking about 7 times give or take a 1 or 2
i would recommend the iMac with sad if u r going to get it and the 6970m with 2 gb will sped things up
the reason i say 7 times is the cpu will add about 3-5x right there not to mention the huge upgrade in graphics should add another 2 or 3 right there
i would recommend the iMac with sad if u r going to get it and the 6970m with 2 gb will sped things up
the reason i say 7 times is the cpu will add about 3-5x right there not to mention the huge upgrade in graphics should add another 2 or 3 right there
Not really. Overstated. It has 2 more real cores and 4 Hyperthreaded cores and a 1GHz upclock on each core vs. the old iMac. Software does not always allow for perfect hardware scaling. But theoretically you are looking at 3-4 times the raw power. The only way to get more render power is more cores like a Mac Pro 6-core or 12-core. But those blow the budget and are way due for refresh.
Geekbench Average general numbers:
iMac 27" 3.4 Quad:11602
Older iMac 2.4GHz: 3220
If it just going to be a render thing though a custom PC with the same i7-2600 and an Nvidia GTX580 would be cheaper and blow the iMac out of the water as it could use all the GPGPU goodness in AE for renders. Nvidia tech only for that feature and no Nvidia Desktop Mac's right now. Downside is running Windows. But if the boss don't care and just needs his hair blown back and you a promotion, get the PC.
Geekbench Average general numbers:
iMac 27" 3.4 Quad:11602
Older iMac 2.4GHz: 3220
If it just going to be a render thing though a custom PC with the same i7-2600 and an Nvidia GTX580 would be cheaper and blow the iMac out of the water as it could use all the GPGPU goodness in AE for renders. Nvidia tech only for that feature and no Nvidia Desktop Mac's right now. Downside is running Windows. But if the boss don't care and just needs his hair blown back and you a promotion, get the PC.
You'd be doing him a disservice to recommend an iMac for rendering After Effects. With a budget of $3300, a properly built PC will be much, much better.
Seriously. I've run AE on the latest iMac. It may be faster than his old iMac, but unless he's just koo-koo for Apple, it's no contest.
The guys at ADK are the best deal that I know, and that's coming from someone with a Mac Pro based edit suite.
Seriously. I've run AE on the latest iMac. It may be faster than his old iMac, but unless he's just koo-koo for Apple, it's no contest.
The guys at ADK are the best deal that I know, and that's coming from someone with a Mac Pro based edit suite.
the gekkbenchs aren't correct the iMac 27 i7 scores 14k in geek bench under 64bit which is what it is so don't listen to those numbers and with the rendering it is because of the graphics card and presumably the upgrade ti 16gb ram will make it even faster
It is relevant if ALL are using 32-bit. Who cares? Your scores will be higher if ALL use 64-bit. The geekbench IS correct for 32-bit as that was tested accross the board. And your graphics card and your memory amount will not make it faster. The way you allot the memory will. Less memory get's you better test scores. Your iMac will be faster with 6GB triple channel than with 16GB dual channel. In real life though it does not matter one bit. Also I looked over the geekbench results site only 5% of core i7-2600's get close to 14000 in 64-bit and the majority are hakentosh's. So maybe you are lucky as most get 12000-13000 in 64-bit. But 14000 is not the average.
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I agree. I am a mad mac devotee, but even I acknowledge the truth of what this poster is saying. Mind you, my personal view is that, everything also will be less pleasant by using a PC, but render times will be quicker.
IMHO depending on how urgent the purchase is I'd hold off till CS6 has been released because from what I have heard it will be receiving some much needed 'Mac love' which will hopefully have the spin off of better Mac performance too. The biggest bottleneck mind you that my brother faced when using Photoshop on my iMac was memory and the speed of storage - if you can replace the hard disk with a fast SSD and max out the memory that'll fix up a good portion of the performance straight off the bat.