Help me decide today.

[wildmac]

Thing is, the iMac is NOT half the cost.

I'd consider a different option. Quad/D300/32/512

But here's the real question, that I didn't see you mention. What displays do you already have? If you would need to get a monitor anyway, then the iMac is a clear winner.

However, since you are looking at this for a home business, then the iMac with your upgrade plan also makes sense. Just remember the resale value goes way down.

One more note, if you are going to make income with it, and write it off on your taxes, you may not want to sell it. Doing recapture after a write-off is a pain.

 

[handheldgames]

You know this because you own one, or because you read a few other's opinions, and "benchmarks." There are just as many benchmarks saying otherwise. A lot of it depends on the peripheral. Speed isn't just determined by the PC port.

Search on MR and your question shall be answered. For that matter, search the internet and tho shall discover 3rd party chipsets just can't keep up with an Intel chipset based solution.

 

[joema2]

...I do, Premiere Pro CC, Logic X, some After Effects, and Lightroom...I don't shoot any 4K yet.

Based on your experience, would the iMac be able to handle those programs reasonably well? (NOTE: I will upgrade RAM on either machine myself)

I have an 2013 iMac 27 with 3TB Fusion Drive and 32GB RAM. It works great on FCP X, Photoshop CC and Lightroom. I work with other professional video editors who have no trouble editing 1080p video projects on a 2011 iMac 27 with 16GB RAM and a regular HDD (no SSD).

You should upgrade the RAM (on either nMP or iMac) but you already said that was planned. The cost to upgrade each one to 32GB is about $400 for the iMac and $450 for the nMP.

In your price comparision you'd need to add about $1,000 to the nMP for an equivalent monitor, unless you have one laying around. So the actual price comparison, inc'l monitor and 32GB RAM, would be approx. $3249 for the iMac vs roughly $6249 for the nMP.

The nMP is a great machine but it's generally not vital for regular high-def video editing. However software is changing to better leverage OpenCL, and Premiere Pro already uses OpenCL extensively. So over time the nMP's GPU advantage will become more obvious. Image editing software is also becoming more extensively and efficiently multi-threaded, so the nMP's multi-core advantage will be more important as time passes.

 

[d-m-a-x]

The oMP sure, the new one No.

Disabling a new Imac or new MP is about the same. Neither is made to be user serviced.

Parts for the nMP will also cost a fortune, as you can no longer just bang in replacement GPUs.

the nMP is not glued and snapped together like an iMac. It uses screws and bolts and can be taken apart quite easily. Sorry i have an appointment back on planet earth