Really? No one will use the iMac for professional work? I didn't know that! I should cancel my order and get my Mac Pro back!
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iMac Quad Core i7=Mac Pro Quad Core i7?
- Thread starter theapplefreak
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Really? No one will use the iMac for professional work? I didn't know that! I should cancel my order and get my Mac Pro back!
People seem to get very emotional defending either the Mac Pro or the iMac, I suspect it depends on which one you've invested hard-earned cash in. My postion is I'm sitting on the fence, planning to buy a Mac Pro if they become reasonably priced whilst I'm still a student but suddenly more interested in the iMac.
The 27inch quad iMac with the 860 i7 is much better value than the quad Mac Pro. More powerful than the base unit for a lot less money BUT the Mac Pro is probably more robust given its larger case. If you need to use disk arrays then the Mac Pro allows this without voiding warranty by fitting your own eSATA or suffering the bottle neck of going via Firewire 800.
Memory wise they are essentially the same. They have the same number of slots and though the Mac Pro is, in theory, triple channel to the iMac's dual channel it ceases to be if you use all the RAM slots - to keep triple channel you must only fill three out of the four slots.
CPU wise Anandtech's benchmarks had the i860 easily beating the i920 which is the same as the W3520 in the Mac Pro (except for EEC memory support).
The Mac Pro also has extra PCI slots so if you need these you must go with the Pro.
If you don't desparately need a fast disk array, or extra PCI slots then the general argument about upgradeability is a very weak one. The current configuration of iMac should last the three years of Apple care then you can trade up to a much more powerful machine whilst overall spending less money than the current cost of the Mac Pro. In the pc world I was always telling myself I could upgrade my pcs but when it came to it, it normally made more sense just to get a new one (though perhaps not the best
solution for the planet/global warming!).
Personally I'm going to wait (with interest) the reviews and feedback on the quad iMacs. My concern is with reliability issues and perhaps noise (there
have already been some threads on disk drive noise).
The 27inch quad iMac with the 860 i7 is much better value than the quad Mac Pro. More powerful than the base unit for a lot less money BUT the Mac Pro is probably more robust given its larger case. If you need to use disk arrays then the Mac Pro allows this without voiding warranty by fitting your own eSATA or suffering the bottle neck of going via Firewire 800.
Memory wise they are essentially the same. They have the same number of slots and though the Mac Pro is, in theory, triple channel to the iMac's dual channel it ceases to be if you use all the RAM slots - to keep triple channel you must only fill three out of the four slots.
CPU wise Anandtech's benchmarks had the i860 easily beating the i920 which is the same as the W3520 in the Mac Pro (except for EEC memory support).
The Mac Pro also has extra PCI slots so if you need these you must go with the Pro.
If you don't desparately need a fast disk array, or extra PCI slots then the general argument about upgradeability is a very weak one. The current configuration of iMac should last the three years of Apple care then you can trade up to a much more powerful machine whilst overall spending less money than the current cost of the Mac Pro. In the pc world I was always telling myself I could upgrade my pcs but when it came to it, it normally made more sense just to get a new one (though perhaps not the best
solution for the planet/global warming!).
Personally I'm going to wait (with interest) the reviews and feedback on the quad iMacs. My concern is with reliability issues and perhaps noise (there
have already been some threads on disk drive noise).
IIRC all of the iMacs from 2006 up have had their chips blatantly soldered onto their respective logic boards, effectively preventing tampering from all but the most skilled techs.
I don't know why everyone here is feeding into this pointless argument, it's obvious that we are just in a short transition period where the iMac overlaps the MP in terms of power before Gulftown early next year.
Well the Mac Pro really shouldn't even be something most people should consider is all I am saying. Unless your job is actually supplying the computer, or you have more money than you know what to do with in the first place than why waste your money? I understand that it does have its uses where the iMac on down would faulter or not perform as well, mainly professional grade video-editing/encoding, heavy 3D work (and I mean like Pixar heavy), massive calculations, etc, but the best way to sum it up like I said, nearly every single user on this forum should see it this way:
the iMac i7 is overkill at a good value
the Mac Pro is just overkill
Also from what I understand readying the iFixit iMac tear down, you very well could upgrade everything (but the graphics card) in the iMac i7, but it of course wouldn't be as easy, risky, and I for one would probably pass out from anxiety trying it.
the iMac i7 is overkill at a good value
the Mac Pro is just overkill
Also from what I understand readying the iFixit iMac tear down, you very well could upgrade everything (but the graphics card) in the iMac i7, but it of course wouldn't be as easy, risky, and I for one would probably pass out from anxiety trying it.
They're socketed and they're using LGA 775 right now vs. the older mobile sockets.
I thought that the Penryn iMacs used mobile chips were soldered in place? No idea about the new quad desktop chips though
I'm pretty sure that they have not been soldered on for quite some time. I took apart a white 24" Core Duo and that was not soldered it has a socket, even the core solo mini I took apart is not soldered.
My bad, after some research I found that they have indeed been socketed for quite some time. (my mistake, Eidorian). What I did find however is that while the CPUs have been removable, they used an obscure socket that wasn't easy to shop for until this week when they moved to LGA 775 and 1366.
Such a shame how Apple can't just make up their minds and leave it one way or another. Haven't all of the GPU chips been soldered to the logic boards since God knows when?
imac faster but not really better.
The quad imac is great and maybe faster than the base mac pro but if your a video professional the MP is the only choice. What if you need a KONA or blackjack card? What if you need more than 2 displays. MP supports 8. There are many advantages to the MP but no advantages for the common desktop user. If your a video pro you'll see why a quad MP is better than a quad imac. The Mac pro is really for just that. A pro. People who need many displays for editing or a KONA capture card. imac may be faster but its not more ideal for the pro so if your an average user go imac, if your a video pro, go MP. There are more reasons to call a machine PRO besides the cpu speed. CPU isnt everything. a video pro needs to be able to swap hard drives quickly and insert capture cards etc. you cant with an imac. They dont even make capture cards for the imac. Most video pros have there own displays and studio monitors set up so again the 27" isnt needed for he video editor/3D artist etc. Its for the graphic designer/home user.
The quad imac is great and maybe faster than the base mac pro but if your a video professional the MP is the only choice. What if you need a KONA or blackjack card? What if you need more than 2 displays. MP supports 8. There are many advantages to the MP but no advantages for the common desktop user. If your a video pro you'll see why a quad MP is better than a quad imac. The Mac pro is really for just that. A pro. People who need many displays for editing or a KONA capture card. imac may be faster but its not more ideal for the pro so if your an average user go imac, if your a video pro, go MP. There are more reasons to call a machine PRO besides the cpu speed. CPU isnt everything. a video pro needs to be able to swap hard drives quickly and insert capture cards etc. you cant with an imac. They dont even make capture cards for the imac. Most video pros have there own displays and studio monitors set up so again the 27" isnt needed for he video editor/3D artist etc. Its for the graphic designer/home user.
Oh god, you really butchered that explanation.
I can only assume you are confusing/merging Turboboost and Hyper-Threading.
On the iMac or the Mac Pro, when fewer than 4 cores are active, the other ones that ARE active speed up. That is called Turboboost.
Hyper-threading is completely different. It allows each of the 4 cores to execute two threads at once. In many cases, when all 4 cores are executing 1 thread each, they are not at 100% usage. HT allows them to instead execute 2 threads at once, utilizing closer to 100% CPU utilization and thus using more of the power that you are paying for.
Both the iMac and the Mac Pro have turboboost. Only the i7 iMac and the Mac Pro have Hyper-threading.
You really really don't understand the purpose of the Mac Pro. First of all, the whole reason the Mac Pro only has 2 configs is because it is geared at PROs and Pros have very different needs and thus they custom configure their computer almost 100% of the time. This way they can get exactly what they want and an Audio/Math pro is not wasting money on a high end graphics card even if he wants the best processor etc.
First of all, getting a GTX 285 in your Mac Pro (currently available) has 1GB of VRAM and is almost twice as powerful as the Radeon 4850. The Radeon 5000 series are already available for Windows and it's only a matter of time until these cards are available for OS X. So in a few months when iMac users will have 2 year old graphics card technology, Mac Pro users will be able to get a graphics card that runs circles around the top end iMac card and is so powerful it can support SIX 30" displays on ONE CARD.
Also, for video pros, server operations etc PCIe RAID cards are available from the likes of Super Talent which offer sustained 1400MBs/ read 1200MB/s write speeds. That's 11Gb/s real world. The fastest the iMac can access any drive even in theory is 3Gb/s. Even if you put one of the best SSDs in an iMac, you are looking at 200MB/s read 70MB/s write.
So yeah, 17x faster disk I/O is kind of important for editing uncompressed HD video.
There is so much you don't understand about the Mac Pro. I am only scratching the surface here, and don't have the time or the desire to explain it to you further. So please don't go parading around as some sort of expert who "has it all figured out" because clearly you do not. But suffice it to say yes, the iMac is the best choice for almost all users who use this forum, including me. That is not to say that the Mac Pro is a "rip off" or "bad deal", it's just for a COMPLETELY different market than the iMac.
Speed is Expensive
Also worth noting that for $5k Super Talent gives you 1TB of SSD on the card.
Me like. Meee LIIIIKE! Can I justify the expense? Not YET.
Speed is expensive. How fast do you want to spend?
Also worth noting that for $5k Super Talent gives you 1TB of SSD on the card.
Me like. Meee LIIIIKE! Can I justify the expense? Not YET.
Speed is expensive. How fast do you want to spend?
Isn't this i7 just an i5 with a little more chest hair?
From what I have read this version of the i7 is pretty much an i5 with improved turbo boost and hyperthreading. On every other spec it is pretty much an i5. It makes me think that intel branded this baby just for Apple's marketing machine.
From what I have read this version of the i7 is pretty much an i5 with improved turbo boost and hyperthreading. On every other spec it is pretty much an i5. It makes me think that intel branded this baby just for Apple's marketing machine.
Core i5 (Lynnfield) just has hyperthreading turned off so it won't step on the toes of the higher end and priced models. It's not an Apple only component either. I've had one since September.
If you're going to spend ~US$200 on a processor the Core i5 750 is the best value.
2008 8 core Mac Pro or i7 Imac
Hi,
I've been reading this thread and have got some interesting info. I myself am thinking of either getting the new i7 imac or possibly the 2008 8 core (two quad core chips) mac pro second hand from ebay. The mac pro will probably cost around $300-$400 more however, I have read that a true 8 core mac pro will probably work better than a quad core machine with hyper threading. I want the machine for music production, primarily using logic 9 and also pro tools le 8.
My main concern with getting the imac is the lack of expandability/inability to have more than 1 internal HD. However I am also concerned that by getting an "obsolete" 2008 Mac Pro I may find that I will need to upgrade again in a year or two's time.
At the moment I have heard that there are many problems with hyperthreading and audio. (Pro Tools definitely doesn't like it). However that will likely soon change and it will be very useful for loading multiple effects/pluggins.
Hi,
I've been reading this thread and have got some interesting info. I myself am thinking of either getting the new i7 imac or possibly the 2008 8 core (two quad core chips) mac pro second hand from ebay. The mac pro will probably cost around $300-$400 more however, I have read that a true 8 core mac pro will probably work better than a quad core machine with hyper threading. I want the machine for music production, primarily using logic 9 and also pro tools le 8.
My main concern with getting the imac is the lack of expandability/inability to have more than 1 internal HD. However I am also concerned that by getting an "obsolete" 2008 Mac Pro I may find that I will need to upgrade again in a year or two's time.
At the moment I have heard that there are many problems with hyperthreading and audio. (Pro Tools definitely doesn't like it). However that will likely soon change and it will be very useful for loading multiple effects/pluggins.
This thread has derrailed completely hasn't it. The original post was not asking for a comparison between a £2000 iMac vs a £6000 Mac Pro Uber custom configuration. He was compairing a base MP at around £2800 (with 24" display) vs a 27 iMac i7 at around £2000.
In those bare configurations, using what you buy and not spending a penny on upgrades, the iMac seems like similar performance for £800+ less. A year ago, the base model MP would still eclipse a top end iMac. And a year from now, that may well be the case again. But right now it's not.
Anyone talking about $5k raid cards, 6 displays, and uber graphics cards is in completely the wrong topic. This was comparing like for like and asking, is the extra 800 quid worth it for the MP, or is the i7 iMac really overlapping with the MP for general purpose use? The answer is yes, they are very similar in spec and performance if you aren't doing any serious pro graphics and video editing. And anyone buying the base model MP without spending more on upgrades probably isn't planning on doing any more with it than he would an iMac.
Compairing a top end iMac with a top end MP is a different story, but a different topic.
For me, with the wait time on the i7, there was some temptation to just order the more expensive base MP. But the bottom line is that money would be wasted as I don't need it's unique advantages.
In those bare configurations, using what you buy and not spending a penny on upgrades, the iMac seems like similar performance for £800+ less. A year ago, the base model MP would still eclipse a top end iMac. And a year from now, that may well be the case again. But right now it's not.
Anyone talking about $5k raid cards, 6 displays, and uber graphics cards is in completely the wrong topic. This was comparing like for like and asking, is the extra 800 quid worth it for the MP, or is the i7 iMac really overlapping with the MP for general purpose use? The answer is yes, they are very similar in spec and performance if you aren't doing any serious pro graphics and video editing. And anyone buying the base model MP without spending more on upgrades probably isn't planning on doing any more with it than he would an iMac.
Compairing a top end iMac with a top end MP is a different story, but a different topic.
For me, with the wait time on the i7, there was some temptation to just order the more expensive base MP. But the bottom line is that money would be wasted as I don't need it's unique advantages.
The hyperthreading is what makes all the difference though. Yes, they are similar CPUs. The i5 is just a neutered i7. This guy does a really good comparison of them all and concluded that the i7 860 was the sweet spot in the intel line. Probably why Apple use it in their iMac.
http://www.guru3d.com/article/core-i5-750-core-i7-860-870-processor-review-test/
What are the specs of the Mac Pro you are buying?
If Pro Tools still has issues with HyperThreading then you will most likely have to disable it, leaving you with a quad core.
What screen are you considering, a good 30" will be at least $1000+ on top of that Mac Pro.
The Mac Pro 08 is still a very good machine imo, I'm on one right now
What are the specs of the Mac Pro you are buying?
If Pro Tools still has issues with HyperThreading then you will most likely have to disable it, leaving you with a quad core.
What screen are you considering, a good 30" will be at least $1000+ on top of that Mac Pro.
The Mac Pro 08 is still a very good machine imo, I'm on one right now
Mac Pro 2x 2.67 GHZ quad core processors, it's the early 2008 model. I already have a monitor so that's not an issue