Is the maxed out new imac a contender?

[xgman]

I realize we're talking apples and oranges here, but I am not convinced that Apple will in fact continue the Mac Pro next year. Hope they do, but I'm keeping an eye on the what if's and what if not's just in case. And in fact needs do change over the years. Some compromises may need to be made. I will be interested to see what sort of benchmarks a 3.4 imac with a 675 or 680 would get. In the end, I'm not going hackintosh and I'm not going to Windows and I'm not keeping my 2010 MP longer than another 6-8 months or so if I can help it. We'll see.

 

[Macinposh]

I realize we're talking apples and oranges here, but I am not convinced that Apple will in fact continue the Mac Pro next year.

Well, if they dont update, a lot of peeps will switch the boat to windows side.

Adobe made that very easy now with the creative cloud : get a new win7/8 machine, download the apps and log in. Voila.

As a photog I need the redundancy of workstation type machines.

OS ***** the bricks = re- boot with internal backup hd and continue working.
Display = get your backup or make your secondary the primary
something else = get a spare from the other side of the desk or walk to a nearby store and grab a slice of pizza on the same trip.

That is what iMac can not provide.

Even the old iMacs were fast enough for graphic music/design/photography/1080p editing ,let alone the new ones.
Speed has not been a problem.
But the problem has been with customization, reliability and..duh..redundancy.


The specialized things are a different story, like heavy compositing/3D/mathstuff.
They still need all the oomph they can get.

 

[xgman]

All good points, but I've just tried Windows 8 and didn't like it at all and am heavily invested in OSX both in dollars and emotionally.

 

[thepawn]

I think you may get a better value going mac mini+external PCIe thunderbolt case.

The top of the line CPU there is similar to lower level single cpu Mac Pro's...it's only slightly faster then my 2009 2.66ghz in many areas.

 

[xgman]

I think you may get a better value going mac mini+external PCIe thunderbolt case.

The top of the line CPU there is similar to lower level single cpu Mac Pro's...it's only slightly faster then my 2009 2.66ghz in many areas.

There is a limit to value engineering and to me that crosses the line to budget. # of cores is one thing. Speed is something I've learned should not be compromised.

 

[derbothaus]

The new iMac 3.4GHz i7 will probably bench faster in single core by 10-15% and equal your 6-core in multi-threaded (GB ~ 16000). The GTX 680mx should be 30% faster than the 5870 BUT you are forced to run 2560x1440 which also strains it. It would be really quick at 1920x1080. Honestly you're better served by getting a GTX 670 in your 6-core and maybe SSD or more memory. At least wait as you're really only matching your current system and a slight GPU upgrade with a new Ivy iMac. A desktop GTX 670 will put the mobile GTX 680mx to pasture handily.

 

[goMac]

I realize we're talking apples and oranges here, but I am not convinced that Apple will in fact continue the Mac Pro next year. Hope they do, but I'm keeping an eye on the what if's and what if not's just in case. And in fact needs do change over the years. Some compromises may need to be made. I will be interested to see what sort of benchmarks a 3.4 imac with a 675 or 680 would get. In the end, I'm not going hackintosh and I'm not going to Windows and I'm not keeping my 2010 MP longer than another 6-8 months or so if I can help it. We'll see.

I think it's very likely we'll see Fusion based I/O in the next Mac Pro.

 

[theSeb]

The new iMac 3.4GHz i7 will probably bench faster in single core by 10-15% and equal your 6-core in multi-threaded (GB ~ 16000). The GTX 680mx should be 30% faster than the 5870 BUT you are forced to run 2560x1440 which also strains it. It would be really quick at 1920x1080. Honestly you're better served by getting a GTX 670 in your 6-core and maybe SSD or more memory. At least wait as you're really only matching your current system and a slight GPU upgrade with a new Ivy iMac. A desktop GTX 670 will put the mobile GTX 680mx to pasture handily.

It benches at around 15,000 in 64 bit geekbench in Windows.

 

[derbothaus]

I think it's very likely we'll see Fusion based I/O in the next Mac Pro.

Why would that be beneficial? Unless the Fusion tech somehow makes faster use of the sum of it's parts. I've got a Velociraptor/ Intel 520. Why would I or others like me want or need that? Especially if it is HW locked by Apple. I don't think Fusion will beat that in any deserving way. Or any other combo's current users are running.

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It benches at around 15,000 in 64 bit geekbench in Windows.

Cool. Thanks. There is some disparity between GB for Win and GB for OS X but it looks to be roughly the same. Unless you can tell 900 points in GB in real world, I can't

 

[theSeb]

Why would that be beneficial? Unless the Fusion tech somehow makes faster use of the sum of it's parts. I've got a Velociraptor/ Intel 520. Why would I or others like me want or need that? Especially if it is HW locked by Apple. I don't think Fusion will beat that in any deserving way. Or any other combo's current users are running.

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Cool. Thanks. There is some disparity between GB for Win and GB for OS X but it looks to be roughly the same. Unless you can tell 900 points in GB in real world, I can't

There certainly is. The same CPU in the Windows version of GB will get higher scores. I increased my Mini's GB score by 500 points when I installed faster RAM. Unfortunately I cannot tell the difference

Fusion is for people that don't understand the basics of a computer. Unfortunately that is a large majority of consumers.

 

[goMac]

Why would that be beneficial? Unless the Fusion tech somehow makes faster use of the sum of it's parts. I've got a Velociraptor/ Intel 520. Why would I or others like me want or need that? Especially if it is HW locked by Apple. I don't think Fusion will beat that in any deserving way. Or any other combo's current users are running.

Because you could couple cheap, high capacity 7200 rpm drives with flash drives.

I mean, you can do this right now, but with a large SSD acting as the backing, it would be less of a pain.

A Velocirpator/Intel 520 would be more expensive, and after a certain amount of cache, might offer no advantage at all.

It looks like Fusion is software based, so there shouldn't be any hardware lock involved. Although the initial setup would have to be tweaked for a BYO drive on a Mac Pro.

 

[derbothaus]

Fusion is for people that don't understand the basics of a computer. Unfortunately that is a large majority of consumers.

I just don't see it working into the Mac Pro ecosystem. But that system is on the ropes anyway. Interject the "well, we'll have to wait and see" here.

Edit: Just saw Go's response. If was SW based and not locked then I would not complain. I would if the included HDD's were 5400 like the iMac's.

 

[Zwhaler]

Yes the core count is a major setback for high end Mac Pro owners, also the GPU and even more importantly - storage! 3TB fusion drive is less than a quarter of what I have running ... admittedly more than most people, however for me the new iMac cannot offer a solution to my post production workflow. But that's okay, I wasn't expecting it to.

 

[jetjaguar]

so for someone has been waiting to purchase a computer .. new maxxed imac or 6 core hex mac pro >

 

[fridgeymonster3]

I agree with several posters above. Lack of redundancy, upgradeability, and limited internal storage capacity are deal breakers for me. For the average consumer, 3TB is almost certainly enough space for the life of the iMac. However, my 2008 MP has 12.5TB internal storage, four times what the iMac offers. I also could never give up my 3 monitor setup.

 

[goMac]

I just don't see it working into the Mac Pro ecosystem. But that system is on the ropes anyway. Interject the "well, we'll have to wait and see" here.

Edit: Just saw Go's response. If was SW based and not locked then I would not complain. I would if the included HDD's were 5400 like the iMac's.

I do worry Apple would lock it to specific SSDs like they did with TRIM. But, like TRIM, it would probably be easily hackable and not really to Apple's advantage. Maybe I could see Apple doing something like making the SSD a blade style thing on the Mac Pro board. But there isn't anything about the implementation so far that locks it to the specific hardware beyond Apple possibly having a whitelist.

 

[xgman]

I was checking around to see what TB drive options are available to substitute for my 6 drives I have populated now. It's slim pickens still. The enclosures like caldigit, owc etc aren't ready yet. The my book thunderbolt duo would be nice if they sold just the case. You can run 2 drives in there as separate drives (user replaceable), but the minimum config now comes with their drives which I have no use for at $500 a pop. Ouch. So accommodating your drives would be the single most expensive add on which would quickly get out of hand even if you use your won drives.

I currently have SSD's and 1TB velkociraptors for storage, and while the Veloci's are nice, there is no comparison to the SSD's. The Fusion idea is fine but not going to replace 6 drives with totally different functions for me. Also usb 3 isn't going to cut it as a replacement for my internal drives. It's TB or nothing. So even in December, this could get quite costly. If they ever come out with inexpensive user populated enclosures for TB, then it might be a good option.

I now find myself right back in the empty place of waiting for some word on Mac Pro's with no plan or time frame. that later in 2013 comment doesn't help one bit. Who really knows what that means and if they live up to it at all.

 

[derbothaus]

I was checking around to see what TB drive options are available to substitute for my 6 drives I have populated now. It's slim pickens still. The enclosures like caldigit, owc etc aren't ready yet. The my book thunderbolt duo would be nice if they sold just the case. You can run 2 drives in there as separate drives (user replaceable), but the minimum config now comes with their drives which I have no use for at $500 a pop. Ouch. So accommodating your drives would be the single most expensive add on which would quickly get out of hand even if you use your won drives.

I currently have SSD's and 1TB velkociraptors for storage, and while the Veloci's are nice, there is no comparison to the SSD's. The Fusion idea is fine but not going to replace 6 drives with totally different functions for me. Also usb 3 isn't going to cut it as a replacement for my internal drives. It's TB or nothing. So even in December, this could get quite costly. If they ever come out with inexpensive user populated enclosures for TB, then it might be a good option.

I now find myself right back in the empty place of waiting for some word on Mac Pro's with no plan or time frame. that later in 2013 comment doesn't help one bit. Who really knows what that means and if they live up to it at all.

I don't know why you are still even pondering it honestly. At least this 2012 release. Your current 6-core is still faster. If you need inexpensive storage buy a SATA3 RAID card from Atto or Areca and build up something nice. That would be an appropriate upgrade from your current internals. Then get a GTX 670 if you need the updated GPU. Support will be even better after iMac build is released for the wizards to parse out driver code. But you could just be thinking about storage only and moving forward if there is never a Mac Pro upgrade with PCI slots. If slots are included the RAID should be able to migrate to a new box as well.

 

[xgman]

I don't know why you are still even pondering it honestly. At least this 2012 release. Your current 6-core is still faster. If you need inexpensive storage buy a SATA3 RAID card from Atto or Areca and build up something nice. That would be an appropriate upgrade from your current internals. Then get a GTX 670 if you need the updated GPU. Support will be even better after iMac build is released for the wizards to parse out driver code. But you could just be thinking about storage only and moving forward if there is never a Mac Pro upgrade with PCI slots. If slots are included the RAID should be able to migrate to a new box as well.

I'm not spending another cent on this mac pro until I see what's ahead. I'm just getting impatient and really want to move to all new tech. I want native usb 3, sata 3, ivy bridge etc. I fell it's time to move away from this monolith, but I still hold out some hope for some new super duper Apple transition product, although I know that is wishful thinking. I really thought we would be way further along by now.

 

[derbothaus]

^^^ Yeah me too. All you can really do is wait or side-grade.