mac pro recommandation?

[jian]

Hi all, I'm thinking buying a new Mac desktop to do all the heavy tasks, so that I don't have to rely on my 3 year old MacBook Pro, as it gets hot like a pan on a burning stove after 5mins of video editing.....

I'm thinking about either a top of line iMac:
3.4GHZ i7, 256G SSD, after market 16G Ram, and Radeon 6970M 2GB...

or Base Model of Mac Pro (hopefully the newer version will come out before the back to school promotion ends).
2.8GHz Quad-Core Xeon, after market 16G, 1TB HD and later upgrade to SSD, and Radeon HD 5870 1GB.

I do have a TV which serves as my secondary display for my current Macbook Pro, so I guess that can be my main display if I do, in the end, pick Mac Pro.

Any suggestions? I do a lot of video editings on Final Cut Studio 3 and learning After Effects and Blender...

 

[flatfoot]

Hi all, I'm thinking buying a new Mac desktop to do all the heavy tasks, so that I don't have to rely on my 3 year old MacBook Pro, as it gets hot like a pan on a burning stove after 5mins of video editing.....

I'm thinking about either a top of line iMac:
3.4GHZ i7, 256G SSD, after market 16G Ram, and Radeon 6970M 2GB...

or Base Model of Mac Pro (hopefully the newer version will come out before the back to school promotion ends).
2.8GHz Quad-Core Xeon, after market 16G, 1TB HD and later upgrade to SSD, and Radeon HD 5870 1GB.

I do have a TV which serves as my secondary display for my current Macbook Pro, so I guess that can be my main display if I do, in the end, pick Mac Pro.

Any suggestions? I do a lot of video editings on Final Cut Studio 3 and learning After Effects and Blender...

If I were in your shoes, I'd pick the iMac since it has the faster CPU, an SSD already present and a display that's much better for video editing than a TV.

 

[ugru]

Since you have another system to work on, I'd wait for a couple of months to see what will be of the Mac Pro

In august they may come out with either an entirely new Mac Pro (Sandy bridge) or a speedbumped version of present Pro.
Probably we will have smaller case, six core as base, new GPU, Thunderbolt, ecc).

In both cases you will be able to buy a speedier machine at more or less the same price...

 

[Blue Sun]

Since you have another system to work on, I'd wait for a couple of months to see what will be of the Mac Pro

In august they may come out with either an entirely new Mac Pro (Sandy bridge) or a speedbumped version of present Pro.
Probably we will have smaller case, six core as base, new GPU, Thunderbolt, ecc).

In both cases you will be able to buy a speedier machine at more or less the same price...

I'm going to wait and see what the refresh brings.

I was originally going to cave and buy the new i7 iMac, but I really want to future proof this purchase, with that in mind the Mac Pro makes more sense.

I started to think about refurbished Mac Pro's on eBay that have hardly been used, but with the possibility of a case redesign I decided I should play it safe and wait.

I remember reading that only the Mac Pro's intended to be servers will get the redesign, with the standard Mac Pro workstation to continue with its current form factor. Still, the risk of an outdated Mac Pro from day one isn't worth it, better to wait.

 

[jian]

If I were in your shoes, I'd pick the iMac since it has the faster CPU, an SSD already present and a display that's much better for video editing than a TV.

Will I be able to at least connect my TV to an iMac though? I love to put the canvas window on my TV so I see how my project would look like on a regular HDTV, since most TV aren't really color calibrated. Damn this is a tough choice lol.

----------

Anyway, I am going to wait for a new Mac pro design, and I sincerely hope they come out before I spend all my financial aid money
I hope they upgrade the graphic card too, because so far iMac offers a much faster graphic chip and I don't want to buy a Mac pro that requires a lot of aftermarket upgrades so I can get an iMac performance.

 

[flatfoot]

Will I be able to at least connect my TV to an iMac though? I love to put the canvas window on my TV so I see how my project would look like on a regular HDTV, since most TV aren't really color calibrated. Damn this is a tough choice lol.

----------

Anyway, I am going to wait for a new Mac pro design, and I sincerely hope they come out before I spend all my financial aid money
I hope they upgrade the graphic card too, because so far iMac offers a much faster graphic chip and I don't want to buy a Mac pro that requires a lot of aftermarket upgrades so I can get an iMac performance.

Yes, you can connect your TV to an iMac. It has two Thunderbolt ports (= mini DisplayPorts).

 

[ugru]

I hope they upgrade the graphic card too, because so far iMac offers a much faster graphic chip and I don't want to buy a Mac pro that requires a lot of aftermarket upgrades so I can get an iMac performance.

The GPU in the present iMac is slower than the HD5770 and a lot slower than the HD5870 you can buy in the present MacPro....

The Radeon HD6970M (iMac) is a mobile chip, made for laptops. MacPro has a desktop level GPU which is far superior performance.....

Next MacPro, regardless of which architecture Apple will use (SB or not), will have a Desktop level radeon HD68XX or HD69XX card, which will increase the GPU performance gap even more.....

 

[ActionableMango]

Next MacPro, regardless of which architecture Apple will use (SB or not), will have a Desktop level radeon HD68XX or HD69XX card, which will increase the GPU performance gap even more.....

I would like to think so, but Apple is often pretty far behind in the GPU arena.

 

[jian]

The GPU in the present iMac is slower than the HD5770 and a lot slower than the HD5870 you can buy in the present MacPro....

The Radeon HD6970M (iMac) is a mobile chip, made for laptops. MacPro has a desktop level GPU which is far superior performance.....

Next MacPro, regardless of which architecture Apple will use (SB or not), will have a Desktop level radeon HD68XX or HD69XX card, which will increase the GPU performance gap even more.....

but it's got 2gigs of graphic mem, and it's still slower than the 1gig graphic card on mac pro? did not now that. and is it possible to upgrade the graphic card on a mac after a few years?

 

[chrismacguy]

but it's got 2gigs of graphic mem, and it's still slower than the 1gig graphic card on mac pro? did not now that. and is it possible to upgrade the graphic card on a mac after a few years?

Graphics Memory does not equate to good Graphics Performance if your comparing across different cards in general. Also, with a Mac Pro, yes you can upgrade the graphics very easily (For instance my 2010 Mac Pro shipped with a 5770, but a friend just upgraded his 2006 Mac Pro to the exact same card). With the iMac, it appears the answer might soon be "yes" given the Graphics is now on a daughterboard, but nobody really knows. In the past the answer for the iMac has always been "No."

 

[ugru]

but it's got 2gigs of graphic mem, and it's still slower than the 1gig graphic card on mac pro?

Check here: http://www.barefeats.com/imac11c.html

MacPro with HD5870 is nearly always 40-50% faster than iMac.

iMac GPU is slower because is a mobility chip, born to be used in laptops, therefore constrained by the cooling and power supply.
In the MacPro you'll find a full fledged desktop GPU.

Quantity of VRAM has little or no effects on graphic performance of current games (as you see in the link i provided). It could make difference if you play at really high resolutions, above FullHD or on multiple monitors.
And again in the next MacPro you'll likely find a 2GB GPU.

What is important for performance is the processor type and speed of the GPU and the type of VRAM.

 

[jian]

guess now i just have to save up until the new mac pro comes out and make steve jobs a little richer

 

[ugru]

guess now i just have to save up until the new mac pro comes out and make steve jobs a little richer

Depends from what are the "heavy tasks" you are talking about....

Except for gaming and heavy multi-threaded tasks the iMac and the MacPro have more or less the same performances....

If the software you use most does not take full advantage of all the cores or CUDA/OpenCL, or you don't play 3D games, an iMac could be an appealing solution.

Buy a MacPro if you think that in the future (up to 5/6 years) you may need to add/change HDD/SDD - GPU - add more RAM, ecc. In which case, next Mac Pro is the solution....

 

[derbothaus]

You mean to say:
Except in instances where the software actually uses the available hardware, the iMac has the same performance. Like in Safari

The 5770 is a good deal faster than the 6970M. It is more like a 5750 desktop card.

 

[ugru]

You mean to say:
Except in instances where the software actually uses the available hardware, the iMac has the same performance.

Like 80% of non-professional software and more or less 50% of professional software.

Final Cut, for example, takes full advantage of multicore processors and OpenCL since...let me check....one week.

The 5770 is a good deal faster than the 6970M. It is more like a 5750 desktop card.

Which is the same concept I expressed in my first post in this thread.

But if you don't play 3D games and do not use software that takes advantage of OpenCL, having a HD6970M or a HD5870 is perfectly the same....

 

[derbothaus]

Correct.