MacPro 5,1 vs new iMac

[namethisfile]

Having owned the iMac 5k maxed out i7 cpu and radeon GFX I can tell you heat is an issue when you push it, even the new iMac Pro's people have reported heat up issues. a work horse they were not designed for, casual work and the odd home project they can work well. and the yellowing of the bottom of the screen is well reported, and if it doesn't happen under apple care after that its an expensive repair, with a Mac Pro you can buy another screen a lot cheaper.

As for the Mac Pro, can you drop an RX580 8G Gfx card in, or Vega with a few Mods? the iMac you can't just upgrade a few years down the line like a Mac Pro 5.1 yes the iMac has T bolt and you can use external GFX cards but this guy has 2k to spend not 4k+ if his budget was no limit then an iMac Pro maxed out with external Vega GFX would be a recommendation to consider. all in all the Mac Pro 5.1 has some upgrade paths to include Nvme drives if you want with some help from forum members here with boot rom's. I expect the new Mac Pro 7.1 will out perform them all, but at what price? 7k plus or a lot more.

Mac Pro 5.1
duel 3.46g CPU's
48G ram to 196G
GX580 8g GFX
Pcie angel wings PC1
500G Nvme drive
USB 3 card if needed.

and can be had for under 2k to me this offers the best bang for buck! but if an all in one is what's required then an iMac to the highest spec you can get for 2k is the way forward.

Well, when you say overheating, it means the system either shuts down or the CPU starts to severely throttle, where performance would be impacted because the CPU, fans, cannot keep up. I don't see it happening in an iMac, TBH.

I know there are concerns of iMac running hot, but, from my perusing of such cases in this forum, it just seems like people are concerned that the iMac is getting hot. But, to me, it isn't the same as overheating as you stated. Overheating would mean the system shutting down and/or the load is too high for the fans to keep up. And/or the iMac is in a less ideal ambient temperature environment causing the fans to not properly keep the machine in a safe and normal operating temperatures...

PS... in your prior post you used the word "overheating issues to iMacs" and in this post you use a less severe description of "heat is an issue..."

PSS... heat is an issue to any computers, be it an iMac or a cMP 5,1... it is just that with an iMac, the "heat" source is closer to you since the machine is inside the screen, as well. Like, a laptop, you can feel the heat of the machine as you use it extensively. In a cMP 5,1, where it is a tower, the "heat" source is not as close to the user as an iMac... I don't even know why I need to explain this...

PSSS... as for yellowing of the screen, I am not 100% on this, but I think LED backlights has made yellowing of the screen over time in years less severe or less of a concern than prior backlighting tech such as CCFL, which my mid-2007 20" iMac uses and my iMac's screen has over years yellowed a tiny bit.... The yellowing in current iMacs might just be defects where the user notices it on day one and can return it. And, IMO, if a screen is perfect on day one, I wouldn't worry of it yellowing over time because you're then worried about something that might or might not happen...

 

[Matty_TypeR]

PS... in your prior post you used the word "overheating issues to iMacs" and in this post you use a less severe description of "heat is an issue..."

Heat causes things to throttle, many iMac owners complain of throttling in the GPU with lock ups and freezes and its well documented. the iMac was never designed as a work horse machine, even ram throttles when hot. Mac Pro laptops do the same thing, Mac fan control was solely devised to help cooling by running fans faster. and you can never say a Mac Pro's cooling is like an iMac's, nothing like it in fact. google iMac overheating, then google Mac Pro 4.1 5.1 over heating. big difference in what you will find. if you don't mind your iMac freezing and locking through heat then buy an iMac. just don't sit and encode hrs of video on it and expect it to not get hot which stresses all the important components in the machine.

also the yellowing of the screen is nothing to do with back lighting like it was with CFL lighting, its the panel itself that gets darker with a yellow tinge at the bottom.

thread starter wanted to know what was the best bang for buck machine, I say Mac Pro 5.1 fully decked.

upto him really he's spending the 2k

 

[HiroThreading]

As much as I love my spec'd out Mac Pro, I would fully recommend the new iMac.

The 5K display is gorgeous, you get Thunderbolt 3 support, and the single thread performance is way better than the Mac Pro's.

 

[namethisfile]

As much as I love my spec'd out Mac Pro, I would fully recommend the new iMac.

The 5K display is gorgeous, you get Thunderbolt 3 support, and the single thread performance is way better than the Mac Pro's.

I also like my cMP 5,1, of which I was able to upgrade the RAM to 32GB, install an SSD for the OS and an internal SSD as my scratch drive, install a metal-capable GPU (RX460), eSATA card and an eSATA external hdd dock (to not be hampered by internal SATA2 speed of the cMP) for a second scratch drive... I decided to go this route a couple years ago to upgrade from a mid-2010 15" MBP. And, I had a choice then of getting an iMac. But, chose the cMP 5,1 because it was cheaper (ebay 2nd hand). Although, when I add up the upgrades over time, it probably equals to $2K in total, especially since I also bought a 27" 1440P 10-bit capable monitor partly because I had a more powerful mac to match it up with...

One way to make the decision easier, I think, is if you want to spend up to $2k, or have decided for yourself that spending less is even better, yet have the same equivalent horsepower as the current 27" iMac. So, even though, I upgraded my cMP 5,1 up to almost $2k over time, the original configuration which I bought it was also fine in my use-case scenario, which was 1080P60 video editing in FCPX and photo editing in PS....

It helps if you already have a monitor, KB and mouse, and even extra HDD's or PCIe devices you can use in the cMP 5,1 since those are cheaper alternatives than, say, the current iMac's route of expansion, which is through thunderbolt 3....

So, yeah, I think your budget would play a big part in the decision making between current 27" iMac and a cMP 5,1. Because although, one could spend a considerable amount of money upgrading components for either the iMac or cMP 5,1.... the iMac will cost more since one needs thunderbolt 3 devices for it to expand, which is an added cost/investment.

If your budget is a solid $2k and you plan on not spending anymore than that, then a cMP 5,1 can be "hooked up" in a very decent way with $2k budget. But, in my opinion, it isn't as long term of an investment as current iMac simply due to newer architecture and TB3. But, the iMac will cost more down the road. But, it is will also be "supported" longer since it's newer...

One could also spend $2k on a current 27" iMac as is and just be as happy with it... IMO... with no need to upgrade it at all... probably just get Apple Care... and be done with it...

 

[HiroThreading]

I also like my cMP 5,1, of which I was able to upgrade the RAM to 32GB, install an SSD for the OS and an internal SSD as my scratch drive, install a metal-capable GPU (RX460), eSATA card and an eSATA external hdd dock (to not be hampered by internal SATA2 speed of the cMP) for a second scratch drive... I decided to go this route a couple years ago to upgrade from a mid-2010 15" MBP. And, I had a choice then of getting an iMac. But, chose the cMP 5,1 because it was cheaper (ebay 2nd hand). Although, when I add up the upgrades over time, it probably equals to $2K in total, especially since I also bought a 27" 1440P 10-bit capable monitor partly because I had a more powerful mac to match it up with...

One way to make the decision easier, I think, is if you want to spend up to $2k, or have decided for yourself that spending less is even better, yet have the same equivalent horsepower as the current 27" iMac. So, even though, I upgraded my cMP 5,1 up to almost $2k over time, the original configuration which I bought it was also fine in my use-case scenario, which was 1080P60 video editing in FCPX and photo editing in PS....

It helps if you already have a monitor, KB and mouse, and even extra HDD's or PCIe devices you can use in the cMP 5,1 since those are cheaper alternatives than, say, the current iMac's route of expansion, which is through thunderbolt 3....

So, yeah, I think your budget would play a big part in the decision making between current 27" iMac and a cMP 5,1. Because although, one could spend a considerable amount of money upgrading components for either the iMac or cMP 5,1.... the iMac will cost more since one needs thunderbolt 3 devices for it to expand, which is an added cost/investment.

If your budget is a solid $2k and you plan on not spending anymore than that, then a cMP 5,1 can be "hooked up" in a very decent way with $2k budget. But, in my opinion, it isn't as long term of an investment as current iMac simply due to newer architecture and TB3. But, the iMac will cost more down the road. But, it is will also be "supported" longer since it's newer...

One could also spend $2k on a current 27" iMac as is and just be as happy with it... IMO... with no need to upgrade it at all... probably just get Apple Care... and be done with it...

Yeah budget and intended use have a lot to do with the purchase decision.

Unless you REALLY need the 12 cores (and remember they're old Intel Westmere cores. So single thread performance is going to be garbage) and PCIE/SATA ports, I just think the iMac is the better way to go. You can max out the RAM on the iMac by yourself, and like I said, it comes with an amazing 5K display which costs a lot if you were to buy it separately (and the Mac Pro has issues supporting 5K displays natively).

Apple also sells some refurbed 27" iMacs which are amazing value for money:
https://www.apple.com/shop/product/...uad-core-Intel-Core-i5-with-Retina-5K-display
(the 2TB Fusion Drive is actually really good. If you want faster, then obviously go for the SSD options)

Throw in like 32-64GB of RAM, and you have a pretty decent workstation/home office Mac.

 

[nigelbb]

Hello Christoffee,

I will share my experience with my purchase of a Mac Pro 5,1 from ipower resellers: I received the computer almost two years ago. It worked fine for a little over a year. Now it has been endless trouble. I am pretty much given up on it and am trying to decide what to do with it. The symptoms it has mostly it will not startup and run reliably. When I can get it to start it may run for a hour or so, but then it will turn itself off. I have tried resetting the SMC/PRAM numerous times. Tearing the computer down to almost bare bones and making sure every thing is clean and seated. Different video cards etc,. Pretty much everything that you can read on apple discussions and sites like this I have tried. I have talked to two apple stores genius bar and apple repair. They have told me they cannot repair because they cannot get parts and the computer is too old. All the diagnostics I ran say the machine is OK, but it still wont run.

Now here is some impressions about the machine itself.

When I received it, it was in wonderful condition. In fact it looked new. If had to do over I would have ordered the machine exactly how I wanted it with the ram, video card, and other options the way I wanted, assembled and tested, and I would have also bought the maximum extended warranty.

As an aside, I had a 2009 mac pro at work and it was solid as a rock. The only problems that I had was the Apple Raid card was POS and needed to be replaced with an attotech card. I also had trouble with finding drives that would not burn up inside because of the poor drive cooling. The case was not capable of cooling drives that ran hot. Once I fixed these problems it ran all day long without trouble. That was one reason I bought a mac pro for home use.

Back to the Mac Pro 5,1. The current OS installed is the latest high Sierra with all patches and updates.

Some observations: The hardware is PCIE gen 2. There is no built in USB 3. There are some USB 3 cards that work fine, however. The Apple flashed video cards available are extremely expensive. The PSU is not capable of powering many new video cards, though it seems it should. The PCI Aux connectors carry 75 watt max each. If you want to use an SSD, you have to get an special bracket to convert.

Many of these issues may not be important to you depending on your needs.

My biggest gripe is the Apple SMC chip, who's inner workings are a mystery held by Apple. It turns of the computer without warning and the user is left to guess why as it leaves no error message. All the solutions are to basically "throw parts at the problem" until you find a combination that works.

I hope my griping may help others decide.

Fred

This is a cautionary tale that the OP should bear in mind. Spending £2K on a used machine at least five years old with limited warranty is not something that I would want to do. Three years of AppleCare on the iMac is well worthwhile.

 

[JazzyGB1]

iMac: quad core i7, Mac Pro: 12 core Xeon
iMac: up to 64GB DDR4 RAM, Mac Pro: up to 128GB DDR3 ECC RAM
iMac: 1 NVMe SSD or hybrid, Mac Pro: up to 4 3.5" hard drive or SSDs + PCIe SSDs
iMac: 0 optical drives, Mac Pro: 2 optical drives
iMac: Radeon Pro 580, Mac Pro: many options including Radeon RX 580/Vega 64/Geforce 1080 Ti/Titan V
iMac: good selection of ports, Mac Pro: expansion using PCIe USB3, eSATA, 10G ethernet, built in ports are USB2
iMac: nice 5k monitor, Mac Pro: whatever monitor(s) you want

iMac is good if you want decently powerful all-in-one desktop with a bunch of ports, Mac Pro if you want anything else.

I love my Mac Pro, best Mac I've ever owned and I've been fortunate to have owned or used most Macs over the years.
I largely agree with the comparison list above but there's one thing omitted from it which is important IMO, which is...
iMac: Brand New, Mac Pro: almost a decade old!
That's significant too because who knows how much life there will be in a computer that's already almost a decade old?
My Mac Pro is a flash upgraded 5.1 2009 model so has given years of service so far and shows no sign of ever stopping, but there's always that chance that it may suffer a motherboard failure or some other fault in future because of how long it's been running.
Obviously that's not a concern with a brand new iMac.

 

[spacedcadet]

Love my cMP 5,1 and am still working on it every day with the latest Adobe apps, however at this point it must be regarded as very close to end of life. That said, I also use an iMac Pro at a clients and for some things it really doesn't not seem any faster. The iMac screen IS gorgeous, but retina is not great to work on for photography/design either. Roll on the new Mac Pro?