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Should change my imac with a refurbished mac pro

A

al2813

macrumors member
Original poster
Oct 19, 2014
50
27
Belgium
I have been using an iMac as my main home computer for 12 years now. For the last years I have been taking the same upgrade path. Get a recent 2nd hand iMac with less than 1 year, get an apple care and than keep the iMac until the Apple care reaches its end. Than sell my machine and get a newer one.

I currently have an iMac 27 late 2015 with the BTO top config of core i7 4.0 and Radeon R9 395X with 4GB VRAM. The machine is entering now its third year, so I will be looking to replace it probably in about 6 months.

I am just coming off a very positive experience with a 2nd hand mac pro 5.1 I got for my son. For 550 Euros I got a very decent quad core Xeon 2.8. Just with placing an SSD, and a bit of extra RAM I had floating around, I have a very cheap Mac that is performing not too shabby. Later this year I will probably get a 6 core CPU (less than 100 EUR on ebay), and replace the original 5770 still running on the machine and this should be a more than decent machine. In fact so decent, that I am starting to consider swapping my iMac with a Mac pro. With the classic desktop structure, I am less worried about having a machine with no warranty, not to mention the upgradability. I have in fact two concerns:

1. future proof - Do you think a refurbished 5.1 will hold for 3 years and get OS X updates?
2. Monitor - the 5k 27 monitor of my imac is obviously brilliant. What could be an equivalent both in terms of aesthetics and picture quality? Also is there a monitor with an integrated webcam? I just hate the thought of putting a webcam on top.....

Any thoughts appreciated :)
 
About the only situation where I might favor the cMP (Mac Pro) in this scenario is if you are running very long (hours), maximum-load jobs that bury the CPU and I/O for the whole time. I'd expect the Mac Pro to hold up better under sustained heavy load than the iMac. Aside from that, if you're going to have an out of warranty machine, I'm not convinced that the iMac is any more of a risk than the cMP is, and the iMac will definitely be faster, even after upgrading the cMP.

I have a cMP upgraded with a W3680 (3.3. Ghz) and a $150 junk Dell that I use for some HDFS cluster work. The Dell has a 2012 era Sandy Bridge CPU and it's maybe 25% faster than the cMP -- for the first few minutes, anyway. On the other hand I can push terabytes through the cMP running an SF1000 TPC-H or -DS benchmark, and the Dell would probably melt assuming I could load it with enough storage, which I can't.
 
I would keep doing what you’re doing and stick with iMacs.
5k isn’t supported well on cMP.
By the time you spend money upgrading the 5,1 to have similar performance to a current iMac you can easily be at the
1000 euro mark.

From the sounds of it you aren’t really pushing your machines hard - an iMac would suffice.
 
al2813 said:
1. future proof - Do you think a refurbished 5.1 will hold for 3 years and get OS X updates?
2. Monitor - the 5k 27 monitor of my imac is obviously brilliant. What could be an equivalent both in terms of aesthetics and picture quality? Also is there a monitor with an integrated webcam? I just hate the thought of putting a webcam on top.....

Any thoughts appreciated :)
Click to expand...

1) most likely NO. The latest cMP was introduced in mid 2012. And if Apple keep there normal “7 years support” practice. The software support will end on mid 2019. In other words. The next OS upgrade (should happen at late 2018) may be the very last OS that officially supported by Apple. And if we are lucky enough, we may get the late 2019 MacOS supported. But if you want 3 years from now (that means up to late 2020), I personally believe the chance is very very low.

2) also NO at this moment. The 5k monitors are pretty much disappear at this moment (may be because the MST requirement giving those manufacture lots of trouble on CS). Even though Apple said the new monitor is coming (may be 5k). It may not compatible to the cMP (e.g Thunderbolt required). However, there are plenty of nice 4k monitor out there. For normal human eyes, we should not able to tell the difference between 4k and 5k (at normal distance).

Even worse, if you want an integrated webcam. That will give you much much less choice. Lots of good 4k monitor our there are design for professional use. Web cam existence is general not required (or even not prefered). Also, even though the cam is there, doesn’t mean that will work with the Apple driver. The chance of getting a 5k monitor with integrated web cam which can work flawlessly on a cMP should be practically zero at this moment.
 
Welcome to the world of Apple dropping the ball on its own ecosystem. Even if you buy the current Mac Pro 6,1 you still can't get a 4k or 5k monitor with built-in webcam and speakers.

The 2012 was still being sold as current in 2013 so the 7 year support should go through October 2020.
 
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saulinpa said:
Welcome to the world of Apple dropping the ball on its own ecosystem. Even if you buy the current Mac Pro 6,1 you still can't get a 4k or 5k monitor with built-in webcam and speakers.

The 2012 was still being sold as current in 2013 so the 7 year support should go through October 2020.
Click to expand...

If that’s 6,1. It can use the LG UltraFine 5k or 4k monitor (available in Apple store) which has build in camera and speaker.
 
You're right, the 5K does show having a webcam, I looked at the 4k which does not which also doesn't seem to be compatible with a Mac Pro.
With the 5K you can only use it at 4K on the nMP. US$1300 for a monitor that you can't fully use vs a $700 4K that doesn't work at all. That's today's Apple.
 
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get an imac ;)
you pick up apple care every time and you just cant do that with the macpro, the PSU or GPU may fail just from age.

also in almost every way the macpro is just slower and by a lot
 
Get another iMac ; don't let your son use a cMP, they are not safe for young people .
Then, if you live in the EU, send me a PM and sell that thing to me . ;)

As for your concerns :

- Computers will break eventually, but there are still lots of cMPs even from 2006 around that are going strong .
It depends on how they were used, and luck .
As for OSX updates, support will likely run out soon, as said above .

- Monitors : limited choices , if any, if you are looking for top quality , also mentioned above .
And cost would be high .

At the price you paid, and if it is in good condition, I would take an MP 5.1 in a heartbeat over any iMac, and pimp it out to the max .
But your needs are different as it sounds; a cMP still makes sense for tinkerers who need or want the expandability it offers , but only then I think .
 
barmann said:
Get another iMac ; don't let your son use a cMP, they are not safe for young people .
Then, if you live in the EU, send me a PM and sell that thing to me . ;)

As for your concerns :

- Computers will break eventually, but there are still lots of cMPs even from 2006 around that are going strong .
It depends on how they were used, and luck .
As for OSX updates, support will likely run out soon, as said above .

- Monitors : limited choices , if any, if you are looking for top quality , also mentioned above .
And cost would be high .

At the price you paid, and if it is in good condition, I would take an MP 5.1 in a heartbeat over any iMac, and pimp it out to the max .
But your needs are different as it sounds; a cMP still makes sense for tinkerers who need or want the expandability it offers , but only then I think .
Click to expand...

I hope that your comment on the cMP not safe for young people is a joke....
I do live in the EU (Belgium) but will probably keep the cMP ;)

Now to the other comments (also the ones above - I was sick earlier this week so did not read them until today), they were good enough to convince me to stick to the iMac. It's just that I am so fed up having to swap them every 2 years (with the iMac, I do not dare to be without a warranty which is not the case with the classic desktop tha is the cMP...)
 
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