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need to buy new computer before 12/31
Hello
I’d like some opinions on the new iMac vs the Mac Pro.
Turns out that I made more and spent less this past year. My accountant is advising that if I want a new computer – which I do – I should get it now.
I’ve been working on a Mac Pro – 2.66ghz with 8 GB of RAM and an NVIDIA GT330 512mb.
I use FCP suite and Adobe Photoshop. I’m giving serious thought to migrating over to Premiere, but that’s another story.
Anyhoo.
I can get the present Mac Pro. No one seems to know when they’ll update it or how.
OR
I can max out the specs on a new iMac – 3.4ghz quad core with 32gb of RAM and an NVIDIA GTX680MX 2gb.
Which would you advise?
Do any of you work on the new iMacs?Are you happy with them?
Thanks!
f
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5 Replies
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I think it really depends on how seriously you’re considering Adobe Premiere — and if you are, how serious are you with motion graphics?
If you’re staying on the Final Cut side of things an iMac will serve you well. If you’re staying on the video side of things with Premiere, an iMac will serve you well. If you’re getting into motion graphics on the Adobe side of things, you’ll want a MacPro with a Quadro video board. A Quadro turned a 17 hour AE render into an under 2 hour render on my MacPro. That’s not to say an iMac couldn’t handle graphics in After Effects — it certainly can — but if you spend a lot of time doing AE graphics a MacPro and a Quadro card can pay for itself relatively quickly.
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In other news, the rest of us figured out that iMacs were pretty awesome over a year ago when we gave up on MacPros ever releasing an update. Now, a year and a half later not much has changed.
Your problem might actually be getting Apple to charge you for one before 12/31. AE they actually shipping in any real numbers?
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To run Adobe you might consider a Win box with NVIDIA GTX680 and keep the old Mac for FCS3.
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Interesting – can you tell me why?
Cost savings? Or does Adobe run better on Windows machines?
The iMac I’m looking at has an NVIDIA GTX680….
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FCS is best run on older OS like snow leopard. Mountain Lion has been reported on this forum as giving people some problems. As FCS is end of life, I am leaving my Mac Pro with the ATI graphics card on SL. It works and I am avoiding potential grief as Apple keeps rolling out OS updates that will eventually break FCS.
Meanwhile I can get a cheaper more powerful box than a Mac Pro to run Adobe CS6 if I switch to Windows for that app. I get lots of RAM, slots for GPUs, Red Rocket cards etc. I can upgrade the hardware cheaply as new graphics cards with more CUDA cores become available. In short, I can get bigger bang for bucks with greater flexibility by not buying from the limited options that Apple has on offer. The available Mac pros are old and tired and iMac with TBolt may look sweet but I want customisable big iron. So consider the Win option if CS6 is where you are heading. Anecdotally I have heard CS6 runs slightly better under Win7 and there is a greater choice of cheaper GPUs which is why I am heading that way.
I already run three different OS in the facility so Win 7, Linux or Mac OS are all familiar and I am not fussed.
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