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To iMac or not to iMac…
So, this is interesting. A lot of us ’round these parts are on an upgrade path from the Mac Pro towers. I’d guess a lot of us have Kona or Decklink cards and monitors ready to go. In addition, many of us use eSATA cards. So, assuming you are on this upgrade path, I’ve priced out the difference between the new iMac 27″ (fairly decked out) along with the base 2.4GHz 12-core Mac Pro.
I posted this primarily because I think it makes a strong case for waiting for the new Mac Pro (and not necessarily buying one right now). But please read the fine print – this is assuming you don’t absolutely need a computer right now for work or personal needs. I think the new iMac is a beautiful looking system and should be plenty fast for most of our work, especially with extra ram and the 2GB video card. Also, I’ve read posts from people on the Cow who say the 12-core is smoking fast.
The risk I’m taking by waiting is that I have no idea what the PCI situation will be. If I’m out of luck, and my K3 and other cards are not compatible, then I’m better off investing now in Thunderbolt. With that…
iMac 27″
Core i7 3.4GHz
16GB RAM
1TB SATA HD (no fusion)
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 680MX 2GB
AppleCare
SUBTOTAL FOR IMAC: $2718.00Additions to bring parity with Mac Pro:
Thunderbolt to FW: 30
Thunderbolt to eSATA: 200
Thunderbolt Cable: 50
AJA IO XT: 1500 (I went with the more expensive AJA since it has Thunderbolt throughputs)
SUBTOTAL: 1780TOTAL FOR IMAC & ADDITIONS BEFORE TAXES: $4498
Mac Pro 2.66 12-core:
16GB RAM
1TB Drive
Radeon 5870 (upped from 5770)
Moving Kona 3 over from old tower
Moving RocketRaid over from old tower
TOTAL FOR MAC PRO BEFORE TAXES: $4398A Need for Speed:
Geekbench score for the 12-core is just over 20,000.
Geekbench score released today for the iMac: just over 12,000. (correct me if I’m wrong on this. I read a story this morning that I thought had this number. Not sure if it was for the core i7 though)I know Geekbench scores can be controversial. The way FCPX coded, I’m sure it can potentially work better on one system vs. another. I’m not an engineer, just a consumer doing his research.
There you go. Tawk amongst ya’selves…
Michael Garber
5th Wall – a post production company
Bloggy Blog: GARBERSHOP -
15 Replies
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[Michael Garber] “I know Geekbench scores can be controversial.”
Synthetic benchmarks don’t always test a machine the same way real-world applications actually use it.
[Michael Garber] “The way FCPX coded, I’m sure it can potentially work better on one system vs. another.”
FCPX runs better on a 2011 iMac than it runs on any Mac Pro, because it exploits the new AVX instruction set (found on the Sandy Bridge processors in the iMac, but not in the older Westmere processors in the Mac Pros).
See Andrew Richard’s thread Why FCPX Seems Faster on Thunderbolt Macs [link] for more.
Things like Ae or 3D rendering still benefit from a fully-loaded Mac Pro (though performance there would be better on a PC with more modern CPU).
Walter Soyka
Principal & Designer at Keen Live
Motion Graphics, Widescreen Events, Presentation Design, and Consulting
RenderBreak Blog – What I’m thinking when my workstation’s thinking
Creative Cow Forum Host: Live & Stage Events -
AE wouldn’t in the new 3D mode unless you had a nVidia. Which the new iMac has. If only it had FW800 and a freakin DVD.
I Have a LaCie with FW800 and USB3. Perhaps it would loop through. Doubt it.
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I ordered mind today! FCPX is awesome on my current 2011 iMac. Should be awesomer on the new one!
Excited about the fusion thing too.John Davidson | President / Creative Director | Magic Feather Inc.
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[John Davidson] “I ordered mind today!”
Where can I get some. I surely need it.
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Errr. Oops! Here in Cali we can get a prescription for it!
John Davidson | President / Creative Director | Magic Feather Inc.
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LOL. We still have to have lunch. Or a late breakfast! Do they still have that amazing egg place over on Newhall Ranch Road? I can’t remember the name of it, but there is one in Ojai too.
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[John Davidson] ” Should be awesomer on the new one!”
The most amazing thing in the history of ever!
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[Bret Williams] “AE wouldn’t in the new 3D mode unless you had a nVidia. Which the new iMac has. If only it had FW800 and a freakin DVD. “
True! But the classic 3D renderer (where I’d say the huge majority of Ae production happens) benefits greatly from stacks of sizzle cores and piles of RAM.
A 2012 Mac Pro with 12 cores and 24 GB of RAM renders Brian Maffitt’s Total Benchmark AE in 45 seconds. A 2011 iMac quad-i7 3.4 with 16 GB of RAM takes 101 seconds. (A 16-core Xeon E5 PC workstation with 32 GB of RAM like the ProMax ONE does it in 24 — and that’s why a modern Mac Pro would be important for creative pros on the Mac platform!)
https://barefeats.com/sandy01.html
https://barefeats.com/macs11_01.htmlWalter Soyka
Principal & Designer at Keen Live
Motion Graphics, Widescreen Events, Presentation Design, and Consulting
RenderBreak Blog – What I’m thinking when my workstation’s thinking
Creative Cow Forum Host: Live & Stage Events -
[John Davidson] “Excited about the fusion thing too.”
I’m not sure about the Fusion drive. How is this better than a discrete SSD for the OS & applications and a second internal HDD for media?
Jason Jenkins
Flowmotion Media
Video production… with style!Check out my Mormon.org profile.
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[Jason Jenkins] “[John Davidson] “Excited about the fusion thing too.”
I’m not sure about the Fusion drive. How is this better than a discrete SSD for the OS & applications and a second internal HDD for media?
“I think its intriguing, if it works as advertised. I wouldn’t pay an extra $1300 for 250 GB less space, and the idea of paying only $400 more for a 3TB system drive would be a real incentive for me, fusion or no. I think its a terrific idea.
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