2.66 Quad Core or iMac?

OK, I know this is probably a stupid question, but I want to ask it anyways...
If given the choice between the MP Quad Core 2.66 or 24" iMac 2.93 GHz for graphics work (Photoshop, InDesign, Illustrator), which would you choose?
A no-brainer I assume, but I am actually confronted with this situation, caveat being, if I go for the MP I would need to use my current monitor (an older Sony CRT 20 incher) where with the iMac I would have the 24" LCD screen at the start. Both systems would be maxed with RAM (8gb) and the iMac would have the ATI Radeon GPU upgrade.
Thanks in advance.

Mac Pro for sure. The first gen still has A LOT of life still left in it. Sure the iMac is new, but it just lacks upgrade ability. A key option being the adding of multiple hard drives, and fast drives, ram, etc. Working in Photoshop with large files, you probably want a dedicated scratch disk or raid 0 volume for scratch.
I just recently installed a 5th hd in my own mac pro 1st gen. utilizing the 2 extra sata ports. I fits perfectly in the lower dvd drive space.
There's a good tut here:
http://www.tenthousandpercent.com/?section=other&article=65
BTW, in the tutorial, you don't have to break the sata cable, or use an "L" angle one either. A regular "I" sata fits perfectly.
Also, in terms of GPU, (a good link from hatter) apparently the new Ati 4870 graphics card upgrade is also compatible with 1st gen mac pros.
http://www.barefeats.com/nehal05.html

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hello,
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regards

Have a look here:
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT3226
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It was the same with the last generation, where the top upgraded Core 2 was more expensive than the quad.
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http://www.barefeats.com/
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Apple says the i5 quad-core imac does not start up if only one of the lower slots is occupied - which is not true.
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Hi, I bought an imac 27" quad-core i5 with 1067Mhz DDR3 RAM in it. I would like to know if this is the right type of speed for my imac as I found out that these imacs come standard with 1333Mhz DDR3's? It is crashing a lot!

Hi all. I bought an imac 27", 3.1Ghz quad-core i5 Mid 2011 last year in 2012. The machine has been crashing ever so frequently. I upgraded the RAM from the 4Gb it came with to 12Gb. It still crashes! I recently noticed that my imac came with 1067Mhz DDR3 memory chips ( slower speed) than the Apple mac recommended 1333Mhz DDR3 memory chips.
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Baffled!

Mac and Mac models are picky about the RAM the Mac needs to see and use.
As you have found out, the 1067 speed RAM will not work in your year and model iMac.
You need the 1333 speed RAM.
If, you can return the RAM for a refund, do it!
If not, try online Mac RAM source and seller Crucial memory. They have a table that matches your Mac to the correct and reliable RAM. You may need to contact them to see whether or not they ship to South Africa, though.
If Crucial dpesn't work out, here's the specs for your year and model iMac that you need to seek out and purchase.
Maximum Memory
32 GB (Actual) 16 GB (Apple)
Memory Slots
4 - 204-pin PC3-10600 (1333 MHz) DDR3 SO-DIMM
Good Luck!

How do I transfer contents of hard drive on PPC iMac G4 to a new quad-core Intel Core i5

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As Allen indicates, Setup Assistant appears automatically, since you do have firewire, the transfer should be speedy, depending on how much data are on the G4. The firewire on your G4 is FW400, your new Mac has FW800, but you can get an inexensive adaptor that will allow the connection, since the ports are different.
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Hello FOlks.
I have a Digital Night Vision Monocular I need to connect video in on my Quad Core iMac.
Can anyone tell me WHICH CABLE is the cheapest and best for this?
I need a standard video like from a camcorder plug, I've seen converters with multiple video input sources even.
I already read discussions about it, I just need to know WHICH MODELS work with the new video input feature of the newest iMac's like mine.
thanks
A
Message was edited by: Host <Corrected title to reflect OP question>

Your topic subject line says "VIDEO OUT on new Quad Core iMac."
You will not be able to use RCA input (or any other composite input such as S-Video) on the new 27-inch iMac's Mini DisplayPort. The only input that works there is DisplayPort, which can be from regular DisplayPort or Mini DisplayPort output. There are some costly adapters that convert DVI to DisplayPort, but I do not know of any other type. One issue is going probably going from an analog signal to digital.
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12 core Mac Pro does not improve render time over iMac quad core

I'm rendering the same composition independently on two computers and they are basically rendering at the same rate, which is slightly better than 1 frame per second.
The project settings and preferences are identical in each instance (with the exception of memory and multiprocessing, which I have experimented with ad nauseum). The composition includes no motion blur, no effects, just a couple of layers of chroma keyed .mov files (using keylight 2.0) and some still images. Neither machine is running any other applications, except occasionally Google Chrome, which seems to have no effect on performance.
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System 1 MAC PRO:
Mac Pro 12 core 2.7 GHz Intel Xeon E5
dual AMD FirePro 500D 3072 MB GPUs
32 GB RAM
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System 2 iMAC:
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AMD Radeon HD 6750M 512 MB GPU
8 GB RAM
OS X 10.9.3
As you can see, system 1 is vastly more powerful, and yet no combination of memory/multiprocessing settings can get the system to render faster than system 2.
It doesn't seem to matter how much or little RAM I reserve for other applications (I have settled on 4 GB), or the number of CPUs I reserve for After Effects. The one setting that has improved performance is turning OFF render multiple frames. And even then it only brings the performance of the Mac Pro up to par with the iMac. I have cleared my cache, rebooted the computer, and read everything I can find online regarding the optimization of render settings.
Here's a comparison of the respective CPU Loads:
iMac
Mac Pro
With such a low CPU load, After Effects is obviously not utilizing the resources available to it on the Mac Pro. What a waste.
Can anyone help?

There's plenty of debate about the new Mac Pro vs a kitted out iMac. Benchmarks show that some iMac After Effects processing can actually be faster than on a Mac Pro, depending on the content and some other factors. If you're using software that has been optimised for the Mac Pro's GPU-centric architecture, like Final Cut Pro X, you will see great benefits.
mac pro vs imac
In my own facility recently we opted out of purchasing Mac Pros this year, and bought top-end iMacs instead. The benefit to cost ratio simply didn't make sense for us right now. Mac Pros are awesome machines, but a significant component of their cost is the dual GPUs, which are simply no benefit to After Effects.
Reports say that the After Effects engineers are working on a major revamp of the After Effects processing system, so I'm betting you will realise far greater benefits from your Mac pro in coming AE versions. For now, you may continue to see performance that is not spectacularly better than a souped-up iMac, depending on the type of processing involved.
I've seen a few benchmarks that suggest the 8 core systems give better bang-for-buck than the 12 cores. Try reducing your processors to 8 in After Effects and see if it makes a difference. With 8 cores, allocate 3GB of RAM per core to leave some RAM for the OS.

Quad Core iMac Delivery - Australia

Anyone in Australia got a quad core iMAC??
When was it ordered?
ordered mine on 05/11... no update

I was told today my Imac would not be delivered until the end of January today. I was told 3 - 4 weeks from when I ordered it in October, it has now been 7 weeks and by the time I get it, 15 weeks, over 3 months.
Apple advertise on the web site 7 - 10 business days. I was told even if I ordered a non Quad core I would not get it to the end of January.
I ordered through David Jones with an apple rep. Seems to me if you order online you get your mac and if you order with a reseller you get screwed up the ....
The web site still says 7-10 days, apple suck.
How can you expect someone to wait 3 1/2 months for a computer.
Message was edited by: jeffschulz

2.66 Quad Core or iMac?

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