IMac or Mac Pro

I have asked this question before and I'll be honest - I was sorta confused with some of the responses so I am back with what I hope are better thought out questions. I am torn between the iMac 3.06 and the Mac Pro 2.66 4-core.
I am not a pro but think of myself as a prosumer. I do a lot of Photoshop stuff, editing in iMovie and Final Cut Express - shoot a lot of stills and HD Video. NEVER DO GAME STUFF.....
Here is my dilemma...
On the Apple store site I created 3 machines with 8GB of Ram, AppleCare, Wireless Mouse, 1TB Hard Drive.
(iMac 3.06 - Mac Pro quad 2.66 - Mac Pro 2.66 8-core)
The iMac comes in at $3,388 with the extra 4GB of Ram. What is with $1,000 for an extra 4GB of Ram. Why so much higher than Mac Pro Ram????? Do I really need 8GB????
The Mac Pro 2.66 Quad comes in at $4,067 with the extra 2GB of Ram (seemed too reasonable not to add more Ram) and the 24" Monitor. Is this worth the $679 more since neither one can have more than 8GB of Ram?????
The Mac Pro 2.66 8-core comes in at a whoping $6,097 with the extra 2GB of Ram and the 24" Monitor. This kinda makes the choice between the 1st 2 since the difference of $2,709 appears a bit rediculous between the iMac and the 8-core Pro......WHY THIS MUCH MONEY?? ARE THESE REALLY COMPETITIVE WITH THE DELL ETC??? DO OTHERS EVEN BUILD A MACHINE AT THIS PRICE?
I know this is long and with a few concerns - thank you for indulging.
Thanking you in advance for any input I receive.
Wally

First of all, don't buy apple RAM. It is extremely overpriced. DO, however, keep the RAM that apple gives you. They won't service your Mac if it has 3rd-party RAM. If you need to have your mac serviced, remove the 3rd-party RAM until they're done servicing it. I would stick with the iMac though, You get more space (no tower). You have the screen built into the price as well. The applications you use don't even recognize the 8-cores of the Mac Pro. Adobe CS4 doesn't take advantage of the better GPU in the Mac Pro either. If you have A LOT of accessories that you connect to your Mac, you might want to consider the cheaper Mac Pro. USB hubs are a pain and they stop working if you use too many. Also, the Mac Pro has MANY FireWire ports, all backwards compatible. The Mac Pro is also more expandable. Overall, I would make it a choice between the 1st Mac Pro and the iMac. Media work will also render faster on the Mac Pro, so the better graphics isn't totally a waste. Also, with Snow Leopard coming up, multiple cores will be utilized more. If you have the money, I would go with the cheaper Mac Pro. If you are buying speakers, I would personally recommend the Bose Companion 2 speakers. They're only $99 so they're not much of a hole in your pocket.

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From iMac to Mac Pro for the good of my Pro Tools 10...

hey guys,
here's the deal : it seems I'm at a turning point with my iMac (27", 3.1 Ghz i5, 4GB memory, 1TB hard drive, lion, PT10) and I'm thinking of buying a mac pro. Problem is, I'm not sure which model is best for my needs. I do postproduction work for television and I often have to work with pretty heavy projects.
My pro tools 10 keeps giving me the same 2 errors --
1- DAE can't get audio from the drive(s) fast enough. Your drive may be too slow, or fragmented, or a firewire drive could be having trouble due to the extra firewire bandwidth or cpu load. (-9073)
2- A CPU overload error occurred. If this happens often, try increasing the "H/W Buffer Size" in the Playback Engine Dialog, or removing some plug-ins. (-6101)
I might add, my Playback Engine's maxed out and I'm barely running any plugins (some 5 or 6 EQ3s, maybe 1 or 2 L2 and a Dorrough).
I have a MOTU Audio Express which is plugged in firewire and I'm running an external drive with my SFX on it, which is also plugged in firewire. The iMac having only one firewire plug (downsizing from the earlier iMac, for some obscure reason), I have a firewire hub.
I get the first error whenever I get too deep into a project and I start having a lot of SFX and I'm looking to add more and I get the second error whenever I try to run Dolby Media Meter.
I'm pretty aware I'm overrunning my iMac, so I'm willing to pay big bucks to get a computer that's best fitted to my needs and which I'll be able to upgrade every once in a while. Now, I'm just wondering what I actually need in a computer.
It's either the 3.2 GHz quad-core intel xeon, 6GB memory, 1TB HD or the two 2.4GHz 6-core intel zeon, 12GB memory, 1TB HD. I gotta say the second one seems kind of a lot... but I don't want to spend so much money and get a tiny upgrade from where I'm at right now.
So please! All of you mac wizards and other knowledgeable folks, HELP!

An i7 3.9GHz would do if you had 32GB RAM, an SSD boot drive, and 2TB hdd.
The sweet spot today on Mac Pro is $1800 4-core special and DIY to W3690 or W3680 6-core 3.33 or higher with 32-48GB RAM. And lots of SSDs and disk drives.
http://store.apple.com/us/browse/home/specialdeals/mac/mac_pro
Refurbished 27-inch iMac 3.4GHz quad-core Intel Core i7
http://store.apple.com/us/browse/home/specialdeals/mac/imac/27
The Mac Pro line is at a - not ready to ship the new 2013 6,1 model / not ready with 10.9 that it will need / and current configuration is really 2010 3 yrs old (but also how well they hold up and mature).
You do not want to give up GHz for more cores. MHz still rules. Only reason would be if you planned to replace the processors for the fastest expensive (use to be, though changing) 4 or 6-core 3.4GHz for total of 8 or 12-cores, but never the 2.4GHz, no way.
The 2009 4,1 used is cheaper and can be found for $1000 and upgraded to 6-core and everything else (dual core upgrades are harder and not good to plan for.
And http://www.barefeats.com has done some tests on iMac and Mac Pro.
Graphics on Mac Pro, RAM and PCIe and SSD, hdd are easy upgrades.
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Imac vs mac pro for FCP?

Hello folks,
Well, my G5 apparently needs a new logic board. I could cry, or be happy at the excuse to get a new computer... I chose the latter!
Bottom line, what is the consensus regarding imac vs mac pro.
I will be using FCP a lot, that's what I do for a living. However, I rarely run other applications at the same time. Occassionally LiveType or Photoshop, but that's about it. No Motion, no After Effects, etc.
I feel that an imac will suffice nicely and that the mac pro is overkill in both cost and amount of computer. It's like getting an Indy car and driving 40 MPH!
Thoughts? Thank you.
Eric P

hmmm, interesting. Of course the mac pro would be better, no doubt. But for my purposes I still wonder if it's worth the cost.
As for Kevan D's inquirey for more info, yes I work with FCP for a living, at least 50% of my work week maybe more is editing. However, silly little ol' weddings have become the vast majority of my work and they will continue to be for at least a few more years I believe. In that time I do not see HD being a factor in my area. So for the forseeable future I expect to be working soley with SD. That bit of info may change some of your minds to thinking that an imac will suffice.
I admit, that's my hope because I would have to take out a loan for the mac pro, and again, I'm just not certain it's worth it for my purposes. On the other hand, I didn't ask the question so that I could hear what I "wanted", I do want honest opinions from other professionals like yourselves. If the experience is that an imac just isn't worth it then so be it.
As far as expandability (is that anything like drinkability??), I understand that, but again for my purposes I suspect that by the time I need to expand to HD or to using the full benefits of a mac pro, a new computer (and equipment) will be in the order anyway. Does that make sense?
Thanks again,
Eric

Imac verses mac pro - for Adobe Creative suite

Reguesting input: Which is better for operating Adobe Creative Suite 6.0 on a professional level, imac or Mac pro?

The raw compute power of today's iMac is more that the reasonably-priced Mac Pro models. But that is not the complete story.
The Mac Pro has:
• replaceable graphics cards and additional PCIe slots
• Error-Correcting Code memory, large memory sizes are attainable and will not be a headache.
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Relative Noise Output of Intel iMac and Mac Pro

I run a computer based recording studio. I have been using a Powerbook for the last two or so years and I am thinking of upgrading to an iMac or Mac Pro.
However, noise is a sensitive issue for me. I have enjoyed near silence with the Powerbook, which enables me to hear into every aspect of my sound. I would like to continue enjoying that experience with an iMac or Mac Pro and wondered whether you could tell me how quiet these machines are? And whether there are any stats on the noise output of the Mac range?
Regards,
Stuart

I'm sure there were some noise figures published once for the G5 and MacPro but I've had a quick look and can't find them on the Apple site anymore.
In my experience the G5 is actually quite quiet compared with say a PC Workstation - that is until the Fans ramp up during heavy processing at which point it does get quite noisy. I expect the MacPro is similar in this respect.
Hope that helps a bit.
Rik

IMac or Mac Pro for iPhoto albums and home movie editing?

I have a Mac Pro OS X 10.6.8 with iPhoto 7.1.5. This system is now obsolete for ordering iPhoto albums. I need to upgrade to iPhoto 9.5.1 to buy a Mac produced photo album. To upgrade iPhoto I need to buy a new Mac as my 2004 Mac Pro with 2008 Snow Leopard can't be upgraded. I will use the new Mac for email, web surfing, iPhoto, and weekend video editing. I use Final Cut Express on my current Mac Pro. I will also need to transfer videos and about 20,000 photos from my current Mac to a new one.
So, here's the question: For my needs (listed above) which is better,
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What video formats are you talking about? DV, HDV, etc?
Mac Pro is a better solution, regardless. Here's why: Simply upgrading an iMac HD is not enough. You do not want to capture your video to the boot drive. It's too much to ask the drive to manage the OS, your editing software, AND your media. This scenario might work - but is certainly prone to dropping frames. Ideally, you want one drive for OS + editing software & a separate drive to capture media to.
Now, since you can only have a single HD in the iMac, you're demoted to using external capture drives. So let's say you get yourself a FW800 drive for capture and then hook up your camera/deck to an available FW400 port. You'd think you're safe - and again, you may be. But the problem now is that the iMac has ONE and only ONE FireWire bus. So in theory these 2 devices: HD & Camera are battling for the same bandwidth. So you've still got a bottleneck happening.
So DV only would probably work. But it may have issues that the expandability of the Mac Pro can conquer. Hope this helps.

2 iMac & 1 Mac Pro render a job of Maya

Hi all!
I have a LAN with 3 machines: 2 iMac 2GHz - 2GRam and MacPro 2.4GHz - 2GRam. And I'm use QMaster2 to render a small project Maya( This project, if batch render with 1 machine just take 1min).
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second iMac and MacPro have been setiing with: Services only.
So, I'm rendered. It is successful.
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2. Time to render is very slowly. something wrong??????
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Thanh.

An i7 3.9GHz would do if you had 32GB RAM, an SSD boot drive, and 2TB hdd.
The sweet spot today on Mac Pro is $1800 4-core special and DIY to W3690 or W3680 6-core 3.33 or higher with 32-48GB RAM. And lots of SSDs and disk drives.
http://store.apple.com/us/browse/home/specialdeals/mac/mac_pro
Refurbished 27-inch iMac 3.4GHz quad-core Intel Core i7
http://store.apple.com/us/browse/home/specialdeals/mac/imac/27
The Mac Pro line is at a - not ready to ship the new 2013 6,1 model / not ready with 10.9 that it will need / and current configuration is really 2010 3 yrs old (but also how well they hold up and mature).
You do not want to give up GHz for more cores. MHz still rules. Only reason would be if you planned to replace the processors for the fastest expensive (use to be, though changing) 4 or 6-core 3.4GHz for total of 8 or 12-cores, but never the 2.4GHz, no way.
The 2009 4,1 used is cheaper and can be found for $1000 and upgraded to 6-core and everything else (dual core upgrades are harder and not good to plan for.
And http://www.barefeats.com has done some tests on iMac and Mac Pro.
Graphics on Mac Pro, RAM and PCIe and SSD, hdd are easy upgrades.
This site has some great tips
http://www.macperformanceguide.com

I opened my account on the MacAir and have the new Mountain Lion showing i purchased. When I open my account on my other two machines it does not show. Any suggestions on why or how to fix? iMac and Mac Pro Thanks

I opened my account on the MacAir and have the new Mountain Lion showing i purchased. When I open my account on my other two machines it does not show. Any suggestions on why or how to fix?
iMac and Mac Pro
Thanks

SADLY not as i downloaded an upgrad to my original PAGES/
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but what a waste of time as it doesn not save any changes done automatically back in the cloud....
i am now downloading the new LION and hope that it will fix the problem
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HT201380 keep having scrolling problems with Maverick on both iMac and Mac Pro despite downloading mail software update

Have scrolling problems with Maverick despite downloading mail update on both IMAC and Mac Pro
Have to reboot and it helps for awhile then stalls again

The Mac OS X 10.4.7 Update introduced connection issues as a result of (according to the documentation) "Mail now supports connecting to mail servers through a SOCKS proxy". This probably has nothing to do with your problem, but it'd be worth going to System Preferences > Network and making sure the SOCKS Proxy is not enabled in the network configuration used to connect to the Internet.
Also, it looks like the crashes you're talking about are actually freezes, i.e. Mail becomes unresponsive rather than quitting unexpectedly. In Mail, open Window > Activity Viewer, and see whether Mail displays there what it's doing when it freezes. Actually, you may be able to avoid having to force quit Mail by canceling whatever it's doing (by clicking on the red stop icon of the activity).
Reinstalling Mail will probably accomplish nothing, but it might be worth reinstalling the Combo Update for the type of machine and the version of Mac OS X you're using (which you would have to do anyway if you wanted to reinstall Mail):
Mac OS X 10.4.7 Combo Update for Intel
Take a look at the following articles for guidelines on how to properly install system updates:
Troubleshooting installation and software updates
Installing software updates
Basically, you should verify/repair the startup disk before installing the update, and no applications should be running while installing it.

HT1175 Using G-Raid to backup iMac and Mac Pro laptop

Has anyone atttempted to backup both machines to a Hitachi G-Raid with one partition? If they have, was it by direct USB 2.0 wire using AirPort Express for the Mac Pro and direct fire wire to the iMAC?
Any thoughts on this would be appreciated.
Len

leonardfromoshawa wrote:
To backup in the future requires hooking up each machine individually and using TM.
To do it that way, yes, but that's not your best bet.
First, having both sets of backups made directly, in the same partition, may present problems later on. See Time Machine - Frequently Asked Question #4 for details.
Second, the inconvenience of switching back and forth means both Macs won't get regular backups. If you do switch frequently, there's the risk of damaging a port or plug.
Your best bet is to partition the drive. Continue backing-up the iMac to one partition directly. Leave the drive connected to the iMac, and back the laptop up to the other partition via your network. See Time Machine - Frequently Asked Question #33 for details, and #22 for setup instructions. That way, both will be backed-up hourly, as long as they're awake and the laptop is in range of your network.
Will my original question of using AirPort Express work
No. You cannot connect a drive to an Airport Express's USB port, only a printer.

Graphic Design on new iMac or Mac Pro

I have an older G5 iMac thats about to turn three years old- it's already painfully slow with the work I do- all in Adobe Creative Suite 3. I don't do any video work at all. But I do deal with some large files in Photoshop- up to 1GB with tons of layers, and also work on lots of bigger projects in InDesign. So wondering if I should get an iMac again, or spend the extra money for the Mac Pro (I just don't like how big that tower is- but whatever). Main reason I went with an iMac last time is that I was buying a house- so any cash saved was good (esp. being self employed)
Curious what other designers are doing. I also keep my computer screen facing a window- so I don't know if glare will be an issue with a gloss screen (it's no problem at all right now with the matte imac screen. thanks for any input!

While the opinion on screen quality towards different users is still uncertain, I'd recommend trying a different strategy working with those large files. For starter, merge those layers that don't need to be separated. I have worked with files as large as 700 mb on a G5 tower, it worked just fine with expected amount of processing time. With that been said, your G5 iMac is in fact lacking on performance when compare to the desktop G5s... The new iMac 24 inch is impressive not just in size. I have just bought one for one of the designers at the office, though the glass screen is a bit different compare to the usual Mac display, everything else is fantastic. The screen does appear to be a little grainy, just like the usual iMac screen, but depends on how close you sit in front the computer, you may not notice it. The glass front gives everything a coated look vs. uncoated. It may not give you 98% true color, but which designer rely on monitor for color accuracy anyway... You will have to get a match print like later regardless. What I am saying is the color on the screen is saturated a little but acceptable. I'd go to the store and check it out yourself.

IMac vs Mac Pro for Graphic Design Studio

We are upgrading the macs in our in-house graphics department (3 mac users) and wanted to see if anyone had advice on weather to choose a high end iMac or the new 2014 Mac Pro. To help here is what we do on our macs (currently 20inch iMacs).
Photoshop - Photo retouching, Editing, Compositing sometimes many layers
InDesign - Layout from posters to banners to 100 pg books.
Dreamweaver - Internal and external websites design and maintenance
Illustrator - graphics simple and complicated (large and small illustrator files)
Flash - Some animation
(Video Editing) Final Cut - Conversion from Windows Media Files and editing of short videos
We often have many of these programs open at once in addition to MS Office (outlook word power point).
For a maxed out iMac 27 to a mid range mac Pro there is roughly $2000 difference or so (once you buy the monitor you need for the Mac Pro). Do you think the applications we use above would greatly benefit from the MacPro vs the iMac? We don’t really do any 3D work or rendering. But we do want the computers to last several years and need them to be very reliable. I have to submit proposal and any advice would be helpful!
Thanks,
J

I wish there was a sticky for this as "iMac vs nMP" is common daily question and very much the same basic specs and needs.
https://discussions.apple.com/thread/5772339?tstart=0
As in past, 6 (or maybe 8) cores, base memory so you can save and upgrade from 3rd party.
Monitors vary too much in cost range, and you can do better outside Apple, but are one time cost.
A Mac Pro only needs to be replaced half as often, can be upgraded (cpu, RAM, flash SSD storage, even GPU). Hard to other than Apple stopping support in 5-6 years or software by then catching up or putting more demands on computers.
An iMac is not going to run as cool and quiet and because of its shape has to be allowed to run hotter it seems. You can stress and pound on those Xeon systems all day max it out and it is quiet beast.
See what a graphic and tech professional has in recommendations:
www.macperformanceguide.com
Also, www.barefeats.com has done some app testing and FCP-X is one place where the dual GPU pays off.
the "nMP" is actually called "Late 2013" but I agree, other than a few 10s of t housands sold would better easier to be called an Early 2014 (there could be a Late 2014 as well).
Reliable = Mac Pro - mine is going to be 8 yrs old and is better today than it ever was only if I found the need to run Mountain Lion or above or App Store's newest version of say iPhoto is that an issue (security updates though would be nice to see).

New imac vs mac pro

Apologies if this is going over old ground.
I'm finally ready to upgrade/replace for Power Mac G5. It's been a loyal and reliable servant (apart from a blown graphics card this year) for 7 years, but it's time to retire.
I mainly use FCP & DVDSP with HD footage and increasingly Motion to produce short promos and corporate videos.
Although, my G5 does the job - it's now very slow rendering HD footage and Motion is almost a non-starter. Running concurrent applications is a painful and nosy experience.
So to new investment. With the obvious upgrading limitations of an imac, how long will it last before needing another upgrade? I'd be happy with 4 years
Or is the added expandability of a Mac Pro worth the extra cash?
I dare say either will blow me away at first.
imac
2.7GHz Quad-Core Intel Core i5
4GB 1333MHz DDR3 SDRAM - 2x2GB
1TB Serial ATA Drive
AMD Radeon HD 6770M 512MB GDDR5
£1399 incl vat
mac pro
One 2.8GHz Quad-Core Intel Xeon “Nehalem”
3 GB (3 x 1 GB)
1TB 7200-rpm Serial ATA 3Gb/s hard drive
ATI Radeon HD 5770 1GB
One 18x SuperDrive
£2041 incl vat
(Obviously also need a good monitor)
Ae there benchmark tests available to compare these two machines?
What say others in a similar position? Which would you go for?

New iMac has Thunderbolt, so you'll be able to edit from super fast Thuderbolt drives then they start shipping in about 3 more months. For now you're stuck with FW800 drives which really aren't ideal for HD work. But don't expect Thunderbolt drives to be cheap, not nearly as cheap as internal SATA drives for a tower.
Mac Pro allows you to install better, more powerful grahics cards that will let Motion, Color (and soon FCP X) run better, and you can get more CPU cores (which will impact FCP X, and the next version of FCStudio in beta testing). You'll also be able to add much less expesive internal drives (2TB for not much), which will be fast enough for working with FCS apps.
Either way, you want the most number of CPU cores, fastest CPUs, 8GB RAM, and two 7200rpm drives. You need a second drive as your scratch drive for sure. Best graphics card you can afford.
While I was at NAB, a few companies said they were looking into developing a Thuderbolt PCI card for the current Mac Pro towers. But I'm sure those will be some time before we see them.
Hint, don't get RAM and drives from Apple, go to OtherWorldComputing (.com) and get them much cheaper. Super easy to install, and they'll give you clear directions for doing so. Top notch customer support, also.

Change from an older Power Macintosh 7200/90 to a new iMac or Mac Pro

On my Power Macintosh 7200/90 using Mac OS 8.0 I have stored a lot of very sensitive data which I cannot afford to loose. My machine works very good at this moment, however, I want to buy a new one like an iMac or a Mac Pro with the new generation of . Of course, I use a very powerful backup-program with an external hard drive and a Retrospect-backup program. Nevertheless, I want to further use my Office suite and other useful programs like i.e. the retrospect-software.
My questions now:
-- Is it possible to buy a new Mac and clone/mirrow everything from the old machine to the new one except the Operating System ?
-- Is there any store close to Koblenz, Germany who is knowledgeable enough to provide this service for me provided I buy a new Mac ?

Accessing Backup data:
Your 7200/90 uses SCSI drives, so an external drive is likely to be a SCSI drive. A newer Mac that can accept a PCI SCSI card would be required to read backup data directly off a SCSI drive. A MacBook would NOT be able to do this easily.
According to this article, Retrospect 6.1.138 supports Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard. So it appears that there is a way to restore your backup data using Retrospect:
http://kb.dantz.com/display/2n/articleDirect/index.asp?aid=9628&r=0.6172602
This site and this article may also be available in German or French.
Accessing the original data:
• If your WLAN Base Station has an available RJ-45 Ethernet port, you can add the 7200 to your existing Network and use Apple File Sharing to copy the files to your newer Mac.
• Shared Disks and Directories appear as a Hard Drive Icon on the Desktop of the Mac initiating the Sharing, and can be copied using the Finder Drag and Drop.
• Apple File Sharing works on Macs from System 7.5.3 through the current version of Mac OS X. To Share with Macs running 7.5.3 through 8.6, you must start File Sharing at the Older Mac.
• The software for File Sharing is included with Mac OS, and may already be installed.
106657- Mac OS 8, Mac OS 9: File Sharing This article is also available in German and French.

Which one is better for playback/performance - iMac or Mac Pro?

I'm getting a new mac and I don't care that much about the render time as I do about being able to play back my effects in real time. I know that both the $1500 iMac and the Mac Pro would work with Premiere and I'm pretty sure I won't have any problems with the Mac Pro but obviously I'm on a budget so my question is - will the iMac be able to handle effects in real time without the need for me to render first?

It makes no difference whatsoever.

IMac or Mac Pro

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