Mac Pro vs Loaded iMac

Okay, so I have the same dillema that a lot of others have about the new Mac Pro. I have been waiting for the release for some time and although I like the Mac Pro it leaves some lingering questions.  Do I buy the new Mac Pro or a pimped out 27" iMac? I have been a Mac Pro used for years and have never thought about replacing my machine for an iMac until recently. I am a graphic deisnger and I use my computer 12 to 16 hours a day 5 to 6 days a week. I work in Photoshop (lots of layered files), Illustrator and Lightroom mostly with files over a gig or 2 in size at times. I really want something that is going to speed things up, a lot. I also have 2 monitors and sometimes watch streaming full screen video while I work (ball games, netflix, etc). Both machines present the same storage challenges as I have to rethink how I am going to set up my file storage going forward but at least with the iMac I can afford a 1gb fusion drive rather than the measley 256gb of flash storage included on the MacPro (256gb is pro? come on!). In the future I am planning on investing in a Drobo enclosure or something like that. I know that both machines will be a rather nice upgrade from my 2009 Mac Pro but I guess I just don't know the advantages of the dual GPU over the iMacs set up. Also I have read varied reviews on the graphics cards on both machines. I would like to be able to edit hi-def video but this is more for a hobby and don't plan to edit much more that an hour or two of video a year. Any feedback on this post would be appreciated from people that know the specs better than I or someone that has a nice iMac and has crushed through PSD files. I am hoping to get a machine that I can use for at least 3 years. I have read a lot of reviews but not exaclty from people in my line of work.
Thanks!

From what you say I would guess that you need the new Mac Pro - which is released tomorrow!

Similar Messages

  • I just replaced my mac pro with an iMac and i can't get it to work with my epson stylus 3800 printer?

    i just replaced my mac pro with an iMac and i can't get it to work with my epson stylus 3800 printer? i have downloaded the 3800 software three times and the imac keeps telling me there is no software to run the printer? Any help here?

    Care to share which OS you are using?

  • I recently changed from a Mac Pro to an iMac. A large chunk of emails have disappeared. Time Machine is no help. Any ideas as to how I can get them back?

    I recently changed from a Mac Pro to an iMac. Despite using Migration Assistant, a large chunk of my recent emails and nearly all of my wife's emails have disappeared in transit. Strangely, emails from my distant past are still there. Time Machine is no help; the messages may be on my backup disc but they're behind an invisible  icon. Any ideas as to how I can get them back?

    Quit Mail. Force quit if necessary.
    Back up all data. That means you know you can restore the Mail database, no matter what happens.
    Triple-click the text on the line below to select it:
    ~/Library/Mail/V2/MailData/Envelope Index
    Copy the selected text to the Clipboard (command-C). In the Finder, select
    Go ▹ Go to Folder
    from the menu bar. Paste into the box that opens (command-V), then press return.
    A Finder window will open with a file selected. Move the selected file to the Desktop, leaving the window open. Other files in the folder may have names that begin with "Envelope Index". Move those files, if any, to the Trash.
    Log out and log back in. Relaunch Mail. It should prompt you to re-import your messages. You may get a warning that the index is corrupt and that Mail has to quit. Click OK.
    Test. If Mail now works as expected, you can delete the file you moved to the Desktop. Otherwise, post your results.

  • How many device can one sync with iPhone? I own a Mac Pro and an iMac desktop. Can I sync with both machines?

    How Many devices can I sync with my iPhone?  I own a Mac PRO and an iMAC.  Depends on where I am, I will plug my iPhone to either of the machines. I haven't sync with either machine yet.

    Dah•veed wrote:
    Please explain how one would accomplish that feat.
    There's not much to explain. When a device is connected, you see the row of different categories across the top: Summary, Info, Apps, Tones, Music, Movies, TV Shows, Podcasts, Books, and Photos. For example, it is perfectly safe to sync one iOS device to the Music category on Computer A and no other computer, and the same device to Photos on Computer B and no other computer.
    You might be confusing what I'm saying with one iOS device enabling sync to the Music library on multiple computers. That is a huge no-no and will result in the disaster being suggested. But I am not talking about that, I'm talking about the opposite arrangement. What I am describing preserves category exclusivity. It turns out that exclusivity at the category level, not the computer level, is what really matters.
    As long as a device is synced to a given category on only one computer, it doesn't matter which computer it is or whether that computer is different than the ones synced to on other categories. The instant a given category is enabled for syncing on more than on computer, that is where the trouble starts.
    KiltedTim wrote:
    Trying to do so is asking for trouble. Don't do it. Move the content you need to one machine and sync only with that machine. If you don't, you'll be back here asking how to fix the mess and recover all the stuff you lost...
    I will agree that it is something you should only do mindfully. But if you do make sure each category is syncing to only one device, there will be no data loss and no mess.

  • How can i sync mac pro w  my27 imac?

    New to macs so curious how to properly setup a network connecting mac pro, ipad and imac... thx in advance for any assistance.

    Well, "sync" and "network" mean a lot of different things to different people.
    To start with, you can set up file sharing, allowing you to access each computer across the same network. Go to System Preferences - Sharing, and turn on File Sharing. Change the computer name at the top of the Sharing screen to allow you to identify it better if need be. Then, in each Finder sidebar, you'll see the Shared computers. You can log into them from your other Macs using a valid user login belonging to the shared Mac.
    Let me know if there was something else you wanted to do...
    Matt

  • New Mac Pro or 27" iMac

    I apologize in advance for the length but I need some help in making a decision.
    SITUATION:
    I run a small business and currently have a Late 2012 21.5" iMac and two 23" monitors (3 screens total for running multiple applications and copy/pasting). My day-to-day includes always having 4-8 browser tabs open running external sites that I input order information into, a huge multi-thousand line Excel Spreadsheet (2008 MS Office for Mac), Google Voice tab open for phone calls/texts, Skype always open to talk to my technical team, Calendar, Notifications, Mail, etc... I keep most all emails because I have to search and refer to previous emails for customer issues, etc... so I have more than 10,000 emails in Mail. I take screenshots and screenvideos for our Help library at times as well. All day long I'm pretty much copying and pasting information to and from my spreadsheet to these other applications to process orders and using most of these applications simultaneously. I'm also backing up all data via Time Machine and Dropbox. Due to the volume or orders I process each day, I need my computer to be FAST!!!!
    ISSUE:
    My 21.5" iMac only has 8GB of RAM and is not user upgradable. I've had this iMac less than a year and I'm seeing the "colorwheel of death a lot", usually when copying and pasting, but sometimes other places as well. I think I need a more robust computer for reasons listed below, plus my wife's 7 year old iMac is on it's last leg so I'm planning on giving the 21.5" iMac to her and upgrading for my business.
    Not that it happens all the time, but quite often an application will stop functioning and I have to Force Quit the application and reopen.
    Each time I copy data from a cell in Excel it takes at least 5 seconds for the dotted line to appear around the cell indicating it's copied, so I have to be very careful not to paste the wrong data. This did not used to be the case. It would respond as fast as I could copy then paste. Excel and Word also take a lot longer to open and close than other programs.
    When scrolling in various applications, sometimes the computer seems to stall then all of a sudden catch up and the page quickly scrolls to catch up.
    I've run the Activity Monitor (which I know little about) and seen that I'm running normally 6.5-8GB of Memory Used. On the "DISK" tab often times my "Reads In" is higher than my "Reads Out" which I don't know if that's normal or not.
    QUESTION:
    I would like to know what you guys recommend for my situation.
    Should I purchase a "beefed-up" 27" iMac with 16-32GB RAM or should I purchase one of the new Mac Pro models?
    If Mac Pro, should I go with the 12GB Quad-Core or the 16GB Six-Core? (I realize I would have to purchase another monitor and microphone for phone calls).
    I don't mind spending the money, but moreso I'm trying to get the right machine for my application without wasting money.
    Thank you for your time and help to make this decision.
    <*///><

    January 9th, 2014 -- Final Cut Pro X 10.1 Shootout: 2013 Mac Pro vs 2010 Mac Pro
    January 3rd, 2014 -- 'late 2013' Mac Pro 6-core versus 'mid 2010' Mac Pro 6-core
    December 31st, 2013 -- Slowest 'late 2013' Mac Pro 4-core versus Fastest 'late 2013' iMac 4-core
    December 28th, 2013 -- Does Final Cut Pro X 10.1 render faster on Mac Pro towers with Dual AMD GPUs? What about Motion 5.1?
    December 16th, 2013 -- 'Late 2013' Retina MacBook Pro beats the 'Late 2013' iMac on Thunderbolt 1.0 Write Speeds
    Good review on new vs old Mac Pro
    My nMP Review (vs my old 4,1 Mac Pro)
    I feel you outgrow an iMac sooner while almost impossible with Mac Pro (other than new software and such in 6 6yrs time) One is an investment and can be upgraded.  No throttling (hopefully) and Haswell cpu while nice is not a 24/7 Xeon designed for the type of work loads.
    http://macperformanceguide.com/blog/2013/20131218_3-MacPro-CPU-choice.html
    http://www.macperformanceguide.com/
    If it weren't for the fact that software in 6 yrs will require newer hardware to meet the demands, your nMP will still be going strong. Other than Apple dropping support for whatever OS X in 5-6 yrs instead of 8-10 years it would still be able to run and do what it is designed for for years to come. Say that about an imac that can be outgrown or "why did OS X 11.99 make my system slow?"
    nMP review from a 3,1 owner
    My nMP 6core Arrived Today -- View from a non-Pro user
    Nice photos: nMP FINALLY

  • Do I need to buy a Mac pro with an iMac?

    I'm planning on buying a 27-inch iMac, do I need to buy a Mac Pro (single processor) or any other hardware etc with the iMac PC?

    Go for the higher end 27 inch screen base model.
    Get one with the fusion drive.
    Add third party RAM after the purchase.
    If you need an optical drive, the new iMacs no longer have an internal CD/DVD optical drive.
    You will need to budget and purchase an external optical drive.
    Also, budget for an external hard drive for backups and storage.
    Most important, budget for, purchase and register for extended 2-years of AppleCare warranty before your first year of ownership has ended.
    The cost of the extra 2 years is only a fraction of an actual out of pocket repair cost.
    Later aluminum iMacs, in general, have a 3-5 year varied liability history and it's better to have 3 years of warranty coverage than get caught with an expensive repair sometime after the first free year of AppleCare.
    Good Luck!

  • Should I buy a new Mac Pro or an iMac?

    Hi,
    I co-run a video production company in the UK. We have an old 2009 iMac, a MacBook Pro from 2010/11 ish, and a PC all used for video editing, and some other intensive apps like Photoshop and Adobe After Effects.
    We're about to spend some money on either a fully specced 2013 iMac or a new Mac Pro. The mac Pro we'd be able to afford would be £1500 more than the iMac (which includes purchasing an external display, mouse and keyboard - all of which an iMac obviously already includes so the price comparison is valid).
    The Mac Pro would be a 3.7 quad-core processor, 256ssd, 12gig ram - which I would then upgrade to 64gig (somewhere else for financial reasons) and finally Dual AMD GPUs with 3gig of ram each. That's all we can afford unfortunately!
    The iMac would be a 3.5 quad core, 1TB fusion drive, and 8gig of ram that I would then max out externally to 32gig, and finally NVidia Geforce 4gig GPU.
    Either one we buy we'd get Applecare.
    Any suggestions as to which would be better to purchase? Our difficulty comes with the fact that we don't have an awful lot of cash to spare, and we also have other things we'd like to invest in (building improvements etc). The guys who work at the company are naturally leaning towards the Mac Pro, as was I intially, but my job is also to spend our money as wisely as possible, so I'd like some advice on whether the Mac Pro is worth spending that extra £1500 on.
    Obviously I understand the Mac Pro will be faster generally speaking, but will it really make a big difference when using Adobe Premiere Pro and After Effects and Photoshop? Or is a fully specced iMac going to be just as good?
    Also what other advantages, other than just speed, would a Mac Pro bring?
    Cheers in advance,
    Phil

    One question to ask yourself is how long you need this machine to do these tasks and what future programs/tasks will you need?
    While both machines can handle everything you mentioned now, the MAc Pro will be faster now, and easier to expand in the future.  The iMac will simply not be as cost effective long term.  If however your needs wont change or you don't plan to use the machine more than 3-4 years, the iMac is going to get the job done and of course be much cheaper.

  • Mac Pro 2008 or iMac 27 i7 ? Which to choose?

    I am looking to upgrade to a faster Mac from my current Macbook Pro and decided either on an iMac 27 inch i7 2.8 GHz 8 Gigs RAM 4870 Video card or buy a used Mac Pro 2008 with 2 x 2.8GHz 4 Core (8 core total) with 10 Gigs RAM and an 8800GT video card.
    Both come to almost the same price. Problem is I don't know which to get. The system will be used mainly for software development, running windows 7 and linux as Virtual Machine, some light gaming, and music (sampling, etc)
    I love the iMac's LED screen and the i7 certainly is fast but love the Mac Pro's expandability in terms of hard drives and memory and I would use it on my 30 inch LCD. That said, would I ever go past the Mac Pro's configuration of 2 TB's of drives (maybe) and more than 10 Gigs RAM (don't know)? You're stuck with the iMac in terms of hard drives forced to add slow external cases.
    The Mac Pro is over 2 years old at this point but I know the Mac Pro is a work horse and the iMac has had issues.
    Anyone have an opinion on this? Might it be worth saving some more cash (although would take another 6 months) and getting a 2009 Mac Pro?
    Let me know...

    Asked a lot and the new iMac makes it look better, but not for triple boot unless you stict to VMs most of the time. The freedom of having alternate OSs on their own drives and such.
    AppleInsider gave the high end iMac makes sense if you go that route, and if you would need a monitor as well?
    Barefeats has posted a number of tests of the iMacs
    http://www.barefeats.com
    Even the 2009 $2149 4-core is no slouch and easier to find and work with.
    At that price, you are close to the 2010. So wait another 36 hrs.
    http://www.apple.com/macpro/specs.html
    http://www.barefeats.com/nehal17.html
    Apple Specials change during the day, they disappear quickly.
    http://store.apple.com/us/browse/home/specialdeals/mac/mac_pro

  • How does Mac Pro compare to iMac?

    Ok I'm Pisssed!
    I just bought a mac pro with AMD FirePro D700 6144 MB to photo editing. I noticed that it's a bit sluggish with my 4k Dell monitor. I figured what I can do I already have the best mac there is guess I'll have to live with it.
    And then BAM, the new iMac comes out with AMD Radeon R9 M295X. Will it perform better with photo editing?

    Actually you are wrong.
    You can change CPU in mac pro, but you cannot fit inside anything better or newer as you are limited to specific TDP and chipset. For instance, putting in new generation of xeon won't give you TB3 support and so on. It can also lead to instability of the system overall. So in basic words: you shouldn't change CPU you already have inside so no CPU upgrade there as well.
    Also iMac is much better in single core performance than mac pro and 99% of applications don't use more than 2 cores and even if they do those actions are not so critical (rendering where you can wait or go get one coffee meantime,...) compared to for instance 3D modelling or animation, where you need smooth rendering and good CPU real-time computation.
    Also new radeon R9 M290X and M295X is much better supported from AMD side and also in windows. We all know OS X 3D performance is miserable compared to windows and having one year old drivers for mac pro GPU's (13.25 version) compared to newest radeon drivers (14.9).
    In addition to all, 4K monitors are very poorly supported on mac pro. For example sometimes when I start OS X half of the screen remains black on my dell UP2414Q and only solution is to restart my computer again. Dell says that they haven't tested with apple hardware and it should be apple to fix this while apple says dell should fix it while customers remain in the dark and with poor support. Thank you dell and apple.
    And there is more bad news for apple: adobe has started to shift their support to nvidia and windows system as Illustrator CC2014.2 now supports hardware accelerated graphics rendering with nvidia GPU on windows! And even more, new GTX980 beats any AMD cards on the market and AMD probably won't make anything better because they can't. I never understood apple latest fascination with AMD. AMD is the worst company for GPU's and their support is so bad I'm considering selling my mac pro.
    The release of new iMac with 5K was a big slap in the face of professional apple customers who paid big money for their pro machine which can only run final cut pro X in it's full power. Any other software is unable to utilize all that "power" that apple put into mac pro. It's a big shame and a good waste of money to have just a nice room warmer.
    Instead of fixing old things apple went and made new version of consumer class PC that is better or at least equivalent to pro class PC's the sell.
    What apple need to fix is:
    -10-bit support for displays. I don't know why we throw so much money on good displays when computer only outputs 8bit at the end.
    -drop AMD and pick up nvidia cards. Apple already supports openCL 1.2 with nvidia cards under OS X and nvidia offers physX and CUDA in addition to only openCL that AMD offers. Also nvidia drivers are much more stable and performance of nvidia cards is better in all aspects.
    -give more support to developers like adobe and others to upgrade their software to take advantage of GPU's we throw so much money on. What good is it to have a good computer and then software that can't even use that computer in it full potential except only few operations while majority of operations are still slow and laggy.
    -give better support for 3D under OS X. Right now I'm watching like 9-30 FPS in Maya and Unity, and sometimes I even run some games to free my mind. WoW hardly reaches 60FPS on low settings while under windows bootcamp on same hardware I can get easily 60FPS! OS X still only has openGL 4.1, while we have there 4.3 and 4.4 GPU's out.
    There has been almost one year since the release of this mac pro and nothing pretty much changed. This "pro" computer is actually pretty slow compared to what competition offers and the only good thing on mac is now the friendliness of OS X, stability and good integration with everything which windows lacks. But overall it's a very slow system to work on. Apple promised much but we got nothing of it except high price tag and a lot of lost nerves!
    I'm very very disappointed in apple right now and really considering switching back to normal PC where at least I get latest drivers for everything and things at least runs at normal frame rate I can work with.
    And don't even let me start on new Yosemite "flat" look which they obviously copied from windows and it is ugly as ****. Instead of changing icons they should fix old mac problems and give us professionals more to work with. In reality we get slapped and pushed on the edge. Don't try and make professional multimedia computer if you can't support it!

  • Mac Pro slow vs. iMac?

    Hello:
    I have the early 2008 Mac Pro (2.8GHz quad) with 10GB total ram and I am really perplexed because when I went to Frys yesterday to play around with an iMac (2.8GHz core duo) with only 2GB ram, I found that this iMac opened up programs and was so much more speedy than my Mac Pro.
    I am really bothered by how fast the iMac seemed compated to my Mac Pro because I though I had a system with superior specifications, but it seems to open up programs much slower than the iMac.
    How can I be sure that my Mac Pro is functioning as it should? The 8GB (4 x 2GB) extra ram I bought for it is aftermarket . Do you think that this could be the problem?
    Thanks,
    Derek

    More often it is migrating the system or something else. I doubt you could see the 4% difference even if you got the wrong slower memory, and unlikely OWC would do that.
    http://www.barefeats.com/harper5.html
    http://www.barefeats.com/harper.html
    http://www.barefeats.com/harper7.html
    http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=435350&tstart=0
    And of course you want the best of drives rather than just original.
    http://www.barefeats.com/harper9.html

  • Transfer files from old Mac Pro to new iMac

    I have a 2008 Mac Pro with Snow Leopard and just purchased a new iMac with Maverick. How do I transfer my files (iPhoto library, address book, documents, etc.)? Can I connect the two computers or must I download the files to an EHD and then import them to the new iMac? If I can connect them, what is the procedure?

    iPhoto can see my old library (I can select it using "Swtich to Library...") but the photos are not showing -- I am getting an empty library with all the introductory "get started" info.
    Try to open the copied library by double-clicking it in the Finder. iPhoto does obviously not open your selected library, but creates a new one.
    How did you copy using the network? Are you signed into the new mac and copy as the user on your new mac? Or are you copying while being signed in on your old mac?
    iPhoto '08, Mac OS X (10.6.8), iPhoto 7.1.5 obsolete?
    If your old library really still is iPhoto 7.1.5, run iPhoto Library Upgrader first:
    iPhoto '11: About the Library Upgrader

  • New Computer purchase 27" ACD & Mac pro or 27" imac

    Hi I plan on buying a new Apple Computer very soon, I'm going to go with either a Mac Pro and a 27" ACD or a 27" iMac. Do the new 27" iMac's have better specs then the Mac Pro's? I do like to have plenty of storage in my computer but I would sacrifice space for better specs if the iMac is better. If I got an iMac then I would customize it with a solid state drive and a 2 TB Drive, 16 gb of memory. I plan on installing WIndows 7 ultimate 64 bit on the mac. Which computer would be better for Windows 7. I also plan on hooking up my Mac to my 50" Panasonic VT25 Plasma TV as either an extended or duplicated display.

    The newest IMacs do not allow you to use any but Apple drives. They customized the iMac drives to add a temperature sensor, and if you install a non-Apple drive, the case fans roar at full speed.
    Mac Pro (tower) is a lot more flexible anyway.

  • Old Mac Pro vs. new iMac?

    I have a nearly three year old Mac Pro that is currently being serviced at my local Apple Store. For almost three years I have had trouble with it -- first it spontaneously rebooted itself which was fixed by replacing power supply, logic board and processor. The other problem is the recurring (but randomly recurring) seizing of Time Machine. I've tried three separate external hard drives, three different cables, all the FW ports, archive and reinstall twice, erase and reinstall twice, and hours on the phone with tech support. No one knows what to do. I have no confidence that they'll find anything this time either. I've just about had it. And my Apple Care runs out in two weeks. So...I'm thinking of getting a new iMac to replace it, because I'm not doing the heavy duty phot/video/design work on the Pro that I thought I was going to do. I know it's a hard question to answer, but aside from the speed, which I probably won't notice that much, what are the biggest trade-offs "stepping down" to the iMac? Thanks

    Your 2nd and 3rd disk drives will be external Firewire 800 drives. Slower than internal drives.
    You can't change your mind. No video card upgrades 2 years down the road. What you buy is what you live with. You can expand memory to 16GB (which seems plenty to me) and you can (with some effort) replace the disk drive with a larger one.
    On the other hand:
    1. Less money, a lot less.
    2. An awesome 27-inch monitor.
    3. Close to the same performance. See http://marketingtactics.com/Speedmark/
    4. Quiet.

  • Mac Pro: connecting to iMac 2009 Late version

    I have an iMac (Late 2009) 27 inch.
    I have contacted Apple online store to see if I can connect Mac Pro to iMac 2009. They told me that I couldn't do that. Maybe there is no easy way to do it but I want to see if it possible. One day I would love to buy Mac Pro (hopefully soon) but I am not really up for the idea of buying a screen. My iMac is still working fine except that I wanted to upgrade graphic card but it seems that I cannot do that with this iMac.
    So does anyone know if there is a way to connect Mac Pro to iMac 2009 Late version?
    Arigato in advance,
    Haruno

    To use an iMac (27-inch, Mid 2010) or iMac (27-inch, Late 2009) in Target Display mode with another computer as the source:
    Make sure both computers are turned on and awake. 
    Connect a male-to-male Mini DisplayPort cable to the Mini DisplayPort on each computer. The 27-inch iMac will enter Target Display mode and display content from the source computer.
    Note: If you are connecting two 27-inch iMacs, connect a Mini DisplayPort cable to each computer and press Command + F2 on the 27-inch iMac keyboard that you will use as an external display.
    To leave Target Display mode, press Command + F2 on the keyboard of the 27-inch iMac that is in Target Display mode. To return to Target Display mode, press Command + F2 again.
    from Apples own support article http://support.apple.com/kb/HT3924
    The graphics card options for the current Mac Pro (ATI 5770 and 5870) both have two Mini DisplayPorts so there shouldn't be any problem using your iMac as display for a Mac Pro.
    Stefan

Maybe you are looking for