Big Make My Mind Up Time - Help Please

Combat squirrel · 10 Mar 2009 at 21:05

Do I get:

Imac 24" 3.06ghz, 1tb,4gb, 4850, £1511 with HE discount

Mac Pro Quad Core , 640gb,3gb, 4870 - £1769 with HE discount

Now the mac pro is £258 more - but has way more hard drive and gfx update possibility , quad core also.

The Imac has a smaller form factor, has the 24" screen obviously, which I could put next to my existing 24" Dell 2407 and have duel monitors, has more ram initially and a 4850 which is a very capable card.

It will be used as a photography machine (photoshop occasionally, lightroom mostly), also web design and programming, also a main hub to store my info and data. Additionally ill duel boot it with windows xp or vista to play games on, iv missed my supreme commander action and half life 2 gameage, also want to play the new warhammer game, id say id be an occasional game player when something similar to the above games comes along. The gfx cards are good enough to play crysis as I played it on my 8800, I take the the ATI cards are faster than a 8800GTX, so thats fine with me. Both machines are limited to 8gb RAM, so thats not an issue, 8gb should just about do me for now, at least until I get whatever I get after one of those machines.

Anything iv missed ?, still stuck deciding.

NickK · 10 Mar 2009 at 21:12

As your doing photo stuff then I'd go with the MacPro. The core will help and as well as the memory. The GPU will help if the application makes use of OpenCL - although I would guess the time it takes for this to be used properly the next major refresh will be due..

Combat squirrel · 10 Mar 2009 at 21:15

Yeh there is that, however the 4850 vs 4870 in real world terms isn't massive, the quad core would be very noticable, both machines as said are limited to 8gb anyway. That extra £258 saved could go towards 8gb ram as well, I just dont know, its such a difficult desc,lol.

NickK · 10 Mar 2009 at 21:25

If you're programming quad core would return speed for the compilation.

I noted a big boost for compilation going to 4GB on the MBP as the system was caching more. Also didn't need to swap out on the big builds.

Adrianr · 10 Mar 2009 at 21:36

Look for an old 2 x 2.8ghz Mac Pro IMO. New Mac Pro's even with HE discount are terrible value for money with limited upgradeability (8GB ram max) compared to the old Mac Pro's (Full 32GB). The iMac has the amazing 24" H-IPS display going for it though, which will be better than your Dell for photo editing (Once calibrated of course), but with a 4GB ram limit. I'm not sure about you but I can quite easily kill that photo editing.

Edit: Completely missed the 'Photoshop occaisionally, lightroom mostly' part. 24" iMac then

Combat squirrel · 10 Mar 2009 at 21:43

Adrianr said:
Look for an old 2 x 2.8ghz Mac Pro IMO. New Mac Pro's even with HE discount are terrible value for money with limited upgradeability (8GB ram max) compared to the old Mac Pro's (Full 32GB). The iMac has the amazing 24" H-IPS display going for it though, which will be better than your Dell for photo editing (Once calibrated of course), but with a 4GB ram limit. I'm not sure about you but I can quite easily kill that photo editing.

Edit: Completely missed the 'Photoshop occaisionally, lightroom mostly' part. 24" iMac then

Well the 24" imac has a 8gb ram limit same as the mac pro,yeah thought about the old mac pro, seems they have rocketed in price or are gold dust

, the Dell 2407 is IPS is it not ? apparently was when I got it, considering my needs the imac for you then? Or the mac pro old version if I could get one ?

Spyhop · 10 Mar 2009 at 21:48

Nah - the 2407 isn't IPS. Not to say it's bad, but most IPS screens rock - especially with a calibrated profile.

Adrianr · 10 Mar 2009 at 21:52

Combat squirrel said:
Well the 24" imac has a 8gb ram limit same as the mac pro,yeah thought about the old mac pro, seems they have rocketed in price or are gold dust , the Dell 2407 is IPS is it not ? apparently was when I got it, considering my needs the imac for you then? Or the mac pro old version if I could get one ?

Ahh I wasn't sure if they'de upped the ram limit in the new iMacs, even better. TBH it sounds like the processing power of a Mac Pro would be lost on your needs, and the screen in the iMac just sweetens the deal I think. Plus as you say, since the pricing on the new Mac Pro's are what they are the old ones are almost unobtainable!

If you spent your life in Photoshop as opposed to Lightroom i'de go with the 08 Mac Pro purely for the higher ram limit, but as you don't the iMac should be more than capable

Combat squirrel · 10 Mar 2009 at 22:07

Adrianr said:
Ahh I wasn't sure if they'de upped the ram limit in the new iMacs, even better. TBH it sounds like the processing power of a Mac Pro would be lost on your needs, and the screen in the iMac just sweetens the deal I think. Plus as you say, since the pricing on the new Mac Pro's are what they are the old ones are almost unobtainable!

If you spent your life in Photoshop as opposed to Lightroom i'de go with the 08 Mac Pro purely for the higher ram limit, but as you don't the iMac should be more than capable

Hmm i think im swinging more that way as well, a 3.06ghz core2 shouldnt be to bad a processor for about 3 years?, 8gb, 1tb HD and more intial ram for £258 cheaper is attractive, however I just remembered the macpro nehlemn processor 'overclocks' itself when using 1 or 2 cores, pah swings and roundabouts, in circles we go,lol.

Iv currently been using a core2 2ghz, 2gb ram, macbook with the intel 950 chipset for about 5/6 months as my main machine, waiting on these new macs, either should be a massive jump up.

Adrianr · 10 Mar 2009 at 23:31

Combat squirrel said:
Hmm i think im swinging more that way as well, a 3.06ghz core2 shouldnt be to bad a processor for about 3 years?, 8gb, 1tb HD and more intial ram for £258 cheaper is attractive, however I just remembered the macpro nehlemn processor 'overclocks' itself when using 1 or 2 cores, pah swings and roundabouts, in circles we go,lol.

Iv currently been using a core2 2ghz, 2gb ram, macbook with the intel 950 chipset for about 5/6 months as my main machine, waiting on these new macs, either should be a massive jump up.

Ooo 3 years lifespan? That could change things!

(Never easy is it) It's hard to speculate how well it will handle what you throw at it in 3 years time, as it's obviously dependant on so many factors. I never would have thought i'de get 3 years out of my Q6600 and i've sailed past 2 looking likely at another 2-3 years service yet! Difference being I got it when quad cores weren't being used much, and now they are. So as the demands have grown, the newer software has allowed the hardware to take up the slack. You won't have that luxury with the 3.06ghz dual core. You would get more longevity out of the Quad mac pro but it's partially reliant on 4GB DDR3 fb-dimms being released as I wouldn't be happy with 8GB max ram for 3 years. But that's just me!

If longevity is what you're after I think you come back to the old 8-core. I very very much doubt 8 x 2.8ghz cores and 32gb of ram will be slow in 3 years time, or even 5. I don't think a single peice of software can use the resources properly even now!

Combat squirrel · 11 Mar 2009 at 08:05

The old 8 core would be ideal if it wasnt so expensive, the only place iv found with stock is a 8core mac pro 08, 2gb ram, 2600xt graphics card for £1800

, now straight away id want to change the graphics to 4870, thats another £280 for the upgrade kit, now were talking over 2k, the 8core nehlemn from apple with a 4870 is just over 2.2k (HE discount), when were talking thousands here, £200 or so isnt an issue persay, thats like close enough to make you question weather its worth getting the old one.

Also it goes well above the 1.5/1.7k budget I was thinking of, so it makes it a hard choice

LordSplodge · 11 Mar 2009 at 09:37

I think on reflection the iMac wins.

You'd get the excellent screen and the extra screen from your Dell (48" of screen real estate = great for photography), the money saved could up the iMac to 8GB (the same as the Mac Pro) and the GPU in the iMac isn't rubbish.

Getting the limited Mac Pro doesn't make sense. If you need the power of the Pro (and I'm not sure you do) and can afford it or at least stretch that far get the 2 x Quad Core Mac Pro and stick as much RAM in it as you can afford.

Just my 2p's worth.

EDIT: Or go get a Dell Workstation and live on the darkside /obviouswindowsfanboicomment.

Adrianr · 11 Mar 2009 at 13:23

LordSplodge said:
EDIT: Or go get a Dell Workstation and live on the darkside /obviouswindowsfanboicomment.

Unfortunately it's partly a comment of sense as well

If you were at all considering the windows route, you could have a workstation specced higher than the Quad Core Nahalem Mac Pro ever physically could be, and your budget would also allow for a 30" IPS screen on top (THE photo editors choice). If that so tickled your fancy. You'de obviously just have to live with Windows 7/Vista and no doubt a louder computer.

The only thing that would hinder my previous iMac suggestion would be the part where you say a hub to store all your data. With the iMac you obviously can't just go shoe-horning more drives into it like a workstation, so you could be looking at the price of externals/NAS ontop if you have a lot of stuff.

LordSplodge · 11 Mar 2009 at 16:24

Adrianr said:
Unfortunately it's partly a comment of sense as well

so you could be looking at the price of externals/NAS ontop if you have a lot of stuff.

I know it makes sense as I had to buy two Dell Workstations for work (both with quad core cpu, 32GB of RAM, 24" screens and a couple of terabytes of storage) for half the price of the previous Mac Pro.

Had they have needed OS X on the other hand...

Oh and as for extra storage for the iMac. Bang a Drobo on with FireWire 800.

Put all of your stuff on a Drobo.

Adrianr · 11 Mar 2009 at 17:05

Yeah looking into a Drobo myself.. However it's not as simple as saying "bang it on" when getting one + a few drives could really increase the OP's budget. I think even for the USB2 version + 4 x 1TB drives was over £600 last time i checked (Okay not everyone would put 4 1TB drives in it but pretty much any config will put the budget over £2k.)

LordSplodge · 12 Mar 2009 at 13:29

Adrianr said:
Yeah looking into a Drobo myself.. However it's not as simple as saying "bang it on" when getting one + a few drives could really increase the OP's budget. I think even for the USB2 version + 4 x 1TB drives was over £600 last time i checked (Okay not everyone would put 4 1TB drives in it but pretty much any config will put the budget over £2k.)

Can't really put a price on securing your data though can you?

Adrianr · 12 Mar 2009 at 13:47

LordSplodge said:
Can't really put a price on securing your data though can you?

Of course not. We also can't assume the OP can just drop an extra £600 on a storage solution. Money is money after all.

LordSplodge · 12 Mar 2009 at 16:31

Adrianr said:
Of course not. We also can't assume the OP can just drop an extra £600 on a storage solution. Money is money after all.

Money is money but the iMac + Drobo is not much more than the Mac Pro and he will have the advantage of having 2 x 24" screens and the redundacy of the Drobo (with 4TB of storage)

Here's what he says:

Combat squirrel said:
It will be used as a photography machine (photoshop occasionally, lightroom mostly), also web design and programming, also a main hub to store my info and data

That looks like some serious work and a lot of time spent on that work. Also see the bit in bold. If he has the money to be willing to lay out for a Mac Pro then surley it makes sense to at least seriously consider protected storage? Sure maybe not a Drobo (although that's what I recommend) but it is better to have saved a bit more and waited a bit longer than to be that guy who has lost all his data.