Mac Pro vs. iMac - Purchase advice

Posted:
in General Discussion edited January 2014
Im in need of purchase advice.

I'm a Music Composition major in college, wrapping up my Bachelor's studies in the fall. I am in serious need of processing power. I have a 2009 iMac with 16 GB RAM, 1 TB internal / 3.5 TB External storage.

For almost 2 years, I've been planning on updating to a Mac Pro. However, I put it off, wanting to wait for a newly refreshed model. I've been on the roller coaster of rumors for the Mac Rpo, and I'm exhausted. Finally, several projects have been offered to me, and I can no longer wait to "work with" my current set-up. Sample Libraries, Logic Pro, Soundtrack Pro, and the rest of my rig demands too much on my iMac. I have several thousands of dollars of samples that I can't even use because they are too demanding on RAM.

So, I started to look into the possibility of a processing farm. I'm still an extreme novice, and any information about it would be greatly appreciated from informed readers.

Core Question: which would give me the best performance for processing, and overall use... the best Mac Pro currently available, or 2 Top level iMacs connected together - one as primary, and the other for dedicated processing power?

I don't have time to wait for updated models, unless they are rumored to be released by the end of the month. So, please, disregard the urge to suggest long term waiting - e.g., 2013 Mac Pro update. I'd love to update with that model, but it's just not possible now.

Please, any assistance that you wise readers can offer will be greatly appreciated! Ask me any questions to help alleviate any vague areas that I've left open.

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 2
    asciiascii Posts: 5,936member


    An individual core on the iMac will probably be faster than the Mac Pro due to being a generation ahead. So one question to ask is how well the particular app you want to use supports multi-core. If it can utilise 12 cores it will be faster on a Mac Pro, but if it can only use 4, it will be faster on the iMac. 


     


    Another important thing to ask is whether the app you want to use is I/O bound or CPU bound (i.e. what is the bottleneck, is it the disk or the CPU). Because for example the new Macbook Pros have SATA3, which means SSDs go twice as fast as they do on the Mac Pro.


     


    It all comes down to knowing the needs of the app you want to use. And perhaps the best way is to ask the company that sells it.

  • Reply 2 of 2


    I had Mac towers for years, but prefer iMac because it is on the desktop away from the dust of the floor where most towers sit. Sounds silly, I know. but I hate dust. However, screens are my key spec nowadays. I wish I could afford a top-of-the-line monitor with a mac Pro. Maybe Barry will send me some banker money.

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