iMac or Mac Pro
Need some advice...
I have a dual 1.25 G4. I run Photoshop and use Maya and Bryce to a lesser degree. I want to upgrade because my machine is getting a bit long in the tooth. I was thinking of maybe getting a new 20" iMac and hook my 20" ACD up to give me 40" of screen space. If I spec it out with 3GB of ram and get the 256MB graphics card would I have enough power to reasonably handle Maya and Bryce renders? Or would I be better off just going with the Desktop machine?(I know ideally the desktop machine would be the better choice, but could I get by with the iMac?)
Thanks
I have a dual 1.25 G4. I run Photoshop and use Maya and Bryce to a lesser degree. I want to upgrade because my machine is getting a bit long in the tooth. I was thinking of maybe getting a new 20" iMac and hook my 20" ACD up to give me 40" of screen space. If I spec it out with 3GB of ram and get the 256MB graphics card would I have enough power to reasonably handle Maya and Bryce renders? Or would I be better off just going with the Desktop machine?(I know ideally the desktop machine would be the better choice, but could I get by with the iMac?)
Thanks
Comments
I was wanting to build a short term machine that was able to run CS2 natively (without any of the annoying little quirks of the Intel based machines) ? but what I ended up with was SO fast that it's put all the Mac Pros in the studio to shame.
This is the fastest Mac that I've ever used, and the real surprise is just how huge the difference actually is!
I guess, like the majority of users out there, I used to buy the latest tower, with the fastest processor I could afford, and a token RAM upgrade. But this machine has taught me that the speed (or type) of the CPU has very little to do with the real-world performance when compared to the RAM capacity. In hindsight I guess this makes perfect sense, because it doesn't matter how fast the processor cores are if they're sitting around doing nothing waiting on data getting paged from the hard disk drive.
It's better to keep two slower cores working than have four faster cores sitting idle.
With enough RAM, OS X functions as close to a solid state machine as you'll get, and you get to experience OS X as it's meant to be experienced. OS X is an entirely different beast when it has plenty of RAM at its disposal. 99% of the installed base out there never get to experience OS X as it should be experienced. Instead, they hobble along on 2GB or so.
So, I can't recommend enough:
Finding a decent PCIe G5 tower on Ebay or ex-display. Investing in 8GB of DDR2 memory from Crucial. Getting a couple of decent hard disk drives (I went for a couple of 250GB Seagate 7200.10s) and configuring them as a RAID L0 stripe-set.
The whole shooting match is cheaper than a Mac Pro, and it only takes about an hour or two to install the RAM and set-up the RAID yourself - and you won't believe how fast the system is!
Messiah - very interesting. I am going to look into that...
What is very appealing to me is having 2 20" screens side by side.
You can do that on an iMac.
I built a machine recently that has completely transformed my views on what constitutes a fast Mac.
I was wanting to build a short term machine that was able to run CS2 natively (without any of the annoying little quirks of the Intel based machines) ? but what I ended up with was SO fast that it's put all the Mac Pros in the studio to shame.
This is the fastest Mac that I've ever used, and the real surprise is just how huge the difference actually is!
I guess, like the majority of users out there, I used to buy the latest tower, with the fastest processor I could afford, and a token RAM upgrade. But this machine has taught me that the speed (or type) of the CPU has very little to do with the real-world performance when compared to the RAM capacity. In hindsight I guess this makes perfect sense, because it doesn't matter how fast the processor cores are if they're sitting around doing nothing waiting on data getting paged from the hard disk drive.
It's better to keep two slower cores working than have four faster cores sitting idle.
With enough RAM, OS X functions as close to a solid state machine as you'll get, and you get to experience OS X as it's meant to be experienced. OS X is an entirely different beast when it has plenty of RAM at its disposal. 99% of the installed base out there never get to experience OS X as it should be experienced. Instead, they hobble along on 2GB or so.
So, I can't recommend enough:
Finding a decent PCIe G5 tower on Ebay or ex-display. Investing in 8GB of DDR2 memory from Crucial. Getting a couple of decent hard disk drives (I went for a couple of 250GB Seagate 7200.10s) and configuring them as a RAID L0 stripe-set.
The whole shooting match is cheaper than a Mac Pro, and it only takes about an hour or two to install the RAM and set-up the RAID yourself - and you won't believe how fast the system is!
Messiah,
Have you tried cs3 on the intel macs (Mac Pros)? If so how does it compare to your custom rig all loaded up with ram?
You can do that on an iMac.
Yep
Finding a decent PCIe G5 tower on Ebay or ex-display. Investing in 8GB of DDR2 memory from Crucial. Getting a couple of decent hard disk drives (I went for a couple of 250GB Seagate 7200.10s) and configuring them as a RAID L0 stripe-set.
The whole shooting match is cheaper than a Mac Pro, and it only takes about an hour or two to install the RAM and set-up the RAID yourself - and you won't believe how fast the system is!
How can you tell on ebay if they're PCIe or not? Most listings I see just list it as a G5, is there somewhere that lists which speeds and models are PCIe? Also how good does the best PCIe G5 gpu available stack up against something good on the mac pro?
How can you tell on ebay if they're PCIe or not? Most listings I see just list it as a G5, is there somewhere that lists which speeds and models are PCIe? Also how good does the best PCIe G5 gpu available stack up against something good on the mac pro?
The PCIe PowerMac G5s were the dual-core and quad-core revision. I think the previous models were PCI/PCI-X & AGP.
If AGP is listed, then it's not a PCIe system. Some people confuse PCIe and PCI-X or assume they are both the same, but if it's not an AGP G5 system then you are most likely safe. Also beware that some people people might confuse dual core and dual processor.
All Quads were PCIe, and I think I'm right in saying that the 2.3GHz machines were PCIe as well.
The 2.0GHz machines came in PCIe and PCI-X/AGP.
Messiah,
Have you tried cs3 on the intel macs (Mac Pros)? If so how does it compare to your custom rig all loaded up with ram?
Yeah, we haven't got CS3 in the studio just yet (they just bought CS2 not long ago). I'd be interested to see how the Mac Pros perform with the native software, as I suspect that Rosetta is a real performance killer. I also suspect that 2GB in the Mac Pro is still going to cause problems regardless...
Yeah, we haven't got CS3 in the studio just yet (they just bought CS2 not long ago). I'd be interested to see how the Mac Pros perform with the native software, as I suspect that Rosetta is a real performance killer. I also suspect that 2GB in the Mac Pro is still going to cause problems regardless...
I went through the same dilema back in November. Was thinking about the 24 iMac or Mac Pro with a 23" Cinema Display. My wife pushed me over the edge and just said go for it. Plus the 23" monitor fit my desk better since there was bookcase built in over it. I put 2gb Ram and the Radeon graphics card in it and it runs great. Only problem is...it runs World of Warcraft at all max settings and looks beautiful..so I have a hard time getting my son off of it.
...then the following days later I realized that whatever I chose to do, I must live like there's no tomorrow, so I chose an iMac.
Live your life to its fullest potential.
Here are a few of my proudest Mac movies I made on my new iMac:
Movie 1: My iMac
http://tinyurl.com/2gewv5
Movie 2: Dark Side
http://tinyurl.com/33hoto
BTW, this is my first post to this forum!
I went through the same thing a few months ago - I was depressed realizing that no matter what I accomplish in life, none of it will matter when I die...
...then the following days later I realized that whatever I chose to do, I must live like there's no tomorrow, so I chose an iMac.
Live your life to its fullest potential.
Here are a few of my proudest Mac movies I made on my new iMac:
Movie 1: My iMac
http://tinyurl.com/2gewv5
Movie 2: Dark Side
http://tinyurl.com/33hoto
BTW, this is my first post to this forum!
Welcome to the boards.
I am learning so much, may I share some things (from a Mac newbie) ?
System Preferences
Security
Disable automatic login (click to add a checkmark)
Next time you turn on your Mac, you will have a lovely password prompt.
I purposely entered the wrong password and was amused at the result.