New Imac released.. Which to buy for PP?

[stevo8]

So the new iMac was just released which I have been waiting for since my MBP is hating me right now, but now I'm unsure of which graphics card to get. I'll be getting the 24" version which comes with the nvidia 9400m in the 2.66GHz version or the nvidia gt120 standard in the 2.93GHz version with a GT130 option and also a ATI radeon HD4650 option over that.. The jump from the GT130 to the ATI is only like $50-$70 so if I upgrade I'll most likely just go all out and be done with it. However, I don't do any gaming at all. I use LR&CS4 as well as watch movies & TV shows on a seperate monitor. So with my uses would I even see a difference when just watching shows and editing large files?

[basroil]

my vote is none, they are all far too expensive for just that. other than the monitor issue and hdd, the mac mini has the same specs if you are looking for macs, and just about every other company sells machines that are more powerful and much cheaper. If you know what you are doing you can also install osX on any intel computer, so "but i want a mac" is meaningless unless you mean a shiny ugly thing that you can't adjust it's height.

[SCOTTinNJ]

So the new iMac was just released which I have been waiting for since my MBP is hating me right now, but now I'm unsure of which graphics card to get. I'll be getting the 24" version which comes with the nvidia 9400m in the 2.66GHz version or the nvidia gt120 standard in the 2.93GHz version with a GT130 option and also a ATI radeon HD4650 option over that.. The jump from the GT130 to the ATI is only like $50-$70 so if I upgrade I'll most likely just go all out and be done with it. However, I don't do any gaming at all. I use LR&CS4 as well as watch movies & TV shows on a seperate monitor. So with my uses would I even see a difference when just watching shows and editing large files?

In the same boat, so a free bump. That first response wasn't all that helpful...

[SCOTTinNJ]

And btw, I'm reading that the ATI video card will delay delivery for a few weeks, whereas either of the NVIDIA's will ship in days.

[interlock]

basroil, you are obviously not a mac fan by your recent posts, fair enough. However this was not a Mac v wintel V lintel thread and neither was my MacPro post.

Stevo8 the bigger card you can get now the less likely you will need to upgrade it in a few years. My mini can not run Aperture, yes there is a hack for it but i would rather not. That would be like owning a wintel again and I get enough of that at work.....

[basroil]

basroil, you are obviously not a mac fan by your recent posts, fair enough. However this was not a Mac v wintel V lintel thread and neither was my MacPro post.

Stevo8 the bigger card you can get now the less likely you will need to upgrade it in a few years. My mini can not run Aperture, yes there is a hack for it but i would rather not. That would be like owning a wintel again and I get enough of that at work.....

interlock, you are clearly not very good at reading :rolleyes: stated the mac alternative first and then explained that for a person on a budget, any mac purchase should be very thoroughly calculated since you can save a lot of money going with non-apple parts for OSX

imac with low specs doesn't give you much over the mac mini. and for the record, gtx120 isn't that much worse than the 4650 compared to older chips for imac, and unless you dual screen 1080p video, not much extra gained from either card.

[stevo8]

I have three PC's.. All crap. I will not for any reason let some pc nut swinger talk me into another one.. Period. My MbP is the only solid computer I have ever had and will gladly let apple "over charge" me again for another great machine that last me years. So back on topic.. Will the ATI be worth the extra $180?

[basroil]

I have three PC's.. All crap. I will not for any reason let some pc nut swinger talk me into another one.. Period. My MbP is the only solid computer I have ever had and will gladly let apple "over charge" me again for another great machine that last me years. So back on topic.. Will the ATI be worth the extra $180?

Read this tanuki's post properly next time and you'll have your answer:rolleyes:

*big ball slap in the face*

[cory1848]

any mac purchase should be very thoroughly calculated since you can save a lot of money going with non-apple parts for OSX




How are you running OSX on non apple parts? If you mean hackintosh, remember that is illegal and against apples EULA. Wouldnt want to be promoting illegal practices on the site would we?

[Tony-S]

So the new iMac was just released which I have been waiting for since my MBP is hating me right now, but now I'm unsure of which graphics card to get. I'll be getting the 24" version which comes with the nvidia 9400m in the 2.66GHz version or the nvidia gt120 standard in the 2.93GHz version with a GT130 option and also a ATI radeon HD4650 option over that..

Buy the most you can afford, but make sure that the video card is OpenCL-compliant. The nVidia's are and I suspect the ATI is as well, but you might want to check on that.

[Tony-S]

interlock, you are clearly not very good at reading :rolleyes:

I've read several of your posts several times and they are not clear to me.

stated the mac alternative first and then explained that for a person on a budget, any mac purchase should be very thoroughly calculated since you can save a lot of money going with non-apple parts for OSX

But the OP was asking about the three video card options on the 24" iMac. Your response did not address that.

imac with low specs doesn't give you much over the mac mini.

It does give some things, including twice the L2 cache, faster cpu and a 3.5" 7200 rpm hard drive.

[Moppie]

So the new iMac was just released which I have been waiting for since my MBP is hating me right now, but now I'm unsure of which graphics card to get. I'll be getting the 24" version which comes with the nvidia 9400m in the 2.66GHz version or the nvidia gt120 standard in the 2.93GHz version with a GT130 option and also a ATI radeon HD4650 option over that.. The jump from the GT130 to the ATI is only like $50-$70 so if I upgrade I'll most likely just go all out and be done with it. However, I don't do any gaming at all. I use LR&CS4 as well as watch movies & TV shows on a seperate monitor. So with my uses would I even see a difference when just watching shows and editing large files?


If your only doing photo work, movies etc, then even the base spec 9400M is enough, but I would go with the GT120 which is really a rebadged, mobile version of the 9500GT, which is a good, mid range, budget card, and will future proof the system for further upgrades to the pretty bits of OS-X and further openGL/CL support.
Then spend the extra money on RAM. Put as much in as the system will handle. :cool:

[Tony-S]

How are you running OSX on non apple parts? If you mean hackintosh, remember that is illegal and against apples EULA. Wouldnt want to be promoting illegal practices on the site would we?

It's not illegal. At most it's a contract violation. I doubt Apple cares too much about Joe Blow who installs OS X on a home-built computer, so long as he's not selling them and that he bought a retail copy of OS X. I know of a few PC people who did hackintoshes, decided they liked OS X so much they then bought real Macs.

[basroil]

How are you running OSX on non apple parts? If you mean hackintosh, remember that is illegal and against apples EULA. Wouldnt want to be promoting illegal practices on the site would we?

Not illegal in Germany, and as far as i know, the same train should apply pretty much everywhere but France. As you know well, you can't read the EULA until you install it, and since most places refuse to accept it as a return once open, unless apple will guarantee all non-returnable licenses, the EULA will be void until such a time. So basically, if you buy OSx at circuit city now, you can LEGALLY install the software on any computer after confirming that apple will not provide you a refund themselves.;)

[Moppie]

Not illegal in Germany, and as far as i know, the same train should apply pretty much everywhere but France. As you know well, you can't read the EULA until you install it, and since most places refuse to accept it as a return once open, unless apple will guarantee all non-returnable licenses, the EULA will be void until such a time. So basically, if you buy OSx at circuit city now, you can LEGALLY install the software on any computer after confirming that apple will not provide you a refund themselves.;)


Installing OS-X on a hackintosh has been well covered in this forum.
It is not as simple as it sounds, and requires selecting the correct hardware for there to be any chance of drivers being compatiable. The installation process is not smooth and trouble free, and does require an above average level of knowledge. There is also the problem of updating OS-X. Any attempt to do so will stop it working if you do manage to install it on a non-Apple system.



None of this helps stevo8 (http://photography-on-the.net/forum/member.php?u=155667).

He wants an iMac, and the only way to do that properly is to buy one made by Apple.

It is not a big deal, and the world will not end because of it. It is just a computer, and a choice he has freely made. I suggest you learn to respect that.


Any further posts not helping stevo with his choice of iMac may be removed. :cool:

[stevo8]

Thanks Moppie. Im still real unsure as to why people feel they need to open their mounths regarding something that is not being discussed. Its not a debate, or open discussion. Its really rather simple. Will I benefit from upgrading graphics cards? Anything not related to that and start your own thread. TIA

[zincozinco]

So the new iMac was just released which I have been waiting for since my MBP is hating me right now, but now I'm unsure of which graphics card to get. I'll be getting the 24" version which comes with the nvidia 9400m in the 2.66GHz version or the nvidia gt120 standard in the 2.93GHz version with a GT130 option and also a ATI radeon HD4650 option over that.. The jump from the GT130 to the ATI is only like $50-$70 so if I upgrade I'll most likely just go all out and be done with it. However, I don't do any gaming at all. I use LR&CS4 as well as watch movies & TV shows on a seperate monitor. So with my uses would I even see a difference when just watching shows and editing large files?

I would get the 24 inch 2.9 and with 4gb you have sufficient memory, update the graphics card as it costs nothing. I would not worry about any other spec get 2 seperate drives one for time machine and one for storage. If you are doing a lot of work or alot of films on them they dont last very long. we have had three drives going down in the span of 2 years. however we use them evereyday 24/7 for magazine publishing. I have an old intel imac with 2gb of memory running cS4, i do aperture photoshop and indesign without problems. my business partner have the new imac so we check all colours on his 24 ( the one that max out at 4gb) - YOU WONT BE DISSAPOINTED!!! Its fast and accurrate.

[SCOTTinNJ]

I pulled the trigger on a refurbished 24" 2.8 GHz for $1199. Should be here soon. Benefits over new one are cost, speed (I was looking at the 2.66) and better video card. Only goes to 4 gb memory, where the new one goes to 8. But, 8 is very expensive, so I would like max at 4 anyway.

http://store.apple.com/us/product/FB325LL/A?mco=MjE0NDk5Mw

[dtplink]

I just bought the iMac 24-inch 2.66MHz machine. First one off the truck. I needed it last week but luckily heard the rumors and waited. Glad I did. Saved a bunch of money, got more memory and I assume a better video card.

I also went back and forth over whether or not to upgrade the video card or not. The stock one is really nice and I doubt that I could perceive higher quality differences. I also thought that the advantage to having the higher quality video cards and more memory on the video card is that it could render more polygons faster for high quality games. Not so much of an advantage for static images. Is this an incorrect notion?

[wlescall]

You might not get the full benefit of Snow Leopard when it is released.

The faster 24" iMacs have video cards with GDDR3 memory. This will allow some speed up when Snow Leopard arrive. Open CL (in Snow Leopard) is supposed to make use of the unused cycles of the GPU for generalized computing.

[stevo8]

What card supports open cl? gt120 or 130?

[Tony-S]

They both support OpenCL.

[Titus213]

Late to the thread but a couple of questions?

Will the NVIDIA GeForce 9400M graphics on the low end iMac 24 support openCL?

And is there any difference in the LCD panels between the iMac 20 and the 24? I read a bit ago that the 24s were preferred for photo editing.

I've been a Windows user since 95 and have got to make the switch on the next desktop. We've already started with a Mac Book in the studio.....

[Tony-S]

Will the NVIDIA GeForce 9400M graphics on the low end iMac 24 support openCL?

Yes. All current Macs have CUDA gpus, which is the hardware needed for OpenGL in Snow Leopard (10.6).

And is there any difference in the LCD panels between the iMac 20 and the 24? I read a bit ago that the 24s were preferred for photo editing.

The 20" has a TN panel, while the 24" models all have H-IPS panels. If you can deal with the glossy display, then the 24" is a great choice.

[Titus213]

Thanks Tony, it sounds like I better get on the Mac Book and learn that OS.

[stevo8]

The glare will not bother me in my room where I'll have it setup, but in regards to editing on it, would I be better off getting say a 22-24" matte dell monitor(Ill need two monitors for sure anyways) rather then say the apple 24" cinema display? Reason I ask is that I used a friends iMac(24") to edit on and everything looked great but when viewed on another monitor it didn't look quite as good. The monitor was calibrated and all, it just seemed as if there was a bit more contrast to the images on the iMac then on my pc. I would hate to edit on it and be dooped into thinkng the images look better then they actually do.

[SCOTTinNJ]

Reason I ask is that I used a friends iMac(24") to edit on and everything looked great but when viewed on another monitor it didn't look quite as good. The monitor was calibrated and all, it just seemed as if there was a bit more contrast to the images on the iMac then on my pc. I would hate to edit on it and be dooped into thinkng the images look better then they actually do.

Having my 24" for only a couple of days, that's the problem I'm having. I looked at a thread on my Apple the other day and the photos in it (not mine) looked amazing. Showed a friend at work the same thread on our standard Dell monitors there and they didn't look quite so good.

[wlescall]

Probably the problem lies in one or more things:
1 - "Standard Dell Monitor" - possibly not ips type screen
2 - Use of a non-color managed browser
3 - Monitor not correctly calibrated, or too long since calibration.

Read Rene Damkot's excellent information here. (http://photography-on-the.net/forum/showthread.php?t=296149)

[GSansoucie]

The 20" has a TN panel, while the 24" models all have H-IPS panels. If you can deal with the glossy display, then the 24" is a great choice.


I didn't realize the 24" was H-IPS. Our family has reached the boiling point and needs to add another computer to the mix. I (Dad) live and breath off my 15.4" MBP with my crappy external SyncMaster 204B monitor. Geesh, if I get the family the 24" iMac, I'd be in line for that thing.

[stevo8]

Got a 24" Imac for my Bday, so heres my current setup.. 24" imac with a 640gb mybook for time machine backup, 15" Macbook Pro connected to a 22" Dell monitor, Iphone, and some cheap surround sound. So far the imac is amazing(particularly for $1200 considering it was 1800+ two weeks ago)

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3072/3357745994_78edcd4710_o.jpg

[sunnygirl]

I have been using the 24in iMac for nearly 2 years now along with a 22in Dell (PC) for editing and I much prefer the screen of the mac, it is just so much sharper for fine detail. I for one do not notice the gloss of screen, however mine is the white model so the new generation ones may be different.

[stevo8]

The screen on mine is great.. I wish though that I could turn down the brightness just a tad more is all.

[Tony-S]

There is some utility out there (I forget what it's called) that does just this. And it's freeware, I think...