Mac Pro or iMac - Help

[Bonito]

Ok, so I thought I was all decided on an iMac but now I am hearing that
I will not be happy or satisfied with its computing power and that I should
go with a Mac Pro. The iMac I was contemplating was the 2.93 with the
Radeon card, which would run me about $1900. If I go with the base
Mac Pro, I will need to drop $2400 and then buy some additional RAM.
I really did not want to spend this much, but I do not want a machine that
is not going to keep me happy for a while. I mainly am doing photography
with a 10 mega pixel camera. I do alot in Photoshop and Bridge, usually
making about 100MB files for each photo. I do have a back up external
hardrive with 1TB of space on it.

Will I be ok with the iMac? :confused:

Thanks for your help.

[Tony-S]

I think the iMacs will work fine for your XTi. Where it might have some trouble is with 1Diii and 5Dii raw images, and those may not be a problem for the 2.9 ghz iMac. If you do a lot of batch processing, then perhaps an iMac won't be for you (I'd suggest a quad core for those). My 2.16 gHz iMac handles my 30D raw files just fine, but it struggles a bit with my 5Dii (23 mb raw files). You may be better off getting the 2.9 iMac and putting 6 gb of RAM in it (you'd need to buy one 4 gb DDR3 stick) since OS X will use the excess RAM as a cache and Photoshop will use that as its scratch disk. Is there a particular reason you want the Radeon card?

My biggest beef with the iMac is the glossy display. Some people are fine with it, while others are not. But it is an H-IPS panel (24"), which is very nice for photo work.

[Subimatt]

I have the 3.06 imac, it handles everything nicely. Im sure the pro works even better but I have no problems handling a full weddings worth of images on my imac.

[Tony-S]

Subimatt - Do you use Aperture or LR for your RAW image processing? If so, how responsive is your iMac with those 5Dii raw files? My iMac (2.16) really struggles with my 5Dii files.

[Subimatt]

LR for the raw processing. It runs fine with them, I can sort and flag my weddings fairly quickly with minimal delay on the previews as I cycle.

[Bonito]

Tony S - I did some research and was under the assumption that the Radeon was
the better of the cards - compared to the NVIDIA 120 and 130. I do not do much
gaming, so should i go with the cheaper of the cards, that would drop $150 off
the price tag?

[Tony-S]

No doubt it's better, but for your camera I think you'd be just fine with the nVidia 120. I have the 8600gt 256 mb in my hackintosh and it's perfectly fine with my 30D and 5Dii raw files using Aperture (which is gpu-intensive). The 120 is pretty much equivalent to the 8600, but with slightly faster clock and lower memory speed. Keep in mind that for photo work cpu speed is usually more important that your gpu. I think you ought to put that $200 someplace else.

[Tony-S]

LR for the raw processing.

I think this is my problem (well, that an the cpu speed). I use Aperture, which relies heavily on the gpu. My iMac has a 7600 in it. Pretty antiquated.

[Bonito]

Thanks Tony - better to put the money towards more ram.

[Tony-S]

Just curious, but what do you do to those XTi images that makes them 100 mb in size?

[Kronie]

If your stuck on having OS X. Have you considered building your own mac? You could probably build a top of the line Mac Pro for $900.

Of course I'm not condoning hackintosh in any way, just offering options.......

[wlescall]

For anyone considering a Mac, to make best use of Snow Leopard make sure your video card is one of the following: NVIDIA Geforce 8600M GT, GeForce 8800 GT, GeForce 8800 GTS, Geforce 9400M, GeForce 9600M GT, GeForce GT 120, GeForce GT 130, ATI Radeon 4850, Radeon 4870.

[MaxxuM]

If your stuck on having OS X. Have you considered building your own mac? You could probably build a top of the line Mac Pro for $900.

Of course I'm not condoning hackintosh in any way, just offering options.......

Could you point me to the parts for a Mac Pro (server/workstation) quality build for under $2,000? I'll jump on that in a second! ;) Heck, dual 2.26GHz E5520 series CPUs by themselves run almost $800 by themselves; that's before a dual Xeon motherboard, 1066MHz DDR3 ECC SDRAM and a quality case that is a dream to work with. Then add guaranteed compatablility with Mac OS and the coming OS 10.7 drivers (which likely have updated code to knock off the hackintoshes).

It used to be that Apple overcharged, but those days are gone. The only two reasons to go the hack way is you want an inbetween computer (a regular desktop) or you just want to have fun putting one together.

[Moppie]

fairly quickly with minimal delay on the previews


Fairly quickly, and with minimal delay??
Wouldn't you rather be able to work quickly, with no interuptions or any delays?

That is the difference between a consumer level computer like the iMac and a proper work station.
When you can build (or get built) a work station which will let you preview and process your photos as quickly as you want to work, and with no delays, for similar cost to an iMac, then why would you use the iMac?

[Subimatt]

a work station which will let you preview and process your photos as quickly as you want to work

Thats exactly what it does for me, it works great for my workflow and processing methods. Im happy with it, thats really all that matters to me. Other peoples workflow methods may vary and it may not work for them. I said fairly quickly since I know there are machines out there that could do things faster. Its a tool, just like a camera.

[Bonito]

With regards to my large files, I like to open at 360 dpi, 17.5 mg. Then usually I do
a few adjustment layers and wham - 90-100mg file! I just hate to flatten, I always
feel like I may want to go back and tweek something later. Plus, alot of my stuff I
print out at 11x14 for my camera club competitions.
I am totally afraid to try and build my own Mac, way over my head. :-)

[Kronie]

Could you point me to the parts for a Mac Pro (server/workstation) quality build for under $2,000? I'll jump on that in a second!

Not sure what your definition of "quality build" is but how could you possibly spend $2,000 building a tower? I rounded up and still only came up with $1,070.

Case: $100
Power: $120
Mobo: $250
Ram: $100
Processor: $200 (were not spending $1,000 here)
Graphics: $150
Hard drive: $100
DVD burner: $50

[Tony-S]

Not sure what your definition of "quality build" is but how could you possibly spend $2,000 building a tower? I rounded up and still only came up with $1,070.

Your offending comment was this:

Have you considered building your own mac? You could probably build a top of the line Mac Pro for $900.

Have you priced the components for a dual processor Nehalem system?

[MaxxuM]

Not sure what your definition of "quality build" is but how could you possibly spend $2,000 building a tower? I rounded up and still only came up with $1,070.

Case: $100
Power: $120
Mobo: $250
Ram: $100
Processor: $200 (were not spending $1,000 here)
Graphics: $150
Hard drive: $100
DVD burner: $50

What you probably meant to say is a quality desktop and not a Mac Pro equivalent. Like Tony said, a workstation by Dell or Apple will run you a base price of at least $2000 for dual Nehalem Xeon 2.26GHz system.

A workstation will have parts that are extremely durable with premium electronics like top of the line capacitors and higher end chips rated at far more stress then regular desktops. If you ever pick up a workstation like Dell's Precision T series you'll be very surprised at the weight. The darn things weigh like forty pounds! The power supplies are typically higher rated with more than one rail and current detection that transfers information to the BIOS for later evaluation (with special diag software). Workstations usually have an array of compatibility with fiber relay, multiple RAID configurations, ECC memory, better electronic shielding and so on.

Hope that clears thing up a little...

[Kronie]

That is what I meant, not "top of the line" but "very capable"

That's my next desktop when my MacBook Pro is too old, a hackintosh.