iMac vs. MBP macbook pro

Good morning. I've been using an iMac for post over the past few years. I love it.

I've been considering switching to a new mbp to gain portability. I believe portability would improve my life quite a bit for various reasons. Will the new i7 2.7 be > than the old i3 3.2 with regard to pp speed - clone, blemish removal, etc... that is the only area where I've had any slowness in the past, back when I was running 8gb ram. 5d mark iii files are fairly large. I am only using LR4 at the time, but could switch to more robust software at any time.

I do realize that having a larger monitor is fantastic for post. So moving to a 15" screen is going to take some time to get used to. But I'm willing to sacrifice monitor size for portability. And eventually I could run an external monitor for more serious pp sessions.

I don't build computers or understand the hardware much. So thx for any input.

Current machine:

iMac
2010.5 machine
Intel Core i3
3.2 GHz
Number Of Processors: 1
Total Number Of Cores: 2
Memory: 16 GB
Processor Interconnect Speed: 5.86 GT/s
1 tb

Proposed machine:
2012 Macbook Pro
2.7ghz quad core intel core i7, turbo boost up to 3.7
16gb
768gb

just got my 2.7/16/768 Monday night. This will replace a i72600K Hack on the desktop. The post processing enviroment is LR with Elements and the Nik Software suite for LR. I have moved all my licenses to the MBP and am transferring my 900GB LR library from drives inside the Hack to LaCie 2Big thunderbolt drives that will run as 3TB RAID 1 mirror set. Backup is to a 3TB Time Capsule. I will also keep music, movies, and documents on the RAID set. The large remaining room on the SSD is for capturing photos during field trips. My last 2 week trip I had over 400GB of files.

This is my second Apple computer. The first was one of the original Macs in 1984. Apple is not inexpensive. But is "good kit". Besure to look for tax free weekends on computer purchases, and any applicable education or business discounts. I got mine via MacMall with 3% off, no tax, no shipping.

After seeing mine, the wife gave me the thunbs up to order an identical machine for her. It will be here next week. Remember, if mama ain't happy....

looks like a pretty serious setup. congrats.
have you done any extensive post yet?

nope, I have around a hour of downloading of photos left....then I do migration wizard to move over email, contact lists,...etc. I should be finished migrating today.

The only reason to go with a MBP is portability. If portability isn't your #1 concern then you probably don't need one. I use my MBP for on location shoots, work (IT) and because I love being able to edit on location. I also do video work and my MBP gives me the ability to scrub on a 15" screen on location. However, I still use a Mac Pro and a pretty hefty PC along with three IPS screens at home. So, a laptop just rounded out my setup.

With the specs of the two machines mentioned, will there be a noticeable difference, performance speed for PP of images. I don't do any video work. Thx

resources I'm finding to be informative

http://www.macperforma​nceguide.com …kPro-Retina-compared.html

For us the rMBPs are our new desktops. They have enough horsepower to do PP work and have plenty of SSD storage to collect files in the field. I just moved my LR library of 40,000+ images from old backup to my new storage, LaCie Thunderbolt 2Big running as 3TB RAID 1. It copied all the library plus all my Itunes library (over 400 CDs) in just over an hour. Have not told the rMBP to use Time Capsule as backup and started by first backup of the new system. So far, so good.

BTW, If you plan to have multiple devices (iPad, iPhone, Mac) reading you email, consider changing your email protocol to IMAP...if you are currently doing POP3. Because my Hack was doing IMAP, when I set up the email account in the RMBP and logged in, all my email folders were imported into the RMBP from the mail server. We using email from our web hosts so we can easily change email protocols on the clients. Also I removed any email account storage limits on the web server.

we got that same Macbook Pro you're considering about a month ago, I still use my IMac.

rick_reno wrote in post #14841985
we got that same Macbook Pro you're considering about a month ago, I still use my IMac.

Lol! That bad eh?

Update. I was all set to get a rMBP, but decided against it.

15" 2.7ghz, 16gb memory, quadcore i7 (new 2012)
or
17" 2.5ghz, 16gb memory, quadcore i7 (new unit, but from 2011/early 2012)

will the new (can't get 17", but it's 2.7) model be noticeably faster?

Either way, I've decided to get the anti-glare hd screen.

When I saw the 17", it got me thinking, perhaps I should go with the largest mbp I can get. I'm used to editting on a 21.5" iMac. Put I'm not happy to be tied to my desk. I would prefer to be on the sofa or bed at times, so portability is obviously my goal here. I could eventually run an external display. ***, I discovered that the 21.5" iMac can't be used as a monitor, this is horrible news. So I guess I will sell the iMac and purchase something else for a display to be used in very serious edit sessions. I will not be using the mbp in the field.

Photoshop Lightroom GPU accelerated or processor?

I am not using photoshop, I use Lightroom4. I may try Elements.
RAW 22mp files from Canon 5Dmark3

for ref
Geekbench
my imac 5854/6618*
mbp 15" as mentioned above
12367/13477*
mpb 17" as mentioned above
10706/11699*

http://www.everymac.co​m …n-chart/?compare=all-macs

My rMBP's Geekbench score was 12308 on 32-bit test.