Mac pro v imac?

jkjond · Nov 9, 2016

I'm in a bit of a quandary regarding mac upgrade. I need a new mac and have a good Eizo screen. If I hadn't, then an imac i7 quad core with 3TB fusion drive upgraded to 16 gigs would have been an easy choice. But as I do have a good monitor I'm contemplating a basic mac pro instead, but will then need a decent size external drive.

What I'm struggling to find out about is how I'd set up a mac pro with say a 4TB external to get the most benefit from the ssd drive, I've not found any info about it. Or is it that I don't need to know anything and just put the system and apps on the ssd and work on the external?

I use most of the adobe creative suite for graphics work plus my photography though I'm not into video production so maybe a mac pro isn't the best choice - get an imac and potentially sell my Eizo? I'm not sure if I'm breaking a leg to make use of a crutch I found in the attic.

--
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Fazal Majid · Nov 17, 2016

ArtAlt said:
Apple puts us in a tough spot by charging so much for the Mac Pro and failing to update it for so long. It is feasible that those chips will still be way faster than anything else out there but I wonder about the memory speed and bus to SSD.

The Mac Pro might still be amazing b/c I've noticed that speed improvements in recent years on other Mac's have been very incremental.

See this review for an in-depth comparison:

Loading…

barefeats.com

The Mac Pro is not that much more expensive than the MacBook Pro. The hardware is dated, mostly due to Intel being complacent with its workstation-class Xeon chips.

I'd wait another 8 months for the Cannonlake rMBP, which would allow 32GB of LPDDR4 RAM.

Nick1992 · Nov 18, 2016

That is great to hear, as I am looking to upgrade to a 27 in 2015 iMac.

Did you go with the i7 4.0?

how much flash storage?

And which graphics card?

Trek of Joy · Nov 18, 2016

ArtAlt said:
The Mac Pro might still be amazing b/c I've noticed that speed improvements in recent years on other Mac's have been very incremental.

--
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The new iMacs soundly beat the Mac Pro in many benchmarks. Speed improvements have been pretty significant IMO. The read/write speeds on my late 2015 i7 iMac are double what my 6-core nMP with 32gb ram, dual AMD500 cards and a 512gb SSD could achieve. The retina screen got a major upgrade as well, going from a 8-bit to 10-bit panel.

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ArtAlt · Nov 19, 2016

New xeon processor soon from Intel? That's the rumor that I read earlier today. Apparently it's "based" on the latest generation chips. This could be a real windfall for people that want the power of a modernized Mac Pro.

I still worry though that Apple does not more regularly update this machine, even just with faster peripherals and peripheral connections and RAM.

Kendall Helmstetter Gelner · Nov 19, 2016

Rumars are the the Mac Pro and iMac will be refreshed early next year - both have not been updated for a while.

That means that the comparison between them could change substantially, so I would wait and see how that all shakes out.

If nothing else it could mean current hardware could get quite a lot cheaper in just a few months as people sell off stuff after the upgrade, or Apple gets rid of older stock...

Trek of Joy · Nov 19, 2016

ArtAlt said:
New xeon processor soon from Intel? That's the rumor that I read earlier today. Apparently it's "based" on the latest generation chips. This could be a real windfall for people that want the power of a modernized Mac Pro.

I still worry though that Apple does not more regularly update this machine, even just with faster peripherals and peripheral connections and RAM.

whazzup · Nov 19, 2016

ByAccident said:
JerryriggedTECH said:

I'm gonna have this same dilemma in a year or so. Currently, I'm running Mac mini desktop and I've got a 2013 Macbook Pro 15" retina. The Mac Mini is a great little computer, but a bit underpowered (I've upgraded mine with dual SSDs and maxed out the RAM). So the choices are new Macbook Pro, iMac, or Mac Pro. I like having a good mobile solution, and so maybe an new Macbook Pro will be the way to go (for me). I would equip with at least 512GB or 1TB internal SSD (the new ones are crazy fast), and then my external storage would be my current Promise Pegasus Thunderbolt raid array. The big internal SSD would give me enough room for current projects to be always with me on the notebook, where older projects could be off-loaded to the raid array. I guess the real question, is what are your computing needs. Seems for me, a quad core i7, discreet mobile graphics and 16 GB RAM will probably be sufficient. But I do mostly photography, with the occasional short video project. Good luck with your decision.

Click to expand...

I would recommend upgrading the RAM. Crucial sells a decent kit for a fair price and can really bring out the full potential of your iMac. I have the mid spec machine (i5) with 32gb of RAM and this thing flies. Even video projects render quickly let alone photoshop/lightroom.

Here is the link for the RAM upgrade:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00JCRZ6XS/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o02_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Tom_N · Nov 19, 2016

whazzup said:
I just ordered a 5k iMac. It comes with 4x2 ram. Can I use 4x2 and 8x2 (for a total of 24 GB) in that machine? Or do all the memory need to match size. The 5k has 4 memory slots.

Crucial lists the Retina 5K, 27-inch, Late 2015 iMac as having "2 banks of 2 [slots each]" and a limit of 64 GB of RAM (16 GB per module).

According to Apple, the limit is 32 GB (8 GB per module).

Apple - Late 2015 iMac - iMac Essentials

I don't see either claiming that all four slots must contain the same size of module. It is not even clear that modules must be of the same size within each bank (although, assuming that there are two banks, there might be some small performance advantage to using pairs of matched modules – something you were planning to do anyway).

Fazal Majid · Nov 19, 2016

Tom_N said:
whazzup said:

I just ordered a 5k iMac. It comes with 4x2 ram. Can I use 4x2 and 8x2 (for a total of 24 GB) in that machine? Or do all the memory need to match size. The 5k has 4 memory slots.

Click to expand...

Crucial lists the Retina 5K, 27-inch, Late 2015 iMac as having "2 banks of 2 [slots each]" and a limit of 64 GB of RAM (16 GB per module).

According to Apple, the limit is 32 GB (8 GB per module).

Apple - Late 2015 iMac - iMac Essentials

I don't see either claiming that all four slots must contain the same size of module. It is not even clear that modules must be of the same size within each bank (although, assuming that there are two banks, there might be some small performance advantage to using pairs of matched modules – something you were planning to do anyway).

I have a 5K iMac with 40GB of RAM (the 2x4GB it shipped with + 2x16GB from OWC). It works now, but when I was still running El Crapitan, it would randomly crash every 2-3 days or so. The upgrade to Sierra fixed it. The Intel chipset supports the memory configuration, but OS X clearly had issues.

whazzup · Nov 24, 2016

Fazal Majid said:
Tom_N said:

whazzup said:

I just ordered a 5k iMac. It comes with 4x2 ram. Can I use 4x2 and 8x2 (for a total of 24 GB) in that machine? Or do all the memory need to match size. The 5k has 4 memory slots.

Click to expand...

Crucial lists the Retina 5K, 27-inch, Late 2015 iMac as having "2 banks of 2 [slots each]" and a limit of 64 GB of RAM (16 GB per module).

According to Apple, the limit is 32 GB (8 GB per module).

Apple - Late 2015 iMac - iMac Essentials

I don't see either claiming that all four slots must contain the same size of module. It is not even clear that modules must be of the same size within each bank (although, assuming that there are two banks, there might be some small performance advantage to using pairs of matched modules – something you were planning to do anyway).

Click to expand...

I have a 5K iMac with 40GB of RAM (the 2x4GB it shipped with + 2x16GB from OWC). It works now, but when I was still running El Crapitan, it would randomly crash every 2-3 days or so. The upgrade to Sierra fixed it. The Intel chipset supports the memory configuration, but OS X clearly had issues.

whazzup · Nov 28, 2016

So I was real disappointed at first with the performance of my new iMac 5K with 8GB and 2TB drive. I thought I would benefit from the larger solid state portion of the 2TB fusion drive. I found, though, that I was banging up against the 8GB of memory and using virtual memory. So I got the extra 16GB of memory and now it seems better. Either the memory is the issue, or the computer is moving more of my frequently used files to the SSD portion of the fusion drive. But whatever it is, I am happier now. 24 GB does indeed work well. thanks

Gareth Bourne · Nov 28, 2016

jkjond said:
I'm in a bit of a quandary regarding mac upgrade.

How quickly do you need it? Can you hang on for another 6 months or so? The Mac Pro is 3 years old, and the iMac a year old.

I'm sure the iMac will be updated / speed bumped in the spring.

Another option is a new MacBook Pro?

The Mac Pro, no idea, but my personal theory is Apple will move the Mac to their own custom designed ARM processors at some point, and when they do they will start with the Mac Pro as demonstration of power and because it's low volume and most frequently used with professional apps, such as Final Cut Pro, so Apple can control the user experience.

I've no idea if/when that will happen, but everything seems to be pointing that way.

Fazal Majid · Nov 29, 2016

whazzup said:
So I was real disappointed at first with the performance of my new iMac 5K with 8GB and 2TB drive. I thought I would benefit from the larger solid state portion of the 2TB fusion drive. I found, though, that I was banging up against the 8GB of memory and using virtual memory. So I got the extra 16GB of memory and now it seems better. Either the memory is the issue, or the computer is moving more of my frequently used files to the SSD portion of the fusion drive. But whatever it is, I am happier now. 24 GB does indeed work well. thanks

Fusion drive, like other hybrid SSD-HDD schemes, fails to deliver significantly better performance. Let go of the spinning rust, you'll be much happier.

Jacques Cornell · Nov 29, 2016

Fazal Majid said:
whazzup said:

So I was real disappointed at first with the performance of my new iMac 5K with 8GB and 2TB drive. I thought I would benefit from the larger solid state portion of the 2TB fusion drive. I found, though, that I was banging up against the 8GB of memory and using virtual memory. So I got the extra 16GB of memory and now it seems better. Either the memory is the issue, or the computer is moving more of my frequently used files to the SSD portion of the fusion drive. But whatever it is, I am happier now. 24 GB does indeed work well. thanks

Click to expand...

Fusion drive, like other hybrid SSD-HDD schemes, fails to deliver significantly better performance. Let go of the spinning rust, you'll be much happier.

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Mac pro v imac?

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