albertobari Posted May 17, 2008 Share #21 Posted May 17, 2008 Advertisement (gone after registration) I have from 2 weeks a iMAC with 1 tera HD and 4 Gb ram. It's wonderful and the speed is four time than a PC! In 2 hours I do the work of 2 days!!! Simply wonderful and easy to understood for a man that arrive from PC too! Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Advertisement Posted May 17, 2008 Posted May 17, 2008 Hi albertobari, Take a look here iMac or Mac Pro . I'm sure you'll find what you were looking for!
Photon42 Posted May 17, 2008 Share #22 Posted May 17, 2008 may one more comparision, forgive me for the Swiss Franc, conv rate should be approx 1:1 to the US$ ... 24" iMac dual core is CHF 2'200 MacPro quad core (one proc) is CHF 3040. Additional display required Other components are as equal as possible. The MacPro does use XEON processors, though. For the price difference you get theoretically doubled performance (two more cores), expandability in terms of, cards, in-box drives and the most memory possible in a mac. You trade in the 24" display of the iMac, of course. Keep in mind computers are written off in approx three years and add this to your productivity increase bill when using a more expensive machine. Of course, there are valid reasons for a MacPro. To me, the critical factors are: memory > 4GB, display options, ultimate speed. If any of those is a must, go for the MacPro. My advise is, really go and see the iMac display in person, as this is the one thing difficult to estimate in a web shop. After all, you're doing visually important things ... Kind regards Ivo Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
mym6is12 Posted May 17, 2008 Share #23 Posted May 17, 2008 Last month I was going through a similar dilemma - as my aging 1GHz G4 powerbook just was not a lot of fun. I was really looking for a mini-desktop - more than a mac-mini but less the a mac pro. In the end I went for the Mac Pro and I'm 100% sure it was the right choice. Doing stitching and HDR together is now practical, but it did require even more power than I had envisaged - an iMac would have seriously struggled. I ended up needing to add 3 fast drives in RAID0 and 12GB of RAM to keep the processors running at 100% during the disk intensive IO of PTGui - sustained 270MB/s disk writes for 80GB+ of scratch. Even if you don't need the processing power now, with the Mac Pro the flexibility will be there to explore new ideas in the future if you have the ability to expand. The 4GB of RAM support of the iMac can be a real slow down factor ( due to page outs ) if your are running multiple apps - PS, bridge, lightroom , HDR, safari, mail etc. Photoshop will also run quicker if you use an separate scratch disk, and extra RAM helps the kernel buffer IO operations. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
KM-25 Posted May 18, 2008 Share #24 Posted May 18, 2008 I am running a 24 imac in the living room, bought it for my girlfriend to do web apps and such. I think it is a great machine, but upstairs is the monster: MacPro quad 2.8, twin 10,000 rpm Raptors, twin 1TB internal SATA drives, twin DVD burners for dual authoring sessions, 16 GB of ram, fast video card, 20 and 30 inch monitors, raid, etc. I could live with the iMac, but the MacPro allows me to get a lot done at the same time without a blink. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
cocker Posted May 18, 2008 Author Share #25 Posted May 18, 2008 Thanks everyone for your helpful responses. I've had a look at the options now. I like the iMac in almost all respects but I am not keen on the Glossy screen. I have a good LaCie monitor so think that I am going to go for the MacPro. Now my challenge is to convince the non-photographer Partner in my business (who is also my wife!) that its a good CapEx project! Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
WmAl Posted May 18, 2008 Share #26 Posted May 18, 2008 Keith, I just upgraded my 20", 3 year old iMac to a 24" iMac which I use CS3 on. It has 2.8 Gig processor, 4Gigs of RAM, & 1 Tera-byte hard drive. The 24" is the way to go for a photographer and the most bang for your buck, IMHO. More RAM & hard drive the better. I believe the 3.06 Gig machine is considered BTO and has less of a warranty. Check this out closely. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
cocker Posted May 18, 2008 Author Share #27 Posted May 18, 2008 Advertisement (gone after registration) Keith,I just upgraded my 20", 3 year old iMac to a 24" iMac which I use CS3 on. It has 2.8 Gig processor, 4Gigs of RAM, & 1 Tera-byte hard drive. The 24" is the way to go for a photographer and the most bang for your buck, IMHO. More RAM & hard drive the better. I believe the 3.06 Gig machine is considered BTO and has less of a warranty. Check this out closely. William - thanks .How do you find the glossy screen. I have two concerns on seeing it in the shop - colour fidelity and reflections from lighting in my office? - What is BTO? Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
andybarton Posted May 18, 2008 Share #28 Posted May 18, 2008 BTO = Build To Order Unfortunately, our "family" iMac has just gone TU (after 6+ years of being constantly on...), so I am also in the market. I'm thinking about a MacBook instead, but will wait until Apple Developer Conference is over, as there could be something new coming in the Summer. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
GMB Posted May 18, 2008 Share #29 Posted May 18, 2008 I had to make exactly the same choice a few month ago and eventually went for the Mac Pro. Main reason was that I did not like the glossy screen and preferred to have more options- So far, I am happy with the choice, in particular since I swapped my old monitor for a new EIZO which is fabulous. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Baxter Posted May 19, 2008 Share #30 Posted May 19, 2008 Some useful information here thankyou for enlightening me. My 1.25GHz G4 has just ceased working (suspect power supply). I have 2.16 Macbook Pro, but no idea how quick the new Mac Pros are in relation to this. People seem happy with the 2.8, but what extra bang does the 3.0 GHz bring. Is it better RAMming it up so to speak, with the slower clock speed model? Cannot see my file sizes increasing, but the G4 definitely struggled with 1GB+ files.... Hence due to the size of the highest res 5x4 pictures, storage is an issue (volume of digital pix from M8 and D300 is eating space up too), thus ruled out the iMac (plus have SCSI scanner for LF work so may need to fit PCI SCSI card). eSATA sounds good, think I have this on a couple of LaCie external drives. Advice on waiting to June is helpful, may be able to hang on with old HDs in enclosures to access data. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
tobey bilek Posted May 20, 2008 Share #31 Posted May 20, 2008 Owning both a portable Macbook and an iMac 24, I do all photostuff on the iMac. The book has a glossy screen and side by side with a plastic iMac, if there are no lights behind you, there is no difference. If you decide on a portable, get a mouse for it for photowork, preferably wireless. A real keyboard is nice too. Both are $50 each. CS3 optimises at 2 gb ram with psd file, 4 gb with TIFF. You need a platform swap from Apple for $25 to rum your CS3 on a Mac, They will ask for certification the CS3 windows is distroyed by return fax. In the mean time download a trial of CS3 and plug in the serial when it arrives in the mail. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
pierovitch Posted May 20, 2008 Share #32 Posted May 20, 2008 IMac pro because you can get a great big high resolution screen and calibrate it.Then run slide shows and never bother with prints. Printing is about loss minimization so why bother with something that costs more than a fantastic monitor. disclaimer -This might be related to my envy of a friends 30" monitor. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
WmAl Posted May 20, 2008 Share #33 Posted May 20, 2008 William - thanks .How do you find the glossy screen. I have two concerns on seeing it in the shop - colour fidelity and reflections from lighting in my office? - What is BTO? Hi Keith, Color and sharpness is excellent. Screen will reflect light in office, I work in low light environment to minimize reflections. I think Build To Order units (3.06 may be BTO) have a different warrantee. I heard this somewhere but don't remember where. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
stunsworth Posted May 20, 2008 Share #34 Posted May 20, 2008 Printing is about loss minimization so why bother with something that costs more than a fantastic monitor. Because, a. The print will have a higher resolution than the screen, and b. carrying a Mac Pro + 30 inch monitor down to the pub when you want to share some photographs get a bit tedious after a while. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
gwelland Posted May 20, 2008 Share #35 Posted May 20, 2008 Owning both a portable Macbook and an iMac 24, I do all photostuff on the iMac. The book has a glossy screen and side by side with a plastic iMac, if there are no lights behind you, there is no difference. If you decide on a portable, get a mouse for it for photowork, preferably wireless. A real keyboard is nice too. Both are $50 each. CS3 optimises at 2 gb ram with psd file, 4 gb with TIFF. BTW: CS3 optimization has got NOTHING to do with the file format. It is the same for TIFF, PSD, DNG, NEF or whatever file format you use to load images into CS3. If you are serious about image processing with a MacBook then use an external monitor/LCD - it's the only way that you can hope to get any consistency. A laptop screen's brightness is not consistent unless you can guarantee the same seating position and angle for the screen - even then there are other variables at play. For the non-critical user the iMac display, when calibrated, works fine for the majority of photo editing work. If your needs are more critical then you'll be disappointed with the screen compared to a Cinema display or 3rd party photo editing LCD. I've had iMac's in the past - the biggest downside really is limited expandability. you've essentially got a laptop packed in the back of a fixed LCD screen and so this means you can't change/upgrade the internal components beyond say adding memory or swapping out the disk drive. If you want to do serious photo editing work then I'd recommend getting a tablet from someone like Wacom. There's no comparison to futzing around with a mouse. Using the built-in trackpad with a laptop is an exercise in frustration - even just doing rotates/crops is frustrating. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
wstotler Posted May 20, 2008 Share #36 Posted May 20, 2008 Is it better RAMming it up so to speak, with the slower clock speed model? In general, yes. What I do is wait for a product refresh from Apple. During the refresh usually the previous top end machine becomes the "new" low end machine. That's when I buy it--and use the money I saved by buying the "new" low end machine to max out the RAM. (I use Crucial RAM, also, BTW. Saw that mentioned above.) I always buy Apple Pro machines, not the iMacs, because the GHZ+Max RAM combo on the Pro machines seems to be viable for more years than an iMac setup. (Another factor is that I run two monitors.) Thanks, Will Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
cocker Posted May 20, 2008 Author Share #37 Posted May 20, 2008 I(Another factor is that I run two monitors.) Thanks, Will Will - I specifically asked at the Mac Store about running a second monitor on the iMac and was told that was possible. Is this not correct? Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
WmAl Posted May 21, 2008 Share #38 Posted May 21, 2008 Keith, Here's a good comparison on iMac: Early 2008 iMac CPU "Crunch" Tests "early 2008" iMac Penryn - CPU crunching Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
cbretteville Posted May 21, 2008 Share #39 Posted May 21, 2008 Will - I specifically asked at the Mac Store about running a second monitor on the iMac and was told that was possible. Is this not correct? The iMac has a mini-DVI connector. Surely OSX can span the screen by now? Anyway, to run a screen #2 at something like 1600x1200 resolution may require a display card that has 512MB. When setting up my current PC with two 20" 1600x1200 screens I had to upgrade my display card to one that had 512MB, with 256MB the second screen had to run at a lower resolution. OSX may do things differently than XP in this respect, I don't know, but it is worth asking someone that does. (I'll be moving to a Mac later this summer so this is interesting for me as well.) - Carl Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
kbingman Posted May 21, 2008 Share #40 Posted May 21, 2008 The iMac has a mini-DVI connector. Surely OSX can span the screen by now? Anyway, to run a screen #2 at something like 1600x1200 resolution may require a display card that has 512MB. When setting up my current PC with two 20" 1600x1200 screens I had to upgrade my display card to one that had 512MB, with 256MB the second screen had to run at a lower resolution. OSX may do things differently than XP in this respect, I don't know, but it is worth asking someone that does. (I'll be moving to a Mac later this summer so this is interesting for me as well.) - Carl I ran a second monitor from my old white 24" iMac. The monitor had 1680 x 1050 resolution, the graphic card 256mb. It worked very well. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
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