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Archive 2013 · Imac or Mac Pro - what should I get?

  
 
heikoM
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p.1 #1 · p.1 #1 · Imac or Mac Pro - what should I get?


Hi guys,

need a bit of help here, please. I am no computer expert at all, so I feel lost.
For now I have an old Imac with 4 GB RAM and a regular drive. I use Aperture.

I need to upgrade, because this thing drives me crazy. Sooo slow.

What do you recommend? Donīt do an awful lot of weddings (yet) but donīt want to spend unneccesary hours in front of my Mac either, as I have family and another full-time job.


Imac 16GB and SSD? or the new Mac Pro in the basic version?

Anything else?


I know, itīs not really wedding related, but you know, what it means to edit 1000 pics in a row and I know, I donīt get much BS here.


thanks,

Heiko



Oct 24, 2013 at 02:17 AM
TTLKurtis
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p.1 #2 · p.1 #2 · Imac or Mac Pro - what should I get?


Alternate idea... have you considered outsourcing batch edits?


Oct 24, 2013 at 03:01 AM
heikoM
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p.1 #3 · p.1 #3 · Imac or Mac Pro - what should I get?


about outsourcing...

edits and PP is part of my creative process. Still finding my way. So that is not an option i am afraid.

thanks for trying to help

heiko



Oct 24, 2013 at 04:14 AM
Guillaume de B
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p.1 #4 · p.1 #4 · Imac or Mac Pro - what should I get?


I would max out a Mac mini and get whatever external monitor you like/can afford. Top spec Mac Minis are very fast, quad core i7, 16gb ram, SSD. Then if you decide you need a Mac Pro in the future when you have more work you already have a great monitor. That is the problem with iMacs in my opinion, you're having to pay for, and then throw away a screen every time you upgrade computers.


Oct 24, 2013 at 05:06 AM
playerofwar
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p.1 #5 · p.1 #5 · Imac or Mac Pro - what should I get?


Monitor: Dell Ultrasharp (24" or 27",are best price/quality wise)


Oct 24, 2013 at 06:24 AM
Jeff Simpson
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p.1 #6 · p.1 #6 · Imac or Mac Pro - what should I get?


if you have to go the Mac route.. the mac mini idea mentioned above is a solid option. otherwise, you definitely don't need the mac pro, so go with an iMac.

with regards to the monitor, IMO the dell ultrasharps are mediocre, there are many as good or better choices.. so do your research.



Oct 24, 2013 at 07:47 AM
othfilm
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p.1 #7 · p.1 #7 · Imac or Mac Pro - what should I get?


Yeah, Mac Pro is overkill for what you need...you need that kind of power if you are doing video editing or graphics or special effects; standard photo editing.

I'd say either get an Macbook Pro or an iMac where you max out the memory and graphics card. Both will come in at like, half the price of a Mac Pro



Oct 24, 2013 at 09:07 AM
NathanHamler
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p.1 #8 · p.1 #8 · Imac or Mac Pro - what should I get?


I just went from a 3.06ghz Core i3 iMac with 8gb of ram, to a 2.3 quad i7 Mac Mini, with an SSD and 8gb of ram.....the mini flies, it's really a big difference on processor intensive stuff....One good thing, is that i can now put an Aperture library on my desktop, on the SSD, and work from it....i'll put stuff in there temporarily, edit, and then move them off to my internal 1tb drive (Mac Mini has a spot for 2 drives)....i will say, that i put a 256gb SSD in, and i prob need to swap it for a 512gb..but that's easy enough to do....

Oh yeah, and my Mini was $679, refurbished straight from Apple...same warranty and Apple care options as factory units (although i didn't buy any b/c i put the 2nd drive in)......the SSD was less than $200, and the ram was like $65......so for less than $1k, you get a sick machine......i already had a 21.5' Dell Ultrasharp (about $200), and then i grabbed a 19" monitor just to set to the side for addition desktop space......The mini really is the way to go.....



Oct 24, 2013 at 09:19 AM
PatFurey89
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p.1 #9 · p.1 #9 · Imac or Mac Pro - what should I get?


I had a 2010 Mac Pro with 2.8 Quad, 16GB ram, an SSD, etc.

I just upgraded to the new 2013 iMac with 3.5 i7, 32GB ram, SSD, and got a Pegasus R6 for storage. In literal nerd heaven, at least 5x faster than my previous machine which was no slouch to begin with.

I wouldn't get a Mini... Just me though. Mac Pro is overkill for image editing and more aimed at video guys / animators I'd like to think. Now that everything I/O wise is external though it doesn't matter as much which way you go.



Oct 24, 2013 at 11:15 AM
swoop
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p.1 #10 · p.1 #10 · Imac or Mac Pro - what should I get?


I think it's wise to get the most powerful computer you can afford at the time. With the current state of technology a good computer can last awhile. Photo editing really is an easy chore for modern computers. Even our phones can do it.


Oct 24, 2013 at 04:16 PM
qburke
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p.1 #11 · p.1 #11 · Imac or Mac Pro - what should I get?


iMac with a second thunderbolt display


Oct 24, 2013 at 05:31 PM
Mark_EL
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p.1 #12 · p.1 #12 · Imac or Mac Pro - what should I get?


One thing is for sure... I would get SSD if I were you.

I work with a 2011 Macbook Pro 2.0 ghz quad core i7 with 8Gb RAM (maxed out unfortunately). This spring I replaced my superdrive with a 128Gb SSD to run my OSX, my programs and my virtual memory. And thát made my machine a lot faster. (my 500Gb HDD is now my data drive)



Oct 25, 2013 at 04:50 PM
DblDrgn
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p.1 #13 · p.1 #13 · Imac or Mac Pro - what should I get?


I'm currently using a 2012 Mac Mini 2.6GHz i7 with 16GB RAM. I'd recommend the mini for photo editing, but if I were in the market for a computer right now I'd spring for one of those new Mac Pro's.

However, the mini is really fine for this type of work (Lightroom, Adobe CS6, etc.)



Oct 25, 2013 at 05:03 PM
mjoshi
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p.1 #14 · p.1 #14 · Imac or Mac Pro - what should I get?


Guillaume de B wrote:
I would max out a Mac mini and get whatever external monitor you like/can afford. Top spec Mac Minis are very fast, quad core i7, 16gb ram, SSD. Then if you decide you need a Mac Pro in the future when you have more work you already have a great monitor. That is the problem with iMacs in my opinion, you're having to pay for, and then throw away a screen every time you upgrade computers.



+1 to that, iMac - good luck getting it properly calibrated. Yes if you are going to entertain clients - 27" iMac will work as eye candy but nothing else. Maxed out mac mini and upgrade RAM + SSD on your own. People who says SSD + max RAM does not make difference in LR4 for editing purpose are living in 2008, and I've heard that from some big names here on their DVDs.
If you can live with it look into PC.



Oct 25, 2013 at 05:50 PM
sboerup
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p.1 #15 · p.1 #15 · Imac or Mac Pro - what should I get?


mjoshi wrote:
+1 to that, iMac - good luck getting it properly calibrated. Yes if you are going to entertain clients - 27" iMac will work as eye candy but nothing else. Maxed out mac mini and upgrade RAM + SSD on your own. People who says SSD + max RAM does not make difference in LR4 for editing purpose are living in 2008, and I've heard that from some big names here on their DVDs.
If you can live with it look into PC.


My iMac is properly calibrated just fine, and color is spot on. Never had a problem, in fact, looks better than my previous Dell monitors. It's not just eye candy, but a fantastic display that performs better than tons of other displays.

A really fast SSD will make your LR edits much quicker, so whoever says it doesn't is wrong. RAM is always good, you can never have too much. Can't say it improves LR as much, only when exporting.



Oct 25, 2013 at 09:56 PM
Tyson Egbert
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p.1 #16 · p.1 #16 · Imac or Mac Pro - what should I get?


Anyone have any input on the fusion drives?



Oct 25, 2013 at 11:12 PM
macentropist
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p.1 #17 · p.1 #17 · Imac or Mac Pro - what should I get?


I have an iMac 27" quad core i7 @ 3.4 Ghz, 24 GB ram, NVIDIA 680MX with 2GB, and a one terabyte Fusion drive, and it is a Photo workhorse. The fusion drive is as fast as my 2012 MacBook Air, that has a 512GB SSD. If i were to do it again, i would have ordered the 3 TB Fusion drive.

I recently aquired a Pegasus R4 Thunderbolt 8 TB drive that is a joy to use, as i have several 7-800 GB Aperture files. I cannot begin to tell you what a great job Promise Technologies does on the Pegasus systems, and they have new iterations coming out that support Thunderbolt II, and they are finally starting to offer systems with 3TB drives in lieu of the 2TB. I plan on upgrading the drives in my R4, to 4TB drives when space needs dictate it.

The Fusion drives from Apple kick major hiney!

Best part is i bought the iMac from Apple's refurb store for only 1999.00, plus added two 8GB ram modules for only 125 bucks.



Oct 26, 2013 at 02:14 PM
mjoshi
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p.1 #18 · p.1 #18 · Imac or Mac Pro - what should I get?


sboerup wrote:
My iMac is properly calibrated just fine, and color is spot on. Never had a problem, in fact, looks better than my previous Dell monitors. It's not just eye candy, but a fantastic display that performs better than tons of other displays.

A really fast SSD will make your LR edits much quicker, so whoever says it doesn't is wrong. RAM is always good, you can never have too much. Can't say it improves LR as much, only when exporting.


How about upgradeability of iMac down the road ? What happens if you want to swap out display for something better or if your monitor have issues ? I have looked hard at iMac before seeing Apple's weird obsession with making things thin and make it less and less upgradeable down the road.



Oct 26, 2013 at 04:54 PM
heikoM
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p.1 #19 · p.1 #19 · Imac or Mac Pro - what should I get?


Thanks for all the valuable input so far.

Is there a big performance difference between a 2.3 GHz processor in the mini versus a 3.4 processor in a Imac?

I think I heard somewhere that this makes a difference for Aperture...


Heiko

Edited on Oct 27, 2013 at 06:16 AM · View previous versions



Oct 27, 2013 at 02:31 AM
Claude
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p.1 #20 · p.1 #20 · Imac or Mac Pro - what should I get?


I also went from an iMac 24" early 2008 4GB to an iMac 27" i7 16GB and a 3TB fusion Drive. Big investment but it really speeds up my processing (I use Lightroom).

Claude



Oct 27, 2013 at 03:13 AM
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