louis fusco wrote:
900 euro for the 8 gig in the imac here, i've been waiting to upgrade probably get 4 and wait for the price of 8 to drop.
That's what I was thinking. I always considered my next machine to be a Mac Pro but with these specs I'm tempted by the iMac offering. Get the fastest machine, 1Tb disk, 4Gb and later upgrade to 8Gb. I figure an iMac lasts me about 3 years after which I'll want to upgrade. Don't know about the Mac Pro - maybe someone else might chimp in?
Careful about those iMac displays. A friend of mine just got one. You cannot properly calibrate/profile those displays. The lowest we could get the lumens (with my GMB i1) was 200 cd/m2. Maybe fine for someone who is surfing the net by his beach front window, but no good for a graphics professional.
Thanks for the info, John. 200 cd/m2 is way too much indeed. Even on my older iMac I can't get it below 156 and even that is too high, though the colors are very accurate on my Epson 3800.
if i upgrade it'll mean i've had mine for three years, was hoping it would do me for five but it's to slow with 15mb raw files on capture nx for my liking, don't want lightroom either.
I don't think anyone wants to buy the new 4-core MacPro. It looks like a total waste of money to me.
The 8-core MacPro has two 2.26GHz, 2.66GHz or 2.93GHz Quad-Core Intel Xeon 5500 series processors.
The 4-core: MacPro comes with one 2.66GHz or 2.93GHz Quad-Core Intel Xeon 3500 series processor and you can NOT upgrade the 4-core box later. You're limited to 8Gb and a single 4-core proc. Here's some info on the procs: http://www.tomshardware.com/news/intel-product-roadmap-2009,6384.html but anyway I guess buying an '08 MacPro with 8 cores for less than Apple wants for the new '09 4 core is not only cheaper but is more upgradable (32Gb, better procs, etc.) and will probably kick the '09 4-core's ass.So far the prices seem pretty whack for all the new MacPro models considering what's been improved.
louis fusco wrote:
another point there is the option of nvida of and ati video card, one might calibrate better than the other...
Not sure if they offer options. Since it's not mine, I really didn't research it too much, (and he's not in a position to buy a different one). I'm just the display cal/profile guy.
As usual a laptop will cost much more for the same specs. But a MacPro, even an old one, will mount as much as 32Gb of RAM and run up to 6 monitors. I would rather have my old MacPro with 12Gb of RAM and 5 monitors than the newest iMac.
No i7 920 based system. I think this is a huge disadvantage for photographers. The Mac Pro's are overkill for still photogs. The rest of the macs are easily outperformed by an inexpensive 920 based Win system.
I'm writing this on a Core 2 based Macbook Pro. A i7 based Win desktop smokes my $2800 Mac laptop. That's fine for laptops, but Apples laptop hardware in mac mini and iMac is not competitive.
I was a bit shocked at the Mac Pro pricing. But these new Xeon processors are very expensive. I don't see a problem with Mac's Xeon based pricing. I do see a big problem with no i7 based systems.
Nehelem is the codename for the i7 CPU. Well actually the core. Intel names the cores after rivers in Oregon or somewhere.
Ahhh I reread your post.
The Xeons are necessary because no one manufactures dual cpu desktop boards. The only dual socket boards you will find are server motherboards which run on xeon cpus.
A desktop i7 920 system is fast... hyperthreading and integrated memory controller. But I better stop because I am getting the upgrade bug even though I promised myself I would not upgrade anything until 2010.
amoergosum wrote:
What Mac Pro (which specs) would you order if you'd want to edit photos (PS CS4) and videos (FCP)?
If you want to do videos... get the nehelem. Benchmarks in photoshop do not really justify the higher price... but the new i7 cpus really blaze through video encoding and such. If your a pro... definitely worth it,
Just buy the fastest you can afford. You can always throw in a faster cpu later.
