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Archive 2009 · Which Mac Pro?

Mick Haensler
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p.2 #1 · Which Mac Pro?

I have a Macpro Octo 2.6 running FCP for full HD video and LR for photography. I output video through a AJA Kona card which makes a huge difference in performance when editing video. Aside from the occasional crash for no apparent reason, this is the most dependable machine I have ever owned. It handles four streams of 1080 24p video without a hiccup. The only issue I have is when editing HD, the output to my monitor from the Kona card can lag a bit throwing audio sync off. But as far as editing huge RAW files in LR, I have never even had a hint of an issue. If you can afford it, by all means get the 2.6.

Nov 24, 2009 at 02:19 PM

Future Man
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p.2 #2 · Which Mac Pro?

armandcp wrote:
My 2 cents. Although I am unix guy and Mac OS is Unix at it's core, I have to say that I am more than disappointed, at least with Snow Leopard. Totally inept (not to say inexistent) support from Apple. It has good stuff too, but for the money, not worth it IMO. For me at least, spending about 2500 bucks on a virtually piece of junk (or not as good - let alone better - as a Windows machine) is just not warranted. Did I mention upgrades are just a financial overkill ? Wish I could go back in time and make a better decision. But I have to stick with what I have until I can afford to change it. Sigh.

wow. Yes, it's your two cents, but I gotta throw in mine.

-Many people have thousands of dollars in Mac software and they aren't going to ditch all that just to save a few hundred on a comparable PC

-How has Apple not supported Snow Leopard?

-You are calling Macs "a virtually piece of junk"? Honestly? Saying that reveals you have some kind of agenda. Millions of creative pros around the world use Macs everyday and get the job done

-I have a 3 year old iMac that still runs pretty damn good, though is showing it's age w/ my 5DII's RAW files and HD video. What do you mean by upgrades are a "financial overkill"? Upgrades as in HDs and RAM? Or are you calling buying a new Mac an "upgrade?" Either way, both are not financial overkill as a faster computer saves time, and thus money

Nov 24, 2009 at 07:54 PM

Mr645
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p.2 #3 · Which Mac Pro?

The Mac Pro will hammer through RAW files. Plus, you have two machine. Use both, let one process files while working on the other.

Nov 25, 2009 at 03:17 AM

veeral
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p.2 #4 · Which Mac Pro?

hmm why bother with a macpro. Save the $$$ get some pc parts and invest in a EFiX Dongle, http://www.efixusa.net/. This will let you run both Mac OSX and Windows on your pc box.

Nov 26, 2009 at 08:51 PM

Arka
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p.2 #5 · Which Mac Pro?

Scott Moore wrote:
I know psystar has it's serious flamers and possibly for good reason, but the more I think about it, the more I think it could have the potential to be a great machine for its raw horsepower.

For better or for worse, Psystar got crushed Federal Court. Apple won its motion for summary judgment, and is likely to secure an injunction against them. For the moment, the judgment signals the end of large-scale, unofficial Apple cloning. Running MacOS on a non-Mac these days categorically violates the EULA.

veeral wrote:
hmm why bother with a macpro. Save the $$$ get some pc parts and invest in a EFiX Dongle, http://www.efixusa.net/. This will let you run both Mac OSX and Windows on your pc box.

Respectfully, I wouldn't advise anyone to breach the terms of the EULA. If you want to use MacOSX, buying a Mac is one of the only lawful ways to do it. If you're happy running Win7 or some other some other less hardware-restrictive OS, that's a separate issue.

Arka C.

Nov 27, 2009 at 01:44 AM

evertdoorn
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p.2 #6 · Which Mac Pro?

like said before, the new imacs might be very interesting. The icore chip is very capable of number crunching tasks, and that includes converting raw files for example (just compare benchmarks with icore chips for raw conversions, photoshop plugins, etc.). Combine that with 8gig of ram and you should be good to go.

It also handles multitasking very well. I run a W7 machine using one and while I'm converting large numbers of raws, I can easily do album design in indesign or other stuff. On mac, it should perform equally as well.

Only thing you don't get is extra drive bays and other flexibility stuff.

Nov 27, 2009 at 07:43 AM

Arka
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p.2 #7 · Which Mac Pro?

evertdoorn wrote:
like said before, the new imacs might be very interesting. The icore chip is very capable of number crunching tasks, and that includes converting raw files for example (just compare benchmarks with icore chips for raw conversions, photoshop plugins, etc.). Combine that with 8gig of ram and you should be good to go.

It also handles multitasking very well. I run a W7 machine using one and while I'm converting large numbers of raws, I can easily do album design in indesign or other stuff. On mac, it should perform equally as well.

Only thing you don't get is extra drive bays and other flexibility stuff.

As a MacPro owner, I have a hard time swallowing the added cost of MacPro by thinking about all the other expensive things I can install into it. I spent a fortune on a computer that I could add a fortune in peripherals to.

I get a strange sense of power-user satisfaction from it all, but it hardly makes economic sense, especially from the point of view of a working artist or photographer. I really do believe that an i7 iMac is a better value than a MacPro. Were I not thinking about adding a QuadroFX videocard (Maya) and a third monitor (Cintiq for painting) to my setup, I don't think I could justify the 8-core machine I have for the vast majority of photography tasks.

Arka C.

Nov 27, 2009 at 08:49 AM

bakka303
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p.2 #8 · Which Mac Pro?

None of them- the screens are awful for critical printing-glossy+way to contrasty-plus you have to be careful where you posistion your calibration device on these screens as they are different on the left+right. Personally if it has to be a mac get a tower and/or a lacie/eizo. Unless of course you just want something that looks 'pretty.'

Nov 27, 2009 at 09:50 AM

evertdoorn
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p.2 #9 · Which Mac Pro?

that is indeed a good point.

Nov 27, 2009 at 11:58 AM

karl_yyz
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p.2 #10 · Which Mac Pro?

The i7 iMac is beating the Pro Towers in bench marks. That simply means that the mac Pro Towers are in need of a serious refresh. I'm in the same boat as you, but I'm waiting for the new models which may come this January.

The following is just a rumor and speculation, but it may be where Apple's going

http://www.hardmac.com/news/2009/10/15/future-mac-pro-apple-to-enjoy-short-term-exclusive-use-of-future-xeon-cpu

Nov 28, 2009 at 08:31 PM

Andrew Gough
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p.2 #11 · Which Mac Pro?

6 cores will hit the PC world at the same time, just not in a server processor.

If you are already invested in MAC, then get the fastest processor setup and buy your RAM elsewhere, it'll cost the same in the end.

If not, Windows 7 is really, really stable on good hardware.

Dec 01, 2009 at 12:27 AM

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