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mrt2 · Nov 10, 2010, 08:43 AM

Ok so the classic question, the new iMac vs the old Mac Pro, which one is faster. I know the whole 'faster' thing is relative too depending on applications you're using but what I use the Most is Office 2011, iTunes, Safari, Chrome etc... the only thing is I multitask A LOT. I mean I have many many windows open at any given time because of the projects I work on and manage (I manage an IT team) so I have spreadsheets going and 10 draft emails going and 40 Safari/Chrome tabs going all at once usually etc... Currently I have a MacPro 1,1 with 2 Xeon 5100 dual core 2.0GHZ chips. My job is offering to give me one of the new 27inch iMac i5 @ 2.8GHZ. One of the main reasons I'd think about upgrading is the fact that currently there is work on Windows computers that I need to do so I VNC into a Windows computer as my current MacPro cannot run Parallels very well and it slows down both the Mac side and the Windows side too much to be useful to me. If the new iMac processors could handle virtualizing Windows XP using parallels well then I'd definitely do the switch. Any guidance would definitely be appreciated. Thanks all

PS. The iMac i5 is the clarkdale chip and the i7 is the lynndale chip right?

P · Nov 10, 2010, 09:02 AM

Originally Posted by mrt2

The iMac i5 is the clarkdale chip and the i7 is the lynndale chip right?

No, Intel is being deliberately confusing here. Short version is that the quadcore chips are Lynnfield and dualcore chips are Clarkdale. The difference between the quadcore i5-760 (which is what I think it is in the machine you're being offered) and the i7-870 is that the i7 has Hyperthreading turned on. An i5-760 is thus more similar to the i7-870 than to the i5-680.

For your original question: a quadcore i5 iMac will be faster than a MacPro 1,1 on most tasks. It has a higher clockspeed, newer architechture, and way lower latency to main memory. In addition, it has a faster GPU and is cheaper to upgrade the memory on. The advantages of the MP are that you can easily upgrade the HD and GPU. I'd take the iMac, if I were you.

Waragainstsleep · Nov 10, 2010, 11:37 AM

I'm not sure why you are struggling. Any Mac Pro should be complete overkill for the kind of work you describe. I had an early 2008 MacBook Pro with 4GB RAM in it which regularly had email, iCal, iChat, MSN, Word, Excel, iTunes, Twitter, MS Remote Desktop (several instances sometimes) and I regularly clocked up over 100 Safari tabs on it. It never had any issue even with a VM running. And I went for big drives over fast ones. Often had only a few GB if not MB left on its only drive.

If your Mac Pro is struggling to run one VM and a few Safari tabs then maybe you ought to get your IT team to have a look at it for you. VMs are usually going to benefit from more RAM. My current 2.4GHz Late 2008 MacBook Pro (5400rpm disk which has issues and no space) only starts to really chug when I run three VMs at once. I suspect putting more RAM in would alleviate this issue for the most part.

Bottom line, you should not be stretching your current hardware and if you are paying the bill, an iMac is unjustifiable. Assuming you are not paying the bill, I would get the iMac and see if they'll let you take the Pro home for cheap/free since they obviously have more cash than sense. Should still be worth a few bucks.

SierraDragon · Nov 11, 2010, 04:45 PM

I would add RAM and a second display to the MP. IMO going down from a MP to an iMac makes no sense for your described work. Multiple dispalys can be very productive.

-Allen Wicks

P · Nov 11, 2010, 05:22 PM

You can use two displays on an iMac as well - not that you need to, with the 2560*1440 27" screen you have built in - so that's not a reason. I don't think everyone understands the enormous performance boost that the Nehalem architechture brought to the MP. It's a huge boost for the type of work the OP describes.

Waragainstsleep · 01:10 PM

You'll forgive me if I'm missing some epic sarcasm here but WTF? The OP describes work that could be easily achieved on a MacBook Air. Not super fast, but perfectly doable.
Any task will get faster by adding RAM and/or CPU speed. Are you going to get $2000 worth of faster by going to an iMac? No. I really don't think you'll see that much difference for the work you describe. Other than Parallels. Maybe. If you were encoding video, it might be a worthwhile upgrade.
If you really want to be faster and fancy having two displays, consider selling the Pro and getting two Mac Minis.
Have you tried VMWare Fusion at all? You didn't mention what kind of work you do on Windows.

If you manage IT teams, surely they could answer this question for you? Do you have pointy hair by any chance?

cgc · Nov 12, 2010, 06:15 PM

You can't run Parallels very well? I have a 2.66GHz MacPro 1.1 (2006 model) with 6GB of memory and run Windows Vista Business (32-bit) in VMWare Fusion all the time. I use my Mac apps with nom noticeable slowdown except when the OSes fight over using the hard drives. BTW, I run Office 2011, Safari, iTunes, Handbrake, Aperture, and multitask a lot as well.

What version of Parallels you using? My version of VMWare Fusion (3.1) gets crushed by Parallels 5 in benchmarks...I hear version 6 of Parallels isn't nearly as good.

How much RAM does your machine have? I give Windows 2GB and 1 core.

ChrisB · Nov 12, 2010, 10:34 PM

I would agree that really you might just be looking at a RAM upgrade and maybe a larger/faster hard drive to handle page file swaps.

I'm on a MacBook Pro, and with regular multitasking and running a VM I never really have an issue.

P · Nov 13, 2010, 07:02 AM

While I agree that a used MBA would be enough for the task, the OP asked which would be faster. I simply answered.

You can't run Parallels very well? I have a 2.66GHz MacPro 1.1 (2006 model) with 6GB of memory and run Windows Vista Business (32-bit) in VMWare Fusion all the time. I use my Mac apps with nom noticeable slowdown except when the OSes fight over using the hard drives. BTW, I run Office 2011, Safari, iTunes, Handbrake, Aperture, and multitask a lot as well.

Parallels probably runs fine on your machine, but a newer machine from the Nehalem or Westmere generation, such as the latest iMacs or MPs, would be much faster. They have a feature called Extended Page Tables, which in essence means that the virtualized OS can use the hardware MMU directly without emulating it. The MMU is heavily used by modern OSes as part of virtual memory, and emulating it is a big reason why an OS ran in a VM is slower than the real thing. There are tasks that will run faster on an i3 iMac than on an older quadcore MP.

Some of them - not the i5 quadcore iMac, though, but all the MPs, the i7 quadcore and the i5 dualcore - have another virtualization fature called VT-d. VT-d means that certain pieces of hardware can be dedicated to the guest OS, with no slowdown. I don't know if Parallels supports this, but Fusion does. As an example, they note that you could have an MP with two graphics cards with one dedicated to a Windows guest. You could then play games in that guest with none of the slowdown from virtualization. Never tried it, of course, but it's an interesting feature.

angelmb · Nov 13, 2010, 12:28 PM

While we're at it… Mac Pro 2006, 8GB RAM, NVIDIA 8800GT running VMware Fusion 3 and Parallels 4. There is an issue with Parallels and Rhinoceros 3D software, while drawing (even just a straight line) the mouse pointer movement is nowhere as smooth as under VMware Fusion even when Parallels is (or feels) faster at everything else. Downloaded Parallels 6 and the issue is still there, Parallels Tools are installed. Same thing happens running Parallels with an Unibody MacBook Pro. What could be causing this?.

P · Nov 13, 2010, 01:54 PM

Originally Posted by angelmb

While we're at it… Mac Pro 2006, 8GB RAM, NVIDIA 8800GT running VMware Fusion 3 and Parallels 4. There is an issue with Parallels and Rhinoceros 3D software, while drawing (even just a straight line) the mouse pointer movement is nowhere as smooth as under VMware Fusion even when Parallels is (or feels) faster at everything else. Downloaded Parallels 6 and the issue is still there, Parallels Tools are installed. Same thing happens running Parallels with an Unibody MacBook Pro. What could be causing this?.

Haven't got a clue. You would probably have better luck with a new thread in Alternate OS.

cgc · Nov 13, 2010, 02:17 PM

Originally Posted by angelmb

While we're at it… Mac Pro 2006, 8GB RAM, NVIDIA 8800GT running VMware Fusion 3 and Parallels 4. There is an issue with Parallels and Rhinoceros 3D software, while drawing (even just a straight line) the mouse pointer movement is nowhere as smooth as under VMware Fusion even when Parallels is (or feels) faster at everything else. Downloaded Parallels 6 and the issue is still there, Parallels Tools are installed. Same thing happens running Parallels with an Unibody MacBook Pro. What could be causing this?.

Try version 5 of Parallels...reading reviews makes me think they introduced problems, bugs, slowdowns in version 6.