[P]

As the question of when the Mac Pro will be updated next keeps popping up, I figured it might be interesting to read up on the processor that (in all likelihood) will be powering it. RWT has a good piece here. It's quite long, but don't worry - the release of the chip is still several months away.

[Big Mac]

Do you think Apple is going to use a Sandy Bridge gen chip or skip to Ivy?

[P]

I think they will use Sandy Bridge-EP, the exact chip detailed in that article - although probably the cheapskate version with 1 QPI link and 3 memory channels. Ivy Bridge seems to be late, and the only real improvements we know that it has are a faster GPU and higher memory bandwidth. Sandy Bridge-EP already has that higher memory bandwidth and it doesn't have a GPU, so the only thing they can likely do is add more cores - again. Not sure they will bother developing and validating a chip for that - depends on how well AMD is doing, I guess.

The successor to Ivy Bridge is Haswell. We know basically nothing about that chip beyond some more AVX instructions, but if they go back to doing the server chip first (like Nehalem), there simply may not be enough time for an Ivy Bridge-EP.

[Big Mac]

As you could tell, I didn't read the article until now. Great stuff, great site.

Unfortunately I don't see the Mac Pro as a very valuable option anymore. iMacs with Thunderbolt seem like the much more cost effective high-end Apple choice.

[Doofy]

Don't need it updating. It's fast enough as it is thanks.

[Don Pickett]

Originally Posted by Big Mac 

As you could tell, I didn't read the article until now. Great stuff, great site.

Unfortunately I don't see the Mac Pro as a very valuable option anymore. iMacs with Thunderbolt seem like the much more cost effective high-end Apple choice.

Depends on what you're doing. Where I work the video people and retouchers are being upgraded to dual six-core machines stuffed with RAM and drives. The print production people are probably going to transition from single four-core machines to single six-core machines.

For some jobs, iMacs just won't do.

[Big Mac]

Understood. There is the very highest end of the needs spectrum, but I'm assuming that for those uses Apple is becoming less and less credible. (Referencing the mismanagement of FCP and other professional tools.)

[P]

Originally Posted by Don Pickett 

Depends on what you're doing. Where I work the video people and retouchers are being upgraded to dual six-core machines stuffed with RAM and drives. The print production people are probably going to transition from single four-core machines to single six-core machines.

For some jobs, iMacs just won't do.

A top-of-the-line iMac is faster than a sixcore MP on a lot of tasks, but I take your point: there are still areas where a big MP will sell. The last few iMacs have really moved that line, though: To beat a quadcore iMac, you need a task that easily spreads over more than 4 threads. There aren't that many.

[Don Pickett]

Originally Posted by Big Mac 

Understood. There is the very highest end of the needs spectrum, but I'm assuming that for those uses Apple is becoming less and less credible. (Referencing the mismanagement of FCP and other professional tools.)

Not from where I'm standing. We're buying more and more Mac Pros.

There's also the issue of iMacs and glossy screens. The IT people would like to move the designers over to iMacs, but you can't use a glossy screen in any office/cubicle with a window.

[Don Pickett]

Originally Posted by P 

A top-of-the-line iMac is faster than a sixcore MP on a lot of tasks, but I take your point: there are still areas where a big MP will sell. The last few iMacs have really moved that line, though: To beat a quadcore iMac, you need a task that easily spreads over more than 4 threads. There aren't that many.

It isn't just about processor speed: RAM and storage matter as well. The video people's machines all have tons of RAM and internal RAIDs, so four drive bays and lots of slots are a good thing. Add to this the fact that Mac Pros are much easier to work on and repair (bad GPU? Just pop in a new one, etc.) and I don't see iMacs replacing the Mac Pros any time soon for high end work.

[angelmb]

An iMac as high end workstation?

Sure, iMac current performance is blazingly fast but that is just one minor side of the whole picture.

– limited RAM, how much can it take, 16 GB? if that's the case, two years from now it will be not suitable for demanding pro work.
– very limited internal storage; not even internal RAID capable.
– glossy screens are a red flag for most pro work.
– even if glossy screens were ok, discoloration issues are far from being a rarity.
– Mac Pro(s) run way cooler than iMacs. Less hardware issues.

I am not even nit-picking about the lack of expansion cards, the lack of rotation screen… well, I guess you could rotate the iMac screen, but that would be kind of awkward.

For longevity in certain business, the Mac Pro is the best bet. Period.

[P]

Originally Posted by angelmb 

An iMac as high end workstation?
Sure, iMac current performance is blazingly fast but that is just one minor side of the whole picture.

Hardly minor, but yes, it's just one side. If your only reason for getting MP used to be performance, then the latest iMacs changed the situation. If you had other reasons, then they're still valid. Most of them, anyway - I have a few comments:

Originally Posted by angelmb 

– limited RAM, how much can it take, 16 GB? if that's the case, two years from now it will be not suitable for demanding pro work.

Officially it's 16 GB - the exact same as the single-CPU MP. Unofficially OWC is selling 8 GB DIMMs for a 32 GB ceiling on both. No advantage there.

Originally Posted by angelmb 

– very limited internal storage; not even internal RAID capable.

Just use an SSD. Because you were talking about RAID 0 for speed, right? If you meant RAID 5 or something for 24/7 reliability, you're talking about a server, and that's a different story.

Originally Posted by angelmb 

– glossy screens are a red flag for most pro work.

OK, let's not go there with the glossy again. I was only talking about the performance anyway.

Originally Posted by angelmb 

– even if glossy screens were ok, discoloration issues are far from being a rarity.

You mean the yellow spots in first run of the 27"? That was 2 years ago, FFS, and the cause was damage due to faulty packaging.

Originally Posted by angelmb 

– Mac Pro(s) run way cooler than iMacs. Less hardware issues.

Any data to back that up? The iMac carefully separates the sensitive components, HD and PSU, from the hot components, CPU and GPU, so the temp of those is around 40C - just where it should be. Both the desktop GPUs and the Gulftown CPU generally run at a higher temperature (see Tcase in ark for the CPU) and use more power, meaning that the PSU works harder.

Originally Posted by angelmb 

I am not even nit-picking about the lack of expansion cards, the lack of rotation screen… well, I guess you could rotate the iMac screen, but that would be kind of awkward.

There's a VESA mount for the iMac, it's just as easy to rotate as anything else. Not that I'd do that with an LCD, because of the viewing angle issues, but still.

Originally Posted by Don Pickett

It isn't just about processor speed: RAM and storage matter as well. The video people's machines all have tons of RAM and internal RAIDs, so four drive bays and lots of slots are a good thing. Add to this the fact that Mac Pros are much easier to work on and repair (bad GPU? Just pop in a new one, etc.) and I don't see iMacs replacing the Mac Pros any time soon for high end work.

The RAM ceiling I mentioned above. The iMac GPU is also replaceable (although you need to reseat the heatsink, so you need $5 worth of thermal paste). It's certainly easier to get in to an MP, but the current iMac is nowhere near as hard as previous models.

(Both of you missed one relevant performance point, btw: The MP supports ECC memory, which is a real benefit over the iMac).

[OreoCookie]

Originally Posted by angelmb 

– limited RAM, how much can it take, 16 GB? if that's the case, two years from now it will be not suitable for demanding pro work.

AFAIK the Core i7-based 27" iMac can take up to 32 GB RAM.

Originally Posted by angelmb 

– very limited internal storage; not even internal RAID capable.

You can connect external RAIDs at native speeds if you like.

To me, the main difference is three-fold (in the order of importance):
(1) Reliability: the Mac Pro uses server-grade components, e. g. ECC RAM.
(2) Raw cpu power in the high-end models.
(3) Potentially more GPU power.

Nowadays the lack of expansion cards and such is mitigated by Thunderbolt which essentially allows people to connect several PCIe devices to any Thunderbolt-equipped Mac, even external graphics cards (albeit at a performance cost).

While I don't see the iMac as a replacement of a Mac Pro in every respect, it can replace a Mac Pro for more and more users. Not a lot of users can benefit from having more than 16 GB RAM. The raw CPU and GPU power in iMacs is also plenty (the high-end iMac is faster than the entry-level Mac Pro).

[Don Pickett]

Originally Posted by P 

Officially it's 16 GB - the exact same as the single-CPU MP. Unofficially OWC is selling 8 GB DIMMs for a 32 GB ceiling on both. No advantage there.

No, it's 32 GB officially and 48 GB unofficially. I know, as I have one.

Just use an SSD. Because you were talking about RAID 0 for speed, right? If you meant RAID 5 or something for 24/7 reliability, you're talking about a server, and that's a different story.

SSDs are still stupidly expensive. I have yet to see one in use outside of the Airs.

Any data to back that up?

Yes: I see iMacs routinely running 120/130F and higher. My MP generally runs around 100F. Touch the top of an iMac which has been running all day and see how hot it gets.

Additionally, as I stated above, Mac Pros are much, much more serviceable than iMacs. Drive dies? Takes five minutes to install a new one. More serious problem with a machine? Pull the drive, put it in another Mac Pro, and you're back up in five minutes. And on and on.

iMacs are great prosumer machines. But I don't want one on my desk at work.

[Waragainstsleep]

Thunderbolt helps change the game quite a bit when it comes to the difference between Mac Pros and iMacs.
Now that you can have super fast external RAID, the only compelling reason go for the pro is if you need absolute top end graphics in it.
Very few users need 32GB RAM and even fewer actually buy it.

I would think the Mac Pro PSU is a much beefier unit than the one in the iMac and much better ventilated too.
Practically in terms of reliability, the Pro makes a bit of sense but very few buyers these days see past the price. Mac Pros are incredibly expensive. Way more than any iMac and (theoretically) the iMac comes with a $1000 Apple LCD and the Pro doesn't. Fewer and fewer people are going to see past this as time goes by.

The Mac Pro is a good machine, very well built and reliable but you can get an iMac maxed out for much less and then trade it up for a new one a couple of years later.

[Don Pickett]

Originally Posted by Waragainstsleep 

Thunderbolt helps change the game quite a bit when it comes to the difference between Mac Pros and iMacs.
Now that you can have super fast external RAID, the only compelling reason go for the pro is if you need absolute top end graphics in it.

You mean it will be, when a good number of Thunderbolt drives are on the market. . .

Very few users need 32GB RAM and even fewer actually buy it.

Actually, people who buy the Mac Pro need lots of RAM. 32 GB is quite common for retouchers and video/film editors. 16 GB is about the minimum you want.

The Mac Pro is a good machine, very well built and reliable but you can get an iMac maxed out for much less and then trade it up for a new one a couple of years later.

I don't think you people quite realize how these machines get used in the kind of environments they're designed for. There are a number of fields out there for which a Mac Pro is perfect--print production/pre-press, retouching, non-linear editing, scientific visualization, etc.--and, for those fields, iMacs just don't cut it. You don't buy the cheapest machine you can get for these jobs. You buy the beefiest, most powerful one you can find, ride it hard and put it away wet.

And when you upgrade, you move these machines down the food chain. We currently have an eight-core, 2.66 GHz machine we're using as a RIP, running Windows 7. The old machine died and, rather than buy a new PC, we just used what we had. It's the best Windows machine I've ever seen.

Like I said, iMacs are great prosumer machines, but they're not what you want on your desk for really heavy work.

edit: I'd also like to remind the people who are saying "Thunderbolt means you don't need internal drive bays" that the same thing was said about Firewire. And look how well that worked out.

[P]

Originally Posted by Don Pickett 

No, it's 32 GB officially and 48 GB unofficially. I know, as I have one.

You're right that Apple actually reports 32GB officially for this generation (it was 16 GB for the previous one) - ie, assuming 8 GB DIMMs. It is remarkable because Intel only officially supports 24 GB on six slots, ie 4 GB DIMMs.

Digging a little deeper, it seems that OWC also sells a set of 3*16=48 GB for the MP. That kit will forcibly downgrade the memory speed to 1066 MHz (or MT/s, I guess I should say), but you're right, it's there. For a quadcore the downgrade probably doesn't matter all that much, but for a sixcore that might be limiting.

Originally Posted by Don Pickett 

SSDs are still stupidly expensive. I have yet to see one in use outside of the Airs.

I have. I installed one in my iMac. A 120 GB OCZ Vertex 2, which newegg is currently selling for $180. For comparison, that RAM kit above is $1200. Even if you pay Apple's inflated prices to install an SSD as a BTO in the top iMac, you don't get anywhere near the base price for the sixcore MP.

Originally Posted by Don Pickett 

Yes: I see iMacs routinely running 120/130F and higher. My MP generally runs around 100F. Touch the top of an iMac which has been running all day and see how hot it gets.

Up at the top, where the heatsinks for the CPU and the GPU sit? Yes, it gets fairly hot there, but so what? The CPU doesn't even start holding back on the turbo until over 70C/160F, and AMD usually runs their GPUs even hotter (around 90C for the desktop 4x00 series. I'm not up to date on what their latest chips run at, but it's likely to be similar). The areas that experience wear from heat are the PSU and HD, and at least in my iMac, they're around 40-45C (~110F) - just where they should be.

[P]

Originally Posted by Don Pickett 

edit: I'd also like to remind the people who are saying "Thunderbolt means you don't need internal drive bays" that the same thing was said about Firewire. And look how well that worked out.

The reason that Firewire drives for the working set was a non-starter was that using Firewire added latency, ie killed random read performance. Thunderbolt doesn't add any more latency - it sits just as close to CPU and RAM as the built-in SATA controller. It might even be faster, because the built-in SATA controller has to share x4 PCIe bandwidth with the rest of the PCH, while each Thunderbolt port gets the same bandwidth to itself. Granted that that's a pretty high limit, and you achieve the same inside the box by adding a second SATA controller, but still...there is nothing to indicate that a Thunderbolt external drive will be measurably slower.

[Waragainstsleep]

Originally Posted by Don Pickett 

You mean it will be, when a good number of Thunderbolt drives are on the market. . .

The Promise Pegasus units are already shipping. More will follow.

Originally Posted by Don Pickett 

Actually, people who buy the Mac Pro need lots of RAM. 32 GB is quite common for retouchers and video/film editors. 16 GB is about the minimum you want.

I don't think you people quite realize how these machines get used in the kind of environments they're designed for. There are a number of fields out there for which a Mac Pro is perfect--print production/pre-press, retouching, non-linear editing, scientific visualization, etc.--and, for those fields, iMacs just don't cut it. You don't buy the cheapest machine you can get for these jobs. You buy the beefiest, most powerful one you can find, ride it hard and put it away wet.

I don't think you realise that your experience is somewhat specialist whereas I have supplied, installed and maintained this machines for a wider variety of users. Video, print, web design and CAD as well as servers and others. Not one of them was ever maxxed out with RAM. Too expensive.

Originally Posted by Don Pickett 

And when you upgrade, you move these machines down the food chain. We currently have an eight-core, 2.66 GHz machine we're using as a RIP, running Windows 7. The old machine died and, rather than buy a new PC, we just used what we had. It's the best Windows machine I've ever seen.

Ok but don't you think using such a machine for that is a bit of a waste?

Originally Posted by Don Pickett 

Like I said, iMacs are great prosumer machines, but they're not what you want on your desk for really heavy work.

By the time I left the reseller I worked for more and more customers across the board were dumping towers in favour if iMacs. Especially those who needed to buy 5 or 6 workstations at a time. It may be different when you are talking about international organisations but small and medium businesses do not like spending the extra that is required for a Mac Pro. They would rather spend half as much twice as often, and as I say it actually makes a lot of sense for many.

Originally Posted by Don Pickett 

edit: I'd also like to remind the people who are saying "Thunderbolt means you don't need internal drive bays" that the same thing was said about Firewire. And look how well that worked out.

Firewire tops out at 800Mbps, way below the speed of most if not all physical drives. The aforementioned Promise Pegasus has been clocked between up to 800 MBps. Thats faster than most single SATA SSDs. Its not the same thing as firewire at all.

[Don Pickett]

Originally Posted by P 

I have. I installed one in my iMac. A 120 GB OCZ Vertex 2, which newegg is currently selling for $180. For comparison, that RAM kit above is $1200. Even if you pay Apple's inflated prices to install an SSD as a BTO in the top iMac, you don't get anywhere near the base price for the sixcore MP.

I meant in a professional setting. The only people I know who use them professionally are some photographers. The bottom line is they're just too expensive for the small amount of storage they offer.

[Don Pickett]

Originally Posted by Waragainstsleep 

Not one of them was ever maxxed out with RAM. Too expensive.

There are several people around here with Mac Pros which are maxed out on RAM.

Ok but don't you think using such a machine for that is a bit of a waste?

Nope. For a PDF workflow the RIP will use all available cores.

It may be different when you are talking about international organisations but small and medium businesses do not like spending the extra that is required for a Mac Pro. They would rather spend half as much twice as often, and as I say it actually makes a lot of sense for many.

Not in my experience. As I said, we're buying more and more Mac Pros, as are all the other agencies I know of. Maybe for small businesses it's as you say.

Its not the same thing as firewire at all.

We'll see in two years. If I were to bet on an external interface, I'd bet on eSATA.

[P]

Originally Posted by Don Pickett 

I meant in a professional setting. The only people I know who use them professionally are some photographers. The bottom line is they're just too expensive for the small amount of storage they offer.

You can fit two 512 gig drives into the price difference between a top iMac and the sixcore MP. How much space do you really need for the current project?

Originally Posted by Don Pickett 

We'll see in two years. If I were to bet on an external interface, I'd bet on eSATA.

eSATA has been here since 2005 at least, and it's gone absolutely nowhere. When do you give up on that?

[Don Pickett]

Originally Posted by P 

You can fit two 512 gig drives into the price difference between a top iMac and the sixcore MP. How much space do you really need for the current project?

1) Several TB is nice to have. Just for example's sake, I'm currently working on two jobs, neither of which is particularly large. Both have over 1 GB of images;
2) iMacs are just not a choice for many jobs. Price doesn't matter.

eSATA has been here since 2005 at least, and it's gone absolutely nowhere. When do you give up on that?

eSATA is ubiquitous. Looks successful to me.

I'm not against Thunderbolt. But all of the Thunderbolt hyping I've seen reminds me of the Firewire hyping. Time will tell.

[Waragainstsleep]

Originally Posted by Don Pickett 

We'll see in two years. If I were to bet on an external interface, I'd bet on eSATA.

I'd happily take that bet. eSATA has been around ages and Apple have never cared at all. I'm struggling to think of any connection Apple has adopted so long into its life cycle.

I was interested to read that Thunderbolt is expected to replace LVDS as the internal connection for laptop screens. Hopefully this will make it much easier for those of us who like to fiddle to repurpose LCD panels in future. It will do a lot to promote use of the interface anyway.

[Doofy]

Originally Posted by Waragainstsleep 

Thunderbolt helps change the game quite a bit when it comes to the difference between Mac Pros and iMacs.
Now that you can have super fast external RAID, the only compelling reason go for the pro is if you need absolute top end graphics in it.

Not really true.
I require PCIe card capability, multiple internal hard drives and the extra processing whumpf of the Pro. I don't care about graphics.

[angelmb]

Officially it's 16 GB - the exact same as the single-CPU MP. Unofficially OWC is selling 8 GB DIMMs for a 32 GB ceiling on both. No advantage there.

IMHO comparing the top iMac to the lowest Mac Pro doesn't make it any justice.

Just use an SSD. Because you were talking about RAID 0 for speed, right? If you meant RAID 5 or something for 24/7 reliability, you're talking about a server, and that's a different story.

My apologies for not being clear on the matter. I mean something like this.

You mean the yellow spots in first run of the 27"? That was 2 years ago, FFS, and the cause was damage due to faulty packaging.

Again, I should have stated that this is an issue I got on my iMac 24" aluminum (iMac 7,1). Not sure if it is the same issue the 27" models had; besides it getting yellow at the left and right margins of the screen, there are some smudge marks behind the glass screen.

Any data to back that up? The iMac carefully separates the sensitive components, HD and PSU, from the hot components, CPU and GPU, so the temp of those is around 40C - just where it should be. Both the desktop GPUs and the Gulftown CPU generally run at a higher temperature (see Tcase in ark for the CPU) and use more power, meaning that the PSU works harder.

It might be efficient but it is far from being an elegant solution. I mean, I can burn multiple DVDs on my Mac Pro and the discs don't come out hot, just burning one (takes time since I usually burn at 4x max.) with my iMac internal optical drive makes the DVD disc come up as hot as a shitty McDonalds burger. It might have been solved in later iMac models but, needless to say, I can only speak from my own experience.

The iMac GPU is also replaceable (although you need to reseat the heatsink, so you need $5 worth of thermal paste). It's certainly easier to get in to an MP, but the current iMac is nowhere near as hard as previous models.

I bet you are a geek, average guy lacks time and most important, the bravery to do that, whereas with a Mac Pro (and Lion) you can now use a Windows GPU card; a friend of me bought some custom-cooled XFX Radeon HD 6870 Black Edition and happily runs it with its Mac Pro and 10.7. What is sort of annoying is that PC card is quieter than the Mac Radeon HD5870 it has replaced.

(Both of you missed one relevant performance point, btw: The MP supports ECC memory, which is a real benefit over the iMac).

So that's why the RAM for the 2006 Mac Pro is so damn expensive.?

[OreoCookie]

Originally Posted by angelmb 

IMHO comparing the top iMac to the lowest Mac Pro doesn't make it any justice.

Price-wise it is.

Originally Posted by angelmb 

My apologies for not being clear on the matter. I mean something like this.

RAID0/RAID10 of hard drives have been replaced by SSDs these days. If you really have some cash lying around, you can RAID SSDs, but that's rather expensive and modern storage solutions use SSDs in conjunction with regular hard drives.

Originally Posted by angelmb 

So that's why the RAM for the 2006 Mac Pro is so damn expensive.?

All server/workstation equipment is more expensive because its ships in lower volumes with better quality control -- and in case of RAM, addition reliability features (here: ECC).

[OreoCookie]

Originally Posted by Doofy 

Not really true.
I require PCIe card capability, multiple internal hard drives and the extra processing whumpf of the Pro. I don't care about graphics.

You can connect PCIe cards to any Mac equipped with Tunderbolt using external PCIe enclosures. Ditto for multiple hard drives and RAIDs, you can connect them at native speeds. Of course, the Mac Pro will still have the advantage of doing that in one enclosures and with additional reliability features.

[P]

Originally Posted by angelmb 

IMHO comparing the top iMac to the lowest Mac Pro doesn't make it any justice.

I'm actually comparing against the sixcore model. My point all throughout this was that if performance was the reason you used to pick an MP, that is no longer valid unless you're running something that threads very well across more than 4 threads. Everything after is arguing over the details.

Originally Posted by angelmb 

My apologies for not being clear on the matter. I mean something like this.

RAID 10 - which means both performance and online spares. Fair enough, you'd need an external box for that. You can however achieve better performance through an SSD and online spares aren't really relevant unless it's a server.

Originally Posted by angelmb 

Again, I should have stated that this is an issue I got on my iMac 24" aluminum (iMac 7,1). Not sure if it is the same issue the 27" models had; besides it getting yellow at the left and right margins of the screen, there are some smudge marks behind the glass screen.

The root cause for the yellowing on the 27" iMac is unevenness in the diffusing layer of the display backlight, and it happened frequently on the first model because the diffusing layer came loose in transport due to insufficient packaging. It can also happen due to overheating (this is a big problem on Samsung thin LCDs, which is why I know). I think I'm going to break out my standard tip: clean out the vents. I think that your airflow is constricted.

Originally Posted by angelmb 

It might be efficient but it is far from being an elegant solution. I mean, I can burn multiple DVDs on my Mac Pro and the discs don't come out hot, just burning one (takes time since I usually burn at 4x max.) with my iMac internal optical drive makes the DVD disc come up as hot as a shitty McDonalds burger. It might have been solved in later iMac models but, needless to say, I can only speak from my own experience.

I removed my DVD to put an SSD there, but I don't remember it being an issue that the DVD got hot. On the 27", the optical drive is located between the big intake fan in the lower right and the heatsink for the GPU in the top right, so it gets quite a bit of airflow along the bottom.

Originally Posted by angelmb 

I bet you are a geek, average guy lacks time and most important, the bravery to do that, whereas with a Mac Pro (and Lion) you can now use a Windows GPU card; a friend of me bought some custom-cooled XFX Radeon HD 6870 Black Edition and happily runs it with its Mac Pro and 10.7. What is sort of annoying is that PC card is quieter than the Mac Radeon HD5870 it has replaced.

Average guy probably wouldn't do either. Honestly I probably wouldn't try replacing it, if the GPU in my iMac broke, but if I were responsible for a bunch of them and they were mission critical, I'd probably learn how to do it.

That you can use any ATI card in an MP is quite new, and it will certainly be an advantage if it holds up. We'll see.

You should probably know that the 5870 is a significantly more powerful card than the 6870. The 5870 has 1600 shader cores, and the 6870 has 1120. That's also why the 6870 runs so much cooler.

Originally Posted by angelmb 

So that's why the RAM for the 2006 Mac Pro is so damn expensive.?

No, it's because it's a different type of RAM called FB-DIMM. Basically the RAM has some circuitry to buffer data on the chip to be able to send it over fewer lines to the CPU. The upside is that the motherboard becomes cheaper and you can fit more slots. The downside is that the latency goes way up, the RAM chips run hot and become more expensive. Intel eventually gave up on the idea for this reason.

ECC is a fairly simple addition. It costs a little more, but that's mostly because the volumes are lower. I'd put it in mine, if Intel hadn't disabled the ability in my CPU.

[Doofy]

Originally Posted by OreoCookie 

You can connect PCIe cards to any Mac equipped with Tunderbolt using external PCIe enclosures. Ditto for multiple hard drives and RAIDs, you can connect them at native speeds. Of course, the Mac Pro will still have the advantage of doing that in one enclosures and with additional reliability features.

And the extra cores from the extra processor?

[OreoCookie]

Originally Posted by Doofy 

And the extra cores from the extra processor?

I'm aware that more CPU power is an advantage of the bigger Mac Pros (the entry-level model doesn't have an advantage here), but IMHO there are less unique features of a Mac Pro which exclude an iMac. To some (you?), there may still be good reasons to pick a Mac Pro over an iMac and this is fine. (I'm not an iMac zealot, I swear by mobile Macs, because that's what I need.)

[Don Pickett]

Originally Posted by OreoCookie 

You can connect PCIe cards to any Mac equipped with Tunderbolt using external PCIe enclosures. Ditto for multiple hard drives and RAIDs, you can connect them at native speeds. Of course, the Mac Pro will still have the advantage of doing that in one enclosures and with additional reliability features.

Yes, using Thunderbolt you can kludge something together. Or, you could just buy a Mac Pro and not have to kludge.

[OreoCookie]

Originally Posted by Don Pickett 

Yes, using Thunderbolt you can kludge something together. Or, you could just buy a Mac Pro and not have to kludge.

Other than the fact that you have clutter, it's not kludging things together, it's using Thunderbolt as it was meant to be. Plus, you can connect these devices to other machines, e. g. MacBook Airs or MacBook Pros if you fancy that.

[Don Pickett]

Originally Posted by OreoCookie 

Other than the fact that you have clutter, it's not kludging things together, it's using Thunderbolt as it was meant to be. Plus, you can connect these devices to other machines, e. g. MacBook Airs or MacBook Pros if you fancy that.

1) It's still making your life more complicated than it needs to be;
2) Thunderbolt is still largely untested. I'm not against it, but until it's out there, being used, and I can see reports or how well it works, I wouldn't invest in it.

I have to say, I don't understand why this thread is still alive. The iMac is a wonderful machine, but, by design, the Mac Pro can do things it can't. The Mac Pro, is, as it says, a serious professional machine and excels in those areas. The iMac is prosumer. I can do some of the things the Mac Pro can, but not everything.

Why is this confusing?

[Waragainstsleep]

Originally Posted by Doofy 

Not really true.
I require PCIe card capability, multiple internal hard drives and the extra processing whumpf of the Pro. I don't care about graphics.

As mentioned, TB gives you external PCIe and also external RAIDs as fast if not faster than internal drives.
These days the iMacs spend most of the MP lifecycle being a generation ahead and consequently are faster than most MP models for most tasks.

Having all the storage and PCIe external also means that you can switch it all to another iMac or MBP or whatever you have in a heartbeat if your iMac falls over or if you want to trade it in for a faster one after a couple of years.

Its not true for every last MP user (No doubt you will consider yourself exceptional as usual )but the vast majority its a very viable if not more sensible alternative.

[olePigeon]

I think Thunderbolt is 4x PCIe without a display connected, 2x when daisy chained off a display. Pretty exciting in terms of options for connectivity. Several companies have already announced external boxes with a double-wide PCIe slot so you can connect desktop and workstation video cards to a laptop.

[ChrisB]

Originally Posted by angelmb 

An iMac as high end workstation?

Sure, iMac current performance is blazingly fast but that is just one minor side of the whole picture.

– limited RAM, how much can it take, 16 GB? if that's the case, two years from now it will be not suitable for demanding pro work.
– very limited internal storage; not even internal RAID capable.
– glossy screens are a red flag for most pro work.
– even if glossy screens were ok, discoloration issues are far from being a rarity.
– Mac Pro(s) run way cooler than iMacs. Less hardware issues.

I am not even nit-picking about the lack of expansion cards, the lack of rotation screen… well, I guess you could rotate the iMac screen, but that would be kind of awkward.

For longevity in certain business, the Mac Pro is the best bet. Period.

I agree. For a serious workstation, the Mac Pro is still the way to go.

However, for most situations, the iMac is not a bad choice. And with the screen, it is a good value.

[P]

Originally Posted by Don Pickett 

I have to say, I don't understand why this thread is still alive. The iMac is a wonderful machine, but, by design, the Mac Pro can do things it can't. The Mac Pro, is, as it says, a serious professional machine and excels in those areas. The iMac is prosumer. I can do some of the things the Mac Pro can, but not everything.

Why is this confusing?

It's not confusing, I understand perfectly well what you're saying. All I'm saying is that

1) the MP used to be the fastest Mac around by a pretty large margin
2) it isn't any more, unless you are running more than 4 threads (which is uncommon)
3) these facts aren't likely to change in the next generation

There is certainly still a niche for the MP, but it has shrunk significantly, and that trend is at least not reversing.

[Don Pickett]

Originally Posted by P 

It's not confusing, I understand perfectly well what you're saying. All I'm saying is that
There is certainly still a niche for the MP, but it has shrunk significantly, and that trend is at least not reversing.

Desktop--Mac Pro and iMac--are shrinking, period. For the heavy lifting it's meant to do an iMac can't beat a Mac Pro. For less onerous stuff it's a good choice so long as you don't mind its shortcomings. Personally I have never, and will never buy an iMac, but YMMV.

[art_director]

As my screen name might suggest, I'm an art director. I'm currently using a MP with 2x 3GHz Dual-Core Xeon processors and 9 GB of love. I often push this machine well beyond its limits and am looking to upgrade. My wallet says get an iMac but my stomach says wait for the next MP. I'd be curious to hear some opinions from y'all.

How do I use my machine?

• Typical page layout

• Design work ranging from logos to annual reports

• Light production when needed (typically hand that off)

• Light photo manipulation for work and heavy for my own shots

Thanks for any insight / advice you may bestow upon me.

[Don Pickett]

Originally Posted by art_director 

As my screen name might suggest, I'm an art director. I'm currently using a MP with 2x 3GHz Dual-Core Xeon processors and 9 GB of love. I often push this machine well beyond its limits and am looking to upgrade. My wallet says get an iMac but my stomach says wait for the next MP. I'd be curious to hear some opinions from y'all.

How do I use my machine?

• Typical page layout

• Design work ranging from logos to annual reports

• Light production when needed (typically hand that off)

• Light photo manipulation for work and heavy for my own shots

Thanks for any insight / advice you may bestow upon me.

Depends on how serious your Photoshop work is. Outside of that, you'd be fine with an iMac.

[art_director]

Thanks, Don.

My Photoshop work tends to be on the lighter side. I'm no retoucher but do, on occasion, tweak high res files. Art direction and design are my primary tasks. For external storage I have a couple RAIDs I backup to via eSATA. They both have FW 800 connectors so I could still use them but would hate to lose the eSATA speed. Hmmm ...

[angelmb]

As long as you don't have to rely on the iMac screen for critical color work*, cause its color gamut is just slightly over the sRGB.

* I don't BTW, but I know guys that have even calibrated their iPhone and iPad screens, then you would find an Eizo, Quato (former Barco) display over their desks.

[Don Pickett]

Originally Posted by art_director 

Thanks, Don.

My Photoshop work tends to be on the lighter side. I'm no retoucher but do, on occasion, tweak high res files. Art direction and design are my primary tasks. For external storage I have a couple RAIDs I backup to via eSATA. They both have FW 800 connectors so I could still use them but would hate to lose the eSATA speed. Hmmm ...

You're probably fine with an iMac.

[OreoCookie]

Originally Posted by art_director 

As my screen name might suggest, I'm an art director. I'm currently using a MP with 2x 3GHz Dual-Core Xeon processors and 9 GB of love.

The advantage of Mac Pros compared to the iMac are the additional cores that you have at your disposal. Photoshop does not make good use of additional cores. The story was a bit different when you compared 1- to 2-core machines or even 2- to 4-core machines, because the additional cores were helpful taking care of things like background processes and such.

But nowadays an iMac comes with 4 physical cores (x2 if you count hyper threaded cores) whereas the Mac Pro comes with 6-12 cores. (Since each core is of an older generation, the high-end 4-core iMac is actually faster than the 6-core Mac Pro.) Keeping the additional 8 cores busy is hard from a programmer's point of view and thus, only certain types of applications will actually benefit from you getting a Mac Pro.

Most people who used to have a tower (either a PowerMac or a Mac Pro) have since switched to an iMac. Official support for 16-32 GB RAM is plenty in the foreseeable future (i. e. in the expected life span of the machine), Thunderbolt will soon give access to lots of peripherals at native speeds.

Furthermore, you can connect up to two external displays (i. e. you have three in total). That eliminates another reason why people went for a tower: the ability to connect a lot of displays. (Note that technically, you will soon be able to connect even more displays if you connect external graphics cards via Thunderbolt!) I assume you already own two nice displays that you trust for color critical work. So the easiest thing is to connect them to the iMac and keep using them, especially if you don't trust the iMac's built-in lcd or you don't like the glassy finish (which can be mitigated somewhat by spending $20 for a diffuser film).

[art_director]

Great advice, thank you all!

Looks like I'll save over $200 with my NAPP membership. Nice!

[Don Pickett]

Originally Posted by OreoCookie 

Since each core is of an older generation, the high-end 4-core iMac is actually faster than the 6-core Mac Pro.

Careful with your blanket statements. The additional overhead of those two cores makes the MP faster than the iMac when you have Photoshop, InDesign, Illustrator, Acrobat, VMWare, Safari, email and other open at the same time and are hopping back between them. That's actually the whole point of the MP.

So, in benchmarks will the iMac beat a MP in single-core benchmarks? Maybe. In the real world, though, there's no comparison.

[Waragainstsleep]

Having all those apps open at the same time is one thing, giving them all something CPU intensive to do at the same time is something else entirely. A very small niche, even among heavy CS users.

The extra cores and RAM come into play a lot more for scientists and pure number crunchers though since the Intel switch raw horsepower has always been cheaper if you buy non-Apple.

[art_director]

This is a fascinating discussion, thank you all.

I use ID, IL, PS and Lightroom everyday. In fact, all three are always open on my machine. It's common that I have at least two of them doing something simultaneously. How would an iMac vs. a MP handle the payload?

[OreoCookie]

Originally Posted by Don Pickett 

Careful with your blanket statements. The additional overhead of those two cores makes the MP faster than the iMac when you have Photoshop, InDesign, Illustrator, Acrobat, VMWare, Safari, email and other open at the same time and are hopping back between them.

First of all, additional overhead makes things slower rather than faster.

And I'm not making blanket statements. Thanks to hyper threading, a cpu with 4 physical cores appears as a cpu with 8 logical cores to the OS. That's a lot of cores. Even if you do a lot of multi tasking (I do), you will not be able to keep the cores busy. Background processes don't use up a lot of cpu power (unless you're encoding something in the background or so). So no, things are not going to get magically faster if you have more cores idling.

Originally Posted by Don Pickett 

So, in benchmarks will the iMac beat a MP in single-core benchmarks? Maybe. In the real world, though, there's no comparison.

Not just in single-core benchmarks, the iMac offers comparable performance also in multi-core benchmarks. The reason is that the Sandy Bridge architecture offers a ~20 % clock-per-clock performance improvement over Nehalem.

I think many people are skeptical to get an iMac instead of a Mac Pro, because they feel like it's a downgrade, it's less pro and only suitable for workloads that are `less professional.' Most of it is just psychological with no basis in reality. Especially many graphics professionals (- photographers using Aperture or Lightroom) still feel as if their workloads push the envelope when in comes to computing.