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Best Bang for the buck Imac vs Imac Pro


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I've been kicking around the idea of buying an iMac or iMac Pro now that the new Pro has been announced.

The goal is to stay under $6000 and get the best bang for the buck.

A maxed out 27" iMac is $5249 

A lower spec 27" iMac Pro is $5949 (slower/higher grade processor, 2x Vram, 1/2 storage)

 

So, what would you buy and why?

 

If going the Pro route...

Is the 3.0 GHz 10 core worth $800 more than the 3.2 GHz 8 core?

Seems the money would be better spent on upgrading to the Vega 64 (+$550) and 64 GB Ram (+$400)

 

1219903388_ScreenShot2019-06-11at5_15_36PM.thumb.png.3b4bf41ad593171bbbc54fbb1d0fbb6f.png1117808226_ScreenShot2019-06-11at5_17_19PM.thumb.png.8b8a18e1d8a6c287c8f43e448171116e.png

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I would go as max as possible (budget) with CPU and GPU.

RAM to your (iMac Pro, future ?) needs.

I would stay with 1TB SSD and save some money.

Enough for Apps and System, Data externaly.

 

I think the 10 core Xeon is worth the upgrade.

Fastest single core performance option for iMac Pro.

Standard iMac 8 core may be faster though.

Edited by zoomer
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Jeff

We have bought two I mac pros last years 3.0/10 core and 3.2/8 core both with the vega 64 16 gb vram. I have used both and I don't find much difference in day to day VW and twinmotion work. ( We are replacing Mac pros from 2010, 3.3/6 core some are still in use) 

 

I like that we have more options now for Vectorworks, maxed out iMac´s, Imac pros and soon Mac pros.

 

 

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8 hours ago, zoomer said:

I would go as max as possible (budget) with CPU and GPU.

RAM to your (iMac Pro, future ?) needs.

I would stay with 1TB SSD and save some money.

Enough for Apps and System, Data externaly.

 

I think the 10 core Xeon is worth the upgrade.

Fastest single core performance option for iMac Pro.

Standard iMac 8 core may be faster though.

 

Yes, and this seems to echo Jim's hardware thread.

This article favors the 3.0/10 like @zoomer and supports the argument by saying the RAM could be upgraded in the future.

https://9to5mac.com/2017/12/15/opinion-10-core-imac-pro-sans-upgrades-best-bang-for-the-buck/

 

@Hans-Olav thanks for your comment.  Based on your experience and the benchmarks, it seems like a wash unless you're rendering all the time.

 

These seem like the choices now...

$3850 iMac 3.6/8, 32 GB RAM, Vega 48/8GB, 512 SSD with a predicted replacement in 3 years

$6350 iMac Pro 3.0/10, 32 GB RAM, Vega 64/16GB, 1 TB SSD with a predicted RAM upgrade in 2 years and replacement in 5-6 years.

I imagine the Pro would see a few more years of lifespan, but it's all a guessing game to me.

I hate shopping for computers on a budget.

 

 

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Maybe the iMac may run a few years more.

With an eGPU and easier RAM upgrade.

 

I am a little concerned about dust cleaning

with these AIOs though.

 

But I say this also because this generation of high core

iMacs and Macbook Pros seems to work quite well

without abnormal throttling and nuclear temperatures

for some reason.

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I've been pretty happy with my macbook pro, but I miss my 27" iMac from a gig I just left, hence my desire to get myself a desktop.

I just ran the Cinebench R20 test on my macbook pro and it scored 1346.  I don't know if that's good or not since the scores do not seem to correlate to the thread here on the R15 test, but I've been happy with the performance...until I started playing with TwinMotion.

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Hi @jeff prince 

 

I'd go for the iMac instead of the iMac Pro. It's Intel i9 processor is very good and according to what I've been seeing on the internet has been managing thermals very good. 

 

It's a shame though that the new iMac doesn't have a T2 chip or two more thunderbolt ports and the 10Gb ethernet port but all of this stuff are not essential at least for me...

 

Also never buy RAM from apple if you have the option to upgrade it yourself and buy it elsewhere.

 

A video comparing both machines: 

 

Here I leave you two screenshots of a beast of a machine under $6000 ($4249.00 + $948.99 = $5,197.99)

 

https://www.apple.com/shop/buy-mac/imac/27-inch-3.7ghz-6-core-processor-with-turbo-boost-up-to-4.6ghz-2tb# 

https://eshop.macsales.com/cart/?added=OWC2666DR4S128S 

 

551122332_iMac8Core.thumb.png.eac79fb52312879f79319b0e0d385748.png1319491970_128GBRAMUpgrade.thumb.png.0b7105d3f2709ad68e15ba812b125fc5.png

 

Hope all this helps a bit on your decision.

 

 

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  • 2 months later...

Hey @jeff prince - curious which way you went. I'm in the same position; my iMac is approaching end of life (late 2013 model) and I'm torn between a fully loaded iMac (core i9, 32GB Ram, 1TB SSD, Pro Vega 48) vs a base model 8-core iMac Pro (32GB ram, Pro Vega 56, 1TB SSD).

 

The new iMac comes out to $3675, and OWC has factory refurbished iMac Pros with those specs for around $3800.

 

 Especially curious if the Xeon processor + ECC adds any stability. FWIW, I do very little rendering, although I do spend a considerable amount of time in flyover/OpenGL.

 

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On 9/11/2019 at 1:45 PM, Bradley King said:

Hey @jeff prince - curious which way you went. I'm in the same position; my iMac is approaching end of life (late 2013 model) and I'm torn between a fully loaded iMac (core i9, 32GB Ram, 1TB SSD, Pro Vega 48) vs a base model 8-core iMac Pro (32GB ram, Pro Vega 56, 1TB SSD).

 

The new iMac comes out to $3675, and OWC has factory refurbished iMac Pros with those specs for around $3800.

 

 Especially curious if the Xeon processor + ECC adds any stability. FWIW, I do very little rendering, although I do spend a considerable amount of time in flyover/OpenGL.

 

I haven't pulled the trigger yet, going to wait until January 2020 for tax reasons 😞

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  • 1 month later...

Problem with the iMac's lifspan is the display. It does not last much over 3 or 4 years. I have a late 2015 iMac and it already has heavy pink edges and a faulty ventilator. The pink edges are a common problem I read at the MacRumor forums. Repair is 600 euro for the display alone. Cleaning the mac up, new ventilator and repairing is almost not worth it. Selling it with these "features" takes a lot of the value off.

So I won't go for the iMac's pro, more expensive with the same problems. I am thinking of iMac's i9 and sell them every two years. Here in Europe you have practically rentfree financial lease.

 

Another option is a pc, much faster 2080 video cards and easy to upgrade or to add components.  With a LG 27 screen of 400 euro's I get a system that is a lot more flexible. We model in VW and export to C4D for rendering with Corona. With a PC we could also use Lumion, Redshift, Octane and so on. The new Mac Pro's are good news but you're still stuck on AMD videocards. I am not looking forward to go Windows but 95% of my time is spend in VW/Cinema4D. So the OS is not such a big deal really.

 

Still, the iMac i9 is given that I stick to VW/C4D/Corona a very good combination and I don't need to invest time in Windows.  But Mac's no longer have a long lifespan as they used to have. A PC with well chosen components might actually last a bit longer. Especially since you can choose to build one with the latest tech.

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On 11/1/2019 at 1:07 PM, frv said:

 

Another option is a pc, much faster 2080 video cards and easy to upgrade or to add components.  With a LG 27 screen of 400 euro's I get a system that is a lot more flexible. We model in VW and export to C4D for rendering with Corona. With a PC we could also use Lumion, Redshift, Octane and so on. The new Mac Pro's are good news but you're still stuck on AMD videocards. I am not looking forward to go Windows but 95% of my time is spend in VW/Cinema4D. So the OS is not such a big deal really.

Used macs/iMacs for 20 years, so when I started on my own as a self employed architect I def wasn’t going to shell out for an iMac especially now they’re pretty much unfixable/upgradeable with glued screens etc

 

couldn’t stand thought of using windows, so bought a pc and installed OS X on it....hackintosh...best of both worlds, am tempted to have a go at using windows as it would probably perform a little better, but just hate fact that there’s so many updates on windows machines..

 

Would be interested to see how you get on with windows though?

 Twinmotion is def quicker under windows with my 280x 3gb gpu- talking moving up from Medium settings up to high settings under windows..

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  • 4 months later...
On 6/13/2019 at 5:33 AM, jeff prince said:

I've been happy with the performance...until I started playing with TwinMotion.

 

@jeff prince what issues did you find with your MacBook Pro and twinmotion?

 

On 6/12/2019 at 5:49 PM, Hans-Olav said:

We have bought two I mac pros....with the vega 64 16 gb vram. I have used both and I don't find much difference in day to day VW and twinmotion work. 


@Hans-Olav I am about to buy a few Vega 64 cards (8GB) for our 2010 Mac pros. Can you share your experience with twinmotion using the vega cards? 

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@Amorphous - Julian 

 

We use twinmotion mainly for competitions proposals and quick presentations. Last time was in beginning of March, just before the 2020 release and it went well, a lot of nice exterior renderings after a few hours work. The reload function is great when you need to make changes on the VW model. We export as FBX and replace most VW texture inside TW, although some MTextures are of good quality with bumpmaps and can be kept.  I have played with the new 2020 release and it feels like its smoother and quicker and i like the output a lot more, even interiors can be good looking.  I guess gaming-PCs are more optimized but all in all there are now big issues with the iMac pros. There is a bug when TM gets unresponsive, when editing local library textures in media mode, but I have learned to save often. crashes do not happen often. Both VW 2020  and TM are working well on the 2 iMac Pro´s we have. We will need to replace one powermac 2010 this summer, (if we have work by then} and I haven't decided yet if it will be another iMac Pro or a maxed out iMac. 

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1 hour ago, Hans-Olav said:

The reload function is great when you need to make changes on the VW model.

 

Does it keep your changes done in Twinmotion when you reload ?

Like with C4D Exchange.

 

So a Concrete Material overwritten by dragging a Twinmotion over the

VW Material will be kept, even when you reload new geometry with the

old Material, which did not exist before in Twinmotion.

(C4D kept existing Geometry's assignment changes but brought in the

old Material again for the new additional geometry)

 

Does the import option in Twinmotion,

to keep the CAD hierarchy vs sort by Materials,

have any influence on Reload quality ?

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5 minutes ago, zoomer said:
29 minutes ago, Hans-Olav said:

 

 

Does it keep your changes done in Twinmotion when you reload ?

Like with C4D Exchange.


I haven’t used c4d. Changes done in tm and materials assigned are staying the same when reloading, unless you change the material in vw prior to export. It’s working very well. 

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On 11/7/2019 at 11:07 AM, neal-2002 said:

 

couldn’t stand thought of using windows, so bought a pc and installed OS X on it....hackintosh...best of both worlds, am tempted to have a go at using windows as it would probably perform a little better, but just hate fact that there’s so many updates on windows machines..

@neal-2002

I am curious on your hackintosh setup, please share as much as you can

Edited by bob cleaver
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1 hour ago, jeff prince said:

 

@Amorphous - Julian No issues, it's just a little slower rendering a video on the MacBook compared to the Imac.  Provides a reason to take a little break I guess 🙂

 

 

I have no problems with my PC and a standard Gaming GPU

(RTX 2070 here)

 

But my Trash Can Mac Pro with 2 D700s gets really hot and loud

after 20 minutes of Twinmotion, no matter if you do anything or not.

When Twinmotion Window is active, GPU load is 100%.

 

I am sure it wouldn't last that much longer when it gets that hot.

Even my Mac Pro 2.1, although some special thermal design and

separate thermal areas, got very hot and the logic board died after

4 years. Or iPhone 4 crashing with a navigation App in the car.


As most Mac Models unfortunately still have thermal constraints.

I would be a bit cautious with such demands (without Apple Care)

over longer periods. Especially where GPUs are soldered or hard

to service.

 

I would trust the new Mac Pro.

For me it seems like the first Apple Product without thermal problems.

Or I would rely on eGPUs which are easy to replace at least.
 

Edited by zoomer
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10 hours ago, bob cleaver said:

@neal-2002

I am curious on your hackintosh setup, please share as much as you can

Hi Bob,

 

it’s basically a tower pc - msi motherboard b150m pro-vdh with i7 6700, 24gb ram, 1tb ssd drive and and msi r9 280x 3gb gpu. Running Mojave (have too many non 64bit apps to upgrade). Uses Clover to boot Mac/windows.

 

works perfectly and cost ~£700 and a 24 inch monitor extra Mac keyboard etc

easy to upgrade parts and gives me more freedom/choice.

everything works, just like a Mac (clover menu on startup gives choice between windows and Mac OS on startup)


see here for start - https://www.tonymacx86.com/

Edited by neal-2002
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24 minutes ago, zoomer said:

 

 

I have no problems with my PC and a standard Gaming GPU

(RTX 2070 here)

 

But my Trash Can Mac Pro with 2 D700s gets really hot and loud

after 20 minutes of Twinmotion, no matter if you do anything or not.

When Twinmotion Window is active, GPU load is 100%.

 

I am sure it wouldn't last that much longer when it gets that hot.

Even my Mac Pro 2.1, although some special thermal design and

separate thermal areas, got very hot and the logic board died after

4 years. Or iPhone 4 crashing with a navigation App in the car.


As most Mac Models unfortunately still have thermal constraints.

I would be a bit cautious with such demands (without Apple Care)

over longer periods. Especially where GPUs are soldered or hard

to service.

 

I would trust the new Mac Pro.

For me it seems like the first Apple Product without thermal problems.

Or I would rely on eGPUs which are easy to replace at least.
 

I’ve noticed if I’m using tm20 for a while gpu Fan start speeding up, as soon as I save it quietens down again...tm19 did this strange behaviour too..this is on my hackintosh in OS X, not Ed it in windows10.

 

tm20 seems to perform Much better graphic quality wise over tm19 on OS X on my system. (Now on equal quality settings as under windows10 on same system)

Edited by neal-2002
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