As some of you know, sometime by the end of the year I’m planning to toss my Dell PC out the window and upgrade to a Mac. Whenever it happens, it will probably be after Mac OS 10.5 Leopard comes out in October. My dilemma: I’m trying to figure out which Mac to buy. Regardless, I’ll most likely be using Boot Camp and Windows for certain applications that are PC-only (AutoCAD, etc.), but Mac OS for everything else. Ideally I’d like to learn ArchiCAD well enough to ditch AutoCAD and Windows altogether.
Right now I mostly use my computer for fairly basic household stuff (email, web surfing, finances, etc.), but there are times when I need to bust out Adobe Photoshop and/or AutoCAD and do some design work, either graphic design or architectural design, or sometimes some combination such as when putting together a portfolio. I also need to teach myself some 3D modeling and rendering applications over the next few months. I’m thinking Maya and/or Rhino, or maybe 3D Studio Max.
I also plan on starting grad school for my M.Arch., most likely in the fall of 2009. At that point I’ll most likely be doing more and more 3D renderings, and I’ll need something portable. However, I want to hold off on buying a laptop computer until then, because who knows what sort of technology and software will be available at that point. That leaves me looking at desktop computers, and I’m trying to decide between a high-end 24” iMac or a low-end Mac Pro tower. The pros and cons of each:
24” iMac: Affordable, more than capable for current needs, looks cool as hell, doesn’t take up much space, but lacks expandability.
Mac Pro tower: Can be vastly expanded over time (except for the processors – those are apparently soldered directly to the motherboard), refurbished entry-level model costs only slightly more than a high-end iMac, but the display would need to be purchased separately. (My existing 19” Dell display could be used in the interim.)
The good news is, Macs hold their resale value very well, so whatever I end up getting could most likely be sold at a decent price if I decide to upgrade later.
The 24" iMac is a mighty powerful machine, especially if you max the RAM. The video card is unspectacular, but its enough unless you're a farily demanding gamer. The Mac Pro is a workstation. It's heaps more expensive, and much bigger.
From the uses you listed, it would be overkill, IMO. I would suggest that unless you know you need a workstation, you probably don't.
Upgradability is often a red herring. You can change the HDD, and up the RAM on the iMac. Those two things account for 90% of upgrades. How often have you upgraded other parts on your PC in the past?
agfa8x is right. as desirable as the mac pro is going to seem, it will be outrageous when you see the final price.
I'd go for the maxed out 24" imac. It's incredibly fast and will run everything you could want perfectly. My GF just got one and it's great.
I have a MacBook Pro that I love dearly. It too runs everything smoothly.
This all said, I will be buying a Mac Pro when I start my M. Arch in 2009. I'm just a nerd like that and my 30" ACD will need a friend. :) Maya, Rhino, Modo, Cinema 4D, 3dStudio!?@#!# mmmm! haha
P.S.
I hope all our archinect mac users have registered for the Rhino free beta!!!!!!! You can download it tonight and start having fun!
The comparable MacPro is a generation behind the iMac at the moment. The 2.66 quad is a little slower in Macworld tests. The 8 core is a different story. But the differential between the 2.66 quad and the 2.8 ghz iMac is now small.
Look at the Macworld speedmark tests and the maxwell rendering page for a good idea
I would go ahead and get the iMac. If you aren't doing renderings the 2 extra cores aren't going to help you at all. And by the time you are in school we will all be working for our 160 core overlords.
gin- the issue will be grad school next year. the iMac is more then enough machine fore portfolio and personal work, and probably will even reconquer grad school in a paperless studio in style - just take a quick look at what most schools are specing for their minimum this year. get something equal and you'll be fine next few years too.
that imac is way faster then my g3 dual 1ghz with 4gb ram that saw me through my masters.
Thanks for the input... I'm sure the 24" 2.88 GHz could already run circles around my Dell fossil, and I'm leaning in that direction. I'm one of those people that wants The Best of anything by default, and the Mac Pro is certainly tempting, but I have a feeling it would be major overkill for my needs.
On top of that, the iMac is a damn sharp-looking piece of industrial design. I've always had a pretty strong personal bias against the iMacs because they seemed like stripped-down children's computers, but I have to say the new generation has matured beautifully, and their specs are nothing to scoff at, either. (And because they're much more affordable than the Mac Pro, I'd be able to purchase one much sooner, probably by the middle of November.)
Tangent: Any idea what 3D software Apple uses to actually design their own products? It would be interesting to find out.
MacBookPro 15" loaded up -- potentially with an external (20/23/30) display?
Really, you'll want to be mobile, and the MacBookPros offer the power and mobility you want (really -- do you want to be stuck in studio all night? didn't you do enough of that in undergrad?)
From a good deal of my friends' experience, do NOT get the 17" -- it is an albatross that is way heavy and cumbersome. Like a surfboard sez one friend.
(alas, I have G$ 12" PB loaded up and it rocks. so little and light. ahhhhhh... Apple really needs to go small with the PRO -- just a plug -- )
buy a cheap one for now, and save your money to buy a better powerbook RIGHT before you go back to school. whatever you buy now will be too slow to use in grad school in 2 years, even if you get the fastest/biggest there is.
if i could i would buy the MAC PRO, is a matter of money, then also on the website u can configurate them , to make few upgrades to the i.mac or to the MAC.pro i think even if u get the i.mac u get a very good computer...specially when u say: "...more than capable for current needs..."
gin - i work on the last generation iMac. a 21" i think, dual-core with an XP partition using Parallels.
i might buy the new 24" for my home use, if that tells you anything about how much i like it.
sometimes, productivity can be measured more in HOW COMFORTABLE a computer is to use and less in what the specs turn out to be.
my 17" toshiba laptop is a pretty fast machine, but my office iMac is just a pleasure to work on. that alone makes the difference for me. the display is great, ergonomic, comfortable light levels, etc.
my boss runs a MacPro quad-core tower and sure, it's noticeably faster than the iMac, but only when it comes to rendering animations.
The mini will handle basic work, so long as it has plenty of RAM. It will render slowly, and won't handle complex work, but it would be ok if you were just wanting to play around. The trick is that by the time you upgrade the mini to a reasonable state, you're fairly close to the cost of an iMac.
I've seen people set up render farms with minis. For the power consumption and price (and size), they're pretty darn good at rendering. I wouldn't use one to work on models though - integrated graphics.
XP-x64 is nice if you need it, but there are still lots of driver issues (I can't get drivers for my scanner, but printer and pro audio card work fine)
don't get the apple display if you do get the mac pro. i lost a pixel in mine and apple won't cover it even though it is covered for three years. also, if you don't boot up in mac os the monitor starts to do weird things such as no turning off with the power button and the brightness/contrast buttons don't work properly. i can deal with booting in mac os, but after spending $800 on a monitor to have a pixel go out within a year drives me nuts.
it's all about price/performance and performance per watt. the mini is pretty good at both when you're talking about pure number crunching rendering.
5 minis (10 cores) will use considerably less power (and put off less heat) than an 8 core mac pro. if you're rendering and your rendering engine scales well to multiple nodes (some do better than others, there also may be licensing issues), the mini can be a good deal.
Which Mac to buy?
Greetings, all…
As some of you know, sometime by the end of the year I’m planning to toss my Dell PC out the window and upgrade to a Mac. Whenever it happens, it will probably be after Mac OS 10.5 Leopard comes out in October. My dilemma: I’m trying to figure out which Mac to buy. Regardless, I’ll most likely be using Boot Camp and Windows for certain applications that are PC-only (AutoCAD, etc.), but Mac OS for everything else. Ideally I’d like to learn ArchiCAD well enough to ditch AutoCAD and Windows altogether.
Right now I mostly use my computer for fairly basic household stuff (email, web surfing, finances, etc.), but there are times when I need to bust out Adobe Photoshop and/or AutoCAD and do some design work, either graphic design or architectural design, or sometimes some combination such as when putting together a portfolio. I also need to teach myself some 3D modeling and rendering applications over the next few months. I’m thinking Maya and/or Rhino, or maybe 3D Studio Max.
I also plan on starting grad school for my M.Arch., most likely in the fall of 2009. At that point I’ll most likely be doing more and more 3D renderings, and I’ll need something portable. However, I want to hold off on buying a laptop computer until then, because who knows what sort of technology and software will be available at that point. That leaves me looking at desktop computers, and I’m trying to decide between a high-end 24” iMac or a low-end Mac Pro tower. The pros and cons of each:
24” iMac: Affordable, more than capable for current needs, looks cool as hell, doesn’t take up much space, but lacks expandability.
Mac Pro tower: Can be vastly expanded over time (except for the processors – those are apparently soldered directly to the motherboard), refurbished entry-level model costs only slightly more than a high-end iMac, but the display would need to be purchased separately. (My existing 19” Dell display could be used in the interim.)
The good news is, Macs hold their resale value very well, so whatever I end up getting could most likely be sold at a decent price if I decide to upgrade later.
Any suggestions? Thanks…..
I would buy the mac that says dell on it
The whole point of this exercise is to get rid of the Dell. This isn't a Mac vs. PC debate; in my mind that issue has already been settled.
i tend to stick away from refurb. products... just a thought
The 24" iMac is a mighty powerful machine, especially if you max the RAM. The video card is unspectacular, but its enough unless you're a farily demanding gamer. The Mac Pro is a workstation. It's heaps more expensive, and much bigger.
From the uses you listed, it would be overkill, IMO. I would suggest that unless you know you need a workstation, you probably don't.
Upgradability is often a red herring. You can change the HDD, and up the RAM on the iMac. Those two things account for 90% of upgrades. How often have you upgraded other parts on your PC in the past?
This is a fairly realistic review, I think.
none, they're all garbage
agfa8x is right. as desirable as the mac pro is going to seem, it will be outrageous when you see the final price.
I'd go for the maxed out 24" imac. It's incredibly fast and will run everything you could want perfectly. My GF just got one and it's great.
I have a MacBook Pro that I love dearly. It too runs everything smoothly.
This all said, I will be buying a Mac Pro when I start my M. Arch in 2009. I'm just a nerd like that and my 30" ACD will need a friend. :) Maya, Rhino, Modo, Cinema 4D, 3dStudio!?@#!# mmmm! haha
P.S.
I hope all our archinect mac users have registered for the Rhino free beta!!!!!!! You can download it tonight and start having fun!
The comparable MacPro is a generation behind the iMac at the moment. The 2.66 quad is a little slower in Macworld tests. The 8 core is a different story. But the differential between the 2.66 quad and the 2.8 ghz iMac is now small.
Look at the Macworld speedmark tests and the maxwell rendering page for a good idea
Also check out
http://architoshforums.forest.net/
none build your own box
Reading for comprehension isn't your strong suit, is it?
(posted from a 24" iMac at the SoHo Apple Store)
I would go ahead and get the iMac. If you aren't doing renderings the 2 extra cores aren't going to help you at all. And by the time you are in school we will all be working for our 160 core overlords.
gin- the issue will be grad school next year. the iMac is more then enough machine fore portfolio and personal work, and probably will even reconquer grad school in a paperless studio in style - just take a quick look at what most schools are specing for their minimum this year. get something equal and you'll be fine next few years too.
that imac is way faster then my g3 dual 1ghz with 4gb ram that saw me through my masters.
(I have a MacPro that rocks renderings, but is extreme overkill for anything but rendering or heavy video editing.)
Thanks for the input... I'm sure the 24" 2.88 GHz could already run circles around my Dell fossil, and I'm leaning in that direction. I'm one of those people that wants The Best of anything by default, and the Mac Pro is certainly tempting, but I have a feeling it would be major overkill for my needs.
On top of that, the iMac is a damn sharp-looking piece of industrial design. I've always had a pretty strong personal bias against the iMacs because they seemed like stripped-down children's computers, but I have to say the new generation has matured beautifully, and their specs are nothing to scoff at, either. (And because they're much more affordable than the Mac Pro, I'd be able to purchase one much sooner, probably by the middle of November.)
Tangent: Any idea what 3D software Apple uses to actually design their own products? It would be interesting to find out.
i just customized a mac tower and it came out to be 13,000+. i think im going to have to sell my car.
for grad school (and otherwise)
MacBookPro 15" loaded up -- potentially with an external (20/23/30) display?
Really, you'll want to be mobile, and the MacBookPros offer the power and mobility you want (really -- do you want to be stuck in studio all night? didn't you do enough of that in undergrad?)
From a good deal of my friends' experience, do NOT get the 17" -- it is an albatross that is way heavy and cumbersome. Like a surfboard sez one friend.
(alas, I have G$ 12" PB loaded up and it rocks. so little and light. ahhhhhh... Apple really needs to go small with the PRO -- just a plug -- )
good luck.
buy a cheap one for now, and save your money to buy a better powerbook RIGHT before you go back to school. whatever you buy now will be too slow to use in grad school in 2 years, even if you get the fastest/biggest there is.
if i could i would buy the MAC PRO, is a matter of money, then also on the website u can configurate them , to make few upgrades to the i.mac or to the MAC.pro i think even if u get the i.mac u get a very good computer...specially when u say: "...more than capable for current needs..."
Yeah, I wouldn't touch Vista with a barge pole. I don't think I've heard a single good thing about it yet.
(lol, tumbleweed, I use Maya on my 12" powerbook!)
I have the old white 24" imac with 2gig ram and it works a treat no need for the macpro that new puppy will eat the apps you out line.
ps xp under bootcamp is not bad either
every mac is good and perfect... but don't trust me too much i'm a mac lover
mac pros are not very energy efficient. (FBDIMM ram runs really hot)
I'd get the imac
Isn't there a 64-bit version of XP Pro available? I'm guessing that would be the smartest choice.
gin - i work on the last generation iMac. a 21" i think, dual-core with an XP partition using Parallels.
i might buy the new 24" for my home use, if that tells you anything about how much i like it.
sometimes, productivity can be measured more in HOW COMFORTABLE a computer is to use and less in what the specs turn out to be.
my 17" toshiba laptop is a pretty fast machine, but my office iMac is just a pleasure to work on. that alone makes the difference for me. the display is great, ergonomic, comfortable light levels, etc.
my boss runs a MacPro quad-core tower and sure, it's noticeably faster than the iMac, but only when it comes to rendering animations.
for everything else they're apples-2-apples.
just my $.02
-ml
how about mac mini? im poor. i want an intel based mac but can a mini handle modeling?
possibly testing out rhino beta tonight. .. but do you need an intelbased machine for it to run?
The mini will handle basic work, so long as it has plenty of RAM. It will render slowly, and won't handle complex work, but it would be ok if you were just wanting to play around. The trick is that by the time you upgrade the mini to a reasonable state, you're fairly close to the cost of an iMac.
I've seen people set up render farms with minis. For the power consumption and price (and size), they're pretty darn good at rendering. I wouldn't use one to work on models though - integrated graphics.
XP-x64 is nice if you need it, but there are still lots of driver issues (I can't get drivers for my scanner, but printer and pro audio card work fine)
Good at rendering if you set up a farm of them!
don't get the apple display if you do get the mac pro. i lost a pixel in mine and apple won't cover it even though it is covered for three years. also, if you don't boot up in mac os the monitor starts to do weird things such as no turning off with the power button and the brightness/contrast buttons don't work properly. i can deal with booting in mac os, but after spending $800 on a monitor to have a pixel go out within a year drives me nuts.
it's all about price/performance and performance per watt. the mini is pretty good at both when you're talking about pure number crunching rendering.
5 minis (10 cores) will use considerably less power (and put off less heat) than an 8 core mac pro. if you're rendering and your rendering engine scales well to multiple nodes (some do better than others, there also may be licensing issues), the mini can be a good deal.
True. But not quite what yam was thinking of, I suspect!
yeah im thinking of actually using it as a modeling machine, sounds like it's not worth it and better to just upgrade to imac or g5
thanks!
jjh- look for figures, but Apple LCD's have one of the lowest industry rates for dead pixels.
IIRC the moniter needs to have three dead ones before it's deemed faulty - and I think that's the standard requirement for the major manufacturers.
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