And I’m not sure that the solution is just a refresh away.
The Mac Pro was once the only viable option for an OS X lover in need of serious horsepower for tasks like editing media. Now, with the new iMac? I think it’s straight up stupid to buy a Mac Pro.
The $4499 Mac Pro, desperately in need of a refresh, gives you a 2.66GHz Quad-Core (i7), 3GB of RAM (triple channel, but seriously?), 640GB hard drive (again, seriously?) and a nominal graphics card. Spend $1400 more and you’ll get a another processor and 3GB more RAM.
The $2599, 27-inch iMac obviously includes a screen, plus you get a 2.66GHz Quad-Core (i7), 1TB drive, 4GB of RAM and a nominal graphics card.
But beyond those clock speeds, the Mac Pro’s i7 processor is the more premium Bloomfield edition, while the iMac uses the Lynnfield. (More on those differences here.)
Still, the bottom line is that the iMac’s Lynnfield processor is newer, and it shows in performance.
Macworld benched the new iMacs against the latest Mac Pros. And, you know what? The i7 iMac more than held its own. It basically defeated the quad-core Mac Pro across the board.
And other than a few specific tasks in which the most expensive Mac Pro’s eight cores proved beneficial (Handbrake, Cinebench, etc), the iMac outperformed the competition or kept things close enough not to be relevant, plus it straight-up won in the eyes of Speedmark 6.
Performance-wise, the base Mac Pro makes no sense at all. The eight-core Mac Pro offers a touch more power, sometimes, and other times (in many day to day tasks) even it is outgunned.
Of course, any Mac Pro still allows multiple internal hard drives, three PCI slots, more FireWire ports (four vs one) and more room for RAM expansion (32GB vs 16GB). But once again, even in the worlds of professional media creation, that’s a pretty questionable upsell, especially with external storage solutions and the fact that most high, high end media pros (like special effects artists) turn to dedicated render farms to do their heavy number crunching anyway.
With the new iMac, Apple has shrunk the Mac-Pro-needing niche even smaller. And I can’t tell anyone with a straight face that a handful of expandability is worth $US300-$1100 with no monitor, no matter how deep their pockets are.
Apple needs to re-examine their pricing model. Even with an inevitable processor refresh (i9, anyone?), it’s time for a price drop and/or some free with purchase displays. Just because you’re a pro doesn’t mean you’re a sucker.
Sam
November 24, 2009 at 9:32 AM
I’d love to see something that costs around the same as an iMac, no screen, but in a desktop form factor for upgradability. It currently seems like that’s the Mac Pro, but it costs way too much. Strange to work out why (apart from marketing) as it uses desktop parts rather than laptop parts.
Report Permalinkmatt
November 24, 2009 at 10:09 AM
if you think all the computer any mac user will ever need can be found in laptop parts, you are mistaken!
over the last few years it has been becoming a case that computers are simply powerful enough for most tasks ( I say this is due to a lack of imagination, but anyway)
the pros also use server grade parts, especially the dual processor one, and that costs more. professional stuff costs more for no reason, thats just the way it is. it is monumentally stupid for someone to say “mac pro doesn’t offer a good price to performance ratio” because the SECOND you start talking about price/performance ratio, you should not be looking at a mac at all!
Report PermalinkRyan
November 24, 2009 at 10:23 AM
I agree completely – if you look on the Apple store, and compare an iMac with a Mac Pro that’s worth buying, you’ll see that the Mac Pro easily bumps over $5,000.
As much as they look cool, there is just no way a sane person would get one when for the same price they could get an iMac, an HDTV, an Xbox, and have change for beers as well!
Report PermalinkMike
November 24, 2009 at 1:30 PM
I installed Windows7(bootcamp) on an iMac and it runs great, better than great. The bottom line is that for the money, the iMAC 27 i7 is probably the best desktop PC in the world at this point in time. Dont beleive? go to any site(Dell,GW,Sony, HP) and “try” to configure the equivlent.
Report PermalinkHa
November 24, 2009 at 4:22 PM
Acer B273HU 27″ – $636.20
HD 4850 – $140.10
OCZ 2x2GB DDR3 1333 – $137
2.8GHz i7 – $379.99
MSI P55-CD53 – $158.30
OCZ 600W PSU – $110
1 TB HDD – $115.99
DVD burner – $35
Case – ~$90
Keyboard + Mouse – ~$70
Logitech LS21 – $40
Total – $1913.58
After making it the 2.8GHz i7, the iMac comes out to be $2889.01.
Report PermalinkBernie
November 24, 2009 at 5:07 PM
Well laughing boy (girl?), you’re not very clever are you? Mike asks the question whether or not a brand such as Dell, Gateway, Sony or HP can provide similar specifications for the money (or at all). Instead you chose to ignore that and provide information that is totally different, and that is a self build; which is what he didn’t ask.
Now that you have provided the list for your self build; all I can say is WHAT?
All the parts you’ve mentioned are sub-par. The screen has a lower resolution, the mother board is entry level, you wont get a very nice wireless keyboard and mouse for $70. The DVD drive is the VERY cheapest crap money can buy and I’d hate to think about the quality of a 1TB hard drive for $115, or anything else you’ve listed.
And it won’t run OS/X
If you shopped properly, you WILL be able to make a decent self build for LESS than the list price of the iMac, but not with the shyte you just listed and not as cheap.
Report PermalinkHa
November 24, 2009 at 7:23 PM
Well you have $1000 left over… Add all the crap you want. The OP said go to ANY site and configure the equivalent. And you would seriously think that a Seagate Barracuda is not a good quality drive? And you would waste money on a DVD drive that will burn just as well as a $200 drive?
Well then get an Apple keyboard + mouse. Just another $70.
Also I know the screen has a lower resolution, that’s pretty much the best thing about the Mac, it has an awesome screen.
I see you failed to mention that the RAM in this build is faster… Or that the CPU and GPU is the same…
And it should run OSX.
Sure the motherboard is probably not the best. Here’s slightly better:
Gigabyte GA-P55A-UD3R – $211.30
But I don’t see you posting a ‘proper’ build
Report PermalinkDoug Young
November 24, 2009 at 11:35 PM
Just as a point of interest
I’m sure everyone is aware that MacBooks have dropped in price recently making the most expensive MacBook AU$3299
This MacBook used to be close to the same price as the Mac Pro at AU$4499 (a price that occurred, I imagine, because of the temporarily weak Australian Dollar)
In the US Store the most expensive MacBook and the Quad core Mac Pro are US$2499 – Identical
This means that Apple are producing both machines for a similar cost, yet here in Australia the prices are now dramatically different.
Apple have dropped the price of the MacBook, but left the price of the Mac Pro alone.
Dropping the price of the MacBook is unusual and most likely occurred because of the strength of the Australian Dollar
Seems pretty likely that a much better spec and/or much better priced Mac Pro is Imminent
Report Permalinkanon
November 25, 2009 at 11:17 AM
I’m probably wasting my time posting this but:
Try putting 3 extra hard drives ‘in’ (as in really fast) an iMac (as scratch discs, caches discs, etc.), or a raid card or 4 graphics cards — not to mention that the top level Mac Pro has 8 cores.
The argument that getting a Mac Pro — from a pro perspective — is stupid, is a flawed argument.
2 cents
Report Permalinksteve jobs
November 25, 2010 at 3:58 PM
There are many good reason I and many other people need the tower versions. Besides the obvious expandability try running a render all day on an imac. It will eventully cook itself to death. You can dry wet socks on the top of them (so I’ve heard).
Macpros are worth the money except their hard drives are mediocre and expensive and their ram is inflated about 1000% over good solutions such as iram. I have 32gb of iram working its ass off every day with no problems.
the $120 segate drive mentioned a few posts back is far better than what apple usually ships (maxtor drives )
Don’t put down osx86 either. Whith the right combination of hardware you can easily match the horsepower of the tower. I’ve setup very stable render farms this way.
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