Mac Pro 2.8Ghz Quad Core Xeon vs iMac 3.4Ghz Quad Core i7

Macintosh95 · Dec 24, 2011

Hello,
I am upgrading from my older mac but need help on which computer to choose.

I could get the iMac (3.4Ghz):

Configure - Apple Store (UK)

Or the Mac Pro (2.8Ghz):

Configure - Apple Store (UK)

I use the computer for Audio.

If I got a mac Pro I would upgrade the ram (eventually up to 32GB and set 3 Hard drives to raid 0 and one for audio files)

I understand the iMac has a high clock speed but I heard Xeon CPU's are better?

How many hard drives can the iMac take?

Please help!

Chuckoir · Dec 24, 2011

The iMac has a Geekbench score of 11602, whereas the Mac Pro 8839. So there is a quite a difference in performance.

With regards to the RAM, people are sticking 32GB in the most modern iMacs, apparently, and you can go all the way up to 64GB with the Pro.

Obviously the Pro has more expansion slots allowing you to install more Hard Drives, and I'm sure you can't install an additional hard drive to the iMac. Not easily anyway.

If you don't have one already, don't forget to factor in the cost of a monitor to go with the Pro.

So I guess it's down to cost. The iMac is faster (on paper), can take as much RAM as you wanted to install in the Pro, and is a couple hundred cheaper. You can't easily install additional storage, so you'd have to go external.

If I was in your shoes and I could afford the Mac Pro, I would buy that. Purely for the upgradeability. There's talk of Apple discontinuing the Mac Pro range though (well there was a few weeks ago) so I'm not sure if that affects the longevity of the range or not. Tough choice!

That's my opinion, feel free to disregard

Macintosh95 · Dec 24, 2011

Chuckoir said:
The iMac has a Geekbench score of 11602, whereas the Mac Pro 8839. So there is a quite a difference in performance.

With regards to the RAM, people are sticking 32GB in the most modern iMacs, apparently, and you can go all the way up to 64GB with the Pro.

Obviously the Pro has more expansion slots allowing you to install more Hard Drives, and I'm sure you can't install an additional hard drive to the iMac. Not easily anyway.

If you don't have one already, don't forget to factor in the cost of a monitor to go with the Pro.

So I guess it's down to cost. The iMac is faster (on paper), can take as much RAM as you wanted to install in the Pro, and is a couple hundred cheaper. You can't easily install additional storage, so you'd have to go external.

If I was in your shoes and I could afford the Mac Pro, I would buy that. Purely for the upgradeability. There's talk of Apple discontinuing the Mac Pro range though (well there was a few weeks ago) so I'm not sure if that affects the longevity of the range or not. Tough choice!

That's my opinion, feel free to disregard

So is the xeon processor no better than an i7? Would the fact that I would raid 0 3 drives for the os make the difference smaller?

harryb2448 · Dec 24, 2011

If you need more than one hard drive, go for the Mac Pro. Also the graphics card can be upgraded with a new ATI Radeon 6000 series coming online in the next week or two. Also the Mac Pro comes with an 18X speed optical drive which is a tray loader and much more dependable than slot loaders.

Again like Macintosh95, would pick the Mac Pro because of the upgrades possible, and I am a Mac Pro tragic alas!

Macintosh95 · Dec 24, 2011

harryb2448 said:
If you need more than one hard drive, go for the Mac Pro. Also the graphics card can be upgraded with a new ATI Radeon 6000 series coming online in the next week or two. Also the Mac Pro comes with an 18X speed optical drive which is a tray loader and much more dependable than slot loaders.

Again like Macintosh95, would pick the Mac Pro because of the upgrades possible, and I am a Mac Pro tragic alas!

Thanks for all your help.

I understand how bad the slot loading drives are! I have had to replace the ones on my macbook pro 6 times and only had it a year or two!

On an iMac you can upgrade Hard drives and ram. On a mac pro is the only other thing (other than hard drive, ram and GPU) that you can upgrade?

Is the mac pro a more reliable machine? Will the iMac 3.4ghz be WAY faster? Are xeon better than i7? How much slower is the mac pro?

Macintosh95 · Dec 25, 2011

I think I have decided on the Mac Pro Quad Core 2.8Ghz with 48GB of ram. I will take both CD drives out and replace them with hard drives. I will be raid 0ing 5 hard drives and will have one for all my audio files. If I buy the version with only one CD drive, will the sata connectors be there for a second drive? On the Logic board, is there room to add another processor in future?

Absolutely · Dec 26, 2011

Macintosh95 said:
I think I have decided on the Mac Pro Quad Core 2.8Ghz with 48GB of ram. I will take both CD drives out and replace them with hard drives. I will be raid 0ing 5 hard drives and will have one for all my audio files. If I buy the version with only one CD drive, will the sata connectors be there for a second drive? On the Logic board, is there room to add another processor in future?

The other thing to keep in mind with a Mac Pro is the processor upgrade possibilities. It can be turned into 12-Core behemoth in the future if needed. The iMac apparently has no such processor upgrade path.

Also, while the geekbench score is very important, it does not tell the whole story. For instance if you were to do heavy processing on your Mac (For instance, running a recording sessions or virtual instruments at higher sample resolutions) throughput becomes an issue very quickly and the Xeons are well suited for those tasks despite the fact that the Sandy Bridge processors are definitely more efficient than the Server-Class Xeons. If you are going to do heavy, heavy CPU-intensive audio processing, the Mac Pro (Specifically from 2.93 GHz on up, although the 2.8 GHz is a very good Mac Pro) is your machine.

That said, I'd love one of those new Sandy Bridge 3960X's in a Mac Pro ! I think you are going in the right direction with the Mac Pro though.