Help with picking a system, Macbook Pro vs. iMac

[krs]

What about graphics ram? That’s the usual bottleneck.

The Mini specs show this:

Chipset Model: Intel HD Graphics 4000
Type: GPU
Bus: Built-In
VRAM (Dynamic, Max): 1536 MB

I don't see Graphic RAM usage in Activity Monitor.

But I don't play video games on the Mini. 1080 videos play fine in mp4, so the GPU is fine for my needs.

I remember years ago when the G4 was my main Mac I had to convert most videos from mp4 to avi because that Mac couldn't handle mp4 files - too processor intensive.
We have sure come a long way over the years.

 

[AirBear]

Quick update on the new iMac. I installed Steam and a few of my games in the library had Mac versions. Only one I installed was "Cold Waters", I had bought that on sale a few months ago but never got around to playing it. Tried it out real quick and seems to run fine. Found a FPS game called "Metro 2033 Redux" on sale for $5 and grabbed that, it also seems to run fine. Star Trek Online is a game I've had for many years and it has a Mac version. Not sure if I'll go back to it or not, probably been 3-4 years since I played. But it's nice to have the option to do some gaming since my Win10 rig needs a clean install and isn't reliable for gaming right now.

So far I'm happy with the Fusion drive. Load times after reboot are very good probably because the OS has been cached on the SSD part of the drive. 27" Retina monitor looks great. The apps I paid for on the Mac Mini have been migrated over with no trouble. The 8GB Ram seems fine for now. I've got about $130 in rewards at BestBuy so I'm looking at Thunderbolt3 external drive options.

 

[pigoo3]

Hey AirBear...great to hear you're pleased with the 27" iMac!

- Nick

 

[Lifeisabeach]

Quick update on the new iMac. I installed Steam and a few of my games in the library had Mac versions. Only one I installed was "Cold Waters", I had bought that on sale a few months ago but never got around to playing it. Tried it out real quick and seems to run fine. Found a FPS game called "Metro 2033 Redux" on sale for $5 and grabbed that, it also seems to run fine. Star Trek Online is a game I've had for many years and it has a Mac version. Not sure if I'll go back to it or not, probably been 3-4 years since I played. But it's nice to have the option to do some gaming since my Win10 rig needs a clean install and isn't reliable for gaming right now.

So far I'm happy with the Fusion drive. Load times after reboot are very good probably because the OS has been cached on the SSD part of the drive. 27" Retina monitor looks great. The apps I paid for on the Mac Mini have been migrated over with no trouble. The 8GB Ram seems fine for now. I've got about $130 in rewards at BestBuy so I'm looking at Thunderbolt3 external drive options.

Great to hear it's working out. We had no doubt.

If you need a recommendation for an external drive, I have this one:
G-DRIVE USB-C

G-Drive is a high end of external drives by Western Digital. They use their WD Red drives and SMART utilities like DriveDx will be able to monitor these. I like the aluminum case... it goes well with the iMac, and it's not noisy at all. As for the interface, you can get these in Thunderbolt and USB-C, but unless you need to daisy chain multiple drives or use passthrough, then USB-C will perform just as well and it uses the same connector.

Be aware that the 4 TB model uses a 5400 rpm drive while the higher capacities all appear to be 7200 rpm. (EDIT: actually iirc now and from re-reading, the USB-C models may all be using 5400 rpm drives while the Thunderbolt ones are using 7200 rpm drives)

 

[AirBear]

Great to hear it's working out. We had no doubt.

If you need a recommendation for an external drive, I have this one:
G-DRIVE USB-C

G-Drive is a high end of external drives by Western Digital. They use their WD Red drives and SMART utilities like DriveDx will be able to monitor these. I like the aluminum case... it goes well with the iMac, and it's not noisy at all. As for the interface, you can get these in Thunderbolt and USB-C, but unless you need to daisy chain multiple drives or use passthrough, then USB-C will perform just as well and it uses the same connector.

Be aware that the 4 TB model uses a 5400 rpm drive while the higher capacities all appear to be 7200 rpm. (EDIT: actually iirc now and from re-reading, the USB-C models may all be using 5400 rpm drives while the Thunderbolt ones are using 7200 rpm drives)

Took a look at that, but the one I like is the Seagate 4TB FireCuda Gaming Dock with Thunderbolt3, 4TB mechanical drive, and an empty slot for NVMe. I happen to have a 2TB NVMe SSD in my semi-retired Win10 system that I don't need there. I can move stuff on it to other drives. TB3 combined with SSD should be very fast, I might make that a drive for any games I install. I'll link it below. B&H Photo has it on sale today only for $299, normal price is $350. That 4TB WD drive with TB3 is $329

Firecuda Gaming Dock: External Drive and Thunderbolt 3 Dock | Seagate US

 

[Lifeisabeach]

Took a look at that, but the one I like is the Seagate 4TB FireCuda Gaming Dock with Thunderbolt3, 4TB mechanical drive, and an empty slot for NVMe. I happen to have a 2TB NVMe SSD in my semi-retired Win10 system that I don't need there. I can move stuff on it to other drives. TB3 combined with SSD should be very fast, I might make that a drive for any games I install. I'll link it below. B&H Photo has it on sale today only for $299, normal price is $350. That 4TB WD drive with TB3 is $329

Firecuda Gaming Dock: External Drive and Thunderbolt 3 Dock | Seagate US

That's a pretty cool device. Yeah, since you have a fusion drive right now, rebooting off this thing with macOS (or Windows as a dual boot option) installed on the NVMe SSD very likely will perform better.

 

[AirBear]

Just wanted to update this thread one more time since it's coming up on a month since I first posted. First, I really like my iMac 3.7ghz and the Mac OS Catalina. So many things I needed a separate app for in Win10 that I find are built into Catalina or the apps that come with it. I was considering bootcamping into Windows, I have Win7 for free or get a paid Win10 license. But there's just not enough I need to do in Windows to bother with that. Envelope printing I can do with Pages, and combining PDF's with the built in PDF preview. I finally did an in place reinstall of an up to date Win10 on my gaming rig keeping the apps. Hopefully that fixed the lockups when updating so I still have that computer for gaming should I get the urge again.

For my timing on buying this iMac, no regrets. I've been keeping a close eye on the BestBuy website and not only has the price not gone down, they're out of stock on 5 of their 6 27" iMacs. I did buy the Firecuda Gaming Dock, that gave me 4TB storage via ThunderBolt 3. All I had to do was reformat it from NTFS to Mac Journaled I think it was. The 2TB PCIe NVM has been wiped clean and partition deleted, it's still sitting in my Win10 rig until I get around to moving it into the Firecuda. Had to decide about bootcamp before I move it and what I'm going to do with it once I do move it. Since I rarely restart the iMac I doubt putting the OS on it will make a lot of difference. Will probably move games onto it and maybe move some TV/Video folders that I use with my Plex Media Server.

I've got $140 BestBuy bucks burning a hole in my pocket. I may upgrade RAM from 8 to 24 ($80) although I haven't had any issues with 8GB. Figure RAM is like money, you can never have too much. Or I may go for the Das Model S Pro mechanical keyboard for Mac, it's on sale at BestBuy for $126, (actually $119 with price match Amazon). I'm using the 2012 Mac Mini keyboard with numpad right now. It's not that bad but I'm used to a nice gaming keyboard.

Again, thanks for all the help. You guys steered me in the right direction, I'm glad I got the iMac vs a Mac Mini or laptop.

 

[chscag]

Yeah, it's nice having an iMac with a 27" Retina screen to work from. I do all my work from my home office so my iMac is always in use. If I need to get out and about and need something better to work with than my iPhone, I use my 10.5" iPad Pro. Small screen, but a lot better than the 4.5" screen on my iPhone 8.

 

[Lifeisabeach]

I was considering bootcamping into Windows, I have Win7 for free or get a paid Win10 license. But there's just not enough I need to do in Windows to bother with that.

FYI you can actually use Win10 without a license. You can't do certain things like change the wallpaper and a handful of other things that amount to eye candy, but it is fully functional otherwise and with Microsoft's blessings. For the occasional thing you may need Windows for, you can always use a virtual machine. VirtualBox is free and popular, and good enough for a lot of things. A lot of people like Parallels, but their pricing quite frankly is practically extortionate. I use VMWare Fusion and their pricing is much easier on the wallet and it works very well.

 

[AirBear]

FYI you can actually use Win10 without a license. You can't do certain things like change the wallpaper and a handful of other things that amount to eye candy, but it is fully functional otherwise and with Microsoft's blessings. For the occasional thing you may need Windows for, you can always use a virtual machine. VirtualBox is free and popular, and good enough for a lot of things. A lot of people like Parallels, but their pricing quite frankly is practically extortionate. I use VMWare Fusion and their pricing is much easier on the wallet and it works very well.

Good to know, thanks. Still haven't pulled the PCIe out of the Win10 box. I need to go look at all my installed programs on Win10 and see if there's any I'd use with bootcamp or VM. I have 2 games on this iMac (Cold Waters & Metro 2033 Redux), I need to try them out and see how well they run. Little stuff like my envelope printer on Win10 should work well in VM but games probably need bootcamp.