Should I buy an iMac?

[musicman691]

Originally Posted by elicious

i have the 3.4 imac referenced by nst7 in my home studio
and a 2.66 quad mac pro in the studio running an hd4.

i can create mixes on the imac
that when i bring them in to the studio
chokes the mac pro with the 4 cards.

besides audio i run final cut pro on the imac,
and have done multi cams edits with up to 7 1080 vids running at once.

also, go to the refurb store within apple and get the imac for a few hunnerd sheckels less
plus get one that's been more checked out.

e
for the record studios

That's what I did for the system in my signature. Works a charm and you have two Thunderbolt ports which allow for, amongst other things, an expansion chassis if you ever want to go the HDX route or use a UAD pcie card. Or plug an Apollo into the Thunderbolt port for both I/O and dsp power. Or an HD Native box connected to the TB port.

[musicman691]

Originally Posted by ianbee

thanks for the help guys.

one of my other options would be the 27 inch imac.. but I thought this would be too big of a screen, I'm gonna go test it out ina few days to get an idea of how big it actually is.

If I was to get a 27 inch imac with stock 8gb of ram, could I just get my own ram to upgrade as opposed to buying ram from apples site?

Here is some ram I was looking at:
http://www.corsair.com/memory/intel-...m6a1600c9.html

I noticed that this came in six 4gb pieces... could all of that fit in the remaining ram slots in the 27 inch imac?

What do yall think about pt with the 27 inch imac and just the 27 inch imac in general?

iMac only has 4 memory slots. Go for 32 gig from OWC. Fast & reliable. The ram you link to won't work in an iMac anyway - won't fit for one thing not with that heatsink gizmo.

Oh yeah - go for the 27" - you can NEVER have too much screen!

[Bill Denton]

Let me first say that I'm a Windows guy through and through, and I'll probably stay one, but...

I can't remember who it was or where I read it, but someone whose opinion I respect mentioned referbished Macs from the online Mac store. He said he's been buying them for years with no problems.

I took a look at the refurb Mac Pro's a couple of months ago...they were mostly "one model" old, with 6 GB of RAM and a 1 TB hard drive. Don't quote me on this but it seems like they were $500 - $1,000 US below comparable current models.

Again, no personal knowledge, but I wouldn't hesitate to buy one if I needed a Mac.

But...unless you absolutely have to have a Mac now, you might want to wait for the 2013 Mac Pro's (or their replacements) which should be released at any minute...

[ianbee]

thanks for the help guys, I'd much rather go with the 21.5 inch than the 27 inch if the computers had the same specs... I just find 27 inches too big for a screen, but I guess I'll have to test it out soon.. I guess my ultimate questions are these

1) Is it really neccesary to get 32gb of ram instead of 16gb? and how big of a difference would it make? like doesn't 32gb of ram seem a bit unneccesary?

2) How big of a difference will a 3.4 quad core processor make as apposed to the a 3.1 quad core processor?

3) I'm assuming a 2gb graphics card will be much better than a 512mb graphics card for video editing. But in what way? How exactly would the 2gb benefit me more than the 512mb? Will the 2gb graphics card make things run more quickly in Adobe Premiere or make things just make things run quicker overall in Adobe Premiere? I don't really fully grasp the importance of the graphics card in terms of video editing.

so basically the 27 inch mac has / could have

16gb more ram than the 21.5
a 3.4 processor instead of a 3.1 processor on the 21.5
2gb graphics card instead of 512mb graphics card on the 21.5

But how much do these 3 things matter / would have an effect on me? Again, all I would do is PT and light video editing in adobe premiere.

If anyone could answer my 3 questions and maybe some more insight on the 27inch vs the 21.5 inch, that would be great.

[nst7]

You can stick with 16gb for now, then upgrade later...IF you get the 27" version. With the 21" version, the ram is not user replaceable. You would have to decide now, or pay money to have it installed later on.

Whether you get the 21 or 27, the main thing is you want the special upgrade to the I7 processor, vs. the stock I5. The I7 is much more powerful, and also features hyper-threading, which lets the computer use virtual cores. This comes in handy for Protools.

With the 21 inch, you'll need to get the $1499 version, and upgrade to the I7 for $200. With the 27" version, you'll need to get the $1999 version, and upgrade for $200.

Regardless of screen size, the 27" version is a much better way to go.

[ianbee]

Originally Posted by nst7

You can stick with 16gb for now, then upgrade later...IF you get the 27" version. With the 21" version, the ram is not user replaceable. You would have to decide now, or pay money to have it installed later on.

Whether you get the 21 or 27, the main thing is you want the special upgrade to the I7 processor, vs. the stock I5. The I7 is much more powerful, and also features hyper-threading, which lets the computer use virtual cores. This comes in handy for Protools.

With the 21 inch, you'll need to get the $1499 version, and upgrade to the I7 for $200. With the 27" version, you'll need to get the $1999 version, and upgrade for $200.

Regardless of screen size, the 27" version is a much better way to go.

the 27 inch version doesn't come with a stock i7 processor, you have to pay 200 to upgrade to the i7... just like the 21.5 inch version.. only difference is, is that the 27 inch version would have a 3.4 ghz processor where as the 21.5 would have the 3.1ghz processor, would that really make a difference though? And then the other thing is the ram.. I know the 21.5 isnt upgradable past 16gb and I can't ever upgrade from 8gb to 16gb by myself without virtually taking the computer apart, but I'd want the 16gb right off the bat, I wouldn't even consider getting the 8gb of ram, so that isn't even a problem for me.. but the question regarding ram would be, is the 32gb of ram (on the 27 inch)
really neccesary? thats a whooole lota ram, and would it really be that much better than the 16gb? and then finally there is the video card question.. the 27 can have the 2gb video card, the 21.5 can only have the 512 mb.. so for video editing how much would the 2gb video card make a difference? would it even make rendering things quicker, or just the whole experience in preimere quicker? Again, my three questions were these:

1) Is it really neccesary to get 32gb of ram instead of 16gb? and how big of a difference would it make? like doesn't 32gb of ram seem a bit unneccesary?

2) How big of a difference will a 3.4 quad core processor make as apposed to the a 3.1 quad core processor?

3) I'm assuming a 2gb graphics card will be much better than a 512mb graphics card for video editing. But in what way? How exactly would the 2gb benefit me more than the 512mb? Will the 2gb graphics card make things run more quickly in Adobe Premiere or make things just make things run quicker overall in Adobe Premiere? I don't really fully grasp the importance of the graphics card in terms of video editing.


I boiled it down to those three main things, ram, processor and video card. If anyone could answer those 3 questions for me, that would be great.

[musicman691]

Originally Posted by Bill Denton

Let me first say that I'm a Windows guy through and through, and I'll probably stay one, but...

I can't remember who it was or where I read it, but someone whose opinion I respect mentioned referbished Macs from the online Mac store. He said he's been buying them for years with no problems.

I took a look at the refurb Mac Pro's a couple of months ago...they were mostly "one model" old, with 6 GB of RAM and a 1 TB hard drive. Don't quote me on this but it seems like they were $500 - $1,000 US below comparable current models.

Again, no personal knowledge, but I wouldn't hesitate to buy one if I needed a Mac.

But...unless you absolutely have to have a Mac now, you might want to wait for the 2013 Mac Pro's (or their replacements) which should be released at any minute...

There's something to be said for buying one model old. The one in my sig file is just that - the previous version to the ones that are out now. Not everything in the refurb store is the same. This one came with the 3.4 GHz i7, 2 TB internal drive, 8 gig ram and 1 gig 6970 graphics card. $1800 US which is a heck of a savings over a new model year with lesser capabilities. Added my own ram to 32 gig.

Don't forget that the newest iMacs don't have an optical drive - not expensive but nice to have internally and not an add-on box.

You can never have too much ram. If you ever go PT HD or the CPTK then you have timeline cache which can use the extra memory. Also the extra memory is good to have if you use or will get VEPro. In either case adding your own ram is inexpensive and easy on the 27". You don't have to take the case apart as the memory is behind a little door on the bottom of the unit.

[ianbee]

Just about to get test out a 21.5 inch screen and a 27 inch screen, I guess I'll make my decision there... will the 27 inch be too big from my perspective? I guess we'll have to find out! Stay tuned guys...

[tribedescribe]

I think the 27" imac with the 3.4 i7 is your best bet. It has a lot of advantages over the 21.5" below are some of them.

27" imac has :

7200 speed hard drive standard (unless you plan on ssd/fusion drives)
upgradable ram (+cheaper than apple)
32gb ram (although you could take the 21.5 apart and add 32gb ram)
1gb graphics card standard
3.4 i7 vs. 3.1 i7 (not a really huge difference)

Consider this price point:

21.5" imac i7 3.1 16gb apple ram = $1900
27" imac i7 3.4ghz 32gb Third party ram = $2400

As to your question about graphics card, I am no expert but I do believe most video photo programs rely more on cpu than gpu for rendering and stuff. I think if you get the 27" with the 1gb gpu you will be happy unless you are going to run multiple monitors. For audio the 21.5 i7 is a great machine but for heavy video editing the 27" has the advantage with ram and gpu.

32gb for ram is for audio is not really needed at this point unless you are running hd with ram caching and/or lots of virtual instruments. For example I just loaded a session loaded with guitar rig, ez-drummer, reason, and lots of sonnox plug ins with my 2.3ghz mac mini with 4gb ram. It ran like a champ at 128 buffer. But no one really knows the future of audio and how much of a hog the new 64 bit pro tools might be.

[NHH]

I'd also consider the quad-core Mac Mini i7 (2Ghz) with dual 500GB 7200rpm internal drives. 16GB RAM.

Couple that to any screen for surely the best bang-for-buck solution.

Not quite the speed of the top-line iMac but not far off, and a fairly sizeable price difference.