KVR Audio

Nimrod7 · Post by **Nimrod7** » Sun Aug 30, 2015 8:25 pm

Hi,

It's time to replace my Mac, a Mac Pro 2006, since it can't handle a lot these days, and it's a nightmare to update.

I am using logic X so a Pc is not an option, neither a hackintosh. I don't like spending time fixing it.

What I do it's spending 3500 euro every 7-8 years. I don't like updating often.

The first option is to get an iMac Retina with i7. The plus is I will have a nice screen, and a pretty powerful computer.

The second option is a Mac Pro 4 core. The benefit is that is easy to repair / upgrade if needed.

Both will be when the next generation is out since they are both near EOL.

What's you opinion, what you will choose in my case?

TwoToneshuzz · Post by **TwoToneshuzz** » Sun Aug 30, 2015 9:36 pm

I'm like you, I don't upgrade very often.

I have a mid 2011 iMac which I feel gives me a very workable machine at present. Only a very few plug ins are too much for it, like Kaleidoscope by 2C audio, or a chain of big complicated sounds for Mach V followed by something like Molekular.

For Logic X I think an iMac would be fine, I'm doubtful that the Retina version gets you so much more for Audio work, also many plugins aren't optimised graphically to work with retina..

I'm planning on upgrading to a Mac Pro 6 or 8 core next generation in a couple of years, in the meantime I'm upgrading other aspects of my studio..

In my opinion getting a maxed out iMac i7 might be the answer to your question..

A Mac Pro with 4 cores doesn't get you that much of an improvement in performance compared to an iMac..

quantize · Post by **quantize** » Sun Aug 30, 2015 10:24 pm

frankly my tip is to go for a 5,1 Mac Pro (previous generation) and stick a usb3 PCI in it, unless of course you have money for thunderbolt drives...

aMUSEd · Post by **aMUSEd** » Sun Aug 30, 2015 11:03 pm

I'd go for a Mac Pro but the current models are well overdue for updates so I'd wait a while longer - that's what I'm doing too.

BDeep · Post by **BDeep** » Sun Aug 30, 2015 11:32 pm

If you can stretch it, I believe a Mac Pro will last you longer. By the time new models arrive, you might even want to consider getting a discounted previous gen (now current) model, with more cores. That would depend a bit of course on the performance increase we'll see with the next gen.

Michael L · Post by **Michael L** » Mon Aug 31, 2015 1:54 am

What may help is that the 27" non-Retina iMac is no longer available with i7, only the Retina has that option

I spoke with Apple sales who said, If enough people complain... [nothing will happen] I am waiting until the next MacPro announcement, and will decide after.

quantize · Post by **quantize** » Mon Aug 31, 2015 2:24 am

In 2008 Apple released the 3,1 Mac Pro which was bang-for-buck worth it even at "Apple prices"

I'm not sure they will do something that smart again.

jdnz · Post by **jdnz** » Mon Aug 31, 2015 3:54 am

Michael L wrote:What may help is that the 27" non-Retina iMac is no longer available with i7, only the Retina has that option

the price diff between the retina/5k 27" imac and the non-retina 27" is so tiny now it amazes me they keep making the non-retina (suspect it will be fully discontinued once stocks of the panels are run down)

Michael L · Post by **Michael L** » Mon Aug 31, 2015 4:09 am

quantize wrote:I'm not sure they will do something that smart again

Only once: in 2012 they released the quad-core i7 Mac Mini, another customer-friendly idea now lost to history.

TwoToneshuzz · Post by **TwoToneshuzz** » Mon Aug 31, 2015 2:52 pm

Sorry for the misinformation about getting an i7 non retina iMac.. I'm really quite irritated that you can't get that configuration, I think Retina is overkill for my uses and rather use money on more ram and a bigger internal SSD and of course the fastest 4 core i7.. Looks like it's going to be a long time before I upgrade then, when all the plugins I used are upgraded to work with Retina and when I can get either a used or refurbed maxed Retina.

Jace-BeOS · Post by **Jace-BeOS** » Mon Aug 31, 2015 4:53 pm

I'm personally waiting for the next Mac Pro, which hopefully will also see an Apple-made retina res display for it. The iMac looks great but uses laptop style components that I'm tired of seeing commit suicide (i had a MacBook Pro 3,1 die of GPU failure). If a third party high-ppi display was known to work reliably with the Mac Pro, I might've gone for the late 2013 model already, but they were reported by many people to be finicky. Now, at this point, it seems like we are close to a refresh on the Mac Pro (expecting new CPU, thunderbolt, displayport, USB 3.1, etc).

Michael L · Post by **Michael L** » Fri Sep 04, 2015 9:01 am

I had a long email exchange with Apple on this topic.
The website everymac.com shows the CPUs for every computer, and cpuboss.com compares them. The 2014 iMac quadcore Haswell i7 is much faster than the 2013 MacPro quadcore Xeon i7, and the single core speed of the six core is the same. Here is a comparison image:
http://www.primatelabs.com/images/blog/ ... lecore.png
I like the long-term upgradeability of the MacPro. Also, the Retina resolution only goes down to 1600x900 so if you toggle screen rez down to use vintage plugins, beware of retina.
The current quad-core MacPro is not a good price-performance value compared to the six-core. However, I will wait for the new MacPro that is expected to have Xeon versions of the Haswell-Extreme (eg 6-core i7-5930K), and will investigate a hackintosh tested by tonymacx86.com

iMac i7 or Mac Pro