[SOLVED] Mac Pro or iMac 5k? specs and thoughts

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Blaketho

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I've been long debating whether I should pull the trigger on a Mac Pro or the 5k iMac. I would like to have at least two monitors set up maybe three if im feeling ambitious. Either can accomplish that for me so I'm ok there, however the 5k has the better screen but with it being new I worry about potential bugs and issues with having this screen. The mac pro would allow me to reuse any monitor I pair with it though so the extra cost of that would balance out in the future. I know both computers are more than enough for me but I'm wondering what will work better. I would go with an upgraded 5k or base Mac pro. Here would be the specs.

iMac 5k:
CPU: Quad core i7 4Ghz
8Gb 1600 ram
1TB fusion drive
R9 M295X 4GB

Mac Pro:
CPU: Quad core 3.7 Ghz 10Mb of L3 cache
12GB of 1866MHz DDR3 ECC
256GB SSD
Dual AMD Firepro D300 2GB of GDDR5 VRAM each

They seem to be about the same aside from storage which for me isnt a big deal, if I need more I'll go buy an external hard drive. I Plan on doing some light gaming, ie wow, sims 4, other mmos. Obviously not much since this is Mac. Price wise they are almost identical, but the Mac Pro will need a monitor to go with. I will be mainly using whichever computer for school stuff, typing papers, powerpoint etc. Photoshop, other design apps and internet browsing. So both are substantial, I'm just curious what would perform better. With dual monitors I don't plan on having tons of crazy stuff going on at once but I always have lots of firefox tabs up and music playing photoshop going or typing a word doc and referencing the internet. I hear that Mac Pro is better with multitasking (multithreaded tasks? not sure what the deal with single thread, multithread or multicore stuff is so feel free to elaborate) But I also heard benchmarks for the 5k were higher for single threaded tasks (again no real idea what this means). I know this is a pretty annoying question/decision but I've been researching and reading reviews and blogs for about two and a half weeks and I'm still stuck in between. Partially because I really love the Mac Pro and the fact that its an actual tower, vs the 5k being like a giant desktop/laptop, but the 5k has such a great screen especially cause my current computer is max at 1440x900
 
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g-unit1111


I'm not mad or anything, that build actually does look pretty good, I would maybe consider downgrading the monitor to a less expensive 4K model and then upgrading your GPU to a GTX 980.
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-Lone-

-Lone-

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My dad bought the 5k mac, I think he likes so far, it is pretty fast. If you're going to game, I'd get that because it has 4GB of VRAM, according to the specs from what you said anyways. I'm not an Apple fan, so I have not played with it a lot, lol.
 
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g-unit1111

g-unit1111

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I personally wouldn't get either. For your uses you could build a low cost micro ATX Intel system and you could run just about anything that you can throw at it for around the $700 mark. Like this:

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Core i5-4430 3.0GHz Quad-Core Processor ($178.95 @ SuperBiiz)
Motherboard: ASRock H97M Micro ATX LGA1150 Motherboard ($78.99 @ SuperBiiz)
Memory: G.Skill Ares Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-2400 Memory ($74.98 @ Newegg)
Storage: Crucial M550 128GB 2.5" Solid State Drive ($49.99 @ Newegg)
Storage: Seagate Barracuda 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($49.99 @ SuperBiiz)
Video Card: EVGA GeForce GTX 750 Ti 2GB Superclocked Video Card ($128.99 @ NCIX US)
Case: Cooler Master N200 MicroATX Mid Tower Case ($39.99 @ NCIX US)
Power Supply: SeaSonic S12G 550W 80+ Gold Certified ATX Power Supply ($79.99 @ Newegg)
Optical Drive: Lite-On iHAS124-04 DVD/CD Writer ($16.99 @ Directron)
Total: $698.86
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2015-01-06 01:24 EST-0500

That system will literally handle everything you need to do, for a fraction of the cost of either Mac you are planning to purchase, and will be able to handle a multiple monitor setup without breaking a sweat. No need to spend $3500 on these overpriced status symbols. The iMac is a fancy display with a sub par laptop behind it. The Mac Pro is not for games at all, it's for multimedia content creation.
 
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Blaketho

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So the Mac Pro is more worth the money although its possible to go cheaper.
And actually you kinda brought up one of my other ideas which is to get a mac pro and have multi monitors and then build a sole gaming PC that literally is just for gaming. I'm drifting away from consoles and wanting to build a semi cheap gaming rig and I'm in between something full tower or more like the "steam box" stuff.

Any input on the specs of the mac however? The school I go to uses mac for my program so its either buy another macbook pro as my desktop or go with a real desktop. So I'm curious whether the upgraded iMac is better than a base model pro.

If you wouldn't mind shooting me a PM or something to talk more about building a pc that would be cool too

thanks a ton
 
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g-unit1111

g-unit1111

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Yeah the Mac Pro you're looking at about $5,000 minimum. For 1/2 the price you could build a i7-5820K rig and then Hackintosh it. I've never set one of those rigs up but I'm told it's easy to do once you learn how to do it the first time. It would certainly be a lot cheaper than buying a Mac Pro or a 5K iMac. The problem with the 5K iMac is that once Adobe programs start adapting themselves to the highest resolutions available, the hardware that's behind the iMac uses laptop-level parts and is not upgradable. It will struggle greatly on heavy redraws once that happens.
 
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Blaketho

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Mac pro over 5k then if one of those? I've heard a little about hackintosh, does that just mean the OSX interface but the performance of the parts you put in? And could you still run bootcamp/parralells or whatever it is that will run windows on mac?
So could you recommend a roughly $1000 build that could power three monitors play games photoshop and all that along with a monitor? Monitor doesn't really need to be included in the price. I've been looking at the Asus MX279H, and the PA279Q. and the gtx 970 looks like a good card yeah? I know the price will be above $1000 but roughly that range.
 
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g-unit1111

g-unit1111

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If you want a Hackintosh you should just dual boot Windows and Mac OS X, there's no need to run Bootcamp, that would defeat the purpose of Hackintosh. That way you get the best of both worlds - no need to run emulation software on emulation software.

If you want to build a system capable of running Hackintosh you will need an Intel CPU and AMD graphics. Don't ask me, I didn't design the software. :lol:

But you're looking at a system like this for $1K:

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Core i5-4690K 3.5GHz Quad-Core Processor ($219.99 @ SuperBiiz)
CPU Cooler: Noctua NH-U9B SE2 37.9 CFM CPU Cooler ($49.99 @ Newegg)
Motherboard: ASRock Z97 EXTREME4 ATX LGA1150 Motherboard ($125.98 @ Newegg)
Memory: G.Skill Ares Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-2400 Memory ($74.98 @ Newegg)
Storage: Crucial M550 128GB 2.5" Solid State Drive ($55.98 @ Newegg)
Storage: Seagate Barracuda 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($49.99 @ SuperBiiz)
Video Card: MSI Radeon R9 280X 3GB TWIN FROZR Video Card ($316.02 @ Amazon)
Case: Corsair 200R ATX Mid Tower Case ($54.99 @ Newegg)
Power Supply: SeaSonic S12G 550W 80+ Gold Certified ATX Power Supply ($75.99 @ Newegg)
Optical Drive: Lite-On iHAS124-04 DVD/CD Writer ($16.99 @ Directron)
Total: $1040.90
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2015-01-06 20:39 EST-0500
 
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Blaketho

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Recommend some monitors? IPS sounds good since I'd like to do graphic stuff, but I've never had anything but macbooks so I know very little about monitors
 
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g-unit1111

g-unit1111

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Monitor is a tricky area because there's a lot of things you have to take into account like resolution, refresh rate, what type of panel you want, whether or not you are using calibration software, and so on and so forth.
 
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Blaketho

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Would this work as a good gaming pc up to three monitors or even like one 4k?
http://pcpartpicker.com/p/6YpqVn
 
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g-unit1111

g-unit1111

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A single GTX 970 will power three 1080P monitors without breaking a sweat. It will power one 4K monitor as long as you are not playing games. For Photoshop and most CS5 / 6 programs it will be fine. Even dual GTX 980s are known to struggle greatly with 4K. The only thing I question though is the 970's compatibility with Hackintosh. I think a Radeon R9-290X would probably be better suited to this task.

That power supply is a decent unit, the EVGA G2s are much higher quality units for only like a $20 difference.
 
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Blaketho

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What about the higher spec 5k? The benchmarks for the i7 with r9 m295x show that its a bit faster than a base mac pro, which is what I can afford, I cant afford any of the crazy upgrades for it nor do i necessarily need them currently.
 
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g-unit1111

g-unit1111

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But then you're dealing with laptop level hardware that can't be upgraded and isn't 1/10th as powerful as true desktop hardware. For the $4,000 asking price you can build one that's 1/2 the cost and is a far more powerful system that can last for years longer than a 5K iMac will.
 
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Blaketho

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The issue is I'm just not a big pc fan. I want one but not for an every day work computer so I'm trying to figure out the best choice for a Mac that will do good for photoshop and whatnot. I've been leaning toward the 5k vs a Mac pro since it has a display. And the Mac pro seems like overkill for me but also seems better since I could easily hook monitors and stuff up to it that won't contrast as much as 5k and 1080
 
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okcnaline

okcnaline

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Depends on what you're using it for. If you're doing Maya or SolidWorks, that's 2 OpenGL cards RIGHT INSIDE the machines. The base model has 2 W7000, or $700, cards built in, and would be an excellent workstation. If you don't need that, then you won't be looking at Macs for a long time.
 
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Blaketho

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So maybe a macbook pro would be a better choice since I don't really use too much crazy stuff like maya right now.

 
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Blaketho

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Class work, MS office, photoshop, light gaming (maybe), and I would like to try some lighting FX and other things, but I don't know anything about that kind of stuff.
 
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g-unit1111

g-unit1111

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You still don't need a $4000 status symbol like the 5K iMac for that, it's an absolute waste of money. Plus you're running on components meant to run on low power sources and are not upgradable. When applications adapt to 4K and 5K resolutions you will greatly struggle with that system. You can build your own for 1/3 the cost of a 5K iMac and it will last you years longer with minimal upgrades.
 
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Blaketho

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If it runs at 5k why would it have issues with adapting to it?
 
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g-unit1111

g-unit1111

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The hardware supports the 5K resolutions. Doesn't necessarily mean that the software will. If you're working with high resolution files that have a hundred or so layers, redraws will be painfull slow running on laptop hardware with limited memory.
 
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