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Two 2.66GHz Dual-Core Intel Xeon or one 2.33 Merom system?

alyssa
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alyssa
alyssa
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It's time for me to make that transition between hackintosh into the real deal. My limit is $2,800.

 

Basically I'd like to know if having a system with two slower clocked duo processors is faster than a system with just one but faster clocked duo chip:

 

Two 2.0GHz Dual-Core Intel Xeon

or

One 2.33 Intel Core2 Duo (Merom).

 

The two systems: A fully upgraded 24" iMac (minus memory upgrade) and a MacPro with a downgraded processor from default configuration.

 

The MacPro has a second option for LCD: I could upgrade the MacPro processor to the default processor configuration, the Two 2.66GHz Dual-Core Intel Xeon ($270) and buy a smaller 22" LCD (Samsung SyncMaster 22" Widescreen Flat-Panel TFT-LCD) for $230 (normally $399) after using some Best Buy gift certificates I've had for a while. I would use this LCD for six months at which point I would buy the Dell 24" and use the Samsung as a second display.

 

So out of the two which one is faster? Better value? Please help me decide.

I use Photoshop a lot and haven't done much video editing but with any of these computers I plan to finally transfer DV tapes into DVDs.

 

MacPro

LCD/Processor option A: $2,033.00 + $750 for LCD = $,2788.00

LCD/Processor option B: (plus processor upgrade to default +$270) $2,633

  • Processor option A: Two 2.0GHz Dual-Core Intel Xeon -$270 from option B
  • Processor option B: Two 2.66GHz Dual-Core Intel Xeon +$270 from option A
  • 1GB (2x512MB)
  • 160GB 7200-rpm (I have a spare 500GB)
  • NVIDIA GeForce 7300 GT 256MB (single-link DVI/dual-link DVI) [slower than iMac]
  • Both Bluetooth 2.0+EDR and AirPort Extreme
  • Apple Keyboard and Mighty Mouse - U.S. English
  • Option A LCD: Dell UltraSharp 2407WFP Wide-Screen Black Flat Panel $750
  • Option B LCD: Samsung SyncMaster 22" Widescreen Flat-Panel TFT-LCD $399 but after coupons: $230

iMac 24" $2,590.00

(All upgrades except for memory)

  • 2.33GHz Intel Core 2 Duo
  • 1GB 667 DDR2 SDRAM - 2x512
  • 500GB Serial ATA Drive
  • NVIDIA GeForce 7600 GT 256MB SDRAM
  • Apple Wireless Keyboard & wireless Mighty Mouse
  • AppleCare Protection Plan for iMac - Auto-enroll (only $119)

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alyssa
alyssa
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WOW! Not one vote for the lickable 24" iMac!

 

Has anyone seen the 24" iMac? The picture quality looks better to my eyes than the 23" Apple Cinema Display.

The MacPro seems faster though.

 

Anyone else got their opinions to give here?

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alyssa
alyssa
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I'm not much of a gamer but I do enjoy playing Oblivion which is the most graphics intensive game I know.... but I don't play much games. I rather play at a console away from the computer. When I get an xbox 360 I could play Oblivion then.

 

Also I could upgrade the graphics card on the MacPro later on. Couldn't I buy the GeForce 7600 GT or whatever other graphics card is $200 in 6 months time and upgrade that later on?

 

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?...N82E16814122245

 

Does the MacPro only take specific graphics cards?

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saintjude
saintjude
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In day-to-day processor performance I expect that the 24" iMac would feel about as fast as the Pro. So, if you aren't doing something that really pounds on processor power (such as 3D modelling or HD video work) the seemingly vast difference in processor power is a bit of an illusion.

 

To me, the real seduction of the Pro is the expandability, particularly the hard drives. Stick in four 500 gig SATAs, stripe and mirror them (RAID). You'd have a terabyte of very fast, REDUNDANT storage; if a drive crashes and burns, just stick in a replacement and let the RAID system re-build the lost data from the mirrored drive(s). (And trust me, all drives will eventually fail. One day you WILL wake up to a failed hard drive with any computer, at which point you'd better have anything valuable backed up.)

 

The day may come when you really want a PCI slot or two as well.

 

Yes, the iMac is gorgeous, and for most people it would serve them very well. But, if you don't mind the additional bulk on (or under) your desk and can take the sticker shock, I think the Pro is a much more attractive machine for a tech geek due to the expandability.

 

 

Does the MacPro only take specific graphics cards?

 

I've seen one report of a generic (sold for PC) 7800 GT working:

 

http://forums.macnn.com/65/power-mac-and-m...o-card-working/

 

It seems likely some other cards would also work, but no promises.

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alyssa
alyssa
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Those are all very good points guys. Thank you

 

saintjude your last comment really made sense to me. I can see that the iMac would be just the same as the MacPro for every day tasks. Based on that alone and if one requires a tidier desktop because of limited space than the iMac 24" would be the better choice. However for me I have enough space for a MacPro although the location of my desk and the space around it, an iMac 24" would look better.

 

Here are my concerns:

 

MacPro has two faster processors but a slower graphics card.

iMac has one slower processor but faster graphics card.

 

iMac 24":

One 2.33 Intel Core2 Duo (merom, which is a laptop processor).

GeForce 7600 GT 256MB

 

MacPro:

Two 2.0GHz Dual-Core Intel Xeon (two workstation processors)

GeForce 7300 GT 256MB

 

Does having two faster processors but slower graphics card just about equal the gaming performance? I know that games are mostly driven by the graphics card but being that the processor on the iMac 24" is a laptop processor and probably can't handle high end games as well as the MacPro's two faster processors. Wouldn't gaming perforance just about be equal?

 

I'm also concerned about the availability of upgrading a MacPro. If I get the MacPro is because I would want to upgrade it down the road. I followed the link on the post above and it's like hacking stuff all over again. I definitely am buying a real mac to concentrate more on work and just having the mac do what it does best and that's maintenance free work.

 

Right now Photoshop only runs with Rosetta on Intel machines. I have an old Pentium 4 3.0GHz and that runs Photoshop CS2 faster than the new iMacs and that really sucks considering there won't be a universal version of Photoshop (CS3) that will run natively on Intel chips for about seven months! I was thinking that the MacPro with it's two faster processors will make Photoshop run faster. In case anyone is wondering what I do with photoshop so much that I need it to be faster. I create a lot of layers and use layer effects heavily. Photoshop files ending up being higher than 30MB.

 

HD video editing on the iMac 24". I wonder if iMac 24" is really too slow for future HD video editing. I don't have an HD camcorder yet. I only have a mini DV camcorder and will be doing a lot of none HD video editing right away. I will be getting an HD camcorder by christmas next year at the most when HD camcorders cost less. I know right now HD camcorders are much cheaper than what they were a year ago. I have seen some small and nice HD camcorders for $1,999.00 but I would want to wait until they are around $1,200.00. The last camcorder I bought was $1,700 and I don't want to spend that much on a camcorder again.

 

As you can see I have some unanswered questions that are keeping me from making a decision.

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Wayland
Wayland
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Yes, don't forget to think of 2GB RAM, thats more important than i ever thought for OSX, really, its worth the price

Do you really see a performance upgrade with the 2 Gigs of Ram? I always wondered what might be the true difference.... any ideas?

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alyssa
alyssa
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Do you really see a performance upgrade with the 2 Gigs of Ram? I always wondered what might be the true difference.... any ideas?

 

I'm curious about that too. I wonder if it's best to to lose 200MHz but use 2GB of RAM. What significant power increase will an extra 200MHz of processor speed for $225 gain me? 5% 10% 20%?

 

If I don't upgrade to the iMac Core2 Duo 2.33GHz ($225) and stick with the 2.16GHz, I could upgrade the RAM for $158.

 

Intel Core2 Duo 2.16GHz

2GB RAM

 

instead of

 

Intel Core2 Duo 2.33GHz

2x512MB RAM

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aberracus
aberracus
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RAM, is RAM!, the most important part of a system nowdays,i have tested my machine with 1 gb and 2 gb and the diference is incredible, by the way alissa, in xbench at least my little puppy is nearly head to head with a macpro standard, so probably, if you dont plan to upgrade hardware, you should go with the imac, try to get 2 GBs of ram, and forget the 24 dell in any case,

 

Im running my system now with a Samsung 205BW and its outstanding. (i came from Sony LCDs).

 

I wish i could be in your position, thats the kind of desicions on can feel envious about. :hysterical:

 

Cheers

 

Aberracus

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alyssa
alyssa
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Thank you aberracus. That Samsung LCD is the one I'll be getting if I decide to go with the MacPro. Good to hear you like it a lot :)

 

I think I will get 2GB of RAM if I go with iMac 24". I just want to make sure I'm making the right choice because the RAM I can always upgrade later but there is no going back with the processor.

 

I went to one of my local Apple stores (we have two) and ran Xbench tests on both an iMac 24" and a MacPro.

 

iMac 24": Xbench 101.45

http://db.xbench.com/merge.xhtml?doc2=190370

 

MacPro: Xbench 151.43

http://db.xbench.com/merge.xhtml?doc2=186253

 

I was surprised, I'd figured the iMac would go 150 and MacPro 200 since I know the previous MacPros do 160.

(These tests weren't with freshly rebooted systems)

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saintjude
saintjude
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Here are my concerns:

 

MacPro has two faster processors but a slower graphics card.

iMac has one slower processor but faster graphics card.

 

If you don't mind blowing the cash, there's the X1900 XT option on the Pro (which as I understand it is substantially faster than the 7600.)

 

Does having two faster processors but slower graphics card just about equal the gaming performance?

 

Maybe, maybe not. Many games don't even benefit much from going from 1 core to 2. The reason is that to really exploit multiple cores/processors, a program has to be 'threaded'. Threads are just smaller chunks of code that can be run on their own, so while the main program is running on core 1, it can send a thread (a part of itself) to run on core 2 (and 3 and 4, if it generates that many threads.) A program that isn't designed to split itself up like this generally doesn't see much advantage from multi-CPU systems.

 

Wouldn't gaming perforance just about be equal?

 

Probably in the same ballpark. I wouldn't regard gaming as a make-or-break issue between them.

 

I'm also concerned about the availability of upgrading a MacPro. If I get the MacPro is because I would want to upgrade it down the road.

 

There have always been a few (usually high-end and expensive) fully supported (no hacks) Mac versions of video cards available. You'll pay more than the PC people, but they can be had. (Look around ATI's or NVidia's sites.) (The cost of mac video cards is a long-running complaint; the short version is that manufacturers are screwing us a bit.)

 

I was thinking that the MacPro with it's two faster processors will make Photoshop run faster.

 

Maybe; much depends on how well it threads (splits itself across multiple processors.)

 

I create a lot of layers and use layer effects heavily. Photoshop files ending up being higher than 30MB.

 

There are two less obvious differences between the Pro and iMac that can make a real difference when manipulating very large files. First, the Pro has a much faster 'front side bus'; it can move data between memory and processor considerably faster than the iMac can. Again, for most purposes that won't really matter, but if you find yourself applying an effect to HD video or such the difference could be substantial.

 

The second difference is the availability of hard drive RAIDs on the Pro. Say your regular hard drive can read and write data at 40 Meg/second. With the iMac, that's just the limit of things. But with the Pro's RAID system, you can stick in two hard drives and have them act as one drive, reading and writing data from both at once, giving you closer to 80 meg/second transfers. (And you can do that with up to four drives, making the potential disk access speeds staggering; imagine loading an entire 4.5 gig DVD from hard drive to memory in thirty seconds.) For dealing with truly massive files, it's the capacity to use a RAID (redundant array of inexpensive drives) that makes the Pro the compelling performance leader over an iMac.

 

You say you work with 30 meg PS files? Well...saving half a second on save and load times may not be so compelling at that level, although I assume the actual memory space is considerably larger, so the faster memory system could still make a significant difference.

 

HD video editing on the iMac 24". I wonder if iMac 24" is really too slow for future HD video editing.

 

The Core 2 Duo is a very impressive little processor; I'll speak no ill of it. :-) Still...if you find yourself manipulating extremely large files, I think there will be a substantial performance advantage for the Pro due to its faster memory system (and potentially much faster drive options.)

 

 

I would agree with the advice to get 2 gig of memory if you're using the machine for serious work. 1 Gig is enough to work quite well for most people, but when you start using the machine hard (large files open, lots of programs running) you're likely to run into that annoying 'delay' when it hits the virtual memory (temporarily storing data on the hard drive because there isn't enough real RAM to hold it all.) If you use a virtualization program to run Windows alongside the Mac OS (like Parallels), that will further increase memory demands.

 

(Apple will screw you pretty badly for RAM and hard drive upgrades; I'd buy them seperately from sources like NewEgg.)

 

 

Bottom line, if the extra grand or so for a Pro system doesn't bother you and you want more expansion options than the iMac provides, get it and be done with it. :-) If the cost (and bulk) is an issue, give some careful thought to how severely your usage will tax a computer's power.

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roscoe13
roscoe13
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iMac 24" $2,590.00

(All upgrades except for memory)

  • 2.33GHz Intel Core 2 Duo
  • 1GB 667 DDR2 SDRAM - 2x512
  • 500GB Serial ATA Drive
  • NVIDIA GeForce 7600 GT 256MB SDRAM
  • Apple Wireless Keyboard & wireless Mighty Mouse
  • AppleCare Protection Plan for iMac - Auto-enroll (only $119)

 

You might also consider a 20" Imac such:

 

* 2.33GHz Intel Core 2 Duo

* 2GB 667 DDR2 SDRAM - 2x1GB

* 500GB Serial ATA Drive

* ATI Radeon X1600/256MB VRAM

* SuperDrive 8X (DVD+R DL/DVD±RW/CD-RW)

* Apple Keyboard & Mighty Mouse + Mac OS X (US English)

* AppleCare Protection Plan for iMac - Auto-enroll

* 20-inch widescreen LCD

* AirPort Extreme

* Bluetooth 2.0 + EDR

 

Which comes out at $2368, then add the Samsung as a second display...

 

Peace

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alyssa
alyssa
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Saintjude, thank you so much for giving a great low down on all my questions. They really helped.

 

I have another concern about the iMac:

 

iMac 24" native screen resolution is 1920x1200. When you lower the resolution everything doesn't look as good, text is blurry, nothing is as crisp. I know this is normal for all LCD displays and not an issue with regular CRT monitors. My question is if I play a game at a lower resolution and not able to play a game at 1920x1200 will this make the quality also look blurry and not crisp? Also what about just watching DVD movies?

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saintjude
saintjude
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For watching DVD movies there's no reason to change the resolution; video scaled up onto a higher resolution screen usually looks very nice. (The software is designed to give high-quality scaling, and video is much more forgiving of the occassionally blurry edge than program graphics.) (Speaking of video, be sure to download a copy of the VLC video player; it handles .avi's and lots of odd video formats nicely.)

 

Yes, you'll get a bit of a blurred image if you set an LCD at most non-native resolutions. The one possible exception is if you can run a perfect fractional resolution (so, if your screen is 1920x1200 native but you can set it to run at 960x600 or 640x400) the image should still be crisp (if slightly 'jaggie' from the pixel-doubling or tripling.) I don't know if the 24" iMac (or your games) supports those resolutions or not; I would suspect so but can't say for sure.

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