New iMac 27" 5K display or MacPro

chouglez

chouglez

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Another suggestions request.

New iMac 27 or MacPro?
 
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unless your doing it from roughly 2inches away your not going to see much of a difference. this is one for the real extreme pixel peepers. youll be zooming in to what ever 100's % and you'll soon be looking at pixels larger than one pixel on your monitor. :s
 
First of all what are you going to use the computer for. If it is simple editing work then an iMac is a better choice. The MacPro whilst a brilliant piece of equipment, is mainly aimed at the professional video market. So unless you are editing high end 4K video then the Mac Pro is a bit overkill. The iMac 5K retina machine can also be said to fall into the same category. The 5K display is so you can view 4K video source, pixel for pixel, whilst allowing " real estate" around the image. Now I'm not knocking either machine. I'm a fan of the Mac but I have bee struggling to justify either machine for normal image editing work, compared to the conventional iMac. I'd also wait for a while as there does seem to be some small concerns about some editing software on the 5K machine, especially Light room. It does seem that certain Develop tasks seem to slow down at full 5K resolution. Not sure if it is specific to certain machines or a genuine problem. Unfortunately Apple no linger seem to include Photoshop on their demo machines in store so I've not been able to try that out either , although there doesn't seem to be problem, according to what I've read

OK so like for like the 5K machine is about £250 more expensive than a regular iMac Which is not a lot of money extra if you consider the machine could last more than 5 years ( which it will ). If you are not in a hurry, I'd wait a couple of months and see what transpires if you are a Lightroom user .

So if you want to go ahead, I'd go for the iMac. The MacPro would require you to buy a 5K monitor, which are not cheap. If you really want to future proof the iMac ( as much as anyone can) I'd opt for the 4GHz upgrade. OK it's £200, but this will probably be the norm in 2-3 years. If you can live with 8Gb of RAM then I'd wait until some 3 rd party RAM is available. Currently as far as I know only OWC in the US have 1600 speed ram available, and it's not that much cheaper than Apple's .Crucial memory is slower 1270 , which would slow everything down

Go for Apple care. There are some new technologies in this machine and it may be worth the cost as an insurance
 
I have recently bought the 5K iMac, and it's jaw-droopingly brilliant. I went for the 4Ghz processor, the 3Tb Fusion Drive, have upgraded it myself to 24Gb Memory (bought the standard 8, and another 2 x 8Gb modules from Crucial), all else standard. It flies through lightroom tasks, and rapidly scanning through libraries is a pleasure. I've also ripped out the 256Gb SSD drive from my Windows PC, bought a USB3.0 UASP supporting enclosure, and have put LR's library and Camera Raw cache on there, and PS's scratch files, but it's zippy either way. Whether or not I need 5k over the standard iMac I'm not sure, but it wasn't much extra. Everything appears so sharp - it almost feels like I've had a lens and camera upgrade. I moved from a 22" HD screen, so have only ever looked at my files at 2Mp resolution. Now looking at them at nearly 15Mp resolution and heads appear life-size, with unbelievable levels of detail. Best computer kit I've bought. OS X has been a fairly easy transition beyond the first day or two, once I figured out how to turn on right clicking, and obtaining the # symbol :) I've added a 3Tb Apple Time Machine, and that's a fantastic bit of kit as well, as I know my photo collection is continuously backed up to there (has already saved my bacon), and then I periodically back up also to a NAS. Overall then, I couldn't recommend the riMAC more to a photographer. Need plenty of memory though.
 
Simes123

Have you noticed any problems with the develop module and the sliders being unresponsive? This is where the problem seem to be, especially viewing at 100%. Several comments that this happens whilst others report no problems. That's why I've been holding off.
 
No, none at all! Everything seems very stable indeed. I've only had one crash since I've been using it in the 3 weeks I've had it. That was using a Photoshop plug in, but the same plug in worked in LR, so not sure what that was. I can scroll through images insanely quickly too, with just the left/right swipe on top of the touch mouse (which is a revolution in usability in LR or Photoshop). I'm probably coming across as a bit of a fanboy, but it's taken me a long time to switch to Apple on the desktop. I moved from a 3.4GHz i5 with 16Gb memory/Win 8 and an SSD based OS, to this, and while I expected it to be quicker, I had no idea how much - and that's moving from 2Mp on the display, to 14.7Mp on the display. We are so used to looking and editing images in usually HD 1920x1080 (or 2Mp), which bear no resemblance to how sharp they will look when printed, that this is a complete revelation. Editing images at a level that is as sharp as the resolution of a 220dpi 23.5" x 13" print is just luxorious!
 
And the difference between the Retina and the Standard iMac, is fairly significant - it's twice the DPI essentially. A standard iMac screen is 2560 x 1440 (or about 3.7Mpx) compared with 5120 x 2880 (or about 14.7Mpx). So you are genuinely looking at print resolutions, rather than screen resolutions in terms of quality, and are much closer to seeing what the Camera can actually do, onscreen.
 
Chappers said:
So if you want to go ahead, I'd go for the iMac. The MacPro would require you to buy a 5K monitor, which are not cheap. If you really want to future proof the iMac ( as much as anyone can) I'd opt for the 4GHz upgrade. OK it's £200, but this will probably be the norm in 2-3 years. If you can live with 8Gb of RAM then I'd wait until some 3 rd party RAM is available. Currently as far as I know only OWC in the US have 1600 speed ram available, and it's not that much cheaper than Apple's .Crucial memory is slower 1270 , which would slow everything down

Go for Apple care. There are some new technologies in this machine and it may be worth the cost as an insurance
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I bought mine from Crucial in the UK. Came to about £123 for 16Gb for 1600 speed memory.
 
Whether this is significant or not, I just had a google to see if I could see the symptoms you described with iMac to see if I could create them. It seems LR5.6 was slow in the develop module, and also some users reported the problems going with the cache bumped up from 1Gb to 100Gb. The problem appeared to be especially evident in Crop (if we are talking about the same issue), giving you a beach ball for 4secs or so. I cannot create these same symptoms. Crop is instantaneous, develop sliders are instant. I am using 5.7, and I have 100Gb allocated to the cache.
 
Thanks. Appreciate the response. Looks like it may be an limited to specific configurations. Delivery still a couple of weeks so will probably wait till after Christmas. ( maybe Apple will have a sale Dream On :) )


)
 
Educational discount is about the best you can do on these - gets you 3 years Applecare too. But you need a student to help you (or a hooky link on t'interweb).

Simon
 
Simes123 said:
I have recently bought the 5K iMac, and it's jaw-droopingly brilliant. I went for the 4Ghz processor, the 3Tb Fusion Drive, have upgraded it myself to 24Gb Memory (bought the standard 8, and another 2 x 8Gb modules from Crucial), all else standard. It flies through lightroom tasks, and rapidly scanning through libraries is a pleasure. I've also ripped out the 256Gb SSD drive from my Windows PC, bought a USB3.0 UASP supporting enclosure, and have put LR's library and Camera Raw cache on there, and PS's scratch files, but it's zippy either way. Whether or not I need 5k over the standard iMac I'm not sure, but it wasn't much extra. Everything appears so sharp - it almost feels like I've had a lens and camera upgrade. I moved from a 22" HD screen, so have only ever looked at my files at 2Mp resolution. Now looking at them at nearly 15Mp resolution and heads appear life-size, with unbelievable levels of detail. Best computer kit I've bought. OS X has been a fairly easy transition beyond the first day or two, once I figured out how to turn on right clicking, and obtaining the # symbol :) I've added a 3Tb Apple Time Machine, and that's a fantastic bit of kit as well, as I know my photo collection is continuously backed up to there (has already saved my bacon), and then I periodically back up also to a NAS. Overall then, I couldn't recommend the riMAC more to a photographer. Need plenty of memory though.
Click to expand...


Good to know been debating going for the same spec myself although been a bit reluctant to jump back on the Apple band wagon again.
 
I debated between the 2.4 Imac 27" and the Retina 5K for a while, I opted for the 5K as once I put the price of a Fusion drive on the normal model there wasn't a great deal in price difference. I got mine under the Education pricing with a £250 saving which I will put towards some ram from Crucial. I kept the standard i5 as I don't do video etc and by all accounts the i5 does a good job and will easily be enough for me. It wont be here for another week or so and I can comment better then.
 
I had a bit of angst over whether to go Fusion Drive or SSD and external storage. However, I like the Fusion drive a lot - it's got a 128Gb SSD anyway, and it's very convenient having my master copies of the photos onboard, and then backing up to Time Machine and NAS. I like the robustness that gives me. The Fusion drive feels very quick too. Boot up times are as fast as my Windows 8 SSD based machine, if not quicker in any case. Starting in 2015, I might start a new catalogue and archive my current catalogue to USB storage, just to keep the iMac drive clear.
 
All good & invaluable advices here as always from you all extremely helpful TP friends
 
As another top tip - I've been using the trial of the Nic collection on my pc. I found I was using silver Efex and colour efex most during the trial. Couldn't bring myself to pay £130 odd for the license though. I found Intensify Pro on the Mac to be a good equivalent at around £35 but then found it as part of this special offer bundle of 9 apps for just over $5 - no brainer! I think you can pay what you like actually, but I paid the average as some of it goes to charity.


https://specials.9to5toys.com/sales/the-name-your-own-price-mac-bundle-ft-typinator
 
Re the above post, I see the OS spec for Intensify Pro is Mac OS 10.7, 10.8, & 10.9. Anyone using on Yosemite?
 
chouglez said:
Planning to do some photography post processing I believe. Lol
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Mac pro is for serious videographers or compiling tons of source code. Photoshop runs just fine even on new basic spec retina macbook pro but don't forget a large external drive for your RAW files.

barratt1988 said:
unless your doing it from roughly 2inches away your not going to see much of a difference. this is one for the real extreme pixel peepers. youll be zooming in to what ever 100's % and you'll soon be looking at pixels larger than one pixel on your monitor. :s
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You should see one in person. The difference is certainly there. Large pixel screens are so last decade.
 
daugirdas said:
You should see one in person. The difference is certainly there. Large pixel screens are so last decade.
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Just as there are more important things to a camera than it's absolute resolution, the same stands true for monitors.

I sit around 1 metre away from my screen, as it's massive. I doubt I'd see a difference. No one's eyesight is that good.


So far as I'm concerned there's only one 4K monitor worth buying right now.

ColorEdge CG318-4K

It's a crappy 16:9 job though... so I'm waiting to see what NEC bring out. It's only DCI P3 colour space too,, which is roughly around 93% of Adobe RGB.. so that sucks a bit too.


Apple screens just suck in every way though.
 
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Pookeyhead said:
Just as there are more important things to a camera than it's absolute resolution, the same stands true for monitors.

I sit around 1 metre away from my screen, as it's massive. I doubt I'd see a difference. No one's eyesight is that good.


So far as I'm concerned there's only one 4K monitor worth buying right now.

ColorEdge CG318-4K

It's a crappy 16:9 job though... so I'm waiting to see what NEC bring out. It's only DCI P3 colour space too,, which is roughly around 93% of Adobe RGB.. so that sucks a bit too.


Apple screens just suck in every way though.
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At 1m probably the difference is not too pronounced, but if you get a little closer (say 60 cm) you'll start to notice a difference.

the apple 5k is perfect for non-pros and media consumers in general. You and me are probably not the target audience for it.
 
Pookeyhead said:
Apple screens just suck in every way though.
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You sit a long way away from your screen. You barely need HD with your eyes for it to be Retina at that distance, let alone that expensive Eizo ($4600 in Japan, when it's available) (just sit 7cm further back from an HD screen) http://isthisretina.com . And the Eizo is 149 ppi vs 220ppi with the retina iMac, that comes with a free i7 computer inside it. I'll take my sucky in every way retina iMac screen thanks ;)
 
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