suppose i have between 2500 and 3500 to spend on a mac

what on earth should i get?

ive debated the options so many times....

current set up:
macbook pro
2.4 i5
8gb ram

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I would wait a few months or get a PC.

if you must have a mac , then imac 27. There isn't much to debate. You have 3 choices. 1 is ridiculously over priced, the other is a laptop and then an imac. THe new mac books are not that much better than what you have.

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just my mac is about to to choke on channel heavy projects


i figure i can always use my current laptop as a node for a new machine


seems like the 3.4 imac is the fastest around... with 32gb of ram (3rd party_

is this worth $2700?


ive been looking at mac pros on ebay


is this even comparable for $4000?

•Two 2.66GHz Six-Core Intel Xeon “Westmere” (12 cores)
•16GB RAM
•512GB Solid State boot drive with 10.8 Mountain Lion/iLife'11
•1TB 7200-rpm Serial ATA 3Gb/s hard drive (Western Digital Black OEM)
•ATI Radeon 5770 1GB
•One 18x SuperDrives
•Wifi/Bluetooth standard.
•Apple Mouse
•Apple Keyboard with Numeric Keypad (English) & User's Guide

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quote:

Originally posted by Allied Nations just my mac is about to to choke on channel heavy projects i figure i can always use my current laptop as a node for a new machine seems like the 3.4 imac is the fastest around... with 32gb of ram (3rd party_ is this worth $2700? ive been looking at mac pros on ebay is this even comparable for $4000? •Two 2.66GHz Six-Core Intel Xeon “Westmere” (12 cores) •16GB RAM •512GB Solid State boot drive with 10.8 Mountain Lion/iLife'11 •1TB 7200-rpm Serial ATA 3Gb/s hard drive (Western Digital Black OEM) •ATI Radeon 5770 1GB •One 18x SuperDrives •Wifi/Bluetooth standard. •Apple Mouse •Apple Keyboard with Numeric Keypad (English) & User's Guide

I've personally found single core speed far more important with DAWs than number of processing cores.

I use to experience running out of processing power on my laptop all the time [macbook pro with 2.66GHz i5]. Then I switched to using a 3.4GHz i7 on a desktop. It could handel tons of processing, but I found that towards the end of big projects I'd start to run out of processing power. It would never get to the point of hearing clicks or pops from running out of CPU [something that did happen on my laptop], but it would just get super laggy. Then, I randomly decided to overclock my CPU, just to try it out, and started running the desktop at 4.5GHz. [fyi, i didn't even need to know anything technical to do this. i just hit "optimize" on my motherboard.] And ever since I overclocked to 4.5GHz, I have never even come remotely close to running out of CPU. I can't even remember the last time I pushed my CPU past 30% usage, and I have used over 100 plugins working at the same time.

Looking at the Mac Pro, it is impossible to overclock the new mac pros, so you're stuck at 2.66GHz. This means someone with a mac laptop has a faster single core speed than you [look it up].
Also, for the specs you listed I see the price of that mac pro as ~$6,000.00 on Apple's website.

Just sayin.

I'd personally buy a PC, but, if you're the helpless type, I guess you're stuck with Apple. I'd have to agree with loonely and just get an imac.

Last edited by jayxthekoolest on Apr-18-2013 at 07:33

what do you mean by choke ? Are you using SSDs ? are you using logic and forcing the cpu to 1 core ?

I would make sure you can still use 10.6 on whatever you get.

___________________
"This is why Superman works alone." GC
old stuff from days gone by (2001-2004)
Mad For Brad's gay little contest

The new Mac Pros are apparently imminently announcable.

My money is still on a modular TB setup.

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quote:

Originally posted by Looney4Clooney what do you mean by choke ? Are you using SSDs ? are you using logic and forcing the cpu to 1 core ? I would make sure you can still use 10.6 on whatever you get.

yes i use SSD

using ableton on multi core


literally clicks pops and madness on 120+ channel arrangamenets... forget about recording i render stereos when musicians come in because im worried about latency

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use a seperate SSD for your audio. Won't really do much unless you have a seperate drive for audio tracks. Stop using ableton.

___________________
"This is why Superman works alone." GC
old stuff from days gone by (2001-2004)
Mad For Brad's gay little contest

quote:

Originally posted by Looney4Clooney use a seperate SSD for your audio. Won't really do much unless you have a seperate drive for audio tracks. Stop using ableton.

well right now i just have all my audio samples + recordings on the main drive so apart from omnisphere everything is being read off the internal SSD



ableton is just so bloody fast for me... fack logic is so tedious for midi and automation...



i guess imac it is

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quote:

Originally posted by Looney4Clooney use a seperate SSD for your audio. Won't really do much unless you have a seperate drive for audio tracks. Stop using ableton.

there's nothing wrong with ableton
lol

and seperate SSD for audio?
that makes zero sense unless you're planning on using 500+GB

quote:

Originally posted by jayxthekoolest there's nothing wrong with ableton lol and seperate SSD for audio? that makes zero sense unless you're planning on using 500+GB

my current project is about 250gb so i image by next year i will have 500 gb projects

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quote:

Originally posted by Allied Nations my current project is about 250gb so i image by next year i will have 500 gb projects

250gb?
are you sure you know what you are doing?

...unless you are referring to the total amount of space all of your individual projects consume collectively. in that case, your english sucks