I have a very limited understanding about the technical abilities of Macs so I thought I'd come and ask for your advice...

I currently work on a MacBookPro Mac OS 10.4, 2.33 GHz and it works quite well for me but I would like to get a new Mac so that I can do bigger renders for printing as I am starting to sell my work. This would be an investment so I want to make sure I don't make a mistake.

I am hesitating between an iMac and a Mac Pro just because one is a lot cheaper than the other! Well I do know that they are very different of course, one being a lot more complex and pro (ha!). So I am wondering how well Vue (and I am thinking of upgrading to Vue 7 complete, I am now Vue 6 pro) runs on an iMac. The Apple store tells me that it would definitely serve my needs but they don't know Vue so I thought the best place to ask was here.

My renders are not very complex but still would it be better for me to save more and get a Mac Pro? What I don't have a clear picture at all of is the difference in power between the 2. If I get an iMac I can get the top of the line but is it good enough to do a good job with Vue? Does it have enough of what 3D needs, that's where my hesitation is. I am stuck with the idea that iMac is not powerful enough but that comes from not understanding what it can do...

I intent to grow but I grow very slowly, Mac Pro is a little intimidating and there are lots of things I probably will not be taking advantage of for quite a while but still would it be a better choice?

Thanks a lot for taking the time to shade some light on this, I really appreciate it,
Gwenolye

Attached Link: http://buyersguide.macrumors.com/

• for $2199, you can get the top of the line iMac, with a core 2 duo at 3GHz (that's 2 cores)
• for $2799, you can have the basic Mac Pro, with 8 cores at 3.2GHz.

Your would have to add a 23" cinema display to have the same monitor with a MacPro. That's $899 (or $599 if you get a w0" display).

So, your choice is between a $2199 iMac with built-in 24" display or get 8 times the processing power with $3398 for a Mac Pro with 20" display or $3698 for a 24" display.

The difference in power is at least 8 times - more if you upgrade later in terms of memory and CPU. You should also know that the MacPro, basic configuration gives you room to grow (you can add hard drives, upgrade your CPU or add memory later if you need to).

In other words, you would have to buy 4 iMacs to get the same rendering power as 1 MacPro.

On the other hand, the configuration of the iMac is pretty much locked.

I went with the Mac Pro because I know I will use the 8 cores (already have). This is easily the best computer I ever had in almost 30 years of personal computers.

Looking at your gallery, I don't see why an iMac would not be able to render these scenes.

Also - check out the buyers guide at MacRumours (link attached). They give you an idea of how frequently each product is updated and wether you should buy one at this time or not.

Both models are reaching the end of their cycle - meaning there is a chance they will be updated with better models within the next 3 months. If I were you, I would save until at least February and see what Apple will update next.

Thank you so much Agiel for your really detailed answer!

The fact that it would take 4 iMacs for the rendering power of a MacPro gives me a pretty good picture, which was mostly what I was wondering about.

Thanks a lot for your explanations, this is really helpful and thanks for the link, very useful, I'll keep an eye on it.

Gwenolye

 Gwenolye,

Nice gallery!  I like your work so here's some tips for you:

There are several ways you can save considerable amount of money buying a Mac Pro:

1. Get 2.8G instead of paying $1,600 more for 3.2G which is only 14% faster.

2) Buy RAM from third parties.  Apple want $3,500 for 16G RAM and I bought mine for $516 from memorytogo.com

3) Buy hard drives from 3rd parties (such as newegg.com) for substantial savings.

Get a friend to help you install RAM and drives - its really pretty simple though.

Greg

If you can save up for a while and get the MacPro, obviously you should, but I just wanted to mention that I have the 24" iMac, and it works very nicely with Vue. So if your budget and schedule require you to buy sooner --as mine did-- an iMac isn't a poor choice.

Gwenolye,

I purchased a Mac Pro about 6 months ago, and it is the finest PC I’ve ever owned (and I’ve had quite a few -- still have 2 quad-cores, and 2 dual cores for a render farm -- not to count the 3 laptops and older Dell P4s).

The base 8-core Mac Pro has 2, 4 core Xeon processors @ 2.8 GHz, for a total of 8 cores. Now here is the cool thing. I run Apple’s Bootcamp using Vista Business 64-bit. The reason for that, is because the Mac version of Vue 6I, (and I believe Vue 7I), is still 32-bit, whereas the PC version is 64-bit. Vue runs incredible under 64-bit, with 10 Gb of RAM. I also use Vista Business version, because the Home Premium version will not see both of the Mac processors. The Vista side of my Mac Pro renders Vue scenes about 20 to 25 % faster than Vue running on the Mac OS. I just wish e-on would issue a 64-bit Mac version of Vue -- I much prefer the Mac OS over Vista!

For the long term, I would go for the Mac Pro, assuming your budget can support it. That 8-core PC is probably the best PC value around. I went to HP and Dell to compare prices, and the Mac Pro was more than $1000 cheaper than the other PCs, and it is built with quality. One thing (as synergy543 stated), however, just purchase the basic machine from Apple, as their upgrade costs are very high. I purchased the Vista-side hard drive and memory (only comes with 2 Gb) from newegg.com. Adding the HD and memory is extremely easy.

Thanks a lot Greg, I did notice that RAM were so expensive with Apple like 500.00$ more if I want 4 GB instead of 2! Thanks for mentioning where to look. And thanks for the feedback on my gallery :)

And it's also good to hear that Vue runs fine on the iMac, that it wouldn't be a poor choice as it was one of my concerns, I'm really glad you mentioned this.

Really helpful info, thanks a lot, I really appreciate it.
Gwenolye

 Another option between an iMac and Mac Pro would be to get a quad - you just configure a MacPro and downgrade the to quad cores (saves $500).  The render times are simply related to the number of cores you have working - so the more the merrier.

Operation though would be pretty much the same on any machine.  So, if you go off to sleep and render, it wouldn't really matter which machine you're using unless you're doing very large scenes. Or as in my case, I like to use very small render previews which run quickly with all 8-cores.  An iMac wouldn't really be much faster than what you already have though except that you could use Hyperview to render on both machines.

btw, 4G RAM should be adequate.  I have 16G as I also do music.

Also, the iMac is a cost-effective choice as it comes with a nice 24-inch monitor.  If you get a Mac Pro though, consider getting a DELL monitor instead.  I have a DELL 2408 which is half the price of an Apple and its really great.

Greg

 
Yes thanks, I did hear about the possibility with Bootcamp to use Vista on a second hard drive, of course an other great reason for the Mac Pro! 

Thanks Greg for your additional info. Yea, that's the thing with the Mac Pro that makes it so quickly costly, I do need to get a monitor. Not thinking that I could buy RAMs and all elsewhere I had calculated double the price of the iMac which is a lot since I'm not quite pro yet and my renders are not that demanding. 

This is all so helpful to better see my options, a lot to think about! Tough choice trying to wisely evaluate my needs for now...

Really appreciate all your pointers, 
Gwenolye

 Gwenolye,

Glad to be of help.  I'm learning as much studying your artwork as answering questions. 

I have a question for you...

You have a very unique mystical ambience with a "painterly look" to all of your renders.   Are you doing lots of PS post work or are you getting these results from within Vue?

If its all within Vue, you must be doing some interesting atmospherics or working with light gels or something interesting like that....

Greg

 Thanks a lot Greg :) but should I reveal my mystery...?

All my work is done in Vue but I don't know if it is that interesting.... what I do is use the post render once my render is finished, it usually makes a very big difference! I have one image called The Gate Keeper II which looks very misty, it happened by 'accident' when I pushed the gain almost to a 100 on the + side just to see what it would do and my whole background went white, I liked it so I kept it. I work in a very intuitive way and nothing is very fancy, it's just that I push things a lot sometimes to get the feeling I am looking for. I do my shadows with trees as it would be in reality, I like it that way and I actually don't know how to use the gels (!). And I get a lot of surprises along the way that I had never planed on, I actually don't plan much. I've learned to stop thinking logically with doing 3D and it seems to work for me, it allows me to find things I would have never thought about otherwise.

I work in a funky way, I don't really have a technic down.

Hope that inspires you, maybe.... :)
Gwenolye

Thanks for sharing your secrets - yes, it does inspire.  Pulsing Stillness has a very painterly quality I like.  I'm still learning 3d but I also have been doing commercial work (very different style).  I just finished a huge mat painting project with close to a trillion polygons and at least 100 layers of PS post work.  But despite that, I'm really a noob flying by the seat of my pants and trying to learn as much as I can.  I like the serendipity approach but tend to get so disorganized myself I need take a structured approach.  Having a technical background helps with computer and such but is a bit of a handicap when it comes to breaking away with a more artisitic approach.  So a little knowledge can be dangerous!

I haven't worked with gels much either, but they are worth exploring.  Up until now though, my old machine was too slow to get much done with gels.  But for a painterly style, they seem like an interesting (albeit slower) option to post work - with a slightly different effect than you can get with PS post.  The concept is quite easy though, if you want a tree with redder leaves, try a red light gel nearby.  I suppose you could sort of "paint" your scene like this and get different results (translucency and subsurface scattering) that you wouldn't obtain with PS saturation, filters or transforms.

• for $2199, you can get the top of the line iMac, with a core 2 duo at 3GHz (that's 2 cores)
• for $2799, you can have the basic Mac Pro, with 8 cores at 3.2GHz.

IMO, if you can afford it, your way better off to buy the lowest end mac pro octocore (8 processors) than the top of the line iMac 2 cores. The 8 core machine will render a LOT faster and has the ability to upgrade to a faster video card too.

"- for $2799, you can have the basic Mac Pro, with 8 cores at 3.2GHz"

Actually, It's the 2.8 GHz Xeons for $2799. ; )

I'm not sure it was already said but I think Vue Pro uses only 2 cores and Infinite uses all cores.
Maybe one another thing to check.

Very good point!  Vue 6 Pro will only see 2 of a Mac Pro's 8 cores, even the new Vue 7 Complete will only see 4 cores. So unless you are going to Vue Infinite, don't buy the Mac Pro -- unless, you simply want the finest bang-for-the-buck workstation around. ; )

Carrara 6.5 Pro also sees all my 8-cores.

 What a great insight, I never thought about checking this out! It does make a big difference for my choice, makes it kind of obvious now since I am going for Vue 7 Complete.

I've learned some very useful things here, thank you so much for all your inputs :)
Gwenolye