Mac Pro (Older) or iMac

[Mr645]

Photoshop workstation.

Mac Pro 2x 2.66dual core Specs below

Or a 21.5" iMac 3.06 i3

I am thinking the Mac Pro will be faster all around.

Don't need the monitor


Thanks,
Jon

Tech Specs
Manufacturer:Apple
Manufacturer Part#:MA356LL/A
Type:Workstation
Product Form Factor:Tower
Processor
Type:2 x 2.66GHz Dual-Core Intel Xeon processors
64-bit Computing:Yes
Data Bus Speed:1.33 GHz,64-bit
Cache Memory
Type: L2 cache
Installed Size:4MB
RAM
Installed Size:16 GB (max)
Technology: DDR II SDRAM - ECC Fully Buffered
Memory Speed: 667 MHz
Memory Specification ComplianceC2-5300
Form Factor: DIMM 240-pin
Storage
Hard Drive: 250GB Serial ATA (3Gb/s);7200 rpm; 8Mb cache
Optical Storage
Primary: 16x SuperDrive with double-layer support
(DVD+R DL/DVD±RW/CD-RW)
Graphics Controller:512MB ATI Radeon X1900XT DUAL DVI (MA631ZA)
Audio Type: Sound Card, Integrated

[Buzz]

macmall has 2009 for $1799...



Model# MB871LL/A

not sure what $$$ you're scoring the older one for...

[Filliam H. Muffman]

The Mac Pro takes much more expensive RAM (667 MHz DDR2 ECC fully-buffered DIMM is pretty much obsolete except for this computer line) but it is much easier to add hard drives, upgrade the video card, and you can easily upgrade to a newer computer if you have a LCD you like. The iMac holds its value fairly well if you are willing to swap the entire computer and LCD every few years to keep a modern machine. I would guess the 3.06 GHz dual core is almost as fast as that old 2.6 GHz dual dual core. I looked through several reviews at BareFeats but did not see a direct comparison between the Core i3 iMac and the 2006 Mac Pro.

[Mr645]

I can pick up either one for around $1000

[jdc]

8 gigs of ram for the MP is $300 -- for the iMac it's $90 -- and I think they both top out at 16 gigs

Unless your monitors are really good ones...

I think I saw geekbench numbers were about the same

[rz]

For the Mac Pro, wait until OWC discounts them in one of their Garage Sales.

I have two video cards in my Mac Pro, as well as well as a dual eSATA card that does port multiplying, 5 hard drives, and a blu-ray burner. I would never be able to do that with an iMac.

[Ted King]

It looks like the Mac Pro noted in the OP has 16gigs of RAM, which seems like it should be at least adequate for all but the most heavy duty Photoshop processing.

I don't think the Mac Pro will be faster than the iMac, but it probably wouldn't be much slower. If you were running an application that could take full advantage of 4 physical cores then the Mac Pro would probably be faster for those things, but there doesn't seem to be a lot of programs ready to take full advantage of all the cores, so if you are doing a lot of single threaded operations then I suspect the iMac might be a bit faster for those. As far as I can recall, Photoshop doesn't take much advantage of multiple cores (maybe some filters do), so that might be a consideration.

Another consideration is that the Mac Pro will not be able to do 64-bit booting. That isn't a big deal now and might not be for quite some time, but the guess I regularly hear is that one of upcoming OS releases will probably require 64-bit booting (which may be at least a few years away). I'm pretty sure the iMac will do 64-bit booting.

On the other hand, if you can foresee being able to put in more hard drives or swap them easily is a valuable thing, then the Mac Pro is clearly better. The same is true with PCI cards and some other modifications that you couldn't do with the iMac or would be much more difficult to do.

[jdc]

If its the same deal posted below, only 4 gigs ram.

[sekker]

I find it hard to recommend a 4 year old computer as a primary use machine.

Supplemental machine, ok.

I think the OP would do better with the i5 hackintosh posted below if the iMac is insufficient.

[Billybob]

I have both the original 2010 2.66 MacPro and the 2009 2.66 MacPro. I haven't run them side-by-side to compare, but frankly I haven't notice any difference in speed.

I've subsequently replaced one of the MacPros with a 2010 iMac, which flies. However, probably the biggest difference is the SSD boot drive that I've had installed. Booting and rebooting are amazingly fast and Word and other applications start instantly.

The point is that unless you're doing extremely heavy lifting (I do a lot of photoshop and Lightroom), you'll notice more by the amount of ram and the speed of your boot drive.