What machine to buy?...
(July 17, 2017 02:22PM)
pnutsnz
Hi everyone,
Have a decision to make and be fantastic to get some opinions....
At present I am using an iMac 27" 5k machine. It has been going good, nothing wrong at all. Although I would have to update the RAM if I ended up keeping the unit as FCPX runs a lot 'doggy'..
Here are the details & specs:
iMac (Retina 5K, 27-inch, Mid 2015)
3.3 GHz Intel Core i5
8 GB 1600 MHz DDR3
AMD Radeon R9 M290 2048 MB.
What I am wishing to do is run multiple video-outs to create a video wall.This would normally require separate video cards to address each screen separately & together. (4-6 cards).
On the above machine I have 2 Thunderbolt ports, giving me 2 video outs.
The only solution I can see is to go to a Mac Pro Tower - which would give me the multiple PCI graphics cards.
Would this be the only solution?. There are a few MacPro towers on my local auction site now, I have listed the specs for the one I am looking at below straight from the auction, so the wording is from the seller verbatim.
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Mac Pro 3,1 I reckon these machines are about the best bang for your buck in the Apple workstation line.
2x Intel Xeon workstation Quad-Core CPUs, 3.0GHz on every one of its cores. That's 24.0GHz to play with, except faster! Unlike the Intel i7, these puppies don't SLOW down on you to save power!
16GB of memory - I've never reached the limits of this in all my years of photography.
Nvidia GTX285 graphics card with 2GB of memory. A smashingly good card, waay better than the stock GT120 or 8800s, with no cooling issues like the bigger custom cards can have.
4x SATA Internal hard drive slots, 2 of which are occupied by the 640GB main drive and an additional 1TB drive. Few people know this, but there are also 2x SATA ports hidden on the motherboard behind the fan cover, which I have successfully used for additional hard drives.
Upgraded super-speed Lightscribe DVD burner, and a second optical drive bay available too.
All the usual external ports for a big workstation, such as 5x USB ports, 2x FW800 and 2x FW400 ports, 2x Gigabit Ethernet ports, Optical and 3.5mm Audio lines.
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Any ideas will certainly be taken under advisement!.
From what I see the MacPro tower should crush the iMac 27" hands down.
I would be looking to do the usual Audio / Video processing with this machine as well.
My current iMac cost $3300.00NZ brand new back in 2015.
The Mac Pro Tower is listed with a buy now of $1290.00NZ second hand.
Cheers everyone,
Pete
