[Macworld]

Post your comments for Which to choose: iMac or Mac Pro? here

[joshj]

uh mac mini with 8gb of ram and ATI 6630 is $999. All graphics firms have displays already (or should)....

[bobdow]

Until Apple updates the Mac Pro, (and we get to see the pricing) the current generation i7 with Thunderbolt iMacs with 3rd Party SSD as the primary and a second SSD or fast hard drive as the Scratch disk is a better buy.

We use them in the Studio I work in and they have held up nicely against the Mac Pros we have.

I we were doing full time Video work, I'd also invest in External Thunderbolt RAIDs... Having the extra drive bays in the Mac Pros has been great, but as SSD prices have dropped and quality has gone up, it's cheaper to buy a stock configuration i7 and add on 3rd party parts yourself or pay someone to do it. Other World Computing is great at it.

[ElijahClark]

depends on what you need really. I have both, but I started with the pro. Then I got the iMac a year later. I must say that I like the iMac batter mainly because I have the 27inch and the big screen on the imac is much better than my 15 inch MacBook. For graphics, it depends on how much screen you need and how many applications you plan to use at one time.

[DogHouseDub]

IMO go Mac Pro - cheaper to put in RAM (~$260 for 32GB versus ~$800 in the iMac) and you can add multiple internal drives. A small SSD as a boot drive can really speed things up. Bumping up the graphics card can also help, depending what type of work you're doing.

Running single apps I don't see much difference between the Mac Pro and the iMac, but when I'm flipping between a lot of power hungry programs, the iMac gets sluggish.

[MacRaven]

Print designers here have no problem with i7 iMacs with 8GB of RAM. If you are doing a lot of video you might have a tougher decision, and want more flexibility to add different graphics cards or MEGA amounts of RAM.

[timaging]

Mac Pro all the way... i NEVER use the external drives they are notorious for going corrupt. The only way to do this if your serious is go with the tower and fill all the slots with drives. Back up to external when full. Plus, you get your pick of graphics cards for 3D/motion graphics and it's super super easy to swap out all this stuff when you want to...

[CharlesBrown]

Easy choice: Mac Pro.

[MrPhotoEd]

The weakest point on any computer unit is the display. The downside of the iMac is the display and computer are one. With the Mac Pro you choose the Monitor you wish to go with, be it from Dell or Wacom or any other display company. If the unit does not hold up, you replace it for far less then purchasing a whole new computer.

Just 2 cents from one in the front lines who has to order equipment from time to time.

Mr Photo Ed

[awesomebase]

iMac. Install an SSD on it and you've got a lightening fast system with great graphics capability and a monitor that is near the top in terms of performance.

[quakerotis]

Mac Pro, without a doubt. While I love my iMac, it does have limitations to be aware of, mostly with the video display. An iMac with a malfunctioning displays dead in the wearer. Needless downtime. Go with the Mac Pro.

[TYancy]

If the image doesn't look right on the iMac's screen, you don't blow it off, you calibrate it. A Spyder 3 is only about $70. If you are not regularly calibrating, color is obviously not important.
Regarding external drives, I've never heard of a problem with corruption inherent with using externals. Certainly not notorious.
As for internal drives, if you are really pushing the pixels, you need at least two drives - one to run the software and at least one more as a scratch drive. Otherwise you will take a speed hit as the heads in a single drive would be jumping all over the disk trying to do both at once.

[sigma8]

I would go Mac Pro. iMac might be a better buy, but the Pro gives you more reliable Xeon CPU's and ECC memory. I also agree with the person who says they've had better luck with internal hard drives over external ones. Also, everything is easier to replace/upgrade. With their reliability and expandability I think the Mac Pro's tend to have the best longevity. The only problem is wondering if they'll get an upgrade soon. I put off upgrading my MBP until the Sandy Bridge ones came out. I was happy with my decision, but I was suffering for a good 6-8 months with my previous MBP. Of course, in that case, I KNEW they were going to release an update. With the Mac Pro's, people are on the fence guessing between a speed bump and killing the product line.

[3dguy]

Any suggestions for calibrating a mac display (I have last year's 27" model) and I can't get my Spyder3 to calibrate it at all!!!