# Recent Imac 27 or mac Pro ?



## borealis75 (Dec 28, 2017)

Hi all,
I would like to change my "old" Macbook Pro...
I'm struggling between the 2013 MacPro (One can find models around 2000 EUR now) and a recent Imac (close to 2200 /2500 EUR)...
On one side for the Mac pro i would have to add a new Computer Screen and Add some RAM...and it's an old model now...
On the Imac Side, no need for a new screen but Ram needed too (and more expensive than the one for the mac Pro)...more recent gear and nice AllInOne...
I don't use my Mac for "Gigantic" templates on Cubase but who knows what i will do in the coming years !...I tend to use several Samples Librairies at the same time (CSS, Soaring strings,..etc) that are on external SSD's...and I wil need to work on two screens (already have a 27" on HDMI)

Thx for your help

Greg


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## Jeremy Spencer (Dec 28, 2017)

What are the specs on your current MacBook?


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## borealis75 (Dec 28, 2017)

It's a 2013 macbook pro Retina 15" with 16G of RAM, i7 2.4GHz quad-core Processor


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## ColonelMarquand (Dec 28, 2017)

If your external SSDs are on a Thunderbolt device, I would consider getting something like a 2016 to early 2017 iMac, 4.2 ghz with 32 GBs if ram if this is possible. 27 inch Retina screen comes as standard l think.


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## borealis75 (Dec 28, 2017)

Yes my ssd's are on a thunderbolt Dock and get through a Thunderbolt Belkin Station


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## ColonelMarquand (Dec 28, 2017)

Well I would go for the iMac as above and I think you'll be well set with that, providing the price is acceptable and you're fairly confident about the reliability of a second hand computer. Audio interface might also be a consideration which would mean extra expense.


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## borealis75 (Dec 28, 2017)

Ok I see...I'm more on an official refurbished Imac than second hand and i already have an audio interface (Propellerheads Balance)...I think I will follow these advices and look more into imacs than Macpro...


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## Jeremy Spencer (Jan 3, 2018)

borealis75 said:


> It's a 2013 macbook pro Retina 15" with 16G of RAM, i7 2.4GHz quad-core Processor



Are you reaching the Ram limitation? Or are there other issues?


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## Pier (Jan 3, 2018)

I would not invest money on the 2013 Mac Pro unless you get a really good deal. It was a machine designed for video / animation so all that performance will remain unused for audio and having more CPU cores could potentially affect audio performance.



> Unfortunately, in tests of Xeon CPUs, my colleagues and I have tended to find that the higher the core count, the slower each individual core becomes. With load balancing being handled by both the OS and your sequencer, each trying to squeeze the most out of the available performance, some headroom is inevitably lost. In fact, fewer cores with higher clock speeds will almost always yield better performance overall than a greater number of cores running more slowly. This goes some way to explaining the strong showing by the higher speed-per-core overclocked i7 5960X over the slower-clocked but higher core-count Xeons in the test results.



https://www.soundonsound.com/reviews/cpu-performance-tested#para8

For audio I would get an iMac with a desktop Core i7 CPU. It will certainly be an upgrade over your laptop Core i7 CPU.


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## LFO (Jan 3, 2018)

I would not put money into a new Intel based system until the Intel chip vulnerability has been sorted. Given the potential performance hit that may be required to solve the problem, investing in a chip that has already been produced will mean significant performance degradation, at least with the first round of patches coming out. If you are unfamiliar with the kernel memory leak, take a look here: https://hothardware.com/news/intel-cpu-bug-kernel-memory-isolation-linux-windows-macos


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## borealis75 (Jan 3, 2018)

@Wolfie2112 : yes hitting RAM limitations even with external SSD's...

Ok so Imac would better suit my needs (except for the intel cpu bug !)...

Will look into refurbish ones...


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