As soon as the iMac Retina was announced we immediately wanted to pit it against one of our custom Mac Pro 5,1 systems. So what did we do? We bought a 5K iMac, as well as a 4K monitor to go with the Mac Pro, and put them head to head. We ran a number of benchmark programs to test the CPU, GPU and storage configurations of the two systems. Obviously, due to the Mac Pro’s advantage in internal expandability, we could technically create a £10,000 Mac Pro system. This would be unfair. So we limited our Mac Pro configuration (including the monitor) to the same price as the iMac (£2,879/€3,603). The iMac Pro Logic Pro X DAW is prepared for extensive audio projects, music production, mixing and mastering audio projects. Visually, the iMac Pro comes in Space Gray with an 27 inch Retina 5 K display. In addition, there is a mini-jack headphone jack and an SDXC slot. So without further ado, let’s get into the meat of this. The Systems: Apple iMac Retina 5K As the iMac’s price will dictate how we configure our Mac Pro, this seems the logical place to start. We chose the top spec processor and GPU, as well as maxed out RAM, however, we stuck with the standard fusion drive to keep costs under £3,000. Linux app for speaking written text like mac says. Specifics below: CPU: 4.0GHz Quad-core Intel Core i7, Turbo Boost up to 4.4GHz GPU: AMD Radeon R9 M295X 4GB RAM: 32GB Storage: 1TB Fusion Drive Display: Built in 5K Monitor Connectivity: 4x USB 3.0, 2x Thunderbolt, 1x Ethernet, 1x SD Card, 1x Headphone Jack Total Cost: £2,879/€3,603 Things to note: The graphics card options in the iMac are all mobile cards, so typically wont perform as well as a full-size GPU. Fusion Drives consist of part HDD and part Flash Storage, in the case of the iMac’s drive there is 120GB Flash Storage. The Systems: Create Pro Customised Mac Pro 5,1 & 4K Monitor To go up against the iMac we chose a 12-core CPU to make use of current and future multi-threading support in modern applications. An AMD R9 280X as our graphics card to give Open CL grunt. Installed 32GB of RAM as in the iMac. In terms of storage, we went the same route as the iMac, combining Flash Storage and a traditional HDD. CPU: 2.66GHz 12-core Intel Xeon X5650 (Our entry-level 12-core processor) GPU: AMD Radeon R9 280X 3GB RAM: 32GB Storage: 256GB PCI-E Flash Storage, 2TB HDD Display: (£399/€499 brand new on eBay) Connectivity: 2x USB 3.0 (on CalDigit PCI-E card), 2x eSATA 6GB/s (on CalDigit PCI-E card), 5x USB 2.0, 4x Firewire 800, Optical Audio In, Optical Audio Out, 2x Headphone Jack, 1x 1/8″ Audio Line In, 2x Ethernet, 2x Mini Display Port, 1x HDMI, 1x DVI Total Cost: £2,826/€3,537 Things to note: RAM clock speed is slightly slower than the iMac’s RAM (1333 vs 1600). Now that both systems have been introduced, let’s look at part specific performance to see which system is best. CPU Performance Test: Geekbench To test CPU performance we kept it classic with Geekbench, no fuss, highest score wins. The Mac Pro has the advantage as it has 3 times more cores than the iMac, but the iMac’s single core clock speed is impressive so this should be interesting.
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