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Searching for new hardware, mainly for the development and rendering of fairly non-complex furniture, lighting and sculpture, I came across this interesting point of view expressed recently in Macworld:

Compared to the high-end standard configuration 27-inch iMac with a 2.8GHz Core i5 quad-core processor (), the 12-core Mac Pro was 33 percent faster overall. Looking at some BTO options on the iMac, however, the iMac fares better and costs considerably less. A 2.93GHz Core i7 quad-core iMac costs less than half as much as the 12-core Mac Pro, which was just 17 percent faster overall—almost all of the performance benefit of the 12-core Mac Pro was in our multi-processor savvy application tasks. The 12-core Mac Pro was 37 percent faster in our HandBrake test, 73 percent faster in our CineBench CPU test, for example.

So it looks to me as one could almost buy two iMacs for the price of a Mac Pro incl. display and rather render with both iMacs using an extra Maxwell render node. A big bonus would also be the availability of a second computer for occasional co-workers. Is that a sensible way to go about this? Of course, one could custom-build one's own PC for much less, but I'm just your regular out-of-the-box type user with very little technical know-how ;)

I don't think it's a good idea to use iMacs for rendering. They will run very hot in this tiny case... but maybe that's just me...

And i don't think that a 2x6-core Xeon 2,9GHz Mac Pro is only 73% faster than a 4-core i7 iMac 2,9GHz. It should be more like 150% faster!

cinebench
core i7 2600s 2,8GHz = ~6,3 pts
Dual Xeon X5670 6-Core 2,93GHz Mac Pro = ~15,45 pts

If one is in an Apple environment, it just seems quite intriguing to go for iMacs; from what people write in render forums, it's rather the Mac Mini that gets too warm? Various Apple forums seem to come to the conclusion that the iMac i7 at the moment seems to be the price/performance sweet spot in the range...

In my opinion I wouldn't use an iMac for rendering. Although it "shouldn't" be a problem rendering scenes night and day on these systems, they aren't build for that purpose and I think the emerging heat could be a problem with the time...

Rendering with Maxwell is not just a subject of pure CPU Power. The memory system of a DP hexa Core Mac system is much more powerful than of an imac. Cinebench CPU benefits from a powerfull CPU but unbiased Renderers like Maxwell also need a fast connection between CPU and Memory and of course fast memory

Have you considered an 8-core Mac Pro? Not as expensive as 12-cores but still twin Xeons...

I would also choose the Pro -- due to heat concerns.

My i7 pumps out alot of heat when rendering, and I have an aluminum PC case with a huge high-end after market heat sink and fan... I just can't see how those iMacs could withstand that type of ongoing abuse.

Best,
Jason.

Well, so far, I have not found any concrete problems reported due to overheating although searching practically all day; quite many Vray, Modo, etc. users seem to go for the top spec iMac. If Apple would build a machine that is prone to failing if used properly ;) surely there would have been reports of that? Since using MXST for two weeks now, my standard 15" MBP did not get any hotter than usual - tilt-cooled with a pencil sharpener to get some airflow underneath. And the tech in the MPB is surely packed tight as a duck's a***

Since the top spec iMac is only 2400,00 EUR incl. 16GB RAM and 2TB HD, I get two and another Maxwell render node and see how that goes; after all, I'm not in the architectural field or animation where much higher complexity is common. If it's an idiot's furniture and lighting design setup, I'll surely report my fault here :)