Which Mac does Carrara love most?
graphixcat-2145923
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I'm about ready to upgrade my 2 GHz Intel Core Duo iMac to a new Mac. I'm wondering if the new iMac's have the strength to run Carrara 8 Pro and future upgrades. Or am I better off going to the poor house with a Mac Pro. Anyone using the new iMac with Carrara 8 Pro?
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Them all except the one you have, has been my experience! LOL!
It's more of a question of what version of C8 you are using/need and your Mac OS.
Snow Leopard runs C8 and C8.5 beta very stable
Lion and Mtn Lion run C8.5 but C8.1 crashes a lot and user experiences reported vary
You can partition a HD and run different OS on your partitions OR
There are ways to run SL as a virtual machine on top of Lion and Mtn Lion using VMWare Fusion
The main differences in Macs is the render speed times BUT
Go thru the old threads to see problems reported using Mac Pro machines
Not sure if this is a Carrara question or a Mac question..., If C8.5 ever comes out of beta you should be good (but we have to pay for it) -- that is you should be good until Apple updates osX again in about 1 year.... Then who knows...?
If you are asking whether it is worth it for a Mac Pro as opposed to a lesser mac laptop (which currently means the Air), I feel the Mac Pros are over-priced and I kind of hate doing graphic work on a laptop anyway.... Consider a Mac Mini at a fraction of the price, and think about how many large flat screen tvs you might have around your house/office. I don't do any work at Starbucks so running off a battery seems less important (and I have an iPad for web/email).... I made the switch from laptops and despite everyone I know thinking I am a total weirdo for carrying a Mini around in my purse, there are literally a number of unused monitors and keyboards at my home and office and the job where I do live visuals from legacy towers that have been retired.... Yeah I'm a weirdo, but consider you could get TWO Minis for the price of a Mac Laptop and hello, renderfarm and deluxe screen realestate and a real keyboard and trackball.... Laptop just feels like an expensive step down in useability from both Mini and iPad....
That's my 2¢
Forgot to mention... for a boost in performance you may consider upgrading your old iMac to a SSD and more RAM. Price drops make these a cheap (+/- $300) interim solution until you want to spend more on new hardware. These upgrades boost Mac Carrara performance (boot time/load time/less heat/render time/renderfarm usability). Older iMacs use a 3G SSD interface so you may not get 6G speed but a decent bump. Agree that Mac Minis are the best bang for something new.
Mid-range Mac Mini has a better graphic card (comparable to Pro laptop).... I upgraded both my Minis (2011 and late 2009) with SSD and left the original harddrives inside for the bulk of file storage....
To directly answer your question, yes, the new iMac's absolutely have the strength to run C8P and beyond. To be sure though, get the upgrade to the i7 CPU for the extra cores and the best GPU you can afford, I'd start with the highest end model and upgrade from there.
I would also put in 16GB RAM, but... get the RAM from newegg.com for $89 (4x4GB) vs $300 from Apple. Installation is a breeze and not something to be worried about.