Everything Apple (the Mac heads thread)

Hmmm... This means I can make my double Thunderbolt monitor dream a reality...

Do you have any issues with your Monitors? Mine flickers like hell.. I hear its an El cap issue...

Not with just the one but I'm toying with the idea of shipping the other one in Spain over... Doubt my MBP would be able to push that many pixels...

Umm why would you buy that?

These have existed for years ....

https://www.akitio.com/expansion/thunder2-pcie-box

There's an example, $219 buy it now on Amazon. So cheaper, already available, and well respected.

I've probably been in here asking things like this before so I do apologise...

My 2008 imac is starting to drag it's ass. The struggle is most noticeable if I try and edit video (mainly gopro) but it does get a bit bogged down at other times too.

Given it's age and that it's already had one big repair (logic board I think, just out of Applecare period but they were nice enough to cover it) I'm pretty sure it's gonna shit the bed big style sometime soon so have started looking at my options.

I was thinking I'd rather replace the imac with a Macbook (Pro) which I understand should be up to the task of editing video etc and playing with one in the Apple store today it does seem to do things basic tasks like open up Safari an awful lot quicker than my machine but I've noticed that mine has the 3.06 ghz processor and even the top spec £2k MBP only has a 2.5ghz processor. It does have 16gb of ram where I'm stuck on 4, is that where the performance is going to come from or the fact that my processor is a core 2 duo and the current MBP is i7? Does the ghz number not mean that much?

Probably the wrong thread to ask this bit in but I won't get more for my money if I buy a windows based machine will I? Looked at an HP which had the latest gen i7 processor and similar ram to the MBP but was less than half the price, that got me thinking till I looked at some reviews online and they weren't great. Infact, looking through the customer ratings on the John Lewis site is interesting, pretty much anything Apple has a 5 star average rating but its hard to find anything windows based with even 4 stars.

Other option of course is a 21" iMac, I could have it with a 3.3ghz processor, for the same price as the MBP with the 2.2ghz one. I don't really need the extra hd space that would come with the iMac as I have loads of external drives but the better processor might be a bit of future proofing?

GHz numbers don't mean that much. Try looking on http://www.cpubenchmark.net for the processors and see what scores they get so you can compare them.

You get a lot more for your money with windows, although once you start looking at ones with similar designs to the Mac (slim, metal case, etc) the price difference isn't as great. If you don't care as much about that though then Windows is perfectly stable and usable nowadays

once you start looking at ones with similar designs to the Mac (slim, metal case, etc)

See, I use it quite a bit every day so I'd rather be using something that feels and looks nice and I am willing to pay a (certain amout of) premium for that.

I tried using cpuboss to compare the performance of the processors but pple seem to be quite vague about what the processor actually is.

See here http://browser.primatelabs.com/mac-benchmarks

Your 2008 iMac gets 1654 single core and 2976 multi core (32 bit)
The 2016 15" MacBook Pro (2.5) gets 3180 and 11959 on the same tests.

The new chips are way faster. The ghz numbers mean nothing when comparing between different chip generations. This link may be useful for explaining i5 vs i7 etc. http://www.trustedreviews.com/opinions/best-intel-processor-core-i3-i5-i7

My main thought would be decide if you need a laptop or not first. You get way more performance for your money if you don't need portability.

As the others say, clock speed isn't really comparable any more...

One thing to mindful of though is that Apple are expected to launch new Macbook Pro models in the next couple of weeks. From rumours, they're looking like the biggest update in years so I'd hold back until they're announced.

Cheers that's good to know and as I'm getting married in ten days then will be away for a fortnight it's no problem to wait a little bit.

Cheers for that link.

Aye I guess deciding if I need the portability is the big decision to be made.

Would the mbp having a flash drive and the iMac a standard hard drive (unless I fork out for the upgrade) sort of cancel out the difference in processor speed?

I'd love that to be true, though I've read it a few weeks before every apple event for the last year(s)

Production samples of the keyboard shell have already been spotted in the wild and plenty of supply chain partners seem to be upping their quarterly or annual forecasts which would suggest a launch is imminent.

bring
it
on

Any system will perform better with a SSD (flash) drive rather than a HDD. I would definitely advise getting a new computer with a SSD drive, (even if only small capacity) and then use external larger discs for storage/backup as required. With Apple, the Fusion drive is a happy medium, but for me it's SSD all the way.
Depending on what you use the computer for, you may be better off with a slower processor and upgrading to a SSD. Heavy video editing or running virtual machines are about the only things where splashing more on an i7 chip is worth it.

Edit - and as was mentioned above, hang on for a few weeks if you can as updates are very likely.

Where does the "PCIe flash based" drive in the mbp sit in the hdd/fusion/ssd rainbow?

I'll definitely be waiting, it'll be Oct at the very earliest before I've cleared enough of the wedding/honeymoon stuff off the credit card.

'PCIe' is the type of connection that the drive has to the rest of the computer. The type of connection used affects the speed at which data can be read/written to the drive. PCIe will typically be quicker at reads/writes that the same drive connected by a SATA connection or USB for example.
'flash based' means it's a Solid State Drive, not a spinning disk. The internal SSD's that come with a new Mac are about as fast as they come.

Have fun deciding!

My experience is that if you are deciding between a base model iMac with th i5 chip and any MBP, don't bother with the iMac, unless you are wanting to upgrade to the i7. We are in the process of replacing all the iMacs at work and our department, our boss insists that our students need the faster machine and he has topped up to have all i7 iMacs and they are largely OK, barring a couple of blips here and there, but I blame the shit we have to put on them. The 4D workshop, for some reasons didn't bother with the upgrade, maybe they didn't have the money or whatever, now they are stuck with 20+ 27inch iMac with the i5 chip that work like a bunch old ladies... All the engineers are stratching their heads and Apple has given them some additional testing tools to try and get to the bottom of it.

The long and short of it is that we have seen enough instabiity with the iMacs that have come out in the last couple of years. At 1st, we thought we had a dodgy batch, but 18 months or so later, it clearly isn't.

The laptops have been much more stable, despites having not as fast specs.

Wow that sounds odd. I've got an i5 retina iMac and it just flies. No stability issues at all. If the problems you're seeing were more widespread it would be all over the press, must be something to do with as you said, 'the shit you put on them'!
My thought @M_V, don't be put off an 27" i5 iMac by the above story, buy a MacBook if you want portability, or the iMac if not.

The mystery is still unresolved. I personally think it's the our IT engineers who dont know what they are talking about, as they do tend to put a lot of shit on them before we get our hands on them, but then what I don't understand is that why do the problems only happen on the i5 and not the i7 when we are not even talking about doing graphics intensive tasks...

IT depts hate Macs, simple...

& @kboy

http://www.macrumors.com/2016/08/29/new-macbook-pro-air-oct-amd-imacs-5k-display-lg/

saw that earlier. Wonder if the 5g monitor will have a dedicated graphics card, it kinda has to no?

Would that make it possible to run a macbook air when out and about and sacrifice performance for price and weight, and then get extra power when hooked up to monitor?

Ohh kay... let me share what I have learnt over the years with various different machines.

GHz doesn't matter massively for everyday use (as others have said). For video stuff, it matters less as the better i7 have more cores etc which handle load better.

SSD's make the world of difference, put one in a computer and it'll feel like a new machine.
Make sure you get a SSD or at least a hybrid drive (Apples SSD HDD combo).

Going from 4 to 8 GB of ram makes a massive difference, but going above that less so for everyday use.

Don't buy a base level Apple product as they are usually stripped down versions of the "real deal". The base iMac comes with a 5400rpm spinning HDD and a crappy 1.6 GHZ laptop CPU (oh and no GPU) - same kind of spec as you get in cheap Windows laptops.

I like buying second hand, although I know others don't. Your Mac lasted near 10 years, which most do, so buying last years model off some Senior Art director in Old street because he likes to have the latest kit is always a good deal for you. My last two Macs have been bought this way and are still going strong (I thoroughly recommend one of the last non retina iMacs as they have decent CPUs and GPUs which will be great for video).

That's what i'm hoping...

I have the 12" Macbook and a quad core Mac Mini. It would be great to ditch the mini as the home server and just have the Macbook as a portable machine that powers up when connected to the monitor.

This was the rumour earlier in the year but i'm not sure if it's still happening.