Steve-C Posted March 21, 2015 Share Posted March 21, 2015 Figured I would open up this can of worms again So I've had my iMac for over a year now. While I'm satisfied with the system performance (running X6) I was never really blown away. There was this annoying lag with some commands (mainly roof commands, even in 2D). So about 2 or 3 months ago I broke out my old Puget PC (nearly 4 years old) and it easily blows the doors off the iMac. I like the iMac for imaging and I'm a huge fan of the Mac filing system, but I am convinced that the Windows platform just runs smoother (for me anyway). I'm curious what others think now that the Mac release is over a year old. I will add that when I upgraded the Puget to Windows 8.1 (from 7), performance improved quite a bit. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ross101 Posted March 22, 2015 Share Posted March 22, 2015 I'd also be interested in any comments as I'm about to change from a 6 year old Dell PC to using a MacBook Pro with what looks like lower specs than Steve's. Ross Young Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Electromen Posted March 22, 2015 Share Posted March 22, 2015 I work on a four year old Mac Pro. Not a notebook, but a tower. This thing still flies with no hesitation in any APP. Dual Quad Core processors = eight processors. GeForce 680 video card 16gb RAM 1-internal 512gb SSD drive for OS & Apps. 3-2TB internal HDD for storage Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kMoquin Posted March 22, 2015 Share Posted March 22, 2015 I'm guessing there are fewer video card options with a package system like the iMac Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DRAWZILLA Posted March 22, 2015 Share Posted March 22, 2015 I think you also have to use the Apple drivers for NVidia cards which don't update as often as for a P.C. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Electromen Posted March 22, 2015 Share Posted March 22, 2015 I'm guessing there are fewer video card options with a package system like the iMac You cannot upgrade the video card on an iMac Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ross101 Posted March 22, 2015 Share Posted March 22, 2015 Most of the above comments and criticisms of iMacs and MacBook Pro's are correct. However I think the original question from Steve wants to know if there is something inherent in the software of the Mac version of CA that reduces its performance compared with the PC version. Yes, the hardware will make a difference but if I run the software on a similar spec'ed Mac or PC, will it give similar performance or are there problems with the Mac CA version that slow it down? As far as criticisms of Mac's go, for the MacBook Pro (which I'm looking at) I'd add the following: 1. You have to purchase a 15" model to get a discrete graphics card rather than just on-board graphics. A discrete graphics card is not an option for the 13" or 11" models and cannot be retrofitted . 2. The graphics card offered for the 15" model is the NVidia GT 650M with 2GB of memory. This is apparently a "mid range" graphics card. There are no other options offered (although it comes in black) . 3. When the battery of your 15" MacBook dies, you cannot buy a new one from eBay or wherever and fit it yourself. It has to go back to an Apple service store and they will replace it, along with the part of the case it is solidly glued too!! Currently this costs about $250, according to on-line information. Apparenly there is no good reason why the battery is glued in and this has only started with the mid 2014 models onward. There is no perfect computer, but has CA done any benchmarking of the two versions on similar spec'ed machines? Thanks Ross Young Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Victor_Rasilla Posted March 23, 2015 Share Posted March 23, 2015 I had purchased a macbook pro 15" 2.3 ghz w/ the gt 750 gpu and found its performance lackluster. It also had alot of trouble with PDF's. I ended up returning it. Funny thing is the 11" macbook air I bought for my wife ran CA surprisingly well. Not as good as the 15" but considering the difference in specs I was quite surprised at how marginal the performance was over the lil' bitty air w/ hd graphics and 4gb ram. My windows experience with CA has been quite predictable when moving from one spec to another but mac seems to have no rhyme or reason. Some guys are reporting satisfactory results while others lackluster results that are not comensurate with specs. I did just pick up the new 13" macbook pro with the force touch trackpad and broadwell chip so we'll see how that goes. Of course I'll install CA on it and play around with it but I didn't neccasarily buy it for CA but rather because I'm a computer head and wanted a new toy. My windows desktop is where the real work happens particularly when i need to render after finalizing my models. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Steve-C Posted March 23, 2015 Author Share Posted March 23, 2015 That's something else that bugged me about the iMac, pdf files were on average 10 times as large as the same pdf files on my windows machine. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
4hotshoez Posted March 23, 2015 Share Posted March 23, 2015 The latest Mac OS, Yosemite, has brought my older Macs to a crawl. Adding more ram did little (4 gb to 8 gb). Mavericks was much faster and would likely allow a new system to fly, yet you cannot install an older OS on a new system. I see no advantages to the new OS as it really only simplified the icons in the tray and made the whole system slower. It affects everything, including the loading of web pages. Many people have been complaining and have been asking how to get back to Mavericks. Yosemite has been out for quite a while, but Apple has not acknowledged or addressed the problem. There are other issues on the ios that have me concerned as well, but that is not for here. My next system will likely be (cough, cough) windows based, which I do use at work. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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