Apple Logic Pro /LogicExpress Discussion

The new iMacs are pretty cool devices.  Especially if you buy one with a SSD hard drive for the main OS drive (giving very very fast responses) and then a 2nd internal drive for the data etc.   The new versions can  have 2 drives installed - although upgrading drives later is hard I understand).    
There is also the Firewire and Thunderbolt ports for high speed external drives so disk space (and disk spindle) expandability is fine..
With the i7 quad core model and expanded memory I think they shoud be Ok for Logic although I have not tried one yet myself...  
The higher spec'd video card is also pretty good so again that is fine by me.  27" on board screen and a 27" 2nd monitor and you have a fair amount of screen real estate to play with.
You can also easily add the 2nd monitor to the iMAC as there is a port on the back just for that purpose.  I also heard via the grapevine the Thunderbolt port on the back is also capable of running a 3rd monitor but again Not tried that so I am not sure how.

Using a 3 year old MacPro just doesn't sit right with me.  Especially as there are new OS's and versions of logic bound to appear over the next year or three which will likely make the 3 year old MacPro pretty  much a "Ship Anchor"  but I may be wrong.  That said the MacPro is far more expandable and so  had a lot of ticks for that.

Personally I think I would go the iMac way..   

Steve








> 
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Shawn Thorpe <shawnogordo@...>
> To: Logic_Cafe@yahoogroups.com
> Sent: Sun, May 29, 2011 3:03 pm
> Subject: Re: [Logic_Cafe] Mac Pro 2008 vs. iMac 2011
> 
> I have no experience running Logic on either of those types of 
> machines.Though, I'd imagine they'd both handle it just fine. 
> Regardless, I'd behesitant to invest that kinda money in 3-year old 
> hardware. If it were me,I'd go with the iMac.On Fri, May 27, 2011 at 
> 11:50 AM, Irfon-Kim Ahmad <irfon@...>wrote:>>> Hi,>> I'm 
> currently running Logic Pro (8, but will be upgrading to 9 with the> 
> new system) on a 2006 MacBook Pro with 2GB of RAM and a 350GB hybrid> 
> disk. I run into the dreaded system overload with some regularity. I> 
> don't run very high track counts and do very little recording, but I> 
> tend to use a lot of softsynths (mostly from the NI Komplete suite) 
> and> use a very large array of effect plugins per track.>> I've been 
> saving up to replace this machine, and was targeting the> 
> newly-released 2011 iMac 27" with the 3.4GHz quad-core i7 Sandy Bridge> 
> processor, 4GB of RAM (that I was going to upgrade to 12GB after the> 
> fact -- the system maxes out at 16GB), the 256GB SSD + 1TB HD disk> 
> configuration and the 2GB GDDR5 Radeon HD 6970M. With the AppleCare,> 
> this clocks in at $3098 + tax.>> However, it's recently come to my 
> attention that a local shop is selling> a gently used 2008 Mac Pro. It 
> has two 2.8GHz quad-core Nehalem Xeon> processors (8 cores total), 4GB 
> of RAM (maxes at 32GB), a 320GB hard> disk, and an NVidia 8800GT with 
> 512GB RAM. They'll warranty it for 90> days and you can pay extra to 
> extend the warranty if you like, although> it'll be their warranty 
> rather than AppleCare. They want $1699 + tax.>> Among my 
> geekier-than-me friends, there's been a big debate about the> CPUs in 
> these two machines. The iMac's Sandy Bridge architecture> supports SVX 
> instead of SSE, which apparently will, once apps are> updated to 
> support it, allow it to process eight instructions per cycle> rather 
> than four, according to them. Given that it's already clocked> faster 
> than the Xeons in the Mac Pro, that would make it noticeably> faster 
> CPU-wise. The rest of the Mac Pro's architecture is slower as> well -- 
> the memory bus isn't as fast, the 8800GT is about half the> performance 
> of the 6970M, etc. However, the Mac Pro offers more> expandability -- I 
> could add a RAID card, I could have several internal> disks, I can 
> upgrade the video card, etc. And if Logic Pro doesn't> support SVX, 
> then I expect that having twice as many cores at a slightly> slower 
> speed might be a CPU win.>> But the difference in price is also a big 
> factor -- with that much less> money I could perform a lot of ugprades 
> (note that I'd have to eat away> some of that buying a monitor, but you 
> can get a 27" LCD of good enough> quality for me for $300, and getting 
> a disk system comparable to the one> I was speccing for the iMac would 
> take away more of that, but I could do> this flexibly over time). I 
> mean, at $1699, I wouldn't be particularly> upset if I had to upgrade 
> it after only say three years, whereas at> $3100, I'd want the iMac to 
> last me a good five years, much as my> MacBook Pro did.>> My only real 
> bottleneck is Logic Pro, though. This is going to be my> studio 
> machine. I mostly game on the Playstation 3, and I have an iPad> that 
> is fine for my needs for travel and surfing. So I'm wondering if> any 
> of you have any thoughts or real-world experience between these two> 
> machines as they specifically pertain to Logic Pro, and if anyone 
> knows> what the status of this SVX issue is with Logic Pro -- if it's 
> something> that I should expect to see coming down or that's even 
> already there, or> if it's even relevant to Logic Pro's architecture, 
> or if having twice as> many cores will still be better when running a 
> ton of plugins.> >-- -Shawn 
> Thorpehttp://shawn.mx/http://geminidragon.tv/[Non-text portions of this 
> message have been removed]------------------------------------Yahoo! 
> http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Logic_Cafe/join (Yahoo! ID 
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