New iMac purchase and Chief X4 question

[flgator]

I have a MacBook retina pro - I tried running chief ( and others) via parallels but was not happy with the performance within the coherence mode - it seemed to work okay once I exited coherence - however last night I made the change to bootcamp (with win 8.1) and there is no difference now - chief is very fast and efficient in all modes now

[rongobong]

I'm a PC fanboy - self-admitted. I have some "food for thought" to offer after reading these posts and checking out the Apple website:

I noticed that all of the graphics cards specifications have a model number followed by an "M", as in NVIDIA GeForce GTX 660M, or AMD Radeon HD 6700M/HD 6600M. These are "notebook" computer-class video cards, amirite? According to Videocard Benchmark.net, my GeForce 660Ti ( blows away the GeForce GTX 675MX, with PassMark - G3D Mark benchmark ratings of 4,701 for the 660Ti and 2,491 for the 675MX. Mobile video cards and discreet video cards are not created equal, regardless of the amount of RAM they have. The smaller form factor is a trade-off for performance. Hot processors in confined spaces are throttled back so they don't melt down, which is why my 660Ti has a fan blowing above it to keep it cool, along with a case fan on the side exhausting hot air. I realize that Chief uses the processor for raytracing, but for screen rendering you are relying on a mobile graphics solution that won't even compare to a desktop.

Given the form factor of the iMac, I don't see how it could sustain higher processor frequencies (especially not the 4.4Ghz OC on my i7-3930K) due to heat buildup issues (I realize this is an assumption), especially when comparing it to tower cooling and water cooling solutions available for PCs.

I used to use a 17" Sony VAIO I bought in 2008 for running Chief, and as my Chief projects got larger and more complex in X5 I was forced to upgrade to a desktop solution. The mobile processor and video card just could not keep up. I just don't see how using an iMac to emulate a Windows environment using a throttled-down CPU and mobile graphics can compete with a well-built mid-tower PC solution.

I admit though, an iMac does look pretty.

link for videocard benchmarks: http://www.videocardbenchmark.net/high_end_gpus.html

[DHerber]

Wanted to chime into the thread again. I've since upgraded RAM to 16 GB with 2 sticks of 8 GB (from Amazon) and relatively inexpensive. The change is significant.

Also running Parallels 8 in lieu of Bootcamp and really like using in side-by-side Win 7 Pro. Also run AutoCAD 2014 and Revit 2014 with no problems. To make it a "true" Win 7 machine, I sometimes plug in an old PC keyboard for any screen capturing or other PC commands.

The only thing I've noticed with Chief X4 is when I'm rendering a large file, the iMac makes a little noise while it's Raytracing the image. Also becomes a little warmer than normal along the top vents.

Other than these small insignificant details, the Mac is everything I need in a personal computer. Can't wait until Chief for Mac becomes available in 2014 and will upgrade immediately.