Seeking opinions on a new iMAC

[Anonymous]

I am looking at buying an iMAC for home use. Mostly I will be using AC14 in A new business venture.

I have found a new 27" iMAC for under $1500.00 U.S. (closeout) with the following specs:

Intel Core 2 Duo 3.36GHz, 4GB (2x2GB) DDR3 SDRAM, 1TB SATA HDD, 27" LED-backlit Display, SuperDrive, Gigabit Ethernet, AirPort Extreme Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, iSight

It is also equipped with an ATI Radeon 4670 Graphics card.

My question is this: Will this machine be good enough to do renderings, or should I bite the bullet and spend the extra $700 - $1000 for a machine with an i7 quad core processor?

I have also been playing around with photoshop and would like to get into some animation (the last one is strictly recreational) so I would like a machine that can handle these types of tasks.

[Laszlo Nagy]

Check out this recorded webinar from GS US:

The ArchiCAD Dream Machine:

http://www.graphisoft.com/ftp/marketing/us/05-archicad_dream_machine/05-archicad_dream_machine.html

[Dwight]

This is adequate to do renderings.

Renderings in LightWorks always seem slow no matter how fast a computer is.

Use the leftover money to buy Artlantis where rendering seems quick.

[Anonymous]

Thanks to both of you. Dwight, I have a Artlantis 4.5 on my computer now. Is this good enough to learn on, or should I invest in Studio? Will this version do fly throughs? I also have found a program called Blender that will accept 3DS files. Have you (or anybody else) ever heard of it?

I am attaching a render I did the other day, just for fun. Any comments would be appreciated.

Have a great day.

[Anonymous]

P.S.: That render was done in Lightworks.

[Dwight]

Get Studio. The new features are impressive. I would not recommend 4.5 since it was quite crude, but they've finally made the application live up to its promise of speed and simplicity for architects, if not providing the most sophisticated light and surfaces. Sample attached.

Render comments:

– Table top needs some wood grain irregularity unless you applied shiny laminate.

– Light sources need more color - always combine blue sky with yellowish interior lights. There's no such thing as white.

– you should not let ducks walk up a wet plaster wall.

[Anonymous]

Well, Now I'm thirsty.

I am still working on reflectance and light. As for the ducks walking on the wall, getting the right settings for the material to not look like a bunch of little squares is eluding me.

Is your book still available, and where can one purchase it?

[Laszlo Nagy]

Jeff wrote:
Intel Core 2 Duo 3.36GHz, 4GB (2x2GB) DDR3 SDRAM, 1TB SATA HDD, 27" LED-backlit Display, SuperDrive, Gigabit Ethernet, AirPort Extreme Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, iSight

It is also equipped with an ATI Radeon 4670 Graphics card.

My question is this: Will this machine be good enough to do renderings, or should I bite the bullet and spend the extra $700 - $1000 for a machine with an i7 quad core processor?

I just noticed that this machine has a Core 2 Duo processor.
When I buy a machine I usually buy it for at least 3 years so I want to choose components that will be decent even 3 years from now.
Animations and renderings are among the most resource hungry processes.
So I would personally buy a machine with an i5 or i7 processor.

In this webinar I referred to you might want to check the machine Greg talks about at 27:30 into the recording.

[Dwight]

See my signature for prices and ordering info.

I have several LightWorks in Archicad remaining, but they are soon to disappear forever.

[Karl Ottenstein]

...or this one, posted at the moment in the refurbished machine list at store.apple.com - $300 off list price. An amazing amount of power and display for the money. And, at $400 more than the one you were originally looking at, a better long-term buy I think.

(If you end up needing more than 4GB memory, it is easy to do - two screws.)

If you haven't bought Apple refurbished before, the items I've seen (27" iMac and 24" LED monitor) have nothing that suggests they were ever opened or used and have full warranty.

Inventory changes daily / hourly.

Cheers,
Karl

PS Yes, Artlantis Studio is a big, big change and improvement from 4.5. Besides all of the new rendering/light features and ease of use, Studio 3 will use a full 8 threads on the iMac above nearly equalling my Mac Pro in speed. 4.5 not only used a single thread, it did so inefficiently causing a lot of heat and fast running fans. Which isn't to say that a bit of heat doesn't blow out the top vent of the iMac.

PPS If you want an extended warranty, you can buy AppleCare at greatly discounted prices (compared to Apple Store) from other online retailers. Use Google Shopping to check.