iMac or Mac Mini?

'Render farm' clicked with me as a real render farm, i. e. where some software renders a pic or an animation on several computers at the same time and handles all the nodes (the different computers). As soon as one has finished a bucket or a frame, it puts the stuff together and sends out a new part for that machine. Well, you probably know the principle. And that it's not possible, at least not in this degree, with Cheetah.

You are right, not possible in C3D. My design of "render farm" is basically just automated sequential rendering on other machines. I doesn't speed up the rendering, but it enables rendering of multiple files simultaneously and automatically. True render farm functionality in C3D would mean heaven on Earth for me :D

Hi Tomas

So it's well worth, in my opinion, to buy a decent machine and in this case wait for the next generation of imacs.

Well, now the trend is adding more cores - those significantly speed up the rendering. When it comes to previous generations of mac minis for example, it is very simple - 4 core machines render approx. twice as fast as 2 core machines.
I work on a macbook pro, because I move, but I find the iMacs to be the most pleasant computers to work on, ever in history. If you don't need it urgently, waiting for the next generation sounds wise at this stage.
 
Well, now the trend is adding more cores - those significantly speed up the rendering. When it comes to previous generations of mac minis for example, it is very simple - 4 core machines render approx. twice as fast as 2 core machines.
I work on a macbook pro, because I move, but I find the iMacs to be the most pleasant computers to work on, ever in history. If you don't need it urgently, waiting for the next generation sounds wise at this stage.

With the minis this may be true. With the new intel processors not anymore. The newest i7 has just 8 cores without hyperthreading (gen. 9). The 8th gen has 4 or 2 cores (and ht, i.e. 8 or 4 threads). I'm not sure what gen the new iMacs will get. In some benchmarks the new gen is actually slower than the older ones, a 6 core i5 slower than some 4 core i7s, faster than some 8 thread ones ... and so on (this doesn't say much, in my opinion, about the systems they are used in. Especially it doesn't count in the software does use their special capabilities. Or not).

At the moment it's quiet difficult to keep the overview about the tech (and I for my part are not willing anymore to spend a lot of time with all this stuff). So it is, as misoversaturaded stated, quiet important too look at the benchmarks of the actual machines, to guess what you'll get.

On the other hand, even the actual i5-iMacs are much faster than uncle's old macbook. So it's not a question about running Cheetah now but just getting a little bit more power for approx. the same money and get a system that will be ok even in a few years.

Ok, as long as no firm can actually produce the cheap super-processors that will overshadow everything else. Stuff like this has been promised a 100 times over the last 20 years. That's actually another reason why I'm not willing to shell out big money for hardware. With new AI-technologies around (and quantum computers in the background) some technological revolution is possible in the next few years. And stuff like this sometimes comes faster than you'd expect).

I find the iMacs to be the most pleasant computers to work on, ever in history.

I fully agree. Over the years I had lost the joy over new hardware, it was just something I needed to get my job done, an expensive tool always causing new and unnecessary problems (I worked with Windows). That changed with the iMac, the monitor, the smooth way the OS runs, something I don't have much to think or to worry about. And it actually gives me more time to do my things instead of pampering a computer. And I love the retina display (to that point that I cringe when I have to look at a fullHD monitor).
 
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