iMac owner thinking of self build.

[Onepointsixtwo]

Hi.
I have a 2011 27" iMac with a 3.4 GHz i7, a 1GB Radeon HD 6970M and 32 GB 1333 MHz DDR3 ram. My hard drive is a 1TB 7200rpm. I only use this machine for VFX work in After Effects, C4D and sometimes I edit in Premiere. My comps on average usually have 25 layers of media. Some being 3D and almost always having some kind of particle based work using Particular. I rarely work in anything below 1080p and I am starting get handed 2.5k and 4k footage to work on and am thinking of upgrading my machine.
Instead of just getting another iMac I am thinking that I should go for a Windows based machine so that I can take advantage of being able to over clock and also be able to upgrade individual components, like graphics cards etc.
However, I have only ever known Macs so I don't have any idea what to expect performance wise from a different machine.
For instance Say I build a system with equal specs to my iMac but put in an Nvidia GTX 660 and over clocked the i7 cpu to 4.2GHz. What, if any difference in performance would i get over my iMac.
Then, say I went down the Socket 2011 route and got a 3930K over a 4 core i7 but kept the GTX 660. Would there be another step in performance.
I would also opt for SSD as my OS drive if I were to build but I am just trying to gauge what gains can be made from my base model, which is my iMac, by separating the components and understanding what difference they make individually.
By the way graphics card I mentioned was just an arbitrary example and I am open to other suggestions. My work is mostly After Effects so the advantages of CUDA are not as important as it is to those that work a lot more in Premiere.

I apologise for the long question but I do look forward to your replies.

P.S. I am just as happy in a Windows environment as I am in OSX. So I my component choices do not have to be Hackintosh compatible.

Thanks again.

 

[Essence_of_War]

I rarely work in anything below 1080p and I am starting get handed 2.5k and 4k footage to work on and am thinking of upgrading my machine.
Instead of just getting another iMac I am thinking that I should go for a Windows based machine so that I can take advantage of being able to over clock and also be able to upgrade individual components, like graphics cards etc.

What sort of performance issues are you seeing that you suspect would be improved by higher end graphics cards or individually upgradeable components?

Is it something specific? TBH, looking at your set-up, I'm not sure where you'd gain a whole lot from upgrading to a custom built PC, as that is a pretty sexy imac. Overclocking isn't usually a great idea on a workstation, and although there is certainly something to be said for being able to upgrade individual components, even that seems like you'd get a pretty marginal return on your money NOW for the ability to upgrade parts later. That seems like a dubious trade-off to me.

If I were in your position, unless there was something about my workflow that the imac was creating a big bottleneck for, that I knew a custom PC could remove, I think the most efficient use of funds would be to wait another year or two and re-evaluate when you're looking at features like DDR4 RAM, and (hopefully) less of a side-grade in CPU performance.

 

[BarkingGhostar]

Wouldn't the migration from Apple to Microsoft encompass repurchasing all of the software as well? I cannot imagine that would be cheap. If money were no object then the hardware discussion is moot as you can build the Cadillac of Windows computers. But something tells me that isn't the situation.

My wife has a late 2011 27" iMac with an i7 processor and upgraded graphics. Likewise, she has the 1TB drive, but it came with only 4GB of RAM, which I added 16GB more. If there was something lacking about this in a video or graphics rendering environment, I would say a) the lack of SSD, and b) lack of USB3 (unless you are already using a Thunderbolt external storage).

Have you considered a Hackintosh? They are really easy to build these days. I built two in the last six months, but for workstation users this kind of geekiness may not apply.

 

[Onepointsixtwo]

@BarkingGhostar: I'm on Adobe CC so there is no extra cost for switching platforms. The only issue would be some of my plugins and Mocha but I've discovered that both Imagineer and Red Giant make swapping easy and with no extra cost. You are right in that I am limited on budget

@Essence_of_War: I have no one particular issue. Apart from always wanting renders to be faster I am merely trying to get an idea of what I would have to spend to feel like I have made a worthwhile upgrade. I guess that because there is always someone on the net saying that you can get twice the performance for half the cost if you build a PC over buying a mac, I feel that I might as well explore the notion. As I don't really have any experience with any other machine I have no idea whether my iMac is a fast machine or not.

Thank you both for your replies.
It seems that you both feel that the amount of cash I would have to spend in order to get any real performance gain would probably be better left in the bank. Is that correct?
The only issue would be resale value of my iMac dropping in the meantime.:hmm:

Thanks again.

 

[Essence_of_War]

The only issue would be resale value of my iMac dropping in the meantime.

But on the plus side:
1) Used macs (of all types) hold re-sale value very well
2) Imacs can be used in target display mode

I have no idea whether my iMac is a fast machine or not.

Desktop sandy bridge i7 is QUITE fast in anything CPU centric.

If you haven't upgraded to an SSD yet, you might consider an external SSD (connected via FW800 or Thunderbolt) as a boot and editing scratch drive. That will alleviate any sort of IO bottlenecks you might have, and just generally make the system feel MUCH more responsive.

Also, because OSX is pretty sweet, I'm pretty sure you could clone your boot drive, and if your imac ever breaks, you could boot any mac from your cloned boot drive. Pretty neat trick.

 

[mfenn]

You have a pretty stacked box as it is. You'd need to get a Socket 2011-based machine with an i7 4930K (6-core) to get an appreciable upgrade.

Roughly, you're looking at:

$600 i7 4930K
$200 X79 mobo
$300 32GB DDR3
$200 GTX 600-ish GPU
$150 250 GB-ish SSD for OS and apps
$200 pair of 2TB HDDs, one for source and one for target
$80 PSU
$80 case
$100 OS license

That's about $1800. If you're not willing/able to spend that much, then you're better off sticking with your iMac.

 

[JackMDS]

You have a pretty stacked box as it is.

+1
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And there is something called Bootcamp that with combination of this can provide you with double computer enjoyment/capacity.

http://www.newegg.com/Operating-Syst...68?Order=PRICE

http://www.digitaltrends.com/computing/how-to-install-windows-7-on-an-imac/

--------------
You can enhance your iMac too - http://www.btobey.com/learn/imac-ssd-install.php

 

[Morbus]

In regards to the OS thing, I was under the impression that you can install Mac OS X on a PC anyway... Can't you?!

 

[dave_the_nerd]

In regards to the OS thing, I was under the impression that you can install Mac OS X on a PC anyway... Can't you?!

Sometimes. Depends on the hardware.

It's not supported though, and patches often break the OSX install.