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  • Hey all, just changed over the backend after 15 years I figured time to give it a bit of an update, its probably gonna be a bit weird for most of you and i am sure there is a few bugs to work out but it should kinda work the same as before... hopefully :)

5k Retina iMac

In terms of overall power, the system is going to be comparable to a 4-core new Mac Pro trashcan with D500 GPUs. That said, it has a lot to offer here and I'm in agreement with Offhollywood Mark. It's going to be a great creative system with a nice form factor and competitively priced. It gets us to a 5K display now where the rest of the world will have to wait for DisplayPort 1.3 to do it right or hope for a 5K version of something like the HP Z1. The GPU in this new iMac is current, but yes kinda old as all the current GPUs have been out for a while. Don't expect to see much new on the GPU front until 2nd quarter 2015 and we should see Broadwell CPUs at some point with more aggressively priced DDR4 memory. And that will all find its way into the next update to the iMac, probably middle of next year.

I'm often puzzled over the computing choices and setups discussed by others on these forums. Everyone is looking for that one computer to do whatever they want. There is no one computer that is a solution for every situation. This computer looks awesome for what it is. But I wouldn't buy it to run Resolve, nor would I buy it to handle serious rendering or transcoding... However, it can handle both of those tasks no doubt, just not in a way that many people would want to use those tools on a daily basis. I run a variety of systems, Macs and PC's. I have a couple iMacs, one getting kinda old. So I'm tempted to replace it with a new 5K one... I just have to wrestle with the question of whether to upgrade now or wait for Broadwell... Or go for it now and get the advantages of the 5K screen -- would make a killer Photoshop system or perfect all-in-one to have on set for image checking and other tasks... It will cut R3Ds just fine in low resolution when paired with a decent storage array.

If I wait for Broadwell, the biggest advantage will be the DDR4 RAM and possibly an upgraded GPU at that time... We'll still be one iteration away from Thunderbolt 3 at that point, so maybe it's better to go now and upgrade one of the other systems I have in 2016.

...I've spent so much time in AutoCAD and Adobe Illustrator lately, I'm probably going to buy one of these just because of the screen. My 4K Dell is nice for that stuff, but this looks more nice. :)


People will have to decide for themselves what they want.
 
I think this will be perfect for me as a personal computer. At work we have a HP workstation that can render plenty fast, and at home I'm using a 2008 Mac pro that I would like to replace and the new Mac pro is just a bit too expensive to have as a home computer for me.
Now the iMac finally seems ready to take its place.
I have a quadro 4000 in my Mac pro, will the new iMac runs resolve better or worse you think?
 
This new iMac should be a good bit faster than your '08 Mac Pro. The Mac Pro 3,1 (2008) had dual-channel RAM @ 800MHz and a CPU interface that also bottlenecked your processors. It's not a great performer in Resolve and is actually a dog in Resolve 11. Same goes for the Quadro 4000 GPU. Not bad at the time for the money, but compared to current GPUs it's pretty weak. Your home computer situation is a great reason to consider this new iMac. Just keep in mind that you can build a more powerful PC for less. But I have been very pleased with my iMacs as general use creative systems and I think this one will excel in that role.
 
Jeff, how about versus the current top of he line Macbook Pro? What performance difference can we see between the top of the line iMac 5K and the Macbook Pro? I have a first generation Retina, and was tempted to upgrade to the TB2 version as a creative computer for my Dragon (with Rocket X in Magma enclosure). Portability aside, maybe this could well be it, a stop gap machine until a 2016 Macbook Pro upgrade?
 
Jeff Kilgroe said:
This new iMac should be a good bit faster than your '08 Mac Pro. The Mac Pro 3,1 (2008) had dual-channel RAM @ 800MHz and a CPU interface that also bottlenecked your processors. It's not a great performer in Resolve and is actually a dog in Resolve 11. Same goes for the Quadro 4000 GPU. Not bad at the time for the money, but compared to current GPUs it's pretty weak. Your home computer situation is a great reason to consider this new iMac. Just keep in mind that you can build a more powerful PC for less. But I have been very pleased with my iMacs as general use creative systems and I think this one will excel in that role.
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Thanks Jeff.
Its the 3.1 and as you know the ram is very expensive, so I only have the original 10gb from when I bought it.
Too much money to upgrade. I will say it must have been one of the best ROI I have ever had when it comes to computers. A good 5-6 year run, and it still handles r3d files quite well.
Can't wait to upgrade though.
Question is, what do I do with the old one.

PS I don't want a PC at home, it's enough with the ones I have to use when I'm in the suite. Great for what they do, but I just don't like to spend time outside the Adobe suite and Resolve on a pc
 
Peter Majtan said:
My money is on both 5K iMac and 5K display to be announced before end of October and to start shipping in January...

:sifone: Peter
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Pay up folks! :reddevil:

On a more serious note - I have bought top spec iMac last December and while it has been amazing editing and grading machine (I got the 4GB GPU) the resolution / screen real estate was a bit limiting. I guess upgrade is in order...

:sifone: Peter
 
Mark L. Pederson said:
5K screen, price, form factor

I have crazy systems to render - so it appeals to me as a great desktop creative system. A lot of bang for your buck IMO. Many of us are really 90% on our 15" mac books - let's be honest here.
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I wish I was, I dont have one anymore :(

I agree to some of your points but the nMP aka trashcan has filled some holes in our studio.

One advantage is due to the numerous Thunderbolt ports, we now scaled down two workstations to one that can do Resolve, Pro Tools HDX, Avid MC and FCPX.

Its week 4 and so far no hiccups (well a little, PM me for questions) ;)
 
I was pleased to see this today.

Im getting to the point where all I want is a nice quite machine with a few massive capacity thunderbolt hard drives in an air conditioned room far away from where I am working. This machine and a bunch of very high capacity thunderbolt raids and I would be a pretty happy man.

All the the super heavy lifting can be done later or while I am sleeping.

Cheers,
battistella
 
Tyson Perkins said:
What is the likelihood of customising this mac with more RAM down the line (64gb, etc)?
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There are options being developed using the latest manufacturing processes, but they won't be out until sometime next year at the earliest. A lot of Enterprise IT customers invested heavily in recent hardware (servers, workstations, desktops, and laptops) that uses DDR3, so the memory makers are going to make a good profit from new high-density DDR3 memory when it's available.
 
David Battistella said:
I was pleased to see this today.

Im getting to the point where all I want is a nice quite machine with a few massive capacity thunderbolt hard drives in an air conditioned room far away from where I am working. This machine and a bunch of very high capacity thunderbolt raids and I would be a pretty happy man.

All the the super heavy lifting can be done later or while I am sleeping.




Cheers,
battistella
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Exactly. For a mainly shooter person this could become a jack of all trades home and travel rig and leave the really heavy lifting to people who know what they are doing.
 
I think for being a significantly lower cost system compared to the nMP its a good option. If you match specs on a quad core nMP and also a high resolution monitor, this is a much much better value...by 1000's. I think its a good option for people who don't want to invest $8k+ on a nMP but would like a capable system for half the price...and a high resolution screen.

I think it hits a sweet spot for many users.
 
Frank Glencairn said:
Well.....
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Ya I was wrong expecting them to use common sense. Lets see how happy everyone is next year when Broadwell releases. I really dont see sales meeting stock on this with the choice of hardware. Had they gone with Nvidia then maybe but AMD again - (shake head). I wonder if they just wanted to give more reason for people to get the nMPro versus the Imac. But hey you get a shiny new 5K screen.
 
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Eric Bowen said:
Ya I was wrong expecting them to use common sense. Lets see how happy everyone is next year when Broadwell releases. I really dont see sales meeting stock on this with the choice of hardware. Had they gone with Nvidia then maybe but AMD again - (shake head). I wonder if they just wanted to give more reason for people to get the nMPro versus the Imac.
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You are right that many are on the fence with Broadwell coming out soon. I am definitely one of them. I have heard rumors that they have really fell behind on production...but just rumors. If Broadwell is 6 months out...it could very well be worth the wait. If its a year or more...could be worth picking up a system now and selling it later.
 
I hate the new 5k Imac.
 
Eric Bowen said:
Ya I was wrong expecting them to use common sense. Lets see how happy everyone is next year when Broadwell releases. I really dont see sales meeting stock on this with the choice of hardware. Had they gone with Nvidia then maybe but AMD again - (shake head). I wonder if they just wanted to give more reason for people to get the nMPro versus the Imac. But hey you get a shiny new 5K screen.
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I think Nvidia and Apple have parted ways. Some of that might be due to Nvidia clinging to it's proprietary tech, in both hardware and software, in order to drive sales of their hardware. Nvidia is very attached to CUDA and other proprietary hardware and software tech that is built into their own hardware while AMD embraces open standards and tech, despite their questionable record of doing so with Linux. Given that, it makes sense for AMD to be inside the Apple hardware.
 
Yes Open CL is more desirable on AMD but Open CL performance is not there yet with Cuda. The problem is the current state of software and Open CL development compared to Cuda. When it catches up then AMD will compete well enough with Nvidia. Until then though Nvidia has the advantage and hardware configuration should be based on that.
 
My guess TB3 is 9 months away. Perhaps a new MacPro with DP 1.3 via USB 3.1 would be an interum solution? Who knows what Apple is planning.
 
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