iMac or Mac Pro for Raven footage

[Andy_Johnson]

Hi guys, long time reader, first time poster.

I was looking to get a little first-hand insight about what the newest model iMacs and Mac Pros are capable of handling. Basically I'm getting tired of waiting for the Mac Pro to be updated (I know it's probably imminent as it's been 757 days since the last refresh - a record for Apple... sigh). But lately I've heard great things about the 5k iMac and editing R3D footage with FCPX.

I would either go for the i7 + 395X iMac or the base model Mac Pro with the D300 cards. Just wondering how the iMac would fare with Raven footage (probably comparable to Weapon 4.5k).

Thanks for the input!

 

[Todd T]

The top of the line iMacs have always performed comparably to the low/mid mac pro configurations when handling r3d footage. And with the iMacs you get the 5K display built in...

 

[Mathieu Ghekiere]

I think if you are comparing with the D300 cards Mac Pro configuration, which is not upgradeable, I think the top of the line iMac will give you better performance and a wonderful display built in.

And to be honest, we have been working with 4K R3D smoothly (with a fast raid, Pegasus) with the first Retina Macbook Pro's from 2012 or when they first got available. So a new iMac should do fine, especially considering you have a handy one-button proxy-mode in FCPX if you would have performance problems.

 

[Luca Volpe]

I have eve tried some sample 5k R3D (downloaded from the Red website) on my Imac (2013) 2,7 GHz Intel Core i5,16 GB DDR3 a 1600 MHz,Intel Iris Pro 1536 MB and works great! (obviously using an external raid 5 hard drive Pegasus) I use FCPX, hope this help.

 

[Tony Ditata]

I have the 5k with i7 and 395x like you described. Downloaded some sample 6k dragon footage and all seems to work very well. I've never handled post on anything I've shot with Red in the past so I'm looking forward to diving into the workflow when my camera arrives and I get rolling.
On a side note is there anywhere you guys know to downloaded multiple longer sample clips to work with? What I have found are all little 5-10 second clips.

 

[Kevin D'Haeze]

Basically I'm getting tired of waiting for the Mac Pro to be updated (I know it's probably imminent as it's been 757 days since the last refresh - a record for Apple... sigh)

Not to disparage the Mac Pro too much, since I have used Mac Pro's for many years now, but you may recall that there was a "petition group" formed a few years back that was around 13,000 strong - with the goal of getting Apple to update their aging, but capable, Mac Pro lineup. History seems to be repeating itself. It has been tough in the past 4 years to get any sense that Apple is going to put their real mental muscle in developing it much further. I've used Apple computers since the 1970's with the Apple II+ (with an amazing 64K, not gigs, of RAM) - and my gut tells me they are very interested in steering their product lineup and development dollars more towards the "mobile'esque" style. In other words, iPads, iPad Pro, iMac. On the plus side, their iMac lineup has become more and more powerful as a result.

You could also consider an older Mac Pro if budget is a concern. I've got a Mac Pro (earlier generation tower) that has 12 cores, 64 gigs of RAM, and it will smoke the doors off of most Mac Pro setups. And you can get one of those for about a third the price of a comparable new Mac Pro. You just need to get around the fact that you don't have Thunderbolt, etc.

Anyway, this is FWIW.

 

[Andy_Johnson]

Nice, glad to hear that it sounds like a very capable machine.

I'm running an i7, 16GB, SSD, Hackintosh right now but the motherboard doesn't support any new generation GPUs. Figured this would be a great time to upgrade the desktop as well as replace my aging 1080p monitor.

 

[Terry VerHaar]

Just to tag along on this discussion (let me know if it feels "off topic")...

I think I am going to wait for the next iteration of iMac and jump on it. The 5K screen is awfully sexy!

Right now I have a 2010 Mac Pro with a couple of improvements (GTX 680, SSD card for boot drive, etc) but it is getting long in the tooth. Can anyone make suggestions on how I might make use of the old MacPro in an environment of editing on the new 5K iMac? I'd hate to just mothball the MacPro 5,1 if I can kept in service. Thanks.

 

[Darryl Harris]

I have been tempted to get the iMac 5K but I hear the 2016 MacBook pros will be unveiled this spring. I'm hoping it will be enough to handle the R3ds efficiently. Rather have the portability of the MacBook vs iMac.

 

[Kevin D'Haeze]

Right now I have a 2010 Mac Pro with a couple of improvements (GTX 680, SSD card for boot drive, etc) but it is getting long in the tooth. Can anyone make suggestions on how I might make use of the old MacPro in an environment of editing on the new 5K iMac? I'd hate to just mothball the MacPro 5,1 if I can kept in service. Thanks.

Unless you have an absolute need for things like Thunderbolt connectivity, or just simply want to consolidate things to a "smaller footprint", a 2010 Mac Pro is a workhorse that you could easily get a couple more years out of. Install four internal HD's and stripe them together and you've got a fast internal drive array for handling higher resolution video. Drop in an Intensity Pro 4K card for $200 and you've got 4K output via HDMI to a monitor for editing or DaVinci.

The temptation is always to get the latest and shiniest, but those Mac Pro Xeon systems are like tanks... my two cents.

 

[Minu Park]

I shot 3 dragons recently with 6K raw. My Imac 27inch highest spec handles in 2/1 on premiere nicely.

It works well.

For the comparison. I still think FS7's XAVC codec is lessor stress to work with than Red's R3D when it comes to fast work.

 

[Kevin D'Haeze]

I shot 3 dragons recently with 6K raw. My Imac 27inch highest spec handles in 2/1 on premiere nicely.

It works well.

For the comparison. I still think FS7's XAVC codec is lessor stress to work with than Red's R3D when it comes to fast work.

If you're running Avid Media Composer, it's not a big deal to transcode the footage to a very small and efficient DNxHD 36 codec (or similar) for editing purposes - then link back to the originals when you're ready to do final color work and finishing. With that setup, you could edit on a 2010 laptop if need be.

 

[Terry VerHaar]

Unless you have an absolute need for things like Thunderbolt connectivity, or just simply want to consolidate things to a "smaller footprint", a 2010 Mac Pro is a workhorse that you could easily get a couple more years out of. Install four internal HD's and stripe them together and you've got a fast internal drive array for handling higher resolution video. Drop in an Intensity Pro 4K card for $200 and you've got 4K output via HDMI to a monitor for editing or DaVinci.

The temptation is always to get the latest and shiniest, but those Mac Pro Xeon systems are like tanks... my two cents.

Interesting thoughts.

I already have the internal HDs and, unfortunately my slots are maxed. And, one of my monitors (old Apple Cinema Displays) is starting to crap out. I also think that Thunderbolt does offer a major step forward. My Mac is a 6-core, 3.33 Ghz machine and I am getting about as much out of the system as I can without sinking a fair amount of new money into it.

 

[Kevin D'Haeze]

Interesting thoughts.

I already have the internal HDs and, unfortunately my slots are maxed. And, one of my monitors (old Apple Cinema Displays) is starting to crap out. I also think that Thunderbolt does offer a major step forward. My Mac is a 6-core, 3.33 Ghz machine and I am getting about as much out of the system as I can without sinking a fair amount of new money into it.

I hear what you're saying. At some point I will likely move to an iMac (or two) purely to consolidate my overall edit/graphics footprint. That said, old Mac Pro towers that I've retired, but still sit neatly in the rack for grunt work. I can offload transcode projects to them. Or use them in a render farm for graphics and animation. For the price you'll likely get on the used market, it might make more financial sense to keep it around for those kinds of studio tasks, freeing your main workstation up for the real fun - slicing together that killer Red footage!

 

[Terry VerHaar]

I hear what you're saying. At some point I will likely move to an iMac (or two) purely to consolidate my overall edit/graphics footprint. That said, old Mac Pro towers that I've retired, but still sit neatly in the rack for grunt work. I can offload transcode projects to them. Or use them in a render farm for graphics and animation. For the price you'll likely get on the used market, it might make more financial sense to keep it around for those kinds of studio tasks, freeing your main workstation up for the real fun - slicing together that killer Red footage!

Thanks. That's exactly the kind of unlit I am looking for; how to use the old MPro to supplement the iMac.

 

[Ryan Genova]

My 3 year old top of the line iMac worked acceptably well for editing 4K footage in FCP X, but if you want to use Resolve at all, it is pretty much unusable on the iMac. Even the newest iMacs don't have enough VRAM to really run Resolve.

I upgraded to a 6-core MacPro with D700's a few months ago and it's night and day versus the iMac and even can do noise reduction nodes in Resolve, which used to crash my iMac.

 

[Augusto Alves da Silva]

Hi guys, long time reader, first time poster.

I was looking to get a little first-hand insight about what the newest model iMacs and Mac Pros are capable of handling. Basically I'm getting tired of waiting for the Mac Pro to be updated (I know it's probably imminent as it's been 757 days since the last refresh - a record for Apple... sigh). But lately I've heard great things about the 5k iMac and editing R3D footage with FCPX.

I would either go for the i7 + 395X iMac or the base model Mac Pro with the D300 cards. Just wondering how the iMac would fare with Raven footage (probably comparable to Weapon 4.5k).

Thanks for the input!

I had the same question as I am a long time mac user. The solution I found and against all mac dealers opinion I didn´t get any new mac pro or imac. What I did was loading my 2011 mac pros with full RAM and installed Nvidia chipset 960 OC 4gb and 6gb cards. Those computers (tested by me) outperform the new mac pros. It was amzing the discovery and I am buying more 2011 computers at dirt price and will do the same. The only risk you take is to run out of spares if soething breaks as Mac discontinues computers at their own will. Try if you have one 2011 macpro. It only costs arund $300 to get a graphics card.

 

[Mark T Workman]

I have eve tried some sample 5k R3D (downloaded from the Red website) on my Imac (2013) 2,7 GHz Intel Core i5,16 GB DDR3 a 1600 MHz,Intel Iris Pro 1536 MB and works great! (obviously using an external raid 5 hard drive Pegasus) I use FCPX, hope this help.

Thanks for this Luca as I'm currently running FCP X on a 13" MacBook Pro using a 2.8 GHz i7 and 16GB RAM. I'm not getting the performance I'd like and have been wondering about using/trying an external raid hard drive configuration first before I buy an iMac especially since the new ones aren't out yet...

 

[Brian Merlen]

Just to tag along on this discussion (let me know if it feels "off topic")...

I think I am going to wait for the next iteration of iMac and jump on it. The 5K screen is awfully sexy!

Right now I have a 2010 Mac Pro with a couple of improvements (GTX 680, SSD card for boot drive, etc) but it is getting long in the tooth. Can anyone make suggestions on how I might make use of the old MacPro in an environment of editing on the new 5K iMac? I'd hate to just mothball the MacPro 5,1 if I can kept in service. Thanks.

id get fast shared storage like say SNS Evo and render and export on one while you cut the next project on one, bring in other editors, add more bays? Or sell the old machine if you have no reason for multiple machines on your kind of work? You can also upgrade the tower more as well? They run real well still

 

[Brian Merlen]

Theoretically with prores proxies unless any of you finish and conform in r3d yourself you don't need that kind of function at all? That's why the proxies matter so much. So unless you color and finish or color on set I wouldn't worry so much going forward about needing such capabilities?



Ps couldn't broke DITs grade the proxies instead of raw anyway to get by on a cheap machine?