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iMac Pro performance

T

Tom Sefton

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Hi,

About to pull the trigger on an iMac pro. Usually editing 8K Helium or 6K Dragon footage, although we've got some 3D projects to deliver soon as well. Want to stay in the Mac eco system so looking at the performance difference between the 10, 14 and 18 core. Has anyone got any experience on whether the additional expenditure is worth it for heavy lifting with encoding and playback of red footage? Has anyone got the 128GB RAM and seen better performance than the 64GB?

Cheers
 
 
I use a 18 core iMac Pro with 128GB of ram. It will handle 6k and lower R3Ds with no problem at all. Even possible to edit at full quality in FCPX. Working with 5K Gemini footage is incredibly easy. 8K R3Ds at full quality in FCPX is nearly there but not quite. Perfectly possible to edit 8K R3Ds with the FCPX viewer set to Best Performance. Render time in Premiere compared to FCPX is an absolute joke. Anyone who is using Premiere I absolutely pity you. If you don't want to use FCPX you should definitely switch to Resolve at the very least.

128GB of RAM won't necessarily give you "better performance" it will just give you more RAM. Which is absolutely useful when working with R3D footage. And working with R3D footage you will also seen pretty significant improvements over the standard 8 core or even the 10 core. 14 core with 128GB of RAM is probably the best value for money, but there is a performance increase when going to the 18 core. I have tested all of them. Also worth noting. The 8 core iMac Pro is faster than the older 12 core Mac Pro cylinder. This was tested using Maya and Arnold and V-Ray to render which will use every core you throw at them. The 18 core iMac Pro is over twice as fast as the older 12 core Mac Pro in the same test.
 
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If memory serves me correctly, the new iMac Pro is getting a memory capacity bump to 256GB next year, due to layered memory manufacturing improvements from Samsung. So, that's something if you've got the high-end config and can afford the upgrade, as the sticks will run at lower power and likely a little cooler than the current offerings. By the time the new Mac Pro appears, we may have 128GB sticks in early testing phases, which would be mind-boggling to see in a production product.
 
L. Langer said:
If memory serves me correctly, the new iMac Pro is getting a memory capacity bump to 256GB next year, due to layered memory manufacturing improvements from Samsung. So, that's something if you've got the high-end config and can afford the upgrade, as the sticks will run at lower power and likely a little cooler than the current offerings. By the time the new Mac Pro appears, we may have 128GB sticks in early testing phases, which would be mind-boggling to see in a production product.
Click to expand...

Xeon-W memory controller supports upto 512 GB.
 
I'll 2nd the 18core. I wouldn't get anything less. In resolve 1/2 res good in 6K and 8K is effortless. 64gb seems to be the sweet spot price wise. The better graphics a must.
 
andrewhake said:
I use a 18 core iMac Pro with 128GB of ram. It will handle 6k and lower R3Ds with no problem at all. Even possible to edit at full quality in FCPX. Working with 5K Gemini footage is incredibly easy. 8K R3Ds at full quality in FCPX is nearly there but not quite. Perfectly possible to edit 8K R3Ds with the FCPX viewer set to Best Performance.

128GB of RAM won't necessarily give you "better performance" it will just give you more RAM. Which is absolutely useful when working with R3D footage. And working with R3D footage you will also seen pretty significant improvements over the standard 8 core or even the 10 core. 14 core with 128GB of RAM is probably the best value for money, but there is a performance increase when going to the 18 core. I have tested all of them. Also worth noting. The 8 core iMac Pro is faster than the older 12 core Mac Pro cylinder. This was tested using Maya and Arnold and V-Ray to render which will use every core you throw at them. The 18 core iMac Pro is over twice as fast as the older 12 core Mac Pro in the same test.
Click to expand...

That’s cool thanks. Will go for max spec on ram, processor and gpu. Can it handle 6K50p....?
 
andrewhake said:
(snip) working with R3D footage you will also seen pretty significant improvements over the standard 8 core or even the 10 core. 14 core with 128GB of RAM is probably the best value for money, but there is a performance increase when going to the 18 core. I have tested all of them. (snip)
Click to expand...

Great notes Andrew, not everyone has a chance to do similar tasks on various configs. I've been dubious of the bang for the buck of the 18c/128GB/Vega64 config at roughly $13K, though it makes more sense with robust eGPU support. With NVIDIA continuing to leverage CUDA (and other architectural enhancements in the Turing chips) to facilitate R3D workflows, I do wonder whether it makes sense to stay with OSX if Apple refuses to bury the hatchet with NVIDIA...

Perhaps we have reached a point where the most important spec for RedUsers is GPU performance (particularly with R3Ds) regardless of OS, CPU, etc...

Cheers - #19
 
Got to play with one at the Apple Store.
Running FCPX with 8K ProRes444 files.
Man, it was like butter.
Still not sold on an iMac and will be waiting for 2019.
My current MacPro 2013 D700 is living with 4K :)
 
Apple shmepple...
Who cares about Apple? For me investing $13k in a non upgradable computer is simply insane. For less than half of the money you can have an insanely powerful top of the line computer, that is completely customized and upgradable. Dual upgradable CPUs architecture, newer upgradable GPUs, may be NVMA or SSD RAID, faster RAM, bigger PSU, whatever, you can easily add to your computer in 30 seconds. Add a little Linux magic on top and you're done- computer that will murder any iMac Pro.
 
jake blackstone said:
Apple shmepple...
Who cares about Apple? For me investing $13k in a non upgradable computer is simply insane. For less than half of the money you can have an insanely powerful top of the line computer, that is completely customized and upgradable. Dual upgradable CPUs architecture, newer upgradable GPUs, may be NVMA or SSD RAID, faster RAM, bigger PSU, whatever, you can easily add to your computer in 30 seconds. Add a little Linux magic on top and you're done- computer that will murder any iMac Pro.
Click to expand...

I’ve never heard that before, tell me more
 
Tom Sefton said:
Playback raw rushes in either fcpx or resolve with low quality settings
Click to expand...

1/4 res should be possible and 1.5k is good enough for editing on a 5k screen.
Rendering is another story, try to get some VEGA FE's while you still can.
Or build a hackintosh with twice the speed for the same money and even better follow jakes advice and switch to linux.
 
It’s impossible to switch OS at the moment. Midway through a huge project with 3 other machines all running OS X that do encoding and share hardware. Using fcpx for all editing too.
 
I've been a Mac guy for 30+ years. Based on the experiences of comrades using Windows, I've had far less downtime/crashing/conflicts over the years. I've also got several clients who really only want to get ProRes. All that said, Windows has evolved and most of my interaction is with the applications themselves, rather than the OS.

I get where Jake is coming from. Particularly for doing client supervised color sessions where smooth full rez playback, probably with 10 or 12bit color precision, is crucial. For years I resisted taking on the cost of hiring IT support, by staying Mac I could muddle through myself with some help from Mr. Google. Perhaps we've crossed a tipping point where I could budget $1,200 a year for freelance IT and pay for it with hardware savings - oh - and get more performance as well.

Cheers - #19
 
I have the maxed out iMac Pro. I find it a bit disappointing for the price point I paid for it.
 
Tom Sefton said:
Playback raw rushes in either fcpx or resolve with low quality settings
Click to expand...

Yes should playback 50p stuff no problem. It will playback 8k 24p at low settings no problem. If you have some footage you would like tested send me a link.
 
Went with the fully souped up 10 core and it sings. So far very happy. I'm only editing with 4.5k Raven but I've heard it handles 8k fine and better/faster than the 18 core which from how I understand it is more for like vfx and 3d rendering.
 
Blair S. Paulsen said:
I've been a Mac guy for 30+ years. Based on the experiences of comrades using Windows, I've had far less downtime/crashing/conflicts over the years. I've also got several clients who really only want to get ProRes. All that said, Windows has evolved and most of my interaction is with the applications themselves, rather than the OS.

I get where Jake is coming from. Particularly for doing client supervised color sessions where smooth full rez playback, probably with 10 or 12bit color precision, is crucial. For years I resisted taking on the cost of hiring IT support, by staying Mac I could muddle through myself with some help from Mr. Google. Perhaps we've crossed a tipping point where I could budget $1,200 a year for freelance IT and pay for it with hardware savings - oh - and get more performance as well.

Cheers - #19
Click to expand...

I never ran Linux before. It took me a while to get comfortable with it. Yeah, everything on a Mac is easy and so is on Windows. But getting Linux up and running is getting easier all the time. Blackmagic makes it super simple, if you want to run Resolve Studio. Installing Liniux OS- CentOS 7 is pretty much the same as installing OSX or Windows. Once you use Blackmagic's installation image, it installs everything you need to run Resolve. Installing Resolve is as easy as a double clicking on the desktop installer. Where it's get tricky is setting up your fstab file. Networking too can be little bit more involved. But that is about all you need to do to get Resolve up and running on Linux. You will need a few weeks to get comfortable with command line to do common tasks, like GPU driver upgradse. But once it is set up, Linux just works and never complains or forces you to upodate. Running Linux is actually much easier, than I though it would be. Actually, some users managed to install Resolve on UBUNTU and this OS is the closest thing to OSX or Windows. It's pretty awesome actually, but it is not officially supported, so you'd be on your own.
 
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