Barefeats tests the new iMacs

[Lance Bachelder]

Not as good as I had hoped based on the marketing at the Apple site…

This will be a problem with Apple from here on out – by going with pre-installed graphics on both the iMac and Mac Pro there will never be the ease of just swapping out a PCIe card and getting an instant boost.

Lance Bachelder
Writer, Editor, Director
Downtown Long Beach, California
https://www.imdb.com/name/nm1680680/?ref_=fn_al_nm_1

[Marcus Moore]

There’s still absolutely NO solid information that says that GPUs won’t be able to be replaced in the new MacPro.

[Andrew Kimery]

I was expecting hire numbers as well. The Mac Pros, old as they are, look like they’ll still have life in them as ‘tweener’ machines sitting between the iMacs and the new MP Tubes.

Marcus,
You are right that we don’t know for sure about the replacing the GPUs but given that they are custom made for the MP Tube form factor I would be surprised if they are user replaceable. And if they are user replaceable I wonder about the cost and the GPU selection given the custom form factor.

[Marcus Moore]

I just don’t think we can take anything for granted with this machine yet.

Also, even if it’s a custom board, this time next year, when there’s a new faster FirePro available, who’s to say AMD won’t make it available for individual sale. As long as we can get the thing out. And the construction of the new MacPro does not look impenetrable like a laptop or an iMac, based on the videos on Apple’s site.

[Lance Bachelder]

The big problem for me with the new Mac Pro is the use of an AMD gpu – will there ever be an nVidia option or will nVidia give up on the Mac market? As of today, in my own tests, nVidia still kicks AMD’s butt and they seem to innovate much faster than AMD. While I expect Apple to optimize the new version of FCPX for AMD GPU’s, I hate the idea of being stuck with one brand forever.

Lance Bachelder
Writer, Editor, Director
Downtown Long Beach, California
https://www.imdb.com/name/nm1680680/?ref_=fn_al_nm_1

[Gary Huff]

[Marcus Moore] “There’s still absolutely NO solid information that says that GPUs won’t be able to be replaced in the new MacPro.
“

Have you seen the previous FirePro PCIe cards? How exactly do you think they are going to shrink that down into a user replaceable part? It will definitely have to be soldered on to the mainboard, just like EVERY OTHER Mac machine aside from the ancient currently purchasable iteration of the Mac Pro.

[Marcus Moore]

I have a question I’d like to table now, since I’m planning on buying a new MacPro on release.

So far we’ve had 2 processor options presented-

The top end 12-core 2.7GHz

And likely a mid-tier option of a 8-core 3GHz

I know that some applications benefit more from higher clock-speeds and others from more cores.

Knowing that it’s certainly going to make a lot of difference to max out the GPU (if fiscally possible), which option here most benefits FCPX and Motion? 12 cores at a slower clock-speed or 8-cores at higher?

Any thoughts or experiences?

[Erik Lindahl]

This will have to be tested with the coming FCPX.

[Marcus Moore]

I suppose, but even using the current software with multicore MacPro configs, which does FCPX benefit more from now, a 6-core 3.4GHz system or a 12-core lower GHz system?

Does FCPX lean one way or the other for what it does?

[Marcus Moore]

While I think that AMD might have gotten exclusivity this time around, I don’t see any reason why there couldn’t be an nVidia option down the road.