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iMac Pro thoughts
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Just for clarification and for the sake of accuracy… This morning I ran a simple average of the numbers in my post. This was for only the iMac Pro versus iMac (excluding the Mac Pro). And only for the tests where elapsed times could be generated. Averaged across the board, the iMP came out 48% faster. Those machines are also twice as expensive and not a perfect apples-to-apples comparison, since the configurations are different.
Of course, that gives equal weight to every function and doesn’t account for playback performance differences. Naturally, a test like Bruce-X is just a brute force test and doesn’t necessarily translate directly to real-world editing, but does skew the average a bit. So take any of these comparisons with a grain of salt.
– Oliver
Oliver Peters – oliverpeters.com
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It’s a shame there isn’t a benchmark for editing speed 🙂
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[Gabriel Spaulding] “… my 10-core iMac Pro had significant hardware issues Apple was unable to fix, then I upgraded to an 18-core iMac Pro that had the exact same problems. I returned that and now have a maxed out 5k iMac, and in nearly every case it is outperforming the 18-core iMac Pro. Multicam editing is smoother, playback is smoother, Motion render times are more or less identical…In fact, before I returned the 18-core machine I compared it to my late 2013 iMac: the 18-core with directly attached OWC Thunderbay 4 drives was MUCH slower at playback and export than the late 2013 iMac accessing media on the same drive… over a network…”
I’ve had two different 10-core Vega 64 iMac Pros and tested them extensively vs a 12-core D700 Mac Pro and a top-spec 2017 iMac. The results vary based on codec and workflow. Even the old nMP is pretty quick on ProRes. It is hobbled on H264 since it doesn’t have Quick Sync.
While the iMP doesn’t have Quick Sync, FCPX apparently uses AMD’s UVD/VCE hardware so it’s much faster than the nMP but no faster at encoding, editing or encoding H264 than a 2017 i7 iMac. In fact the iMac is smoother and faster on 4k H264 than a 10-core Vega 64 iMP.
The main problem with the iMac Pro is H264. It’s faster than the “trash can” but that’s a low bar — the nMP is very slow on that codec. If I used an all ProRes or raw workflow I’d be happy with the iMac Pro.
The iMP might do better than the iMac on an effects-heavy timeline but it’s difficult to know what effects use what % of GPU. Even effects which are frequently described as “GPU intensive” often don’t use that much. This can be determined with various monitoring tools like the latest version of iStat Menus.
The BruceX test is GPU-intensive but is tricky to run to avoid caching, pre-rendering or codec effects. If exporting to ProRes 422 from an unrendered timeline using a fresh library, I got the following numbers:
2017 i7 iMac 27: 15.8 sec
12-core D700 Mac Pro: 17.0 sec
10-core Vega 64 iMac Pro: 14.8 secFor those using an all-ProRes or RED RAW workflow the iMP is pretty fast. I didn’t test those codecs vs the nMP but my impression is a 10 or more core iMP is faster.
Re I/O, I tested the iMP on many different Thunderbolt drive arrays and it did just fine, certainly no slower than the iMac.
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Those are all solid points. Most of the time I am cutting Sony Fs7 and Panasonic GH5 footage, which is clearly benefitting from Quick Sync.
Of course I wanted the iMac Pro to work for me. It’s a beautiful machine, and wonderfully quiet, and I do miss the extra I/O ports, but apart from that I just found no advantage to using it with the type of media I typically work with. That, and of course the constant system crashes and the T2 security chip preventing the install of certain apps.
Gabriel Spaulding
Creator & Director of ACE Enterprizes
Cinematographer | Editor | Motion DesignerHow Can We Help You Tell Your Story?
http://www.aceenterprizes.com -
[Oliver Peters] “Averaged across the board, the iMP came out 48% faster.”
Which was exactly my point, yes. No clue what that has to do with “attitude“.
I just know that I was just editing various multi cams last week on the iMac Pro, ranging from 4 to 10 cameras of ProRes raw in 6K. Incl. color corrections, some colormasks and a few other effects here and there, without dropping a single frame. Even dipped into an native 8K RED timeline on the side that performed without a hitch set to better performance. Do any of that on a “normal” iMac.
Spoiler: you can’t.
But if that’s not the performance you need, then the iMac Pro isn’t the machine you need either. No shame in that.
– RK
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[Gabriel Spaulding] “I just found no advantage to using it with the type of media I typically work with.”
Oddly, I figure that kind of stuff out BEFORE I plunk down that kind of cash. Guess I’m weird that way. ????
[Gabriel Spaulding] “and the T2 security chip preventing the install of certain apps.”
Huh? Wha?
– RK
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Deutsch? Hier gibt es ein umfassendes FCP X Training für dich!
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It was a brand new machine that virtually no one had access to at that point, meaning there were very few real world tests. The machine was faster at some tasks, but at the end of the day it wasn’t the performance that caused me to return it (both machines) it was the constant system crashes. I couldn’t run iStat Menus without the entire machine shutting down immediately. It’s fine on every other Mac I have ever owned. KeyFlow Pro also caused system crashes —an app that is also fine on every other Mac I have owned. Final Cut Pro X and Motion causes complete system crashes as well, sometimes just when moving a clip one frame in the timeline. Apple could not fix the issue. Even with a new user account, only Pro Apps installed, and all peripherals disconnected the crashes continued.
“Huh? Wha?”
You can’t install the SoftRAID for OWC’s Thunderbay 4 drives with the T2 security chip fully enabled, so I had to disable it —rendering it pointless. x
Gabriel Spaulding
Creator & Director of ACE Enterprizes
Cinematographer | Editor | Motion DesignerHow Can We Help You Tell Your Story?
http://www.aceenterprizes.com -
well, before we start blaming the iMac Pro, let’s start out by saying that with the exception of the new thunderbolt 3 Sonnet peripherals (Solo 10G, eGFX external GPU box with Vega 64) – all the third party peripherals (that you can clearly see in /Library/Extensions) will no longer install, unless you disable System Integrity Protection if you are running macOS 10.13.3 or higher. This includes SoftRAID, and everything else you see in Library/Extensions, including ARC (Areca), Promise, Sonnet, Cal Digit, and everything else that requires a third party driver. In the past, you used to install the driver, it would fail, you would click on System Preferences> Security and Privacy> General, and see that the driver install was blocked. You would click on the lock to unlock, click ALLOW, and you could now install the driver. No longer. Now you have to go into Apple Recovery Mode (command R when you are booting up) and open terminal and disable System Integrity Protection by typing in
csrutil disable
and reboot the Mac. Now you can install whatever you want. Like I said, this does not apply to NEW thunderbolt 3 peripherals, like the Sonnet Solo 10G, which just plug in and work.
And of course, you can just buy an iMac Pro, that already has the Vega 64 card and the 10G port.SEE – if you stop thinking, and just give Apple the money, and run only Apple Apps, then you won’t have any of these problems anymore ! ☺
This of course, is the reason I have no hope for the possible release of a 2019 Mac Pro. With the current mindset of Apple, and the current “reason” many even want a Mac Pro – what on earth makes you think that you will go out and get a “new Mac Pro” and install any NVidia GPU card, any RAM, any CPU, any 10G card that you want ? YOU will not get to choose. It will be an APPLE HARDWARE PARTNER. So much for Mr. I Can Hot Rod This Myself So Much Better. That’s not going to happen (in my opinion) even if there is a new Mac Pro in 2019.
Bob Zelin
Bob Zelin
Rescue 1, Inc.
bobzelin@icloud.com -
[Robin S. Kurz] “Which was exactly my point, yes.”
My original post, mentioning 20-25%, was factoring in the MacPro, not only an iMac versus iMacPro comparison. Since our shop uses all 3.
[Robin S. Kurz] “I just know that I was just editing various multi cams last week on the iMac Pro, ranging from 4 to 10 cameras of ProRes raw in 6K. Incl. color corrections, some colormasks and a few other effects here and there, without dropping a single frame.”
What are your iMP specs? What are the storage specs? I don’t have a lot of ProResRAW experience, yet, except for the few clips on the internet. But, since the data rates are like standard ProRes, they are relatively low to start with. But I would refer you to the timeline playback section in my blog post, regarding multilayer performance on the 3 machines I used.
– Oliver
Oliver Peters – oliverpeters.com
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Previously if you had a $3000 laptop hardware failure, you had some leeway to fix HDD, RAM, optical drive, – even keyboard and such. The industry, in general, is moving away from that and Apple leads the way. Now we have a $13K desktop that near impossible to even replace a bad RAM. And our experience with the “Genius” Bar has not been stellar. The GPU failure rate of the MP 6,1 dual D700 is high and the hoops you have to go through just to get it approved for repair makes buying another high-end Apple computer less appealing.
We have had limited inquiry for the iMac Pro, mostly individuals looking to replace/supplement the old 2013 MP 6,1. But we have limited our deployment of the top end iMac Pro. Too risky for us with the current low-level interest.
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