Maxed IMac vs Mac Pro performance

[Robert Houllahan]

The problem with the iMac is that it has an ATI video card and that cannot be changed. Resolve needs nVidia CUDA cards (and multiple cards ideally) to work as a realtime system. There may be a thunderbolt external GPU solution in the future but even that will be limited in performance by the lack of bandwidth of thunderbolt. If you want a high performance system you really need a Mac-Pro or PC based system.

-Rob-

Robert Houllahan
Director / Colorist
Cinelab Inc.
http://www.cinelab.com

MAHC-PRO 6-Core 3X GTX285 20Tb SAS Wave Panel Panny 11UK SDI Plasma.

[Margus Voll]

lose the 4000 and get 470 for gpu. and use 4000 as master ui card.

i have 4000 now and if you will push it then it will be on knees fast.

So 285, 470 etc.

On imac you can make looks but realtime will be nice dream.

—

Margus

https://iconstudios.eu

[Bernardo Brik]

Thanks for your answer.

I hear the 470 requires Flashing. Is that correct?

[Margus Voll]

do a search on 470. week or so ago Sasha gave really detailed information about that.

And yes it needs to be flashed.

—

Margus

https://iconstudios.eu

[Peter Chamberlain]

Hi, Resolve does use the ATI card that comes with the new MacPro, for UI. You should add a image processing GPU for realtime HD performance.
To the original post, the iMac is realtime with 720p but does not have a CUDA GPU so performance is not as high as our MacPro configs and also the iMac config can not provide noise reduction.
If its in your budget, go the Pro.
Peter

[Greg Leuenberger]

I’m running that exact config. except with a Dreamcolor hanging off of a HDLink (UltraStudio SDI->HDLink->Displayport to Dreamcolor). It’s been a **great** FCP system and my Avid Editor installed the Avid demo and was shocked at how fast it was. But for DaVinci? The system’s strengths don’t play towards what DaVinci needs. I’m running the ‘free’ version and it’s fine for one node of CC…but I wouldn’t build a DaVinci system around it..not by any means.

Honestly, I’ll be building my DaVinci system around a Windows machine – nobody know where the Mac Pro’s will be this year (or next) but you can be sure that the newest/fastest CUDA cards will be available for Windows. I expect an Ivy Bridge system with a couple of NVidia Kepler series cards and thunderbolt off the mobo will kill anything Apple has to offer. It will be a few months before the new hardware is available though. My company is littered with Mac Pros but I’m selling another one this week and will replace it with another top-end iMac/Thunderbolt system.

I know a lot of people around here are not crazy about PCs…fact is it’s your best bet in terms of an up-gradable long-term (fast as you want it to be) system. Once you’re in your App (be it DaVinci or otherwise) you’re not dealing with the OS a whole lot anyway (besides….MacOS seems to be going the wrong direction IMO)

best,

Greg

Greg Leuenberger
CEO
Sabertooth Productions, Inc.
http://www.sabpro.com

[Guillem Ventura]

I am working on the latest iMac, 16GB, 2GB for the Radeon, Pegasus Raid, Ultrastudio 3D to an Aja HDP2 to view the result on an HP Dreamcolor.

I’m happy for the setup because I don’t have to work with clients.
16 nodes on Alexa footage render at some 12 fps, which is not bad.

I miss the denoise but after having waited for a new MacPro too long I bought the iMac some months ago and I’m not regretting at all.

It’s not the same as a full workstation, not at all, but I’d rather spend the money on a good monitor and the control panel, once you have this go for the MacPro if you can, but if you have to sacrifice something… the MacPro is the less important.

http://www.malgeniofilms.com

[Bernardo Brik]

I’d like to thank you guys for the input. I decided to go for the mac pro with GTX 285 and 120.