Bryan Roberts
Forum Replies Created
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In overall snappiness in the timeline, when creating proxies from 4k ProRes 4444 files, dealing with heavy GPU effects like MB, it feels noticeably slower but still works well. Funny you mention that about not booting. I had the same issue. I opened up the packaging to the iMac, loaded in the new memory before ever turning it on, then couldn’t seem to get it to boot. I finally did a double tap on the power button after trying to unplug and re-plug it back in and low and behold it booted (this is my first imac). Since then I’ve restarted maybe a dozen times and never had any issue but I thought something similar: great I got a DOA imac, this is the last thing I want to deal with right now. I’m exactly 1 week in now and overall been stable EXCEPT Premiere crashing a couple times while jumping back and forth in the media browser with lots of ProRes 4444 4k footage off a slow usb3 drive a production provided me. I love the Nano coating as well. I will say though, my imac is sitting next to one of my old dell 2415 twenty four inch monitors that I’m using as a second display for the imac and it basically works just like the cheap nonreflective surface on the 5 year old $250 dell monitor (but I can’t imagine dealing with the reflections from an imac non nano glass front). I calibrated both monitors using an Xrite colorimeter and there’s not a night and day difference to my eyes between the two other than the resolution and size bump but I’m still glad I got the nano.
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So… what do you think? I’ve got about 3-4 days of editing on my 2020 iMac. It’s 10 core, 5700xt, nano coating, 128GB ram. So far, it’s noticeably weaker than my 16 core, but it should be. I think it’s going to just barely work for me as a Mac Pro replacement while waiting a couple years on apple silicon mac pros. It feels a bit like making a mac mini work for my needs at times vs. the 16 core mac pro which I had grown accustomed to the power. But, I can’t help but consider the $4.5k I’ll most likely get back as a net of switching between the two while patiently waiting to see how apple silicon shakes out. It’s a functional stop gap for me. If I hadn’t been on a ten year old mac pro that had no thunderbolt and was starting to feel VERY long in the tooth, I would have held on. This imac just needs to keep me rolling for 3 years.
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Just add an “https:” to the front of this -> //www.amazon.com/Samsung-2666MHz-Memory-Computers-M471A4G43MB1/dp/B07N124XDS/ref=sr_1_1?tag=maxtechyt-20&dchild=1&keywords=samsung+2666mhz+ram+32gb+SODIMM+ddr4&qid=1596569885&sr=8-1
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Oh, I never pay the apple tax on memory when it’s user upgradable. Most people are all linking to this memory that Max Tech is using – it’s $450 for x4 32gb chips to get to 128GB
Haven’t decided on nano etching. Tough call. My Dell’s already have anti-reflective coatings on them so I don’t know if it’d be comfortable going to glass not to mention, I have a fair amount of natural light coming into my edit bay right now so reflections could be big. I’m leaning yes to nano.
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That was exactly what I was thinking, considering I’ll need overlap time anyways to get everything copied over. Buy the iMac. Try it for a week. If it works, then put my Mac Pro up for sale. If it doesn’t work, I can return it to Apple and restocking fee would be less than what I’d lose on selling it. If iMac works, have the iMac hold me off until Apple releases apple silicon Mac Pros in 2ish years. A side note, I think it has everyone worried that apple most likely won’t be allowing any user replaceable memory so we’ll all be paying their $2k 128GB ram prices. Also, how are they going to keep their GPU’s up to par with Nvidia / AMD? So much left to be understood with this transition.
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Well maybe that seals it then. First off, I’m in Premiere 95% of the time, Photoshop for the odd still work and haven’t opened AE in a decade maybe? Re: internal array – so I really demand very fast real time performance in my timeline. It allows me to make much better style decisions and overall move much much faster. However, I usually edit on whatever drive a client sends me (it’s always a dupe of the original) so it’s usually a single external Lacie TB or USB3 drive that max out at 250mb/s so I end up doing proxies for just about everything. I work on so many different projects that having a single fast internal edit array, copying my media to it just for an edit, and then when picture locks, transferring off that array to their drive or an archive drive just isn’t a feasible workflow given how many times I’d need to do that each month. Most of my projects are 2 week edits and I’ll have some overlap (save for a giant 4k feature I’ve been working on the past 1.5 years that is contained on an external 16TB TB Lacie bigdisk raid). Oddly enough, I just finished a 6 camera multicam edit of Chance The Rapper + Ralph Lauren that premiered a couple days ago. The director provided me this custom external NVME TB raid drive that gets 2,329MB/s on Blackmagic disk speed test and they shot Prores 4444 4k and I was able to edit 6 angles Prores 4444 4k with an embedded LUT smoothly. There was only a bit of delay when pushing play but no frames dropped. But it was a 30 minute performance and by the end of the edit with a few different edit versions, Premiere just starting chugging even with the really fast storage. I ended up proxying and that solved everything. I did final color using Lumetri and MB Looks 2 on an adjustment layer which turned out wonderful but it really sapped my processor even using proxies, so in the end, I had to render my timeline even with ridiculously fast storage and a $12k Mac Pro :/ .
Proxying on my Mac Pro is insanely fast which has been nice but I guess if I’m generally using proxies anyways, then the only real benefit I’m getting from the Mac Pro is future expandability (which is a bit moot assuming apple silicon mac pros are substantially faster when they release in the next 2ish years – so not like upgrading processors in my 2009 mac pro to 3.46 12 cores 5 years ago to make it faster than the newer trashcan mac pro is going to be possible) and then faster Premiere exports (but perhaps not THAT much faster considering how fast the 10 core iMac is). Hmmmm…
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Hey Jonathan – how has reliability been in your mileage with non pro imacs? That’s the last thing holding me back is the fear of having it crap out early if I use it daily for editing because of heat (which I will, I’m usually booked 90% of the year). I’ve been incredibly lucky with my non-iphone apple hardware over the years, since my first Mac mini in 2005, laptops, Mac pros, old school Apple TV, another Mac mini now for a server… never had a single hardware issue (save for 2 usb2 ports going out on my old Mac pro at about year 5) but also never owned an imac 🙂 .
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Im really thinking about 2020 imac maxed out for $4k. Apple silicon x factor has me worried if there’s a big speed bump, my 2019 Mac pro will see used market value drop steeply.
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All good points. The more I read, I worry about cooling if I needed to have something rendering or processing overnight etc. My 10 year old Mac pro worked for so long because I upgraded the processor to a 3.46 ghz 12 core and I didn’t hit a wall with apple “obsoleting” my tower and not allowing me on the latest OS for 9! years. I have a feeling devs who need to write code for arm version of macos and x86 will be quicker to only carry their arm version than that :/
I saw the nvidia ARM news. It is very interesting especially considering apple’s hostile anticompetitive behavior towards nvidia the past 5+ years. Also, can Apple really make graphics cards to compete with RTX 3080 and beyond? Sure maybe they’ll be superior at optimization on processors but video cards?
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I meant to say 3 years of apple care and the Mac Pro was $11.5k new so maybe can get between 8-9k… maybe.