I posted a correction about the PSU rating, and the article was changed and my comment was deleted?
Couldn't you have just just fixed the article then replied to my comment saying "Hey, you're right, the article has been updated, thanks for pointing out the error?" Oh well.
BTW, the part where the PSU on the second build is said to maybe not be up to the task might not be correct either if that was based on the incorrect assumptions about the PSU on the first build.
While I appreciate your correction, I can't speak to the deletion. No matter, though. The calculations were independent, no assumptions were made.
All the parts in the second build. the DIY one, come up to 1100W when full-out. It seems bad to have a 1000W power supply there.
The parts in the Lenovo build are at about 1200W, which is 91.6 percent of the power supply's capacity, oddly enough. So, with a 92 percent efficient power supply, that's cutting it awfully fine.
I'm curious as to how you calculated the systems' power draws?
Whenever I build PCs (I'm a Mac guy at heart but use Windows PCs for gaming) I use this site, which when I plug in the basics (CPU, GPU, RAM, storage) on the Lenovo system I get 320 watts: https://outervision.com/b/0teyKI
The 2nd build, linked from the PC Gamer article to these specs on PCPartPicker, shows 533W at the top of the page: https://pcpartpicker.com/list/LkDgcc
Not trying to argue, just genuinely curious if there's something I'm missing.
There's a redesigned modular Mac Pro coming out next year right?
There's a new MacPro coming yes...Apple never said it would come next year. All they said was it won't come this year. I guess people are assuming that means it will come next year. Typically from history, its taken around 2yrs to fully design a brand new Mac from the ground up so if it does happen to be next year. I think maybe it will be previewed at WWDC 2018 and released very late 2018 in very limited quantities. I know that may be disappointing for some, possibly long overdue, but I'd rather they get it right. Apple cannot afford to have major issues with this new MacPro.
They also think this iMac is going to melt down once you get that 18-core Xeon with the high end AMD Vega card going at full steam for any length of time like Apple isn't testing for such a thing. Apple is not going to purposely release something like this knowing its going to overheat and not be very efficient. Its quite obvious they built a specialized cooling system for this iMac Pro. .
Don't be so sure until people get them into their homes and use them for real. It's naive to assume companies are releasing products for reliability, they are releasing them for profits which means pushing the boundaries of engineering.
Lets wind the clocks back to Fall 2014. Apple makes a major move and completely surprises everyone with a 5k Retina iMac.Immediate concerns from some was going to be thermal issues with an all-in-one trying to push that resolution. The exact same thing was utter from multiple people back in 2014 "Apple is not going to purposely release something like this knowing its going to overheat". Guess what they did have major thermal issues reaching temps over 200F. Fans would runs extremely loud, throttling would take place killing performance, and down the road users reported issues the the monitor because of the extreme heat. I bought a 5k iMac at the time with the cooler running 2GB video card because of all the heat issues that were reported.
Thats not to say this iMac Pro will have these issues but don't assume they won't because Apple is aware of the challenges of thermal cooling in an all-in-one. It's a new product and as such they may end up having major recalls at some point. No one on earth actually knows how these things will fare long term. It seems that Apple has taken the right step with the thermal design but I want to see some real world numbers before declaring a product that isn't even close to being shipped a homerun.
I agree. Most iMacs have been thermally challenged. Few people should doubt that but it's surprising how many still do. If you BTOd something like an i7 into the machine and actually pushed it a little, the fans would ramp up but in hindsight, not enough. We only have to do a search for iMac, failed graphics, to see how common these problems are. Almost always heat related. The first MacBook Air was even famous for its thermal issues.
*Note* let me state I'm not saying the iMac Pro is a bad computer or even overpriced. I'm just stating some glaring holes with the platform in general.
You mean a single product doesn't meet the requirements of every single use case out there? Shocking!
No I mean a single product that's generally aimed at users in some kind of visual/graphics arts. Here's a simple litmus test. Go poll a bunch of Mac Pro and iMac owners on which video card marker they wish Apple had in their computers. It's gonna be Nvidia. Why is that? Geez maybe because Adobe, Autodesk, Blackmagic, AVID, The Foundry will all work better on Nvidia. You know, the software that someone in the market for a Mac Pro or iMac Pro would want to install? Shocking!
Nonsense to claim most pros are graphic artists. Developers are a huge market for Apple -- Craig even said if installs are a metric of who's who, developers with Xcode installed are their top pro customer base. As a developer I never think about which brand GPU I've got.
They also think this iMac is going to melt down once you get that 18-core Xeon with the high end AMD Vega card going at full steam for any length of time like Apple isn't testing for such a thing. Apple is not going to purposely release something like this knowing its going to overheat and not be very efficient. Its quite obvious they built a specialized cooling system for this iMac Pro. .
Don't be so sure until people get them into their homes and use them for real. It's naive to assume companies are releasing products for reliability, they are releasing them for profits which means pushing the boundaries of engineering.
Lets wind the clocks back to Fall 2014. Apple makes a major move and completely surprises everyone with a 5k Retina iMac.Immediate concerns from some was going to be thermal issues with an all-in-one trying to push that resolution. The exact same thing was utter from multiple people back in 2014 "Apple is not going to purposely release something like this knowing its going to overheat". Guess what they did have major thermal issues reaching temps over 200F. Fans would runs extremely loud, throttling would take place killing performance, and down the road users reported issues the the monitor because of the extreme heat. I bought a 5k iMac at the time with the cooler running 2GB video card because of all the heat issues that were reported.
Thats not to say this iMac Pro will have these issues but don't assume they won't because Apple is aware of the challenges of thermal cooling in an all-in-one. It's a new product and as such they may end up having major recalls at some point. No one on earth actually knows how these things will fare long term. It seems that Apple has taken the right step with the thermal design but I want to see some real world numbers before declaring a product that isn't even close to being shipped a homerun.
I agree. Most iMacs have been thermally challenged. Few people should doubt that but it's surprising how many still do. If you BTOd something like an i7 into the machine and actually pushed it a little, the fans would ramp up but in hindsight, not enough. We only have to do a search for iMac, failed graphics, to see how common these problems are. Almost always heat related. The first MacBook Air was even famous for its thermal issues.
Get real -- googling for threads on problems people are having is in no way a valuable metric of apple's hardware engineering. There are posts of people having problems with any and every apple product. That doesnt speak to the millions and millions without problems.
As a multiple iMac owner over the years, including a fully loaded older i7 system, I've never heard of the supposed thermal problems you're suggesting exist.
Love the promo picture! The overhead shot and metal grey finish evokes a powerful and menacing Cylon Fighter, one that Starbuck, Apollo and Helo need to steal and learn to control in order to tip the scales in the war against the "Skin Jobs"!
I'm sure someone else has already noted that comparing the MSRP of the iMac Pro to the retail pricing for a self-built machine is problematic - Apple will have substantial discounts on the requisite components, so the comparison is a bit misguided.
They also think this iMac is going to melt down once you get that 18-core Xeon with the high end AMD Vega card going at full steam for any length of time like Apple isn't testing for such a thing. Apple is not going to purposely release something like this knowing its going to overheat and not be very efficient. Its quite obvious they built a specialized cooling system for this iMac Pro. .
Don't be so sure until people get them into their homes and use them for real. It's naive to assume companies are releasing products for reliability, they are releasing them for profits which means pushing the boundaries of engineering.
Lets wind the clocks back to Fall 2014. Apple makes a major move and completely surprises everyone with a 5k Retina iMac.Immediate concerns from some was going to be thermal issues with an all-in-one trying to push that resolution. The exact same thing was utter from multiple people back in 2014 "Apple is not going to purposely release something like this knowing its going to overheat". Guess what they did have major thermal issues reaching temps over 200F. Fans would runs extremely loud, throttling would take place killing performance, and down the road users reported issues the the monitor because of the extreme heat. I bought a 5k iMac at the time with the cooler running 2GB video card because of all the heat issues that were reported.
Thats not to say this iMac Pro will have these issues but don't assume they won't because Apple is aware of the challenges of thermal cooling in an all-in-one. It's a new product and as such they may end up having major recalls at some point. No one on earth actually knows how these things will fare long term. It seems that Apple has taken the right step with the thermal design but I want to see some real world numbers before declaring a product that isn't even close to being shipped a homerun.
I agree. Most iMacs have been thermally challenged. Few people should doubt that but it's surprising how many still do. If you BTOd something like an i7 into the machine and actually pushed it a little, the fans would ramp up but in hindsight, not enough. We only have to do a search for iMac, failed graphics, to see how common these problems are. Almost always heat related. The first MacBook Air was even famous for its thermal issues.
Get real -- googling for threads on problems people are having is in no way a valuable metric of apple's hardware engineering. There are posts of people having problems with any and every apple product. That doesnt speak to the millions and millions without problems.
As a multiple iMac owner over the years, including a fully loaded older i7 system, I've never heard of the supposed thermal problems you're suggesting exist.
Real. Yes I got real a long time ago after seeing cards on iMacs slow fry themselves to death. Then I looked around a little, asked some questions and opened my eyes.
Valuable metrics? I don't know why you need metrics.
There are various known issues. The air inlets get clogged. No Apple manual gets in your face on this important point. Apple is noise averse. It doesn't like its fans ramping up and 'annoying' users. Ever wondered why there have been so many fan controller utilities down the years? It's because, in the real world, Apple's settings often don't bring the temps down to where the user would like them to be. The ever thinner design of the iMac was a problem. It is just one of the reasons that laptop class components ended up in a desktop on the first place. I'm glad you have not had any issues but that doesn't mean much. I've spoken about this issue with countless repair shops and they all say this is a problem. If you happen to live in a hot climate without AC, your chances are you will run into this problem.
They also think this iMac is going to melt down once you get that 18-core Xeon with the high end AMD Vega card going at full steam for any length of time like Apple isn't testing for such a thing. Apple is not going to purposely release something like this knowing its going to overheat and not be very efficient. Its quite obvious they built a specialized cooling system for this iMac Pro. .
Don't be so sure until people get them into their homes and use them for real. It's naive to assume companies are releasing products for reliability, they are releasing them for profits which means pushing the boundaries of engineering.
Lets wind the clocks back to Fall 2014. Apple makes a major move and completely surprises everyone with a 5k Retina iMac.Immediate concerns from some was going to be thermal issues with an all-in-one trying to push that resolution. The exact same thing was utter from multiple people back in 2014 "Apple is not going to purposely release something like this knowing its going to overheat". Guess what they did have major thermal issues reaching temps over 200F. Fans would runs extremely loud, throttling would take place killing performance, and down the road users reported issues the the monitor because of the extreme heat. I bought a 5k iMac at the time with the cooler running 2GB video card because of all the heat issues that were reported.
Thats not to say this iMac Pro will have these issues but don't assume they won't because Apple is aware of the challenges of thermal cooling in an all-in-one. It's a new product and as such they may end up having major recalls at some point. No one on earth actually knows how these things will fare long term. It seems that Apple has taken the right step with the thermal design but I want to see some real world numbers before declaring a product that isn't even close to being shipped a homerun.
Interesting. I bought a late 2015 iMac 5k maxed out. Never had these issues. I work with the entire adobe creative suite for video graphics and web.
Not saying they havent happened. The fan of course gets moving with after effects and premiere but it's nothing crazy.
Ok but you're talking about a different computer. From what I understand the thermal issues of the late 2015 iMacs were not the same as the late 2014 iMacs.
*Note* let me state I'm not saying the iMac Pro is a bad computer or even overpriced. I'm just stating some glaring holes with the platform in general.
You mean a single product doesn't meet the requirements of every single use case out there? Shocking!
No I mean a single product that's generally aimed at users in some kind of visual/graphics arts. Here's a simple litmus test. Go poll a bunch of Mac Pro and iMac owners on which video card marker they wish Apple had in their computers. It's gonna be Nvidia. Why is that? Geez maybe because Adobe, Autodesk, Blackmagic, AVID, The Foundry will all work better on Nvidia. You know, the software that someone in the market for a Mac Pro or iMac Pro would want to install? Shocking!
Nonsense to claim most pros are graphic artists. Developers are a huge market for Apple -- Craig even said if installs are a metric of who's who, developers with Xcode installed are their top pro customer base. As a developer I never think about which brand GPU I've go
Visual/graphics arts users have been jumping ship from Apple for years now. Most of this started way back when Final Cut Pro wasn't being updated and Apple's focus switched to a cell phone tech giant.(Some developers from their pro apps divisions being shifted to iPhone app development and various pro applications being terminated or stalled for update)
So as a developer if you don't care which GPU you have what does that have to do with people who actually do care?
*Note* let me state I'm not saying the iMac Pro is a bad computer or even overpriced. I'm just stating some glaring holes with the platform in general.
You mean a single product doesn't meet the requirements of every single use case out there? Shocking!
No I mean a single product that's generally aimed at users in some kind of visual/graphics arts. Here's a simple litmus test. Go poll a bunch of Mac Pro and iMac owners on which video card marker they wish Apple had in their computers. It's gonna be Nvidia. Why is that? Geez maybe because Adobe, Autodesk, Blackmagic, AVID, The Foundry will all work better on Nvidia. You know, the software that someone in the market for a Mac Pro or iMac Pro would want to install? Shocking!
Nonsense to claim most pros are graphic artists. Developers are a huge market for Apple -- Craig even said if installs are a metric of who's who, developers with Xcode installed are their top pro customer base. As a developer I never think about which brand GPU I've go
Visual/graphics arts users have been jumping ship from Apple for years now. Most of this started way back when Final Cut Pro wasn't being updated and Apple's focus switched to a cell phone tech giant.(Some developers from their pro apps divisions being shifted to iPhone app development and various pro applications being terminated or stalled for update)
So as a developer if you don't care which GPU you have what does that have to do with people who actually do care?
Because you said to go poll "a bunch of Mac Pro and iMac owners on which video card marker they wish Apple had in their computers". Not poll visual/graphic arts folks. If devs are the largest block of pros then your assertion that the poll would show everyone wants nvidia is bogus and you know that. Hence the very lame attempt to shift goal posts and excuse your dumbshit assertion by claiming that visual/graphics pros have largely left Apple anyway which is why there are more dev Pro users.
And this is coming from a dev that does prefer nvidia because I still have use for CUDA.
As a FCPX user I prefer AMD because exports are generally faster when using compressor.
To me you are a Pro user if you make something with your computer and sell it for a profit. There are a lot of Pro users who don't work for big companies with IT departments that replace hardware every three years. These users appreciate computers that have some sort of upgrade path so they can keep the system longer, thus increasing the long term value of the computer. Video post is often like this, with small operators and small budgets. They use their computers until the system becomes too slow to get the work done efficiently. Or until the client complains about how long it takes. And then that old computer gets moved into a workflow where a slower speed is tolerable, like ingest or clip compression, FTP server etc.
I'm sure there are other fields where the situation is the same. To these people a pro computer should have user upgradable features. It's somewhat of a necessity.
I'm not in disagreement with your assessment of what the sole proprietors and small businesses want. But, I think Apple's got a different view.
So, these pro users that don't work for big companies. How many are they going to buy? Compare that to how many Deloitte and IBM will buy, and be the mid-size and big-business IT departments for. The former will get 80% of what they want, and probably span 10-15 percent of the "low single digit" market for Apple that will buy the iMac Pro in the first place.
You're right. It's a necessity for who you're talking about -- it's just not for Apple.
Related, I'm concerned what "modular" means, in regards to the future Mac Pro -- but we'll see about that in time.
I think you are right about Apple's view. As StrangeDays pointed out, most "pro" Mac customers are developers these days and that jibes perfectly with the growth of iOS devices. I feel that Apple is a smart company and a company that wants to sell product. It's easy to look at the low hanging fruit and just pick that, but there's still more fruit. I feel they could aim wider without much expense and expand their market share significantly. People still hate Windows. It seems to get worse with every release. Apple should capitalize on that and one way is to make Macs for a wider audience. Not cheap commodity crap, just a more appealing feature set.
Same old tired arguments, same old nonsense, sure you can build a PC for less, with a vaguely similar specification, if you are lucky. I did the exact same calculation when the 17inch dome iMac came out - it wasn't possible to build a machine with the same spec then and there's no change today.
Loads of argument and debate, but here's the thing - buy a Mac, love it, use it, then when you are done say 6-8 YEARS later, sell it for real hard cash and get a new one. Oh and you'll get free OS upgrades for life and AppleCare which is better value than most after market service packages, and you'll probably never need it.
Build yourself a Mac clone, fix it, nurse it, upgrade it, spend more time and money on it, then when you are done with it say 5 years later, give it away for scrap. The same goes for any Windows desktop or laptop only the timescale is shorter - if you pay peanuts for the hardware you can't expect it to have any significant resale value.
Planned obsolescence is bad for the planet. Get a Mac.
*Note* let me state I'm not saying the iMac Pro is a bad computer or even overpriced. I'm just stating some glaring holes with the platform in general.
You mean a single product doesn't meet the requirements of every single use case out there? Shocking!
No I mean a single product that's generally aimed at users in some kind of visual/graphics arts. Here's a simple litmus test. Go poll a bunch of Mac Pro and iMac owners on which video card marker they wish Apple had in their computers. It's gonna be Nvidia. Why is that? Geez maybe because Adobe, Autodesk, Blackmagic, AVID, The Foundry will all work better on Nvidia. You know, the software that someone in the market for a Mac Pro or iMac Pro would want to install? Shocking!
Nonsense to claim most pros are graphic artists. Developers are a huge market for Apple -- Craig even said if installs are a metric of who's who, developers with Xcode installed are their top pro customer base. As a developer I never think about which brand GPU I've go
Visual/graphics arts users have been jumping ship from Apple for years now. Most of this started way back when Final Cut Pro wasn't being updated and Apple's focus switched to a cell phone tech giant.(Some developers from their pro apps divisions being shifted to iPhone app development and various pro applications being terminated or stalled for update)
So as a developer if you don't care which GPU you have what does that have to do with people who actually do care?
Because you said to go poll "a bunch of Mac Pro and iMac owners on which video card marker they wish Apple had in their computers". Not poll visual/graphic arts folks. If devs are the largest block of pros then your assertion that the poll would show everyone wants nvidia is bogus and you know that. Hence the very lame attempt to shift goal posts and excuse your dumbshit assertion by claiming that visual/graphics pros have largely left Apple anyway which is why there are more dev Pro users.
And this is coming from a dev that does prefer nvidia because I still have use for CUDA.
So far my poll is showing 1 developer who prefers Nvida.
They also think this iMac is going to melt down once you get that 18-core Xeon with the high end AMD Vega card going at full steam for any length of time like Apple isn't testing for such a thing. Apple is not going to purposely release something like this knowing its going to overheat and not be very efficient. Its quite obvious they built a specialized cooling system for this iMac Pro. .
Don't be so sure until people get them into their homes and use them for real. It's naive to assume companies are releasing products for reliability, they are releasing them for profits which means pushing the boundaries of engineering.
Lets wind the clocks back to Fall 2014. Apple makes a major move and completely surprises everyone with a 5k Retina iMac.Immediate concerns from some was going to be thermal issues with an all-in-one trying to push that resolution. The exact same thing was utter from multiple people back in 2014 "Apple is not going to purposely release something like this knowing its going to overheat". Guess what they did have major thermal issues reaching temps over 200F. Fans would runs extremely loud, throttling would take place killing performance, and down the road users reported issues the the monitor because of the extreme heat. I bought a 5k iMac at the time with the cooler running 2GB video card because of all the heat issues that were reported.
Thats not to say this iMac Pro will have these issues but don't assume they won't because Apple is aware of the challenges of thermal cooling in an all-in-one. It's a new product and as such they may end up having major recalls at some point. No one on earth actually knows how these things will fare long term. It seems that Apple has taken the right step with the thermal design but I want to see some real world numbers before declaring a product that isn't even close to being shipped a homerun.
I agree. Most iMacs have been thermally challenged. Few people should doubt that but it's surprising how many still do. If you BTOd something like an i7 into the machine and actually pushed it a little, the fans would ramp up but in hindsight, not enough. We only have to do a search for iMac, failed graphics, to see how common these problems are. Almost always heat related. The first MacBook Air was even famous for its thermal issues.
Get real -- googling for threads on problems people are having is in no way a valuable metric of apple's hardware engineering. There are posts of people having problems with any and every apple product. That doesnt speak to the millions and millions without problems.
As a multiple iMac owner over the years, including a fully loaded older i7 system, I've never heard of the supposed thermal problems you're suggesting exist.
It's a slim all-in-one computer built for aesthetics. They are thermally challenge. This is why Apple is making a big deal and the new thermal architecture for the iMac Pro.
No one is suggesting all iMacs melt and blow up. Depending on your configuration you can end up with some obvious issues with heat/throttling/fan noise/image retention. These are all very well documented and reproducible depending on the exact year and model. Being an owner of a "fully loaded older i7 system" does not negate anything.
Yeah and 2 years down the line I will need to drop another $5000 to be able to get the iMac to match anything current, whereas with my Lenovo, or my custom build, I will spend a few hundred dollars to update it to the latest, and be well ahead of what the iMac does.
A few hundred to update what, specifically?
CPU? Highly unlikely. Intel sprouts new sockets every time they sneeze these days.
RAM? Aside from adding more (Which you can do on the iMac Pro too) what would that get you? New tech requires a new motherboard which would also more than likely necessitate a new CPU as well (so much for "a few hundred")
GPU? Now we are talking. Having a card slot for a GPU is mandatory for me - but any GPU worth upgrading over is hardly going to be "a few hundred".
Anything else you are going to cite can just as easily be changed out on the new iMac Pro as well.
While I'm not a fan of all in one's, especially for high performance machines, the whole "piecemeal upgrade" meme has been way overblown for some time. Aside from swapping out video cards and maybe reusing a case/power supply if you gut a box to rebuild it, the CPU RAM and Motherboards tend to have to be changed out at the same time and that's easily half if not more of a decent build.
Because you said to go poll "a bunch of Mac Pro and iMac owners on which video card marker they wish Apple had in their computers". Not poll visual/graphic arts folks. If devs are the largest block of pros then your assertion that the poll would show everyone wants nvidia is bogus and you know that. Hence the very lame attempt to shift goal posts and excuse your dumbshit assertion by claiming that visual/graphics pros have largely left Apple anyway which is why there are more dev Pro users.
And this is coming from a dev that does prefer nvidia because I still have use for CUDA.
So far my poll is showing 1 developer who prefers Nvida.
"DIY builders struggle to meet price."
Uh huh, sure. Double the CPU cores, double the RAM (and since the RAM is not soldered to the motherboard it's actually expandable ), Liquid cooled so less noise and less thermal throttling, 80+ Platinum PSU, 12TB worth of WD Red Pro HDD storage, an actual keyboard and mouse, and better graphics card.
Lmao did these builders even try?
https://pcpartpicker.com/list/nWrPTH
"DIY builders struggle to meet price."
Uh huh, sure. Double the CPU cores, double the RAM (and since the RAM is not soldered to the motherboard it's actually expandable ), Liquid cooled so less noise and less thermal throttling, 80+ Platinum PSU, 12TB worth of WD Red Pro HDD storage, an actual keyboard and mouse, and better graphics card.
Lmao did these builders even try?
https://pcpartpicker.com/list/nWrPTH
That is a nice build! But, you forgot your $150 operating system. Also, we're not sure where Vega falls, but the general consensus is we're looking at a bit more than 1080ti performance -- but we'll see. I also think you're short on individual CPU speed, and I know you are on RAM speed, but your 16-core is pleasant.
You should also probably cut out the hard drives, and double up on the SSD, and RAID it to approximate the drive speed. Also missing 10-gig Ethernet, and it has zero Thunderbolt 3 ports for high-speed data transfer into the system. And, again, labor isn't free. I've billed $100 for a super-simple build, and this ain't it.
I also don't see a water block for your 1080, or other water cooler accessories. I suspect you'd be better off with a custom water cooling system, other than an off-the-shelf one, for the relatively silent requirement. Related, I think that you're still going to have sound issues without, coupled with a $60 case that has little or no vibration reduction.
Six vendors for parts. Two rebates. A drop-shipped monitor with no control from the vendor over actual availability.
Comments
Whenever I build PCs (I'm a Mac guy at heart but use Windows PCs for gaming) I use this site, which when I plug in the basics (CPU, GPU, RAM, storage) on the Lenovo system I get 320 watts: https://outervision.com/b/0teyKI
The 2nd build, linked from the PC Gamer article to these specs on PCPartPicker, shows 533W at the top of the page: https://pcpartpicker.com/list/LkDgcc
Not trying to argue, just genuinely curious if there's something I'm missing.
As a multiple iMac owner over the years, including a fully loaded older i7 system, I've never heard of the supposed thermal problems you're suggesting exist.
I want, I want, I want!
I'm sure someone else has already noted that comparing the MSRP of the iMac Pro to the retail pricing for a self-built machine is problematic - Apple will have substantial discounts on the requisite components, so the comparison is a bit misguided.
Valuable metrics? I don't know why you need metrics.
There are various known issues. The air inlets get clogged. No Apple manual gets in your face on this important point. Apple is noise averse. It doesn't like its fans ramping up and 'annoying' users. Ever wondered why there have been so many fan controller utilities down the years? It's because, in the real world, Apple's settings often don't bring the temps down to where the user would like them to be. The ever thinner design of the iMac was a problem. It is just one of the reasons that laptop class components ended up in a desktop on the first place. I'm glad you have not had any issues but that doesn't mean much. I've spoken about this issue with countless repair shops and they all say this is a problem. If you happen to live in a hot climate without AC, your chances are you will run into this problem.
Ok but you're talking about a different computer. From what I understand the thermal issues of the late 2015 iMacs were not the same as the late 2014 iMacs.
And this is coming from a dev that does prefer nvidia because I still have use for CUDA.
As a FCPX user I prefer AMD because exports are generally faster when using compressor.
I did the exact same calculation when the 17inch dome iMac came out - it wasn't possible to build a machine with the same spec then and there's no change today.
Loads of argument and debate, but here's the thing - buy a Mac, love it, use it, then when you are done say 6-8 YEARS later, sell it for real hard cash and get a new one. Oh and you'll get free OS upgrades for life and AppleCare which is better value than most after market service packages, and you'll probably never need it.
Build yourself a Mac clone, fix it, nurse it, upgrade it, spend more time and money on it, then when you are done with it say 5 years later, give it away for scrap. The same goes for any Windows desktop or laptop only the timescale is shorter - if you pay peanuts for the hardware you can't expect it to have any significant resale value.
Planned obsolescence is bad for the planet. Get a Mac.
So far my poll is showing 1 developer who prefers Nvida.
It's a slim all-in-one computer built for aesthetics. They are thermally challenge. This is why Apple is making a big deal and the new thermal architecture for the iMac Pro.
No one is suggesting all iMacs melt and blow up. Depending on your configuration you can end up with some obvious issues with heat/throttling/fan noise/image retention. These are all very well documented and reproducible depending on the exact year and model. Being an owner of a "fully loaded older i7 system" does not negate anything.
CPU? Highly unlikely. Intel sprouts new sockets every time they sneeze these days.
GPU? Now we are talking. Having a card slot for a GPU is mandatory for me - but any GPU worth upgrading over is hardly going to be "a few hundred".
Anything else you are going to cite can just as easily be changed out on the new iMac Pro as well.
While I'm not a fan of all in one's, especially for high performance machines, the whole "piecemeal upgrade" meme has been way overblown for some time. Aside from swapping out video cards and maybe reusing a case/power supply if you gut a box to rebuild it, the CPU RAM and Motherboards tend to have to be changed out at the same time and that's easily half if not more of a decent build.
You should also probably cut out the hard drives, and double up on the SSD, and RAID it to approximate the drive speed. Also missing 10-gig Ethernet, and it has zero Thunderbolt 3 ports for high-speed data transfer into the system. And, again, labor isn't free. I've billed $100 for a super-simple build, and this ain't it.
I also don't see a water block for your 1080, or other water cooler accessories. I suspect you'd be better off with a custom water cooling system, other than an off-the-shelf one, for the relatively silent requirement. Related, I think that you're still going to have sound issues without, coupled with a $60 case that has little or no vibration reduction.
Six vendors for parts. Two rebates. A drop-shipped monitor with no control from the vendor over actual availability.
So yeah, I'm going to stick with "struggles."