iMac Pro video review: Putting Apple's $5000 desktop to the test

AppleInsiderAppleInsider
Posted:
in Current Mac Hardware edited January 2021
Apple's new iMac Pro is aimed squarely at the high-end professional market, and with a $4,999 starting price, expectations for the all-in-one desktop are high. But is it worth such a sizable investment? AppleInsider gives you everything you need to know in our full video review.








Find even more in our full iMac Pro text review. And for more reviews, news, tips, features and more, subscribe to AppleInsider on YouTube.


Comments

  • Reply 1 of 15
    steven n.steven n. Posts: 1,229member
    It will be great for doing builds. We work on multiple large projects (1 to 5 million SLOC) all compiled using command line tools and we are not allowed to use threaded compiling with the "-j" option in make. A single release might require anywhere from 6-10 unique compiles. While I always have multiple command lines open running the different compiles for each project, It will be great to cut the time in half.

    I am seriously looking forward to that.

    The downside is.... Since people,eknow I can compile much faster than other people, more people will be asking me to do basic build manager stuff:-(
    chia
  • Reply 2 of 15
    maestro64maestro64 Posts: 5,043member
    Correct me if I am wrong, It sounds like the video processing performance of the Pro appears to be less than the regular Imac mainly due to the fact the software is not optimize for the new Pro Imac processors. If this is the case and the software uses the processors to their full extent, will the Pro be much faster?
  • Reply 3 of 15
    volcanvolcan Posts: 1,799member
    steven n. said:
    It will be great for doing builds. We work on multiple large projects (1 to 5 million SLOC) all compiled using command line tools and we are not allowed to use threaded compiling with the "-j" option in make. A single release might require anywhere from 6-10 unique compiles. While I always have multiple command lines open running the different compiles for each project, It will be great to cut the time in half.
    How many cores does your command line compiler use. If it is just one then the regular iMac might be faster than the iMac Pro because the multi-core Xeons are usually clocked slower.
  • Reply 4 of 15
    steven n.steven n. Posts: 1,229member
    volcan said:
    steven n. said:
    It will be great for doing builds. We work on multiple large projects (1 to 5 million SLOC) all compiled using command line tools and we are not allowed to use threaded compiling with the "-j" option in make. A single release might require anywhere from 6-10 unique compiles. While I always have multiple command lines open running the different compiles for each project, It will be great to cut the time in half.
    How many cores does your command line compiler use. If it is just one then the regular iMac might be faster than the iMac Pro because the multi-core Xeons are usually clocked slower.
    if you modify the make to use the "-j" option, it will use all available cores. However, we have not done the Source to Object code analysis to support us using that specific make and compiler option so we can only allocate a single core per command line. On most of the machines "in plant" (I am off site), the builds take between 3-8 hours per project.
    chia
  • Reply 5 of 15
    VRingVRing Posts: 108member
    maestro64 said:
    Correct me if I am wrong, It sounds like the video processing performance of the Pro appears to be less than the regular Imac mainly due to the fact the software is not optimize for the new Pro Imac processors. If this is the case and the software uses the processors to their full extent, will the Pro be much faster?
    Optimization is part of it, but so is the single core performance for certain tasks. 

    Depending on your needs in Final Cut Pro, you might be better off with the 5K iMac.

    If you're using Premiere Pro, well, you probably shouldn't be using a Mac anyways. A simple Skylake-X configuration with a GTX 1070 (or above) might be a sweet spot for cost/performance.

    https://www.pugetsystems.com/pic_disp.php?id=43480&width=705

    https://www.pugetsystems.com/pic_disp.php?id=42347&width=701

    edited January 2018 xzuracerhomie3
  • Reply 6 of 15
    racerhomie3racerhomie3 Posts: 1,264member
    Why the hell do people on Macs use Premiere. Go use a Windows box.
     
    Or better yet, try out the latest FCPX
  • Reply 7 of 15
    volcanvolcan Posts: 1,799member
    VRing said:

    If you're using Premiere Pro, well, you probably shouldn't be using a Mac anyways. 
    I use Premiere almost everyday on a iMac 5K with 32 GB RAM. Works fine for me. I'm not doing 4K video though, only 1080, but still a lot faster than my 8 core cheese grater also with 32 GB RAM. In my situation, I'm doing a lot of design tasks, not just video, so as a general graphics productivity machine using a lot of Adobe CC apps, the iMac 5K beats any computer running Windows by miles. I have two Windows machines here and they suck at file management and searching compared to macOS. On my Mac I can find any of 100,000 files in less than a second. On Windows, most of the time it searches for several minutes and more often than not it never finds the file I'm looking for. I have to go looking for it manually. We use ISO file naming conventions so I'm searching for a known ISO number in the file name. PC just doesn't find it. Any speed gain you might have with faster hardware is completely lost due to the crap Windows OS that wastes your time.
    edited January 2018 chiafrankiefastasleepmacxpress
  • Reply 8 of 15
    michael madsenmichael madsen Posts: 19member
    I wish they would have stayed with the original unibody case from late 2009. This would have allowed for better cooling and easier upgradeability.
    I dont really care / notice the thinner case on a desktop machine.
  • Reply 9 of 15
    VRingVRing Posts: 108member
    volcan said:

    On Windows, most of the time it searches for several minutes and more often than not it never finds the file I'm looking for.
    Sounds like something is wrong with your indexing settings or setup in general.
  • Reply 10 of 15
    volcanvolcan Posts: 1,799member
    VRing said:
    volcan said:

    On Windows, most of the time it searches for several minutes and more often than not it never finds the file I'm looking for.
    Sounds like something is wrong with your indexing settings or setup in general.
    Nope two brand new Asus AIOs running Windows 10. It is supposed to work right out of the box. Windows 10 should just index everything like macOS. Why should I have to deliberately add folders to be indexed. More wasted time. Mac just has the fastest searching of any OS, even faster than command line grep searches on my super powerful Linux boxes.
  • Reply 11 of 15
    VRingVRing Posts: 108member
    volcan said:

    Asus AIOs
    That sounds like your problem. Clearly something is wrong with the setup on those machines. I would also avoid ASUS in general.
  • Reply 12 of 15
    volcanvolcan Posts: 1,799member
    VRing said:

    That sounds like your problem. Clearly something is wrong with the setup on those machines. I would also avoid ASUS in general.
    PC World ranked Asus second only to Apple for 2017.  I would take their evaluation over some anonymous Windows troll in a forum. The hardware is fine - it's the OS that sucks, but we need it for compatibility with headquarters for MS Office documents mostly. I despise MS Office but it is better to be on the same platform as the creator of the documents than to try to work with them in the Mac version of Office.
    edited January 2018
  • Reply 13 of 15
    VRingVRing Posts: 108member
    volcan said:
    VRing said:

    That sounds like your problem. Clearly something is wrong with the setup on those machines. I would also avoid ASUS in general.
    PC World ranked Asus second only to Apple for 2017.  I would take their evaluation over some anonymous Windows troll in a forum. The hardware is fine - it's the OS that sucks, but we need it for compatibility with headquarters for MS Office documents mostly.
    I don't know what sort of generalized ranking you're referring to, but it doesn't suddenly mean all of their products are excellent. There's likely some bloatware or configuration issue with the setup. Or you're just not telling the entire story. A Windows 10 PC with a SSD shouldn't take minutes to find something, nor should it come back with nothing when the file is clearly there.

    Anyways, you've resorted to name calling, so clearly you're no longer capable of holding a reasonable discussion.
  • Reply 14 of 15
    MaxterMaxter Posts: 15member
    How long does it take to cold boot (from pressing power button to showing Desktop)? What are SSD sequential (MB/s) and random (IOPS) read/write benchmarks?
    edited January 2018
  • Reply 15 of 15
    steven n.steven n. Posts: 1,229member
    VRing said:
    volcan said:

    On Windows, most of the time it searches for several minutes and more often than not it never finds the file I'm looking for.
    Sounds like something is wrong with your indexing settings or setup in general.
    It matches the experience of EVERYONE I know that has ever tried the Windows search utility. It [the Windows Search] is light years behind Spotlight and almost unusable.
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