Recommended iMac Pro 2017 specs?

We are adding another seat to our post production setup (currently 3 seats on a 10gbE NAS). Our post is a mix of cameras for broadcast but usually involves GH5, XAVC footage from Sony F55s and Pro Res 422. Mix of 4K and 1080.

This extra system is for overflow in our post schedule and also to tide us over until next year's Mac Pros are released. We are an exclusively Mac shop.

I was planning on upgrading to 64gb RAM and the Radeon Pro 64 with 16GB vram. I was not planning on upgrading to the 10 core and beyond CPUs. We could conceivably also use an external thunderbolt 3 enclosure for a third party GPU.

Any thoughts on this? I'd appreciate any help. Thank you!

Travis

We just ordered the 10-core with Vega 64 16GB. Kept the SSD at 1TB and the ram at 32GB. Same here, it's just to tide us over until the new Mac Pro. In our experience, 32GB of ram with Resolve works quite well (lots of features and 60mins+ tv shows with hundreds of shots in 4K, and 32GB of RAM always seems enough - moving around in the timeline is snappy and instantaneous). Gotta cut costs somewhere, and it seemed more useful to spend the money on the 10-core upgrade and on a second (eGPU) graphics card. We bought the Radeon Frontier 16GB with the Sonnet eGFX 550w box.

https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/ ... _vega.html

https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/ ... x_550.html

I'm so excited to test this setup! I think the dual Vega 64 will give us roughly the same performance as dual 1080 TI's. And if needed, we can add a third Vega 64. Gotta love those four TB3 ports on the new iMac Pro. And the 10GbE network adapter is plug and play for our network storage (so we save a lot by not having to buy a super expensive TB2 to 10GbE adapter like we have to for our 2013 Mac Pro's and 2015-17 iMac's).

At least it will be somewhat possible to upgrade the ram if needed down the line... Given Apple's insane ram prices, I'm happy to say with 32GB for now.

https://www.macrumors.com/2017/12/14/im ... ade-apple/

And the 10GbE network adapter is plug and play for our network storage (so we save a lot by not having to buy a super expensive TB2 to 10GbE adapter like we have to for our 2013 Mac Pro's and 2015-17 iMac's).

I'm seeing some distributors start to ask for delivery of 4K 16-bit image sequences (~1300 MB/s), so depending on what market segment you're in this might be a short reprieve before it's time to spend even more money on TB3 to 40GbE adaptors.

Haha, well at least we don't have to play those files in real time from the network storage!

Love the name of you company btw

If I was purchasing an iMac Pro and had no plans to purchase the newer modular Mac Pro:

10 core best bang for the buck

128 GB memory as some programs like Resolve will eat everything you set before it

Vega 64 no brainer

4 TB internal flash as you can maximize performance and function and convenience with this very fast solid state storage (currently use the maximum 1TB allowed on my iMac and wish it was more).

Not inexpensive but should be dandy for all 4K work.




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128 GB memory as some programs like Resolve will eat everything you set before it

The wheels just keep on turning. At least you'll keep Apple happy.

Don't feed the memory leaks. Not that I'm aware of any.

I have 64GB Ram in my Hack and even with UHD/4k projects, I hardly see Resolve using more than 32GB.
Actually I never saw using it more.

So it's safe to say that 32GB is good to go.

I also have a late2012 iMac (i7-3,4GHz, GTX680MX 2GB), which I bought with 8GB RAM (standard) and upgraded to 24GB later on.
Apple RAM is totally overpriced and easy to install at least on my iMac.
Also, I never have problems with the same projects on the iMac other than the GPU being much, much to weak...

BTW I used an external SSD as a cache drive to overcome GPU and CPU weakness.
It worked surprisingly nice!

media manager, archive and deleteing caches on large projects can see RAM use rise to 70+ gig
day in / day out 32g is fine
for my needs 96g is the minimum

Apple RAM is totally overpriced and easy to install at least on my iMac

It's not considered user-installable on iMac Pro. Looking at the cutaways it seems like they had to move the memory slots when they changed the interior layout for better cooling, and I guess they couldn't figure out how to easily put it behind a door. But authorized service centers will do upgrades.

Sad thing,

but the cooling is already a problem on my iMac.
And it has only a mobile Version GPU and only 4 core CPU.

When my iMac does transcode or other CPU/GPU intensive stuff I have really high temperatures inside.
My WS never sees these temperatures.

So I think it's a good idea, that they redesigned the cooling inside the iMac.

Time will tell how good it really is!
Remember the MacPro 2013 render glitches ?

If a Resolve user, working mostly on indie docs and indie features, 4K, wanted to cut the cost of such a machine, where would the best place be: processor or RAM?

If a Resolve user, working mostly on indie docs and indie features, 4K, wanted to cut the cost of such a machine, where would the best place be: processor or RAM?

I'd say RAM. I see the same thing as Erik; Resolve rarely wants more than 32 GB. Also, as noted you can take the machine to a service center for more RAM later, whereas there almost certainly won't be any Apple-approved way to ever upgrade the processor.

In my opinion your first bottleneck will be GPU and then CPU.
Then disc speed and then RAM.

You can upgrade storage anytime, GPU with eGPU, too. Ram can be upgraded in Apple certified service center.
CPU will stay...

I would really hold on with buying any new Mac Pro until 1 month or so since it's available.
I really want to see how loud/hot it's when used heavily.

Either they done crazy good job with cooling or it's going have overheating issues.
Lack of ability to upgrade RAM is just crazy move from Apple side. It's all done just to make money on RAM and also services for upgrading it. It's so Apple style...

Another question- are those 4 TB3 posts all independent? No resources sharing?

I'd be concerned about cooling too, having compared the temperature on a regular iMac with i7 and i5.

The i7 runs really hot when encoding, the i5 is more civilized. Living in a hot country and not liking AC, I went with the i5, but the best GPU. Enjoy it until now.

Looking at what they put into the iMac Pro, it must be a crazy engineering feat if it has no overheating problems. But maybe they want to show that they can after the nMP desaster ?

It's also question how loud it's. You probably can cool it down, but you always seat next to iMac, so it's annoying when fans kick in heavily.
Same with Macbook Pro- all silent and great when you do about "nothing". Open Resolve/Premiere etc. and it's loud.

Actually maintaining reasonable temperatures doesn't seem that difficult, when you consider what high-end PCIe graphics cards do with respect to cooling GPUs in a small space. And this review claims it's pretty quiet, even under load. I guess we'll know more soon.