Blackmagic Forum

Pardon the OT post, but I think people here might be in the best position to help me:

I'm making online videos for our non-profit children's theatre

Our present 2015 iMac is getting a bit long in the tooth (see signature for specs)

How much difference will I see if we go to a refurb 2019 iMac with an 8 core i9 and Radeon Pro Vega 48 with 8GB of HBM2 memory?

or

Should we bite the bullet and go to a 2020 iMac 3.6GHz 10-core 10th-generation Intel Core i9 processor, Turbo Boost up to 5.0GHz with Radeon Pro 5500 XT with 8GB of GDDR6 memory?

The price difference is about $1300 right now.

Thanks

The Radeon 48 seems to be about 20% faster than the 5500 XT. So I would go for the 2019 iMac and maybe get some accessories like external monitors, Editing Keyboards (If you really need them), or calibration tools.

Thanks for that. I already have the speed editor, so that'a a start!

Think about a Mac mini M1.
Or, if you can, wait for the first iMac with an ARM chip. I wouldn't invest a single cent into an Intel Mac any more if I don't need it now, like NOW.

I have a 2019 iMac i9 with Vega48. that GPU is a bit underwhelming although its still decent. I actually added a 5700XT 8gb in eGPU case and its 2-3X higher performance. Resolve can be set to split render between the two but in the last beta or two seems like its been tweaked to rely more on the bigger faster 5700XT. of course I built this over the summer when you actually could get these GPU's, now good luck.

While apple wants to push its GPU which is certainly a solid performer, at least compared to anything intel, its also not much next to the current generation AMD GPU's . should only be a matter of time before there are AMD ARM drivers for higher end machines like I bet the iMac Pro will get AMD GPU while iMac regular gets apple GPU to shave the price. Hopefully that will bring eGPU support as well. Wild guess is spring / Sumer for M(2 ?) iMac and who knows for M3/32 core

S

Thanks for the input.

I had looked at the Mac mini, but wonder about the 16g ram ceiling. Resolve says it needs 32g for Fusion.

I have not yet seen any comprehensive test of the Mini with 16 GB under Fusion.
OTOH, they say you need 16 for Resolve and a lot of people seem to use it with the 8 GB models. But it's guesswork until now, and I doubt that you can use Fusion to its full potential. It would be interesting if someone could test the spaceship example from BM's Fusion page, which is beating my Mac mini hard, but doesn't crash in Fusion standalone.
These are entry-level machines, and I'm sure Apple will bring offers with more RAM. But that might be pretty expensive, given Apple's track with memory enhancements. You can't use third party any more.