The new iMac Retina 5K

So ........ now we can start all over being confused if we should go for MacPro or iMac

What do you guys think about the new iMac for FCPx ?

Personally, I'm really looking forward to some knowledge about performance - it seems to me that it could be a great companion to our entry level nMP.

I'll wait and hear from some real world use first. But it looks like a pretty solid machine.

The top-spec 4Ghz i7 retina iMac is 14% faster from a CPU standpoint vs the previous 3.5Ghz i7 iMac. The m295x GPU seems somewhat faster than the previous nVidia 780m, but I haven't see any real-world FCP X benchmarks yet.

Very early Geekbench numbers show the 4Ghz retina iMac is significantly faster than a six-core Mac Pro on single-threaded tasks, and only 12.8% slower on multi-thread tasks:

browser.primatelabs.com/geekbench3/compa...317?baseline=1015443

The main complaints I've seen are not using the nVidia 980m GPU but Apple could not have possibly used this -- it was only released a couple of weeks ago. nVidia would have to have been producing thousands (maybe 10s of thousands) of 980m chips per month back in August, else the entire retina iMac launch would be jeopardized.

There are always debates about relative importance of CPU vs GPU and how that affects your app of interest. I know from watching iStat Menus, many common tasks in FCP X are CPU-oriented, as all available cores are frequently busy. So a 4Ghz (4.4 turbo boost) quad-core i7 with hyperthreading seems pretty good.

That said, software designers are constantly looking for ways to further leverage the GPU with OpenCL. A Mac Pro with dual D700 GPUs could potentially be further accelerated with a simple application software update.

But considering Dell's new 5k monitor itself costs what the base retina iMac does, the iMac looks pretty good.

Someone pointed out the above-posted benchmark on a 4Ghz retina iMac is probably a Hackintosh, based on the board ID and other items. However the chip model and speed is exactly the same as a 4Ghz retina iMac, so I don't expect the performance to be dramatically different. We will see actual performance numbers from an authentic retina iMac pretty soon.

I have to decide on the MacPro or this before the end of the year, and it's a tough choice. There's about a $1500 price difference between the two but the MacPro is just such a beast with FCPX and I'm starting to shoot with my Blackmagic Pocket camera in RAW. the down side to getting a MacPro now is that it doesn't sound like it will be capable with a retina monitor down the line. The down side of getting the retina imac is that it's a first generation and could have issues down the line like the original rMBP.

But here's my conclusion. Get the imac now, then a few years down the line you can use it as a monitor for the MacPro.

It's amazing how elaborate we can be when trying to justify these things. I have a 2011 imac right now and it still runs amazing,

i had that exact plan this year but its a bit of a pain to use the iMac as a monitor. You can't boot into Target Display Mode and if your Mac Pro goes to sleep the iMac snaps back to normal mode.

And yes, I'd wisely avoid generation one of anything - so says a man with the first generation of the thin iMacs (which has image burn-in issues if it gets too hot) and the first generation new Mac Pro (which looks like it isn't going to support Apple's next gen of displays).

The new iMac looks darn good though...

The 5K iMac won't do target display mode.

Julian wrote: The down side of getting the retina imac is that it's a first generation and could have issues down the line like the original rMBP.

Julian, I think there's a pretty big difference between a first gen rMBP and the new riMac. The GPU/CPU components in 2012, well, are so 2012 Then there are the constraints of making a sleak, lightweight, powerhouse "laptop." The iMac line has much less constraint. Plus Apple has much more experience with its Retina brand technology implementations.

OK, here's the Geek Bench data riMAC 5K:

www.macrumors.com/2014/10/21/high-end-retina-imac-benchmark/

I see the new full spec IMac as having a inferior graphics card compared to the Non 5K full with GTX 780M as compared to the 5K with the R9 GPU.


Cuda support is also an issue with Adobe accelerated product.



gpuboss.com/gpus/Radeon-R9-290X-vs-GeForce-GTX-780

Topher5 wrote: I see the new full spec IMac as having a inferior graphics card compared to the Non 5K full with GTX 780M as compared to the 5K with the R9 GPU.
....
gpuboss.com/gpus/Radeon-R9-290X-vs-GeForce-GTX-780

The top-spec retina iMac has a M295X, not desktop 290X (listed on your GPUBoss.com link). Admittedly this is confusing since the desktop and mobile numbers are so similar.

Benchmarks indicate the new top-spec iMac has significantly faster GPU performance than the 2013 iMac with 780M. On several tests it's ever faster than a quad-core Mac Pro with Dual D300 GPUs: www.barefeats.com/imac5k.html

That was GPU performance. But as vital as that is, many common tasks in FCP X are CPU-limited. This can be seen by observing iStat Menus. Frequently all available cores are busy.

From a CPU standpoint, the 4Ghz retina iMac is 13.6% faster than the entry-level Mac Pro on multithreaded workloads: www.macrumors.com/2014/10/21/high-end-retina-imac-benchmark/

On single-threaded workloads the iMac is about 23% faster than the fastest Mac Pro:

www.primatelabs.com/blog/2014/10/retina-...-64-bit-performance/

None of that means the Mac Pro is obsolete, but the top-spec retina iMac looks pretty impressive.

While I don't think most people buy a Mac Pro for gaming, games are GPU intensive and to some degree reflect certain aspects of GPU performance.

On some gaming benchmarks, the 4Ghz retina iMac with M295X GPU is faster than a six-core Mac Pro with Dual D500 GPUs:

www.barefeats.com/imac5k.html

www.barefeats.com/tube18.html

According to Barefeats… www.barefeats.com/imac5k1.html
the flash storage in the new iMac is only using 2 PCIe lanes…
""Light Bulb!" I now know why the iMac's Flash Storage is slower than the Mac Pro's (even though they have the same Samsung based XP941 blade. the iMac's flash storage is running at a PCIe link width of x2 while the Mac Pro's storage is running at a PCIe link width of x4."

This is really disappointing. Internal PCIe Flash storage should be the fastest available. ThunderBolt 2 uses 4 lanes of PCIe. This means if you buy an external TB2 expansion bay and install a blade flash memory card you will get faster data transfer. What is Apple thinking??? One advantage of Haswell is the number of native PCIe lanes available over the nMP older Ivy Bridge architecture.
The only reason I can think of is maybe it is using PCIe lanes for the 5K display and the TCONN chip, and until Skylake updates with DP1.3 this will be a real speed handicap for the flash storage option in the new iMac5K.
This means that both the nMP using Ivy Bridge xeons and the new 5K iMacs are both cobbled together waiting for hardware upgrades.
Beware first generation devices. Of course, all devices are almost obsolete after you unpack them.
What will the 2nd gen systems perform like?
Hope this helps, Greg

Greg, Without knowing why only using 2 lanes, With iMac it seems like it wouldn't matter. You would want TBolt 2 drives attached in terms of FCPX, and any A/V, graphics work anyway. With the internal SSD serving OS X and running the applications, it seems to me the difference in performance would be negligible.

I suspect the 2-lane flash storage issue is indeed about available PCI lanes - some of the new processors have a huge number of lanes, but (if memory serves) that's only the very top-of-the-line desktop models. We have to bear in mind that iMacs use mostly notebook-class components as a result of their thermal requirements. My hunch is that there simply aren't enough spare lanes once they're driving the display.

The 980m may be a better GPU than the M295X (and I'm sure that's the case for CUDA-based apps), but the M295X is no slouch, possibly (probably?) superior with OpenCL, and who knows what the price difference was for Apple? Remember that much of Creative Cloud's Mercury Engine now runs on OpenCL as an alternative to CUDA (else Adobe would make few sales to Mac Pro buyers).

Personally, my biggest beef with these new iMacs is that the SD card slot is still hidden around the back.