Base iMac Pro for HQ video/photo - enough power?

[Martynas]

Hello, despite thinking about upgrading my iMac to regular 5k with 580 GPU card, now there is a chance to get an iMac PRO which probably would suit my needs even better. I am photographer and started creating video footage too, so FCPX, Lightroom and Photoshop are my main programs I use. For now the budget is not really stretchable beyond the price of base iMac however if there is a significant improvement, I could probably afford to upgrade one of the parts. Handling 4k files fluently is a must. My questions are:
1. Is the base iMac PRO powerful enough to handle 8k footage or edit it in original form (not proxy)?
2. I can choose upgrade: the RAM to 64 GB, GPU to Vega 64 or to 10 core CPU. Which one of these is the most beneficial having in mind my video/photo needs? My Current iMac has 8GB RAM and I can see it really lacks when I push it harder when editing the video. I could not find a clear answer on the net. Thank you.

 

[ColdCase]

1) no Mac will smoothly edit 8k video in native regardless. It may be acceptable to you. Lots of threads on work arounds.
2) the 10 core is probably the biggest bang, otherwise 2TB in internal ssd. If you can afford the Vega 64, it won't hurt.

 

[Martynas]

Thanks for the answer. I don't think I'll benefit a lot from upgrading storage. I know that videos can take a lot of space (recently just found this to be a problem) but external storage should be ok. Today in the store i saw the stock 8k footage loaded on imac pro (some sort of nature videos), looked good to me while I tried to edit in FCPX. Of course, stock transitions/effects are not really pushing it to the limits.

 

[pat500000]

64 gpu

 

[anticipate]

I had the base (FCPX) and then the 10 core with the 64 and 64GB. The RAM made the biggest difference (to 64), followed by the Vega 64 because of it's increased video ram. The 10 cores are nice, but I didn't notice a huge difference. The base model is still very fast - but the 32GB I found was limiting vs the cost. I kept getting a swap file going.

 

[Martynas]

Ok, thanks. So today I got a base model without any upgrades but I think it still will be plenty fast!

 

[joema2]

...Today in the store i saw the stock 8k footage loaded on imac pro (some sort of nature videos), looked good to me while I tried to edit in FCPX...

That was because Apple Store video demos are usually in ProRes, not H264. Even a MacBook Air can edit 4k ProRes in FCPX with good performance, and a base iMac Pro can edit 8k ProRes smoothly.

By contrast no current Apple computer can edit 4k H264 with complete smoothness unless it is transcoded to ProRes or already pre-rendered in the timeline. The best existing Mac for this is the 2017 top-spec iMac, which is smoother and faster than a 10-core Vega 64 iMac Pro on that codec in FCPX.