Perhaps that will change as time goes by: https://www.digitaltrends.com/photography/lightroom-update-adobe/
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iMac Pro 10 core vs 18 core
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Maxed out 18 core “In Progress”, Credit Card has been Charged. On the other hand my Home Pod is getting ready to ship, my credit card for that was charged 2 days after the iMac Pro, but the iMac Pro is stuck on “In Progress”. Feb 6 for the Pro is impossible I think...
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My 10core model...
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I have some performance information for the 18 core iMac Pro based on a integer/branchy workload (CPU limited compiling with all cores in Xcode).
I derived this information by building with 36 processes in Xcode, and then disabling cores in Instruments. This probably means that it's not entirely representative of a real x thread workload, because only some parts of the CPU is taking all the thermal load. A real workload should perform slightly better due to more even thermal load.
The max turbo boost for X number of cores enabled:
I started the load when the CPU was at 50 °C or lower. It seems that the maximum sustained power allowed is 133 W, so anything below that will maintain maximum turbo boost indefinitely. For 6 core or less the maximum turbo boost is maintained indefinitely.
For higher core counts the CPU will briefly use more than 135 W, all they way up to 170 W. For my workload this brief period was maintained between 7 and 74 seconds depending on the power usage.
Aggregated frequency, simply multiply frequency by number of cores:
After the brief period of maximum frequency, for higher core counts the CPU will begin throttling to maintain 135 W power usage:
Over time the frequency will will decrease slightly for higher core counts as the temperature increases until eventually the temperature reaches about 88 °C and a steady state emerges:
Aggregated frequency, simply multiply frequency by number of cores:
Some conclusions comparing to https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/imac-pro-18-core-delivery-status.2100673/page-2#post-25715226:
(Assuming max turbo boost for 10 core with all 10 cores enabled is 4.1 GHz)
When you have a highly threaded bursty workload. For example editing filter settings in an image editor, for the best case in favour of the 18 core the 10 core could take about 40% longer time to produce a result (18 has a 29 % shorter response time):
(3.2 * 18) / (4.1 * 10) = 1.40
In reality the difference might be less.
For a sustained workload such as a long code compile you could expect the 10 core to take about 30% longer than the 18 core to finish the compile (18 core take 24% less time to finish):
(2.6 * 18) / ((3.49 + 3.64) / 2 * 10) = 1.31
So in conclusion
The 18 core can lower your response times up to 29% vs the 10 core
The 18 core can lower your wait times up to 24% vs the 10 core
Conversely, some single threaded and lightly threaded workloads could take 4% less time to complete on the 10 core, but this is somewhat reduced by the larger L3 cache on the 18 core.
I derived this information by building with 36 processes in Xcode, and then disabling cores in Instruments. This probably means that it's not entirely representative of a real x thread workload, because only some parts of the CPU is taking all the thermal load. A real workload should perform slightly better due to more even thermal load.
The max turbo boost for X number of cores enabled:
I started the load when the CPU was at 50 °C or lower. It seems that the maximum sustained power allowed is 133 W, so anything below that will maintain maximum turbo boost indefinitely. For 6 core or less the maximum turbo boost is maintained indefinitely.
For higher core counts the CPU will briefly use more than 135 W, all they way up to 170 W. For my workload this brief period was maintained between 7 and 74 seconds depending on the power usage.
Aggregated frequency, simply multiply frequency by number of cores:
After the brief period of maximum frequency, for higher core counts the CPU will begin throttling to maintain 135 W power usage:
Over time the frequency will will decrease slightly for higher core counts as the temperature increases until eventually the temperature reaches about 88 °C and a steady state emerges:
Aggregated frequency, simply multiply frequency by number of cores:
Some conclusions comparing to https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/imac-pro-18-core-delivery-status.2100673/page-2#post-25715226:
(Assuming max turbo boost for 10 core with all 10 cores enabled is 4.1 GHz)
When you have a highly threaded bursty workload. For example editing filter settings in an image editor, for the best case in favour of the 18 core the 10 core could take about 40% longer time to produce a result (18 has a 29 % shorter response time):
(3.2 * 18) / (4.1 * 10) = 1.40
In reality the difference might be less.
For a sustained workload such as a long code compile you could expect the 10 core to take about 30% longer than the 18 core to finish the compile (18 core take 24% less time to finish):
(2.6 * 18) / ((3.49 + 3.64) / 2 * 10) = 1.31
So in conclusion
The 18 core can lower your response times up to 29% vs the 10 core
The 18 core can lower your wait times up to 24% vs the 10 core
Conversely, some single threaded and lightly threaded workloads could take 4% less time to complete on the 10 core, but this is somewhat reduced by the larger L3 cache on the 18 core.
Thank you so very much for your amazingly detailed and extremely specific research, and posting all those results. I’d also like to thank everyone who has posted to this thread. The 18 core is faster than I expected, and I’m thrilled about receiving one this coming Monday. I hope this thread will continue with real life comparisons of the two, especially where the 10 core is faster, and where the 18 cores really shine...
I have calculated with my 8 core I can hire two extra guys for a week to finish my work 120% faster than the 18 core for the same price. All kidding aside very informative thread.
Mine arrived today, yea! Beautiful, using migration assistant over Cat 6 Ethernet from my maxed out mid 2010 iMac and it’s slowed to a stop? Called Apple, they advised wait until morning to see if it progresses. For the last 2 hours it’s claimed 1:55 minuets to go at 23 MB/s...
Congrats on finally receiving your new beast of a machine! I hope the transfer issues sort themselves out overnight.
I got my 18-core/36-threads two weeks ago. Performance might be nice for interactive work with transformations only lasting a few minutes, before the CPU gets time to cool down again. But the performance for complex simulations, e.g. particle dispersion, is quite disappointing. Whenever the task takes more than some 10 minutes real time the large number of physical threads becomes useless. I guess its because Apple prioritize silence over performance.
The optimum between real clock rate and number of threads seems to be at just using roughly 10 of the 36 threads theoretically available for long time calculation. That means more than two thirds of the expensive hardware is to no avail. Has anyone similar observations?
The optimum between real clock rate and number of threads seems to be at just using roughly 10 of the 36 threads theoretically available for long time calculation. That means more than two thirds of the expensive hardware is to no avail. Has anyone similar observations?
How did it go? I'm really curious - these migration processes always have been finicky for me, and in the end not really worth the time.
I agree. I prefer to set-up brand new machines from scratch. It requires far more involvement, but perhaps less chance of bringing over any gremlins to the new system. (Perhaps that is just an urban myth nowadays, perhaps there is some validity to it.)
I'm interested in this core count cost/benefit analysis as well.
I am a career still shooter at 30 years in, main cameras are 2x 24MP, 46MP and 50MP. I also do large format stitched work that is often 10-15' feet wide @300dpi. Currently I am running a 2017 15" MBP maxed out and a 2011 cMP 5,1 listed below.
I am considering this upgrade to replace the 2011 machine and don't mind paying to max it out if CC LR and PS all run at the top of their game. I'd probably use an OWC EX TB3 1TB SSD for a scratch disk, 4TB of TB3 SSD RAID for workload and put 32-48TB of spinner RAID on as first layer archive.
Keep feeding this beast folks, if not fiscal 2018, I'll upgrade 2019 for sure. I just want to start exploring it now.
I am a career still shooter at 30 years in, main cameras are 2x 24MP, 46MP and 50MP. I also do large format stitched work that is often 10-15' feet wide @300dpi. Currently I am running a 2017 15" MBP maxed out and a 2011 cMP 5,1 listed below.
I am considering this upgrade to replace the 2011 machine and don't mind paying to max it out if CC LR and PS all run at the top of their game. I'd probably use an OWC EX TB3 1TB SSD for a scratch disk, 4TB of TB3 SSD RAID for workload and put 32-48TB of spinner RAID on as first layer archive.
Keep feeding this beast folks, if not fiscal 2018, I'll upgrade 2019 for sure. I just want to start exploring it now.