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iMac Pro now or wait?
- Thread starter Ethosik
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Before WWDC I would of agreed with that but the IMac Pro and Mac Pro are aimed at a totally different user based
On the other hand I can’t see a new iMac Pro due anytime soon due I don’t think there are any new Xeon CPU’s that are suitable for the iMac Pro on the horizon
This tells you next to nothing since there's no history or release cycle for it to even be close to accurate for the iMac Pro.
Unlike other macs, the iMac Pro doesn't show an average nor recent releases. I kind of think that's enough but that's just me
That’s up to you but you can be sure that your iMac Pro will NOT support 4K HDR content with OS X Catalina.
So why won’t the iMac Pro support this? Processor too old? That might change my mind about the iMac Pro unfortunately.
Why not wait until September/October for a potential silent refresh or Mac event?
The iMac Pro has been running Intel's Skylake W CPUs from 2017. The Mac Pro just announced will be running on Intel's Cascade Lake W CPUs, which were just announced but not yet released. Since this is the first upgrade to Intel's work station line in two years, so I'd expect them to go into the iMac Pros as well (is Apple is just a little committed to the iMac Pro).
The iMac Pro has been running Intel's Skylake W CPUs from 2017. The Mac Pro just announced will be running on Intel's Cascade Lake W CPUs, which were just announced but not yet released. Since this is the first upgrade to Intel's work station line in two years, so I'd expect them to go into the iMac Pros as well (is Apple is just a little committed to the iMac Pro).
The problem these Mac Pro W chips are a far bigger socket and wattage for a iMac chassis
Excellent point, this makes a good case for why they would wait a couple of years, until Intel finally releases a smaller 10nm Xeon W CPU.
The T2 converts quickly, but the HEVC file sizes are relatively large. Converting AVC to HEVC with the T2 chip (Videotoolbox) typically reduces the file size by 40-50%. Converting AVC to HEVC with the CPU can typically yield reductions of 60-80% (sometimes even 90%, depending on settings and optimizations) — and nearly always greater than 50%. But as noted, encoding with the T2 absolutely flies.
So here's a question: If you're settled on encoding with the T2, why limit your choices to iMac, iMac Pro, or Mac Pro? Even the lowest-end Mac mini and the new Macbook Air also have the T2, and it encodes video at exactly the same speed regardless of which CPU is in the computer.
True. But if you define the market segment as the high end consumer desktop you could guesstimate using the previous MacPro numbers, since the fully configured price ranges for an iMac Pro and the old Mac Pros are around the same (~$13K).
I'll call the new MacPro an enterprise product, since the (~$30K?) cost is most likely going be affordable to organisations.
So you could guesstimate using the 449 day average. Given the current emphasis on the MacPro release, ignoring Intel schedules, I think it will be at least a couple of years.
Because I’m tired of having multiple computers - one Mac and one gaming computer. While I don’t want to spend $500+ for the GPU upgrades, the Mac mini and MacBook Air have horrible GPUs which will require an eGPU. And apparently, Windows is a bit finicky with eGPU and I don’t want to add more points of failure. So an iMac with the 580 will give me decent gaming performance as well as doing my work.
I sympathize. The only reason I got the Vega 64 in the iMac Pro was for gaming. All of my professional needs are SSD speed and CPU based. Such a shame that only the Pro lines get decent GPUs.
I was fully decided on the iMac Pro until someone mentioned it won’t work with 4K HDR content
If Apple was this explicit we would have no need for forums like this.
No, the only thing they have said is 2018 Macs or newer with 4k screens. So 2019 iMacs, 2018 MBPs attached to an appropriate monitor, 2018 Minis, etc. It is odd specifically to exclude the iMac Pro, but that's all we know.
So that means I’m locked in on the 2019 iMac right? They might add support for it on the iMac Pro, but I don’t want to spend $3,000+ on a maybe.
If you don’t want HDR 4K Content on your iMac Pro then get the iMac Pro, if you do want to enjoy 4K HDR Content which will be available when OSX Catalina is released then you will need a 2019 iMac as any Mac device that was made prior to 2018 is not supported by Apple for 4K HDR playback.
I linked to a thread above that talks about the reason why 4K HDR from Apple won’t be supported on the iMac Pro and the 2017 iMac. It has to do with a hardware component that is only present in the 2019 iMac.
I wouldn’t spend a fortune on an iMac Pro if I knew right off the bat that it wouldn’t support a major feature such as HDR 4K Playback