Is 32gb of RAM enough for iMac Pro?

[Black Diesel]

If you are spending the coin to get an iMac Pro, is it safe to say you should splurge for the 64gb of RAM? This would be used for 4K video editing along with photoshop, Lighthroom, etc.

They charge a pretty penny for that RAM.

I would think an 8 core with 64GB would be a better value than 10 core with 32GB for the same price?

 

[fathergll]

Depends on where you live and how much you can get the base model for.

MicroCenter has the base model for $4000 so upgrading to 64GB of ram means $1800 extra.

Really you need to figure out what your bottleneck will be....32GB or 8 cores?

 

[mikehalloran]

Absolutely no way to know from your description. Certain plugins and apps can consume a big chunk of RAM. What do user groups of the apps you use say?

 

[mreg376]

Depends on where you live and how much you can get the base model for.

MicroCenter has the base model for $4000 so upgrading to 64GB of ram means $1800 extra.

Really you need to figure out what your bottleneck will be....32GB or 8 cores?

The current price at Microcenter for the base iMac Pro is $4,500. Adding $1,800 for 64GB of RAM is of course ridiculous.

You can also price out a "regular" i7 iMac, spend about $600 for 64GB of third-party RAM (from a place that accepts returns), and do the whole deal for less than $4,000 with a 1TB SSD. See if that satisfies your needs. If not, return it, and spend your $6,300 or more on an iMac Pro.

 

[xgman]

There is no reason to spend imac pro money if all you need is 32gb ram. 64 min is a no brainer, even for a regular imac.

 

[RobbieTT]

If you are spending the coin to get an iMac Pro, is it safe to say you should splurge for the 64gb of RAM? This would be used for 4K video editing along with photoshop, Lighthroom, etc.

They charge a pretty penny for that RAM.

I would think an 8 core with 64GB would be a better value than 10 core with 32GB for the same price?

Sounds similar to my usage and 32GB has proven to be fine with room to spare on my 8-core. If you have money to burn then the 10-core is arguably the pick of the bunch for price vs performance.

 

[Bryan Bowler]

I find it amusing there are all kinds of recommendations being made here when no one knows what the OPs needs actual are.

If you are spending the coin to get an iMac Pro, is it safe to say you should splurge for the 64gb of RAM? This would be used for 4K video editing along with photoshop, Lighthroom, etc.

They charge a pretty penny for that RAM.

I would think an 8 core with 64GB would be a better value than 10 core with 32GB for the same price?

Generally-speaking, if your budget only allows one upgrade, I would choose 64GB of RAM over 10-cores.

 

[mikehalloran]

Absolutely no way to know from your description. Certain plugins and apps can consume a big chunk of RAM. What do user groups of the apps you use say?

I find it amusing there are all kinds of recommendations being made here when no one knows what the OPs needs actual are.

Generally-speaking, if your budget only allows one upgrade, I would choose 64GB of RAM over 10-cores.

iMac Pro, 18-core, 128GB RAM, Vega 64, 4TB SSD

Yep.

 

[Black Diesel]

I find it amusing there are all kinds of recommendations being made here when no one knows what the OPs needs actual are.


Generally-speaking, if your budget only allows one upgrade, I would choose 64GB of RAM over 10-cores.

That's what I'm thinking. More RAM with 8-cores. You have quite the beast of a machine there, and quite a bit of storage. Do you perform video editing for a living?

 

[mduser63]

I have a 10-Core with the 2 TB upgrade, but 32 GB of RAM. It has been fine. I’m a software developer, and the 10 core machine seems to be the sweet spot for single core vs multi core performance for long compiles.

Anyway, like so many others are saying, it really depends on what you’ll using the machine for. Also, keep in mind that the RAM can be upgraded later by an authorized service provider.

 

[danielwsmithee]

Given the choice between 64GB of RAM, I’d choose the 10-core for most situations. For me as SW Engineer CPU & disk speed are the most critical. My wife does photo a video editing on it. The 10-core isn’t just two more cores it is also clocked higher and turbo boosts higher so its single core performance is better as well.

There are applications that will benefit from lots of RAM. Most will be fine with 32GB, and if you are running something that needs 64GB you are probably in a situation where both the 10-core and 64GB is easily justified. Unless you are running multiple VMs I doubt most video and photo editing workflows will be more RAM performance bound than CPU bound. You really just need to find real world data with your apps and plugins to know for sure. people have been running Lightroom and a Final Cut on machines with 16GB just fine for years.

I ended up going for the base with 2TB storage because it was available as a refurbished model. If I could have found a 10-core 32GB I probably would have chosen that instead.