Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
iMac Pro Longevity of iMac Pro
- Thread starter seasurfer
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
Depends how you look at it? If its primarily for gaming I would miss it entirely as games work better in windows and you can make a rig for a lot less that works better as you can see here:
https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/imac-pro-vega-56-gaming-testing-results.2107623/#post-25845433
Also depends on the card the 64 is roughly 10% on top and gives about 10% increased results but that 10% is £500.
If its to be a productivity machine and a bit of gaming on the side then great, but even at 1440p with current drivers it wont be the best result with current games. It depends on your standards of gaming if you want better than casual I would spend 5k elsewhere.
The issue with all in ones is the actual hardware is fine but graphics cards and ram can really transform a machine over a period of time. There a still a huge amount of people using the 5,1 mac pro with great results as you can add what ever you like.
As we have seen over the last 5 years CPUs haven't really got vastly more powerful, GPUs and their usage and implementation on the other hand has.
You can use these machines as long as you want, its your standards and what level of expectation you have...
https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/imac-pro-vega-56-gaming-testing-results.2107623/#post-25845433
Also depends on the card the 64 is roughly 10% on top and gives about 10% increased results but that 10% is £500.
If its to be a productivity machine and a bit of gaming on the side then great, but even at 1440p with current drivers it wont be the best result with current games. It depends on your standards of gaming if you want better than casual I would spend 5k elsewhere.
The issue with all in ones is the actual hardware is fine but graphics cards and ram can really transform a machine over a period of time. There a still a huge amount of people using the 5,1 mac pro with great results as you can add what ever you like.
As we have seen over the last 5 years CPUs haven't really got vastly more powerful, GPUs and their usage and implementation on the other hand has.
You can use these machines as long as you want, its your standards and what level of expectation you have...
iMac Pro Projected Life Cycle Expectancy:
1# Regular Use: 7 - 8 years at best
2# Professional Use: 5 - 6 years
3# Heavy lifting Rendering Use: 3 - 4 years
4# Light Gaming Use: 5 years (light Steam games and OSMac App Games support)
5# Heavy Gaming Use: 2 - 3 years (at best) -> After that, the two cooling fans will have melted or died because of bearing, dust related failure or GPU soldered BGA point weakness / thermic stress or skittish SSD Apple Raid errors in that ******** capsuled, sealed up and glued together throw away machine, that can not be upgraded a single f%&$in time...
This projection is based on the assumption that the iMac Pro has a similar build & parts quality like the Mac Pro 1.1 3.1 4.1 & 5.1 manufactured between 2006 to 2012. A moderate amount of Mac Pro 1.1 machines are still in use today with a regular or semi-professional usage after a full decade in the hands of a second, third or even fourth owner. That was possible only because of heavy upgrades, modding and the ingenuity of the members of this forum, -who had to invent a software solution for SSD trimming, develop workarounds for unsupported OSX systems, enhance kext coding among others as well as develop dedicated Mac EFI Rom GPU flashings to show As%&%ole-Apple-Politics "the finger". - Can't Proprietary any more may ass...
Apple is not your friend. They constantly reduce the usable product live cycle and try to dictate and ******** the market because of their arrogance (The Trashcan) instead of delivering real pro value, designed for extended pro usage and OPEN upgradability.
In case of the iPhone, they even design software to shorten your product live span or slow you down, --- can't get a grip on that GREED Apple ..
Regarding gaming, -be my guest on an international LAN Network Gaming event sometimes this year with a three year old Mac Pro 6.1 and two glued in dual D700 GPUs on a unified thermal core..... super duper... ! You will not even pass the registration desk ... The same situation will be in three years with that iMac Pro on that international LAN network Gaming expo of 2020 !
Yeah, you go ahead and tray that one. Never ever will the iMac Pro keep up in a gaming environment three years from now.
With Alienware and many other big industry players in modding with multiple SLI GPU's and big towers with unlimited upgradability - they even smoke you right now, - they vaporise you instant.. at least it will be a quick death.
Dont get me wrong. The iMac Pro is a shiny marvel for semi professionals. Its a machine designed for Final Cut ProX. I would love to get one, if I would be a professional making a living from FinalCut work. - I don't - But don't put the Formular one Racer in the wrong discipline on a dirt track to win that crash cars racing trophy. You would not do that. Forget serious gaming on any iMac.
Going by your post I am guessing you don't expect the new Mac Pro to be very modular?
I think what many people are suspecting it being along the "you can buy 'modules' from Apple as long as they can be arsed selling them" line is probably a good guess.
Why would somebody buy an iMac Pro for these kind of tasks
If thats the definition than I don't see why you can't get more than 7-8 years out of a iMac Pro assuming no hardware failures or there is some kind of technical evolution in computers that leaps us forward within in the next decade. My 2012 Macbook Air(i7/256GB memory/8 GB) still is plenty capable today for light use being 6 years old.
I don't see much of a bottleneck on the iMac Pro for light use past year 7/8. You have 32 GB ram, PCIe SSD, 8 core xeon, dedicated 8GB video card, plus a very high end display.
[doublepost=1519927721][/doublepost]
We are just speculating what the computer can be used for over it's lifetime. No one is buying it for those things but if you can delegate the computer for mostly internet and document use in 10 years then thats certainly a value.
I agree. I just gave an example what 'regular use' means to me
I don't know if the original poster meant it like that. I just gave my own opinion. And I do agree, it should last way longer for those kind of tasks.
The only way to gauge longevity of the iMac Pro is long term use. Check back in 5 years then you’ll know.
Going on past experience, 4 years seems to be the sweet spot - assuming you are doing the same work, like 4K video editing, when you look at a new machine and realize it will help you get your work done so much faster. It's a time saved kind of thing, usually. (For example, my old 2013 trashcan MP still edits 4K video just fine. You just have to wait a lot longer to render out vs an iMac Pro, and for 8k forget it). It's quite possible one could get 6-8 years out of these machines, especially if you add an eGPU down the line to help with compute.
I think that really depends on what you define as gaming. Is it the ability to play games, or the need to play games at max settings, high resolution, etc.? If the latter, I would wait on the upcoming modular Mac Pro, or maybe look into the standard 5K iMac and external graphics, which can be upgraded.
I work in an office that switched over from G5s Imacs in 2010. Those Imacs have been running 24 - 7 ever since. One of 4 had a bad hard drive.It was replaced and is back running. (as we speak) So I would say if they make it past the first year they will be fine until you forget how much they cost you.
With regular use, I would define it as workable solution that means:
Having an actual OSX version that is supported and/or other programs that are mission critical that supports the OSX installed on that device. 7 years is a long time, devices usually are vintage status, software support dwindle or stop existing and problems are starting to show up.
Example from my own, - My macbook pro 17' from 2010 can not play any footage from my new Mavic Air drone. The 4K footage strokes its GPU so bad, it becomes almost impossible to watch. Great laptop all around, but here it really shows its age. You can't do 4K with devices from 2010. I think thats a good example.
Plus I have to mentioned, the Macbook was upgraded three times, (not possible on the iMac Pro) and its melted BGA GPU chip replaced once by a non Apple licensed professional.
So regular use, I sure can keep using the Macbook Pro for Word, Excel, Internet and other things, but professional use really ends here. High Sierra is for sure the last system and it made the machine slower as well. Assumeing I wouldn't have been able to upgrade or repair the device years ago to keep it fresh, the use would have been restricted a lot earlier.
Last edited:
Fair enough. 7 years is a long time. I actually just booted up my 2010 Sony Vaio laptop for the first time in a long time and holy crap the i7 chip on that gets hit hard trying to do a lot of things. It's still useable to internet and document use since I have 6GB of memory in it and a dedicated video card but not having a SSD really kills some things(I could install one but I'm not sure if I want to waste money on it)
TL;DR
The question is somewhat pointless, to be honest. You can't know or really even guess how long some computer might last, since that depends on multiple factors:
- What is it that you do now
- What is it that catches your fancy 2 years from now
- How the apps get developed
- How the hardware gets developed
- If there are some computational breakthroughs with the software category you use
- How the cost develops
Typically, trying to get a high end computer to last many years is a bad call. The top end has higher margins and it is rarely cost efficient, due to diminishing returns. E.g. in many cases you're better off updating more often but not choosing the best components. Even if in recent years the development has been slower than in decade before.
From gaming point of view, though, it's hard to see that iMac Pro will last too well. Most of the crux has been on GPUs and iMac Pro GPU is already behind of the best on the Windows side. And so far most of the games haven't really benefitted from multicore.
The question is somewhat pointless, to be honest. You can't know or really even guess how long some computer might last, since that depends on multiple factors:
- What is it that you do now
- What is it that catches your fancy 2 years from now
- How the apps get developed
- How the hardware gets developed
- If there are some computational breakthroughs with the software category you use
- How the cost develops
Typically, trying to get a high end computer to last many years is a bad call. The top end has higher margins and it is rarely cost efficient, due to diminishing returns. E.g. in many cases you're better off updating more often but not choosing the best components. Even if in recent years the development has been slower than in decade before.
From gaming point of view, though, it's hard to see that iMac Pro will last too well. Most of the crux has been on GPUs and iMac Pro GPU is already behind of the best on the Windows side. And so far most of the games haven't really benefitted from multicore.