Thanks for the comments everyone! Here's my responses to some of the questions, but other members should feel free to jump in with their own thoughts/opinions of course!
Thanks for a fantastic review. The most useful to me as a pro photographer I've seen yet. I don't suppose there is any chance you could download the LR demo and run some of the same sort of tests you did with Aperture comparing old and new?
I'm sorry, but I just don't have time. Hopefully a LR user will get their hands on a nMP soon and be able to help out.
I'm curious, do you have Windows installed?
It's crazy you're having so much trouble getting someone to run that Specview benchmark for you... but I'm afraid I don't have Windows (I banished it from my world years ago).
Great review, thanks!
When did you order?
I ordered within minutes of the Canadian online store coming up after midnight on the day orders started. If you're wondering why I'm among the first to receive a BTO nMP, I have no idea!
Great review for photography people (like me) who are deciding what to upgrade to.
A few questions/comments:
1. Do you have anyone in the office you has a maxed our iMac to compare your results to?
2. I'm a little confused on your setup for working with RAW images. Are the masters stored on a USB 3 array and the library is on the SSD or are they both on the SSD or both on the USB 3 array? I ask because one of the things I'm considering purchasing is a thunderbolt raid (either a 2 drive lacie or a 4 drive pegasus) and curious to put your benchmarks into perspective. I'm thinking (but cannot confirm as I haven't bought anything) that the "loading" popover when scrolling through RAW images would be reduced by a super fast thunderbolt raid setup but it may not matter past a certain point as the RAW images are only about 40MB each (thus the 700MB/sec (Pegasus) vs 400MB/sec (Lacie) vs 200MB/sec (USB 3 single drive non-raid) may not actually result in a meaningful difference in aperture. Your thoughts would be highly appreciated as reducing the "loading" lag and having manageable adjustment knobs is the entire reason I need to upgrade my current setup.
3. As you obviously know, aperture is a total memory hog. In your attached images you show that aperture is actually asking for almost the total amount of RAM that you added to the system (32gb). Would you recommend 64GB knowing what you know now?
1. I don't think we have any of the latest iMacs at our office - I believe they are all last gen. However, from what I've read, the latest iMac with Haswell is a fantastic performer and can even outperform the nMP in single core tasks. I suspect any differences in lightly-threaded performance between the latest iMac and a nMP would be unnoticeable in most situations. The key value prop for the iMac is the integrated display. Conversely the nMP allows you to connect any displays (including 4K). So I would base a decision on nMP vs iMac more on display choice and flexibility - not performance... unless you need strong multi-core performance, in which case the nMP has a clear advantage.
2. I use managed libraries in Aperture, which means my RAW files are kept in the Aperture Library file. I keep my active Library file (with RAW images) on the fastest SSD I have... in the oMP that was a PCIe RAID0 array of 3 SSDs, in the nMP thats the factory installed 1TB SSD. I only use spinning disks for archiving and backups. I would recommend to anyone, that you buy enough SSD in the nMP to not only store your OS/Apps, but also your latest library. When your library starts to get so big your SSD is running out of space... move it off to spinning HDs and start a new library on the SSD. These days, I would never recommend anyone work with data on an HD. That will just slow you down and you won't get the most out of your computer.
3. Aperture seems to use all available memory for a disk cache. Since my libraries are 100+GB, it would have no trouble using more RAM, but for photo editing I honestly think that 16GB would be enough, 32GB is probably the sweet spot for having ample breathing room, and 64GB is probably overkill.
Good timing.
You did a good write up on the comparison, and its good to hear your comments, as I am in the same situation with the same old MP as you (also a photographer).
I am curious if you save your RAWs onto the internal storage of the nMP or the external in your comparison tests (or I missed something in reading). If on the external, would a TB - PCIe storage be faster than what you have?
And I am curious of the RAM demand, I am using large files and think the 64GB route to order.
On a side note, it would be interesting to see a comparison with Lightroom, nMP v the old MP. Aperture relies more on a GPU than LR. Thanks!
Hey, I only ever work from SSD. All my tests were done using the SSD. I only use spinning HDs for archiving projects and backups. That's why I went with the 1TB internal SSD on this nMP (it matches the 1TB of DIY SSD I had in the oMP).
Since I occasionally want to access an archived photo library, I did opt to get a WD Thunderbolt Velociraptor Duo for that task. It will house my recent archived photo libraries so if I do need to access them, I'll have reasonable performance. However, as I said, my main project work and current RAW photo library will always be on the internal SSD for maximum performance.
I too use my MP mostly for (RAW) photo-editing, movie-editing, and the usual array of productivity things. I have a MacPro3,1 2.8/Octo with a "few" upgrades; GTX680, 1TB Accelsior drive, and USB3. I keep my RAWs on my NAS, but the Aperture libraries are on my MP, and thus the Accelsior made a huge difference. And as I do a bit of gaming in bootcamped Windows, I enjoy the GTX680.
Upgrading to the nMP I am thinking the Hex, 32GB RAM, D700s, and 1TB Flash.
I am still on the fence though, but this review really pushed me in the "buy now" direction
Only thing I keep wondering is if I will see the same advances in using Aperture though?
1) I am already on an Accelsior card, which is PCIe based flash storage.
2) I have the GTX680 card, which is probably not a lot worse than the D700s in single GPU tasks.
3) I have 8 cores today, and will step down to 6...
Any opinions? The MP3,1 lasted me almost 6 years, and hopefully my next one will as well
You may not see the huge gains I have seen... however, you will certainly get some added performance. I'd have to check the Geekbench scores, but I'm fairly certain the new 6-core will run circles around your old 8-core in RAW CPU performance. But you're probably right that the GPU and SSD in the nMP will be more of an incremental update.
Thank you VR for taking the time for such an informative and meticulous review. Well done sir!!!
You mentioned Logic. For the musicians/audio engineers out there, anything more on Logic performance before/after would be like throwing a juicy steak to a pack of starving dogs.
Hey Thanks!... Did I mention Logic? Sorry if I did, but I have no experience doing any sound production on a Mac. I do some Camtasia stuff with voice over screen casts type of projects, but that's about it and I haven't had time to determine if this nMP really helps out that type of work yet.
congrats
I have a couple of questions, I preordered the base model 4 core but did i make the right choice?
My uses are watching 4k movies, connected on a 4k Display, Native 4k resolution and working on final cut pro x, vlogs, short movies etc.
now i am using a core i5 mac mini and this thing is horribly slow, i know the spec is not for video production but just wondering 6 core model with d700 or 4 core model base?
I think the base nMP should be a great upgrade from your i5 mini. If you do FCP for money, I'd definitely invest in the 6-Core/D700 but if you're just doing it for a hobby and have other demands on your cash, the entry level Quad should still be a very capable FCP X machine.
