New Mac Pro or iMac?

[Chris L]

Hi I shoot with hasselblad medium format and canon 4K video and am trying to decide what new Mac computer to buy to replace my 2010 Mac Pro. My budget is capped at 10k. I have read that the new Mac Pro base models are a waste of money and not to buy one unless you really need the processing power and can upgrade several grand higher than base model. I am using capture one for stills and FCPx for video. Any advice on what machine would fit my needs? If the Mac Pro, which configuration? I really would prefer a Mac Pro to use with my NEC PA 241w monitor as opposed to an iMac but I don’t want to waste any money. Any advice is appreciated.

[Joe Towner]

Hey Chris,

Take a current iMac & max it out, or step up to the iMac Pro with the 8 or 10 core CPU, after-market RAM but otherwise maxed out. What is your storage setup like? Most likely should save some of that 10k for something like the ThunderBlade (or OWC Express 4M2 with 4x NVMe drives).  It should fully drive your NEC monitor & do everything your current setup does but way faster.  Going beyond these spec's you're either going outside the Mac ecosystem, or are paying a lot of money for 2-10% better performance in certain situations.

-Joe

[Chris L]

Hey Chris,

Take a current iMac & max it out, or step up to the iMac Pro with the 8 or 10 core CPU, after-market RAM but otherwise maxed out. What is your storage setup like? Most likely should save some of that 10k for something like the ThunderBlade (or OWC Express 4M2 with 4x NVMe drives).  It should fully drive your NEC monitor & do everything your current setup does but way faster.  Going beyond these spec's you're either going outside the Mac ecosystem, or are paying a lot of money for 2-10% better performance in certain situations.

-Joe

Thanks Joe. I went to the MAC store and priced out the iMac Pro 10 core ( 3.0GHz 10-core Intel Xeon W processor, Turbo Boost up to 4.5GHz ) without a RAM upgrade ( 32GB 2666MHz DDR4 ECC memory ) and selected the most expensive Graphics card ( Radeon Pro Vega 64X with 16GB of HBM2 memory ) and selected 1 TB SSD.That iMac came in at $6500. Now pricing out the aftermarket stuff; The 4TB SSD Thunderblade is $1279 and the 8TB is $2200. This machine would still need the after market Ram upgrade. To max it out I would get 256 GB of Ram. Looks like that would cost about $1800 for the OWC brand that also makes the Thunderblade. If I get the 4TB Thunderblade my total would be $9579. The only bummer for me is I don't need the iMac screen so it would be in some awkward spot on my desk. So with all of this in mind does it still seem to be a smarter purchase than a new Mac Pro?

[Joe Towner]

Hey Chris,
Do you have an additional monitor than the NEC? I ask because you're doing 4K video, and the NEC is only HD. If you haven't done a dual screen workflow, it's going to blow your mind - having all your tools on the iMac screen, with just your image on the color critical NEC.  Plus with NLE's, you want as much screen space to fit everything.

I think I'm going to pull back my iMac Pro idea - it's still 2017 CPU's and the i9's are pretty much at the same level now. Doing a regular iMac, i9 with the Vega 48 graphics & 2TB of SSD is $3,850, plus 128gb of OWC RAM for $740.  Toss in a Thunderblade ($2,200) and a OWC Thunderbolt 3 Pro Dock ($340 10gb network, CFast2 & Displayport off one TB3 port).  It's going to be a night & day upgrade over your current setup.

I'm starting a new thread that's more general to cover some very specific items that folks need to keep in mind when investing in a new desktop workhorse.  Hopefully it'll help folks.

-Joe

[Chris L]

Hey Chris,
Do you have an additional monitor than the NEC? I ask because you're doing 4K video, and the NEC is only HD. If you haven't done a dual screen workflow, it's going to blow your mind - having all your tools on the iMac screen, with just your image on the color critical NEC.  Plus with NLE's, you want as much screen space to fit everything.

I think I'm going to pull back my iMac Pro idea - it's still 2017 CPU's and the i9's are pretty much at the same level now. Doing a regular iMac, i9 with the Vega 48 graphics & 2TB of SSD is $3,850, plus 128gb of OWC RAM for $740.  Toss in a Thunderblade ($2,200) and a OWC Thunderbolt 3 Pro Dock ($340 10gb network, CFast2 & Displayport off one TB3 port).  It's going to be a night & day upgrade over your current setup.

I'm starting a new thread that's more general to cover some very specific items that folks need to keep in mind when investing in a new desktop workhorse.  Hopefully it'll help folks.

-Joe

Hey thanks. I added up the prices for your iMac i9 and it came to $7130, which is great and way under budget for me. I have not yet tried dual screen but this will give me the perfect excuse to try it. And yes theres prob a lot of folks like me that would benefit from assistance like this. Thanks again.

[Jonathan Cross]

Just curious.  Why go for 2TB of on board SSD?  What's wrong with 2TB of Sandisk Extreme Portable or Extreme Pro Portable?  Very fast and cheaper than onboard.  You can also move it from machine to machine and back it up just like onboard memory.

Best wishes,

Jonathan

[Joe Towner]

Just curious.  Why go for 2TB of on board SSD?  What's wrong with 2TB of Sandisk Extreme Portable or Extreme Pro Portable?  Very fast and cheaper than onboard.  You can also move it from machine to machine and back it up just like onboard memory.

Performance - the internal SSD is NVMe speeds, while the Sandisk Extreme Portable is USB3.1 (550MB/s) or Extreme Pro (1050MB/s).
It's $400 over the 1tb option, and NVMe & SSD drives work better when they've got lots of free space.  Plus Apple like to play the proprietary game so it's not like you can upgrade it later.