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Does the 680mx make much of a difference for Video Editing?
- Thread starter Gelite55
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Are we really talking a big enough difference to justify the extra premium in price?
Only you can decide that. I can tell you the card is priced very aggressively, and will process complex renders about 30-40% faster. You need to figure out how much time that will save you and if that time is worth $150.
To me upgrading the video card on the new iMacs is one of the better values in terms of upgrades. $150 gets you a faster card with double the VRAM.
I upgraded the video card on my order and I plan to use my iMac for Photoshop/After Effects; I have no interest in gaming.
I upgraded the video card on my order and I plan to use my iMac for Photoshop/After Effects; I have no interest in gaming.
It depends what software he is using. Only the newer renderers can even leverage CUDA. The OP went extremely generic with the term "video editing", so it's important to note that this is highly software dependent as well as being dependent on what is being rendered.
You need to do your own research here if you're going to be nitpicky. OpenGL/OpenCL are leveraged by different functions in different software with little consistency. In some cases the scaling is abysmal, so you must also read up on that. Just stating something this broad will net answers with little to no usability when it comes to making a final purchasing decision. A lot of people just max stuff if they think the difference may show up. If you're trying to save money, you need to consider the software you use and do your reading. If you're the typical Premiere/After Effects user that is quite common on here, Adobe publishes a lot of information on this. As an example After Effects can leverage CUDA for raytraced effects, yet it will have no effect on rendering a basic comp. If you don't really make use of the raytracer, it will have no effect. It's important to note that anything rendering based typically has to fit entirely within the video ram to leverage OpenCL or CUDA. Again don't take this as research. You have reading to do.
Also like a couple people just mentioned, the gpu upgrade is priced pretty aggressively. I just looked it up. It's insignificant relative to the price of the machine.
The iMac is an expensive machine which you cannot easily modify yourself. I think the 150$ upgrade to the gpu is worth it even if you really won't use it that much. Because it will at least increase the machines graphical performance to an extent that make the machine up to date for a longer time. If getting the 680mx will make the machine fast enough for you to keep it another 1-2 years its all ready been a profitable investment. Unless you think think this will be the very last machine you will ever need 
The iMac is an expensive machine which you cannot easily modify yourself. I think the 150$ upgrade to the gpu is worth it even if you really won't use it that much. Because it will at least increase the machines graphical performance to an extent that make the machine up to date for a longer time. If getting the 680mx will make the machine fast enough for you to keep it another 1-2 years its all ready been a profitable investment. Unless you think think this will be the very last machine you will ever need
Yea I'm just debuting what's best for me. Browsing the web in 85% of what I do. Sometimes I have to run a VM for Trading software or Packet Tracer (for my computer networking classes at college). I also edit videos once in a blue moon. I'm thinking the base 27" with the 2.9 Ghz i5 and a 1 TB Fusion drive would be enough and I wouldn't even feel the i7 and the 680mx being faster. Any thoughts/suggestions?
Well the "base" 27" is the 660M one. You would definitely notice the difference from that.
If you mean the "top" 675MX then you almost certainly wouldn't notice the i7. The GPU is a tougher call - you would probably notice it once in a while, and especially about 2 years down the road, but it would be fair to classify it as a luxury item for you. If you're really pinching pennies you could skip it and have the same performance 90+% of the time. Unless you decide you want to play a game at some point.
If you mean the "top" 675MX then you almost certainly wouldn't notice the i7. The GPU is a tougher call - you would probably notice it once in a while, and especially about 2 years down the road, but it would be fair to classify it as a luxury item for you. If you're really pinching pennies you could skip it and have the same performance 90+% of the time. Unless you decide you want to play a game at some point.
Yea I'm thinking I should just go with the i7, 1TB Fusion, and 680mx.
Going to add 16GB of Crusial RAM. Totaling 24GB RAM. NO WAY I'M PAYING APPLE THOSE PRICES FOR RAM!
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Good plan to avoid Apple RAM. I'm waiting to see if I ever use more than 8GB before I order from Crucial.
Unless you have a complex math situation or weather simulation in your future, you could save the $ on the i7 too. The situations where it comes up are pretty narrow (and it can be added after market if really necessary, though it involves some rather complex disassembly).
Unless you have a complex math situation or weather simulation in your future, you could save the $ on the i7 too. The situations where it comes up are pretty narrow (and it can be added after market if really necessary, though it involves some rather complex disassembly).
*Ordered*
3.4GHz Quad-core Intel Core i7, Turbo Boost up to 3.9GHz
8GB 1600MHz DDR3 SDRAM - 2x4GB
1TB Fusion Drive
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 680MX 2GB GDDR5
Magic Trackpad
Apple Keyboard with Numeric Keypad (English) & User's Guide
Accessory Kit
3.4GHz Quad-core Intel Core i7, Turbo Boost up to 3.9GHz
8GB 1600MHz DDR3 SDRAM - 2x4GB
1TB Fusion Drive
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 680MX 2GB GDDR5
Magic Trackpad
Apple Keyboard with Numeric Keypad (English) & User's Guide
Accessory Kit
Hi Gelite55,
I have just received this exact model above and am having serious issues with FCPX freezing on me.
Have you received yours yet, have you tested FCPX on it and are you also having any issues?
I've done pretty much everything you can think of to resolve the issue but no luck so far. About to return it back to Apple!
I have the 3.2 i5 675mx and have upgraded to 24gb ram. Before the ram upgrade I got the beach ball quite a bit when rendering in FCPX. If I had Safari open it would take quite a while. Sicne the ram upgrade, rendering is very quick and I can have other apps open at the same time. Safari is such a ram hog.
You are likely to see more GPU benefits from Adobe products than FCPX. The article bellow is from CS5 era but describes the CUDA implementation in premiere, afx etc.
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/adobe-cs5-cuda-64-bit,2770.html
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/adobe-cs5-cuda-64-bit,2770.html
Interesting, so you're not getting any system crashes or freezing issues with FCPX?
I have the 3.4, i7, 8GB ram, with the 680mx 2GB and it's constantly crashing! Seems like it's happening to a lot of people with that spec so maybe it's the graphics card...
See the discussion here: https://discussions.apple.com/thread/4707372?start=0&tstart=0
I am not liking the look of the 680mx, maybe it is overkill in a AIO. I would rather have a more stable reduced clock card than a super performance card which looses houres of work. Isn't that is more of a premises of a workstation card. Any bet that the 675MX will be a more reliable card 4 or 5 years from now or less if the case may be?
Not exactly sure what you are saying or asking, but reports from those so far who have the 680MX are saying their machines are running cool even during moderate or heavy use. I'm sure apple tested the hell out of the configuration before going to production. I believe the $150 upgrade to 680MX is minor compared to the total iMac price, and makes sense for those doing any video or graphics work.
I can see its benefits where out and out power is required but the card is mainly tuned for gaming. It shares the same architecture as the 675mx and thus will perform the same but under reduced clocks and parallel processes. I dont think all applications will be able to tap in to that power. The card is more useful if you have multiple monitors to make use of the 2gb ram, or have a specific program which can make use of the processor. The problem here is that the card is not supported by a particular app.
If these cards are not running hot then they are not working to their full potential. Under rendering conditions the cpu is at 100% load so can you say the same for your gpu. If not then it's probably not being used, not a limiting factor, or the drivers are not making efficient use of the card.
If I had the extra cash I would have gone for the 680mx, full ssd and I would have gone for the apple care as well. Aplications like photoshop 3dsmax illistrator (all for graphics work bty) which I am going to be spending alot of time in is just are not going to see any performance increase by the 680mx so I would rather use the cash for a cheap portable windows machine instead.
I see the 680mx as a card reserved for gamers or editors alike working with special effects where the card is most under demand. This is where the card shines, otherwise its just a reason to max a machine baised on pure specification.