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2017 27" will faster processor/gpu outweigh ssd?

T

twowheeled

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Aug 19, 2017
5
1
Hi guys, I'm about to purchase a new imac. My primary requirement is for 4k video editing for work, I will work with short clips editing 1 minute ads for a local company. Footage is shot off my GH4 and mavic pro.

I have two options with apple employee discount.

1) base 3.4ghz with 512gb ssd upgrade

2) refurbished 3.8ghz with radeon 580 8gb, 2tb fusion drive

Both would come in at the same price more or less. I am curious if the processor and better gpu would outweigh the fusion drive. If I understand correctly there will never be a way to upgrade the fusion drive to an apple ssd in the future?
 
I am not a fan of Fusion Drives but considering your intended use of the machine and between those two choices I would definitely recommend the refurb as well.

I highly recommend investing in AppleCare as well at some point during the one year limited warranty.
 
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twowheeled said:
...primary requirement is for 4k video editing for work, I will work with short clips editing 1 minute ads for a local company. Footage is shot off my GH4 and mavic pro....I am curious if the processor and better gpu would outweigh the fusion drive. If I understand correctly there will never be a way to upgrade the fusion drive to an apple ssd in the future?
Click to expand...

I have done lots of 4k video editing using FCPX on a variety of iMacs and MacBook Pros. IMO you want the fastest CPU and GPU. A 2TB or 3TB Fusion Drive is pretty fast and when editing H264 4k you are not usually I/O-limited. Rather you are limited by the CPU and GPU, especially the CPU.

When you progress to larger videos you will be using external storage, so whether the boot drive is SSD or Fusion will make even less difference then.

I have both Fusion Drive and SSD iMacs and given the choice I'd rather have SSD but in real world video editing of single-camera H264 4k material, it doesn't make that much difference. The CPU and GPU makes more difference.

If you transcode to 4k ProRes optimized media, that greatly increase I/O load, so drive performance can be more an issue then. However for proxy media the file size is smaller so I/O is usually not a limiting factor.
 
I've seen people edit multiple streams of 4K video from an external pocket SSD like the Samsung T3 over USB 3.0

As others have said... disk I/O isn't really a bottleneck these days.

But you will definitely appreciate all the horsepower you can get from CPU and GPU.
 
jlseattle said:
Ssd drive should outweigh the CPU upgrade. This is from personal experience.
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Are you a professional video editor?

Between the two choices mentioned by the OP for his job doing video editing there is no question whatsoever that the refurb with the Radeon 580 and the more powerful CPU is the better choice.

Believe me, I'm a proponent of pure SSD but there are exceptions.
 
after a day of researching I'm still not sure which way is better, everyone I ask seems to say something different. I've ordered the faster cpu/580 for now, we'll see how it does.
 
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SaSaSushi said:
Are you a professional video editor?

Between the two choices mentioned by the OP for his job doing video editing there is no question whatsoever that the refurb with the Radeon 580 and the more powerful CPU is the better choice.

Believe me, I'm a proponent of pure SSD but there are exceptions.
Click to expand...

The fusion drive slows down the OS.
 
jlseattle said:
The fusion drive slows down the OS.
Click to expand...

Whether or not the overall speed of a Fusion Drive iMac as compared to an SSD model is noticeable to a user depends entirely on their usage.

My main arguments for SSD over Fusion are removing the excess heat, power consumption, noise and failure prone spinning drives from the equation.

That said, in this case, the base model would slow down video editing work more than a 3.8GHz refurb with the 8GB Radeon 580 and a 2TB Fusion Drive.
 
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For video editing in FCPX I'd say it goes like that CPU > GPU > SSD . But you use your computer for other stuff like web browsing etc too. So in my opinion SSD will have more influence on how you feel about your computer speed.
 
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If you're just talking about the process of exporting I think there will be no big difference between SSD or HDD. But if you want to know about overall working performance a SSD will have a great impact.
 
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