2018 iMac ThunderBolt 3?

[Ifti]

I'm currently awaiting an iMAC refresh so that I can finally purchase!
Really hoping it comes with the cooling system in the iMAC Pro!

Nevertheless, I currently have an editing drive (OWC ThunderBlade V4), a general backup/storage drive (OWC Envoy Pro EX), and a Sonnet TB3 to 10GBe adapter - all three are ThunderBolt 3 enabled devices.

I really would like to steer clear of daisy chaining and hubs if possible. 2 of the three drives have no daisy chaining abilities anyways - only my editing drive has - but I would like to dedicated full speed to each drive if possible.

This leaves me with a problem with the current iMac, which only has 2 TB3 ports.

Are we likely to see 4 TB3 ports in the newly refreshed iMacs?

An iMAC Pro has the 10GBe port, meaning I can do away with the adapter, thus leaving me with 2 available TB3 ports after my drives are attached, which is great - but I cant justify spending all that extra above a standard iMAC for a couple of extra ports!!

 

[casperes1996]

I don't think there'll be more TB ports, no. The Intel chipset doesn't come with more PCIe lanes, so it seems unlikely.
I also don't think the iMac Pro cooling design will come to the regular iMac, since there needs to be differentiation between the two, and that cooling system is more expensive to produce and totally overkill for a regular iMac. Now I do wish for a better cooling system as well, but it doesn't have to be as big an improvement as the iMac Pro one.

Regarding Daisy Chaining, Thunderbolt 3 provides 40Gbps full duplex. That's 5GB/s simultaneous read and write. If you daisy chain two drives, you can write at 5GB/s to one drive, while reading at 5GB/s with the other drive with no slow-downs (theoretically). I don't think you need to worry all that much about daisy-chaining honestly.

 

[Ifti]

I don't think there'll be more TB ports, no. The Intel chipset doesn't come with more PCIe lanes, so it seems unlikely.
I also don't think the iMac Pro cooling design will come to the regular iMac, since there needs to be differentiation between the two, and that cooling system is more expensive to produce and totally overkill for a regular iMac. Now I do wish for a better cooling system as well, but it doesn't have to be as big an improvement as the iMac Pro one.

Regarding Daisy Chaining, Thunderbolt 3 provides 40Gbps full duplex. That's 5GB/s simultaneous read and write. If you daisy chain two drives, you can write at 5GB/s to one drive, while reading at 5GB/s with the other drive with no slow-downs (theoretically). I don't think you need to worry all that much about daisy-chaining honestly.

Hmm, I'll give a try.
I'm really tempted with an iMac Pro as I'd be looking to keep it for the next 7-8 years and it seems to tick all the right boxes, just cant justify the higher price with the odd video I create via FCPX!

 

[casperes1996]

I'm really tempted with an iMac Pro as I'd be looking to keep it for the next 7-8 years and it seems to tick all the right boxes, just cant justify the higher price with the odd video I create via FCPX!

Well, since I started uni, I can't justify the price of a cup of coffee, so i feel ya, haha