27' 5K vs previous 27inch / AMD vs Nvidia (for Adobe PR/PS/LR/AE) users

[LVEB]

hi

i was looking to buy an iMac for my general editing purpose.
especially video editing using Adobe mercury play back engine (need Nvidia GPU)

Different btw previous 27 and 5K (is GPU,CPU,Harddrive and Display)
is that worth to buy ? but need use Adobe mercury engine.
What is the speed or any amazing different btw 2 GPU for Adobe user (Adobe PR exporting full hd clips / PS or Lr)

Please advice.

 

[kepler20b]

ram & HD are far greater limiting factors in performance than gpu nowadays for the workload you're discussing.

 

[yjchua95]

hi

i was looking to buy an iMac for my general editing purpose.
especially video editing using Adobe mercury play back engine (need Nvidia GPU)

Different btw previous 27 and 5K (is GPU,CPU,Harddrive and Display)
is that worth to buy ? but need use Adobe mercury engine.
What is the speed or any amazing different btw 2 GPU for Adobe user (Adobe PR exporting full hd clips / PS or Lr)

Please advice.

Adobe Mercury is more optimized for OpenCL than CUDA, so the AMD GPU would perform better than the NVIDIA GPU.

 

[MacVidCards]

barefeats.com just did some more iMac 5K tests

might be worth a look

 

[LVEB]

thanks for advice,

so is really need to upgrade to i7 4.0GHz or GPU to MX295 4GB ?
heard having heat issue.

But if still using i5 but upgrade GPU to 4GB is better choice ?
CPU or GPU upgrade worth for PS/LR/PR/AE user (Photos & HD editing)

 

[joema2]

...
so is really need to upgrade to i7 4.0GHz or GPU to MX295 4GB ?
heard having heat issue....

In general the i7 and M295X upgrades are a good ideas for video editing.

Here is an extensive test covering both Premiere and FCP X on both Retina iMac and Mac Pro. He frankly covers the pros/cons, esp. issues with heat and noise on the iMac.

In general the i7/M295X RiMac is a very good editing machine. It's not perfect and there is definitely a role for the 6-core and above Mac Pros, esp. if frequently transcoding or exporting to ProRes. But you get a lot of bang for the buck with the RiMac: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NJt3av99e8k

 

[LVEB]

so is upgrade GPU vs CPU ?

 

[matreya]

so is upgrade GPU vs CPU ?

Upgrade BOTH if you can afford it

 

[joema2]

so is upgrade GPU vs CPU ?

Yes, upgrade both. If you do serious video editing, many operations are very CPU-intensive. Anyone can validate this by looking at iStat Menus or other CPU monitoring tools while doing common video editing operations on Premiere or FCP X.

GPU is also very important, especially on Premiere, since the Mercury engine uses that for rendering effects.

Since all Retina iMacs have a minimum of Fusion Drive, disk performance is less an issue when editing on any compressed codec such as H.264.

Premiere is really good at editing camera native codecs, so this typically reduces I/O load. E.g, the 4k material from a Sony PXW-X70 is 50 megabit/sec, or just 6.25 megabytes/sec. Editing multiple 4k streams would be easy from an I/O standpoint.

In theory you could get by with a 3TB Fusion Drive. That said, video takes lots of room, so this implies external storage. If external storage will be required (at any future time) then using SSD is probably a better option.

If the ingest workflow involves transcoding to a less-compressed or uncompressed editing codec, then I/O load would be higher and appropriate configuration decisions made for that scenario.

In either case ehe external storage itself should be pretty fast, not just a cheap 5400 rpm bus-powered USB 3 portable HDD. See products from http://www.promise.com/us/Index and g-technology.com for examples.

 

[tears2040]

hi

i was looking to buy an iMac for my general editing purpose.
especially video editing using Adobe mercury play back engine (need Nvidia GPU)

Different btw previous 27 and 5K (is GPU,CPU,Harddrive and Display)
is that worth to buy ? but need use Adobe mercury engine.
What is the speed or any amazing different btw 2 GPU for Adobe user (Adobe PR exporting full hd clips / PS or Lr)

Please advice.

You should really consider doing what am I about to, which is buying a 2010 Mac Pro and upgrading that system.

When video editing you need hard drives, cpu and gpu all which even an older Mac pro from 2010 (when upgraded) will be better/faster than any new iMac. The only advantage a Retina iMac would have is the screen, but you can easily buy a descent/nice 4K monitor now for around $400-$600.

Also the Mac Pro 5,1 when doing any kind of longer rendering will just be an overall better machine.

I've been reading up on people that have upgraded the cpu's and gpu's and the system really is a beast.

You should take a look at this link comparing an older Mac Pro 5,1 to a new Retina iMac
http://create.pro/blog/mac-pro-51-4k-monitor-vs-imac-5k-create-pro-face/

 

[driftless]

I use those apps, the screen is still the key benefit; I can't imagine ever using a non-5K screen again for photo apps. There have been a number of posters who actually own the 5K and use it for creative apps who love the machine. I am certainly one of them. FWIW - I have i7, 295 & SSD. I would strongly recommend the SSD.

 

[LVEB]

thanks for advices,

any idea for the performance between

old iMac 27
3.5GHz Quad-core Intel Core i7
1TB Fusion
16gb ram
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 780M 4GB GDDR5 support CUDA & mercury palyback

new riMac 27
4.0GHz Quad-core Intel Core i7
1TB Fusion
16gb ram
AMD Radeon R9 M295X 4GB GDDR5

price different is around $700+/-

My only concern is the GPU & CPU cause most my work need
Adobe apps, PR (HD edit/MagicBullet effect../4K soon) ID / PS & LR (some AE)

Please advice which machines worth to upgrade according my usage.
anyone experience btw above setup ?

i do consider old MacPro to upgrade too as adviced