Anyone have the base Retina iMac?

[Coufu]

I have a base model. It's also driving two more displays: 1440p and 1080p. 99% happy with it...the only problem is Mission Control. Even after the Yosemite update, it's a little better, but it still stutters a bit.

Turning on "increase contrast" definitely does help a lot, but I don't think I should have to. Hopefully, software updates will fix it.

With more features coming out so much, I hope that one of the next Mac OS X updates is like what Snow Leopard was to Leopard. No new features, just all optimizations and enhancements.

 

[Steveatesh]

Yeah, this is something I've been a bit worried about. I didn't have the time to test it when I was trying the 5k out last week.
I've been wondering about how such operations are affected by the high resolution. I'm not entirely sure, but I assume that it usually renders a low resolution preview in these cases, and because of the high resolution it needs to render a preview four times as big, which requires a bit more power.
I guess this is something Adobe could optimise however.

I'm not a LR user, I was using Nikons own NXD capture on the PC followed by Paintshop Pro X6. On the mac I'm trialling Aftershot Pro 2 by Corel on my base RiMac and it's lightning fast, even without the GPU support switched on and on full screen.

It demonstrates how much the speed depends upon the programming of the software you are using. Adobe appears to be problematic with Yosemite from looking through Adobe forums. Maybe LR. 6 will address many of these issues?

 

[Vince1080]

I'd be worried.

I just picked one up and have only briefly worked with it. First impression was amazing. Then I noticed Finder window lag. Then I went to test Photoshop, my main use, and was devastated at how poorly it's working. Screen redraw with the blur filters is disgusting. It gives me a percentage bar each time I move the center dial on Tilt blur for instance. The Nik plugin for camera effects is just as bad.

I was doing a Time Machine backup at the time so I'll test it again when that is done. Also, I'll add another 8GB of RAM, but right now I'm extremely disappointed in this product. It's nowhere as fast as it should be -- and I'm coming from an '08 iMac.

If it doesn't inprove and tech support is no help, it's going back and I'll get a 2013 maxed out. It's a shame because the display is amazing.

I ordered the maxed out retina the cpu, gpu ssd the works and I could see it was struggling at times so I wish you good luck I returned mine and will wait for the revision and hope thats better if not i'll build my own.

 

[Sahit Anand]

I'm all about the base...

I've had the base model iMac Retina for two weeks now. I've edited two videos on Premiere, Use Davinci resolve to Color Correct my footage (mostly 1080p and a few 4K) and have designed a few brochures using Illustrator and Photoshop. Here's what I experienced. I hope this helps.

I use my system at full 5K resolution. It makes everything really really small but somehow I like it that way. Except premiere, all adobe products completely suck. Adobe is fixing it but they're taking their own sweet time for it. I've been in contact with engineers in the Adobe illustrator team and they say that they're hard at work. Basically, dragging an artboad in illustrator is sluggish as hell. Especially if you have the illustrator in full screen. As for photoshop, I've been using blurs and plugins and all kinds of things and I've had no problems at all, so far (fingers crossed).

When I work with large images, and I hit spacebar to just preview it, there's a cringe-worthy lag before it opens up. Mission Control lags a bit too sometimes but after I do it once or twice the lag's gone (go figure)

I'm definetly going to update my ram,(after I recover from buying the iMac) but so far, I don't regret it one bit. Every now and then adobe and apple releases an update and most of the issues with lag and stuff goes away. I really feel this is an amazing system, the software just hasn't caught up with yet.

 

[rainydays]

I just picked one up and have only briefly worked with it. First impression was amazing. Then I noticed Finder window lag. Then I went to test Photoshop, my main use, and was devastated at how poorly it's working. Screen redraw with the blur filters is disgusting. It gives me a percentage bar each time I move the center dial on Tilt blur for instance.

Does it really give you a percentage bar whenever you move the dial or is it when you release it?

I did some testing and loaded a 24MP image at 100%. The low resolution preview is renders almost instantaneously as long as I hold down the button. As soon as I release the dial it will render the effect in high quality and that takes some time. This has nothing to do with the screen resolution, it's the same on every machine.
But it is related to the resolution the image is displayed at. If you display the image at 25% zoom level (like you probably would on the old iMac) it will render the blur effects at that resolution which is a whole lot quicker. Zoom in a 100% and it will update the effect for the new resolution. It's the same rendering it would do when you click the OK button.

So unless the initial preview you get when holding and dragging the dial is that slow for you, it's completely normal and has nothing to do with the retina iMac. It's just that you normally wouldn't use the filter at that zoom level so you probably never experienced it before.

I guess that the 295x would give a performance boost here since the blur filters are GPU accelerated. How much of a difference it would make I don't know.

 

[Col Vandal]

I've had the base model iMac Retina for two weeks now. I've edited two videos on Premiere, Use Davinci resolve to Color Correct my footage (mostly 1080p and a few 4K) and have designed a few brochures using Illustrator and Photoshop. Here's what I experienced. I hope this helps.

I use my system at full 5K resolution. It makes everything really really small but somehow I like it that way. Except premiere, all adobe products completely suck. Adobe is fixing it but they're taking their own sweet time for it. I've been in contact with engineers in the Adobe illustrator team and they say that they're hard at work. Basically, dragging an artboad in illustrator is sluggish as hell. Especially if you have the illustrator in full screen. As for photoshop, I've been using blurs and plugins and all kinds of things and I've had no problems at all, so far (fingers crossed).

When I work with large images, and I hit spacebar to just preview it, there's a cringe-worthy lag before it opens up. Mission Control lags a bit too sometimes but after I do it once or twice the lag's gone (go figure)

I'm definetly going to update my ram,(after I recover from buying the iMac) but so far, I don't regret it one bit. Every now and then adobe and apple releases an update and most of the issues with lag and stuff goes away. I really feel this is an amazing system, the software just hasn't caught up with yet.

Good to know, thanks!

Does it really give you a percentage bar whenever you move the dial or is it when you release it?

I did some testing and loaded a 24MP image at 100%. The low resolution preview is renders almost instantaneously as long as I hold down the button. As soon as I release the dial it will render the effect in high quality and that takes some time. This has nothing to do with the screen resolution, it's the same on every machine.
But it is related to the resolution the image is displayed at. If you display the image at 25% zoom level (like you probably would on the old iMac) it will render the blur effects at that resolution which is a whole lot quicker. Zoom in a 100% and it will update the effect for the new resolution. It's the same rendering it would do when you click the OK button.

So unless the initial preview you get when holding and dragging the dial is that slow for you, it's completely normal and has nothing to do with the retina iMac. It's just that you normally wouldn't use the filter at that zoom level so you probably never experienced it before.

I guess that the 295x would give a performance boost here since the blur filters are GPU accelerated. How much of a difference it would make I don't know.

That is an excellent point. I feel like an idiot for not thinking of that! I'll definitely test this when I can get back to it.

 

[Col Vandal]

Another update: Today, following the info from the above poster, I tested Photoshop with the 50% preview instead of the default 66.5% -- huge difference. It's now acceptable to me. NIK plug-ins -- still the same issue, but I can't seem to get it to preview at any other level except 100% no matter what I do to the settings.

Now for the thing that makes me hopeful -- I then switched to full Retina mode and opened Photoshop and used the same filters. Guess what. It behaved smoother at this resolution than the Best for Display resolution. No waiting for the blur to draw its preview. NIK was even a little better. This has to be a software issue -- something is amiss with Yosemite and the 290, which is weird because it's be around longer than the 295. Maybe the 295 is just powerful enough to push through the OS issues.

I should hear back from Apple tomorrow and will pass along my new info to them as well. Hopefully, this can be fixed because I do love the screen.

 

[Col Vandal]

OK, I'm new to this stuff so hang in there. Here are two benchmarks. The first is in the Best for Display mode the other is in the LowRez 1440 mode, otherwise identical.

 

[rainydays]

OK, I'm new to this stuff so hang in there. Here are two benchmarks. The first is in the Best for Display mode the other is in the LowRez 1440 mode, otherwise identical.

Windowed vs. full screen can make a significant difference in performance. Not sure how big of a difference in this case, but it could be a good part of it.

 

[Col Vandal]

So slower on windowed is normal? I just noticed that.

Edit: I ran it again and this is the result in fullscreen.

 

[rainydays]

So slower on windowed is normal? I just noticed that.

Edit: I ran it again and this is the result in fullscreen.

I noticed now that you didn't have AA turned on in the first full screen benchmark so that would explain the difference.
I'm surprised that it performs pretty much identical in windowed mode. It usually decreases performance from my experience.

 

[uller6]

Good enough for me

I just got my base model yesterday. I added 16 gigs RAM aftermarket for a total of 24 gigs, but other than that the machine is stock. It's good enough for what I want to do: write papers in word, make talks in powerpoint, surf the net, run a winXP virtual machine for data analysis, play starcraft, and record and mix 16-track live sessions in logic pro. I haven't had any stutters except when I was hammering the hard drive importing all my data from my old 2008 mac pro. There a few finder skips and jumps, but now that all my data's transferred things are like butter. This thing is way faster, quieter, and sleeker than the mac pro. I played starcraft 2 at native 5k resolution and all settings on medium at around 250 frames per second earlier, which is approx twice the framerate of the old mac pro with radeon 6870 at 4x the resolution of the mac pro. The retina iMac's fan barely came on, CPU temps were around 70C and GPU temps were about 85C after an hour of gaming. I played around with photoshop CS5, and it seemed to be fast and working well, but I haven't gotten too deep yet. Using Logic Pro 9 I managed to play back a session with 94 simultaneous loaded audio tracks, about twice the track count possible with the 2008 mac pro. I'm quite happy - I think this should last me a good 5 years, especially if I upgrade the hard drive and SSD in a few years once the iMac is out of warranty.

edit: I forgot I've disabled system animations, so I don't see any of the mission control-related hiccups some others are seeing.

 

[Col Vandal]

I noticed now that you didn't have AA turned on in the first full screen benchmark so that would explain the difference.
I'm surprised that it performs pretty much identical in windowed mode. It usually decreases performance from my experience.

Yeah, I'm not too good at this, lol. I just noticed that as well. I'll try and do it again and pay more attention to making them both the same.

 

[fathergll]

I should hear back from Apple tomorrow and will pass along my new info to them as well. Hopefully, this can be fixed because I do love the screen.

Good stuff! Looking a lot better for the base model!

 

[Col Vandal]

I just had a conversation with Apple tech after the engineers looked at my issues. According to the rep, Apple is aware of the reports and the issues should be resolved with a software update that addresses driver issues with the GPU. I also relayed the new information I found and the issues others are reporting here with Lightroom. No matter the configuration, base model or i7/295, it seems to be software related.

I've decided that I'm going to keep my base model iMac and hope for updates from Apple and Adobe to rectify the problems I'm seeing because they are not based on the 290 not being good enough to drive a 5k monitor but instead appear to be software and driver related. I can minimize the impact of the issues while using Photoshop by reducing the zoom level, and the Finder, well, I can live with it.

I hope this thread helps others make a more-informed decision. Again, I think the processor/GPU setup will be fine for my use, but I'm not a heavy gamer. There I could see the need for the upgrades. For my uses, it's still night and day above my 2008 iMac.

 

[Steveatesh]

I agree with you. As I said earlier I'm trialling Corels Aftershot Pro 2 which is the same type of image editing and management program as Lightroom. It flies on my base retina, even at full screen. Click something and it happens immediately, even with some layers on screen too.

That was sufficient to suggest to me that software is the big culprit rather than any failings in the hardware.

After nearly three weeks with my iMac, I'm loving it.

 

[teerexx52]

I agree with you. As I said earlier I'm trialling Corels Aftershot Pro 2 which is the same type of image editing and management program as Lightroom. It flies on my base retina, even at full screen. Click something and it happens immediately, even with some layers on screen too.

That was sufficient to suggest to me that software is the big culprit rather than any failings in the hardware.

After nearly three weeks with my iMac, I'm loving it.

I am really happy to hear this. Loving my base model!

 

[nlr]

I just had a conversation with Apple tech after the engineers looked at my issues. According to the rep, Apple is aware of the reports and the issues should be resolved with a software update that addresses driver issues with the GPU. I also relayed the new information I found and the issues others are reporting here with Lightroom. No matter the configuration, base model or i7/295, it seems to be software related.

I've decided that I'm going to keep my base model iMac and hope for updates from Apple and Adobe to rectify the problems I'm seeing because they are not based on the 290 not being good enough to drive a 5k monitor but instead appear to be software and driver related. I can minimize the impact of the issues while using Photoshop by reducing the zoom level, and the Finder, well, I can live with it.

I hope this thread helps others make a more-informed decision. Again, I think the processor/GPU setup will be fine for my use, but I'm not a heavy gamer. There I could see the need for the upgrades. For my uses, it's still night and day above my 2008 iMac.

has it been resolved? I also heard that it can overheat when gaming on windows? I hope this will get fixed soon or I will have to wait till the next iMac.

 

[WilliamG]

I just had a conversation with Apple tech after the engineers looked at my issues. According to the rep, Apple is aware of the reports and the issues should be resolved with a software update that addresses driver issues with the GPU. I also relayed the new information I found and the issues others are reporting here with Lightroom. No matter the configuration, base model or i7/295, it seems to be software related.

It's been over 2 months since, and I don't think this will ever get "resolved." For those who can wait - I'd say, as a 5K iMac owner, - wait.

has it been resolved? I also heard that it can overheat when gaming on windows? I hope this will get fixed soon or I will have to wait till the next iMac.

Wait for the next iMac, if you can. The 5K screen will be the same, but hopefully the GPU will be something Nvidia based. AMD cards in an iMac was a bad idea. They're so much more heat-generating than Nvidia cards.

 

[senseless]

I decided to buy the base model. It's noticeably faster and more responsive than my 2009 I7 iMac. Both have 8 megs of ram for now, so the comparison is fair. Final Cut clips in the timeline are loading about twice as fast, but this is not official. I'll do a Compressor rendering test side by side to see how it manages that. Videos play fine, no problems with lag of any kind, so far.

Another plus is the energy and heat management. When I was transferring Mac to Mac with Migration Assistant, the old iMac was roasting hot and the new iMac was absolutely cool to the touch and has never gotten warm. That's a nice thing.