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Imac for Video Editing

facevedo

facevedo

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Jul 31, 2018
2
0
So I bought an iMac for video web development and now I am doing video editing and motion graphics as part of my job. I use Adobe premiere and Adobe after effects but it's almost impossible to work with as premiere is so slow for playback that its impossible to do basic edits. Is there a fix for this or is there something I can upgrade to make it run faster. Below are the specs for the iMac I bought Thank you all for any help.

27-inch iMac with Retina 5K display

Hardware:
  • 3.5GHz quad-core 7th-generation Intel Core i5 processor, Turbo Boost up to 4.1GHz
  • 32GB 2400MHz DDR4
  • 1TB Fusion Drive
  • Radeon Pro 575 with 4GB video memory
 
I'll guess that the fusion drive is a big factor in "the slowdown". It has only 32gb of "SSD", and "the rest" is a 1tb platter-based hard drive.

A quick, easy and safe way to speed it up would be to add an EXTERNAL USB3 SSD (such as the Samsung t5) and set that up to become "the external boot drive". If you do this, I would expect overall performance to jump up 2x-3x.

I don't use the Adobe products you mentioned, but I heard that they're not particularly "fast" due to their internal coding (I could be way off on this).

I'd suggest Final Cut Pro instead -- particularly if you're editing in 4k. Use "proxy media" and things will go much faster.
 
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Adobe Premiere runs lightning fast on my Windows desktop. Slower than molasses on Mac OS.
 
I dumped Adobe Create Suite in favor of FCPX and Motion, for I don't like the monthly subscription plan of Adobe. I have taken 2 college courses in Motion Graphics that used Adobe's After Effects and I am finding out that for the most part that I can do the same kind of special effects in Motion. Though I have to say in After Effects you have better options and can manipulate the effect(s) better. I did run Adobe Create Suite on my iMac until this year (It was slow, but not too bad) and found it not fast as FCPX, but as one of my college professors once told me it works perfectly find (After Effects), if you don't mind taking a break for rendering and turning down the video's resolution to do live editing.
 
You have two big problems.
1) 1tb fusion has a 32gb ssd while the 2tb fusion has a 128gb ssd. I would still go with an ssd only option (256gb) and add a second ssd external for work in your case.

2) adobe is not optimize for the amd cards.

If you are still in the return period and you have a second machine I would also consider waiting for new release with 6 core cpu (nothing official but should be around October).
 
Full-time creative artist here, both photography and video. Unfortunately, the Fusion Drive is your hold-up. The 2TB Fusion Drive would have been vastly better since it has 128GB of SSD storage (versus 32GB in the 1TB Fusion Drive). The superior choice overall would have been a 512GB SSD or larger.

If you purchased your iMac from Apple, you can return or exchange it with no questions asked if you are within 14 days of purchase. But even if you're past that date, there's a decent chance Apple will still exchange it if you explain your predicament politely to them.

Once you move to an SSD drive (preferably), you'll have a vastly different experience.
 
gian8989 said:
You have two big problems.
1) 1tb fusion has a 32gb ssd while the 2tb fusion has a 128gb ssd. I would still go with an ssd only option (256gb) and add a second ssd external for work in your case.

2) adobe is not optimize for the amd cards.

If you are still in the return period and you have a second machine I would also consider waiting for new release with 6 core cpu (nothing official but should be around October).
Click to expand...


Yeah sadly way past 14 days I wonder if I can have the ssd switched? Have you heard about that being possibility?
 
Your other option is to run everything from an external SSD. I use a Samsung T5 SSD and I really can't discern any difference in speed from an internal SSD. Plan to spend about $600 for the 2TB flavor.
 
baypharm said:
Your other option is to run everything from an external SSD. I use a Samsung T5 SSD and I really can't discern any difference in speed from an internal SSD. Plan to spend about $600 for the 2TB flavor.
Click to expand...

I just got my iMac and T5 today, this is what I intend on doing. Are there any downsides to it if you don’t notice the difference? Do you store everything on the SSD or do you use the HDD too?
 
Your problem is the 1TB fusion drive limiting performance. Even Apple recommends the 2TB Fusion for better performance with 32GB memory systems. Exchange it if you still can or get an external SSD to clone your system to and boot from that if you are past the return date. Highly recommend FCP X (I edit video myself and much prefer it over Adobe Premier). Keep in mind that all your media should be on a fast drive that is separate from your system drive for best performance.

From Apple iMac page.png
 
Cookie18 said:
I just got my iMac and T5 today, this is what I intend on doing. Are there any downsides to it if you don’t notice the difference? Do you store everything on the SSD or do you use the HDD too?
Click to expand...

I store everything on the T5. I just leave it plugged in and even boot from it. I get same quick boot up times as well if you're wondering. Others here also use the T5 in this manner. In the box it comes with a USB 3 cable and a USB C cable. If you are using FCP and have massive amounts of digital files to process, edit, and render, then you will want to set up another T5 and use it for storage only.
 
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baypharm said:
I store everything on the T5. I just leave it plugged in and even boot from it. I get same quick boot up times as well if you're wondering. Others here also use the T5 in this manner. In the box it comes with a USB 3 cable and a USB C cable. If you are using FCP and have massive amounts of digital files to process, edit, and render, then you will want to set up another T5 and use it for storage only.
Click to expand...

That’s perfect, exactly what I was looking for from the set up.
 
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