iMac Pro: Order time

[RuffDraft]

Hello everyone,

I know that yesterday, some people in the States received an email with a calendar time which showed when they'd be able to order their iMac Pro.

In the UK, we weren't so lucky. At the moment, I have no idea what time tonight/tomorrow the iMac Pro will be available to order.

Does anyone know if the order times for the iMac Pro are synced together around the world like the iPhone X? Or will we be able to order at midnight? Or 9am local time?

At the moment, I'm thinking that my sleep pattern is going to be a bit nuts tonight if we have no idea. I'll be getting up every couple of hours to check.

Thanks everyone.

 

[alarustic]

I was just coming on to post something similar. You saved me the hassle, thanks!

I'm assuming be ready from 8am.

 

[kingjames1970]

I was just coming on to post something similar. You saved me the hassle, thanks!

I'm assuming be ready from 8am.

Yeah and me. The Apple Store is phoning me but I assume it won't be at 8am so I imagine I will have ordered one asap. I'm going to check at midnight just in case. Just hoping by the time I've look at the options that they're not all gone!

(Thinking 10 core, 64 Vega, 64GB Ram. But if that delays things too much or they're completely taking the p*ss with cost, I'll start dropping extras!)

 

[bxs]

The Email alert Apple sent to me for the new iMac Pro had a Calendar link to have the ordering specifics entered into my Calendar. This event stated 5:30 AM to 8:30 AM on Dec 14 USA West coast time. The 3 hr windows seems a bit weird to me.

 

[nambuccaheadsau]

Still another day 15 Dec Down under with no price details as yet.

 

[kingjames1970]

Still another day 15 Dec Down under with no price details as yet.

Feel for you, you must be struggling with last year's iMac.
I've got last year's MacBook Pro and it's torture working with this old tech

 

[driftless]

My calendar entry is like bxs'. It is a little weird.

 

[RuffDraft]

Thanks everyone!

If it's the same everywhere, then it would be 13:30 in the UK, which is really weird... so I take it that it could go online at any time... I'm going to check at midnight too... I think everyone wants the same one:

10-core, 64GB RAM and 16GB VEGA. I'm really hoping that they've pre-empted this and made a tonne of them as one of their configured options. That way, we could all have it by Friday even... but I'm not holding my breath.

If the wait time is one month, I can deal with that.

At the minute, I'm going to check from midnight until 1am, and then 3am, 5am, 7am and then just stay up until they're out to be ordered.

I have to go out at 11am, so I'm hoping it's available for order before that time.

 

[bxs]

Thanks everyone!

If it's the same everywhere, then it would be 13:30 in the UK, which is really weird... so I take it that it could go online at any time... I'm going to check at midnight too... I think everyone wants the same one:

10-core, 64GB RAM and 16GB VEGA. I'm really hoping that they've pre-empted this and made a tonne of them as one of their configured options. That way, we could all have it by Friday even... but I'm not holding my breath.

If the wait time is one month, I can deal with that.

At the minute, I'm going to check from midnight until 1am, and then 3am, 5am, 7am and then just stay up until they're out to be ordered.

I have to go out at 11am, so I'm hoping it's available for order before that time.

I'm also interested in the 10core, 2TB SSD and 16GB VEGA. I'm on the fence with RAM size as it will depend what Apple surcharges going from 64GB to 128GB RAM.

My workload that runs for days creates large checkpoint files as it proceeds every 15 mins. These files can be as large as 10GB. Writing these to SSD will be much faster than writing them to my external RAID5 units, and even faster if they can be written to RAM. The SSD data is non volatile whereas the RAM isn't. However, I can create an APFS container on the SSD media that has two volumes (one for macOS and the other as Scratch-Cache, create a RAM disk that the checkpoint files can be written to and have a process that asynchronously writes these RAM resident files out to the SSD APFS file system Scratch-Cache. RAM is several times faster than SSD and this would allow my workflow to not be hostage to the i/o wait time writing to the SSD.

 

[kingjames1970]

Thanks everyone!

If it's the same everywhere, then it would be 13:30 in the UK, which is really weird... so I take it that it could go online at any time... I'm going to check at midnight too... I think everyone wants the same one:

10-core, 64GB RAM and 16GB VEGA. I'm really hoping that they've pre-empted this and made a tonne of them as one of their configured options. That way, we could all have it by Friday even... but I'm not holding my breath.

If the wait time is one month, I can deal with that.

At the minute, I'm going to check from midnight until 1am, and then 3am, 5am, 7am and then just stay up until they're out to be ordered.

I have to go out at 11am, so I'm hoping it's available for order before that time.

Wow, that’s dedication to the cause. I should give you my number and you could text me when to get up!

 

[RuffDraft]

I'm also interested in the 10core, 2TB SSD and 16GB VEGA. I'm on the fence with RAM size as it will depend what Apple surcharges going from 64GB to 128GB RAM.

My workload that runs for days creates large checkpoint files as it proceeds every 15 mins. These files can be as large as 10GB. Writing these to SSD will be much faster than writing them to my external RAID5 units, and even faster if they can be written to RAM. The SSD data is non volatile whereas the RAM isn't. However, I can create an APFS container on the SSD media that has two volumes (one for macOS and the other as Scratch-Cache, create a RAM disk that the checkpoint files can be written to and have a process that asynchronously writes these RAM resident files out to the SSD APFS file system Scratch-Cache. RAM is several times faster than SSD and this would allow my workflow to not be hostage to the i/o wait time writing to the SSD.

128GB sounds like a decent purchase in your situation then - that's a really great workaround that you're considering.

I'm not so sure that many of us will benefit from 128GB RAM for a long while, but it's obvious that it'll increase the shelf life of your iMac Pro considerably in the long term.

I'm expecting a massive price increase for SSD and RAM, as I guess we all are, so I'd even consider 32GB RAM if it's another £1500 for 64GB, though I'm hoping that it's less than £1K.

My workflow isn't supposed to improve much with the increase from 32-64GB RAM in FCPX, so I'm hesitant to spend a fortune, even though I'll benefit in the long run from having it.

The default VEGA chip may even be good enough as well, but I obviously want to upgrade that.

I'll benefit mostly from having as many cores as I can get, so I'm definitely having the 10-core - that's my baseline buy this evening / tomorrow.

I have a £7K budget, but I'm hoping that I don't spend it all... if I can get the dream machine for that though, then I'll be purchasing that one.

I'm well excited. It's been a long time coming.

Wow, that’s dedication to the cause. I should give you my number and you could text me when to get up!

You're more than welcome to p.m me your number if you're in the UK and I'll give you a text once it's live.

I'm really struggling with my current setup, so I want to be one of the first to get in.

 

[driftless]

That configuration should be very popular; that configuration will be where I will start and add other upgrades based on price.

I got up in the middle of the night to order our iPhone X's only to find Apple was having issues with their site. I am not going to do that again. I hope that the iMac Pro launch tomorrow will be smoother.

 

[RuffDraft]

That configuration should be very popular; that configuration will be where I will start and add other upgrades based on price.

I got up in the middle of the night to order our iPhone X's only to find Apple was having issues with their site. I am not going to do that again. I hope that the iMac Pro launch tomorrow will be smoother.

Snap on the iPhone X, but thankfully, I got in via the app, which helped massively.

I doubt the market for the iMac Pro is anywhere near as big, particularly at this time of year, so hopefully it'll be smooth sailing.

Definitely considering doing the same - the next config up and seeing what to do with it afterwards... I'm not so sure I'll do anything if it's under £7K and has 16GB Vega and 10-core... I may increase the RAM if it's not extortionate. It'd be great to have 64gigs.

Going off the Mac Pro configs - the one up improves on CPU and GPU... so I'm hoping that the iMac Pro is the same for a similar increase in price (£900). If that's the case, and the RAM is less than £1K, I'll update the RAM and wait on the delivery...

 

[bxs]

I'm also interested in the 10core, 2TB SSD and 16GB VEGA. I'm on the fence with RAM size as it will depend what Apple surcharges going from 64GB to 128GB RAM.

My workload that runs for days creates large checkpoint files as it proceeds every 15 mins. These files can be as large as 10GB. Writing these to SSD will be much faster than writing them to my external RAID5 units, and even faster if they can be written to RAM. The SSD data is non volatile whereas the RAM isn't. However, I can create an APFS container on the SSD media that has two volumes (one for macOS and the other as Scratch-Cache, create a RAM disk that the checkpoint files can be written to and have a process that asynchronously writes these RAM resident files out to the SSD APFS file system Scratch-Cache. RAM is several times faster than SSD and this would allow my workflow to not be hostage to the i/o wait time writing to the SSD.

I should add that the ECC memory is a big bonus for me as any uncorrected memory that can occur and not be noticed in the iMac's with non-ECC can affect my computations such that numerical convergence isn't achieved and causes my workflow to continue much much longer than it would if the memory error(s) were to be corrected. This is a BIG bonus for my workflow, and is the primary reason I currently use the MP6,1 with its ECC memory.

 

[driftless]

I wonder how much of a difference in both price and speed that 14-core CPU will have over the 10-core? I am guessing that the 10 is the sweet spot.

 

[RuffDraft]

I should add that the ECC memory is a big bonus for me as any uncorrected memory that can occur and not be noticed in the iMac's with non-ECC can affect my computations such that numerical convergence isn't achieved and causes my workflow to continue much much longer than it would if the memory error(s) were to be corrected. This is a BIG bonus for my workflow, and is the primary reason I currently use the MP6,1 with its ECC memory.

That's a really fascinating insight - thanks for sharing. I did a bit of research on ECC RAM, and from what I read, very few machines experience errors that would be corrected by ECC RAM, so I'm guessing that the computations people are using these ECC RAM modules for have a big impact as to how useful ECC RAM is. I operate in FCPX all day, every day, unless I'm out shooting, and so I'm hoping that there's some use for ECC RAM within FCPX... but either way, I'm happy that it is ECC and XEON processors anyways, as I never shut down my Macs - they're always doing something whilst I'm sleeping.

I wonder how much of a difference in both price and speed that 14-core CPU will have over the 10-core? I am guessing that the 10 is the sweet spot.

I'm guessing the difference could be quite great in both performance and cost. I definitely agree that the 10-core is the sweet spot for most users, as the times that have been released in terms of importing footage and images seems to be considerably faster with the 10-core. I'm guessing if you're doing a huge import, thent he 14-core will make a potentially large difference to you, but I will definitely love the 10-core speeds, given how much faster the multi-threaded scores are vs the 8-core.

The fact that I have to buy now means that I'll be even happier than I'm getting the best possible CPU for my money at the time with everyone else having to wait longer.

I've been hoping and nearly praying that my MacBook Pro doesn't die. I've literally thrown everything I could at it and it's still going since 2011, with only one GPU fail that Apple replaced (along with the motherboard) for free. It's the Matte 17" which I absolutely love, but I'm happy to be moving my workflow to a larger screen with greater colour accuracy and everything else that comes with the iMac Pro. I think we'll have quite the machine on our hands.

 

[danielwsmithee]

You know a lot has changed since Apple announced the default configuration. I was surprised to see Apple sent 10-core 64gb configurations as all the demo units. They also surprised everyone with a new 14-core configuration.

Between that and intel’s last minute upgrading the 8th gen i7 chips to 6-core to compete with Ryzen. I have to wonder if Apple is going to just make the 10-core the default configuration for the iMac Pro. It really won’t be that long and they will be selling a 6-core standard iMac based on the 8700k. They may have decided after Intel announced the 8700k to differentiate the iMac Pro line more by making 10-core default. An 8700k iMac would make it hard to justify the cost differential for an 8-core iMac Pro.
[doublepost=1513204299][/doublepost]

I'm also interested in the 10core, 2TB SSD and 16GB VEGA. I'm on the fence with RAM size as it will depend what Apple surcharges going from 64GB to 128GB RAM.

My workload that runs for days creates large checkpoint files as it proceeds every 15 mins. These files can be as large as 10GB. Writing these to SSD will be much faster than writing them to my external RAID5 units, and even faster if they can be written to RAM. The SSD data is non volatile whereas the RAM isn't. However, I can create an APFS container on the SSD media that has two volumes (one for macOS and the other as Scratch-Cache, create a RAM disk that the checkpoint files can be written to and have a process that asynchronously writes these RAM resident files out to the SSD APFS file system Scratch-Cache. RAM is several times faster than SSD and this would allow my workflow to not be hostage to the i/o wait time writing to the SSD.

Sounds like you’ve got a good solution. I’ve done something similar on Linux previously.

I’d worry about the wear on the SSD making regular large writes to the SSD. Could you not do the same with RAM disk and the raid array and skip the SSD.

 

[RuffDraft]

You know a lot has changed since Apple announced the default configuration. I was surprised to see Apple sent 10-core 64gb configurations as all the demo units. They also surprised everyone with a new 14-core configuration.

Between that and intel’s last minute upgrading the 8th gen i7 chips to 6-core to compete with Ryzen. I have to wonder if Apple is going to just make the 10-core the default configuration for the iMac Pro. It really won’t be that long and they will be selling a 6-core standard iMac based on the 8700k. They may have decided after Intel announced the 8700k to differentiate the iMac Pro line more by making 10-core default. An 8700k iMac would make it hard to justify the cost differential for an 8-core iMac Pro.

I think the 8-core disappearing is wishful thinking! LOL! I would love that too, but it's still listed as an 8-core as standard on their website. I definitely agree with your logic though - it'd be better to wait if you were only opting for 8-cores.

 

[RuffDraft]

Doesn't look like a midnight release in the U.K.

 

[bxs]

2TB SSD

...snip...
[doublepost=1513204299][/doublepost]Sounds like you’ve got a good solution. I’ve done something similar on Linux previously.

I’d worry about the wear on the SSD making regular large writes to the SSD. Could you not do the same with RAM disk and the raid array and skip the SSD.

You make a good point. If the checkpoint files are in RAM and can be written out from there to RAID5 in the background that would be a better solution than using the expensive SSD and maybe its wear and tear aspect. Thanks....

As an aside.... does anyone have knowledge about how the physical data paths are configured for the 4x TB3 ports. Do all 4 port share a single data channel, 2 channels, 3 channels or even 4 channels ? In comparison, the MP6,1 has three separate data channels for its 6 TB2 ports; 2 per channel.

 

[Bryan Bowler]

This is super fun following all of you! I can't wait to see what the actual prices will be. And I can't wait to see all of the configurations after they have been fully vetted/tested. Once I'm armed with all of that data (in approx 2 months), then I can pull the trigger and place my order.

RuffDraft, I didn't realize you were limping along on a 2011 MBP! Wow! No wonder you're staying up to place your order...you definitely need this machine, now!

 

[mattcube64]

As much as I would *love* to justify one of these bad boys, I just don't have a use for it.

I'm on the road ~60% of the time for work, and I spend many of my free weekends traveling with my wife and enjoying photography as a hobby. My 2017 15" MBP is more than enough for my needs. But boy oh boy wouldn't I love to edit in Lightroom on a 5K.

... but then I could just buy the LG monitor... ;p

Have fun, all of you! I'll definitely be keeping an eye on these threads and tinkering with the cart options tomorrow.

 

[macdoofus]

What does Apple allow for a return window? I want to test drive this to see if it sounds like a hovercraft when it heats up. If it fly's cool, and is otherwise absolutely flawless, I plan to keep it.

 

[mattcube64]

14 Days is standard in the US. That starts on delivery day.

 

[Outsiderdude26]

What does Apple allow for a return window? I want to test drive this to see if it sounds like a hovercraft when it heats up. If it fly's cool, and is otherwise absolutely flawless, I plan to keep it.

Usually it's 14 days... but because of the holidays return policy, you can return until January 8th.

https://www.macrumors.com/2017/11/10/apple-2017-holiday-return-policy/