Intel Debuts New Xeon-W Chips Possibly Destined for iMac Pro

[surfin1959]

This is a really helpful post - thank you!

I use Final Cut Pro X, iTunes and Compressor usually. Sometimes add in PhotoShop CC as well.

What do you think will be the best option for an iMac for a videographer who shoots 3-4 4K streams and syncs in a MultiCam project in FCPX?

I think 8GB VRAM and 64GB RAM will be enough with an 8-core chip?

I have no idea
I've never done those things. Off the top of my head, the thing with video is compression, which takes a lot of cores?
The best thing to do from here is find forums that talk about that software and the cpus they use, then weigh up the things you're doing then it'll come clear.
Remember the hard drive. At least an SSD, maybe raid, or M.2 if that works in your computer. That's where the most gains in speed can be made.

 

[joema2]

...I use Final Cut Pro X, iTunes and Compressor usually. Sometimes add in PhotoShop CC as well....What do you think will be the best option for an iMac for a videographer who shoots 3-4 4K streams and syncs in a MultiCam project in FCPX?....I think 8GB VRAM and 64GB RAM will be enough with an 8-core chip?

As a documentary videographer I frequently sync and edit four H264 4k cameras and multiple audio channels in a multicam project. It is an extreme CPU load and even my top-spec 2017 iMac 27 cannot handle that smoothly without proxy files. Unfortunately a 12-core Mac Pro D700 is even slower since it's based on Xeon and doesn't have Quick Sync. The 12-core nMP is OK once it's handling ProRes but it transcodes to ProRes proxy 2.1x slower than my 2017 iMac.

If all your cameras acquire in ProRes either internally or via HDMI capture devices, a 12-core nMP or a 2015 or 2017 top-spec iMac 27 is fine, provided they have a fast disk subsystem. If your 4k cameras are H264 this must be transcoded to proxy for smooth performance, and after that it will be fast on any contemporary machine, not just an iMac Pro.

Based on what we know now, it's unlikely any configuration of the iMac Pro will enable FCPX to edit four-camera 4k H264 smoothly without transcoding to proxy. The Xeon-W CPUs do not have Quick Sync. It's conceivable Apple could upgrade FCPX to use the VCE engine in AMD GPUs to provide hardware-accelerated encode/decode of long GOP video formats like H264, H265, VP9 and AV1. However this has not been announced or discussed.

Except for the potential issue with handling long GOP codecs, an 8-core iMac Pro looks pretty good. However even the current 2017 top-spec iMac 27 is very fast.

 

[RuffDraft]

As a documentary videographer I frequently sync and edit four H264 4k cameras and multiple audio channels in a multicam project. It is an extreme CPU load and even my top-spec 2017 iMac 27 cannot handle that smoothly without proxy files. Unfortunately a 12-core Mac Pro D700 is even slower since it's based on Xeon and doesn't have Quick Sync. The 12-core nMP is OK once it's handling ProRes but it transcodes to ProRes proxy 2.1x slower than my 2017 iMac.

If all your cameras acquire in ProRes either internally or via HDMI capture devices, a 12-core nMP or a 2015 or 2017 top-spec iMac 27 is fine, provided they have a fast disk subsystem. If your 4k cameras are H264 this must be transcoded to proxy for smooth performance, and after that it will be fast on any contemporary machine, not just an iMac Pro.

Based on what we know now, it's unlikely any configuration of the iMac Pro will enable FCPX to edit four-camera 4k H264 smoothly without transcoding to proxy. The Xeon-W CPUs do not have Quick Sync. It's conceivable Apple could upgrade FCPX to use the VCE engine in AMD GPUs to provide hardware-accelerated encode/decode of long GOP video formats like H264, H265, VP9 and AV1. However this has not been announced or discussed.

Except for the potential issue with handling long GOP codecs, an 8-core iMac Pro looks pretty good. However even the current 2017 top-spec iMac 27 is very fast.

Joema2 - this is the most helpful post I've had in comparison to the iMac Pro vs iMac 27" - thank you.

My main issue at the moment is that I'm transcoding those 4K video files to proxy via a MacBook Pro 2011 - therefore, even if I just change one clip's exposure or colours, I have to wait for that 5 minute clip to render.... it's painstaking.

I have GH4s, so I am using H264. It's a shame to learn that I'd still need to transcode to Proxy.

How long does it take a new 27" iMac to transcode say, 3-4 streams of 1 hour performance 4K?

I guess if there's a massive benefit in the transcoding speed, then I'm still reaping the benefits by upgrading.

I'd love to hang around for the new Mac Pros, but I can't see them arriving until December 2018, and I'll be so far behind my edits by then that it's unfortunately inconceivable.

Would you still say the iMac Pro will give me a reasonably significant upgrade over maxing out the current 2017 iMac or because the iMac Pro will be based on XEON architecture, you think it'll actually be slower in FCPX than a 2017 iMac?

I do have a fast subsystem - I invested in a G RAID Shuttle XL 24TB, so it's not going to be a bottleneck there, I don't think, though I admit that most people here understand hardware better than I do.

Thanks for your help!

 

[joema2]

...My main issue at the moment is that I'm transcoding those 4K video files to proxy via a MacBook Pro 2011 - therefore, even if I just change one clip's exposure or colours, I have to wait for that 5 minute clip to render.... it's painstaking....I am using H264. It's a shame to learn that I'd still need to transcode to Proxy....How long does it take a new 27" iMac to transcode say, 3-4 streams of 1 hour performance 4K?...

Using FCPX 10.3.4, my top-spec 2017 iMac 27 imports and transcodes to proxy 4k H264 from a GH4 at about 4.4x real time. IOW a 6 min 4k clip takes roughly about 80 seconds. A 1 hr 4k performance would take about 14 minutes per camera. This is likely much faster than a 2011 MBP.

The 2017 iMac also has a much faster GPU than the 2011 MBP, so effects will render much faster in the timeline. If using proxy, for most common effects you don't need to render the timeline at all, just apply the effects and keep going. An exception to this is very CPU-intensive effects such as stabilization or Neat Video noise reduction.

The 2017 iMac is actually fast enough to edit a single stream of 4k H264 material (in FCPX) without transcoding to proxy, but multicam still requires proxy.

..Would you still say the iMac Pro will give me a reasonably significant upgrade over maxing out the current 2017 iMac or because the iMac Pro will be based on XEON architecture, you think it'll actually be slower in FCPX than a 2017 iMac?...

This is a key question but nobody yet knows the answer. I was going to wait for the iMac Pro but I'm in the midst of a large documentary project and after testing a 12-core Mac Pro D700 and the 2017 iMac, the iMac was much faster for our H264-oriented workflow, so I got that.

There's no question a top-spec 2017 iMac will be a huge improvement over your 2011 MBP for FCPX editing and rendering. The real question is how much faster (if any) would an 8-core iMac Pro be on 4k H264 video editing in FCPX.

If it doesn't have Quick Sync (and it appears it won't) I don't see how it could possibly be faster on H264 or H265. It will be pretty fast in terms of CPU and GPU. The 8-core multicore CPU performance will be about 1.76x faster in a perfectly parallel workload, and the Vega 56 GPU is roughly 2x faster than the Radeon Pro 580 in the 2017 iMac.

However the 12-core Mac Pro D700 has roughly the same multicore CPU performance as the upcoming 8-core iMac Pro, yet in my tests the nMP was 1/2 as fast as my 2017 top-spec iMac 27 in 4k H264 transcoding. Unless Apple does some miracle to provide hardware-accelerated transcoding of long GOP video formats in the iMac Pro, I don't see how it would be much different.

For other workloads not involving hardware-acceleration on H264, H265 VP9 or AV1 codecs (e.g, Premiere Pro, Photoshop, etc) the iMac Pro will probably be considerably faster than the 2017 iMac.

 

[RuffDraft]

Using FCPX 10.3.4, my top-spec 2017 iMac 27 imports and transcodes to proxy 4k H264 from a GH4 at about 4.4x real time. IOW a 6 min 4k clip takes roughly about 80 seconds. A 1 hr 4k performance would take about 14 minutes per camera. This is likely much faster than a 2011 MBP.

You're not kidding! Mine takes HOURS! That is rapid!

The 2017 iMac also has a much faster GPU than the 2011 MBP, so effects will render much faster in the timeline. If using proxy, for most common effects you don't need to render the timeline at all, just apply the effects and keep going. An exception to this is very CPU-intensive effects such as stabilization or Neat Video noise reduction.

If I apple Neat Video to any of my longer performances, you're looking at 12 hours to a day. I also have Samurai Sharpening tool, which is even worse.

The 2017 iMac is actually fast enough to edit a single stream of 4k H264 material (in FCPX) without transcoding to proxy, but multicam still requires proxy.

This is great to hear. That means for 4K delivery I won't have to transcode all of my other files to Proxy and can render in real time with my multicam projects once they're exported to 4K as well. That's great to know - thank you!

I was going to wait for the iMac Pro but I'm in the midst of a large documentary project and after testing a 12-core Mac Pro D700 and the 2017 iMac, the iMac was much faster for our H264-oriented workflow, so I got that.

There's no question a top-spec 2017 iMac will be a huge improvement over your 2011 MBP for FCPX editing and rendering. The real question is how much faster (if any) would an 8-core iMac Pro be on 4k H264 video editing in FCPX.

If it doesn't have Quick Sync (and it appears it won't) I don't see how it could possibly be faster on H264 or H265. It will be pretty fast in terms of CPU and GPU. The 8-core multicore CPU performance will be about 1.76x faster in a perfectly parallel workload, and the Vega 56 GPU is roughly 2x faster than the Radeon Pro 580 in the 2017 iMac.

However the 12-core Mac Pro D700 has roughly the same multicore CPU performance as the upcoming 8-core iMac Pro, yet in my tests the nMP was 1/2 as fast as my 2017 top-spec iMac 27 in 4k H264 transcoding. Unless Apple does some miracle to provide hardware-accelerated transcoding of long GOP video formats in the iMac Pro, I don't see how it would be much different.

Using this logic, do you think the iMac 27" will in fact be faster than the iMac Pro based on transcoding alone? Is that why you've opted for a 27" iMac over an iMac Pro, or would you have waited for the iMac Pro if you weren't doing this long documentary edit?

For other workloads not involving hardware-acceleration on H264, H265 VP9 or AV1 codecs (e.g, Premiere Pro, Photoshop, etc) the iMac Pro will probably be considerably faster than the 2017 iMac.

Hmmmm... disappointed by that news a bit. I was really hoping the iMac Pro was going to be the answer for all FCPX users.

Thanks for all your input!!

 

[joema2]

...do you think the iMac 27" will in fact be faster than the iMac Pro based on transcoding alone? Is that why you've opted for a 27" iMac over an iMac Pro, or would you have waited for the iMac Pro if you weren't doing this long documentary edit?...

I think it's possible (even likely) a 2017 top-spec iMac 27 could be faster than an 8-core iMac Pro for workloads involving encoding/decoding H264 or H265 using FCPX. We don't know for sure since Apple hasn't revealed any more info on the iMac Pro.

For other video editing workloads such as ProRes, or maybe DNxHD or RAW, the iMac Pro will be considerably faster. Since Premiere Pro doesn't use Quick Sync on Macs, it would likely be a big improvement for Premiere users.

If my team used only ProRes or DNxHD acquisition or was using Premiere instead of FCPX I'd have probably waited for the iMac Pro or would have already been using a 12-core nMP D700.

I'll evaluate the iMac Pro on our H264 FCPX workload when it's available and if it's significantly faster than the 2017 iMac, I'll sell the iMac or get an iMac Pro in addition. However I don't really expect it to be much (if any) faster on this particular workload.

 

[JohnnyGo]

If my team used only ProRes or DNxHD acquisition or was using Premiere instead of FCPX I'd have probably waited for the iMac Pro or would have already been using a 12-core nMP D700.

I'll evaluate the iMac Pro on our H264 FCPX workload when it's available and if it's significantly faster than the 2017 iMac, I'll sell the iMac or get an iMac Pro in addition. However I don't really expect it to be much (if any) faster on this particular workload.

Thanks for the real workload feedback.

That’s another clear example that Apple is not tone deaf to PRO needs. It’s iMac line has entered into pro territory and turned Mac Pros (and future iMac pro) into niche products for really specific workloads.

In my view, Apple was initially planning to replace the Mac Pro with the iMac pro. Their “reversal” was probably due to media/social media outcry coupled with internal voices asking for Apple to go the extra mile and forget the bottom line (profits, economics rationale) and produce a new Mac Pro beast/expandable version similar to cMP.

 

[RuffDraft]

I think it's possible (even likely) a 2017 top-spec iMac 27 could be faster than an 8-core iMac Pro for workloads involving encoding/decoding H264 or H265 using FCPX. We don't know for sure since Apple hasn't revealed any more info on the iMac Pro.

For other video editing workloads such as ProRes, or maybe DNxHD or RAW, the iMac Pro will be considerably faster. Since Premiere Pro doesn't use Quick Sync on Macs, it would likely be a big improvement for Premiere users.

If my team used only ProRes or DNxHD acquisition or was using Premiere instead of FCPX I'd have probably waited for the iMac Pro or would have already been using a 12-core nMP D700.

I'll evaluate the iMac Pro on our H264 FCPX workload when it's available and if it's significantly faster than the 2017 iMac, I'll sell the iMac or get an iMac Pro in addition. However I don't really expect it to be much (if any) faster on this particular workload.

Thanks Joema2! Ultimately, I think it's a really wise choice to opt for the current 27" iMac, as I can totally see the stats coming back with the iMac 27" being faster than the iMac Pro and that video will get a lot of hits on YT and cause minor waves of controversy. I did have my doubts about the 8-core as Max Yuryev (I don't know how to spell his name), always said his iMacs were faster than the trash can Mac Pros... but the temperatures they ran at always seemed a little worrisome.

I think having waited so long, I'm still going to spring for the iMac Pro. It's one of those moments of... "You waited this long, might as well get one now!" And for all of the tasks that we do, I'm sure there'll be many moments when the iMac Pro is the wiser choice.

I was mostly impressed with the iMac Pro due to its new fan system and pro parts: the RAM being crash-safe (to an extent) and the video card being much newer makes me think that it's going to be a lot better investment in the long run (over a period of 5-6 years).

Just finishing another wedding off, and it's another project that's taken ten days, mostly due to procrastination as a result of the MacBook Pro being too slow... another 4 months of this and then it's over in time for my busiest year in business. I can cope with the slowness at the moment. I need another two films out this month, which is doable, and then I have a nicer schedule towards Christmas. I shoot 4 in December, which can mostly be edited on the new iMac Pro in January. Just another two to shoot before then, and another 7 to edit. 70 days takes us to November, so I'm not in the camp of needing to update now thankfully. Just hope this thing keeps going in the meantime!

Thanks again for all your input - I'm hoping Apple does something with FCPX to boost performance from the iMac Pro's hardware. Seems counter-intuitive to leave out Quick Sync and release Pro-line Macs that are slower than the iMac in some ways. I know that most 'pros' will be shooting in ProRes, but you and I know just how many pros shoot in H264. Considering I'll shoot 30 weddings next year, that'll be 250GB per wedding X 30 = 7.5TB before any transcoding.

The GH5 with its new update bringing 400mb/s would take that storage to 30TB: there's no way I am storing that much data per year on fast drives.

 

[USAntigoon]

Thanks joema2 and RuffDraft, these few posts back and forth between you both were very informative and instructive...Will wait for the iMac Pro as well...Thanks again...

 

[PunkNugget]

I'm just waiting for that guy who thinks they can build a better PC for the same price.

Well, I'm that guy. I just built this, I was able to get 2 x AMD Vega Frontier cards:

Motherboard : ASUS Prime X299-Deluxe ($334)
RAM: 64GB GSkill TridentZ RGB (F4-3600C17Q-64GTZR) - "Non-Approved" RAM that works anyway - LOL! :lol: ($764.00)
CPU: 1 x i9-7980XE (Delidded and Water Blocked) ($2,100)
GPU: 2 x AMD Radeon Vega Frontier Edition 16GB ($1,000 x 2 = $2,000)
PSU: EVGA 1600 T2 ($415)
Monitors: 3 x Asus MG28UQ 28" 4K ($430.00 x 3 = $1,290)
PC Case: Origin PC ($680)
Water Cooling Setup: EK Monoblock, 2 x GPU Waterblocks and Dual Bay/Dual Pump Reservoir ($660)
Total Price: $8,243.00

2017 Hackintosh Record Holder for ALL 3 Benching Apps:
GeekBench Score: 60,558
Cinebench: CPU 4292 cb
LuxMark: 44,686 - CPU and GPUs

So there you have it. So far I'm the Hackintosh Record Holder for 2017 (for now at least). I can tell you that if Apple were to sell a similar setup with everything that you see here, they would charge at least $16,000 to $18,500 (without water cooling the system)... and you know that to be true. But of course they wouldn't include more monitors, but if they did this is the price you'd be looking at.

 

[chatin]

Well, I'm that guy. I just built this, I was able to get 2 x AMD Vega Frontier cards:

Motherboard : ASUS Prime X299-Deluxe ($334)
RAM: 64GB GSkill TridentZ RGB (F4-3600C17Q-64GTZR) - "Non-Approved" RAM that works anyway - LOL! :lol: ($764.00)
CPU: 1 x i9-7980XE (Delidded and Water Blocked) ($2,100)
GPU: 2 x AMD Radeon Vega Frontier Edition 16GB ($1,000 x 2 = $2,000)
PSU: EVGA 1600 T2 ($415)
Monitors: 3 x Asus MG28UQ 28" 4K ($430.00 x 3 = $1,290)
PC Case: Origin PC ($680)
Water Cooling Setup: EK Monoblock, 2 x GPU Waterblocks and Dual Bay/Dual Pump Reservoir ($660)
Total Price: $8,243.00

2017 Hackintosh Record Holder for ALL three:
GeekBench Score: 60,558
Cinebench: CPU 4292 cb
LuxMark: 44,686 - CPU and GPUs

So there you have it. So far I'm the Hackintosh Record Holder for 2017 (for now at least). I can tell you that if Apple were to sell a similar setup with everything that you see here, they would charge at least $16,000 to $18,500 (without water cooling the system)... and you know that to be true. But of course they wouldn't include more monitors, but if they did this is the price you'd be looking at.

I built a similar system based on ASUS TUF Mark 2, but skipped the Skylake Cores which unfortunately will make iMac Pro a dinosaur before it is even released. Cannon Lake and Ice Lake are set to use 10nm process in early 2018.

 

[PunkNugget]

I built a similar system based on ASUS TUF Mark 2, but skipped the Skylake Cores which unfortunately will make iMac Pro a dinosaur before it is even released. Cannon Lake and Ice Lake are set to use 10nm process in early 2018.

Actually, they're not coming out until late 2018:

https://www.macrumors.com/2017/09/20/intel-cannonlake-end-of-2018-delay/

Then Ice Lake will follow? Naaaa, I need to be be productive now and what I have is screamin' fast enough for my needs. Also, I waited far too long (almost 3 years) to get this setup to where it's at now - FINALLY!