I don't know much about processors but I'm wondering if the specs of this machine will be enough to fix the problem I have editing photos in Lightroom with my 5k retina iMac? Right now I get the spinning beach ball when switching back and forth between the Develop and Library modules, which is hard to understand because I have a 1 TB SSD and the fastest processor offered. I've posted on the Adobe forums and they said that the processor is not sufficient to handle the resolution of the 5k iMac and large photo files.
Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
New iMacs With Up to Xeon E3 Processors, 64GB RAM, AMD Graphics, and Thunderbolt 3 Rumored for Late October
- Thread starter MacRumors
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
check your RAM usage when you get beach balls. often I notice in OSx, when RAM becomes an issue and it's forced to swap, it'll beach ball.
And Adobe software likes RAM. likes it a LOT. Especially as your photo's get even larger. it's not likely a CPU issue (if you're on the i7). Heck, I can edit in Lightroom without any beachball on my hackintosh on a 4 core i5 (4670 so in line with what was in the iMac). But I have 16gb RAM and it DOES start filling up fast
This is a conundrum for sure. My aging 27 iMac late 2011 is showing signs of strain. I'm about to replace my "home" directory drive with a SSD to lessen the bottle neck. However, that said, the prospect of a high end iMac would be nice. Xeon or not, at least there's room to grow. Yet the 27 lacks the screen real estate for a primary display. I would like to see Apple move the pro iMac to a 21:9 AR on a 4-5K display. I have a 34 inch LG 1080p display in box and was waiting for updated MacPros to mate and use it. However given the train wreck at Apple and their Mac dilemma, pro users are still scratching their heads trying to figure out where Tim and Apple wants to take the Mac.
On the corporate side, who is the advocate for the Mac? Tim appears to be advocating iOS and WatchOS. But who is advocating for macOS? Seriously, he was recently quoted in the UK at and AppleStore saying why would anyone need to buy a PC when the iPad Pro is enough.
If I were a board member, I would be asking some tough questions and requiring some tough answers. This alleged pipeline is not full unless you are counting the BS that he spews at every conference call.
I will give Apple (and the management team) this "get out of jail free card". Yes, you're building a giant new HQ along with other ancillary buildings. Sure your attention has been focused on that. Now move in already, and innovate!
On the corporate side, who is the advocate for the Mac? Tim appears to be advocating iOS and WatchOS. But who is advocating for macOS? Seriously, he was recently quoted in the UK at and AppleStore saying why would anyone need to buy a PC when the iPad Pro is enough.
If I were a board member, I would be asking some tough questions and requiring some tough answers. This alleged pipeline is not full unless you are counting the BS that he spews at every conference call.
I will give Apple (and the management team) this "get out of jail free card". Yes, you're building a giant new HQ along with other ancillary buildings. Sure your attention has been focused on that. Now move in already, and innovate!
It's a 5k issue. I can edit on my Macbook Pro without any of these issues, and if I use my external NEC monitor with the iMac I don't have a problem there either. There's a whole thread on the Adobe forums about it with many other 5k issues that have the same problem.
Uhhh....no. I am a photographer and want a large screen. I would have purchased a Mac Pro but they were more than what I needed. I am on my second iMac and my kids use my old one. My husband uses a PC but also prefers a desktop. We do not own a laptop in this house.
I'm glad to see Apple paying at least lip service to professional and high-end users, but the proof will be in the models released goign forward. The constant march towards unnecessarily thin machines with too few ports of the wrong type goes completely against what pro users need. This isn't a new message; the high end community has been singing with one voice on the same tune since the first MacBook ditched all its ports. Apple just hasn't been listening, and until we see new machines that really do what pro users need, I won't believe that the arrogance Apple has displayed has yet dissipated.
Some Xeon E3s have Quick Sync, so if an E3 V6 Xeon is used in an "iMac Pro", it would have this.
As already stated the problem is no Intel CPU with > 4 cores has Quick Sync. With the widespread proliferation of 4k H264 acquisition and soon-to-come H265, this (or some equivalent) is vital.
What an "iMac Pro" needs is more cores and much faster GPU, and whatever physical/cooling design required to achieve this. It does not necessarily need ECC memory, although if that didn't cost much or constrain other design elements, it would be OK.
What you don't want is a 4-core Xeon that's no faster than today's i7-7700K and gives you no other benefits except the "feel good" ECC. We don't need "feel good", we need "perform good".
AMD is already shipping 8-core CPUs and may ship a 16-core Ryzen by the time the new iMac ships. An expensive 4-core Xeon iMac will be like a gold-plated horse-and-buggy next to a 16-core Ryzen system. Pro software is increasingly capable of leveraging these cores. If it were not then nobody would ever buy a 12-core nMP or a 36-core HP Z840.
Ryzen doesn't have Quick Sync but AMD has VCE and nVidia has NVENC, which are similar. However Apple and app developers would have to write to those APIs. If Intel can't manage to make a > 4 core CPU with Quick Sync, maybe it's time for Apple to change CPU vendors and write to a different video encoding API.
I would agree with this. In fact CPU speed advances seem to be stagnating in general. Maybe they have hit the ceiling in the current form.
For the sake of all things holy, please don't solder in the RAM this time! Field upgradability please!!
Then at least give us the option as BTO. Some of us want so support AMD, exactly because there is no competition to Intel and Nvidia right now. AMD is doing incredibly well lately with Ryzen. I'd love to see their hard work pay off by buying a Ryzen iMac. It will benefit all of us in the long run.
More like, another variant of iMac. The existing version will likely be very similar and thats more than enough for the consumers/less demanding professionals. A Pro model would simply fill another segment.
Hmm, maybe the Xeon is true because they want to offer a bridge for people holding out for the new Mac Pro.
Either way, it'll likely only be an option and cost a lot as well.
I'm curious as to what they will come up with, but I think I'm sticking with my plans to get a Windows machine and keeping my old iMac for home office and general use around.
Maybe my next Mac will be a machine I can see clear value proposition in again, sure would be nice.
Glassed Silver:ios
Either way, it'll likely only be an option and cost a lot as well.
I'm curious as to what they will come up with, but I think I'm sticking with my plans to get a Windows machine and keeping my old iMac for home office and general use around.
Maybe my next Mac will be a machine I can see clear value proposition in again, sure would be nice.
Glassed Silver:ios
This.
I feel that you are one of the few on this forum that seems to understand why Apple uses AMD cards for their open CL performance.
Software such as adobe premiere pro take advantage of CUDA, so if someone uses premiere, it's best to just go with a windows machine at this point, or make a hackintosh with the beta NVIDIA drivers.
I would assume someone buys macs to use with Apple based software.
[doublepost=1491595318][/doublepost]
Thank you for bringing facts.
Another person who understands how these things work.
I don't see how so many people keep spouting things about the Xeon chips being hotter...
Considering the price of a stand alone 5 k display, the price of the 5k iMacs Don't seem too bad.
If you want actually numbers, the cheapest 5k display is from Apple at $1300 (and these so far are only compatible with the latest MacBook pros. Any other 5k screen would cost more), the base model 5k iMac is $1800.
So for the base model, you are paying $500 for a quad-core processor, a low-mid range dedicated GPU, 8gb of ram, a 7200rpm hard drive (no solid state), and logic board for the rest of the computer while including a Bluetooth keyboard and mouse.
Is the iMac out dated? Yes, very much so. Expensive. Not really considering that there isn't any other all in one computer with a 5k display included, or even a desktop with similar specs that you could purchase with a 5k display. This current mac is still competitively priced.
too many people are going to miss this in this thread so quoting so others might see
Annnnd mine too.
It would cost like 850 CAD to get it repaired......
I think they should make a recall.
AppleHQ dot news has an open letter to Apple on this subject
Earlier this week, Apple made the rare move of pre-announcing that it is working on new pro-focused iMac models that will launch later this year.
Apple did not share any specific details about what the upgrades will entail, but if the blog Pike's Universum is to be believed, the next-generation iMac lineup could feature several improvements that make Apple's desktop computer a more powerful workstation for professionals and average consumers alike.
The blog, citing a "little bird" that is "usually pretty accurate," claims the incoming iMac lineup will be available with up to the following tech specsIntel Xeon E3 processors: The new iMac will supposedly have up to a pro-grade Intel Xeon E3-1285 v6 processor. Intel has not released that particular chip yet, but based on previous generations of the E3-1285, the processor could essentially be the E3-1280 v6 coupled with integrated Intel HD Graphics P630. Notably, Xeon processors support ECC RAM.
o 16GB to 64GB of ECC RAM: 16GB of ECC RAM, configurable to 32GB or 64GB, in line with the current Mac Pro. iMacs currently have 8GB of non-ECC RAM, configurable to 16GB or 32GB. ECC RAM can detect and repair errors that cause data corruption and system crashes. No word if it will be DDR3L or DDR4.
o Faster NVMe SSDs: The rumor claims the next iMacs will have faster NVM Express PCIe-based flash storage with capacities up to 2TB. The current 4K and 5K iMac models are also configurable with NVMe PCIe-based SSDs or Fusion Drives up to 2TB.
o AMD graphics: The new iMacs will supposedly have AMD graphics options to support virtual reality and professional apps. The inclusion of AMD graphics in the next iMac has been rumored previously by Bloomberg. The current 27-inch iMac uses AMD Radeon R9 GPUs.
o Thunderbolt 3: Thunderbolt 3 ports would be an unsurprising inclusion in the next iMacs given they already exist on the latest MacBook Pro. Thunderbolt 3 carries power, USB, DisplayPort, HDMI, and VGA over a single cable, creating one standard for connecting most accessories and peripherals.The report claims the next iMac models will be unveiled in late October and be accompanied by a brand new keyboard. A previous report said Apple was exploring a standalone keyboard with a Touch Bar and Touch ID, but its release allegedly depends upon how well those features have been received on the latest MacBook Pro.
The blog also claims Apple is working on an 8K external display for Apple's "completely rethought" Mac Pro. This isn't a rumor we've heard before, but Apple did confirm it is working on a new Apple-branded pro display of an unspecified resolution. Dell recently launched a 32-inch 8K display for $5,000.
Another tidbit mentioned in the report is that macOS 10.13 supposedly will not use a mountain or park name anymore, with two alternative names in the running, including one that starts with the letter M. Apple's trademarked names that could fit that description include Monterey and Mojave.
Last, the report said the next high-end Mac mini "won't be so mini anymore," suggesting that the most expensive model might have a larger or taller design. Apple recently said the Mac mini is "important" within its product lineup, but it remained tight-lipped about the prospects of future updates.
Pike's Universum is best known for spotting references to unreleased Macs or upcoming software versions hidden within Apple's operating systems. The blog does not have an established track record of reporting on Apple's plans based on its own inside sources, so this rumor should be treated with caution for now.
Apple last updated the iMac in October 2015, a span of 541 days, per the MacRumors Buyer's Guide.
Article Link: New iMacs With Up to Xeon E3 Processors, 64GB RAM, AMD Graphics, and Thunderbolt 3 Rumored for Late October
Apple's Pro Apps are VERY VERY slow in comparison to Adobe when it comes to rendering. Realtime is not really the talk of the table. OpenGL Version 1.1 in FCPx and Motion X. Along with ultra slow redrawing of user interface.
PPRO is real time and the more GPUs you have the more you can do. And the number of GPUs you can put in to a Mac is limited by the numbers of GPUs Apple decides is best for its users. Because you cannot change it later or add more to it.
Apple's Pro Apps are NOT fast in comparison to whats out there.