Time To Upgrade? Will I be Happy

[lindmar]

I've recently got back into shooting video and editing with Final Cut Pro.

I'm currently running a iMac 27" Late 2012 2.9 GHz Core i5, 16GB Ram, NVIDIA GeForce 660M 512 MB, 3TB Fusion Drive. Hard to believe this gorgeous computer is over 5 years old!

Surprisingly the machine can handle most 4K footage okay. It's when I add LUTS or try to render, etc it slows right down to a crawl.

I'm debating between following:

The new 27" iMac i5 3.8 or the i7. I would add 32GB of ram to either and likely stick with the fusion drive.

As much as I want the iMac Pro, I'm not sure I'm ready to spend that coin.

Do you think I'll be happy with this upgrade? I'm leaning towards the i5 simply based on reading about the fans and heat on the i7

Any suggestions?

 

[Brookzy]

The fan/heat issue with the i7 is really exaggerated. Both will probably be a lot quieter than your current iMac.

A 2017 iMac will be a huge step up from your 2012 model and you will love it.

Personally I would upgrade to a 512GB SSD, and buy an external hard drive if you need the storage space. Fusion Drives were great in 2012 when flash was prohibitively expensive and about 2-3x the speed of a hard drive, but now they're pretty affordable and easily 10x the speed. It makes a huge difference in everyday usage, even as compared to a Fusion Drive.

 

[adamk77]

 

 

[nambuccaheadsau]

If you don't, mail it to me huh?

Just give the Fusion Drives a miss and go for a 512GB PCI-e Flash Drive.

 

[06tb06]

Final Cut Pro user here.

The new 27" iMac i5 3.8 or the i7. I would add 32GB of ram to either and likely stick with the fusion drive.

FCP will surely utilize the additional threads on the i7 chip as well as the added memory. Both are great upgrade options.

I purchased the 27" i7 iMac a couple weeks ago. I opted for the 500 GB SSD and i7 because those are components that cannot be upgraded. I can't compare it with the i5 because I don't own one, but I'm happy with my purchase. I haven't heard the fan going crazy. And I haven't had any issues with heat.

The CPU can be upgraded after purchase if you have a teardown kit and a few hours to spare.

 

[Fishrrman]

OP wrote:
"Surprisingly the machine can handle most 4K footage okay."

IF you can "hold on" another 6-7 months or so, it might be worth waiting for the 2018 iMacs.

I believe they will offer some welcome improvements in the handling of 4k video, over the current model. (such as onboard CPU decoding of DRM-protected video?)

Perhaps others will jump in with corrections if I'm wrong.

 

[lindmar]

I could hold out...if absoutely required. It's crazy how my current machine CAN edit it. I also have
2.7 GHz Intel Core i5 Macbook Pro Early 2015 which can do it.

Any other thoughts?

 

[Dc2006ster]

You are the only person who can say if a particular configuration meets your needs so I would suggest you take the i7 home and test it out. If you experience the noise/heat issues, return it for the i5 or for a build to order i7 with the fusion drive or ssd that you want. This is what I did . I purchased the 3.8 i5 with a 2TB fusion but returned it for one with a 512 GB SSD. I then bought more RAM from OWC.

Apple has an excellent return policy.

 

[fathergll]

OP wrote:
"Surprisingly the machine can handle most 4K footage okay."

IF you can "hold on" another 6-7 months or so, it might be worth waiting for the 2018 iMacs.

I believe they will offer some welcome improvements in the handling of 4k video, over the current model. (such as onboard CPU decoding of DRM-protected video?)

Perhaps others will jump in with corrections if I'm wrong.

Foxconn leak on Reddit said there was going to be a full iMac redesign for 2018. Logically speaking this makes sense since the current iMac design is very old and Apple needs to get some kind of redesign to showcase. I can almost guarantee the next version will not have user up-gradable ram.

Either way I'm pretty sure there won't be new iMacs shipping until late next year. I almost pulled the trigger myself on a 2017 iMac with all the holiday sales knocking $200 off some models but I think i'm going to hold off.

 

[lindmar]

I might continue to wait.... Tough call.

 

[joema2]

...Final Cut Pro....currently running a iMac 27" Late 2012 2.9 GHz Core i5, 16GB Ram, NVIDIA GeForce 660M 512 MB, 3TB Fusion Drive....Surprisingly the machine can handle most 4K footage okay. It's when I add LUTS or try to render, etc it slows right down to a crawl...debating between following:...new 27" iMac i5 3.8 or the i7. I would add 32GB of ram to either and likely stick with the fusion drive....I'm leaning towards the i5 simply based on reading about the fans and heat on the i7...

For editing 4k H264 video on FCPX, the 2017 i7 iMac is vastly faster than your current machine. This is a prime example of how synthetic benchmarks can be misleading. For your specific workload the 2017 is a much greater improvement that the benchmarks indicate. In this specific workload it's roughly twice as fast as the top-spec 2015 i7 model on key tasks, so it might be 3x faster than your 2012. That said, if you add enough effects to a 4k timeline it will slow down almost any machine.

I edit many terabytes of 4k H264 using FCPX on a 2017 top-spec i7 iMac and it works fine. I often have it busy for days transcoding, during which all CPU cores are pegged and the fan is on high. I've had no issue with reliability. Since much of what I edit is 4k H264 multi-cam, even the 2017 really needs proxy files for smooth performance. But it can edit most single-camera 4k H264 codecs without transcoding and gives pretty good performance.

That said, if you are highly sensitive to noise and if you'll be doing a lot of transcoding, there might be cases where the i5 could be better since it's quieter (and slower) at high CPU loads. E.g, a recording studio. However in most cases I think it's less a problem that the volume of discussion on this point implies. You can always return the i7 for an i5 if it's objectionable.