new iMac Pro now available

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Oh yes, I was very upset too - I actually missed the announcement, and was expecting a new model in a few months, when someone pointed out that, the FULL current lineup was already given, and there's no 17" anymore ... They should've left it a special order item, even at higher price - the hardware quality well justifies the price tag, in my opinion.
...

There was a time when I used to look forward to the latest upgrade, be it software or hardware. But these days I dread most product announcements - "Coming, ready or not" as another junk upgrade hits the streets.

You can then convert and format any external storage you have using disk utility, although don't do this if the storage might be used by pre-High-Sierra machines as they obviously won't recognise the FS.

Thanks for the tip - did exactly that to my external SSD last night. Perfect!
 
Thanks for the tip - did exactly that to my external SSD last night. Perfect!
Glad it was useful :)
If you haven't already, you can buy an Apple style, aluminium-looking, empty optical drive case (slot loading), and stick the DVD drive from MBPro into it - I only need it about once a year, but still ...
 
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After weeks of umming and ahhing on whether to go iMac or iMac Pro, we finally decided to opt for an iMac. And here's why:

The iMac Pro starts to get seriously expensive by the time you ramp up the RAM. It's over £6k with 64GB. Not that we need that much now, but you can't upgrade later. So it's now or never. Also, the performance benefits are only apparent when you are on cam... And, as it was 35 years ago when I programmed interrupt handlers, most CPUs and GPUs are barely ticking over for much of the working day. Had this been a machine dedicated to continual GPU intensive work then it would have been a different story. But it's not. So, the odd 2 or 3 seconds here or there is effectively meaningless in practice and in fact, had there been a bigger price difference, I suspect the i5 would have been an even better buy. Either way, both Pro and the spec ordered above come with SSD and that's the one obvious difference between my current 27" iMac with traditional HDD and my SSD equipped MacBook Pro.

However, there is one downside associated with the iMac and that is it only has 2 T3 ports, the same number of T2 ports on my current Mac. And it's a real pain when you have single port peripherals attached, as we do. The Pro has four T3 ports which would have been nice. But it's not a major problem as we will just need to make sure that any peripherals we buy now, have pass through (twin port) capability.

I'll post some unboxing photos when it arrives and also a couple of shots of the RAM upgrade when we add a couple of 16GB modules, taking it up to 40GB - 8 more than we have now. Whoopee.
 
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Have you had a 5k iMac before?

The display is simply glorious.

What is this replacing?

The iMac Pro does have ECC ram though, puts the cost up somewhat.

I believe the 10 core pro is the sweet spot, price to performance wise.

Either way I’m sure you won’t be disappointed. I had the 5k iMac with 32GB ram and it was stolen, so was replaced with one of the new 15” MacBook pros with Touch ID and touch bar, and while it’s epic, I do miss my big iMac.
 
This is the iMac I bought for my wife last month. There’s no way she needs a higher spec and she’s delighted with it. Fusion’s not as good as full SSD but her occasional use doesn’t justify the many extra bucks.
 

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Have you had a 5k iMac before?

The display is simply glorious.

What is this replacing?

The iMac Pro does have ECC ram though, puts the cost up somewhat.

I believe the 10 core pro is the sweet spot, price to performance wise.

Either way I’m sure you won’t be disappointed. I had the 5k iMac with 32GB ram and it was stolen, so was replaced with one of the new 15” MacBook pros with Touch ID and touch bar, and while it’s epic, I do miss my big iMac.


Never had a 5k before, no. Not too worried about the res, although guessing it's brighter etc? It's going to replace a 27" i5 from 2011.

Interesting that you should mention missing your 27". I've been in Cornwall for almost 4 weeks since the New Year and thought about taking an iMac with me. But didn't. Instead took my 2013, i7, 15" MBP and you know, despite having to work on urgent client stuff, didn't miss the big screen once. Says Chris sitting here writing this in front of a pair of 27" monitors - iMac and Cinema Display.

Are you Mac or PC at work?
 
Yeah, yours will be brighter and more colourful than mine was, as yours is the new P3 colour gamut supporting one and has more nits lol
Mine was pre-that. You'll notice the resolution alright, especially being used to the 27" non-retina display.

All macs at work in my software dev office. The rest of the organisation has PCs except the photo/video guys and the designers who've all got Macs too.
At home I have a 2014 15" MBP and a 2011 21.5" iMac, and at work a 2017 space grey 15" MBP.

My little 2011 21.5" iMac is the quad core i5, and has 20GB ram, so even with High Sierra installed, it doesn't feel slow at all, even at it's age.
 
PS. My new work MBP is the same P3 colour gamut display, and side by side comparison with my home 2014 MBP which is the same sRGB colour gamut as my slightly older 5k iMac, the difference in brightness and colour saturation was very noticeable.

I took pictures to try to illustrate, but obviously that's a flawed concept from the get-go. :confused:

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Yes I'd seen they changed to the video friendly P3 space. Must say, tempted by the brightness on your work laptop. My 2013 MBP is pretty poor in this respect. Well, not so much the brightness but the dynamic range. Everything seems so flat. Based on what you're showing above, will take another look next time I risk an Apple store visit. Although I guess I could go to John Lewis. :dk:
 
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I’m after a desktop for my children to do their homework (amongst many other junior related stuff like music editing etc) and was thinking of buying them an “older” iMac instead of buying a brand new Windows one. A brand new iMac would be far too much for what I need.

Any advice on what I should expect to pay for one? Anything I should look out for? I’ve looked on fleabay at prices so I’ve got a rough idea though. We are an Apple household but everything is portable, we’ve never owned a “fixed” computer, so I’m trying to work out the best route.
 
I’m after a desktop for my children to do their homework (amongst many other junior related stuff like music editing etc) and was thinking of buying them an “older” iMac instead of buying a brand new Windows one. A brand new iMac would be far too much for what I need.

Any advice on what I should expect to pay for one? Anything I should look out for? I’ve looked on fleabay at prices so I’ve got a rough idea though. We are an Apple household but everything is portable, we’ve never owned a “fixed” computer, so I’m trying to work out the best route.

Hi Lee,

MancMike is the chap you need, I’m sure he will be along soon :D

Abs
 
:eek:

For why? Tell me more. :D
 
I am in the process of upgrading my iMac and came across the new iMac Pro.

Prices start at £4,899.00 and then go up and up and ...

Very nice although overkill for what I need. ;)

Anybody considering?

Link: iMac Pro

Tech spec and config page/prices below:


View attachment 73594

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Very nice indeed , and makes my 2008 MacPro 8 core seem quite pedestrian now ; however both it and my 17" MBP of the same vintage still do everything I require , even if now stuck at El Capitan .

I have a 'relatively' new iMac at work , but the biggest bugbear is that all the connectors are on the back , which makes it extremely awkward to plug things in and out ( I do have a small USB extension cable dangling which is fine , but for my G-Drive mini , which connects via FW 800 and needs a FW-Thunderbolt adaptor , it is a total PITA since the connector constantly comes out , and just forget trying to use the SD card slot on the rear , at least if you care about not breaking the lock tabs out of your SD cards ... )

There is , reputedly , a new Mac Pro over the horizon , which will get away from the limitations of the 'trashcan' , and I might consider one of these in a year or two .
 
The iMac you're planning to get is perfectly suitable for your requirements, you'll really like it. It'll be in no way slow, and will still be good in 5+ years time. I have a 2009 iMac at home, and while that is getting on a bit at nearly 9 years, still works perfectly, albeit a little sluggish if doing anything particularly intensive.

The iMac Pro is one of the most powerful computers available to consumers full stop, and it's built right into a glorious big 5k display. For professional video editors, etc, it may be worth it, but I certainly couldn't make use of it's performance...

I bought my existing MacPro for video editing and photography and , TBH , it still does everything I need , primarily editing HDV 1080i and 720p footage on FCP7 , and I can bring XDCAM footage home from work without any problems importing the MXF files . While I seldom have more than two tracks of video , plus titles , on a timeline , along with associated audio , and I don't go above 1920x1080 , it does everything I need and renders quickly enough in the time I take to go have a coffee break every so often .

Even my 2009 MBP is fine for cutting things together in the field when something is needed in a hurry to show at the end of an event .

FCP7 still works for me , I tried FCPX and didn't like it , and while we have Adobe Derriere at work , I hate it with a vengeance .

Sure , if you are shooting 4K or higher , or working with input from many cameras , you might need something more , but I'm happy with what I have .
 
Very nice indeed , and makes my 2008 MacPro 8 core seem quite pedestrian now ; however both it and my 17" MBP of the same vintage still do everything I require , even if now stuck at El Capitan .

While El Cap is the latest officially supported release, there is a way to install High Sierra. I had it on my now gone 2009 iMac. That had 8GB of ram and a core 2 duo. I tried it for a few weeks but then reverted back to El Cap, as High Sierra was just pushing it too far, so I think Apple got it right, calling El Cap the latest for those generation Macs.

My 2011 iMac runs High Sierra officially, and manages perfectly fine, but it's a quad core i5 and has 20GB ram and an SSD.

the biggest bugbear is that all the connectors are on the back , which makes it extremely awkward to plug things in and out

Tell me about it. I rarely need to, but reaching right around the back to plug in a flash drive in is a PITA. You can get these neat things though, which are better than a dangling USB hub, as it looks more permanent and brings most all the ports to the front.

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For for the iMac Pro:
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That’s a handy looking gadget , I might pick one up .

Re hacking to install a later OS , I did it on one of the older MacPro at work , but it just didn’t work right , mainly because of the graphics card , so I reverted too .
 
:eek:

For why? Tell me more. :D

We move a lot of client data, and during the very first transfer the fan came on and was very noisy. And when we experimented further we found that running 2 or 3 moderately heavy tasks simultaneously would also lead to the same result. So, I started Skype on the new iMac and called Apple using the inbuilt mic. And when the guy answered we started a data transfer, and as the fan noise built, he could hardly hear me....

A few hours later we swapped it in store for the base iMac Pro, and it's been good as gold. Perfect in fact. All power to Apple as they behaved impeccably and suggested we sign on as business users so as to qualify for the 6% discount. Icing on the cake.

Before it went back, I did manage to measure the iMac disk IO with Black Magic's disk speed test and compare it to others in the office:
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And here's a screen grab from the Pro's Black Magic's speed test listed above. Not a perfect measure, but a good indication of what to expect given most of our work is IO focused, not CPU/GPU.

upload_2018-3-31_23-22-10.png


So quite a big write improvement over the 27" we returned back to Apple and feels a lot snappier too . And makes my MacBook feel decidedly slow - let alone the 2011 iMac which now feels almost unusable.

The biggest improvement is that the Pro runs almost silent and in fact the only thing I can hear as I type this is the fan on my LaCie 5TB T2 archive setup. No doubt the next few days will reveal other performance differences, especially given we use much of the Adobe CC stack.

Oh yes, one other major difference before I forget. The Pro is considerably heavier. Much of it down to packaging, which is some sort of formed heavy duty cardboard, compared to the iMac which is mostly polystyrene.

pro box.jpg
 
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