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macduke

macrumors G5
Original poster
Jun 27, 2007
13,188
19,799
A beautiful new base model stock iMac Pro just showed up at my work. It’s a surprise because I was originally denied an upgrade to the Pro version but I think my boss’ boss pulled some strings.

1D7F87B2-F9A8-4910-B335-90C07668C00E.jpeg

I also recently purchased a maxed out 2019 iMac 5K for home use.

So I’m in a bit of a unique position here to answer questions. I’ll be spending the rest of today setting up the device, and I work from home on Fridays, but if there is anything you guys want me to test on both machines then let me know and we can do some head-to-head comparisons. I could test my home machine over the weekend and my work machine early next week.

So far I have observed that it is so much more beautiful and sleek looking in space gray/black. That alone makes me kind of regret my 2019 iMac purchase. The keyboard is breathtaking. I will definitely be purchasing one in this colorway for home use now, along with the matching mouse. I have a space gray decal skin on my home machine that I got on sale for $8, but it doesn’t quite compare to this. I’ve had it for maybe 30 minutes and I’ve already had 3 people audibly gasp while walking by my office wanting to check out my “new toy.”

Anyway, ask away. I’ll try to prioritize by what I’m able to do and what most people seem to want. For instance, I won’t be able to install bootcamp on my work machine. I mean maybe I could, but it’s a pain and I’d have to remove it since this drive is only 1TB. But I can do nearly anything else unless it’s software I’d have to buy. I have Adobe CC and a lot of common apps and utilities. I could run some benchmarks if there is some comparison that hasn’t been done online that people need to see.
 

SkipperRi

macrumors regular
Jul 11, 2015
103
14
Rijeka, Croatia
You are lucky man
I have iMac Pro since last September and every day is such a pleasant experience with that beast. I also have two older iMac’s 27” (2013 & 2015) but I’m very curious to see comparison with iMac 2019. So, enjoy and bring us unique testimonials:)
 
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richinaus

macrumors 68020
Oct 26, 2014
2,382
2,138
As I mentioned in other threads, I haven't had any kernel panics on my iMac Pro in a long time. Nor on my MacBook Pro, which also has a T2. It's just not a problem for most people.

I agree. People on this site tend to blow things out of all proportions. All tech products have an ‘issue ‘. Apples are more in the media because they are Apple.
 

mikehalloran

macrumors 68020
Oct 14, 2018
2,239
666
The Sillie Con Valley
Congrats! Since you do graphics work and have talked about AV, I have no special requests. I'll be interested in any comparisons you make in the normal course of your work.

If you find little to no real difference, that's just as valid an observation.


I got one of these skins yesterday. It's ok but nothing to write home about. Better than the one I have on my wired keyboard, though. I became a believer in those once I learned that keyboards are allergic to spilled coffee (who knew?).
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B072KMT9H7/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o02_s02?ie=UTF8&psc=1

The T2 issue that plagued audio interface users (USB 2 interfaces and only certain brands at that) appears to have been solved by Mojave 10.14.4. Anyone notice how few BTO iMac Pros are in the Refurb Store since that happened? The $4,249 base model is Apple's way of lowering the price—if they were actual refurbs, Apple would run out now and then (they never do).
 

Craigy

macrumors 6502
Jan 14, 2003
403
48
New Zealand

macduke

macrumors G5
Original poster
Jun 27, 2007
13,188
19,799
I'm going to be editing some 4K video for work next week. I think I'm going to store all my assets in Dropbox and try doing a comparison by opening up the Premiere Pro project file on both machines and rendering it out to see if there is much real-world benefit. Will try to do them under similar conditions after a reboot since I have the same apps and utilities running on both machines. I'm interested to see if the Vega 56 and additional cooling does much.

Hey there. I am just about to pull the switch on ordering an i9 iMac... Since you are in the fortunate position to compare - would you mind giving your thoughts on this?...

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/2019-27-imac-ssd-read-write-speeds.2179531/
I ran the test but didn't note exact figures. It was while some stuff was going on in the background but shouldn't have been anything that would significantly affect the read/write speeds. I don't have a screenshot since I'm at home now but at least in Black Magic Disk Speed Test, the iMac Pro was only somewhere around 200MB/s faster. Not sure why everyone thinks its some crazy speed unless it's getting to the point where that app can't test the speed any further for some reason, which I doubt. There are probably people with Thunderbolt SSD Raid 0 setups that get 6Gbps nowadays and it probably doesn't even break the bank if you look at some of the recent prices, lol. Maybe I should try increasing the stress to 5GB when I run the test, and wait for all the background stuff to calm down. It should be good to go when I'm back at work on Monday. I also wonder if the base 1TB SSD is slower or something?
 

priitv8

macrumors 601
Jan 13, 2011
4,038
641
Estonia
I think I'm going to store all my assets in Dropbox and try doing a comparison by opening up the Premiere Pro project file on both machines and rendering it out to see if there is much real-world benefit. Will try to do them under similar conditions after a reboot since I have the same apps and utilities running on both machines. I'm interested to see if the Vega 56 and additional cooling does much.
Would love to see Premiere performance compared to that of FCPX.
According to the video Max Yuryev posted on YT, there are some interesting differences.
 

nerdynerdynerdy

macrumors regular
Jul 22, 2007
126
127
I'd be interested in After Effects tests, if you use it. I know everyone's use of it varies so much that it's difficult to establish a baseline.

If you don't use it, you can download free templates for animations that might provide an easy comparison?
 

JacobHarvey

macrumors regular
Apr 2, 2019
114
106
Somewhere

I believe that it only refers to the two Thunderbolt (USB-C) ports supporting USB at Gen 2 Speeds. The speed of the four USB-A USB 3 ports is not specified (is it Gen 1 or 2?).

It would be best if it supported Gen 2 on the USB-A ports to connect USB SSDs (at close to their full speed). This would allow for the Thunderbolt 3 ports to be kept free so their bandwidth could be used entirely for an eGPU or other high-end peripheral.
 
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macduke

macrumors G5
Original poster
Jun 27, 2007
13,188
19,799
Would love to see Premiere performance compared to that of FCPX.
According to the video Max Yuryev posted on YT, there are some interesting differences.
Don't have FCPX. I'm getting back into video production. I typically do photography, web design, and web development. I have Premiere Pro. Back in high school when I cofounded the first student-run TV station in the Kansas City area I used FCP and Premiere (and even some linear editing, dear God) in the early 2000s. I may buy FCPX at some point. I work in higher ed so I might be able to get a discount or something.

I'd be interested in After Effects tests, if you use it. I know everyone's use of it varies so much that it's difficult to establish a baseline.

If you don't use it, you can download free templates for animations that might provide an easy comparison?

I used it in some animation classes back in college but haven't really used it since 2014 or 2015. I might be able to find that project on my archive drive at work and do some tests. It didn't have any heavy effects or anything, but I needed to quickly keyframe a bunch of text and screenshot and vector layers and some masking for a promotional video for an app I designed at work.

Would you happen to know if the regular USB-A ports on the 2019 iMac run at USB 3.1 Gen 2 (10Gbps) speeds?

I believe that it only refers to the two Thunderbolt (USB-C) ports supporting USB at Gen 2 Speeds. The speed of the four USB-A USB 3 ports is not specified (is it Gen 1 or 2?).

It would be best if it supported Gen 2 on the USB-A ports to connect USB SSDs (at close to their full speed). This would allow for the Thunderbolt 3 ports to be kept free so their bandwidth could be used entirely for an eGPU or other high-end peripheral.

It's hard to tell because I don't really have anything fast enough to test it. My SSDs don't even max out 5Gbps. When I go into the system info I see two USB 3.1 Bus. Here is what is displayed for the first one:

USB 3.1 Bus:

Host Controller Driver: AppleIntelCNLUSBXHCI
PCI Device ID: 0xa36d
PCI Revision ID: 0x0010
PCI Vendor ID: 0x8086

FaceTime HD Camera (Built-in):

Product ID: 0x8511
Vendor ID: 0x05ac (Apple Inc.)
Version: 72.52
Serial Number: CCG90360575H34FF9
Speed: Up to 480 Mb/sec
Manufacturer: Apple Inc.
Location ID: 0x14600000 / 50
Current Available (mA): 500
Current Required (mA): 500
Extra Operating Current (mA): 0
Built-In: Yes

USB 2.0 BILLBOARD :

Product ID: 0x0100
Vendor ID: 0x2109 (VIA Labs, Inc.)
Version: 3.00
Serial Number: 0000000000000001
Speed: Up to 480 Mb/sec
Manufacturer: VIA Technologies Inc.
Location ID: 0x14200000 / 4
Current Available (mA): 500
Current Required (mA): 100
Extra Operating Current (mA): 0

And here is the second one:

USB 3.1 Bus:

Host Controller Driver: AppleUSBXHCITR
PCI Device ID: 0x15ec
PCI Revision ID: 0x0006
PCI Vendor ID: 0x8086
Bus Number: 0x00

So if someone wants to make any sense of that nonsense, go for it, lol.

I'm kinda leaning towards them being two different buses. One for FaceTime, the four standard USB ports, and for backwards USB 2.0 compatibility. The other one might be USB-C only. Why? Because I don't think USB-C is backwards compatible with USB 2.0, and the one lists USB 2.0 stuff? But I might be wrong. I'm only slightly educated on this. And this is also why it's super annoying how they use crap like USB 3.1 Gen 1 and Gen 2 but then in the device info it only shows 3.1. Like what is that supposed to mean? It could be anything. It's super annoying how they name things. Like they really think they're going to run out of decimals between 3.0 and 4.0? If anything Apple shows you can just keep going with decimals, lol. They're version numbers, not real decimals anyway. Stupid consortium.
 

mikehalloran

macrumors 68020
Oct 14, 2018
2,239
666
The Sillie Con Valley
I believe that it only refers to the two Thunderbolt (USB-C) ports supporting USB at Gen 2 Speeds.
2 ports, 1 TB3 bus over USB-C on the 2017–2019 iMac. 4 ports, 2 TB3 buses over USB-C on the iMac Pro. These support USB 3.1.

USB-C is a connector only; it is not a protocol.
The speed of the four USB-A USB 3 ports is not specified (is it Gen 1 or 2?).
It doesn't have to be specified but they are gen-1. Only the USB-C bus(es) support gen 2.

BTW, a SATA III SSD in an external dock runs just as fast in either port. SATA III is slower than either USB 3 or 3.1.

An NVMe 3 x4 SSD in a TB3 dock will run about 6x the speed of SATA III. You don't want to run these over USB 3 as that will throttle the speed to USB 3 (just a touch faster than SATA III).

I tested this and posted my results last week.
 

Sooby

macrumors member
Apr 5, 2019
61
38
I wouldn't mind seeing some video game comparisons to see how faster an iMac Pro is compared to the iMac. But I'm guessing that you probably can't play games at work.
 

priitv8

macrumors 601
Jan 13, 2011
4,038
641
Estonia
Don't have FCPX. I'm getting back into video production. I typically do photography, web design, and web development. I have Premiere Pro. Back in high school when I cofounded the first student-run TV station in the Kansas City area I used FCP and Premiere (and even some linear editing, dear God) in the early 2000s. I may buy FCPX at some point. I work in higher ed so I might be able to get a discount or something.
It is a damn fine piece of software. Well optimized for the platform. I can still edit my UHD footage on my early 2013 MBP with QC i7. Its just the exports, that made me to go for i9 and iMac. Alright, and the fine 5K display.
A 12 minutes long HDR10 clip exports in 9 hours on that MBP :)
 
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rob97ag

macrumors newbie
Apr 16, 2019
12
7
I actually have a 2019 iMac w/ I9, Vega, 2TB SSD sitting at my house...unopened right now. I keep thinking maybe I send back and get the iMac Pro. My wife does a lot of Lightroom and PhotoShop. Is the standard 32MB RAM on the Pro enough for this, and into the future...since it's apparently a hassle (and expensive) to add RAM to the Pro?
 

SkipperRi

macrumors regular
Jul 11, 2015
103
14
Rijeka, Croatia
I actually have a 2019 iMac w/ I9, Vega, 2TB SSD sitting at my house...unopened right now. I keep thinking maybe I send back and get the iMac Pro. My wife does a lot of Lightroom and PhotoShop. Is the standard 32MB RAM on the Pro enough for this, and into the future...since it's apparently a hassle (and expensive) to add RAM to the Pro?
I’m working on daily basis in Lightroom and Photoshop (and After Effects, Premiere, FCPX...), every piece of software working like a charm on iMac Pro.
 
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macduke

macrumors G5
Original poster
Jun 27, 2007
13,188
19,799
I actually have a 2019 iMac w/ I9, Vega, 2TB SSD sitting at my house...unopened right now. I keep thinking maybe I send back and get the iMac Pro. My wife does a lot of Lightroom and PhotoShop. Is the standard 32MB RAM on the Pro enough for this, and into the future...since it's apparently a hassle (and expensive) to add RAM to the Pro?
I use both of those a lot and I would say yes. I had a 2012 iMac at work with 16GB of RAM until 2017 when I got a new iMac with either 24GB or 40GB (can’t remember if they ordered me two 16GB sticks or one since I didn’t have the thing long) and it was a big improvement since I run virtual machines as well for web dev (Windows for IE and a Linux web server) and have to often keep a bunch of apps running as I pivot between projects. Though going from an old fusion drive to SSD was a big improvement. 16GB was getting super tight so it was nice to switch. Then I changed jobs six months later and they gave me a 2015 MBP and it only had 16GB which felt even worse after going back. My new 2019 at home has 40GB because I just popped in 2x16GB with the 2x4GB it came with, but 32GB is plenty for what I do now which is what your wife uses + a few more apps. And 32GB is all my new iMac Pro at work has.
 

rob97ag

macrumors newbie
Apr 16, 2019
12
7
Thanks a lot for the feedback on 32MB RAM on the iMac Pro. Also sounds like the T2 may not be the concern I was making it out to be (based on the negative comments on this forum), and may actually make the machine a little more future proof...since that's the way Apple is headed (like it or not).
 

JacobHarvey

macrumors regular
Apr 2, 2019
114
106
Somewhere
2 ports, 1 TB3 bus over USB-C on the 2017–2019 iMac. 4 ports, 2 TB3 buses over USB-C on the iMac Pro. These support USB 3.1.

USB-C is a connector only; it is not a protocol.

It doesn't have to be specified but they are gen-1. Only the USB-C bus(es) support gen 2.

BTW, a SATA III SSD in an external dock runs just as fast in either port. SATA III is slower than either USB 3 or 3.1.

An NVMe 3 x4 SSD in a TB3 dock will run about 6x the speed of SATA III. You don't want to run these over USB 3 as that will throttle the speed to USB 3 (just a touch faster than SATA III).

I tested this and posted my results last week.

That is unfortunate. The main advantage of having USB A 3.1 Gen 2 ports would be to be able to attach SSDs without having to steal bandwidth from an eGPU connected via Thunderbolt 3 (especially as it has only 1 TB3 bus running two ports). It is a niche application but could be helpful in some situations.

Apple likely is using a Z390 related motherboard that supports up to 6 USB 3.1 Gen 2 ports (in addition to plenty of USB 2 ports) so it would definitely be possible to have the USB A ports run at 10 Gbps each.

So in summary, having USB A 3.1 Gen 2 ports would reduce the bottleneck on NVME drives somewhat when you want to devote all TB3 bandwidth to an eGPU.

Also, SATA III at 6Gbps is theoretically faster than USB 3.0/3.1 Gen 1 at 5Gbps (both SATA III and USB 3 use 8b/10b encoding allowing SATA III to still retain a speed advantage even when overhead is taken into account) so there will likely be a slight benefit for SATA III SSDs as well.

Anyway thanks for clarifying this, also could you link me to your results posted on this topic?
 
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