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softananda
softananda
Inspiring
May 6, 2018
Question

Best iMac Pro for intensive color correction

  • May 6, 2018
  • 1 reply
  • 2093 views

We are planning to buy an Apple 27" iMac Pro with Retina 5K Display (Late 2017), but are unsure whether to buy it with an AMD Radeon Pro Vega 56 or an AMD Radeon Pro Vega 64 graphic card. There's a significant difference in price (700 USD), as you can see in these links:

- https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1380894-REG/apple_z_8c1_bh_27_imac_pro_with.html

- https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1380903-REG/apple_z_8c10_bh_27_imac_pro_with.html

We plan to use the computer to edit and make intensive color correction inside Premiere Pro (several layers of lumetri fx, neat video, warp stabilizer, etc). Does anyone have experience as to whether AMD Radeon Pro Vega 64 would make a noticeable difference, or whether the performance of both computers would be similar for these purposes?

Most of the color-corrected material would be 4k mp4 files from Sony a7 iii, although there would also be some Blackmagic 4k raw footage.

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1 reply

E
excited_Genie16B8
Legend
May 6, 2018

I'm not familiar enough with AMD cards to offer an opinion on those specifically, but one thing you do want to budget for is a proper I/O device, like the Intensity from Blackmagic or the T-Tap from AJA, connected to a calibrated TV of the best quality you can afford.  (Here's where that $700 may be more useful.)

Don't rely on the computer display for color work.

megacinn
megacinn
Inspiring
May 6, 2018

I'm working on an IMacPro 27" with the radeon pro vega 56 since a few month now.

Without having any relation to apple or being an apple-brand-addict, I definitely never had a better computer for my creative "moving-picture" work.

I had the same decission to make, and no capabitlity to compare under real conditions.

I'm using as well an A7S2 as one maincamera and colorcorrect intensly with lumetri .

As well the warpstabilizer is the most used "effect" .

under this conditions the ImacPro runs with at least 2-3 layers of the given material smoothly without any problems.

It is totally silent (not even the smallest fan-noise) . The internal 1T SSD is where all my/our material is stored and way-way beyond any limitation.

I can't really tell how much of a difference the slightly bigger radeon pro vega 64 does perform, but the only considerable difference should be in the additional 2 more cpu cores in case of the bigger model.

What really should be considered as a warning is the current versioning.

ImacPro comes with at least OSX10.13.1 (nothing below is installable !!)

apple itself advices to upgrade to 10.13.4 because of known issues with editing software (nothing special mentioned).

With the PremierPro Version 12.0.1 this combination is perfect !

Upgrading to the current PremierePro 12.1 will give you nightmares and let curse you the day you spent all the money for machine and software. This combination is in my case intensly proven for a weekend as absolutely not working under any circumstances (on tha ImacPro 4K 27').

Adobe announced that in this version they support the H264 / HEVC hardwarecore of dedicated Intel-CPU's as well.

(A7S2 is creating H264 files) ..

well it accelerated a lot (doubled the speed of nearly everything (especially at rendering).... but created totally useless files (more then 10times bigger then selected ...not playable...SSD jamming ...instable ....a.s.o .

So my personal advice .... go for the Radeon Pro vega 56 and stay on the combination osx 10.13.4 with PremierePro 12.0.1 and be warned that it can be that we/you are stuck on that versioning , or you will loose some of the current features .

It is not clear when or if adobe is willing to provide ever an update to fix these issues .

softananda
softanandaAuthor
Inspiring
May 6, 2018

Thanks a lot for your answer, the compatibility between iMac Pros and CC was a major concern too.

I will try to reach Adobe on this issue and let you know if I get any answer.

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