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Hideo16
Hideo16
Participant
March 30, 2020
Question

iMac (2019) for 4k editing ?

  • March 30, 2020
  • 1 reply
  • 318 views

Hi everyone,

I know there are some Apple users here, so I'm trying to get feedback from people with firsthand experience.

I am very attracted to the 2019 iMac for its superb display, but I have a few questions regarding the base model's capabilities :

  • Can the i5-8500 CPU handle 4K editing ? I've been told by a friend who uses Premiere Pro for work that the minimum requirement for 4K editing is a PassMark score of 12,000 and more. The base model's i5-8500 doesn't even reach 10,000, and the most expensive model's i5-9600K barely reaches 11,000. Is this going to be a real problem or can it get the job done, albeit rather slowly ?
  • Are 32 GB of RAM an absolute necessity for 4K editing or are 16 GB enough ?
  • Is it okay to just go with the 1 TB fusion drive and buy an external SSD (like a Samsung T5) to put media files used for editing ?

Thank you for your help !

Hideo

    This topic has been closed for replies.

    1 reply

    R
    RjL190365
    Legend
    April 1, 2020

    Not only will that i5-8500 process 4k slowly, but you may experience constant stuttering during playback because an NLE treats video playback differently than a simple video player does. In fact, that i5-8500 is only about as powerful as a previous-generation i7-7700K, which has only 4 cores and 8 threads (the Coffee Lake i5s have 6 cores but only 6 threads).

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