iMac Pro: best specs for Premiere Pro and After Effects?

[JakobSjobom]

Hi there!

As the headline suggests, what should I prioritise and in what order spec-wise, when buying a new iMac Pro? Graphics card, RAM or what?

I really suck at hardware/specs knowledge so I´d really appreciate some help here, especially when it comes to boosting up rendering time.

I will edit mostly 4K footage, mostly in PP. After Effects will be used for 3d tracking, animations etc.

// Jake

[Jim_Simon]

You're much better off building.

$2,000 Custom PC vs $4,000 Mac Pro - YouTube

[JakobSjobom]

No. Just no.

That has nothing to do with my question, I´m afraid. 😉

[Meg The Dog]

I would hold off for a month or two until you can hear some real world reports from actual users on how the Creative Cloud apps are preforming on the new Mac Pro. I'm sure the praise/complaints will be starting to appear internet wide shortly, as systems are delivered.

MtD

[JakobSjobom]

Hi Dog! 🙂

Yeah, that´s what I´m thinking also. But, nevertheless, that info does not actually answer my question; what to "prioritise" specs-wise when it comes to buying (in this case) the new iMac Pro, in regards to Premiere Pro and After Effects.

I mean, Macs are far more effective running Final Cut, I simply don´t know what/how to thing in regards to the Adobe programs.

Are you with me?

jake

[Meg The Dog · Accepted solution]

JakobSjobom  wrote

Are you with me?

I'm with you in the sense that I am also Mac based, but I do know that Apple tends to go their own way on a lot of the tech stuff leaving third party software creators to pick up the pieces. When you play on the cutting edge of tech, you sometimes get cut.

One of my two workstations is ready to be replaced, I'll be looking at the iMac Pro after it has been in the wild for 6 months or so.

You would normally want to buy as much computing power as you can afford (or your ROI with justify) - investing in both CPU and GPU, as their horsepower has a lot to do with rending times - and a much RAM as you can afford for After Effects real time RAM Previews.

The internal storage option is your choice, as all your media, cache, and scratch disks should be high speed external storage connected to the iMac Pro via thunderbolt.

My 2¢.

MtD

[JakobSjobom]

I hear you.

On a bit of a side note maybe, the CPU; what to aim for there if budget is not an issue? I mean, I as a hardware noob, would think that the more GHz the better, but in the below case the cheapest one has "the most" GHz (as you probably see, my expertise lies solely in editing and nada in hardware). So, the core amount has to be what´s important. But, from what I´ve read, PP cannot effectively utilise too many cores, so maybe 14 cores would be wiser than 18?

Thanks in advance!:-)

[Riveraktre]

I was also wondering the same but after reading some articles... The 10 core seems to be the sweet spot as it offers better single and mutlicore power in certain instances.

Here are the specs I ordered with

iMac Pro

With the following configuration:

3.0GHz 10-core Intel Xeon W processor, Turbo Boost up to 4.5GHz

128GB 2666MHz DDR4 ECC memory

4TB SSD

Radeon Pro Vega 64 with 16GB of HBM2 memory

Read this interesting article about how many cores YOU ACTUALLY NEED...because you may not actually need 14/18 cores like you initially thought...

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.imore.com/which-imac-pro-should-you-get%3Famp

Just got an email that my imac pro is arriving this Thursday! What a sweet surprising Christmas email from Apple

Happy Christmas all and hopefully you find the best configuration that works BEST for your workflow circumstances.

[JakobSjobom]

THanks a lot! After reading the article you linked to I´m just about to order that one, but with 2TB storage! 🙂

Have you gotten yours yet?

[Riveraktre]

Yes I have! Quite pleased with it...its a beast you won't be disappointed.

[artillery]

I’ve beem weighing this up since the release date. I couldnt wait for the launch and I held off on the iMac 2017 all year thinking I’d buy an iMac pro.

However, now it’s here I’ve concluded that with Ae only using single threads and top clock speeds are the most useful, I’m actually going to pass on the imacpro and get a top spec iMac with base 512 SSD And crucial ram 64gb kit for £660. This will be as fast or faster for AE and plenty good enough for final cut editing HD and 4K short form projects. The £2000 saving can pay for a new PowerBook for taking to shoots and filming on the move projects. The space grey is not worth the ££. - Radeon 580 has faster clock speeday than the new Vega 56.