i'm ready to move to my next edit machine, a 2015 apple 27" i7 retina imac/4.0/4gb graphics card.

barefeats has suggested these imacs are as fast as several versions of mac pro for many edit tasks.

'late 2015' iMac 5K - graphics performance (http://barefeats.com/imac5k13.html)

'late 2015' iMac 5K 'semi pro' versus Mac Pros (http://barefeats.com/imac5k18.html)

i'm looking to use as fcpx workstation.

it also must be able to handle the occasional premiere pro project.

i am also hoping it will work well enough for basic color correction using resolve.

i'm not going to build and maintain a hackintosh.

it is just outside my skill level.

i'm not sure the 6-core/d500 trashcan is a "better" machine on a value basis.

i'm posting since many others have been faced with a similar problem.

any and all thoughts are appreciated.

be well.

rob
smalltalk.productions

any thoughts on the 3tb fusion drive vs the 512 ssd?

the idea of the 512mb ssd is appealing but since all the fcpx footage will reside on external drives via thunderbolt (and probably in a raid configuration), i'm wondering if i "lose" that much speed while gaining "plenty" of storage.

be well.

rob
smalltalk.productions

How many monitors do you plan to use? Up to 2, the iMac will do fine.

Multicam in 4K? More than 2 cameras at once using non-optimized files would probably work better on a multi-core MacPro.

The non-multicore MacPros are probably not a good deal versus the 5K iMacs for simple editing with modest color correction although they have better graphics cards.

As the charts show you at Bare Feats only when you get an 8-core MacPro do you start to see the rendering power really overtake the 5K iMac. That's the MacPro I have and it's a real time saver when I have to export four different version of the same edited program in different delivery codes each week. Also After Effects really churns out fast and my DCP rendering program uses nearly 95% of the 8-cores when rendering. Right now I am exporting a 1080i program to h264 and about 70% of the 8-cores are being used.

If you plan to use Resolve for 4k I would get a Mac Pro per Balckmagic's guidelines. It REALLY makes a difference in Resolve. I can't remember the specs off hand since I'm not at it right now but the one i got has 12 gigs of VRAM.

Regarding external drives, you will gain speed with external T-bolt RAIDs. I would never consider using USB3 for my media drives.

I'd love to hear how this works out for you Rob as I am looking to get the same machine or its latest iteration near the end of the year when I get back to Australia. I plan only to do 1080p on it with some Resolve so I will be interested in your experiences.