However many tasks cannot meaningfully harness GPU-style parallelization such as encode/decode of H264 content.

If they double the iMac GPU performance (which is conceivable given new 14/16nm parts from AMD and nVidia) that would help.

Hopefully in the near future Apple will update both iMac 27 and Mac Pro and more options will appear. If I wanted to stay with Apple, as of today I'd get a New Mac Pro or build a Hackintosh. If I was doing heavy-duty editing with Premiere or especially Resolve, I'd have a custom-built Windows machine with an 8-core or above CPU, a GTX-1080 GPU and a large RAID array. FCPX can handle that although it requires transcoding to proxy for smooth editing, and it's mandatory on 4k multicam. My doc group has shot only 4k for over a year.

So if you shoot 200GB that can take 1 terabyte after import and optimization. Relative to camera-native files, proxy can be about 50-70% that size (in addition) and optimized media can be 5x to 8x that size. However this takes considerable additional time and disk space to ingest. Fortunately proxy or optimized media is now part of all three editors (Premiere just added proxy). If you will be editing 4k or multicam 4k, then even FCPX is marginal unless you transcode to proxy. If you are only editing 1080p and will never edit 4k, then a top-spec iMac 27 might be OK for any of these editors. With Macs is you are very limited on this. On a PC you can buy or build whatever amount of computational horsepower you need. You'll get much higher GPU performance and better thermal handling, although the trashcan is nothing to write home about in regards to the later. If there is an updated Mac Pro in October even the basic model would probably be a better choice. You may want to wait until October to see if there is an update to the iMac or Mac Pro. Don't expect to do heavy grading on 5k and 6k footage on an iMac and forget about ArriRAW. A friend of mine just graded a short on his iMac that was shot on a RED with Redcode, but it was a pretty basic grade. Resolve is very GPU intensive so expect the machine to be running at full blast and the built in fans will kick in all the way to keep the CPU/GPU from overheating.ĭepending on how many layers you are putting in your resolve script the iMac should be able to handle uncompressed HD and certainly Prores. That said just be aware that the ventilation on the iMac is pretty mediocre ever since they removed the vents from the top of the case.

Davinci resolve 15 specs