Apple Previews iMac Pro: The Fastest Mac Ever

[ClassicMartini]

One other thing would be nice, DCPIManager, you can click on the RX 580 icon and extract the Vbios for the card. It would be nice to compare to a standard RX Vbios.

The SourceForge or ---(edit)--- never mind, github one goes nowhere...

https://sourceforge.net/projects/dpcimanager/files/latest/download
https://github.com/walkman8196/DPCIManager

 

[ClassicMartini]

Thanks, here you go for some free basic tests. Load them on a USB and your good to go.


Uningine test Valley Extreme HD and Heaven Extreme.

Run CPU and GPU tests.

Luxmark Ball

Geekbench, run CPU and Compute ( test 580 and Intel if possible)

View attachment 262237

 

[kreispendl]

Vega is close 1-2 months, RX 580 is 5-8% performance increase (40% power draw increase) and not worth the extra cost to replace and with Skylake you can't run them in dual configuration. Wait for Vega to upgrade.

.. except we don't know if Vega RX is going to be supported (anytime soon). the iMac Pro will use the workstation grade Vega card (not the gaming style RX version). So, even if those drivers will work, we'll only know after the iMac Pro has been released in December. Pretty sure there's no way to use current Polaris drivers on Vega architecture. So unless you can wait another 6-7 month...

 

[SmariMo]

I think this device will
(A) make noises like a starting plane
(B) will glow if you shut it on

8-18 Cores in an iMac with up to 4.5 GHz Turbo boost. That takes a lot of energy and will get very hot.
Radeon Vega: We don't know it yet, but it will be powerful and it will take over 300W.

You can NOT REPLACE RAM in this computer: NOTHING is changeable. That's not great for a Pro Device.

I think this iMac with it's not existing place for big cooling elements won't be so great.
And it will cost over 5000€!

I think (and hope) that this device will flop.

 

[WilliamLondon]

...
I think (and hope) that this device will flop.

Well, I think that says it all, what a great sentiment to run around expressing.

 

[ClassicMartini]

At least cooling shouldn't be a problem. They've taken the cooling design from the 2016 Macbook Pro and reversed the airflow for an 80% improvement in temperatures.
View attachment 261509

It thermal throttles under load - ie when being pushed (for "pro" work) in under 10 minutes.

Again, not trying to be a smarty pants and start a flamn'.

This is empirical evidence from rendering tests I ran myself in a "head to head" - early 2017 - when I had access to a 2012 MBP, a 2016 MBP (fully maxxed out) a 2013 MacPro and a 2010 MacPro, and the i7 versions of 2013, 2014 and 2015 iMacs (with the beefiest GPU's for Apple's AIO's).

In a nutshell, the 2010 and 2013 MacPro's were able to continuously render without throttling.

The iMacs hit the wall in about 40 minutes

The 2016 MBP started to throttle in under 7 minutes, and became unusable 3 minutes later.

Vray/Sketchup.

We're already seeing how hot the 7900 gets with very good water cooling.

Intel Boiling Lake.

Apple better get the "Golden" version of the i9/Xeon's - the one's that run at normal load, with less volts.
(The chips you pay more for from silicon lottery).

 

[vulgo]

Intel Boiling Lake.

Seriously, i would expect a (clean of dust) iMac to run a lot cooler than a Mac Book Pro. All laptops get extremely hot even under 'normal' use (that image is from a MBP 2016 after-market cooling product website)

Think the generic eGPU chassis + generic GPU is going to be a game changer for pro users (read video rendering people). Next, apple need to stop crippling the mac mini...

 

[ClassicMartini]

Seriously, i would expect a (clean of dust) iMac to run a lot cooler than a Mac Book Pro. All laptops get extremely hot even under 'normal' use (that image is from a MBP 2016 after-market cooling product website)

Think the generic eGPU chassis + generic GPU is going to be a game changer for pro users (read video rendering people). Next, apple need to stop crippling the mac mini...

Lets hope you're right on eGPU. I've been down that rabbit hole too.
Yes, a proper 4 core Mac Mini would be nice.

Throttle recap:
VRay render (sketchup plugin). Client file they produced themselves.

2016, i7 MacBookPro (4 core + Radeon pro) - STOCK - throttled after 7 minutes. Fans spinning at max.
Unusable after 10 mins.

2015, i7 iMac throttled after 40 mins. Fans span up to max.
Air-con, office environment. Still usable, but diminished performance.

iMac Pro, probably OK for "bursty" workload.
Speculation: say up to 1 hour of continuous workload, maybe they'll remove the heatspreader?
I'd love to be wrong on throttle limit. But. Physics

 

[mm2margaret]

This bodes well for X299 support in macOS early next year.

Now that's what I think is really the most important aspect of all this; an X299 Hackintosh seems very possible.....

And, according to some of my sources, the fully loaded version of this iMac will be around $17k.....<that's a lot of money>

 

[trs96]

Now that's what I think is really the most important aspect of all this; an X299 Hackintosh seems very possible.....

And, according to some of my sources, the fully loaded version of this iMac will be around $17k.....<that's a lot of money>

17,000 dollars that's more than I paid for my Honda Accord !