Imac 5k Premiere Pro

Performance is important

At BIZON we often get many customers who want to switch from a Mac to a PC Workstation. While there are many reasons our customers want a change, it usually comes down to one major factor, performance.

Whatever you use your Mac or Workstation PC for, performance is important to help you manage your workflow, to ensure your game runs smoothly, for high-quality sound and graphics, and to edit videos efficiently.

The rise in 4K, 6K, and 8K workflows makes optimum performance a necessity for many people, so it is essential to make the right choice when considering a computer.

With performance being the most important factor when deciding between a PC or a Mac, we take a look at why a PC is a better option to use Adobe's Premiere Pro video editing application compared to a Mac or iMac Pro 2019.

To find out whether a PC or Mac is a best video editing workstation, we took three iMac systems and a PC workstation of a similar price and tested them across performance for live playback, render in to out, and export.

If you love data we're sure you'll enjoy looking at our charts, which show how the systems compare, but if charts aren't your thing you can always scroll past the data to read our conclusion.

To compare the iMac Pro and Mac Pro to our BIZON V5000 4K/6K/8K video editing workstation, we tested the following system configurations, using Premier Pro version 13.1:

• I am selling my 2018 iMac. It is in perfect condition with no scratches or signs of use. $1900 or best offer Specifications:. Retina 5K display. 27-inch (diagonal) Retina 5K display. 4.2GHz quad-core Intel Core i7 (Turbo Boost up to 4.5GHz). 8GB 2400MHz DDR4 RAM. Configurable 64GB RAM. 1TB Fusion Drive. Radeon Pro 580 with 8GB.
• Apple iMac with Retina 5K display review. Retina iMac: 35.9: Mac Pro (2013) 21.4: Mac Pro (mid-2010) 25.6. Using the new iMac and Adobe Premiere. It's fast: there was zero lag or delay.

I am aware Apple removed Target Display Mode with the 5k iMac, however I am receiving a work MacBook Pro soon and I was wondering if there are alternative hardware based option to extend a MacBook display onto a 2019 iMac 5k? It would be great to use my home computer as a monitor when Im working from home. I purchased a late 2015 iMac 5K Retina with 32GB ram and the AMD Radeon R9 M395X graphics card. This was touted as the best set up for video editing. My prior work station was a 2008 Mac Pro tower that worked well with Final Cut and Premiere Pro CS6, until new video codecs and 2K and 4K editing demanded a upgrade.

Price $5700 + $520 (4K monitor) = $6220 –> ~$6200

• Processor: 14-Core 3.30 GHz Intel Core i9-9940X (up to 18 cores)
• Memory: 64 GB DDR4 3200 MHz
• Graphics Card: NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2080 Ti 11GB
  Note: With NVIDIA GPUs you get advantages of Adobe's Mercury Playback Engine acceleration and CUDA support. AMD that comes with Mac have no CUDA.
  
• Hard Drive (Operating system): 1 TB PCI-E SSD (Up to 3500 Mb/s)
• Additional HDD (Storage): 2 TB HDD SATA
• Operating system: Windows 10 Pro
• Monitor: Dell U2718Q 27-Inch 4K UHD IPS Monitor
• Keyboard + Mouse: Logitech Wireless Mouse and Keyboard
• Warranty: Life-time Expert Care with 5 Year Limited Warranty (5 Year Labor & 3 Year Part Replacement)
• Software Premiere Pro CC 2019 (ver 13.1)

• Processor: 2.7GHz 12-core Xeon
  Note: Old generation CPU (2013 Year)
  
• Memory: 64GB 1866MHz DDR3
  Note: Old DDR3 RAM
  
• Graphics Card: Dual AMD FirePro D700 GPUs 6GB
• Hard Drive: 1TB PCIe-based SSD
• Additional HDD (Storage): Not available
• Operating System: macOS 10.13.4
• Monitor: Dell U2718Q 27-Inch 4K UHD IPS Monitor
• Keyboard + Mouse: Space Gray Magic Keyboard with Numeric Keypad + Magic Mouse 2
• Warranty: AppleCare+ for Mac (3 yr limited warranty & telephone technical support)
• Software: Premiere Pro CC 2019 (ver 13.1)

Price $8000 + $169 (Apple Care) = $8169 –> ~8200

• Processor: 2.5GHz 14-core Intel Xeon W processor
• Memory: 64GB 2666MHz DDR4 ECC
• Graphics Card: Radeon Pro Vega 64 16GB
• Hard Drive: 1TB PCIe SSD
• Additional HDD (Storage): Not available
• Operating System: macOS 10.13.4
• Monitor: 27-inch LED-backlit 5K display
• Keyboard + Mouse: Space Gray Magic Keyboard with Numeric Keypad + Magic Mouse 2
• Warranty: AppleCare+ for iMac (3 yr limited warranty & telephone technical support)
• Software: Premiere Pro CC 2019 (ver 13.1)

Price $7200 + $169 (Apple Care) = $7369 –> ~7400

• Processor: 3.0GHz 10-core Intel Xeon W processor
• Memory: 64GB 2666MHz DDR4 ECC
• Graphics Card: Radeon Pro Vega 64 with 16GB
• Hard Drive: 1TB PCIe SSD
• Additional HDD (Storage): Not available
• Operating System: macOS 10.13.4
• Monitor: 27-inch LED-backlit 5K display
• Keyboard + Mouse: Space Gray Magic Keyboard with Numeric Keypad + Magic Mouse 2
• Warranty: AppleCare+ for iMac (3 yr limited warranty & telephone technical support)
• Software: Premiere Pro CC 2019 (ver 13.1)

We used version 13.1 of Premiere Pro, as the latest version wasn't released at the time of this article. We also found major performance issues with Premiere Pro CC 2019 (ver 13.1), with performance drops in ProRes footage on the PC and RED footage on the Mac when using versions 13.1 and 13.1.1.

For a fair comparison we kept the specs and pricing as similar as possible. For example, as Mac systems only support a single internal drive, we used a single 1TB PCI-E SSD drive on our BIZON Workstation PC, rather than multiple storage drives, which improve performance when generating peak files and importing media. As the iMac Pro requires a keyboard and mouse, we also bought a monitor, keyboard, and mouse for the Mac Pro and PC.

To compare the systems, we tested three different functions in Premiere Pro: live playback, export, and render in to out.

Although we didn't cover every available codec, we covered a large number of RED clips so that we could really see how different compression levels impact performance. Our tests also used three different timelines to stimulate different types of workload.

Recording results

We recorded the export time from the moment the ‘Export' button was clicked until completion. We also measured Live playback FPS (frames per second) based on the number of dropped frames relative to the total number of frames in the sequence. For example, by dropping 100 frames in the 4K ProRes 422 HQ 'Basic' timeline (which has 579 frames), you will render 479 frames over 24 seconds for a result of ~20 FPS.

We used Lumetri effects from the 'Lumetri Presets –> Speedlooks –> Universal' effects folder. However, if you're using a Mac you'll probably need to delete and re-apply the Lumetri Color effects, as sometimes they don't translate properly from the PC to Mac.

It can be a challenge to accurately test live playback performance because performance depends on the codec and resolution of your media, as well as the playback resolution (full, half, etc.) and the effects you've applied.

At BIZON we often get asked about live playback performance, so we decided to test our media with three different timelines, as well as with a full and half playback resolution. We also decided to calculate the average performance of each system relative to the 10-core iMac Pro using OpenCL.

We found that using Metal with a Mac is a bad idea for playback performance and found a 20-30% drop in FPS with most of our test media, and a massive drop in FPS with RED footage when using Metal on the Mac system. For example, with 4K RED 11:1 footage the iMac Pro 14-core went from 24FPS to 6FPS without any effects being applied to the footage.

Even when using OpenCL you will get a bump in FPS with a PC. However, compared to the iMac-Pro 10-core, our PC workstation gave 25% higher FPS with ProRes media, 30% higher with DNxHR HQ/H.264/ARRIRAW, and almost 75% higher FPS with RED footage, and was 94% faster on average in our ‘Heavy Effects' test.

Imac 5k Premiere Pro

In comparison, the 14-core iMac Pro did slightly better with RED footage and was about 10% faster than the 10-core iMac Pro. However, the PC workstation was the clear winner for playback performance and was 25-60% faster depending on the type of footage used; making our PC workstation a better option for FPS as well as better value for money.

8K Footage

It takes time to export on Premiere Pro and export time is often used to measure performance. Taking 4K, 6K, and 8K projects using the different codecs listed in the Test Hardware & Methodology section we measured export performance on all the systems.

With our export tests we found using Metal on a Mac, rather than OpenCL often resulted in a decent performance gain. RED footage was an exception, usually taking twice as long or longer to export with Metal. However, as our findings in the Live Playback test show, Metal was significantly worse than OpenCL, so keeping Premiere Pro in OpenCL mode will be the best option for most Mac users.

If you do decide to stick with OpenCL a PC is your best option, as our Custom workstation computer exported projects approximately 40% faster than the iMac Pro 2019 10–Core. The performance gap closed by a small amount with the 14-core iMac, but the PC still had a 30–40% performance lead. Surprisingly, the Mac Pro managed to keep up with the newer iMac Pro systems with ProRes footage, but fell behind with other types of media, making our PC workstation 40% to 60% faster, as well as saving you a whopping $2,000 on price.

If you're willing to switch between Metal for exporting non-RED footage and OpenCL for live playback, the Mac systems do better. However, the iMac Pro systems were still around 15% slower with DNxHR, H.264, and ARRIRAW footage, although the 14-core iMac Pro was able to pull slightly ahead of our BIZON V5000 PC with ProRes footage.

8K Footage

Rendering previews are sometimes a necessity, so we tested the ability to render in to out on all the systems for 4K, 6K, and 8K projects using the different codecs listed in the Test Hardware & Methodology section.

Using Metal on the Mac caused another performance problem, with RED footage dropping to 15-20%. However, due to the lower live playback performance with Metal across the media tested, we feel OpenCL offers the most valid comparison across the PC and Mac systems.

With ProRes media, there was around a 40% performance gain with the PC compared to iMac and Mac Pro. This reduces slightly with DNxHR HQ, H.264, and ARRIRAW media, but our PC was still faster and outperformed the Mac by around 35%.

Surprisingly, our PC had a smaller performance gain in RED media compared to the other tests, however, the PC was still around 20% faster than the 14-core iMac Pro.

Imac Pro Vs Imac 5k

Impressively, PC performance was also 30% faster than the 10-core iMac Pro and 40% faster compared to the Mac Pro.

8K Footage

Best Video Editing Workstation. Conclusion: iMac, Mac Pro, or PC?

Cost wise the BIZON V5000 Workstations is already a winner, with a $6200 price tag compared to a $8,200 iMac Pro 2019 (14-Core) or $7,500 Mac Pro system.
It's also worth keeping in mind that we paid $420 for a 4K monitor, keyboard, and mouse, so if you already have them you would reduce the costs even more.

In terms of performance the PC Custom Workstation also comes out on top, with a 35-45% performance gain.

What was surprising was that the iMac Pro 2019 14-Core wasn't that much faster than the 10-core version and only increased in performance by around 5%. However, live playback performance was usually twice as good on the PC, with tendering and exporting being 40-50% better.
Therefore, our BIZON V5000 video editing workstation PC is the clear winner on both cost and performance.

However, if you're already stuck with a Mac and want to increase your performance, our findings indicate that OpenCL is a better choice for the majority of Mac users, who want better live playback performance, but Metal was faster with non-RED media for exporting and rendering.

For more information on PC performance compared to Mac systems, you can check out our other articles here.

You can also take a look at our Recommended Workstation PC for Premiere Pro and contact us if you have any questions about making the move to PC workstation.

[ Update: On March 19, 2019, Apple released updates to both 21.5″ and 27″ iMacs. These new systems feature improved CPU and GPU options, though the display and storage remain the same as earlier versions. I've reflected these new options in my recommendations below. ]

At their WWDC, in June, 2017, Apple announced and released new iMac computers, designed to meet the needs of professionals. These new systems sport a variety of very exciting features. However, if you are on a budget, how do you determine where to spend your money?

This article is designed to help you make more informed choices when you don't have a lot of money to spend.

NOTE: I have not purchased any of these systems. My recommendations are based on past experience, current system specs and talking with informed individuals.

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

If money is no object, buy the top of the line iMac. It will work great and you'll have bragging rights over all the other systems.

But, if money IS an object, then you need to make trade-offs, balancing the performance you need with the money you have. However, you don't need to spend a fortune to get a system today that can meet your editing needs for the next several years.

ALSO: Here are two other configuration articles you may find useful:

• Configure an iMac Pro for video editing
• Configure a MacBook Pro for video editing

YES, BUT WHAT ABOUT THE IMAC PRO?

Holy smokes! What a system.

This review covers the iMac. Click here to read about the iMac Pro.

YES, BUT WHAT ABOUT THE MAC PRO?

5k Imac Used

Given the latest iMac releases, there are very, very few reasons to purchase a Mac Pro right now; especially given its price. Keep in mind, however, that Apple has already announced they are working on a new, top-of-the-line Mac Pro which will ship sometime in 2019.

Given what Apple has announced for the iMac Pro, however, that upcoming Mac Pro will need to be a true screamer to compete. I'm looking forward to seeing what Apple creates – but, as I mentioned earlier, I still need to pay my bills today.

And that leads us directly to the latest updates to the iMac.

Imac 5k Premiere Pro 2016

WHAT SIZE SCREEN?

Both Final Cut Pro X and Premiere interfaces work best on larger screens. This is not to say they work poorly on smaller screens, but both of these display a LOT of elements on screen. More screen room is MUCH better. Upgrade imac to catalina.

I recommend a 27″ display. Plus, all the new 27″ iMacs now share the same 5K Retina Display.

NOTE: One of my iMacs is an older 5K iMac. I've discovered, that while seeing a 5K image is nice, the on-screen text is often very hard to read. So I've lowered the screen resolution using System Preferences to make the text larger. I prefer to easily read the text to seeing every pixel in my image.

However, if the purpose of the new system is video compression, you don't need the bigger screen size. In which case, you can save money and improve performance with a 21″ system.

NOTE: Both H.264 and the up-coming H.265 video codecs are hardware-accelerated in all the new hardware. While this won't help when transcoding into ProRes, hardware-acceleration will significantly speed compressing files for the web.

WHAT SPEED CPU?

UPDATE Intel's latest 8th-gen and 9th-gen Core processors, including up to a 3.2GHz six-core 8th-gen Core i7 with Turbo Boost up to 4.6GHz for the 21.5-inch 4K iMac and up to a 3.6GHz eight-core 9th-gen Core i9 with Turbo Boost up to 5.0GHz for the 27-inch 5K iMac.

While CPU speed is important, it is not critical for video editing; remember, iMacs that were current as recently as last month, were easily able to edit almost all forms of SD, HD, and 4K media.

Any of the processors in any of the new iMacs will be fine for video or audio editing.

UPDATE: The choice in the 21.5″ iMac is between i5 and i7. The i7 is worth the money because of its support for multi-threading. The choice in the 27″ iMac is harder: between i5 and i9, because it's a $500 differential. Unlike the i5, the i9 supports multithreading. If you are doing multicam, 4K or HDR editing, or lots of video compression, the i9 is worth the money.

HOW MUCH STORAGE?

I really like that Apple has put Fusion drives into all but two of their iMacs. I own two iMacs with Fusion drives and I remain very impressed with these systems. They are an excellent balance between the speed of an SSD with the storage capacity of spinning media.

Keep in mind that the SSD portion of a Fusion drive is only a part of the total storage. For example, the 1 TB Fusion uses a 32 GB SSD, while the 2 and 3 TB Fusion drives use a 128 GB SSD. The OS watches what you do and moves files onto the SSD based upon what you are using most. Which means that a Fusion drive works fastest with files you access over and over.

NOTE: Here is an updated article on storage speeds and media requirements that explains the load your storage system needs to carry.

If you want maximum performance AND you plan to store media on an external drive, get the 512 GB SSD. All the files in macOS will take less than 30 GB, leaving plenty of room for working files and immediate storage.

If you want an excellent balance between performance, price and capacity, stay with the 1 TB Fusion drive. Again, store media externally.

If you don't plan to purchase external storage – and you will, you just don't know it yet – get the 3 TB Fusion drive. (An extra TB for $100 makes this a better value than the 2 TB Fusion drive.)

One of my systems has a 3 TB Fusion drive. Currently, I'm using 600 GB of it. The rest is sitting around idle. When using external storage, you really don't need lots of internal storage.

If you just want maximum performance from your storage, get the 1 TB SSD. It's pricey, but it's speed will make you giggle.

Apple notes: 'For the best performance, iMac systems with 32GB or more of memory should be configured with a 2TB or larger Fusion Drive or all-SSD storage.'

NOTE: Apple's marketing materials now define a terabyte as one trillion bytes. This means that when a disk is formatted, its storage capacity will be less than 1 TB because of the differences between how marketing and engineering calculate disk sizes.

WHICH GPU?

Configuring the GPU (Graphics Processing Unit) is now done when you pick the initial iMac, rather than as a build-to-order option within each iMac family. So, much though I would like to pick the mid-range system and add a high-end GPU into it, we no longer have that option.

Which is a shame. Because while we don't need the high-end CPU system for most video editing, we would significantly benefit from the high-end 580 GPU in any system.

Both Final Cut and Premiere are increasingly using the GPU for most editing tasks, because the GPU is much faster than the CPU at rendering bitmapped images. Therefore, the best choice is the high-end GPU. The high-end GPU also includes 8 GB of video memory (VRAM).

However, the mid-range system with the Radeon Pro 575X is a perfectly adequate choice.

NOTE: The difference between the 575X and 580X is performance. The 575X has a peak performance of about 4.5 Teraflops, while the 580X supports up to 5.5 Tflops. Both will handle video just fine. All of the Radeon chips support OpenCL and Apple's Metal and up-coming Metal 2 GPU computing API.

Here's a link to learn more about Radeon's GPU chips.

NOTE Windows on os x. : Again, if you are principally doing video compression, the GPU speed is less important than the CPU speed. So, compressionists don't need as high-performance a GPU as an editor.

UPDATE: When looking at GPU performance, use the specs for Metal or Metal II. OpenCL will not be supported going forward. Also, while eGPUs are attractive, I don't see them, yet, as a big enough benefit for iMacs. eGPUs are principally designed for laptops.

UPDATE: When looking at GPU performance, use the specs for Metal or Metal II. OpenCL will not be supported going forward. Also, while eGPUs are attractive, I don't see them, yet, as a big enough benefit for iMacs. eGPUs are principally designed for laptops.

HOW MUCH RAM?

Both Final Cut and Premiere will use as much RAM as you can afford.

Based on my tests with the 2016 MacBook Pro, I recommend a minimum of 16 GB of RAM, though, all my systems here have 32 GB. Again, if you have the money, max out the RAM. However, 32 GB of RAM will be sufficient for virtually all projects.

HOW MUCH SHOULD I SPEND?

You are going to be using this computer for four years. Spend what you can afford, but don't be stingy in areas that matter: GPU and RAM.

All the base systems are fine, But, depending upon your needs, you can tweak the configurations to better match what you want the systems to do. All systems feature wireless mice and keyboards; though, in my office, I prefer my mice and keyboards wired.

NOTE: Apple has not yet delivered the Touch Bar on any stand-alone keyboards.

If it were my money and I was doing video editing on a budget, here's what I would get:

• 27″ Retina 5K Display
• 3.6GHz 8-core 9th-generation Intel Core i9 processor, Turbo Boost up to 5.0GHz
• (Includes the Radeon 575X GPU)
• 8 GB of RAM (buy a 32 GB RAM upgrade from a 3rd party)
• 1 TB Fusion drive
• Keyboard and mouse to suit

Total: $2,499 (you'll still need to spend additional money for 3rd-party RAM)

However, I wish that Apple made the Radeon 580X available on the mid-range unit.

If it were my money and I was doing mostly video compression, I'd get the high-end Mac mini. (This, in fact, is what I did personally.) Here's an article that explains this in more detail.

As always, I'm interested in your opinions.