Apple’s long-awaited iMac Pro has finally arrived, and it’s an absolute juggernaut. Packed full of staggeringly powerful tech, Apple designed this beast with the most demanding creative workflows in mind. But with such impressive specs, iMac Pro comes at an unsurprisingly high price point – so can you justify making the purchase, and how could it improve your day-to-day creative processes?
While it looks almost identical to the mid-2017 5K iMac (minus the dashing Space Grey paint job), iMac Pro is a completely different machine. Lets take a look under the hood…
Display
– 27″ Retina 5K display.
– 5120×2880 resolution.
– 500 nits brightness.
– P3 wide colour gamut.
Processor
– Base model: 8-Core Xeon.
– Upgradable to: 10-Core Xeon.
– Upgradable to: 18-Core Xeon.
Memory
– Base model: 32GB 2666MHz DDR4 ECC memory.
– Upgradable to: 64GB.
– Upgradable to: 128GB.
Storage
– Base model: 1TB SSD.
– Upgradable to: 2TB SSD.
– Upgradable to: 4TB SSD.
Graphics
– Base model: Radeon Pro Vega 56 with 8GB of HBM2 memory.
– Upgradable to: Radeon Pro Vega 64 with 16GB of HBM2 memory.
I/O
– Four Thunderbolt 3 (USB-C) ports.
– Four USB 3.0 ports.
– SDXC card slot with support for UHS‑II.
– 10Gb Ethernet using RJ‑45 connector (supports Nbase-T 1Gb, 2.5Gb, and 5Gb).
So, what’s it good for?
If you’ve been using iMac before now, you’ll know just how good the platform is for creative work. But iMac Pro takes things to the next level. It’s perfectly suited for everything from video editing and music production to 3D animation and software development and much more. Compatible with up to 18 cores and packing up to 128GB DDR4 RAM, most of the work creative professionals do will benefit greatly from iMac Pro’s extra computing and graphics power. Subsequently, tasks like video encoding and editing in particular will enjoy noticeable performance boosts from the additional processing cores, while even 3D rendering will become that bit easier thanks to ample memory.
If your team are preparing for the future and want to adopt new technology trends, iMac Pro will to be a great addition to your creative workflow. As demanding new formats and technologies like 4K, 6K, 8K, virtual reality, augmented reality and mixed reality become increasingly popular, it’s imperative that you have access to a machine that can keep pace while you’re hard at work. Thankfully, early benchmark tests of the hardware found inside iMac Pro suggest it’ll outperform previous generation iMacs on all fronts – that means you’ll see a definite improvement over your last iMac and you won’t have to think about upgrading your hardware for the foreseeable future.
With two GPU variants available – Radeon Pro Vega 56 with 8GB HBM2 memory and the more impressive Pro Vega 64 with 16GB HBM2 memory – iMac Pro is the ultimate bit of kit for graphics work. Creative teams will find VR applications working much faster than on an older iMac, enabling you to embrace and experiment with the new medium like never before. Likewise, iMac Pro’s powerful GPU will be a big plus for any games development projects you might be working on, and rendering in video editing programs like Premier Pro and Final Cut Pro X will also benefit.
Is it worth the upgrade?
Firstly, you should ask yourself if your team’s existing iMacs are meeting your workflow requirements. If your work doesn’t need need masses of computing power behind it, you probably don’t need an iMac Pro which, as mentioned above, has been built specifically for the most demanding creative projects. Of course, iMac Pro’s A10 Fusion coprocessor and SSD will undoubtably save you time when booting the machine and loading apps, but if you don’t mind waiting a few extra seconds it’s probably not worth forking out for.
With that being said, anyone looking to embrace new technology trends or push the boundaries of their existing video, software, audio, animation or development work will benefit from having an iMac Pro in their office. Complete with hardware never before seen in an iMac, iMac Pro delivers an experience you can’t get with any previous model and will provide an unmatched productivity boost that’ll more than make up for its top-end price.
For more information about iMac Pro, get in touch with the team by calling 03332 400 888 or emailing sales@Jigsaw24.com. For all the latest news, follow @WeAreJigsaw24 on Twitter, or ‘Like’ us on Facebook.