iMac Pro video review: Putting Apple's $5000 desktop to the test

It will be great for doing builds. We work on multiple large projects (1 to 5 million SLOC) all compiled using command line tools and we are not allowed to use threaded compiling with the "-j" option in make. A single release might require anywhere from 6-10 unique compiles. While I always have multiple command lines open running the different compiles for each project, It will be great to cut the time in half.

I am seriously looking forward to that.

The downside is.... Since people,eknow I can compile much faster than other people, more people will be asking me to do basic build manager stuff:-(

Correct me if I am wrong, It sounds like the video processing performance of the Pro appears to be less than the regular Imac mainly due to the fact the software is not optimize for the new Pro Imac processors. If this is the case and the software uses the processors to their full extent, will the Pro be much faster?

steven n. said:

It will be great for doing builds. We work on multiple large projects (1 to 5 million SLOC) all compiled using command line tools and we are not allowed to use threaded compiling with the "-j" option in make. A single release might require anywhere from 6-10 unique compiles. While I always have multiple command lines open running the different compiles for each project, It will be great to cut the time in half.

How many cores does your command line compiler use. If it is just one then the regular iMac might be faster than the iMac Pro because the multi-core Xeons are usually clocked slower.

volcan said:

steven n. said:

It will be great for doing builds. We work on multiple large projects (1 to 5 million SLOC) all compiled using command line tools and we are not allowed to use threaded compiling with the "-j" option in make. A single release might require anywhere from 6-10 unique compiles. While I always have multiple command lines open running the different compiles for each project, It will be great to cut the time in half.

How many cores does your command line compiler use. If it is just one then the regular iMac might be faster than the iMac Pro because the multi-core Xeons are usually clocked slower.

if you modify the make to use the "-j" option, it will use all available cores. However, we have not done the Source to Object code analysis to support us using that specific make and compiler option so we can only allocate a single core per command line. On most of the machines "in plant" (I am off site), the builds take between 3-8 hours per project.

maestro64 said:

Correct me if I am wrong, It sounds like the video processing performance of the Pro appears to be less than the regular Imac mainly due to the fact the software is not optimize for the new Pro Imac processors. If this is the case and the software uses the processors to their full extent, will the Pro be much faster?

Optimization is part of it, but so is the single core performance for certain tasks. 

Depending on your needs in Final Cut Pro, you might be better off with the 5K iMac.

If you're using Premiere Pro, well, you probably shouldn't be using a Mac anyways. A simple Skylake-X configuration with a GTX 1070 (or above) might be a sweet spot for cost/performance.

https://www.pugetsystems.com/pic_disp.php?id=43480&width=705

https://www.pugetsystems.com/pic_disp.php?id=42347&width=701