You're in for a surprise! The NEW iMAC Pro.

combat squirrel said:
Well damn, its a bigger board than expected, I can't see how thick that is need a 3 dimensional view when its ready - also unknown how far up the heatsink goes, much more board, speaker space than I was expecting - also need to figure out where the fans are drawing the air in, from the bottom i guess, but left and right appear speakers, possible both speaker and fan inlet.

Very chunky heatsink/heatpipe interface over the chips as well.

Am guessing the whole thing looks abit bigger than a 2 slot graphics cards cooler, but wtih 2 fans and a better air flow.
Click to expand...

Air flow pattern
imac-pro-intake-exhaust.jpg
 
As usual some will now believe that Apple invented big and full chassis heatsinks. Which have been popular with overclockers and others for quite some time. And that's their magic spell.
 
Last edited:
Time will tell, at the moment it's all speculation as to performance but we'll see soon enough.

Nice looking machine to be fair, but it runs OSX so I'm out.... Oh, and the cost means I'm out too..
 
combat squirrel said:
Yeah obviously the principle is the same !! lol, what they have done though ......... ready for the magic ? Is ram every available space thats left open in the normal imac full of heatsink fins, then added 2 fans left and right pushing air sucked in from the bottom, one of the CPU and one of the GPU, then both fans eject air through the 3x3 inch gap at the back where the ram door used to be.

Now - I'm not an apple fan boy, but I have been custom building and cooling PC's for over 25 years - I've done it all, large air cooled, large water cooled custom builds - I even use a car radiator once !! haha

Anyway essentially imagine a large heatsink, thick in the middle, thin on the outer edges (which is ideal for thermodynamics as the outer edges are less densely packed) - about 80-90% the area of a 27" monitor ?????

There you have it a (comparatively) enormous heat sink for a desktop machine - the key is they have been ever shrinking the systems motherboard and hard drive physical sizes ---------- This has allowed them to pack a 14nm 18 core + vega into an imac chassis.

The mainboard + hard drives is barely larger than 2 mobile phones in area.......of course by far the biggest room taken up by the cpu socket (probably soldered on, not sure however - I don't think intel would allow that on a workstation class chip)

And id guess the GPU is on a daughter board to allow the left / right fan flow setup of the design.

Anyways I'm sure and im hoping a rich you tuber will take it apart very soon and we can see.

However based on physics, a heatsink that size in area (probably dense fin spacing also for more surface area), I'm standing by my prediction it will run to spec ;) For all my reasons and theories stated.
Click to expand...

Im guessing the text I bolded was the tldr;)

Then we’re in agreement but I’m predicting the gpu is slightly gimped. (Under volted)
 
ianp5a said:
As usual some will now believe that Apple invented big and full chassis heatsinks. Which have been popular with overclockers and others for quite some time. And that's their magic spell.
Click to expand...

I’ve always hankered after a full chassis heat sink and have even bought passive GPUs such as the 750ti pallit kalm-x. Even at 75w though it did throttle until I strapped a 120mm fan to it, then it was great!
 
Brazo said:
Im guessing the text I bolded was the tldr;)

Then we’re in agreement but I’m predicting the gpu is slightly gimped. (Under volted)
Click to expand...

Well no, were not in agreement ;) We won't know, until someone specifically measures it and we get a review from a hardware POV.........I want to know its clock speeds for sure - however for what I would use it for - photo/video production, even slightly underclocked its more than powerful enough by far and away - you can even game on it - Who'd have thunk it.

We've seen a layout in 2d of its cooler, but no one has pulled it apart - im not sure how thick it is, nor do I know its air flow - 2 fans over one heatsink is interesting indeed........

The CPU will be at intels stated spec - the GPU I am not sure - it would affect system use less - unless your doing GPU modelling.
 
I can't believe some folks are using radiators and water to cool their machines down, I was always told water and electrical parts do not mix well together.

Just imagine a plumber getting a phone call "can you come round and fix my leaking radiator" :eek:
 
GTG said:
Just get a nerd to build you a watercooled overclocked custom windows PC for about £1500 and it will keep up with that except in limited circumstances that nobody with an actual life would ever encounter
Click to expand...

Yeah, that's not going to happen. I spent £2k just buying the parts for my PC and that's not watercooled, nor have a big grunty graphics card. It does however have blindingly fast speed and lots of disks/disk space.
I'm also using my previous Dell 24" monitor.
 
Canon f1.8 said:
I can't believe some folks are using radiators and water to cool their machines down, I was always told water and electrical parts do not mix well together.

Just imagine a plumber getting a phone call "can you come round and fix my leaking radiator" :eek:
Click to expand...

It's not water, it's an inert fluid twice as dense, so the small bottle weighs a surprising amount. You can throw it over a power supply, motherboard etc and it just runs out. It has no electrical conductivity.
 
Eloise said:
I'm still waiting for an Apple hater to show us where you can buy a *similar speed* (that means Xeon processors, ECC memory and PCIe based SSD) from a major company for significantly less than the cost of the iMac Pro - I'm willing to accept comparisons to either the £5k entry level or the fully loaded £12,800 version.

Not build it yourself PC components using i7 and SATA based SSD ... but a true comparison.

Granted that for most uses the workstation class performance of the iMac Pro is irrelevant ... but thats not a true comparison as its those outlier cases where something like the iMac Pro proves its worth.
Click to expand...

You do know they are just PC parts - albeit high spec ones. Change the OS and that would run Windows just fine :D
 
flipping heck, I know they last but $13248.00 is expensive.
 
PaulButler said:
Really? when did they ditch the IBM blades?
Click to expand...
ILM have quite a selection of equipment, covering the entire range. The graphics people use macs, offload to render machines for the grunt, which 5 years ago were supermicro high end workstations with 4 £1500 graphics cards in them, They also have a range of editing kit from Quantel (now Sam) plus a Huge IBM blade/San infrastructure.

Of course then you get into the issues of connecting MAcs to corporate networks, seeing as Apple broke SMB2/3 on the latest OS'sand you have to revert to CIFS (SMB1)
 
Byker28i said:
It's not water, it's an inert fluid twice as dense, so the small bottle weighs a surprising amount. You can throw it over a power supply, motherboard etc and it just runs out. It has no electrical conductivity.
Click to expand...
I stand corrected then, just all this talk about radiators and so on had me confused :(
 
Canon f1.8 said:
I stand corrected then, just all this talk about radiators and so on had me confused :(
Click to expand...
You could run water in it, basically the early systems did, it's just now there's a number of fluids you can use instead with a very low electrical conductivity - and colours, don't forget about the colours... :D
 
Byker28i said:
You could run water in it, basically the early systems did, it's just now there's a number of fluids you can use instead with a very low electrical conductivity - and colours, don't forget about the colours... :D
Click to expand...
Fluorescent seems to be important too. I guess they fit uv lamps in them?
c8a1f990_20151017_025954.jpeg
 
Last edited:
I have to say i am a watercooled convert.
Albeit i am only running an AIO (240mm rad) it keeps the CPU nice and cool and the noise........well you have to have your ear attached to the case to pick up on the sound it creates.

I doubt i will ever go back to an open fan CPU cooler. next time i may even go down the custom loop route.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Byker28i said:
Of course then you get into the issues of connecting MAcs to corporate networks, seeing as Apple broke SMB2/3 on the latest OS'sand you have to revert to CIFS (SMB1)
Click to expand...

This still makes me laugh, fundamentally broken part of OSX which caused massive headache, and calls to Apple whereby they denied the problem existed.
 
Byker28i said:
Yeah, that's not going to happen. I spent £2k just buying the parts for my PC and that's not watercooled, nor have a big grunty graphics card. It does however have blindingly fast speed and lots of disks/disk space.
I'm also using my previous Dell 24" monitor.
Click to expand...

This for 2K is more like it, watercooled cpu and gtx 1080 graphics card. 4500GB storage, 32 GB ddrr 4, and that watercooling system is good. I have a similar one although a bigger radiator and at idle the cpu temp is barely above room temperature.


500GB Samsung 850 EVO, 2.5" SSD £140
600w PSU £40
4TB WD WD40EZRZ WD Blue, 3.5" HDD, SATA III - 6Gb/s £100
Intel Core i7 8700K, S 1151 £380
ASRock Z370 Pro4, Intel Z370, S 1151, DDR4 £100
32GB (2x16GB) Corsair DDR4 Vengeance £330
CD DRIVE £15
EVGA GeForce GTX 1080 SC2 GAMING iCX 8GB £540
Corsair Carbide 600C Clear Windowed Full Tower PC Case £115
EK Supremacy EVO Water Block £50
Pump / reservoir combo £100
Radiator £50
Pipes, fittings, distilled water, color £ 40

£2000
 
GTG said:
This for 2K is more like it, watercooled cpu and gtx 1080 graphics card. 4500GB storage, 32 GB ddrr 4, and that watercooling system is good. I have a similar one although a bigger radiator and at idle the cpu temp is barely above room temperature.


500GB Samsung 850 EVO, 2.5" SSD £140
600w PSU £40
4TB WD WD40EZRZ WD Blue, 3.5" HDD, SATA III - 6Gb/s £100
Intel Core i7 8700K, S 1151 £380
ASRock Z370 Pro4, Intel Z370, S 1151, DDR4 £100
32GB (2x16GB) Corsair DDR4 Vengeance £330
CD DRIVE £15
EVGA GeForce GTX 1080 SC2 GAMING iCX 8GB £540
Corsair Carbide 600C Clear Windowed Full Tower PC Case £115
EK Supremacy EVO Water Block £50
Pump / reservoir combo £100
Radiator £50
Pipes, fittings, distilled water, color £ 40

£2000
Click to expand...
Ah yes but which 'speed' CD drive? 4x? 8x?
 
Last edited:
GTG said:
This for 2K is more like it, watercooled cpu and gtx 1080 graphics card. 4500GB storage, 32 GB ddrr 4, and that watercooling system is good. I have a similar one although a bigger radiator and at idle the cpu temp is barely above room temperature.


500GB Samsung 850 EVO, 2.5" SSD £140
600w PSU £40
4TB WD WD40EZRZ WD Blue, 3.5" HDD, SATA III - 6Gb/s £100
Intel Core i7 8700K, S 1151 £380
ASRock Z370 Pro4, Intel Z370, S 1151, DDR4 £100
32GB (2x16GB) Corsair DDR4 Vengeance £330
CD DRIVE £15
EVGA GeForce GTX 1080 SC2 GAMING iCX 8GB £540
Corsair Carbide 600C Clear Windowed Full Tower PC Case £115
EK Supremacy EVO Water Block £50
Pump / reservoir combo £100
Radiator £50
Pipes, fittings, distilled water, color £ 40

£2000
Click to expand...

Ditch the CD drive (soooo 90's/00's). Then you can say it costs less than £2k.

Sais with tongue firm in cheek :D
 
Last edited by a moderator:
ianp5a said:
Ah yes but which 'speed' CD drive? 4x? 8x?
Click to expand...

None - just a simple USB one that gets plugged in when needed, which is hardly ever.

My spec last year was:
2 x Samsung 850 EVO 500GB 2.5inch SSD (550Mb/sec r/w)
1 x Samsung 950 PRO 512GB M.2 SSD (1950Mbsec write, 2400Mb/sec read) for the OS
5 x WD Black 4TB 3.5" SATA Desktop Hard Drive
1 x EVGA Supernova 750W Fully Modular 80+ Gold Power Supply
1 x Asus Maximus VIII Hero Z170 Socket 1151 HDMI DisplayPort 8 Channel Audio ATX Motherboard
1 x Intel core i7 unlocked Skylake 6700k CPU
2 x 16Gb Corsair Vengeance DDR4 PC4-2400 Ram
1 x Coolermaster Hyper 212 Evo CPU cooler (120mm fan, very quiet)

Around £2K
basically built around my requirements for Lightroom, photoshop etc
Monitor I already had but you could easily add £500-600 for a good large one or more
 
GTG said:
This for 2K is more like it, watercooled cpu and gtx 1080 graphics card. 4500GB storage, 32 GB ddrr 4, and that watercooling system is good. I have a similar one although a bigger radiator and at idle the cpu temp is barely above room temperature.


500GB Samsung 850 EVO, 2.5" SSD £140
600w PSU £40
4TB WD WD40EZRZ WD Blue, 3.5" HDD, SATA III - 6Gb/s £100
Intel Core i7 8700K, S 1151 £380
ASRock Z370 Pro4, Intel Z370, S 1151, DDR4 £100
32GB (2x16GB) Corsair DDR4 Vengeance £330
CD DRIVE £15
EVGA GeForce GTX 1080 SC2 GAMING iCX 8GB £540
Corsair Carbide 600C Clear Windowed Full Tower PC Case £115
EK Supremacy EVO Water Block £50
Pump / reservoir combo £100
Radiator £50
Pipes, fittings, distilled water, color £ 40

£2000
Click to expand...
I presume you mean this as a Hackintosh but have you tested it as such?
 
combat squirrel said:
Why in heck are content creators using a quad core pc ?? lol, although one person is on a 6 core..........

Ryzen 1700 here at 4ghz
32gb ram
980ti

Soon to be hackintoshed................

Gonna wack in ryzen 2 - cuz AMD are nice like that - at 4.5 or more ghz, which with 8 cores will spank intel for less money.
Click to expand...

AMD and hacks don’t play well together it was bad enough getting Kabylake to work and USB 3.1
 
Byker28i said:
Of course then you get into the issues of connecting MAcs to corporate networks, seeing as Apple broke SMB2/3 on the latest OS'sand you have to revert to CIFS (SMB1)
Click to expand...
Macs on smb never worked well. Especially when file sharing, it never locked the files reliably and you'd end up with corruption.

Ended up getting a 3rd party afp util for Windows.
 
neil_g said:
Macs on smb never worked well. Especially when file sharing, it never locked the files reliably and you'd end up with corruption.

Ended up getting a 3rd party afp util for Windows.
Click to expand...

Exactly this - we had the issues manifest on capture one databases
 
interesting they're using 2 512mb SSD in raid0. wonder what they are to avoid trim/garbage collection issues (not many SSD support trim in raid).

heatsink is a bit bigger than i thought (but ARGH all that thermal paste), i guess the proof in the cooling will be some proper stress tests.
 
neil_g said:
heatsink is a bit bigger than i thought (but ARGH all that thermal paste), i guess the proof in the cooling will be some proper stress tests.
Click to expand...

Pretty much my thoughts as well, never seen a happy ending to processors lagged in thermal paste, seems to crack and disintegrate, full skim over the CPU and done!

Interesting tear-down though, thanks for the link ☺️
 
That is a large splodge of thermal paste.

But.

Your typical Mac user won’t ever tear down one of these and they need to last so a good splodge won’t dry out quickly! It will give even worse cooling than I thought though ;)
 
neil_g said:
interesting they're using 2 512mb SSD in raid0. wonder what they are to avoid trim/garbage collection issues (not many SSD support trim in raid).
Click to expand...

Raid zero to boost the OS drive performance? Can't be cost as two 512Gb M2 drives cost about the same as 1Tb, but if you've a a decent M2 card like a Evo 960 then that's already around the 2000mb/sec read/write, but the 1Tb is faster still.
Perhaps the 1Tb wasn't available when they were designing the spec? Now is this a need to get the OS to perform, or just Apple designers doing it because they could make it faster? Probably the latter knowing designers :D
 
Byker28i said:
Raid zero to boost the OS drive performance? Can't be cost as two 512Gb M2 drives cost about the same as 1Tb, but if you've a a decent M2 card like a Evo 960 then that's already around the 2000mb/sec read/write, but the 1Tb is faster still.
Perhaps the 1Tb wasn't available when they were designing the spec? Now is this a need to get the OS to perform, or just Apple designers doing it because they could make it faster? Probably the latter knowing designers :D
Click to expand...
There was an article somewhere where they proved that raiding SSD was a marginal performance boost and wasn't worth the hassle. M2 however is PCi based so maybe it's a little more beneficial perhaps.

Although this article suggests you might not always see m2 raid performance increase. A single higher capacity drive would generally be just/almost as good in real world use while saving space on the board for future use.
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/samsung-950-pro-256gb-raid-report,4449-5.html

Id still be interested in the trim/garbage collection issue on SSD/flash raid too.
 
Whilst I’ve done it/am doing it myself I think raiding ssd’s ‘sounds’ good rather than performs good!
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top