KVR Audio

Fleer · Post by **Fleer** » Sat Jun 30, 2018 8:27 pm

To run Logic Pro X with EastWest Hollywood Diamond Orchestra and Spitfire libs, I’m thinking of getting the iMac Pro with:

- 10-Core CPU (with highest boost speed and still enough cores)
- 128 GB Ram (for large libs)
- Vega 64 GPU with 16 GB
- 1 TB SSD (as I have external)
- Mac Trackpad

Thoughts?

Rockatansky · Post by **Rockatansky** » Sat Jun 30, 2018 8:47 pm

Since most efficient samplers nowadays only pre-load partial samples into RAM and stream the rest from the hard drive, I'd rather not overdo it on the RAM and maybe upgrade the drives that store the samples. If you do a lot of graphics and video work, that much RAM will still last you QUITE a while. For audio, it's not really necessary. I have some well-populated sample-based orchestral projects, and they run just fine on 16 GB in macOS High Sierra without any sample-related glitches. Exactly the same goes for the graphics card. My 4K 48" screen does just fine with a 4GB graphics card, I'd have to add a few more displays of that size to make the jumping level meters in my DAW become an issue for that GPU.

Can't speak about the CPU, I've never driven my quad-core i7 to its limits with audio production so far.

I would urge you however to get a bigger hard drive, since 1GB would mean you'd have to run macOS from a USB stick.

Fleer · Post by **Fleer** » Sat Jun 30, 2018 8:50 pm

Thanks Max! Corrected

T-CM11 · Post by **T-CM11** » Sat Jun 30, 2018 9:17 pm

Rockatansky wrote:Exactly the same goes for the graphics card. My 4K 48" screen does just fine with a 4GB graphics card, I'd have to add a few more displays of that size to make the jumping level meters in my DAW become an issue for that GPU.

For anything not GPU accelerated (Games, 3D, video, some photoshop stuff), it just doesn't matter. Even a simple onboard Intel GPU can drive as many screens as there are ports and at the maximum resolution any of those ports allow.

Fleer · Post by **Fleer** » Sat Jun 30, 2018 9:24 pm

OK, so I’ll better get the standard Vega 56 GPU (8GB). Saves me $700.

rACatkvr · Post by **rACatkvr** » Sat Jul 21, 2018 1:31 am

I went for the basic 8-core, 1 TB SSD and 64 GB RAM - no holdups noted yet.

Fleer · Post by **Fleer** » Sat Jul 21, 2018 1:34 am

Thanks, rACatkvr.
Decided to wait for the new iMacs this fall. Let’s see what they bring.

simmo75 · Post by **simmo75** » Tue Feb 12, 2019 9:43 pm

Fleer wrote: ↑Sat Jul 21, 2018 1:34 am Thanks, rACatkvr.
Decided to wait for the new iMacs this fall. Let’s see what they bring.

Hi Fleer, did you get a new iMac yet?

My late 2013 27” just died so I have to get something.

I’m looking at the iMac Pro but it’s 2 years old now and knowing my luck, I’ll buy it and a new one will be released next week...

I’m wishing I could leave Apple to be honest but it would be such a ball ache...

Rabid · Post by **Rabid** » Wed Feb 13, 2019 12:07 am

I went against most advice here and got more memory and smaller internal drive. I just cannot see paying the Apple tariff on their large SSD's. The money I saved by getting an SSD half the size also bought me several external high speed drives. That is working out very well.

Fleer · Post by **Fleer** » Wed Feb 13, 2019 12:13 am

simmo75 wrote: ↑Tue Feb 12, 2019 9:43 pm
Fleer wrote: ↑Sat Jul 21, 2018 1:34 am Thanks, rACatkvr.
Decided to wait for the new iMacs this fall. Let’s see what they bring.
Hi Fleer, did you get a new iMac yet?

My late 2013 27” just died so I have to get something.

I’m looking at the iMac Pro but it’s 2 years old now and knowing my luck, I’ll buy it and a new one will be released next week...

I’m wishing I could leave Apple to be honest but it would be such a ball ache...

Nope, simmo, decided to wait for the next iMac, hopefully this Spring.

mrj1nx · Post by **mrj1nx** » Wed Feb 13, 2019 5:24 am

Another way to go could be a setup with a regular iMac as the main (you can upgrade the ram of those manually more cheap) and then have Vienna Ensemble Pro slave(s) that run most of the sample libs and offloads processing from the mac. These can be cheap win computers. The workflow for that is something I havent tried myself, but it seems to be best suited for sample libs. But what I like about it is that you can put less eggs in each basket in terms of spending on expensive macs. Enabling more frequent upgrades while keeping the win slaves in service.

And then theres the rumors of the new mac pro as well. The dumb thing with imacs is that you keep paying for a screen each time you upgrade. (I still love mine though)

Ed A. · Post by **Ed A.** » Mon Feb 18, 2019 6:31 pm

I have an iMac Pro with:
- 8-Core CPU
- 32 GB Ram
- Vega 56 GPU
- 2 TB SSD
- Mac Trackpad

My system is actually extreme overkill for Logic Pro X. In fact, it's almost excessive for the things I do in FCP X, and I'm a professional videographer who shoots and edits for local TV.

dhleake · Post by **dhleake** » Mon Feb 18, 2019 8:17 pm

Hopefully Apple finally updates the iMac lineup this spring. I'm looking to grab a non-pro iMac as soon as they are announced. Fingers crossed for March announcement. The Pro is simply too much for most standard users.

nix808 · Post by **nix808** » Mon Feb 18, 2019 9:30 pm

I'm keen too,
I have a dual core 2007 model-
it would be real nice to iMac

Ploki · Post by **Ploki** » Mon Feb 18, 2019 9:40 pm

get a mini.
imac pro will blow fans in your face.
you can also change ram yourself.

get a Thunderbolt 3 NVMe drive and overwrite kontakt prebuffer to 6kb.
that way you practically wont use RAM and will stream everything from disk.

10core is also ridiculously overkill for something like Kontakt. You could ran 500 voices from even a 2012 quadcore.

Which iMac Pro?