2012 Ultra Thin iMac refresh buyers and owners thread (1 Viewer)

[Carlo_M]

Very interesting!
I'm hoping barefeats.com (or some other site) runs Photoshop and other CS6 tests on it as well for those of us who do HD video and mass amounts of photo editing with very large RAW files. Their site says their machine should arrive next Monday.

 

[Sam Posten]

Processing.

 

[Sam Posten]

Saw the 27" in store today. I am officially on the glossy bandwagon. It did look a little easy to see pixel structure up close, can't wait to see it at sitting distance.

 

[Sam Posten]

Processing

 

[Sam Posten]

Prepping for shipment!

 

[Carlo_M]

I can hear Sam's engines prepping for takeoff!
I'm very interested in your (and Ron's) opinion. I just bought a laptop for my girlfriend and it has Windows 8 on it. After setting it up and playing with it for more than eight hours over three days, I'm not a fan. I thought MS had done well with 7 and was hopeful that 8 would really be the one that gave me a viable competitor to Mac OSX. Alas, it proved not to be the case.
So that $2K build I have in Newegg...well that might just sit in the cart indefinitely. If the 680MX that the iMac uses is really powerful enough to run Premiere and Photoshop well, I may just spring for a maxed out (CPU/GPU) 27" iMac with Fusion Drive and go aftermarket 16GB RAM and Drobo BeyondRAID enclosure or Lacie Thunderbolt RAID enclosure.

 

[Carlo_M]

Did a little recon of my own. Went to the newly reopened (and slightly relocated) Third Street Promenade store (man that place is HUGE) and played with a fully loaded 27" iMac. Loaded up Logic Pro and turned on Activity Monitor and played a 60+ track song and the CPU's eight cores barely went over 15% at any time. They had Photoshop CS6 but no pics so I wasn't able to mess around with it (although the fusion drive did load all programs extremely fast!). They didn't have Premiere Pro so I wasn't able to test that. Did launch Aperture and it certainly performed and rendered RAW files much faster than the same program/pics did on a Macbook Pro (even the rMBP). So color me impressed, at least initially.
I'll wait for Barefeats' benchmarks this week, as well as testimony from Sam, Ron and some other people whose opinions I trust before splurging nearly 3K on this. But initial impressions were very good.

 

[Sam Posten]

Edit: WRRRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA -

Delivers Dec 26, 2012

Carlos, you will wanna see this post:
http://forums.macrumors.com/showpost.php?p=16503839&postcount=215

Photoshop CS6 - render Iris Blur on 159M test image
2012 iMac 3.4 Core i7, GeForce GTX 680MX = 15.6 sec
2011 iMac 3.4 Core i7, Radeon HD 6970M = 19.1 sec
2012 iMac 2.9 Core i5, GeForce GT 650M = 25.5 sec
2012 Retina MBP 2.7 Core i7, GeForce GT 650M = 25.0 sec
2012 Mac mini 2.6 Core i7, Intel HD 4000 = 212.0 sec
Photoshop CS6 - render Tilt/Shift on 159M test image
2012 iMac 3.4 Core i7, GeForce GTX 680MX = 5.8 sec
2011 iMac 3.4 Core i7, Radeon HD 6970M = N/A
2012 iMac 2.9 Core i5, GeForce GT 650M = 8.5 sec
2012 Retina MBP 2.7 Core i7, GeForce GT 650M = 8.4 sec
2012 Mac mini 2.6 Core i7, Intel HD 4000 = 21.8 sec
Final Cut Pro X - render Directional Blur effect on 30 sec Apple ProRes 422 (HQ) 19x10 video
2012 iMac 3.4 Core i7, GeForce GTX 680MX = 10.0 sec
2011 iMac 3.4 i7, Radeon HD 6970M = 24.7 sec
2012 iMac 2.9 Core i5, GeForce GT 650M = 17.7 sec
2012 Retina MBP 2.7 Core i7, GeForce GT 650M = 13.4 sec
2012 Mac mini 2.6 Core i7, Intel HD 4000 = 32.2 sec
Final Cut Pro X - render Rain effect (lower is faster) on 30 sec Apple ProRes 422 (HQ) 19x10 video
2012 iMac 3.4 Core i7, GeForce GTX 680MX = 13.3 sec
2012 iMac 2.9 Core i5, GeForce GT 650M = 24.1 sec
2012 Mac mini 2.6 Core i7, Intel HD 4000 = 49.0 sec
Motion 5 - render RAM Preview of 600 frame HD template (higher is better)
2012 iMac 3.4 Core i7, GeForce GTX 680MX = 40.8 FPS
2011 iMac 3.4 Core i7, Radeon HD 6970M = 25.2 FPS
2012 iMac 2.9 Core i5, GeForce GT 650M = 17.0 FPS
2012 Retina MBP 2.7 Core i7, GeForce GT 650M = 19.9 FPS
2012 Mac mini 2.6 Core i7, Intel HD 4000 = 9.5 FPS

Thats'a spicy meatball!
Still prepping!?!??

 

[Carlo_M]

Definitely eye-opening numbers! Just waiting for barefeats to confirm or add additional program benchmarks but those are definitely looking good!
Will probably pull the trigger once I recover from Xmas spending

 

[Sam Posten]

Cool cool.
Also it got a Cnet editors choice.
http://reviews.cnet.com/imac/
Shows how easy it is to get to the RAM.

 

[Carlo_M]

Yeah there was no way I was going 21" based on how difficult that version is to update RAM. It was always going to be either the 27" iMac, Mac Pro (if they got around to refreshing it before I pulled the purchase) or a custom build PC.
I'm actually surprised by how much I dislike Windows 8. They better support 7 for the indefinite future because, putting my IT hat on, 8 is nearly unsuitable for business purposes. I know a lot of companies still using XP who need to upgrade because that OS will be end-of-life'd in 2014 by MS, and I'm betting companies will use 7 as long as they used XP and not migrate up to 8 (or subsequent releases) if they continue on this design trend of incorporating mobile and home OS and optimizing for touchscreens.

 

[Sam Posten]

Updates incoming!

If you have a 2012 Macs, Apple has some updates for you.
They are Wi-Fi and EFI firmware updates and available from the Software Update section of the Mac App Store.

 

[Carlo_M]

Initial Barefeats benchmarks look good, more to come later today/tomorrow.

 

[Sam Posten]

Very cool, it is kicking ass both on pro apps and gaming too!

Alan Wake
(2560x1440, maximum settings, maximum distances, 16x AF, 2x AA)
Min fps: 22, Avg fps: 36, Max fps: 57
DiRT 2
(DX11, 2560x1440, maximum settings "Ultra" preset, 4x MSAA)
Min fps: 58, Avg fps:69, Max fps: 74
Borderlands
(2560x1440, maximum settings, 16x AF, control panel forced 2x FXAA)
Ambient occlusion off, Flare Outs off, Dynamic Shadows off - Min fps: 43, Avg fps:57, Max fps: 64
Ambient occlusion on, Flare Outs on, Dynamic Shadows off - Min fps: 32, Avg fps:45, Max fps: 57
Ambient occlusion on, Flare Outs on, Dynamic Shadows on - Min fps: 23, Avg fps:34, Max fps: 44
Fallout: New Vegas
(2560x1440, maximum settings "Ultra preset", 15x AF, 4x AA, HDR On)
Min fps: 40, Avg fps:60, Max fps: 64
Dead Island
(2560x1440, maximum settings "Best Quality preset", control panel forced 4x FXAA and 16x AF)
Min fps: 55, Avg fps:78, Max fps: 107
The Darkness II
(2560x1440, maximum settings, control panel forced 4x FXAA and 16x AF)
Min fps: 83, Avg fps:103, Max fps: 129

Details and discussion here, I didn't rip all his content, just the benches:
http://forums.macrumors.com/showpost.php?p=16511860&postcount=254
Mine is somewhere between China and Alaska, my delivery date is updated to 24 December, which I still won't be home for. Hoping against hope it can get here Friday instead,

 

[Ronald Epstein]

My iMac is arriving 1 day earlier than UPS originally slated it for.

It arrives, today, actually.

Looking forward to getting all my old data migrated over and start
using it.

I got rid of my Logitech DiNovo Keyboard for Mac and bought a
brand-new das Keyboard. Using it, briefly without being hooked
up to a computer, I could already see my typing speed greatly
increased. It's a noisy little f---er, but it really seems as good as
the reviews suggest.

 

[Sam Posten]

Oh frabjous happy dance!

Lightroom is the best thing that ever happened for photographers and the worst damn application ever created all in one. It keeps you organized, efficient and makes many elements of my workflow go so smooth. It can also be the slowest flippin program ever created and make you want to punch walls.
I picked up the new Nikon d600 24mpx camera when it first came out. Immediately my Lightroom experience became horrible. I was shooting with a d7000 18mpx camera and the new filesize of the images was JUST enough to make going from one image to the next a painful 5 or more seconds. When you are trying to edit through 400+ images from a fashion shoot or 1300+ images from a wedding it really adds up. Once I was working on an image it was fine (I know that some people have issues with serious slowdowns while even adjusting the image .. this has never really been a problem for me).
My update to the iMac was to get the best system I could to handle my current camera / mpx size and speed up my workflow.
I can tell you that Lightroom rocks on the new system. I can literally hold my finger on the right arrow button and SCREAM through my image previews and when I stop its about a 1/2 second load for the full res to POP. (And this is without rendering 1 to 1 previews!!). And I have not even done a single tweak to Lightroom to help with performance so I know that I can get these renders to almost instant with some back end adjustments.

http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=1510051

 

[Sam Posten]

Cool Ron, keep us posted!
I just realized I'm gonna want to hook this guy up to HDMI. I might have to steal the Mini DP to HDMI cable from my laptop (these are compatible with Thunderbolt right?) and then grab another from Amazon down the road to keep in my laptop bag...

 

[Carlo_M]

Haha as a Lightroom user with 25MB RAW files from my 7D, I can certainly commiserate with that guy's experience. However I do wonder if him "screaming through" the pictures is due to the pics being on his SSD (can't tell based on his post). My library is way too big to be on the SSD portion of the fusion drive so it would either be on the traditional internal HD on the iMac, or on an external hard drive via FW800 or Thunderbolt.

 

[Sam Posten]

Same here, my library is gonna be on 7200RPM Thunderbolt drives....

 

[Sam Posten]

From the same thread:

Just another LR+PS user here. I have a maxed out 27" with 3TB Fusion. Working in LR and PS is a total breeze now. Just as the OP wrote, I can hold down the arrow button and the images fly through, the speed is incredible.
My biggest complaint in the editing department was saving and loading files in Photoshop. I'm very happy to report that that I can build up an edit to over 1GB in document size and saving is still very fast.
I shoot a Canon 7D and the flat file is normally around 110MB doc size. Saving this is lightning fast.
I had a shoot this past weekend in my garage studio and shot tethered to the iMac for the first time ever. It was a whole new experience shooting tethered. Will never go back for studio work.
If you'd like to see my work:
http://500px.com/StuartAllen
Take care!

Mine is in Louisville. Still a chance it will be delivered tomorrow or Friday, but UPS still says Monday =(