Best iMac Pro configuration for heavy Reason 10 use?

Want to talk about music hardware or software that doesn't include Reason?
AOS
Posts: 14
Joined: 21 Dec 2017

13 Jan 2018

squint wrote:
14 Dec 2017
Hey guys

Ended up getting this:

2.3GHz 18-core Intel Xeon W processor, Turbo Boost up to 4.3GHz
64GB 2666MHz DDR4 ECC memory
4TB SSD
Radeon Pro Vega 56 with 8GB of HBM2 memory
How is it working out? Any recommendations? Im in the market as well. Thanks/

User avatar
selig
RE Developer
Posts: 11685
Joined: 15 Jan 2015
Location: The NorthWoods, CT, USA

13 Jan 2018

squint wrote:
14 Dec 2017
Hey guys

Ended up getting this:

2.3GHz 18-core Intel Xeon W processor, Turbo Boost up to 4.3GHz
64GB 2666MHz DDR4 ECC memory
4TB SSD
Radeon Pro Vega 56 with 8GB of HBM2 memory
Whoa! Really interested in whether the 18 cores makes a substantial difference, and if so where that difference is noticed. The 64 GB ram certainly won't hurt either…

Have you run any of the typical Reason stress tests yet?
Selig Audio, LLC

squint
Posts: 28
Joined: 09 Jun 2015

13 Jan 2018

selig wrote:
13 Jan 2018
squint wrote:
14 Dec 2017
Hey guys

Ended up getting this:

2.3GHz 18-core Intel Xeon W processor, Turbo Boost up to 4.3GHz
64GB 2666MHz DDR4 ECC memory
4TB SSD
Radeon Pro Vega 56 with 8GB of HBM2 memory
Whoa! Really interested in whether the 18 cores makes a substantial difference, and if so where that difference is noticed. The 64 GB ram certainly won't hurt either…

Have you run any of the typical Reason stress tests yet?
I'll let you know.. I don't get the Mac until probably the first week of Feb.

I haven't done any organized stress tests, I just use a lot of REs and VSTs and I don't like bouncing stuff in case I want to change them later.

Some kind of Freeze Tracks feature would really be nice to have in Reason. If only...

Hauser+Quaid
Posts: 147
Joined: 06 Jun 2017

15 Jan 2018

Also curious as to how the 18-core beast performs in real-world tests, please keep us updated!

Too many folks get hung up on "specs". In my personal experience, they mean a lot less than one would think.

squint
Posts: 28
Joined: 09 Jun 2015

15 Jan 2018

Yeah it totally depends on how you work in Reason. I just didn't want to get stuck with another machine that couldn't handle the way I like to work, so I went all out

User avatar
Theo.M
Posts: 1035
Joined: 16 Jan 2015

03 Sep 2018

Hope it's ok to revive this.. I am not a reason user for three years now, but I have been searching audio boards for imac pro topics and this one came up...

My main DAW(s) are Pro Tools (for predominantly audio based projects) and Cubase 9 (for fresh compositions).

I haven't had a new computer in 7 years and finally decided to get the imac pro before mojave (and a lot of new incompatibility issues) comes shipped on all new macs.
But I only got the 8 core, with 64gb ram and 2TB ssd. I left the vega 56. If i ever do any content creation it will be very light stuff.. plus, from some reviews, I see the thermals can be quite challenging for the machine and the vega 64 adds 70 w, so I figure it's better to stick with the 56.

Anyway, the machine is incredible, it's literally silent, quieter than any custom silent PC i have previously built.

BUT... and I don't have long before mojave comes out so I have to move.. (i have 7 days left to return it)

I fell like I made a booboo in not spending the extra money and getting the 10 core.

The 14 core and 18 core aren't for me, as i have seen their thermal results under stress and they can even drop below base clock, which is low at it is..

The ten core seems to hover around 3.5ghz all core turbo when under thermal load, whilst the machine stays quiet. To me this is preferable to 14 cores at 2.5ghz simply cause some synths need that speed for high polyphony and one plugin, bar exceptions like kontakt and diva, is processed on a single core.

Anyway.. geekbench is over 2000 compared to 1600 for mine, and yes, my previous mac was 600 and it does equate to daw usage also, so it's a huge jump already for me..
But, they are so expensive here, for that config was 9900 aud, so i figured maybe not doing that one extra upgrade for the 10 core was a huge mistake since I want it to last at least 5 years.

What do you think?

How are you finding the 18 core out of curiosity? Reason is the most cpu inefficient DAW on mac os, so would be very curious to see if it uses all those cores.

Do you feel it was worth the money? Have you run intel power gadget to see your clock speeds when the cores are heavily loaded, as well as temperatures?

Apple actually gave me a $500 discount out of the blue, i was very surprised, she just said thank you for shopping with us all these years, i'm going to take $500 off for you, so it was like 9450, and I don't know if that will apply again if I return it, so it really has to be worth it.

Anyone with a 10 core imac pro in particular, i would LOVE to hear from you.. thermals, noise, daw performance.

Cheers'

(edit, i've tried reason in my imac pro and posted about it in the other performance topic, was very disappointing, but I think i am happy to stick with the 8 core, as it works great in all other DAWs I use)

Post Reply
  • Information
  • Who is online

    Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 14 guests