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Old 23-02-2018, 02:52 PM
AnakChan (Sean)
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Any iMac Pro owners here using PixInsight?

Hi,

I find my iMac 27" late 2009 getting too slow with PI and it's due for a refresh. I'm a Mac guy since 2001 so plan to stick to the Apple ecosystem.

I'm in a dilemma of either a :-
  1. DIY Hackintosh 7980XE based (prob 64GB but this option could stretch to 128GB)
  2. iMac Pro 10-Core 64GB
  3. iMac Pro 18-Core 32GB (and upgrade mem later after warranty expires)
  4. iMac Pro 18-Core 64GB

I've read that PI would use all cores available although not certain how much balance/diff the 10 core 3.0GHz vs 18 core 2.3GHz would factor in.

A little more on my source files, they're primarily the D810A 36MP RAW or A7S 12MP RAW. Especially for the D810A 36MP RAW, the file sizes do tend to be large.

Further, as my D810A is uncooled, I'm shooting shorter but more multiple light subs around the 120+ full frame of 'em (+ whatever darks, lights, biased, etc.).

Any thoughts/recommendations on the h/w from the list above?
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Old 23-02-2018, 03:06 PM
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RickS (Rick)
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I'm using Linux and Windows on an AMD Threadripper 1950x (16 cores/32 threads) and PI does a good job of keeping all the threads busy when processing large numbers of subs.

You might be able to get a better feel for general performance on Mac by looking at benchmark results: http://pixinsight.com/benchmark/ Most of the results are for Windows and Linux but if you look hard there are some Max OSX results too.

Cheers,
Rick.
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Old 23-02-2018, 03:36 PM
AnakChan (Sean)
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Quote:
Originally Posted by RickS View Post
I'm using Linux and Windows on an AMD Threadripper 1950x (16 cores/32 threads) and PI does a good job of keeping all the threads busy when processing large numbers of subs.

You might be able to get a better feel for general performance on Mac by looking at benchmark results: http://pixinsight.com/benchmark/ Most of the results are for Windows and Linux but if you look hard there are some Max OSX results too.

Cheers,
Rick.
Hi Rick, cheers for the pointer. I've seen the PI benchmarks in posts, but didn't know it was consolidated on the PI site.

I've seen your TR builds and results too! Highly impressive! I'm aware of some TR Hackintosh builds however uncertain of their "longevity" from a Hackintosh support perspective as Apple continues to update their MacOS.

However you have given me some alternate thoughts of just picking up a std iMac 5K, and have a Linux TR build that I can Xdisplay from the iMac. Cost may end up being the same as a single 7980xe or iMac Pro though.
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Old 23-02-2018, 03:44 PM
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RickS (Rick)
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Good luck with the decision, Sean!
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Old 22-03-2018, 10:21 PM
AnakChan (Sean)
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A little bumpety to this thread. Just received delivery of my iMac Pro 18-Core/64GB/4TB config :-

CPU Identification
CPU vendor ............. GenuineIntel
CPU model .............. Intel(R) Xeon(R) W-2191B CPU @ 2.30GHz

System Information
Platform ............... MacOSX
Operating system ....... Mac OS X 10.13.3 17D2047
Core version ........... PixInsight Core 01.08.05.1352 (x64)
Logical processors ..... 36
Total memory size ...... 64.000 GiB

Execution Times
Total time ............. 00:25.20
CPU time ............... 00:17.64
Swap time .............. 00:07.36
Swap transfer rate ..... 2250.968 MiB/s

Performance Indices
Total performance ...... 18669
CPU performance ........ 21452
Swap performance ....... 12467

Still can't compete with Rick's TR build but I'm happy enough. I'm still tempted to partition off and install Linux on this iMac Pro and see how PixInsight runs on the same hardware with different OS. I anticipate it to be able to squeeze a little more out of it but don't know how much.

Last edited by AnakChan; 22-03-2018 at 10:23 PM. Reason: Updating with Linux install intention
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  #6  
Old 22-03-2018, 11:14 PM
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Camelopardalis (Dunk)
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Congrats on your new super Mac

I’d expect the difference for PI between Linux and MacOS to be fairly minimal, they’re both flavours of UNIX.

It’s mostly ports of Windoze apps that run like bitter treacle (like Office...)
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