New and shiny gear from Apple is always good looking and always sounding good on paper. We've seen lots of paid reviews on various products of theirs and lots of boring laboratory benchmarks showing soulless numbers we had to believe in. How about ditching all that and making a real-world test in workflows that demand a good amount of hardware resources? You guessed it: video processing. The guys from cinema5D got an iMac Pro and decided to see if it could get the work done better than what they already had.
I liked the approach Ollie Kenchington from cinema5D had when he did the review. He didn't run benchmarks of 29 different tests of routines he'd never practice. This makes the test "less scientific" though, but makes it real enough, so that we, as potential buyers, may know if this machine can get exactly what he purchased it for. The non-upgradeable configuration worth about $10,000 was:
- 27-inch, 10-bit, 500 nits brightness, wide color (P3), Retina 5K display (5120×2880)
- 3.0 GHz, 10-core Intel Xeon W processor, Turbo Boost up to 4.5 GHz
- 64 GB 2666 MHz DDR4 ECC memory
- 2 TB SSD
- Radeon Pro Vega 64 with 16 GB of HBM2 memory
A normal video workflow would be, at least, to scrub effortlessly back and forth through the timeline at full resolution of any non-compressed modern 4K, 6K, or 8K file format. Kenchington went a little further by trying to cut a 10-bit 50p 4K raw file from his Canon C200 to see if it would handle the process without any frame drops. He even bothered to export a current project of his on the new iMac Pro to see if it was actually better.
According to him, the machine had an impressive performance. It did not drop a single frame when working with Canon's raw file. Processing an 8K ProRes 422 HQ had a frame drop rate that hadn't been bothering him at all. The export was almost four times faster than the machines he used before. With that said, he seems happy with that purchase.
Read the full review on cinema5D.
[via cinama5D]
I thought it was soldered to the motherboard as on their latest laptops.
The warranty is immediately voided once you do that and the consumer likely won't attempt that which means paying someone else a premium for the work. The SSD's are a dual RAID unit...upgrading those will crack your bank account....what's the point?
Ok, I'm an average computer user.
Go ahead and buy the base model. Also go ahead and purchase the upgrade components. I'm gonna watch iFixit a few times in the meanwhile. I'll also fly to your location at my own expense and perform the simple upgrades for you. As long as we establish that I'm not responsible for the outcome. Deal?
They are upgradeable, but Apple says any upgrades must be performed by them, so DIY will likely void the warranty.
Yet again...another Apple "solution" in search of a problem. I bought the jammed out L2013 MP with a 4K monitor years ago on the advice of several friends who work in development. The promise was that they would get the software people in-line to code applications to take advantage of the hardware. Never happened.
If your work is primarily photography, 1080p or 4K video save your money. If you shoot 6K or 8K...lol save your money. All of those run just fine on a 3-4 year old MAC and even better on a Windows based PC...unless like me you are a FCPx user.
I know exactly 4 people (personally) who have a 4K computer monitor, and nobody at all that is using a 4K TV. I shoot 4-8K with 1080p output in mind unless I'm specifically asked for a higher resolution. the L2013 MP handles all of that just fine...
So just who is this for??
All this talk about not making any money in our dying industry...people giving away work for free in return for "exposure"...where are people getting the money from to buy RED cameras which require an iMac Pro to process it's footage lol...
I bought my MP for a couple of simple reasons..even though the promise of more helped make the decision.
-the thing runs constantly and has never needed service
-Apples software is stable...can't say as much for Adobe
-it's providing tons of computing power with a low power impact. my electricity bills are super low.
-it's got a long shelf life and I'm amortizing it over a handful of years
Finally I'll say this...again.
It's not the hardware, it's the poor implementation of the software that causes people to pull hair out. Adobe is the worst offender. Each version of LR seems to get slower and PR/AE demands a powerful PC just for mediocre performance.
Save your money and really harass Adobe and Apple to improve their applications to take advantage of ALREADY powerful enough computer platforms.
Just sayin'...
First of all, this is for people who wish and are capable of spending the money on it.
Secondly, people complained Apple didn't do anything about the pro users by releasing a MacBook Pro that was not pro enough. So they did something.
Thirdly, most of the hardware and files nowadays is way more than we actually need (Last year I wrote an article on "Do We Need 4K At All") and this makes the companies release newer and newer software and hardware that include 4K, 5K, 6K to cameras that are used by people who publish stuff viewable on mobile devices.
Fourthly, users are programmed to expect "a new gadget" each year. Companies are not releasing everything they actually can this year, because there won't be anything "innovative" (more megapixels, more megahertz, more megabytes) for the next year.
This machine is for those who can afford it, whose other computer can't handle their current workflow, and who want to have an expensive and fast hardware that they won't change the next 5-6 years. Next year the owners of this iMac Pro will complain that there won't be a need for a new iMac Pro, because the old one is powerful enough. The same rant...
Ok fine...lol.. "for people who can afford it".
As one of those people who can...but won't, let's not sell this as an improvement. It's a status/GAS thing.
Like I said..no offense to you, this is a solution in search of a problem. Know what we really need? for Adobe and Apple to start making software that properly leverages these beasty machines. I cut a 1 minute video from a RED camera the other day and it "just" significantly saturated my 8-cores and i hardly heard the fan ramp up.
I wasn't offended at all, Leigh. If you see the "Firstly" part, it has humor in it, not only truth. I also said that not only the ability to afford, but also the wish to own it was the driving force here.
The rest of the points were with the same vibe: we've got more than we actually need. I still work in the 2K range and it's more than enough for what I do. I personally don't use Adobe's products for video processing exactly for that software engineering issues they have. I rarely purchase new hardware, but if I needed a new piece of iron and my current one was too old, I'd buy this one (or a similar thing) and forget about upgrade for the next 5+ years, just as you did some time back.
I know you weren't...I can be sarcastic.
Answer me this: I owned a 70's era corvette. Great in a straight line, dead sexy on the drive to school but pretty much crap in every other way. If Chevy didn't solve any of the negatives but kept adding horsepower to throw you off the scent, would you be happy?
I recently drove one of the new models...what a difference. They did it by listening to what buyers actually wanted/ask for. Apple isn't doing any of that...nor do they need to apparently. Slapping a coat of grey paint on a new/old model is enough to impress some people...
BTW I say new/old because much of this iMac Pro is recycled from the old model...the price tag is new tho.
There are many other problems besides hardware. We judge hardware on the way software works on it. Most of today's software is not built like before. Most of it doesn't care about efficiency, because they play the game together with the hardware manufacturers. Sometimes Apple make their software more efficient, because they tie it with their hardware. Other times it's not that efficient.
We may be in the time when Apple users will get tired of being milked for yet another piece of RAM added to the new model in comparison to the old one and they would finally get a totally new thing on the market.
But again, if I have to be realistic, we don't need a new computer every year. The ones that will buy this one are those who haven't purchased a stable machine for the last several years and they desperately need a new workhorse. Those people will not buy the next year's model, because they already have one.
Always a tough question with so many variables that vary depending on the user. If you're a working professional who gets paid good money to edit than the cost MIGHT be justified depending on individual needs. Yes there is better value elsewhere (clearly) but again that all depends on the user, that users work space and their individual needs plus other stuff.
There is a market for this computer and it's not 100% based on value/specs/benchmarks.
It's an endless debate I think. Good topic for discussion because it no doubt creates one.
:)
Although such a topic raises debates, I tried to keep it strictly within the boundaries of what the reviewer tested it for. There was no mention that this was the best machine or this was the most affordable machine (quite the opposite). It's simply an expensive machine that pays out with a great performance for that kind of job.
No absolutely! I enjoyed your article I should have clarified I was speaking specifically on the bigger conversation that always comes from these topics, not to the article itself. Apologies for that, the last thing I want to do is put words in your mouth or insinuate you said stuff you didn't .Enough of THAT going around the world these days ;)
Good stuff Tihomir.
No offence, don't worry about that. It's just geeks discussing gear.
True! lol Geeks are passionate! I should know, we can smell our own. Thanks for the convo Tihomir.
Low end costs what? Almost six thousand euro?
Nah, i'll lay around with my BenQ IPS 2.5K screen, my Ryzen 7 1700X and GTX 1070ti. I bet they can keep up with that...iLaptopDeskbookPro...for 1/5 the price...
Nobody even thought it is a cheap thing. The reviewer just wondered if spending that kind of money at least gets the job done with monstrous files.
What a shocking news it would be if it turned out this thing was slower than an average modern laptop. Fortunately (and unfortunately for a clickbait article) it turns out that you get what you pay for. Well, maybe at a little higher cost.
To be truth to you, i clearly doubt that the Xeon processor inside that iMac (8core version) is faster than the Ryzen 7 lineup, yet you will pay premium for a cpu that will not surpass 1000 points on Cinebench R15. Then, ECC RAM, why on earth will you pay for server RAM when this is clearly directed at creatives, so to say "pros".
Last, Vega 64, ohh the HBM2 GPU that costs 700€ but can't keep with the 1070ti, 1080 or 1080ti (not a nvidia fanboy, otherwise i wouldn't have a Ryzen 7 CPU).
So now, this thing does not drop frames at 6K et all. Ok, good, it costs 6000€, it should do that and even better than that.
What scares me, on an engineering side of things, is how efficient will that "cooler" be. We have a 150+W TDP CPU, an RX Vega 64 known to be very hot, all packed together inside that slim boddy. Either after some time iMac Pro users will suffer from throttling and that performance will go down the pipe, OR, and this is worse, the hardware will prematurely wear out (electron gate jams at CPU level as an example). Oh and you can't open it to change thermal components like thermal paste.
6000 thousand european fiat currency credits on a computer, that is not upgradable, has hardware that needs to breathe on a small form shell being cooled by a laptop kind of solution (uncleanable, unmantainable), if the screen goes broken the hardware will be lost (unless it is not soldered and you can build a PC out of the components). If the hardware goes bust, you'll end up with a useless 5K monitor.
To me, it is a powerful yet very scary machine.
The unfortunate truth is that they thing users of this one will buy the new one in 2 years. No(company)one cares about having a lasting machine anymore...
And yes, if someone can do their job on a Windows-based machine, why not build it themselves? It's OK do do that, nothing shameful at all.
I also wonder why people purchase fast expensive cars where you can't fit 3 pelican cases and 5 C-stands. I buy cheap cars that do a better job for me, but those who buy the luxury ones can't understand my point.
Last time I calculated how much it would cost me to buy a MacBook Pro laptop and a Windows laptop, the prices were almost identical (including the price of the software exclusively used for Mac in some cases). Yes, Macs are expensive, but not always that way more expensive than a similar hardware from another company.
My car costed me 4700 euro. Is 13 years old, looks good, has a diesel engine and can do up to one thousand kilometers with a filled up tank. :P
yes you are definitly right, people just don't care. New year new toy, unfortunally. Brands know this, so they make things to last the bear or acceptable minimum.
Just remember, most people who will buy this, will be the professional photographer/videographer who is expecting this machine to last at least 5 years.
A photographer doesn't need this computing power. I used to do complex composites (3-4GB files) on a 2010 MBP by maxing it out with RAM and replacing the standard hard disk with an SSD. If it had a good video card, it would be great for video too.
Bob Troll, it's an european car. I guess it will do better than those hickups you mention ;) it's not build with "Good Ol'Uncle Sam" trash.
Ohhh i remember you. The troll on another post around here who tried to burn me for anti-america things. Again? It's getting old. As for the an or a, for a portuguese i kind of write english better than most americans ;)
As for the car, not a VW and even those are being patched.
Go on with your V8 gasoline trash.
Bob, please, go to a gym or boxing classes. It will do marvels to you.
I guess you are upset, maybe your life isn't going the way you desired, maybe you need friends who knows.
My anti-americanism? Well, let me see, i'm sparing some money to visit NYC, because i find it an awesome place to visit but, shouldn't i visit Moscow then?
I have american friends, really cool and kind people but have no russian friends, a shame because they can be as cool as americans.
I don't like the israeli governament, should I be accused by my jewish friends of anti-semitism aswell? Hmmm doesn't sound fair.
Or maybe, maybe it's just me. Hey it might even be my country's governament who, like your last cool president, dropped 28 bombs on a daily basis through all the 8 years he was at the white house. And that might have caused some civilian casualties, but, like you say, who cares for the people from...sh*thole countries? Right?
Polution? Do you really want to talk about that? Because as far as i know, your dear leader just signed off the Paris Treaty and he's still the president of the 2nd largest doner of CO2 on the entire planet. Or am I wrong again?
Moralities, examples, that's every single thing your governament does not represent. As for the american folk, they are just workers, like you and me, who pay their taxes, hang out with friends, get married, have kids, raise'em.
So, from an iMac Pro perspective, we went through a polution discussion to anti-americanism. All because, good ol'Bob wanted to troll someone.
I was really trying hard not to reply to you, really, I was like "what's the use?", but I did, and now i will just keep living my life, working and keep taking care of better things than pay attention to you.
As for my english, i'm a portuguese who speaks english, french and spanish. How many languages do you speak? American English and Redneckishtan English?
Live long and prosper.
Hummmm fascism.
What a cool word to bring out.
France never knew what fascism was, they are not very fond of americans.
Envy? Envy what? Culture? What culture? As fas as i know, all you people are europeans that moved there. Italian, portuguese, spanish, irish, english, scottish.
You guys went to the moon? Yes, you did. Who created the rocket? A german, a very fascist one as i recall. :)
Nuclear bombs? Yes, those english scientists were really good at it. All you did was kill a quarter million of innocent lives in a fraction of a seccond with them.
Apple computer inc? Woah, Jobs's parents were from Syria, same country your culture mined and is now blowing to smitherines. And Wozniak sounds a lot like Polish to me.
You guys have cars? Yup, but I guess Carl Benz was also german.
Car safety? Hmmmm wasn't that a norweigian?
Art? Photography? I guess that was all in Europe too. Specially the guys who created Pizza, italians. Giotto, Michelangelo, Rembrandt, those names sound just like they came from South Carolina.
Confirmation that the earth was actually round? I guess that was a portuguese on a boat, Magellean i guess, but the culture you're defending is now saying otherwise.
Lobotomy? I guess it was a portuguese nobel prize..but..
Sh*thole countries? You didn't say that? Nope you did not, but the representant of your culture did, not even a week ago.
English, yes a great tool :) some kind countries like mine won't mind speaking it to you. But, try and go Spain, Italy..or even worse, France, and the universal thing about english will go just down the drain pipe.
And in Europe, we put a big effort on learning UK's english, not american. As we watch films, not movies, we eat biscuits not cookies. But, some of us like Hollywood movies and that might have an influence on our english.
So no Bob, nobody in europe envys mass shootings, obesity, and narrow minded people like you.
But, we like americans, I like the cool friends i have, who know where to put countries on a map. Who try and share culture. Those americans who do not behave like all countries should be like america. Because remember ol'Bob, we were here centuries before America and we will still be around here centuries after America. (I hope)
Whenever you have a chance, get a plane ticket to Portugal, I will give you a warm welcome (i'm serious here), take you to taste great food, walk on palaces and castles older than the US, taste good wine, good coffee. Take you on a (or an?) 900 year cultural trip.
And if we drive a bit on my diesel car, we can go to Spain, is right next the border, but here we don't need borders because our neighbour countries are our friends. :)
ditto thermals and long-term keeping it clean
glad you brought that up :)
the xeon is not as needed unless its about dual CPUs anyway and should not be shoved into this box?
its a bit like the idiots saying yeah shove a huge V8 in a Porsche and it will really go ?
also sadly adobe these days just flat out sucks for performance and LR is a mess and PS is not that great either for us photographers as far as performance goes
if this is the only pro direction for high-end machines I can see more bailing from apple
Well Chad.
To some people here there's no need to actually maintain these components, because Apple might have a magic way to get rid of heat.
The fan is not even apropriate for a CPU of this kind. Not to mention the RX Vega 64 that hits somewhere on the 300W power consumption, more power, more heat.
Maybe, just maybe, if this iMac had a water cooling circuit inside, made to last and refillable, i would be quiet.
As for double CPU's, yes, these are server CPU's being used for nothing else than video and photo editing. Wouldn't an i7 machine do an on par job? Yes it would, and even if Bob disagrees about my Ryzen cpu (because when these came to market we all stopped being bullied by Intel prices), this $200 cpu can keep up with 6K or 8K video if paired with a decent GPU.
The issue here, and you are right again, is poor software optimization. Adobe sure lacks on this, as Lightroom, even on my poor Ryzen 7 lags AND the CPU is paired with a GTX 1070ti (which is an high end GPU).
Thermals will be the issue for this machine on the long run and depending on where your iMac Pro is, this run might not be that long. Dust will get into the fins, the fans will also get dirty, gel pads or thermal paste will lose it's heat transfering properties.
After two years, one will end up with a 6000€ machine that will throttle down and kill itself when it comes to performance. All of this why? Because unlike the old Mac Pro (Big gray box), you won't be able to upkeep the components.
Still, fanboys and other people who can't see past the fence, will believe every single thing Apple throws at them. Unfortunally, i'm just an IT Engineer who will not overlook every possible issue on a machine, before putting it's money into it.
Yes, i would love to have this beautiful sleek machine at my desk, looks way better than my big PC and has a marvelous 5K display, but, this geek side of me tells me otherwise. I look at it and I see trouble.
And these are just my 2 cents on this issue.
Bob, i will not reply to you ;)
I say look at the iPhone issue with batteries :) that sadly says where Apple is these days with throttling so it is in their playbook :)
make things appear great
but the reality is performance is only a face thing to them for short-term and not in the long run IMHO
apple is not what it used to be sadly
this was not at you Paulo :) just general response jut hit reply :) ahhaahh reckon we are on the same page about thermals throttling etc..
I will never own it (unless I'm miraculously gifted one). The 2012 iMac I am using now is just fine and dandy, thank y'all very much.
If we were 2012 now, you'd be one of those snobs who buys the new iMac :)
I have 2 Macs, a mid 2012 MacBook Pro with the optical drive, and a 27" late 2012 iMac (the one with the very thin edges). The MacBook Pro I maxed RAM to 16GB and put in a Crucial SSD and was blown away by how much of a performance boost it got. Would love to do the same to the iMac but the thought of opening that thing up makes me shiver.
Thanks Bob, I will have a proper look at this project during the course of the year. There is a local company here in Durban South Africa (where I live) who I know offer this as a service, so I will see what they charge to supply the equipment and do the job. If it's prohibitive then I will definitely look into doing it myself - although I am usually all thumbs with these kinds of things. You should see what happened to the Nikkor 18-55mm kit lens I tried to "fix" once...
Well here's an interesting development. I was seated at my iMac this morning when there was a sudden cracking sound, a near coronary event and a resultant iMac screen pointing downwards.
The hinge on my iMac decided to let go.
Apparently it's a known issue with the 27" models that Apple will repair for free. However, here's the stinger: they will only do the repair in Johannesburg, which means I will be sans iMac for 2 weeks.
What a pain.
Yup, that is my thinking. I will investigate the costs and get it all done simultaneously (by people who hopefully have better assembly skills than mine!).
I dunno. I love the iMac's and all, but building my own Hackintosh was fun. Currently running Intel i7-7700K (QuadCore, 8M Cache, up to 4.50 GHz), nVidia GTX 1080TI 11GB video, 32gb 2400mhz ram, with 500GB SSD for the system, that was about $2500, I could have pushed to about $3500-4000 and just about matched this iMac spec for spec, and beat it in some areas, and that starts at $4500 and goes up... Sure it's big and clunky, and not streamlined, but powerful, and upgradeable. For now. I think I'm good, Perhaps if prices come down at all when it's time to upgrade I might change my mind. Granted hackintoshing isn't for everyone, but neither is a ~$5000++ computer.
Some buy it, because they are fanboys. Some buy it, because they need to save some space. Some buy it, because they are snobs. Some buy it, because they don't want to bother building a hackingtosh. Some buy it, because they want a powerful Mac. Some don't buy it, because it's too expensive. Some don't buy it, because it's a Mac. Some don't buy it, because they don't need that kind of hardware.
At the end the client pays the check and couldn't care less what we used to process their files with :)
It's great to hear your configuration works and is 2x cheaper.
I love my iMac Pro. I came from the Windows world (long ago I ran marketing for the first commercial Windows software developer - Micrografx) but switched to the Mac about 10 years ago and haven't looked back. The new iMac Pro, especially when it is fully loaded, is a beast. Even if all of the benchmarks don't show it, the new machine is much better than my trash can Mac Pro and my 2017 MacBook Pro. It isn't for everyone but if you can afford it, it is worth every dime.
Hey Steve.
How's it working on the heat side of things? Do you feel any loss of performance due to throttling? Does it works fresh?
It's the only thing i'm rising on this machine, powerful hardware inside a slim body.
Nice setup by the way :)
So is my lake house...but it does something for me that this new iMac pro doesn't. It actually makes a real difference in my life.
Setting up your foundation on technology is a bad decision indeed. But if you can have a nice house with fresh products from your backyard and you can afford that machine, it's good, as it will be just a helper for some part of your life, not a foundation.
I have a windows box :) been using it for about 2 months now
still have mac pros here also
had OS X since it came out and before that both win and mac
all the way back to pre mac days and a ][e :)
so I love tech more than any one company but Apple is slipping
windows sucks flat out so many issues with things mainly the explorer
no column view so much faster to get files moved around
no way to quickly tag files or preview files and actually read the PDF etc..
color management SUCKS
the OS is stable but other things like making a wacom work properly are major pain issue and never really do pefectly with out something else glitching things
that all said the harware options are great and pushing programs like C1 shows how badly adobe LR sucks :)
is the iMac Pro worth it ? nope but its the only high end machine around with OS X native so kinda stuck and that is sad and shows how bad apple does not understand their user base and is all about the money grab anymore
in the past apple mac pros were very good money wise when compared to win workstations and were often cheaper with the same spec hardware (proper power supplies and so on) yes you can build a cheaper PC in the past but not a better one
today you can build a way better one cheaper but the OS is not their to support the high end hardware and that is a huge issue many creatives are faced with sadly
so its way over priced but over say 5 years of use I reckon that extra $3 or less a day to have one might be worth it
again apple and adobe seem to be lost these days
they need it :)
they have said they are working on something but with the OS X team kinda gone wrapped up into the IOS and sadly Apple is not what it was
I hope they can get back to what they used to :)
A custom-built AMD Threadripper system is still way better than this overpriced hunk of junk.
You put a 5K monitor in the calculation, I guess.
Ehrm..i don't know man. Yes the TR4 is a powerhorse! But I don't know. 1000$ for the 16c 32t Threadripper, 300$ for a good motherboard, that Vega 64 is what 700$?. Memory is expensive as hell, and this iMac Pro comes with DDR4 ECC, 32GB of this memory will cost you some whooping 800$ if not more (damn miners).
That's almost 3000$, without screen. And as i've reserached, this panel from LG costs 1000$, so now we have 4000$.
We are still missing a 1TB SSD, more 500$, the ATX tower, propper cooling solution, storage hard drive, at least 4TB, good keyboard and mouse. And in a blink of an eye, you'll end up with 5000$.
Yes, you have the freedom of swaping components and make the machine live for a bit more.
Yes, the Threadripper has double the core and thread count of the Xeon that comes with the base iMac Pro.
But, the PC solution is uglier, Windows is now (since windows 7) a stable operating system, but it is still very unstable when it comes to Wacom gizmos and color accuracy (software level). On the Apple side, you'll have a sleek cool looking computer (this is the part that scares me, how does it cool down properly?).
I do have a PC, as mentioned above by me, I believe that my Ryzen 7 1700X paired with a GTX 1070ti is as capable as this machine, all this with 32GB of DDR4 3000Mhz RAM. This at a cost of 1200$, paired with my BenQ 1440p 99% AdobeRGB screen. A solution that will put this thing next to 2000$.
It is cheaper, works good, does what it is meant to and runs Crysis.
When summing things, maybe this base iMac Pro is not that expensive, but it's known that hardware upgrades at Apple come at a cost and the top of the line iMac Pro is overinflated, a lot.
Apple has a way of running things that take control out of your hands, specially when it comes to software updates and how they will interfere with your machine performance.
I, with that sum of cash, would go PC because to me it is the better tool, i'm adapted to it and I like to have control over the things I buy. I also like to engineer the way they are assembled and maintained.
By the end of the day, it will all come to personal taste.
No...
I can give the same answer if someone asks me if It's worth the money to have a Ferrari when I go with lots of gear shooting photos or videos for clients. The answer is "No". But if I used it the way it was designed, it would be definitely worth the money.
The same for the iMac Pro. If you utilize its hardware power, it's of a good use. Otherwise, it's not worth the money.
But that "hardware power" is inferior to the same amount of money built as a PC (or hackintosh if you need MacOS), I would even have change to buy myself a comfy chair.
The new Dell (forgot the model) AMD All-in-one is better than the iMac Pro
I know, it's already a known fact. What bothers me most is the premium Apple is charging their customers for this All-in-One desktop. It's like a cash cow for those who can't wait for the next Mac Pro.
You can calculate the price of one hackintosh + a good 5K display and you won't get very far from that price.
Most people who have a good powerful PC or a good powerful Mac do not change it next year. They buy it to serve them well several years. After that they buy a new one that's going to meet the demands of the day.
Those who buy the next one next year are usually those that purchase cheaper devices like laptops or phones.
People keep saying add the monitor and your at that price but I can use that monitor for longer than the computer or use it as a second monitor for a laptop. When the iMac is at end of life the monitor goes with the computer.