# IMac - Thunderbolt 3 and USB-C



## Levon (Apr 3, 2016)

Hello,

I'm about to pull the trigger and order my first Apple machine (iMac 27" i7). I was waiting until after the Apple Keynote event that took place a few weeks ago just in case they sneaked in Thunderbolt 3 and USB-C into the iMac (which they didn't).

My question is...

How important do people see Thunderbolt 3 and USB-C being for future music production? In other words, do I go ahead and buy the current model with Thunderbolt 2 or do I wait a bit longer (possibly their development event in June or their next Keynote in October) to future proof my (expensive) purchase. And as a home studio setup am I really going to get that much benefit from Thunderbolt 3 & USB-C?

Thanks in advance.
Leven


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## proxima (Apr 3, 2016)

Thunderbolt 3 is going to be mostly useful for driving an external 5k display at 60 Hz (or two 4k displays at 60 Hz). Thunderbolt 2 is definitely fast enough to support external SSDs at near their practical capacity. It seems unlikely that Thunderbold 3 or USB-C will provide any real benefits over TB2 and USB3 for stuff like audio interfaces; most audio interfaces are still USB2, which provides enough bandwidth. 

That said, I'm waiting to replace my late 2013 27" iMac with whatever Apple will release this year. I really want an external 5k display (especially on a new laptop), so I've been waiting for Thunderbolt 3/Intel Skylake to support it. Skylake processors are just now becoming available though, so that is probably the limiting factor for Apple. In my dream world they redesign the iMac to make it slightly less insane to take apart, but I put odds of that at right around zero.

Of course, prices have to come down on external 5ks - right now they're about as expensive as the retina iMac itself...


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## Baron Greuner (Apr 3, 2016)

I just took back a 2016 i7 5K iMac to the Apple Store today and it's being replaced with a new one.

Streaming samples from an external USB enclosure wouldn't really be an issue and probably fast enough. I use a Black Magic TB and that works well too. The internal ssd makes things like Logic X and booting up fairly quick. I also opted for a thunderbolt audio unit, but something like an good RME USB audio unit would be just as good.


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## Levon (Apr 3, 2016)

Hi Baron, was your iMac faulty?


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## Baron Greuner (Apr 3, 2016)

Yes. Crazy thing was, they tested it over and over and eventually changed the logic board and the power supply. Mine has a 4K video card which is attached to the logic board on iMacs.These iMacs are basically awesome, glorified laptops, so there is not that much inside that can actually go that wrong.
However, the fault was not software or logic board etc issues at all as it turned out. Turned out to be a very rare, almost unheard of hardware fault with the power button. The power button was turning itself off and shorting out. So today the Apple Store people are replacing it. I have Apple Care and I would highly recommend getting that just in case. Gives you 3 years.

The other option I looked at, was a refurbished Mac Pro, say a 2012 model as I may still do that one day. But I wanted thunderbolt and a 5K screen at the time, so that idea was shelved.

Logic X on a 5K iMac is really a great tool.


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