As someone who owns a new 18 Core iMac Pro (replaced my 14 Core) and a 2020 iMac 10 core, the answer is simple: It depends on what else you do.

Either will run BIAB easily with low overhead. If that's all I did, the 2020 iMac — easy decision.

But that's not all I do. The 2020 takes forever to do certain AV rendering. Neither can it run a pair of 5K side monitors… and it has only one TB3 bus with only 2 ports… That's why my wife has the new 2020 and I paid $6,000 more for a loaded iMP from the Refurb Store.

I bought the 2020 first in the hopes that I could use it for my other work and compared it with my 14 Core iMP — if so, I would have bought another. My immediate need was to upgrade the internal storage to 4TB so the 14 Core was going anyway. The Refurb Store had an 18 Core w/ 4TB onboard for not much more than the 14 so I pulled the trigger. I really didn't expect it to be much faster but it is noticeably so — well, not BIAB but that's ok, that runs fast enough.


No one needs a Mac Pro 7.1 just to run BIAB. Doesn't mean it wouldn't be nice. A 7.1 would have set me back another $8K or so after I bought another 5K monitor. Not made of money.

BIAB 2023 Audiophile, 24/60 Core M2 Mac Studio Ultra/8TB/192GB Sonoma, M1 MBAir, 2012 MBP
Digital Performer 11, LogicPro
Finale27.4, Dorico5, Encore5, SmartScorePro64, Notion6, Overture5