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Last generation MP still viable Video Editor?

tjgonzo

tjgonzo

macrumors member
Original poster
Mar 14, 2013
38
1
California
Hey guys, I'm sorry if this has been answered already!
Currently I have a 2011 MBP with an i7, 8gb ram and a 6770. I have always been an photography/ cinematography enthusist so that computer has served me well. Although recently I have been taking my video work more seriously and have been doing jobs for clients I know. I use FCPX and Premier depending on how much time I have. Performance has been great on my machine but, I only have a 256gb SSD. I was wondering how well an older MP would fare, possibly a 4,1 or hex 3,1.

The reasoning behind this is, I already have a mobile computer so a computer that sits at the desk is nice. I love the idea of having tons of room for expansion inside the case for storage! Currently I have a painfully slow usb 2 drive. Also I like the possiblity of using desktops GPUs
 
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If you can use FCPX 10.1 and get an upgraded video card, performance should be pretty good. 10.1 uses the GPU a lot more than previous versions. Premiere would probably be slower, though.
 
WMD said:
If you can use FCPX 10.1 and get an upgraded video card, performance should be pretty good. 10.1 uses the GPU a lot more than previous versions. Premiere would probably be slower, though.
Click to expand...

Premier would be slower because the processor in the MP is slower than the i7?
 
tjgonzo said:
Premier would be slower because the processor in the MP is slower than the i7?
Click to expand...
Yeah, pretty much...unless you get a 8 or 12-core Mac Pro and Premiere can run on all cores (which I'm not sure about). Adobe is probably working on updating Premiere to use the GPU as well, but they aren't saying.
 
upgrading Video card and getting more RAM would help. Still viable though. Wouldn't do 4k too well though.
 
WMD said:
Yeah, pretty much...unless you get a 8 or 12-core Mac Pro and Premiere can run on all cores (which I'm not sure about). Adobe is probably working on updating Premiere to use the GPU as well, but they aren't saying.
Click to expand...

The hex should be roughly equal to a current i7 quad.
 
thekev said:
The hex should be roughly equal to a current i7 quad.
Click to expand...

If I were to go this route it would be at the least, an 8 core machine. Ok, hmm so other than RAM upgradability and internal storage are the only benefits? I run the possibility of having a slower machine?
 
Last generation MP still viable Video Editor?

An 8 core 2.66 or 2.93ghz 4,1 will do the job nicely. Put in a flashed R9 280x or Nvidia 780GTX and you'll be laughing. The Mac Pro has far better cooling than the laptops. In my experience the i7 laptops are ok until they get warm and cpu throttling kicks in. Then you really notice them slow down.

Don't get caught up in all the BS about geekbench scores. Laptops that geekbench higher than my 8 core 2.93ghz can not encode video anywhere near as fast as my machine over the course of a couple of hours. On a 30-60 min encode I usually beat them by 20-30% time wise.
 
tjgonzo said:
If I were to go this route it would be at the least, an 8 core machine. Ok, hmm so other than RAM upgradability and internal storage are the only benefits? I run the possibility of having a slower machine?
Click to expand...

You have to compare specific configurations. Otherwise it's not possible to give a straight answer. If you're talking about a 4,1 2.66 quad released in 2009, then yeah it's slower than the slowest nMP. That's because it's a base model from 2009 compared against the base model from 2014. In spite of hardware delays, the cpu is 3 generations newer than that older one. Some of the top 8 core configurations from 2009 may be faster than the nMP quad. The 4 and 6 core nMP in terms of cpu power isn't going to compete with the 12 core mac pros. You have to look at what software you will be using, how the machine will be configured, and your other needs. You can still get some PCI based options for external storage and other IO on the cMP. I don't know how long support for those will hold out. With the nMP you're locked to either thunderbolt or usb3.
 
Premiere has had CUDA GPU acceleration for years. Just plunk in a decent nVidia card, install the CUDA drivers and use the Mercury Playback Engine in Premiere. It's really snappy, even with 4K. You will obviously need a RAID for the footage.

My flashed 4,1 is as fast or faster than the nMP for most tasks. If you have a 4,1, almost all aspects of it can be upgraded: CPUs, GPUs, RAM, drives, RAIDs, NICs, whatever.

I bought my second 8-core 4,1 yesterday for $800. They're just a steal for how much you can upgrade them. Get one with the highest clock speed you can afford or just upgrade the processors yourself.
 
echoout said:
Premiere has had CUDA GPU acceleration for years. Just plunk in a decent nVidia card, install the CUDA drivers and use the Mercury Playback Engine in Premiere. It's really snappy, even with 4K. You will obviously need a RAID for the footage.

My flashed 4,1 is as fast or faster than the nMP for most tasks. If you have a 4,1, almost all aspects of it can be upgraded: CPUs, GPUs, RAM, drives, RAIDs, NICs, whatever.

I bought my second 8-core 4,1 yesterday for $800. They're just a steal for how much you can upgrade them. Get one with the highest clock speed you can afford or just upgrade the processors yourself.
Click to expand...

Apple hates you. ;)
 
Posting my second feature on my 4,1 8-core 2.93Ghz right now. Handling editing, color, and final output. Sound mixing and such being done elsewhere. I do everything on this thing, including design/web, effects, etc. The older MacPro's are a great bargain. If I was working in 4K all day it would be a lot harder, but I'm still in 1080p world mostly.
 
tjgonzo said:
Hey guys, I'm sorry if this has been answered already!
Currently I have a 2011 MBP with an i7, 8gb ram and a 6770. I have always been an photography/ cinematography enthusist so that computer has served me well. Although recently I have been taking my video work more seriously and have been doing jobs for clients I know. I use FCPX and Premier depending on how much time I have. Performance has been great on my machine but, I only have a 256gb SSD. I was wondering how well an older MP would fare, possibly a 4,1 or hex 3,1.

The reasoning behind this is, I already have a mobile computer so a computer that sits at the desk is nice. I love the idea of having tons of room for expansion inside the case for storage! Currently I have a painfully slow usb 2 drive. Also I like the possiblity of using desktops GPUs
Click to expand...

In my experience, editing 1080p without special effects or filters is fairly effortless for any computer made in the last 5 years... like your MBP or my old 4,1 Quad Core Mac Pro. My old Mac Pro actually had to work harder at my photography tasks (30MB RAW files) than it ever did doing video editing.

If you start layering on filters, my understanding is that's when you're going to want to get FCPX 10.1 and a pair of GPUs... from what I've seen, that's a magical combination. I don't have any experience with Premiere.

Having said all that, if you're making good money doing projects why not consider a nMP? It was built for the kind of work you're doing and external storage is not a big problem.
 
VirtualRain said:
In my experience, editing 1080p without special effects or filters is fairly effortless for any computer made in the last 5 years... like your MBP or my old 4,1 Quad Core Mac Pro. My old Mac Pro actually had to work harder at my photography tasks (30MB RAW files) than it ever did doing video editing.

If you start layering on filters, my understanding is that's when you're going to want to get FCPX 10.1 and a pair of GPUs... from what I've seen, that's a magical combination. I don't have any experience with Premiere.

Having said all that, if you're making good money doing projects why not consider a nMP? It was built for the kind of work you're doing and external storage is not a big problem.
Click to expand...

Thank you guys for the input. It seems that because my MBP is capable of handling the video I edit fairly well, maybe I should wait to see if I get more serious and if I do, then consider the nMP. I was thinking that becasue price of oMP went down that I could get a good deal but, it seems it may not really be worth it.
 
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