Specs for video editing

[blunti]

if you want to burn $3500 and want TB, I suggest you wait for the new mac pro.

 

[wonderspark]

You may be right, how about dropping the Mac mini and getting the top end iMac then:

3.4GHz Quad-Core Intel Core i7
8GB 1333MHz DDR3 SDRAM - 2x4GB
1TB Serial ATA Drive
AMD Radeon HD 6970M 1GB GDDR5
Apple Magic Mouse
Apple Wireless Keyboard (English) & User's Guide
Promise Pegasus R6 6TB (6x1TB) RAID System

$3,898.00

----------

Two 2.4GHz Quad-Core Intel Xeon “Westmere” (8 cores)
6GB (6X1GB)
1TB 7200-rpm Serial ATA 3Gb/s hard drive
ATI Radeon HD 5770 1GB
One 18x SuperDrive
Apple Magic Mouse
Apple Keyboard with Numeric Keypad (English) & User's Guide

$3,499.00

and that's with out Thunderbolt Drive and monitor

I reckon the iMac would be a better bet

The beauty of a Mac Pro is that you can expand it and extend the life of the system, while the iMac / Mac Mini will be stuck with what you have. Not only that, but the cooling system is much more efficient on a Mac Pro.

That Thunderbolt RAID is going in the right direction, and it's good to see it being offered, but it doesn't quite level the playing field yet. Certainly it works for some, but when you need to grow, it means buying a whole new system instead of just expanding a Mac Pro.

I'm a good example of that. I started off with a 3.33GHz Mac Pro, 16GB of RAM, and two internal HDD volumes... OS and programs on a 640GB drive, and 3x1TB RAID for media. Clients needed Blu-ray discs burned, so I popped a BD-R burner into the second slot. Then I needed more space and backups, so I swapped the internal 3x1TB for 3x2TB, and used the old 1TB drives for backups with a Voyager Q dock. When that didn't cut it anymore, I built an 8-bay external RAID which has 12TB of space in parity and with a hot-spare. You can't do that with the Promise drive, yet. (Maybe they'll make an 8 or 12-bay model soon. That would be cool!) I'm finding my RAM is getting a little cramped, so I'm about to kick it up to 32 or 48GB. These little jumps in performance are much cheaper and easier on a Mac Pro, and in some cases impossible on other Mac systems. I don't have to worry about introducing dust behind my iMac monitor glass when I need to install something, either. I don't have to crank the air conditioning up and put on coats to keep my iMac cool inside.

Considering my system began life in 2009, and I'm still out-performing a current maxed out 2011 iMac / Promise RAID system, I'd say I'm doing pretty well! Growing from a 2009 iMac to where I am today would have meant buying new iMacs, and all those "savings" would have gone out the window.

 

[cluthz]

Unless you're primarily editing under Premiere, the 5870 is a better choice.

Despite what Cluthz said, After Effects will not take advantage of the Quadro. Only Premiere.

Several of the much used plugins in AE do take effect from CUDA.
Kronos f.ex is very much faster when using CUDA.
http://www.thefoundry.co.uk/products/kronos/

There are also other apps like Squeeze which also uses CUDA.
http://www.sorensonmedia.com/video-encoding/

I simply pointed out that the buyer should be aware that in some cases nvidia will be faster than AMD, and visa versa.

 

[nanofrog]

That Thunderbolt RAID is going in the right direction, and it's good to see it being offered, but it doesn't quite level the playing field yet. Certainly it works for some, but when you need to grow, it means buying a whole new system instead of just expanding a Mac Pro.

So far, the Pegasus R4 & R6 (TB based RAID enclosure) is fine up to a point (particularly for laptops), but it's possible to get a faster solution as well as capacity if needed by using a PCIe slot (8x lane RAID card and more disks).

For purely desktop use, I'd skip the current TB based RAID systems (Promise Pegasus R4 & R6 due to the fact they're using consumer grade disks, which typically aren't all that reliable in my experience, particularly for parity based levels).

But it has merit for sharing it with a laptop IMO (valid use for a desktop), as it can reduce the peripheral cost (i.e. use the laptop + camera + Pegasus for location recording, then hook the Pegasus to the Mac Pro for editing).

 

[Zwhaler]

I recommend getting more than 8GB of RAM. I'm using 24 and Final Cut Pro X uses up to 16GB during heavy use. I recommend a 3.33GHz Hex with at least 16GB of RAM (it's cheap just buy aftermarket... I got 16GB for under $300) and definitely get the 5870 ATI and you'll be set.

 

[blunti]

If you can stretch your budget by an additional $200, you could actually get the 12 core 2.66GHz from Macmall since they don't charge tax. (depends on where you live though but if you're outside CA you should be fine.)

For Avid, FCP X and AE I think you're way better off with the 12c 2.66 than a Hex 3.33.

 

[Zwhaler]

If you can stretch your budget by an additional $200, you could actually get the 12 core 2.66GHz from Macmall since they don't charge tax. (depends on where you live though but if you're outside CA you should be fine.)

For Avid, FCP X and AE I think you're way better off with the 12c 2.66 than a Hex 3.33.

Seconded... 12 Core is way better for anything FCP X or 64 Bit in general, OP should look into getting this if possible because it's easy to expand the RAM in the future but not so much with the CPU.

 

[wonderspark]

Oooh, interesting development coming along soon...

http://www.sonnettech.com/product/thunderbolt/index.html

Based on prices of some of their other gear, it could be quite expensive, but there is hope that it could be a good option in the not-too-distant future in the case of iMac / Mac Mini / MacBook Pro as a professional video workstation.

Thanks to AidenShaw for pointing this upcoming product out on another thread.

 

[Tsuchiya]

edit: answer found