Video editing (Premiere Pro or FCP) - 6 or 8 core?

[treehorn]

I'm in desperate need to upgrade my failing 2008 MacPro and already feel like I've waited too long in the day (but this is the first moment I've even had to type!)

I have a video company - film shows, promotional materials, interviews, etc. Up to 3 camera. Lots of archives that are 2-3 hours in length. Output ranges from Blurays to DVDs to various broadcast modes.

Film on Panasonic cameras on AVCHD. Right now convert everything to ProRes as my computer doesn't handle that well. Using FCP7 and working on transitioning to Premiere Pro - or perhaps FCPX if the new version works better.

Do some After Effects but not much (no intense 3D for the most part). Color grading, sound on Audition, authoring on Encore, compressing on Media Encoder (basically the full Adobe CC suite).

I'm leaning towards a nMPro 6 Core with the 700 card, but wondering if I'd benefit from the 8 core instead?

Thinking might as well get 32GB of memory upfront and 500GB drive.

Does this sound like the best option given that it will be used 90% of the time editing video - much of it multi cam?

 

[carylee2002]

I'm upgrading my 4core 2010 Mac Pro with the w3690 chip to make it 6 core and thinking of going to 48gb ram using only 3 dims since the computer is using 3 channels and not 4. 3x16gb dims from macsales.com.

 

[gdeusthewhizkid]

can u put mavericks on it.. if not I wouldn't bother too put too much money into it and just wait on the new mac pro... I have the 2007 and it was a pain to upgrade...

 

[N19h7m4r3]

I'm not having the best of time with the new FCPX 10.1 on the Mac Pro in my signature. Lots of beach balling and lag, and moving videos in Picture in Picture mode is a nightmare.

You move the cursor but the video doesn't move, a beach ball appears and then the clip has jumped to a new position.

I've cleared my cache, and preferences and it hasn't helped all that much in that regard.

I'm thinking it's down to the my GTX 660 being really bad at OpenCL, and the new FCPX is optimised for it.
Also the new Xeon processors have newer instruction sets which FPCX 10.1 is most likely going to take advantage of to run even faster.

I haven't tried transcoding or fully rendering an entire project yet, as I'm still editing and these beach balls are kind of driving me up the wall.

I'll get them just clicking into an event, moving a clip, adding an image or new video clip.

Personally I'm leaning towards that new 6 core with dual D700's, I'll probably just get it with 16GB ram and Upgrade that later.
Want to wait and see what the reviews, and performance of the new GPU's are like first though.

 

[treehorn]

To be clear…I'm talking about the NEW MacPro. my old one is going out in the recycle bin the moment I get the new one.

Not looking to upgrade. Asking what the best nMPro configuration is for video editing - 6 or 8

 

[kylepro88]

Honestly both of those are gonna scream for you. I doubt the difference between them would be major for you on a daily basis. However, I would suggest you push your money into storage (external not internal) and the GPUs which is where a lot of the oomph in video editing is now. Lots of us are better off with the 6c or 8c (6c if we want to save some) and getting the best GPUs we can for the long haul.

Both of those machines would be perfectly capable of editing anything you throw at it…I'm sure of it. The only real difference is going to come down to render times which will probably differ by a fair amount but nothing to go insane over I bet.

 

[treehorn]

Thanks. It's the "is the $1500 going to be justified by really noticeable difference" coupled with "people are saying 6 core is faster than 8 in certain situations…which situation do I have?"

The one nice thing about having a couple months to plan is I can figure out monitor, storage, etc (and see what new things pop up in the mean time) while waiting for the new computer (and praying that the old one lasts that long)

 

[kylepro88]

Yea the 6-core to me is the best option for a ton of people. They're far better off with more RAM, and the best GPU they can afford, along with really fast USB3 or Thunderbolt storage. I/O and GPU is where most editors seem to bottleneck today. CPU reliance isn't anywhere near as big as it once was. Even during render time it's losing its pull. Still important, but the 6c with D500/700 would be fantastic for 1080p, 2k, 4k, etc. The only reason I say spend the dough on the 8c is if you run a business where that extra 15min of render time or whatever is the difference between losing a gig and finding a gig. Beyond that…don't worry about it.

 

[treehorn]

I'm definitely upgrading to the D700 and 32gb of RAM should be enough (right now I have a 2X2.8 Quad-Core intel with 14GB of RAM…)

If the 8 core only knocks a few minutes of rendering (comparatively speaking…) yet slows down a lot of day-to-day tasks that don't take advantage of 8 core (so the 3.0 vs 3.5 gets noticeable), it doesn't seem worth it. (and the $1500 could be better spent on monitors, storage…storage…storage…storage)

 

[treehorn]

well I bit the bullet. Got an 8 core. 32 GB of RAM. 512GB drive. D700 cards.

Tried to call Tekserve and was told that anything configurable was April. Through Apple could have it shipped Feb or pick up in store March 5. Figured that was better as I really wanted the D700 card (I could have had a stock model within a few weeks at Tekserve but…)

So here's hoping that my old computer lasts that long!