So our small video production company currently edits everything off of a 6-core d500 mac pro, and it does very well for our purposes and so far no complaints on performance. We are coming to a point where we need to hire another video editor due to increasing projects, which means we need to buy another workstation. We were initially thinking about the maxed out iMac 27inch, but with the recent price drops on the nMP, is it worth spending a little more? We need to buy another workstation ASAP so waiting until the next modular mac pro is not an option, and we edit off of Final Cut and Motion so a PC is not an option as well.
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With the price drop on the nMP, is it a decent buy?
- Thread starter deuk1219
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Even people like me who don't like the nMP can (mostly) agree that it is a good little FCPx appliance. And it doesn't seem like you have a lot of choices. I'd say go for it.
I don't see why not if you have to have a machine now. I've used mine for hundreds of hours of video production. I would get one with Applecare if possible.
yeah, $500 less for this particular configuration:
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and somewhere around $1700 less than buying it last month
If it had Thunderbolt 3 it would be a sure thing, with an eGPU you're paying $500 and not getting the full benefit of the top end cards, and nvidia still has to work out their pascal drivers.
I'm sure some of there are lower end cards at which you can maximize performance per dollar with thunderbolt 2, but who really cares? It is still money being invested into an outdated technology.
Eh no, the performance drop of tb2 VS tb3 is rather minimal.
https://egpu.io/forums/mac-setup/pcie-slot-dgpu-vs-thunderbolt-3-egpu-internal-display-test/
Kind of hard to get definitive results from this since it is going to be used for video editing and not gaming, but it looks like you're right. The double throughput of thunderbolt 3 doesn't make as much of difference as I thought it would.
Yes, I did and the argument that he should pull the trigger because eGPU's is stupid for three reasons.
1. For what deuk1219 is doing it is clear he doesn't need it. The Mac Pro he currently has is more than enough to handle what he is doing, by his own admission.
2. It gets you no closer to deciding between the Mac Pro and a maxed out iMac because both machines could utilize an eGPU.
3. Expensive.
The option to expand with an eGPU if his workflow demands it is a benefit for sure, but see point two. He would have the same option with a maxed out iMac, thus leaving him no closer to deciding between the two.
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my bad.. maybe i should've re-read your post instead
i see now you were talking about eGPU throughout your whole post but i took the last bit of what you said out of the context of eGPU.
If you can claim it as a business expense (tax deduction), and there's a refurb part available (preferably with the D700 configuration), by all means go for it. It's still a very good FCPX platform.
This is the way to go. My Retina iMac was getting getting to the point of needed to be replaced after 2+ years of 100% use so I didn't want to just get another iMac with a possible nice upgrade at the end of the year so I just picked up a used nMP for $1500 on craigslist after looking for a week. Its the quad core, but has D500 and 512GB SSD.
I got lucky and it still had AppleCare till the end of 2018, so not worries on it being used and not from Apple. So far I am very happy with my purchase and I notice a nice performance bump over my iMac.