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Buying iMac for FCPX…Have???
Looking to buy a new iMac and my primary reason is to use FCPX. I will primarily be using FCPX for a videography side business. My primary business will be weddings, corporate, and music videos. I haven’t purchased a Mac in a while so I need some opinions. (my current iMac is 2.93 Intel Core Duo/4GB Ram and using old Final Cut Pro HD).
Here are my options:
27″ Retina
3.5 GHz i5
8GB
1TB Fusion Drive
AMD Radeon R9 M295X 4GB27″ Retina
3.3 GHz i5
8GB
1TB Serial ATA @7200
AMD Radeon R9 M290 2GBFrom these two options, there is a $425 difference.
Questions:
– Is the better GPU worth the difference in price?
– Is the Fusion Drive or Serial the better option?
– The non Retina 27″ iMac only has a 1GB GPU but obviously much cheaper…should this be an option?From my reading, it seems that the GPU is the most important but I wanted to ask those who actually know.
Thanks in advance.
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20 Replies
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FCPX does best with max RAM and GPU and an i7 processor over an i5. The drives are less important, though the fusion will probably get you better performance. If anything, in your options, I’d go for more RAM. At least 16GB. Are your choices based on available machines or budget?
Oliver
Oliver Peters Post Production Services, LLC
Orlando, FL
http://www.oliverpeters.com -
Dwain, if you are not constrained by budget, I’d recommend you max out the iMac to extend its useful life by a few years for your video use. In other words, buy the largest GPU you can, and select the most internal flash storage you can (the whole machine will run faster with 1 TB of internal flash storage, faster than even 512 GB of flash). You can’t upgrade these items in the future so best to max them out when you order the new machine. Memory, as Oliver mentioned, will be used by FCP X so 16 GB is the minimum but 32 GB would be an improvement. Again, you will greatly benefit from the fastest i7 processor, not so much from the fastest i5 processor; always go for i7 for any serious use such as video.
Rick Lang
iMac 27” 2.8GHz i7 16GB
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[Rick Lang] “Dwain, if you are not constrained by budget, I’d recommend you max out the iMac to extend its useful life by a few years for your video use. In other words, buy the largest GPU you can, and select the most internal flash storage you can (the whole machine will run faster with 1 TB of internal flash storage, faster than even 512 GB of flash).”
I definitely second Rick’s suggestion here. Back in late 2013, I purchased a 15″ MacBook Pro Retina display and maxed it completely out (i7 2.6GHz, 16GB RAM, 1TB of SSD space, the 750M with 2GB). Now Apple has refreshed it and yet mine is still quite viable as the new one has the same processor family and AMD GPU tech from 2012 (remains to be seen if it performs significantly over the 750M in FCPX).
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Thanks so much for all your replies.
I forgot to mention that I am definitely upgrading the RAM. I plan on buying through Other World Computing due to price compared to Apple. Is this a good choice?
Oliver/Rick, I guess my choice is based on both but more so on budget. I also need to purchase software, external hard drive, etc. Looks like I can upgrade to the i7 for $225…do you think that is a good investment for the price?
Gary, I’m probably in the minority due to actually enjoying editing on a laptop. Would it be wise to go this route even if portability isn’t my number one need?
Thanks again. I’m looking to order tomorrow so I appreciate your quick responses to my first post.
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If the only updates you do are the memory and the fastest i7 processor, it will help FCP X.
Rick Lang
iMac 27” 2.8GHz i7 16GB
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[Dwain Williams] “Looks like I can upgrade to the i7 for $225…do you think that is a good investment for the price?”
You should absolutely get the i7. There is a significant speed boost between those two chips. Significant. Having had both, I would even go as far as saying that the i5 is ill-suited for FCPX.
There’s not much of a speed bump between 3.3 gHz and 3.5, but there’s a big one between the i5 and i7 chips.
Also, never worked with the fusion drive, but an SSD on your system drive is going to make a huge difference in app loading times for FCPX over a standard ATA drive.
Andy
https://plus.google.com/u/0/107277729326633563425/videos
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Thanks, guys.
Andy, please forgive this terrible novice question but, is the fusion drive considered a SSD drive?
Thanks again
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[Andy Neil] ”
Also, never worked with the fusion drive, but an SSD on your system drive is going to make a huge difference in app loading times for FCPX over a standard ATA drive.”I upgraded my 2011 i7 17″ MBP a couple of years ago with a fusion drive as a media/edit drive by replacing the optical drive with a kit from OWC. I also moved the fusion drive to the faster boot drive position to get the faster connection. It’s faster for FCPX than a standard spinning drive, but of course no where near an SSD. (At the time,I posted the benchmark results here at the COW, but I’d have to search for it you are interested).
I didn’t buy the SSD because of the price back then, but I would today as the prices have come down so much. (Just watch out for that whole “TRIM” thing).
Dave
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[Dwain Williams] “… is the fusion drive considered a SSD drive?”
Yes, combined with an HDD. The Fusion drive is like tiered storage (which Apple calls Core Storage). It’s an SSD and HDD combined into single file system. To you it appears as just one drive but the system is smart enough to keep the core OS files and files that are accessed often on the faster SSD drive and moves the files that are less often used to the slower HDD. What you get is the speed of an SSD with the storage capacity and cost of an HDD. Obviously, when you access files that are on the HDD is will take longer but the idea is that most of the time you’ll be using the SSD storage. So it’s not as fast as a pure SSD solution but not as slow as an HDD either.
I agree with others that a Core i7 is minimum for FCP X and get the fastest GPU you can afford.
~jr
http://www.johnrofrano.com
http://www.vasst.com -
The fusion is a 1TB sata drive, with a 250GB SDD attached which caches the most used files. In the case of a FCP X user I don’t find it does much except launch your most used apps quicker and launch the OS quicker. Once those are launched they’re in RAM so the fusion shouldn’t be doing much. Quicker file access would be great but as an X user youre not going to use it much because your files should be somewhere else.
That said, once you e decided i7 is the way to go, and it is, so then Apple has painted you in a corner. You basically have little choice but to get the more expensive retina 27″ that you can bump to i7. Fusion is the only choice. I’d just leave it at the 1TB is fine. 2GB will do for the GPU if you have to cut corners. But honestly once you’ve gotten to this point you really might as well bump the GPU for only $200. It’s probably the most important ingredient. I’ve got a 2GB card and if I have FCP open and open AE, it will often tell me I don’t have enough GPU. And if you want to use Resolve, it sucks up GPU like nothing else. Motion too. And Crucial RAM is a bit cheaper than OWC and should be fine.
You’ve got little choice. Apple has tiered it that way.
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