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What Mac purchase should I make?
Until this point, all of my clients have been perfectly happy with HD video and my old Mac Pro has worked just fine. But now my hand has been forced and a client is insisting on recording in 4K. What I currently have:
Mac Pro mid 2012, Quad core Intel Xeon processor, 16 GB of memory, ATI Radeon graphics card. I should also point out that I have two oldish monitors! An Apple Cinema HD and an Apple LED Cinema Display.
Rather than jumping through the hoops of trying to figure out how to speed up the machine, get new drives, etc etc, I was thinking that I would buy either a MacBook Pro or an iMac as a stop gap measure for this particular project and then hope the new Mac Pro comes out reasonably soon.
Unless I’m overlooking something, it seems my choices (in “descending” order of chip options) would be:
1. MacBook 16″ with M1 Max chip. And then figure out a way to connect at least my LED Cinema display to the laptop (which seems possible: https://bit.ly/3L1QCYv)
2. MacBook 14″ with M1 Pro chip (doesn’t appear the M1 Max is possible with 14″)
2. iMac 24″ with M1 chip (no Pro or Max) and then maybe still connecting the LED Cinema Display
3. iMac 27″ with Intel
I guess I would be inclined to go with Option #2 the MacBook 14″ with M1 Pro. But I am not familiar enough with all the ins and outs of M1 Max vs M1 Pro vs M1 vs Intel. My work tends to be doc style, so not high intensity demands. So maybe I could get by with 27″ iMac and the Intel???
Thanks in advance!
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11 Replies
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We picked up the M1 Pro for work.
I did as much research and found it decent for NLE.
Now I have the choice to use FCPX and others but if FCPX works best, I’m sticking to it.
I have read the iMac Pros are still power houses but I was offered the laptop since we have 2013/2019 MPs as local workstations.
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Good to know! So MacBook Pro with M1 Pro chip. And you’re doing 4K with it, I presume?
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Generally speaking, even the M1 chip will handle 4K. If you’re dealing with camera specific raw codecs or harder to decode codecs the M1Pro and especially M1Max will handle much more complex codecs with layers and composites.
Some people are speculating a 27″ iMac Pro with appropriately powerful CPU (24″ is just M1″) as early as March but others say later in the year. If you can wait until March I’d wait.
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‘handle 4k’ is a variable. Sony A7s3 shoots 4k, Red Epic shoots 4k, even Arri Alexa LF and Sony F65/55 shoot 4k.
But the system requirement to ‘handle’ files from each of these is different. In some cases, like Alexa LF even a modest CPU can ‘handle’ it. What matters more is that you need a hard disk that can read out data at the speed needed to play even 24 frames of Arri raw, in a sec.
On the other hand, Sony A7s3 files can play out even at 60 frames/sec out of a USB or even an old Firewire drive, but they need a powerful CPU to decode at even 24 frames in a sec.
I have a MBP M1 w 16 GB RAM. And it decodes Arriraw, Sony Venice, and A7s3 files as rapidly as a 16″ MBP. It even comperes will with a iMac Pro.
An MBP with TB3/USB-C can be connected to an older Cinema Display using a USB-mini display port adapter.
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Good point Neil.
Most of my issues with laptops are what can I plug into them.
I’ve been editing 4K as far back as my MPB 17″ Uni but REDRAW and no issues there.
As long as you have the right RAID setup of course.
Again, drawbacks with buying an MBP have been:
Which display will it support?
What RAID will play nice with the laptop’s IO?
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Souped up PC is probably in my future. Too many unknowns and variables with the Apple and Adobe war. Apple wants ultimate control of hardware and software and will compromise other workflows to get it done. PCs seem to still be a truly open architecture (the hope of the early Mac towers) and Apple is not. Their way or the highway. End of life apps that I use regularly, can’t update the browser or OS because the hardware is too old. As a pro it’s infuriating. I have an iMacPro and it’s fine except Adobe depricates the Metal hardware GPU.
Love Mac but it may have run its course for pros looking for a future proof upgradeable machine.
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I got a good laugh with that Rich “Too many unknowns and variables with….” comment.
From many years of experience with both platforms, the PC side is by far the most problematic IMHO in regards to “unknowns” 🙂
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I provide DIT services for features and episodics. And rent out editing gear for the same.
As far as laptops go, I have 9. All MBP from 2015 onwards. I have no problem connecting them to a variety of drives and RAIDs, and interfaces – G-Technology, Areca, Promise, LaCie, over Thunderbolt 2, 3, USB 3.0, 3.1 Gen 2 and earlier eSATA, Firewire.
Where laptop graphics power is insufficient, we use eGPUs, but mostly, with SSDs and RAIDs render/export speed is sufficient for us to manage the daily workload of transcoding. Where the workload is larger, instead of getting larger and beefier systems, we work with multiple systems. One can also use NAS boxes like QNAP, Jellyfish, Codex Media Vault and many others.
I think a MacBook Pro is a fairly versatile and rugged solution. Sure, they aren’t as rugged as they used to be, but they’re pretty solid.
I have only one M1 based MBP and even that’s a 13″ with 16GB RAM and 1 TB SSD. And it works in the field alongside my 16″ Intel MBP and while the 16″ Intel is faster at some tasks, the 13″ M1 is a very capable machine.
Neil
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The new Mac Studio is an interesting option. $4000 gets a pretty solid upgrade from an iMac Pro and probably 5-8 years of solid use. $500 a year for a rocking machine isn’t bad!
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Looking to get a Mac Studio exclusively for FCPX, maybe some Motion.
How much RAM will FCPX benefit from? How much is too much? 32GB vs 64GB vs 128GB
M1 Max 24-core vs 32-core Neural Engine? Significant difference between the cores?
How about going all out with the M1 Ultra?
Can spend to maximize the specs BUT If any minimal speed benefits on any of the above we would rather save the money for more internal storage or external storage. Your feedback is greatly appreciated.
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