Buying a New MacPro

[Rj Miles]

IMHO, one area the 8-core shines is when you are tasking the computer with heavy compositing in FCP or AE.

Then you might consider if your work flow involves jumping around various programs, some of which might be rendering.

Then there is long form re-compression/transcoding, where you can pile up the cores to tackle the task faster.

Simple down & dirty capture & editing is not why you would consider the 8-core.

Heavy duty AE compositing will reap dividends very quickly with an 8-core load with ram and fast drives.

Happy shopping

[Tom Daigon]

I am waiting to see how the release of Leopard enhances ALL the functions of FCP. At this point, for me its much to big an investment with to little tangilbe returns (ie using the full power of the processors for more than just Compressor).

[Michael Sacci]

One thing, if you go with any MacPro, do NOT order it with the extra drives and RAM Drives and RAM can be purchased for 1/2 the price and take seconds to install. You never go wrong buy the fastest system but it money is tight sometimes getting a slow system with the X1900 and extra RAM is better.

Really looking forward to Leopard, should unlock a lot of caged speed. At least i hope.

[Walter Biscardi]

The one reason I can see to consider the 8 core is that whenever I upgrade my systems, I always purchase the top of the line at that time. I have a G5 Dual 2.0 that’s something like three years old still working away in our third suite and it was the top of the line when I bought it.

No matter what Apple comes out with, you’re good for at least the next two years. As others mention, purchase RAM separately, though if you want to add a second harddrive internally, I would just let Apple do that.

For the graphics card, upgrade to the ATI 1900 card no matter which machine you go with.

Myself, we currently run a Mac Pro Quad 3.0 in one suite and a G5 Quad 2.5 in the other primary suite so we don’t have the need to upgrade just yet. We will probably do so in December or January and whatever the top of line is at that time is what we’ll purchase.

Walter Biscardi, Jr.
https://www.biscardicreative.com
HD Editorial & Animation for Broadcast and independent productions.

All Things Apple Podcast! https://cowcast.creativecow.net/all_things_apple/index.html

Read my blog! https://blogs.creativecow.net/WalterBiscardi

[Jeff Carpenter]

Why do you suggest that he let Apple put in extra hard drives? I thought that adding SATA drive to the Mac Pro was the easiest part of setting it up.

Just remember, DorkAlert, to run the disc utility and format any drives that Apple didn’t install. They’re sure to come formatted as something other than what you want them to be.

[Jeremy Garchow]

[Jeff Carpenter] “Just remember, DorkAlert,”

Classic

[David Roth weiss]

[Jeff Carpenter] “Just remember, DorkAlert, to run the disc utility and format any drives that Apple didn’t install. They’re sure to come formatted as something other than what you want them to be.”

Double DorkAlert… Bare drives come completely unformatted.

David Roth Weiss
Director/Editor
David Weiss Productions, Inc.
Los Angeles

POST-PRODUCTION WITHOUT THE USUAL INSANITY

[Christian Glawe]

I got my new 8-core about a month ago, and here’s what I can tell you:

If you are doing any kind of After Effects work, chances are very, very good that the cost differential between the 8-core and a dual-core (4 processor) will be made up very quickly in terms of gains in productivity…

I recently completed a pretty complex AE animation – about 10 seconds long, approximately 175-200 layers…. The animation took me about 2.75-3 days to complete… I’m certain that the 4-processor machine would have meant an extra day or so in work, waiting for RAM previews, etc…. At my daily rate, it would only take a few of these projects to more than make up the difference between a “4-core” and an “8-core”.

As I figure it, the price premium for an 8-core is around $1500…. do you do a lot of After Effects work? Do you use Compressor a lot? How many hours a week do you use these programs? If you could accomplish these things twice as fast, at your current hourly/daily rate, how long would it take for you to make up this premium? If the answer is anything less than 18-24 months, then it makes sense to invest in an 8-core.

Also, you have to think that Apple (and other software developers) will begin to update their applications to take full advantage of 8-core machines, as they will become more prevalent… Can’t wait for a Final Cut that harnesses all 8 processors in the same way After Effects currently does.

Playing HD without dropping frames is much more a function of your RAID than it is pure processing horse-power.

BTW, I did third-party RAM. It was really, really easy to install… and I’m not a real big “under-the-hood” guy.

-Christain

[Aaron Kruse]

We have an 8-core MacPro in our facility, and we find that, in addition to the positive comments mentioned so far on this thread, it handles multiple programs open at once quite nicely. For example, Photoshop, AE, and FCP, all humming along at the same time as though the other programs weren’t open. We don’t see the RAM bottlenecking like we do on the G5 2.0DP machines that we have when trying to do the same thing. So the 8-core is good for multi-tasking, too.

Aaron Kruse
BBC&S Video Communications

[Max Frank]

How about Motion, does the Octo-core improve anything at all, or is it just the video card that improves performance?

W