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C’mon! There must be more benchmarks!
So, besides this link, and the standard tests done at Barefeats, is there really not a website with more in depth benchmarks for the Final Cut Pro Suite running on the latest macs? Just spent the weekend rendering slowly on my Mac3,1 machine (roughly 3 years old) and wondering if the latest, greatest are even going to make much of a difference. But as I search, really surprised there isn’t more in the blog-o-sphere about performance enhancements on the Mac. Where should I be looking, you smart people of Creative Cow?
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6 Replies
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Performance depends almost as much on what you’re rendering as what you’re rendering on. What were you rendering so slowly over the weekend?
David Roth Weiss
Director/Editor/Colorist
David Weiss Productions, Inc.
Los Angeles
http://www.drwfilms.comPOST-PRODUCTION WITHOUT THE USUAL INSANITY ™
Colorist – UP IN THE AIR (electronic press kit) – nominated for six academy awards
A forum host of Creative COW’s Business & Marketing and Apple Final Cut Pro forums. Formerly host of the Apple Final Cut Basics, Indie Film & Documentary, and Film History & Appreciations forums.
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Those are the two best sites for this. But render times will be somewhat faster on the newer machines no doubt, however until we get a 64 bit, Cocoa based version of FCP, it’s not going to be all that dramatic… problem is that FCP 7 is carbonized software and not OS X native at all. FCP was written on OS 8 for starters… then “carbonized” to run in OS X. It cannot take advantage of all those cores, and tech in OS X that would dramatically speed up rendering… it’s time for a new version of Studio that is OS X native code and 64 bit… figure the next release will be such a beast. I too have a 4 year old intel tower and have no plans to buy a new machine until the next gen software is released as I feel it will be night and day render/times, and those 12 core monster Macs will actually get a workout with it.
Jerry
Apple Certified Trainer, Producer, Writer, Director Editor, Gun for Hire and other things. I ski. My Blog: https://blogs.creativecow.net/Jerry-Hofmann
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8-Core 3.0 Intel Mac Pro, Dual 2 gig G5, AJA Kona SD, AJA Kona 2, Huge Systems Array UL3D, AJA Io HD, 17″ MBP, Matrox MXO2 with MAX Cinema Displays
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The Geekbench website has a listing of most, if not all, Macs. It’s just the raw Geekbench score, so is not all that informative. Still, the current X56xx-based models are a big leap ahead of last year’s X55xx-based models. You can always run Geekbench on your own computer to compare with your current system. How that comparison translates to FCP rendering speeds is unclear.
Results:
https://www.primatelabs.ca/geekbench/mac-benchmarks/Run it yourself:
https://www.primatelabs.ca/geekbench/IHTH,
JC Boulay
Technical Director
Audio Z
Montreal, Canada
http://www.audioz.com -
Walter, coming from you, this is probably the input I’m seeking. For FCP, I’ve read about how the code isn’t optimized for the cores, and I’ve used that as a reason to buy middle of the road (spec wise) macs for the last 4 years. But now, I’m beginning to get antsy for more performance. AS a result, I’ve branched out into Adobe products. I recently bought a Nvidia Quadro FX 4800 for my box, and I’m amazed that I’m able to edit my native Canon 5D files WITH filters.
I know the universe doesn’t need yet another beg/ plea with apple to release a new version of the software, and I understand the economics well enough to know they don’t need the pro apps division to make the profits they are making on everything else. I just want to be AMAZED again with Final Cut Pro, performatively.
Back to work, I think my renders done!
Byrd McDonald
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I guess I just don’t get why you want to waste time doing benchmarks, when you think FCP is wasting your time now. Wouldn’t that time be better spent doing those renders?
And wouldn’t the amount of time it takes to render, or export any given material be the ‘final answer’?
Just sayin’Scott Sheriff
Director
SST Digital Media
https://www.sstdigitalmedia.com -
Been meaning to reply to this for some time. I think you make a great point that it isn’t about the toys, it’s how you use them. But I will say that it’s exciting for me to get to a point in my pro life where seconds, minutes, and hours of time really do MATTER. Sometimes we really are chasing performance because we see how it can directly relate to our clients served, our sanity, our ability to get OUT of the studio at a reasonable hour, and our ability to experiment. Really trying to put together a new system that will help me do a little bit of all of that – that seems like a fair goal. I’ll say this though. I did buy a new computer, and the amount of time I’ve spent trying to get all the hardware and software to play well together – that has not been AT ALL about the work, and it is frustrating.
Byrd McDonald
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