FCP X on a 2008 mac pro

[Alban Egger]

First you need 16GB Ram
Then a GPU. I have a 2009-MP with a 4870 card and a 2011 McBookPro and the MacBook is much better for FCPX and has Thunderbolt. New MBooks have USB3 also. If you don’t need the MacPro for Pci cards I would go for Macbook or iMac, before you put money into an old box.
I will soon sell my MacPro to someone who needs a server and will upgrade to an iMac or MacPro2013.

Going to PrePro and or Windows is a totally different decision!

[Phil Sheldon]

thanks for your thoughts Alban, much appreciated. we’ve been down the road of upgrading old boxs’ before with mixed results, hence my query.

my options now would seem to be imac and X or pc and prempro…

cheers

[Nikolas Bäurle]

X is very fast on the new imacs and new pros. i think its really worth to upgrade old hardware. BTW the Adobe CC package works very well on the new imacs as well. I subscribed 2 months ago and I am very happy. After Effects is very smooth.

“Always look on the bright side of life” – Monty Python

[Craig Seeman]

I have a 2008 8 Core MacPro and updated the GPU to the ATI 5770 when FCPX came out.
I also have 2011 15″ MBP and late 2013 15″ MBPr. FCPX is faster on both. I think the primary reason is that it takes advantage of features in the i7 architecture not found in Xeon CPUs.

That said, I’ve heard that you can install two 5770s or even two 7950s and FCPX will take advantage of them. I haven’t heard or seen tests with the 2008 model though, only more recent (Barefeats did this).

I’m not sure how FCP7 will handle the two GPUs though.
There 7toX though if you need to move projects.

Personally I’m headed to a new MacPro though.

[Phil Sheldon]

i’d love to get a new mac pro but i have to make a case for software/hardware and justify costs to the boss. he’ll just say no to that much money unfortunately!

[Fabrizio D’agnano]

I upgraded my 2008 MP adding RAM and a 5770 GPU. I won’t move to 4K any soon, since the TV I produce content for won’t change the delivery standards in the next future, so I guess that if my machine keeps doing just what it did in the past two years for another two, it will be about a two hundreds dollars per year expense, that’s not bad especially if you are on a tight budget. AVCHD 190×1080 runs smooth even without transcoding, I can launch heavy export during the night time so a, say, 20% faster wouldn’t mean much to me, and I can say I am pretty happy. No problem of any kind. Plus I can keep running my very fast internal RAID and all the e-sata RAID or enclosures without having to spend more money for TB ones and adapters. RAM and video card make a noticeably difference. I recently went to a friend of mine’s office, where he has a 2008 MP that’s twin with mine, but with the standard GPU and 8 Gb RAM, and it was a pain, although we could still edit, with spinning beach ball most of the time and very noticeable lags. For older FCP7 projects, I have an external FW800 drive running Mountain Lion and FCP7. If I need to access one, I launch that as a system drive and do what I need to do.

Fabrizio D’Agnano
Rome, Italy
early 2008 MacPro, BM Intensity Pro, early 2008 iMac, 2011 MacBook Pro, FCP7, FCPX, OSX 10.8.3

[Craig Seeman]

Two GPUs on 2008 MacPro would be an inexpensive yet likely significant improvement for FCPX. Barefeats tested with later model so there’s no confirmation on 2008 specifically or FCP7. Relatively speaking two 5770s would be a “low expense” experiment. At the very least one would certainly work with FCPX and FCP7. So at worst only the 2nd GPU would be the “risk” expense.

Here Barefeats includes two 5770 on 2010 MacPro as well as 7000 series vs 2013 base model with dual D300s
https://barefeats.com/tube05.html

[Dennis Radeke]

[Phil Sheldon] ”
my options now would seem to be imac and X or pc and prempro…”

If you are a Mac person, then you should stick with the Mac platform. Then your choice is FCPX or Premiere Pro. Obviously Premiere Pro CC runs great on any Mac and newer imacs all have good GPUs that will support some sort of hardware acceleration.

Good luck!
Dennis – Adobe guy

[Steve Connor]

[Dennis Radeke] “Then your choice is FCPX or Premiere Pro. “

Or both? That’s what I do.

Steve Connor

There’s nothing we can’t argue about on the FCPX COW Forum

[Dennis Radeke]

[Steve Connor] “Or both? That’s what I do.”

Of course that is possible as well.