FCPX & Motion on 2013 and 2010 MacPros – Barefeats

[Herb Sevush]

So the takeaway is save your money and get a 2010 6 core with dual 7970s. Back to the future.

Herb Sevush
Zebra Productions
—————————
nothin’ attached to nothin’
“Deciding the spine is the process of editing” F. Bieberkopf

[Michael Garber]

I’d be really interested in seeing the results with a 6 core with a D700 vs D500. One also might deduce from this that the 4-core could be faster on some of these tasks since the clock speed on that is the highest.

Michael Garber
5th Wall – a post production company
Blog: GARBERSHOP
My Moviola Webinar on Cutting News in FCP X

[Rick Lang]

[Michael Garber] “One also might deduce from this that the 4-core could be faster on some of these tasks since the clock speed on that is the highest.”

Barefeats:
“One oddity: The 2013 Mac Pro 3.5GHz 6-core with dual D500s rendered the FCPX effects and Motion RAM preview faster than the 2013 Mac Pro 2.7GHz 12-core with dual D700s. Though these are graphics intensive functions, the CPU is a ‘partner’ in the ‘crime.’ Because of that, it may have to do with core clock speed since FCPX uses only 8 cores to render the two effects. Motion uses only 3 cores to render the RAM Prevew. In other words, the 12-core Mac Pro has no advantage over the 6-core (12 with hyper threading) — at least in this instance.”

If FCP X only uses 8 threads for effects, you may be right. I’m still thinking the 6-core with D700 will be a sweet spot.

Rick Lang

iMac 27” 2.8GHz i7 16GB

[Jeremy Garchow]

i’m so

confused

[Michael Garber]

To make matters even more confusing, I finally got a chance to mess around with 10.1 on a Mac Pro (quad core with D300). Initial reaction with FCPX and rendering is… um… wow.

Waveforms pop up almost immediately after playback. FF and RW in the timeline are spot on. Footage is on the internal drive. And yep, I’m at an Apple Store. So, footage is proxy. Still, comparing my iMac and rMPBr with proxy footage, this feels snappy.

It’s got the responsiveness I’ve been waiting for. Moving clips in the timeline is quick and… responsive (did I mention it’s responsive?). Now if I just remember where I left that spare 5 to 6 grand? 🙂

Michael Garber
5th Wall – a post production company
Blog: GARBERSHOP
My Moviola Webinar on Cutting News in FCP X

[Rick Lang]

[Jeremy Garchow] “confused”

The performance is made up of several things working in concert including the speed of the CPU, the power of the GPUs, and all those other bits like real memory and bandwidth and the internal flash storage. Once you have your machine in some combination such as 4-core with dual D300 or 6-core with dual D500 or 12-core with dual D700, the other components are going to make a relatively fixed contribution to your overall performance. The big variable regardless of which CPU or which GPU you have is the way the software works with your components. Some software will ignore the GPU or use it in a limited manner while other software will make greater use of the GPU and less of the CPU. In the first instance a 4-core machine running at 3.7 GHz might outperform a 12-core running at 2.7 GHz as long as the software was limited to using 8 or fewer threads as appears to have happened with the FCP X functions that were tested.

Rick Lang

iMac 27” 2.8GHz i7 16GB

[Lance Bachelder]

That’s been my plan all along – 6 core with D700’s – nice to hear it’s a good plan…

Lance Bachelder
Writer, Editor, Director
Downtown Long Beach, California
https://www.imdb.com/name/nm1680680/?ref_=fn_al_nm_1

[Jeremy Garchow]

Thanks, Rick. In get all of that on an existential level, but for a machine that Apple touted as fcpx was tuned for, you’d think more GPU = better. And Motion.

I do understand that more slower processors might not = better than fewer faster processors.

I was sold on 8 core, thought I’d get a 12 core, but maybe a 6 will do it. That would save $6,000.

That is not nothing.

But then I think as time marches on and more developers (including Apple) have some real flight time in the tube and start to really tune for more cores and GPUs, perhaps the 12 core would be the better investment.

[Rick Lang]

[Jeremy Garchow] “I was sold on 8 core, thought I’d get a 12 core, but maybe a 6 will do it. That would save $6,000.

That is not nothing.

But then I think as time marches on and more developers (including Apple) have some real flight time in the tube and start to really tune for more cores and GPUs, perhaps the 12 core would be the better investment.”

Clearly the more heavy lifting you do, the more attractive the 12-core becomes. But it may not be needed for many people working with HD or 2K video. Still waiting for Peter Chamberlain of BMD to publish their Configuration Guide update for the new Mac Pro. He has said for up to 2K an 8-core would be a safe bet but a 6-core may suffice. I’m trembling in anticipation of what he says about 4K because I can’t afford 12-core and I expect he’s going to recommend that; I just hope he says what performance will be like with 4K on the 8-core and 6-core. And of course what will he recommend for storage: minimum 8-bay RAID?

Rick Lang

iMac 27” 2.8GHz i7 16GB

[Jeremy Garchow]

[Rick Lang] “Clearly the more heavy lifting you do, the more attractive the 12-core becomes.”

I guess? I thought the D700s would be better, though. Barefeats has shown so many holes in modern computing over the last few years, in a bonkers kind of way.

[Rick Lang] “Still waiting for Peter Chamberlain of BMD to publish their Configuration Guide update for the new Mac Pro.”

Hmm. That would be a good read. I’d like to see that as well. We haven’t purchased anything as we are still waiting, and we can’t get anything anyway, so why not use that to an advantage?

[Rick Lang] “I’m trembling in anticipation of what he says about 4K because I can’t afford 12-core and I expect he’s going to recommend that;”

Well, that’s because your give your daughters all the good toys! 😉

[Rick Lang] “I just hope he says what performance will be like with 4K on the 8-core and 6-core. And of course what will he recommend for storage: minimum 8-bay RAID?”

It really depends on what format of 4k you will be shooting, editing, and delivering. Hard drives, even single hard drives, are very fast these days. 4 hard drives together are really fast. 8, of course, are even faster, and after that you will start to hit a bandwidth ceiling and then you will need to turn to capacity and number of users (concurrent streams). You can edit compressed ProRes 4k with less than an 8 bay Raid, but you may need more capacity than 4 drives can offer over time.

Jeremy