iPad Pro Vs Surface Pro

[Andy Patterson]

[John Rofrano] “The first part of that video attempts to show that the MacBook Pro 2016 is inferior to the Dell XPS but all it really shows is that Premiere runs better on Windows than a Mac because when you use FCP X it blows Premiere Pro out of the water on the same hardware.”

I think all the benchmarks that show FCPX outperforming Premiere Pro are done with mediocre laptops using AVCHD/h.264. FCPX does have better performance than Premiere Pro when using a mediocre laptop with those codecs. Do you know why that is?

YOU WANT THE TRUTH?

WELL YOU CAN’T HANDLE THE TRUTH : )

If I disable the GPU on Windows PC (Premiere Pro) with a Quad Core Haswell i7 at 3.4 GHZ my 2.66 GHZ dual core Mac Mini (FCXP) will playback more real-time effects than the PC. Does that sound impressive? It should. Having said that if I enable the GPU on my desktop PC it will kick the snot of the Mac Mini. Any cheap Apple laptop running FCPX will allow you to edit h.246/mpeg4/AVCHD with ease using FCPX. The same cannot be said about Premiere Pro. Why is that you ask? Because FCPX uses Intel’s Quick Sync. Even if your laptop had a dedicated mobile GPU FCPX will still have an advantage over Premiere Pro when using an Apple laptop and OS X. That is because the Quick Sync probably does 90% of the processing. Some FCPX user think if you get a $4,500.00 Mac Pro the performance gap between FCPX and Premiere Pro will widen. That is not the case. Do you know why?

The Xeon CPUs do not have Intel’s Quick Sync. If you go from a dual core to a quad core when editing h.264 you will see a huge boost in performance using Premiere Pro but you will not see a huge performance boost using FCPX. Do you know why? Intel’s Quick Sync is the same for the dual core CPU and the Quad Core CPU. Let me put it to you like this. An 8 core i7 CPU does not have 8 Quick Sync cores. As the computer specs get better the performance between Premiere Pro and FCPX begin to even out. If you edit R3D codecs or camera raw Intel’s Quick Sync will not work with those codecs. It only works with AVCHD/H.264/mper4 codecs. One the PC side you can get double the performance for less money than the Mac Book offers.

If you want to run Premiere Pro a Windows 10 PC will be your best bet and cost much less than what Apple has to offer.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2sGtefBwv8Y

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[John Rofrano]

[andy patterson] “Any cheap Apple laptop running FCPX will allow you to edit h.246/mpeg4/AVCHD with ease using FCPX. The same cannot be said about Premiere Pro. Why is that you ask? Because FCPX uses Intel’s Quick Sync.”

Well that’s the point isn’t it? I don’t need a beefy Mac to edit with FCPX but I do need a beefy PC to edit with PPro. ????

[andy patterson] “Some FCPX user think if you get a $4,500.00 Mac Pro the performance gap between FCPX and Premiere Pro will widen. That is not the case. Do you know why?”

I’m pretty sure that FCP X takes full advantage of the D300-D700 dual GPU’s in the current Mac Pro and it will do the same with the Vega 56 in the iMac Pro. We will have to wait and see. I would be very interested in those results. The problem is that Adobe uses the proprietary NVIDIA CUDA API instead of the open source OpenCL API and Apple and FCP X uses OpenCL which works better with ATI cards. So yea, Adobe works better on a PC unless you bought a PC with an ATI card, or you put an NVIDIA card in your 2010 Mac Pro (I realize you can’t do this with the 2013 Mac Pros). This is an Adobe problem which I don’t have because I use FCP X.

Apple’s problem is that they don’t upgrade their Pro desktops every year and every year faster GPU’s come out and, as you pointed out, a PC allows you to take advantage of these faster GPU’s immediately. So Apple has completely dropped the ball with the Mac Pro 2013 not so much that it’s not expandable, but because they didn’t expand it themselves every year. So I can’t argue with you there. Hopefully they have learned a lesson and will make the next Mac Pro expandable again.

That video is funny. It’s basically saying that a brand new 10-core PC is faster than a 5 year old mid-range Mac Pro (he had a 6-core D500 not the 12-core D700). Well Duh! A brand new PC is faster than a 5 year old PC too! The Mac Pro wasn’t actually that much slower considering it’s age and mid-range specs.

Apple let their Pro technology languish on the shelf. You can’t compare a modern PC to a modern Mac Pro because there are no modern Mac Pros! The newest Mac Pro is almost 5 years old now which is ancient in computer years. However, I am editing with a 2010 Mac Pro 12-Core which is almost 8 years old and I would never edit with an 8 year old PC. They just don’t hold up that well and they slow down terribly over time because the Windows registry. I use to reformat my PC every 3 years to gain performance back. I don’t have that problem with macOS and I am quite happy not to have to worry about that anymore. Same is true for laptops. Even the “gold standard” Lenovo/IBM Thinkpad laptops start rattling and come unhinged after a few years but I have a 7 year old 2011 MacBook Pro that is still solid as the day I bought it. I put an SSD in it and it’s like a new Mac and shows no sign of stopping.

So yes, at any point in time, if you want the fastest editing computer, and Apple hasn’t refreshed the Mac Pro line in a while, a PC will be faster but only because it can use newer technology. But as you pointed out, I can get FCP X to work great on a midrange Mac so why waste money on a beefy PC when you don’t have to? I see lots of PC people here on the COW asking what CPU and GPU to buy so that they can edit 4K on their PC and then I see people with an 27″ iMac Retina 5K editing 4K like butter and I wonder why anyone would want to use a Windows PC in the first place when they can just buy a system that works with 4K right out-of-the-box?

~jr

http://www.johnrofrano.com
http://www.vasstsoftware.com

[Andy Patterson]

[John Rofrano] ” [andy patterson] “Any cheap Apple laptop running FCPX will allow you to edit h.246/mpeg4/AVCHD with ease using FCPX. The same cannot be said about Premiere Pro. Why is that you ask? Because FCPX uses Intel’s Quick Sync.”

Well that’s the point isn’t it? I don’t need a beefy Mac to edit with FCPX but I do need a beefy PC to edit with PPro. ????”

You don’t need a beefy system to edit using Premiere Pro. A mediocre Desktop PC will work just fine.

[John Rofrano] “I’m pretty sure that FCP X takes full advantage of the D300-D700 dual GPU’s in the current Mac Pro and it will do the same with the Vega 56 in the iMac Pro. We will have to wait and see. I would be very interested in those results.”

I am sure FCPX will work great with the Vega GPU but Volta will be here soon.

[John Rofrano] “The problem is that Adobe uses the proprietary NVIDIA CUDA API instead of the open source OpenCL API and Apple and FCP X uses OpenCL which works better with ATI cards. So yea, Adobe works better on a PC unless you bought a PC with an ATI card, or you put an NVIDIA card in your 2010 Mac Pro (I realize you can’t do this with the 2013 Mac Pros). This is an Adobe problem which I don’t have because I use FCP X.”

You need to do your research. Premiere Pro works with Open CL and ATI GPUs just fine. Adobe writes code for both CUDA and Open CL. Apple does not. You must call a spade a spade. Adobe has to also worry about Mac and PC platforms.

[John Rofrano] “The newest Mac Pro is almost 5 years old now which is ancient in computer years. However, I am editing with a 2010 Mac Pro 12-Core which is almost 8 years old and I would never edit with an 8 year old PC”

Mac and PCs use third party hardware. Your 8 core CPU from 8 years ago is the same CPU a PC would have but generic ATX parts cost less and can be replaced and upgraded very easy.

[John Rofrano] “They just don’t hold up that well and they slow down terribly over time because the Windows registry.”

That has not happened to me.

[John Rofrano] “Same is true for laptops. Even the “gold standard” Lenovo/IBM Thinkpad laptops start rattling and come unhinged after a few years but I have a 7 year old 2011 MacBook Pro that is still solid as the day I bought it. I put an SSD in it and it’s like a new Mac and shows no sign of stopping.”

My laptops never fell apart.

[John Rofrano] “So yes, at any point in time, if you want the fastest editing computer, and Apple hasn’t refreshed the Mac Pro line in a while, a PC will be faster but only because it can use newer technology.”

It is the cost of the product and upgrade-able components that must be considered.

[John Rofrano] ” But as you pointed out, I can get FCP X to work great on a midrange Mac so why waste money on a beefy PC when you don’t have to?”

Actually Premiere Pro will be very speedy on a mediocre $950.00 Desktop PC. FCPX only has an advantage when using laptops and editing h.264. Actually an iMac will edit h.264 better than a Mac Pro.

[John Rofrano] ” I see lots of PC people here on the COW asking what CPU and GPU to buy so that they can edit 4K on their PC and then I see people with an 27″ iMac Retina 5K editing 4K like butter and I wonder why anyone would want to use a Windows PC in the first place when they can just buy a system that works with 4K right out-of-the-box?”

They asks those types of question because they don’t know. Having said that people do ask questions about editing 4K with the iMacs. Editing 4K is very easy on a $950.00 PC but editing full 4K Red One R3D files might require a $1,200.00 system. If you want to edit 8K at full resolution it might cost $8,500.00. Keep in mind the iMac user must get an external RAID to do so but the PC user just has to buy 4 or 5 hard drives and RAID them.

No one is saying the Apple products don’t work but some Apple users would like more options.

[Greg Janza]

[John Rofrano] “The first part of that video attempts to show that the MacBook Pro 2016 is inferior to the Dell XPS but all it really shows is that Premiere runs better on Windows than a Mac because when you use FCP X it blows Premiere Pro out of the water on the same hardware.”

That video is quite interesting and the results of Premiere between mac and a PC are what I’d expect. The speed difference with FCPX is also quite significant in that scenario. However, the decision on which edit system to use is not solely based on speed test results.

I’m often sent projects that have been initially organized by an assistant editor. I also receive projects that will be recuts of a previously finished video. In addition, I work on projects that will eventually get added to the projects folder at an in-house media department so that down the road they can make changes or do recuts.

Within my client base, the edit system used in these scenarios is always Adobe Premiere. If however, an editor has full autonomy with his or her projects then I would think FCPX would be a viable option.

[John Rofrano] “My experience is that Windows is hugely inferior to macOS in a lot of ways.”

Once you figure out which OS has the best workflow options for your own needs then the differences between the two become non-issues. I spent 25 years on Macs and now I’m on a PC and I miss nothing about OSX so it’s all relative.

I Hate Television. I Hate It As Much As Peanuts. But I Can’t Stop Eating Peanuts.
– Orson Welles