Laptop as your main computer

[Oliver Peters]

[Andrew Kimery] “What are the specs of the cMP and MBP? “

The Mac Pro is an early-2009 (terminal update to 2010)
2 x 2.26 Xeon Quad (8 core total)
28GB RAM
Radeon HD7950
Drives upgraded to SSD

The MacBook Pro is a 15″ mid-2014 Retina (bought 2015)
1 x 2.8 Core i7 Quad
16GB RAM
Nvidia 750m in addition to the Iris Pro
SSD

No plans to add eGPU.

– Oliver

Oliver Peters Post Production Services, LLC
Orlando, FL
http://www.oliverpeters.com

[Erik Lindahl]

2017 5K iMac vs 15″ MacBook Pro Video Editing – FCX Premiere & Resolve 14
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=posSfMXCfFQ&feature=youtu.be

The MBP 2017 does lag behind or very far behind an iMac 2017.

It again depends on what you do and if you’ll notice it. As soon as processing of media or effects is involved, a MBP will be slower or much slower. If you’re primarily editing / transferring media it should be pretty much on-par.

Applications like Resolve or plugins like Neat Video might “break” on lesser hardware like a MBP – especially doing higher resolution work. Also if working with RAW, especially RED, you’ll start to AE the CPU of the iMac being a bottleneck as well.

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[Oliver Peters]

So, at least for now, I’ve decided to run the 2015 15″ MBP as the main computer. It’s generally a better performer than the 2009 MP, even with its upgrades. Most of my work doesn’t involve heavy rendering on the home projects, but the 2009 MP is set off to the side if I need it.

The main display is a 27″ UltraSharp Dell. I’m shifting my working methods to stay with a single screen layout for most work. More minimalist and focused. I opted to get both a BookArc cradle-style stand for the laptop and a Rain laptop stand, so I still have the ability to shift between single and dual display working styles, when the project warrants.

Other peripherals include an OWC Thunderbolt 2 dock for drives and other connections, PreSonus Audiobox USB (plus Mackie mixer and speakers) for sound, keyboard, mouse, TimeMachine drive and external G-Tech media drive.

– Oliver

Oliver Peters – oliverpeters.com

[Oliver Peters]

As a slight aside, I’m doing some multicam 1080 editing today on this set-up. Premiere does tend to kick on the fans a lot. Especially when shuttling at 2X through a multicam sequence. In comparing the same media and process, FCPX kicks them on less often, but still kicks them on. FWIW – at work we are also seeing this with iMacs, but definitely not the “trash can” Mac Pro. That one is relatively quiet at all times.

– Oliver

Oliver Peters – oliverpeters.com

[Scott Thomas]

Where I work I upgraded a 2009 Mac Pro from 8 cores to 12. The chips are pretty cheap now.
The next step is to switch out the Radeon for a Nvidia GTX 1080. The editors are using Premiere, so that should improve things for them. The main goal was to get another year out of the machine and wait for whatever Apple has in the pipeline for the Mac Pro.

[Steve Connor]

[Oliver Peters] “FCPX kicks them on less often, but still kicks them on. FWIW – at work we are also seeing this with iMacs, but definitely not the “trash can” Mac Pro. That one is relatively quiet at all times.”

I’ve just switched to a 2015 MBP as well and I’m seeing the fans kick in a lot when working with 4K in FCPX. Very impressed with the performance though so a little fan noise is a price I’m happy to pay.

[Oliver Peters]

[Steve Connor] “working with 4K in FCPX. Very impressed with the performance”

My experience with this machine is that X deals with 4K fine, but Premiere tends to drop frames in playback or plays every other frame in a real time stream.

– Oliver

Oliver Peters – oliverpeters.com

[Steve Connor]

[Oliver Peters] “My experience with this machine is that X deals with 4K fine, but Premiere tends to drop frames in playback or plays every other frame in a real time stream.
“

I’m finding that too, ironically, considering how poor its realtime performance used to be on lower end systems, Resolve now works flawlessly with 4K.