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MacBook Pros “underpowered?” Not for FCP X editors. Not AT ALL.
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What I wrote:
“But running X on a modern Mac Laptop – and the productivity boost appears to be as much as 10X!”
What David thought I wrote:
“But running X on a modern Mac Laptop – and the productivity — in EVERY aspect of your operation, from finding clients to planning, shooting, audio sweetening, rendering, mastering, delivery, including everything you do on your timeline which includes deciding which cuts to make where – and, of course billing, right through tucking your kids in at night and packing for your next vacation – will get a guaranteed! — boost (which) appears to be as much as 10X!
How did I ever imagine thats NOT actually what I wrote.
????
(this is fun!)
Creator of XinTwo – https://www.xintwo.com
The shortest path to FCP X mastery. -
[Bill Davis] “Well, certainly not as long as some of those others are demanding adherence to traditions like OMF compatibility”
Avid did move on…to AAF.
[Bill Davis] “Things are supposed to IMPROVE over time. “
And they are… slower than some like, because this gigantic machine that is high end workflows is a big ship that turns slowly. And changing things that work doesn’t make sense to a lot of people, even if “this is better!” So…what we have works, and works great, why change for the sake of change? But I guess that’s the dinosaur in me talking. At one point Avid took TOO LONG to change, and often resisted. Apple and FCP Legacy changed that, and they are now getting more on track. YAY COMPETITION!
Shane
Little Frog Post
Read my blog, Little Frog in High Def -
The export times between PPro and X have been posted a lot over the last few years so while I’m not surprised that X is faster (as it has been in all the other online videos I’ve seen) though the difference in the speed always makes me wonder if the tests were setup appropriately. Not saying that they weren’t, but with differences like that my gut reaction is always to second guess the results at first.
IMO Apple hardware complaints seem to fall into one of two camps. Apple-centric complains (ex. long hardware upgrade cycles, too narrow of performance gaps between product lines, etc.,) and cross platform complains (PCs are faster, more expandable, etc.,). This vid was mostly a cross platform comparison but ends with a bit of an Apple-centric tease (the 2015 MPB vs the 2016 MPB).
What I do find interesting are comparisons of MBPs to iMacs to nMPs. Typically I think people expect pretty distinct good, better, best type results but in reality the results are surprising close/mixed. There is always a point of diminishing returns on the cost/speed scale, but it’s surprising how quickly that point is reached in a Mac environment. Are the lower-end machines punching above their weight or are the higher-end machines underperforming?
I think another interesting variable would be to throw a couple of hackintoshes into the mix. One of the counter points to complaints about the age of the Mac Pro is that components haven’t changed very much, so why not put a modern, top-end Hack against a nMP? Booting a Mac into Windows might be easier to accomplish the same type of test, but I don’t know if there are any performance penalties (ex. less optimized drivers) while running Windows on a Mac.
Many times Bill has commented on how smooth X is on his laptop compared to his desktop and I would not be surprised if Apple is ‘tuning’ X for MBPs and iMacs because those are the mass market machines. That’s what sells (especially laptops). And if you are cynical enough you could theorize that this is the self-fulling prophecy that Apple uses to kill the Mac pro (why optimize apps for a MacPro if no one is buying it, why buy a MacPro if apps aren’t optimized for it).
EDIT: I know lots of things get tossed around in here, but I think the political insults are unnecessary. Points can easily be made w/o them.
EDIT #2:
[Bill Davis] “For some reason, no positive X post will EVER go unchallenged here.
????”No post on any NLE goes unchallenged here, and that’s the great thing about being here.
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OK, so I watched the video and there are some obvious things. Apple is using slower RAM than the Dell and the Dell uses an NVIDIA GPU, so Premiere can take advantage of CUDA there. He primarily compares renders times, which I’m not so sure is all that important in the grand scheme of things.
The 4K playback test is more interesting to me. I’m surprised that the Dell had so much trouble with the 4K timeline in Premiere. It echoes what I’ve seen on my own 2015 MBP. 4K in Premiere doesn’t play smoothly. It’s very smooth in FCPX. Seems like there are some performance optimization issues, which maybe Apple is doing a better job at than Adobe.
– Oliver
Oliver Peters Post Production Services, LLC
Orlando, FL
http://www.oliverpeters.com -
You shouldn’t be rendering to h264.
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https://BretFX.com FCP X Plugins & Templates for Editors & Motion Graphics Artists -
I’ve seen a few vids claiming their hackintosh (running i7) costs under a grand and outperforms a MacPro by 20%.
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https://BretFX.com FCP X Plugins & Templates for Editors & Motion Graphics Artists -
As someone who made a Hackintosh, yup, mine outperforms the MacPro in many areas…but is SLIGHTLY slower in the processor realm. But that’s because the MP have the Dual Xenons and I’m running an i7. But it’s not much slower. And this machine cost me $1600.
Shane
Little Frog Post
Read my blog, Little Frog in High Def -
Shouldn’t a modern i7 outperform a lower end NMP in almost every way? Playback of h264 should be better, export of h264 should be insanely better and the GPU should be better in the hackintosh.
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https://BretFX.com FCP X Plugins & Templates for Editors & Motion Graphics Artists -
OK, my Hack did better than the 6 core nMP, but not as good as the top of the line 12-Core.
Shane
Little Frog Post
Read my blog, Little Frog in High Def -
[Andrew Kimery] “The export times between PPro and X have been posted a lot over the last few years so while I’m not surprised that X is faster (as it has been in all the other online videos I’ve seen) though the difference in the speed always makes me wonder if the tests were setup appropriately. Not saying that they weren’t, but with differences like that my gut reaction is always to second guess the results at first.”
I imagine the settings are about the same. FCPX is using Intel’s Quick sync for h.264 renders. There are software titles for the PC that can use Intel’s Quikc Sync.
[Andrew Kimery] “I think another interesting variable would be to throw a couple of hackintoshes into the mix. One of the counter points to complaints about the age of the Mac Pro is that components haven’t changed very much, so why not put a modern, top-end Hack against a nMP? Booting a Mac into Windows might be easier to accomplish the same type of test, but I don’t know if there are any performance penalties (ex. less optimized drivers) while running Windows on a Mac.”
There are bench marks of the iMac rendering 10X faster than the Mac Pro. As I stated it is because of Intel’s Quick Sync feature in the i7 CPUs. The Xeon CPU do not have Intel’s Quick Sync feature.
Keep in mind the Mac Pro can probably playback more layers of the Red One R3D codec in real-time than a Macbook Pro. The Mac Pro will also probably render to HDV, MJPEG and the Cineform codec faster than an iMac.
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