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Activity Forums Apple Final Cut Pro X MacBook purchase question – Thanks in advance!

  • MacBook purchase question – Thanks in advance!

    Posted by Brian Whisenant on March 11, 2023 at 11:25 pm

    Hello all,

    I’m getting ready to direct/edit a short film, and I’m a bit out of my depth on something and need advice.

    It’s been suggested to me to get a new macbook for editing purposes with final cut pro. I’ve been looking at the new MacBook Pros and am wondering which one of these will suffice. The film is probably going to be 12 minutes. Standard amount of footage to edit, I would think. I would prefer to get the top choice since it’s $500 less. But will do what I must.

    12-Core CPU
    19-Core GPU
    16GB Unified Memory
    1TB SSD Storage¹

    Or

    12-Core CPU
    30-Core GPU
    32GB Unified Memory
    1TB SSD Storage¹

    Thanks!!

    Brian

    Paul Carlin replied 2 months, 2 weeks ago 4 Members · 3 Replies
  • 3 Replies
  • Ben Balser

    March 12, 2023 at 9:59 pm

    Get the most power you can afford, it’ll perform better, and have more longevity. Simple as that. A short film, unless is has a ton of special effects, shouldn’t require a lot of power, but what happens after that? You’ll do more work, more challenging work, be prepared.

  • Eric Santiago

    March 13, 2023 at 1:53 pm

    Agreed with Ben.

    It’s always what you can afford as far as FCPX.

    I’ve been running it since 2011 across so many low to high-end Apple products.

    Amazing how it does on even the lowest-end option.

  • Paul Carlin

    March 21, 2023 at 2:43 pm

    Same advice as everyone else. Get the most you can afford. I would prioritize memory over processors. If what you can afford isn’t good enough, then make proxies of your sources and work with those.

    If you want to save $300, look into using Davinci Resolve for editing. Then when it comes time to do color, you are already set to go. Also, the audio tools in Resolve are top notch.

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