New Mac Pro advice

[Jerry Hofmann]

Well, mamma always said “You can’t have a computer that’s too fast and with too much RAM”…

Of course that statement doesn’t really take into account the realities of budget, and actual ROI involved with the purchase…

That said, what formats do you plan to edit, and what is your typical delivery format? The faster the machine, the faster the rendering and compressing it will do no doubt even today. Note the 8 and 12 core machines are using next gen technology where the 4 core’s CPU is “last years”, except in the case of a 6 core machine… So I’d suggest you look at the 8 or 12 core machines.

Down the line, the 1200 bucks that Apple needs for that extra CPU speed in the case of the 12 core machine, will pay for itself over time if INDEED you’re constantly doing renders and compressions.

In answer to your question about the mulitcore capabilities of the software you want to run. It’s a mixed bag at the moment. I think Adobe is currently delivering 64bit apps for example, where Apple’s pro apps are a bit behind that curve… at the present. The future will no doubt be shifting that landscape… Compressor sort of stands to the side of this. It can be set up to use all those cores through the implementation of QMaster.

One thing is certain though. There will be a new version of Studio (likely the next release) which will take more advantage of the power of these new monster machines… And the delivery format of the forseeable future will become compressions sent to the web or TV stations, or even discs.. tape delivery is on it’s last legs I think, so as time goes on the extra speed of the beefier machines will come more and more into play.

Jerry

Apple Certified Trainer, Producer, Writer, Director Editor, Gun for Hire and other things. I ski. My Blog: https://blogs.creativecow.net/Jerry-Hofmann

8-Core 3.0 Intel Mac Pro, Dual 2 gig G5, AJA Kona SD, AJA Kona 2, Huge Systems Array UL3D, AJA Io HD, 17″ MBP, Matrox MXO2 with MAX Cinema Displays

[Jerry Hofmann]

https://barefeats.com/nehal17.html

Rob Art-Morgan’s remarks are always a good thing to keep abreast of… Great Mac centric site IMHO.

Jerry

Apple Certified Trainer, Producer, Writer, Director Editor, Gun for Hire and other things. I ski. My Blog: https://blogs.creativecow.net/Jerry-Hofmann

8-Core 3.0 Intel Mac Pro, Dual 2 gig G5, AJA Kona SD, AJA Kona 2, Huge Systems Array UL3D, AJA Io HD, 17″ MBP, Matrox MXO2 with MAX Cinema Displays

[Steven Nichols]

My typical workflow is with XDCAM EX footage, but I always render the final sequence chancing the codec to ProRes before exporting. All of my After Effects work is done with ProRes too.
I currently have a 2007 4-core @ 3 Ghz (2xIntel Core Duo ) and I am wondering which configuration might give me the best speed improvement. For instance I am not sure with FCP if the 8-core (2.4 GHz) will perform better than my current 4-core (4 GHz).

[Jerry Hofmann]

Are you finding that your workflow is just too slow right now? There is no doubt more machine will be faster.. in Rob’s article, there’s a link to the speed improvements Apple boasts with these new machines… might look there for an idea of just how much faster the renders will be currently. Also if you go into one of the new machines, upgrade the graphics card (the $200 upgrade would be very good to do as much of the software out there is looking to utilize GPUs in the renders and processing.

One thing I’d suggest you do is read the speed tests that can be usually found on the Barefeats site. See if you can find the ones that your current machine has, then take a look at Apple’s speed comparisons… they are comparing with faster machines than you have now too… so looks to me like you’d see a big speed improvement with one of the 8 or 12 core machines.

Jerry

Apple Certified Trainer, Producer, Writer, Director Editor, Gun for Hire and other things. I ski. My Blog: https://blogs.creativecow.net/Jerry-Hofmann

8-Core 3.0 Intel Mac Pro, Dual 2 gig G5, AJA Kona SD, AJA Kona 2, Huge Systems Array UL3D, AJA Io HD, 17″ MBP, Matrox MXO2 with MAX Cinema Displays

[Steven Nichols]

I think my workflow is pretty decent right now… but I can always use a little speed boost Jerry 😉
I remember 15 years ago when doing promos for a network in SD, I would always plan a complex After Effects rendering on Friday night so I could get it on Monday morning. And now I have a real-time HD editing workstation… Not that I am complaining but you always find yourself pushing the envelope, especially when doing motion graphics.
Having that said it’s always amazing the gap between Apple’s software and hardware. They are selling 12-core processors but it would be great if FCP could actually benefit from that. So I think I’ll wait for the 1rst non-Apple benchmarks.

[Jerry Hofmann]

I think that’s a prudent decision… Look at it this way though, if the software was ahead too much, you’re current machine just might not run it! Obviously, the hardware has to precede the software in capability so the software developers (Apple included) can write for it.

I can recall in 1994 I think, I was rendering a rather simple infomercial that had mostly just titles, and video with some transitional effects. A 28:30 show, and titles about everywhere), it was in AVR 26 (first dual field format), was going to be laid out to tape and shipped off… and had to be monitored 24/7 because at times it would just crash, but leave what was rendered thus far. It took 3 days and nights! This on the fastest Mac available at the time. yeah, 72 hours of rendering a highly compressed format smaller file sizes than DV is.

Today? I imagine I could edit it, no rendering needed at all and lay it out to tape. We’ve come a long way baby.

Jerry

Apple Certified Trainer, Producer, Writer, Director Editor, Gun for Hire and other things. I ski. My Blog: https://blogs.creativecow.net/Jerry-Hofmann

8-Core 3.0 Intel Mac Pro, Dual 2 gig G5, AJA Kona SD, AJA Kona 2, Huge Systems Array UL3D, AJA Io HD, 17″ MBP, Matrox MXO2 with MAX Cinema Displays

[Walter Soyka]

[Steven Nichols] “I need speed in FCP3 and After Effects CS5: do all of those apps really benefit from a 12-core machine at 2.66 GHz or will a 6-core at 3.33 GHz perform better ?”

The other posters have addressed FCP; I’ll cover After Effects.

After Effects can use multiple cores through its multiprocessing feature. Essentially, in order to render multiple frames simultaneously, After Effects launches multiple instances of its renderer, and each instance works on one frame at a time.

To use multiprocessing in After Effects, you need lots of RAM. Before CS5, I used to recommend 2-4 GB per core. Since CS5 is 64-bit, you could now use even more than 4 GB per core, though I don’t think it would be necessary for most users. In other words, while you can get away with 8 to 12 GB of RAM for a Final Cut Pro system, if you want to use multiprocessing on a 12-core, you’ll want a minimum of 24 GB of system RAM.

Walter Soyka
Principal & Designer at Keen Live
Motion Graphics, Widescreen Events, Presentation Design, and Consulting
RenderBreak Blog – What I’m thinking when my workstation’s thinking
Creative Cow Forum Host: Live & Stage Events

[Michael Nichols]

Dad? Is that you?

Abel Cine Tech – Rental Coordinator
We now have Red and SI-2K in our Rental Fleet!
212.462.0163 • mnichols [at] abelcine [dot] com

[Steven Nichols]

Do you mean if you have like 4 GB of RAM on a 4-core machine, that means AE only has 1 GB/core during rendering ? Does that also affects RAM preview ?

[Walter Soyka]

[Steven Nichols] “Do you mean if you have like 4 GB of RAM on a 4-core machine, that means AE only has 1 GB/core during rendering ?”

Even worse than that — about 1GB will go the operating system, leaving you only 3GB of RAM.

With a 4-core machine with only 4GB of RAM, multiprocessing will actually slow your renders down, and I’d recommend leaving it set off. Essentially, each instance of the renderer will be constantly stealing RAM from other instances, slowing your render down dramatically versus allowing a single instance to have access to all the RAM it needs.

Todd Kopriva from Adobe has written an excellent blog post that goes into a little more depth — Performance tip: Don’t starve your software of RAM.

[Steven Nichols] “Does that also affects RAM preview ?”

RAM preview is limited to however many frames can fit in RAM available to the main AE process running the GUI. Before CS5, this process could grab at most about 3.5 GB of RAM, putting an absolute limit on your RAM preview length irrespective of your total system RAM.

Now that AE CS5 is 64-bit, the main AE process will be able to address all the RAM in your computer, so if you want longer RAM previews, all you have to do is open your wallet and pour money into memory.

There’s a lot of information on all this, as well as plenty of other performance tips, in the After Effects forum.

Walter Soyka
Principal & Designer at Keen Live
Motion Graphics, Widescreen Events, Presentation Design, and Consulting
RenderBreak Blog – What I’m thinking when my workstation’s thinking
Creative Cow Forum Host: Live & Stage Events