Upgrade to 8 core or Quad.

[Ernie Santella]

The rule of thumb is to usually upgrade to the most powerful system you can afford, because it will have a longer life.

Other factors to consider is cost/speed. The faster system, the more you can get done in the same time. Some edit facilities don’t upgrade right away because by being a little bit slower, they can charge more hours on a project. I’m from the other school, get it done faster and make the clients happy.

Ernie Santella
Santella Film/Video Productions
http://www.santellaproductions.com

[Marco Solorio]

[santellavision] “The rule of thumb is to usually upgrade to the most powerful system you can afford, because it will have a longer life.”

But the other general rule of thumb is, don’t buy the first generation of something new, LOL 😉

Marco Solorio

[Justin Ferar]

Ed, the Decklnk won’t work in the new PCIe box (but you probably know that).

I’m in the same boat (powermac G5 dual 2.7). I think the main question for me is whether or not FCP timeline renders are alot quicker with the octo or just a bit quicker than the quad. Is the difference negligable?

[Don Greening]

As it stands right now the barefeats test is coming in at roughly 40% faster for the 8 core over the 4 core. This will probably change with Leopard. All I can say is that my 4 core is a heck of a lot faster than my 2.7 G5.

– Don

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[Bob Carpenter]

I’d stick with the quad core for now versus the octo. Sure Leopard will be 64 bit but the New FInal Cut does not appear to be 64 bit. So access to memory will not be as fast. There also appears to be a bottleneck in the frontside bus. Sure this is a faster computer for renders, but not a big enough bang for the buck if you ask me.

I’d stick with the quad for now and possibly wait until next year, when FCP 6.5 or 7 is announced. By then Intel will have new quad core processors with the new 64nm architecture. They’ll probably be a little more cost effective too. Hopefully by then Apple will boost the front side bus speed and the new computers will come with Leopard.

[Ben Holmes]

[Don Greening] “As it stands right now the barefeats test is coming in at roughly 40% faster for the 8 core over the 4 core”

That’s not really an accurate reflection of the Barefeats tests. To quote directly:

Barefeats.com: “In this test session, we constructed a “multi-processing” scenario where four different MP “aware” applications were simultaneously “crunching” and fighting for CPU cycles. That included….
> iDVD 6 encoding menu and HD video assets
> Motion 2 rendering a RAM preview of a 1000 frame 1440×1080 project
> Final Cut Pro 5 rendering a 20 second HD clip
> Photoshop CS3 taking a 100MB test file and running 3 lens flares and 3 radial blurs (with the aid of an action file).

Normally the CS3 action file consumes as many cores as you have to give. We saw 796% usage on the 8-core when Photoshop was the only busy application. This action file normally takes only 37 seconds to complete on *BOTH* the 8-core and 4-core Mac Pro. In other words, it’s a tie if Photoshop is the only active application.

But if three other CPU hungry apps are fighting it for CPU cycles, we see a whole different picture…”

Then, you see the 39% gain you refer to. Not only is that NOT a FCP render result, the gain is only there when you are running intensive operations on a few apps.

Now – I don’t disagree with going for the octo-core, we just ordered two. Why? 1) It’s always worth the small amount extra to go for the fastest system, as it will inevitably pay itself back many times over in extra system life (we tend to upgrade every 2 years or so). and 2) I believe that we will see better gains under Leopard and future FCS releases. I also note from Apple’s own white paper that ProRes 422 renders are designed to multi-thread, in other words more cores=faster renders. The truth and specifics of that are yet to be proved, but it’s a good enough reason to make the leap.

Finally, I just don’t agree that going for the 8-core machine somehow involves a risk in terms of Rev A hardware (ie it’s new tech, therefore unstable). The 8-cores are identical in all but CPU. The risk will be in using FCP6 etc initially – but all recent releases of FCP have been VERY stable in my experience, and we will keep our Dual 2.7’s up and running on FCP 5.1 for as long as we need a back-up.

Just my opinions – as usual.

Ben

Editec Broadcast Editing Ltd

EVS & FCP specialists for live OB operations.

New HD edit/slomo truck on the road this month. Dual FCP systems/6 slomo positions.

[Richard Boghosian]

As far as FCP goes, my Quad 2.5 running FCP 5.04 was as fast (renders etc.) and more responsive than my Intel with FCP 5.12. So don’t expect as much as you’d hope. Personally, I’d wait for another Octo rev, and the next FCP 6.x. FWIW.

Richard Boghosian
Bogh AV Productions

[Daryl K davis]

My new 8 core is way faster than my dual 2GHz G5 – I’d say at least 3 times as fast using compressor and rendering FCP.
As far as waiting for the next generation – this IS the next generation of Intel MacPro Desktop machines. That’s what I waited for since last summer.

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DK Davis / Editor/ Post Super
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[Marco Solorio]

[Daryl K Davis] “As far as waiting for the next generation – this IS the next generation of Intel MacPro Desktop machines.”

Yes, but it’s first gen octopus technology. I’m sure Apple will quietly fix something that’ll render out a “V2” motherboard within the next couple of months. They always seem to do. But hey, I’d be more than happy to have an octopus in the studio!

Marco Solorio

[Joe Murray]

I agree with avoiding the first model version of anything…Mac, automobile, whatever. Apple does not test their software or hardware as thoroughly as users will; they’ll wait until we figure out what’s not quite right and then fix it with the next version.

If you don’t have a problem being an unofficial beta tester for Apple, then jump right into the deep end with the octopus.

Joe Murray