Rick Lang
Forum Replies Created
-
Very impressive on the laptop indeed. Although people have helpfully suggested I shouldn’t worry about putting one terabyte of flash in the new Mac Pro, these results may offer some validation. If I set aside half the internal flash for video, it would allow me to be self-contained for travel and be very productive for shorts with that portable desktop aka new Mac Pro. Of course self-contained may be a stretch because it still needs a monitor.
Rick Lang
iMac 27” 2.8GHz i7 16GB
-
John, I got to play with my daughter’s brand new Retina MacBook Pro yesterday for a few minutes so I downloaded the BMD SpeedTest app. 985 MB/s Write speed. As my 18 month old granddaughter would say, “Oh, wow!”
Rick Lang
iMac 27” 2.8GHz i7 16GB
-
[Rick Lang] ”I was surprised FCP X only used 8 threads on a 12-core machine [according to Barefeats], but we’ll see how it works when more people are sharing their experience. “
Just read the Electronista full review of the new Mac Pro (January 21, 2014) and the reviewer also mentions they verified all cores were busy when running some functions on FCP X. So really, it seems like Barefeats is seeing something others have not. All these sources seem to be reliable normally so wonder who is right.
Rick Lang
iMac 27” 2.8GHz i7 16GB
-
[Marcus Moore] “8 cores (or as you suggest down below) in FCPX is not optimal, but 3 in Motion (granted for OpenGL previews) is nutty.”
Dpn’t know what else was running when Philip saw 12 cores or 12 threads active. Grand Central Dispatch is rather complicated (to me) but it makes decisions about how to distribute work based on a number of items including the nature of the code to be executed and how it can be effectively distributed assuming the resources are available. Certainly when running the benchmark, it is unexpected that Motion would only use three threads, but as you say, we have a lot to learn. I was surprised FCP X only used 8 threads on a 12-core machine, but we’ll see how it works when more people are sharing their experience. On my quad core i7 iMac, I’ve noticed some functions use all eight threads and some use four threads, some two, some one.
Rick Lang
iMac 27” 2.8GHz i7 16GB
-
[Marcus Moore] “Based on my 30 seconds of research, each intel processor has 2 threads for each core. So a 4 core processor has 8 threads (or 8 simulated cores). And the 12core processor would have 24 threads/simulated cores.
“Correct. If the only thing using any significant CPU was Motion, for example, it appears Activity Monitor would show the first, third, fifth threads busy if it truly only uses three cores (presumably the GPU is also being used but I don’t know what monitors indicate what parts of the GPU are usedI.
Rick Lang
iMac 27” 2.8GHz i7 16GB
-
[Marcus Moore] “Of course, the config missing here is the one I ordered, the 8-core D700. Based on Barefeats analysis, that configuration would be better suited than the 12-core for FCPX (which according to them uses up to 8 cores) AND has a higher clock speed to boot.”
Marcus, when they said 8 cores, I think they meant threads.
Rick Lang
iMac 27” 2.8GHz i7 16GB
-
[Jeremy Garchow] “Well, that’s because your give your daughters all the good toys! 😉
… You can edit compressed ProRes 4k with less than an 8 bay Raid, but you may need more capacity than 4 drives can offer over time.”
It’s worse than that. One is asking for help renovating a log cabin. You can’t buy love, but love can buy you! I think I need to change my identity and sneak back to LA.
I’ve got the Blackmagic Production Camera bug (4K raw and 4K ProRes 4:2:2 HQ); be careful, it’s contagious. I was hoping to get by with something like the Promise Pegasus2 R6 with 12 or 18 GB for some raw and ProRes. But the Areca 8-bay 8050 in TB2 may be calling me. I’m not planning on a feature film but it’s not hard to burn through a lot of space shooting raw. The RAID may wait until next year as I have other USB3 external storage to use this year as I learn what I shall need next year (when I plan to be making narrative shorts).
Rick Lang
iMac 27” 2.8GHz i7 16GB
-
[Jeremy Garchow] “I was sold on 8 core, thought I’d get a 12 core, but maybe a 6 will do it. That would save $6,000.
That is not nothing.
But then I think as time marches on and more developers (including Apple) have some real flight time in the tube and start to really tune for more cores and GPUs, perhaps the 12 core would be the better investment.”
Clearly the more heavy lifting you do, the more attractive the 12-core becomes. But it may not be needed for many people working with HD or 2K video. Still waiting for Peter Chamberlain of BMD to publish their Configuration Guide update for the new Mac Pro. He has said for up to 2K an 8-core would be a safe bet but a 6-core may suffice. I’m trembling in anticipation of what he says about 4K because I can’t afford 12-core and I expect he’s going to recommend that; I just hope he says what performance will be like with 4K on the 8-core and 6-core. And of course what will he recommend for storage: minimum 8-bay RAID?
Rick Lang
iMac 27” 2.8GHz i7 16GB
-
[Jeremy Garchow] “confused”
The performance is made up of several things working in concert including the speed of the CPU, the power of the GPUs, and all those other bits like real memory and bandwidth and the internal flash storage. Once you have your machine in some combination such as 4-core with dual D300 or 6-core with dual D500 or 12-core with dual D700, the other components are going to make a relatively fixed contribution to your overall performance. The big variable regardless of which CPU or which GPU you have is the way the software works with your components. Some software will ignore the GPU or use it in a limited manner while other software will make greater use of the GPU and less of the CPU. In the first instance a 4-core machine running at 3.7 GHz might outperform a 12-core running at 2.7 GHz as long as the software was limited to using 8 or fewer threads as appears to have happened with the FCP X functions that were tested.
Rick Lang
iMac 27” 2.8GHz i7 16GB
-
[Michael Garber] “One also might deduce from this that the 4-core could be faster on some of these tasks since the clock speed on that is the highest.”
Barefeats:
“One oddity: The 2013 Mac Pro 3.5GHz 6-core with dual D500s rendered the FCPX effects and Motion RAM preview faster than the 2013 Mac Pro 2.7GHz 12-core with dual D700s. Though these are graphics intensive functions, the CPU is a ‘partner’ in the ‘crime.’ Because of that, it may have to do with core clock speed since FCPX uses only 8 cores to render the two effects. Motion uses only 3 cores to render the RAM Prevew. In other words, the 12-core Mac Pro has no advantage over the 6-core (12 with hyper threading) — at least in this instance.”If FCP X only uses 8 threads for effects, you may be right. I’m still thinking the 6-core with D700 will be a sweet spot.
Rick Lang
iMac 27” 2.8GHz i7 16GB