MBP i7 2.2 (early 2011) vs Current iMac 3.4 i7 for FCPx

If you can afford the upgrade i would say yes. Can only talk about the editing software.
Did use FCP7 and found it a nightmare to understand. But we all have different ways of picking up the learning curve of a software.
Using FCP-X and very happy with its simplicity of understanding and using and the waiting period for rendering and importing is a breeze.
Try FCP-X on 30 day free trial. If you have used iMovie then you should find FCP-X a joy.
FCP7 is fine but...........not for me.

I understand that the new coding in FCPX makes it particularly good at exploiting the multiple cores in the later processors. So you should find a significant increase in performance...

Is your current MBP a 13" or a 15"? With quad core and a dedicated GPU, the 15" should work pretty well, but you'd see a massive difference between the 13" and a new iMac.

David

samcraig said:

I believe early 2011 has the quad core i7. At least from my checking. So I think the real difference would be 2.2 vs 3.4?

Click to expand...

Pretty much. There are improvements in a few other areas too such as architecture enhancements, cache levels and maintaining peak loads etc.

The iMac will be a much better option using FCPx

You could just try FCPX on the MBP, if it proves to be slow, then that'll be your que to upgrade to an iMac.

Either use the 30 day trial for testing on a MBP, or buy it, and buying it won't be a problem if upgrading to an iMac, since the license is attached to your iTunes account and therefore you can install it on any Mac you sign in on (Or at least, any computer you activate with your iTunes account, which I think is 5 at a time).