2012 mac mini and FCPX

[tictaktwonk101]

Just a quick question....

How well would a maxed out mac mini run FCPX??

I have a 13"mbp 2011 and it really really struggles so i am looking to up grade and thinking either maxed mac mini or base line or near base line iMac.

Any help would be great Thanks!!!

[Carl Spackler]

Originally Posted by tictaktwonk101

Just a quick question....

How well would a maxed out mac mini run FCPX??

I have a 13"mbp 2011 and it really really struggles so i am looking to up grade and thinking either maxed mac mini or base line or near base line iMac.

Any help would be great Thanks!!!

I had one with 16GB RAM and Apple's SSD before returning it because of the HDMI issues and a RAW compatibility issue. I played around with FCP X and went in and out Magic Bullet Looks and thought everything ran just fine, though I never threw anything too GPU heavy at it.

In my few tests, it compared favorably to my 2010 8-core MacPro with the ATI 5770. The renders are fast, but its not like they aren't there.

Barefeats should have their ProApps test out any day now. I'm curious to see how the i5 iMac compares. For me, it's going to come down to i7 and SSD vs. i5 and a better GPU.

[Supa_Fly]

New FW fix for HDMI issues on 2012 MacMini's just released today and featured on homepage of this site.

[Carl Spackler]

Originally Posted by Prom1

New FW fix for HDMI issues on 2012 MacMini's just released today and featured on homepage of this site.

I saw that and am glad. The Mini is such a great bang for the buck Mac, that any slowness offered by the HD4000 won't be a huge deal breaker. Unless swayed otherwise by the Barefeats tests, I'll most likely end up with a Mini again, but this go Ill drop in my own SSD and save a few bucks.

[sunandsurf]

To make it really easy.....

http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=1505419

[diamond3]

Originally Posted by tictaktwonk101

Just a quick question....

How well would a maxed out mac mini run FCPX??

I have a 13"mbp 2011 and it really really struggles so i am looking to up grade and thinking either maxed mac mini or base line or near base line iMac.

Any help would be great Thanks!!!

Your 2011 mbp shouldn't give you too much trouble. You need at least 8gb of memory and should be editing off something other than your main HD and not a usb external. For ~150, you can get yourself a 128gb SSD and 8 or 16gb of ram with a hard drive caddy. This should help out a lot.

Why does your computer really struggle? Is it slow exporting, video playback, graphic work? Are you running a stock configuration?

[Ifti]

I use FCPX on my MacBook Pro (spec in sig) perfectly fine, with an external FW800 scratch disk.
I have no doubt it would run perfectly on my Mac Mini also, although I use the Mac Mini as a server - I may install FCPX on it just so I can use it to export final projects etc.

[salacious]

i have 2011 13" mbp base, replaced harddrive with seagate hybrid 750gb, also upgraded ram to 8gb, i use after effects and fcpx at the same time with no issues? its obviously slower than ideal speed but bearable..

then again if i wanted anything more powerful i would have saved for it.

[tictaktwonk101]

My mbp 13" only has 4Ghz ram but i have the same trouble with motion. All seems ok with maybe 1 effect but as soon as I go and maybe 3 / 4 it kind of locks up!!!
So I was just thinking what would be the best choice. The only thing with the mini is the HD4000 gpu bit.

[7enderbender]

Originally Posted by Carl Spackler

I had one with 16GB RAM and Apple's SSD before returning it because of the HDMI issues and a RAW compatibility issue. I played around with FCP X and went in and out Magic Bullet Looks and thought everything ran just fine, though I never threw anything too GPU heavy at it.

In my few tests, it compared favorably to my 2010 8-core MacPro with the ATI 5770. The renders are fast, but its not like they aren't there.

Barefeats should have their ProApps test out any day now. I'm curious to see how the i5 iMac compares. For me, it's going to come down to i7 and SSD vs. i5 and a better GPU.

What was the RAW compatibility issue? I'm also looking to get one of these soon and had been waiting for the Intel fix which apparently was just released yesterday and takes care of the flicker issue. I want this as a replacement for my old Win desktop to run Photoshop, Lightroom and audio recording software. I shoot Canon.

[Carl Spackler]

Originally Posted by 7enderbender

What was the RAW compatibility issue? I'm also looking to get one of these soon and had been waiting for the Intel fix which apparently was just released yesterday and takes care of the flicker issue. I want this as a replacement for my old Win desktop to run Photoshop, Lightroom and audio recording software. I shoot Canon.

I have the EOS M and at the time I had the Mini, OS X would not natively recognize the RAW files. Lightroom 4 worked just fine (and incredibly fast). It may be resolved. I just don't know. The RAW files from my 1D Mk II did not have this issue. Between the two issues, it was enough for me to take it back and wait.

[diamond3]

Originally Posted by tictaktwonk101

My mbp 13" only has 4Ghz ram but i have the same trouble with motion. All seems ok with maybe 1 effect but as soon as I go and maybe 3 / 4 it kind of locks up!!!
So I was just thinking what would be the best choice. The only thing with the mini is the HD4000 gpu bit.

Do you use ram preview? This is also where more memory would help. Realistically, if your using motion, the mini with the HD4000 won't be that big of an upgrade. A dedicated graphics card would help, something the mini doesn't provide.

[7enderbender]

Originally Posted by Carl Spackler

I have the EOS M and at the time I had the Mini, OS X would not natively recognize the RAW files. Lightroom 4 worked just fine (and incredibly fast). It may be resolved. I just don't know. The RAW files from my 1D Mk II did not have this issue. Between the two issues, it was enough for me to take it back and wait.

Ah, I see. Sure this was a OS-X or specifically Mac Mini issue? This could have been LR/Adobe not being caught up yet. I shoot with a 5DII and still use LR3 so I should be ok.

[pertusis1]

I got a 2.6 GHz i7 late 2012 MacMini. I got the standard 5400 hard drive and upgraded to 16 GB of ram through macsales. I got a copy of FCPX for editing 1080p home video taken on a Sony videocam (AVCHD format). I should mention also that for my 'scratch drive' (or whatever it's called), I use an external hard drive (7200 rpm plugged into the newertechnology 'Voyager Q') connected via USB 3.

At first, I just attempted to convert 7 minutes of AVCHD to BluRay (got a BluRay burner from macsales as well). This went fairly quickly, about 9 minutes of processing, then about 7 minutes to burn the disk. Being a weekend warrior FCP user, I was happy with this.

A few weeks later, I was watching my 10 year-old daughter put together a thank you card on Print Shop, and was shocked at how fast and nicely she was putting all sorts of graphics, layout, and text modifications, etc. on the page. I thought it would be interesting to see what she would do with FCPX and some home video. I showed her the basics (pretty much all I know anyways), and let her take over. Within about 3-4 minutes, she is making our cat make growling sounds, adding rain to scenes, and filtering other shots through 'bug-eye'. She changes some of the color filtering as well, and put a few transitions in. Well, I hate to admit it, but she did not make friends with my mac mini. Within a few minutes, every core was maxed at nearly 100%. After she had been at her editing for about 10 minutes, I had her stop to see how long it would take the background tasks to catch up. Approximately 40 minutes later, the processors backed off below 90%. I got the feeling that my computer wished it had a video card.

Recently, I took 70 minutes of 1080p AVCHD video and turned it into a DVD using FCPX. This was a very easy process, and it took my computer about 2-hours to crunch the data before it started spitting out DVDs.

I hope this gives you a ballpark idea what to expect using a mac mini with FCPX.

As for me, I can't wait for the new Mac Pro.... on second thought, I've been waiting since 2010 - what's another year...

[Carl Spackler]

Originally Posted by 7enderbender

Ah, I see. Sure this was a OS-X or specifically Mac Mini issue? This could have been LR/Adobe not being caught up yet. I shoot with a 5DII and still use LR3 so I should be ok.

A little of both, maybe. Apple Care rep brought in an engineer who figured it was probably due to a custom build of OS X for the Mini. The RAW Compatibilitynupdate would not install. I doubt you'd have any issues. I plan to test it out at the Apple Store before I buy again.