Good, gives recent iMac users a chance to say good-bye to their old iMacs
So I'm dead set on the 15" MacBook Pro...definitly gonna BTO the low end model and max out most of the stuff or just get the high end model for the 1GB or GPU RAM...will have to decide on that, as well as an SSD upfront or later on...if I start editing uncompressed video more often then an SSD will be in order. But...the MacBook Pro Retina 15" sounds interesting...I've heard its pretty fast....or do I have to worry about all those pixels needing to be driven?
I might pick up a Mac Mini as my next computer with the quad core, throw 16GB's of RAM and use that as my primary machine for FCP X, After Effects and encoding...its tiny enough I could carry it with me to work and home if needed...I'll be editing primarily DSLR footage but I expect to be editing footage from RED Scarlets in the future at like 4K....Right now I use my 2010 13" MacBook Pro with a fricken Core 2 Duo...I was thinking the Mac Mini would be a good choice with the quad core and I could easily throw in more RAM in the future and with Thunderbolt future upgrade paths seam unlimited...heck we could have External CPU's to add on in the future! But my main interest is editing video without swearing at my computer...this is sort of a critical moment. Any insight? I gotta get onto the quad core to speed up rendering times...
I'm editing 4k files on my late 2012 mac mini.
I see it hyper threads to 8 threads? I didn't think the Mac Mini Server could do that (as per the first picture and your signature). I see your editing 1.9:1 4K, is it off a RED One or Epic? Just curious how smooth it is...
It's off of the red scarlet. Debayer 1/4 res in Smoke 2013 beta release 5 realtime playback in the timline. When you add vfx you have to render that section. It is a speedy little machine
I might pick up a Mac Mini as my next computer with the quad core, throw 16GB's of RAM and use that as my primary machine for FCP X, After Effects and encoding...its tiny enough I could carry it with me to work and home if needed...I'll be editing primarily DSLR footage but I expect to be editing footage from RED Scarlets in the future at like 4K....Right now I use my 2010 13" MacBook Pro with a fricken Core 2 Duo...I was thinking the Mac Mini would be a good choice with the quad core and I could easily throw in more RAM in the future and with Thunderbolt future upgrade paths seam unlimited...heck we could have External CPU's to add on in the future! But my main interest is editing video without swearing at my computer...this is sort of a critical moment. Any insight? I gotta get onto the quad core to speed up rendering times...
I might pick up a Mac Mini as my next computer with the quad core, throw 16GB's of RAM and use that as my primary machine for FCP X, After Effects and encoding...its tiny enough I could carry it with me to work and home if needed...I'll be editing primarily DSLR footage but I expect to be editing footage from RED Scarlets in the future at like 4K....Right now I use my 2010 13" MacBook Pro with a fricken Core 2 Duo...I was thinking the Mac Mini would be a good choice with the quad core and I could easily throw in more RAM in the future and with Thunderbolt future upgrade paths seam unlimited...heck we could have External CPU's to add on in the future! But my main interest is editing video without swearing at my computer...this is sort of a critical moment. Any insight? I gotta get onto the quad core to speed up rendering times...
Hi,
I'm in a similar situation as the started of this thread. I'm doing research before replacing my 2009 c2d mbp and in spite of having done some heavy math I neede help from people with more knowledge.
I'm running on a limited budget and I have to choose a machine that will do best at video rendering (Adobe Premiere and Final Cut Pro). My choices are:
Base 21" iMac with i5 2.7, 8 GB of RAM and 640M
Mid Mac Mini with i7 2.6, 16 GB (I can do that myself) and HD4000 - just like it is discussed before.
I know both have flaws, but do You think one will do considerably better than the other? The point is: does memory and CPU outweight GPU?
Thanks for Your help!
Good to know someone else is in the same boat as me! I'm curious about the 2.3 vs 2.6Ghz upgrade though, obviously it'll help but Id like to see by how much...obviously grab the 2.6 for the extra 100 i believe it is. I mean I guess I could get a GPU in a thunderbolt enclosure later on but if the base iMac is better then I will look that way.
For serious editing I'd go for the iMac, the jump to Ivy Bridge CPU and the discreet graphic card would lep you a lot more than an integrated CPU, with Premiere Pro and After Effects you can use GPU acceleration with your effects. Going from your current machine to a Mac Mini the biggest jump you would see would be in transcoding time but this jump wouldn't be too great, also once you begin editing long sequences with transitions and effects the mac mini would reveal how under power it can be. The biggest disadvantage of a 2012 iMac, or least the 21.5" one is that the ram is not user replaceable outside of that it's a great value.
I was setting up the ideal BTO iMac that I was going to hopefully get but now I see that the 21.5" iMac can't have its RAM upgraded but the 27" can? I think thats just ridiculous! Now they gotta go and gouge me up front...Then I was looking at the Mac Pro's and I figured I could take the low end model as I have a decent display already but it hasn't been updated at all...no USB 3.0 or even Thunderbolt! Oh well...I guess Ill go for the 27" with 8GB of RAM and look forward to the 16GB and hopefully 24GB I can throw in it at a later point...just need a faster machine.
I think Apple is indirectly making life harder for the power user
Oh I've read all about it I've just only started to feel it. Then I have people who think my needs for a faster computer are ridiculous. They think that video magically puts its self together when you open up FCP! The iMac getting its upgradability castrated is really what bothered me...Apple telling us what we need and don't need
Well I don't edit H.264 directly at all. It all ends up in ProRes 422 so my Core 2 Duo doesn't barf 1s and 0s all over my lap... I'm looking at the 15" MacBook Pro the entry model with 8GB RAM (Going to put more obviously)....is this going to be sufficient or at least less painful for my tasks? Mainly looking for smoothing out my editing times, rendering times and actually have the power of a discrete graphics card for programs like After Effects. Also the Thunderbolt port is a welcome addition that seams to make the purchase even more future proof since you can plug anything from a hard drive to an external GPU to it!
So I'm dead set on the 15" MacBook Pro...definitly gonna BTO the low end model and max out most of the stuff or just get the high end model for the 1GB or GPU RAM...will have to decide on that, as well as an SSD upfront or later on...if I start editing uncompressed video more often then an SSD will be in order. But...the MacBook Pro Retina 15" sounds interesting...I've heard its pretty fast....or do I have to worry about all those pixels needing to be driven?
Hi guys. I have a 5-angle HD video editing project for FCPX I've been putting off forever because I don't have a powerful enough computer. Got a bunch of Thunderbolt drives, so that's not an issue. Ordered a maxed out mini. The middle one, upgraded to 16 GB memory and the 2.6 chip. Then cancelled it the next day when I came across some posts that said the mini wasn't up to more than very simple video editing projects. I am a relative beginner to video editing, so am not familiar with this RED video. I assume that requires a lot of power and benefits from a dedicated GPU. For my purposes, however, for a 5 view HD project, I am beginning to wonder (again) if I can get by with that maxed out mini.