Final Cut with Macbook pro or Mac pro?

[Babba]

Hi there guys,

I'm planning to buy a Macbook pro 2.66, 4gb ram and 5200rpm hdd..(i'll buy second hand from a friend of mine which is real cheap) I'm just going to use Final Cut Studio and Adobe applications (Final Cut, Photoshop, After Effects and Motion).

Is Macbook pro 2.66 will be enough for these? I mean, should i wait and save more & more money for Mac pro?

If i buy macbook pro, i'm going to buy a mini-dvi adaptor to output 24" lcd that i already have with my PC.

Thanx a lot.

 

[tMac85]

you should be fine. It depends on how intense your work is gonna be. Although if portability is not an issue, and you have the $$$ for a mac pro....go macpro. Its always gonna give you that extra boost.

 

[Hellhammer]

Mac Pro would be a lot faster and if you don't need portability, save the cash for it, it's worth it.

 

[MacKiddyWiddy]

i agree with hellhammer, the mac pro would be best as it is a hella lot beefier

but the MBP would also be fine so long as your editing wasn't too intensive e.g. editing in 1080p whilst overlaying fancy transitions and shizz

 

[Jodlesx]

i agree with hellhammer, the mac pro would be best as it is a hella lot beefier

but the MBP would also be fine so long as your editing wasn't too intensive e.g. editing in 1080p whilst overlaying fancy transitions and shizz

I've never understood this. FCP must be terrible at utilizing multiple cores and available computer power. I've been editing a lot of stuff in 1080p on an old Pentium 4 computer in Sony Vegas, and it's always pretty smooth. The only thing that takes time is rendering (final render, everything else is live). But I always do that over night anyway.

 

[Hellhammer]

The only thing that takes time is rendering (final render, everything else is live). But I always do that over night anyway.

But if you do that as a school work or something, you may not have a night to let it render things. Moreover if you're messing up with Motion, you need good dedicated GPU as well as good CPU.

As I said above, if OP doesn't need portability and if I was him, I would get Mac Pro.

 

[nyzwerewolf]

I think u should wait for a Mac Pro. In my opinion, you should only look into buying a MacBook Pro if you already have a Mac Pro to do your hard work at your home/office. This is one of the mistakes I made. I dropped almost 2700 on a MacBook Pro back in 2007. Now I look back, I should have gotten a Mac Pro at the same price. Now I am stuck with MacBook Pro screaming everytime its gotta render a timeline or whatever. And I am trying to build a hackintosh bc I cant afford to buy a Mac Pro. So, if you are a person who don't do a lot of mobile video work, go with Mac Pro. And then later on, buy a MacBook Pro.

Esp if you are workin with Video, you may wanna hook up accessories like matrox/aja all that good stuff. So Mac Pro will be a good asset for you.

 

[silentnite]

I'd say go mac pro all the way on this one. Only because for the money you end up putting out on the mac book pro & maybe the need for a bigger HDD, power needs, etc. You'll soon run into mac pro territory anyway, might as well have the power & be able to use it as you need it. In a case like this you won't go wrong with a mac pro, it's everything you need a & more for the job.

 

[techound1]

I agree with most of the above posters - go with the MBP only if you have a compelling need for the portability.

 

[Techhie]

I agree with most of the above posters - go with the MBP only if you have a compelling need for the portability.

Agreed. Unless you HAVE to use Final Cut on the go, the Mac Pro would be a much better choice. Plus, you will pay a huge premium for pro portable level power over the desktop. By the time you save up, Apple should be throwing those freshly baked 6-core CPUs into the sockets.

 

[Hellhammer]

By the time you save up, Apple should be throwing those freshly baked 6-core CPUs into the sockets.

That's possible. I just read an article about Gulftown and it said it's ahead schedule so we may see them in Q1 instead of Q2-Q3

 

[Jodlesx]

But if you do that as a school work or something, you may not have a night to let it render things. Moreover if you're messing up with Motion, you need good dedicated GPU as well as good CPU.

As I said above, if OP doesn't need portability and if I was him, I would get Mac Pro.

Very good point. And I guess if they at some point choose to do rewrite some of FCP to take advantage of OpenCL (or is it Grand Central?) then a Mac Pro with a decent GPU or at least upgradeable GPU is neat to have.

 

[Hellhammer]

Very good point. And I guess if they at some point choose to do rewrite some of FCP to take advantage of OpenCL (or is it Grand Central?) then a Mac Pro with a decent GPU or at least upgradeable GPU is neat to have.

That's true. Couple of weeks backwards I read an article about OpenCL and Grand Central Dispatch and the writer made an app which supported OpenCL and GCD and it was 70% faster than the same app without support.

Gran Central Dispatch - Can take advantage of multiple cores
OpenCL - Can use GPU for CPU tasks