Macbook for FCP X?

[NightStrikergp]

So I have a 15" Macbook Pro from 3 years ago. Unfortunately last year something happened to cause it to no longer charge the battery (even after buying a new battery and new charger) so it's just become a really small desktop computer.

However I'm in Television Broadcasting at college and I do a lot of editing originally in FCP 7 but now FCP X. As I need a new macbook for college and my projects I was thinking of just getting a white macbook (if there's a refresh on the horizon, don't need it till September) otherwise I'd try to get the 13" Macbook Pro but I heard the Intel 3000 GPU has trouble with Final Cut/Motion but the Macbook's Geforce card has no hiccups.

So I thought I'd ask, can the Macbook (white) handle Final Cut X? My other question is if it doesn't do a good job than does the Macbook Pro even with the Intel 3000 GPU handle it ok? I don't mind paying an extra $200ish for the Pro but if the GPU has trouble with Final Cut, it's going be useless to me.

Thanks for any advice and opinions.

 

[ZZ Bottom]

Do you have a need for firewire at all? I graduated from a TV program two years ago and found I still needed the versatility of firewire for the occasional HDV capture or using external drives. USB does not cut it flatout, and unless the next macbook gets Thunderbolt and you are willing to adopt this for HD use (probably quite costly for a while), then I would look for a machine that also has FW.

Final cut will run fine on the HD 3000, but the amount of time spent waiting on rendering and whatnot will obviously be marginally longer than that of a better integrated or dedicated GPU. Do you work with any 3D (not 3D video), or use After Effects/Motion? That is where you will have the most noticeable difference.

If you absolutely can't or don't want to spend the money on a 15" MBP, then I would go for the 13" MBP over a MB for the FW port (I am also assuming the new macbook will inherit the same configuration as the 13" MBP sans FW).

Its hard to advise that though when it is likely the next 13" MBP will get a resolution increase, something you would definately benefit from with video editing.

 

[NightStrikergp]

I didn't think about firewire and honestly I'd probably need it. Thunderbolt is awesome but the hardware isn't there yet (for video production anyways)

Ideally I'd love to jump to the 15" Macbook pro with the 1GB video card, its just a matter of price but at the same time you brought up a good point, I hate rendering (but everyone does) and I will be using Motion so maybe jumping to even just the base model of the 15" macbook pro would be beneficial though it sucks it doesnt have a 512 card at the very least.

Though I have my editing rig at home the laptop was going be used to work on projects away from home, and considering my portable scratch disk is firewire it does look like I'll need to go MBP at the very least.

 

[ZZ Bottom]

I can sympathize with the cost issue. I could never get myself to fork over enough for a 15" when I could get a 13"+Mac mini. Ultimately I chose to go the hackintosh route as my main rig, and survive using a MacBook (w FW400) as my portable backup.

I totally agree that it sucks about the gpu in the low 15". I know VRAM isn't everything, but it's my understanding that it definitely helps in after effects/Maya stuff.