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BrooklynNoise

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Oct 18, 2008
18
4
I am looking at upgrading my current laptop and want to make sure that whatever I buy has sufficient specs to edit GoOro videos. I prefer the portability of the Macbook Air but I suspect that the rMBP might seem like a wiser decision (both at 13"). The new 12" Macbook looks awesome but impractical so I reluctantly am setting it aside.

I currently own a 13-inch, Mid 2012 Macbook Air with a 2.0GHz Intel Core i7 (Turbo Boost up to 3.2GHz) with 4MB shared L3 cache, 8gb of memory and 256GB flash storage. I found I was getting some skipping when playing GoPro videos. GoPro's website states that:

"For higher resolution videos (1080p 60fps and higher): We recommend at least 3.0 – 3.7 GHz Ivy Bridge processors (third-generation Core-based processors or AMD equivalent), 4 GB RAM, and a graphics card comparable to an NVIDIA GeForce GT 650M. The graphics card and processor speed is important particulary for 4K and 2.7K resolution video playback."

I want to upgrade my laptop to try to correct this skipping issue and also because I am maxing out on internal memory (from 256gb to 512gb).

The three machines I am looking at are:

13" rMBP - 2.9GHz Dual-core Intel Core i5, Turbo Boost up to 3.3GHz (Intel Iris Graphics 6100)
13" rMBP upgrade - 3.1GHz Dual-core Intel Core i7, Turbo Boost up to 3.4GHz (Intel Iris Graphics 6100)
13" MB Air - 2.2GHz Dual-Core Intel Core i7, Turbo Boost up to 3.2GHz (Intel HD Graphics 6000)

Do any of these machines fit the bill for what GoPro recommends?

I really get confused when it comes to the speed as to the significance of the type of chipsets used and the Ghz that they tout. Any help deciphering this madness would be awesome.

Thanks in advance.
 
I am looking at upgrading my current laptop and want to make sure that whatever I buy has sufficient specs to edit GoOro videos. I prefer the portability of the Macbook Air but I suspect that the rMBP might seem like a wiser decision (both at 13"). The new 12" Macbook looks awesome but impractical so I reluctantly am setting it aside.

I currently own a 13-inch, Mid 2012 Macbook Air with a 2.0GHz Intel Core i7 (Turbo Boost up to 3.2GHz) with 4MB shared L3 cache, 8gb of memory and 256GB flash storage. I found I was getting some skipping when playing GoPro videos. GoPro's website states that:

"For higher resolution videos (1080p 60fps and higher): We recommend at least 3.0 – 3.7 GHz Ivy Bridge processors (third-generation Core-based processors or AMD equivalent), 4 GB RAM, and a graphics card comparable to an NVIDIA GeForce GT 650M. The graphics card and processor speed is important particulary for 4K and 2.7K resolution video playback."

I want to upgrade my laptop to try to correct this skipping issue and also because I am maxing out on internal memory (from 256gb to 512gb).

The three machines I am looking at are:

13" rMBP - 2.9GHz Dual-core Intel Core i5, Turbo Boost up to 3.3GHz (Intel Iris Graphics 6100)
13" rMBP upgrade - 3.1GHz Dual-core Intel Core i7, Turbo Boost up to 3.4GHz (Intel Iris Graphics 6100)
13" MB Air - 2.2GHz Dual-Core Intel Core i7, Turbo Boost up to 3.2GHz (Intel HD Graphics 6000)

Do any of these machines fit the bill for what GoPro recommends?

I really get confused when it comes to the speed as to the significance of the type of chipsets used and the Ghz that they tout. Any help deciphering this madness would be awesome.

Thanks in advance.

Based on the minimum specs posted, you're going to need at least a baseline 15" with a quad core i7 and also the Iris Pro.

In fact, if you're really serious about video editing and money is not a concern, you can get the one with the GT 750M and use CUDA acceleration to speed up video rendering and editing.

No Iris GPU is comparable to the GT 650M. Only the Iris Pro comes close in computational power (but not in games).
 
First CPU won't matter, unless your jumping from the 13 inch air or pro to the 15. Like the person above said, a dedicated gpu is very beneficial when editing video. I use premiere pro when I edit my videos, adding color correction makes the render times go to about 6-10 times their length, so a 10 minute video might take an hour or more to render. That's on the CPU, which is a 3720qm, if I enable running the app using the gpu (660M), it usually cuts the render time down in half or 1:1 (10 minute video takes 10 minutes to render).

Honestly dropping frames isn't that bad when it comes to editing video, unless your current computer is super laggy, you should be fine, rendering might take a while tho. If you really wanna upgrade I would say either wait for the broadwell 15inch, if you want more portability, go with the 13inch pro, if it's not portable enough, go with the air. Also note your battery will DRAIN like mad when you render with GPU on the 15inch. If you already have portability and wanna spend the $$, go with a Mac pro, if you wanna save some money go with an iMac, if you wanna save more money go with a PC and throw in a nice Nvidia GPU
 
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