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Snow Leopard and Final Cut Pro

THX1139

THX1139

macrumors 68000
Original poster
Mar 4, 2006
1,928
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Hi everyone,

I just did a fairly simple test to see if there was a speed increase after installing Snow Leopard. I have a MacPro 2.66 (2006) with 6GB of ram and a RAID0 that I used for comparison to make the test a bit more interesting. I made a simple 5 layer file with a photoshop graphic and some SD footage with some overlay affects. It was enough to cause a render on the timeline. I took the the same file and brought it over to my Macbook Pro 2.53 (unibody). I made sure it was running on the 9600 GT video card. I set the scratch disk on the Macbook Pro to the firewire 400 enclosure that also had the video files. On the Mac Pro, everything was on the RAID0, except the project file that I kept on the startup drives of both computers. I ran the test on my MacPro by selecting render-all and then hitting a stop watch. On the Macbook Pro, I ran the exact same file and timed it the same way. On the Macbook Pro, I ran the first test with OS 10.5.8. Then I installed Snow Leopard right over the top of 10.5.8 (because I didn't want to hassle with reinstalling software). Below are the times for each machine. While not scientific, I think the results are very interesting.

MacPro 2.66 - 8:48

MacBook Pro (with 10.5.8) - 9:15

MacBook Pro (with 10.6) - 8:29

As you can see, Snow Leopard on my Macbook Pro beat my MacPro 2.66 quad. Not by much, but it's significant when you consider that the MacPro has double the processors and they are faster. I'm thinking my Mac Pro is going to see a big increase once I get around to installing 10.6., but I have to hold off until I finish a project because I'm going to do a clean install and it will take several hours. My Macbook Pro is going to get completely reinstalled on a reformatted drive soon as I get the time. I'm excited now that I've seen what Snow Leopard can do. I imagine it's only going to get better once 64bit comes to Final Cut. :D
 
Thanks for posting that. I should be receiving SL from Amazon soon. I'm still undecided about upgrading my Mac Pro 2006 with 8 cores. I'll do a benchmark too when I get everything installed.
 
Great info.

I just started some film stuff and I was actually wondering about how much of a hit my MBP (2.53ghz, 4gb ram, 512mb 9400/9600 combo) would take rendering from home instead of using our school setups (nearly identical to yours) on the MacPro's. Good to know it outperformed. Even if it keeps close in the long run with my files I'm happy.

Thanks for the info. Even if things change slightly in various configurations of what you're rendering and the MP outperforms the MBP then at least I know it'll hold its own and I wont be losing insane amounts of time letting it do its job at home instead of at school.

D.
 
ChemiosMurphy said:
Try using compressor with the quick Cluster setting to create an hour long M4V and AC3 for blu ray with some 1080p24 source material... That's a real test.
Click to expand...

Yes, that would be a great test! But, I'm right in the middle of reinstalling everything on my Laptop. I had such a great experience with Snow Leopard that I decided to start fresh and do a total reinstall of everything on a virgin hard drive. I've been migrating and upgrading since Tiger and I thought it's high time to start fresh. Especially since I think this is the last major upgrade for a year or so. Sure, there will be updates here and there, but I think this is a good base system to build on.

I'm so happy with the results that I'm thinking of selling my "ancient" MacPro. I'll go with the laptop until next spring, then see what desktops Apple comes out with. I wonder what I can get for it or whether it would even be worth it?

As for the test, I'll let someone else give it a go. I did the first one so it's someone else's turn because I'm going to busy on another project that starts Tuesday.
 
DoFoT9, I can crank out a 20 minute 1080p24 ProRes file to a full 35 megabit M4V file from a 2 pass encode in Adobe Media Encoder in around 3 hours with Leopard on my 08 2.8 octo in my sig
 
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