Xmas Present, what to do?

[Soura2112]

Since the new release of the Mac Pro I have been searching this board and asking questions, but now I am getting close to my Christmas present (saved up a lot of presents)
At the moment my desktop is a 2005 G5, yes I am very limited at the moment with all intel, etc. Thankfully we have Imac and 2 Macbook Pros in the house.

This is what I mainly do, (leaving out the simple stuff)....
Final Cut- I mainly do projects for fun, with some paying jobs also. I would like to get more jobs but the economy stopped a lot of my jobs and especially before I started my personal side business. I also put the business on the back burner due to my G5 not doing very well these days.

Adobe Photoshop- Im not sure if I will dive into the new CS or anything to big anymore, but I do use Photoshop for my video and pictures for relatives. I know you do not need a Mac Pro for most of the jobs I do but I like to know I can.

Music- I use Garageband a lot, I know there are other programs I can use but I have always liked Garageband, and have a lot of samples to choose from that I added through the years. I do plan to learn and use more music applications in the future. I am also a drummer, and if I could find a good deal to mic my drums to my G5 in the garage that would be great! Plus if its possible.

I can see the debate of getting an Imac i7 chip. The only reason I don't really want to go down that road is I enjoy opening up the machine and swapping out Hard Drives, memory, etc. I like the idea of running USB 3.0.
I have not been reading how USB 3.0 will effect video cameras but I am sure it will one day, also have not looked into USB 3.0 installation. Plus if I were to only put one DVD drive is there a Blu-Ray internal drive that works well with the slot for the 2nd DVD drive?

My 2005 G5 has been a great computer, even with the current problems I still use it for Adobe Photoshop and FC. In the past 5 years Iso much junk has been put on the machine, since it was my first Apple computer I used for school, media class that changed my life in college. Also when I first got I put way to much junk on it, and need to reorganize my Pro life.

So I am looking at the 8 Core and do not want to buy another Mac Pro for another 5 years, yes I know new things will come out and I will want another, but as long as the new Mac Pro line wont make any HUGE changes I will be happy with my purchase. I have read that the Quad Core would be fine with what I want to do, except I want to be prepared for the future, if the speed is slow now I can live with it if the speed gets faster when certain programs change, such as FC.

There is also more equipment I need, mainly a new video camera, it does not need to be full on pro, just HD and something I can use for shooting sports such as a hockey game. I am not shooting commercials, I have and when I do I borrow a camera. So this is all for 60% personal use 40% business, maybe a 65-70% personal but I do take this all serious.

Thanks for any info or suggestions. I know the pros out there jump on these with no concern, in 2005 the G5 changed my life, and I want to be sure I make the right choice considering I am not 100% professional. One day I would like to be, until then its mainly a serious hobby.

 

[grue]

Since the new release of the Mac Pro I have been searching this board and asking questions, but now I am getting close to my Christmas present (saved up a lot of presents)
At the moment my desktop is a 2005 G5, yes I am very limited at the moment with all intel, etc. Thankfully we have Imac and 2 Macbook Pros in the house.

This is what I mainly do, (leaving out the simple stuff)....
Final Cut- I mainly do projects for fun, with some paying jobs also. I would like to get more jobs but the economy stopped a lot of my jobs and especially before I started my personal side business. I also put the business on the back burner due to my G5 not doing very well these days.

Adobe Photoshop- Im not sure if I will dive into the new CS or anything to big anymore, but I do use Photoshop for my video and pictures for relatives. I know you do not need a Mac Pro for most of the jobs I do but I like to know I can.

Music- I use Garageband a lot, I know there are other programs I can use but I have always liked Garageband, and have a lot of samples to choose from that I added through the years. I do plan to learn and use more music applications in the future. I am also a drummer, and if I could find a good deal to mic my drums to my G5 in the garage that would be great! Plus if its possible.

I can see the debate of getting an Imac i7 chip. The only reason I don't really want to go down that road is I enjoy opening up the machine and swapping out Hard Drives, memory, etc. I like the idea of running USB 3.0.
I have not been reading how USB 3.0 will effect video cameras but I am sure it will one day, also have not looked into USB 3.0 installation. Plus if I were to only put one DVD drive is there a Blu-Ray internal drive that works well with the slot for the 2nd DVD drive?

My 2005 G5 has been a great computer, even with the current problems I still use it for Adobe Photoshop and FC. In the past 5 years Iso much junk has been put on the machine, since it was my first Apple computer I used for school, media class that changed my life in college. Also when I first got I put way to much junk on it, and need to reorganize my Pro life.

So I am looking at the 8 Core and do not want to buy another Mac Pro for another 5 years, yes I know new things will come out and I will want another, but as long as the new Mac Pro line wont make any HUGE changes I will be happy with my purchase. I have read that the Quad Core would be fine with what I want to do, except I want to be prepared for the future, if the speed is slow now I can live with it if the speed gets faster when certain programs change, such as FC.

There is also more equipment I need, mainly a new video camera, it does not need to be full on pro, just HD and something I can use for shooting sports such as a hockey game. I am not shooting commercials, I have and when I do I borrow a camera. So this is all for 60% personal use 40% business, maybe a 65-70% personal but I do take this all serious.

Thanks for any info or suggestions. I know the pros out there jump on these with no concern, in 2005 the G5 changed my life, and I want to be sure I make the right choice considering I am not 100% professional. One day I would like to be, until then its mainly a serious hobby.

Honestly, if Final Cut is a major concern, I'd say that clock rate is going to be more important than core count. ALLEGEDLY Final Cut has a new version coming, but unless it's a ground-up rewrite, I have very little faith that Apple's going to make it run worth a rat's ass, and there's very little to make me believe Apple cares enough about the Pro market to rewrite FCP.

For my uses (film postproduction. 85% Final Cut, 10% After Effects or Motion, 5% Color), I'd take a 6x3.33 over an 8x2.4, and perhaps even over an 8x2.66.

Definitely consider upgrading your Photoshop. CS5's performance is a drastic improvement over previous versions on Intel hardware.

 

[goMac]

Honestly, if Final Cut is a major concern, I'd say that clock rate is going to be more important than core count. ALLEGEDLY Final Cut has a new version coming, but unless it's a ground-up rewrite, I have very little faith that Apple's going to make it run worth a rat's ass, and there's very little to make me believe Apple cares enough about the Pro market to rewrite FCP.

It entirely depends. Compressing and rendering is multicore in most packages (I know compression is in FCP, not sure about rendering.)

I'd go with cores. Core support is, at the worst, coming in the next year, at which point the speed gains will blow way what you'd get from clock rate. Video production is one industry that is GREATLY enhanced by multicore processors.

 

[nanofrog]

It entirely depends. Compressing and rendering is multicore in most packages (I know compression is in FCP, not sure about rendering.)

I'd go with cores. Core support is, at the worst, coming in the next year, at which point the speed gains will blow way what you'd get from clock rate. Video production is one industry that is GREATLY enhanced by multicore processors.

I'm not so sure that Apple will put a lot of effort into FCP (getting all of it that's possible to n core multi-threaded capability is a lot of work).

Nor is the machine used to earn a living, so that will have to be taken into account as well (unless the OP is intending to make a full-time business out of it that could justify the cost of a more expensive system).

Just a couple of thoughts anyway...

 

[grue]

It entirely depends. Compressing and rendering is multicore in most packages (I know compression is in FCP, not sure about rendering.)

I'd go with cores. Core support is, at the worst, coming in the next year, at which point the speed gains will blow way what you'd get from clock rate. Video production is one industry that is GREATLY enhanced by multicore processors.

Compressing when using Compressor and QMaster(and that is its own bag of worms) is multithreaded. Rendering is not, it's slower than a fat kid running up an icy hill in a stiff breeze.

On what grounds do you say it's "at worst, coming in the next year"? It's a gigantic project. FCP has to be brought into Cocoa to use Grand Central, and Apple would look pretty damned silly if they use anything except GC for their multithreading.

Like I said… FCS3 made me lose a LOT of faith in Apple's dedication to the market. ProRes was the only thing worth even listing as a new feature, and it wasn't worth the money by itself.

 

[VirtualRain]

Rendering is not, it's slower than a fat kid running up an icy hill in a stiff breeze.

LOL! You almost made me spit my drink all over my monitor!

If Apple does overhaul FCP (which may be a stretch but it's getting embarrassing for them - the iPhone has better video editing!), I would bet heavily on using OpenCL rather than GC technology as almost all their computers sold in the last few years have competent GPU's while only a pitiful fraction would have more than 2 CPU cores. If this comes to fruition, a high-clock quad with one or two fast GPU's is going to be the ultimate FCP workstation.

It's actually amazing how many FCP editors I see using MacBooks... but then again, what's the point of using anything more powerful?!

 

[grue]

LOL! You almost made me spit my drink all over my monitor!

If Apple does overhaul FCP (which may be a stretch but it's getting embarrassing for them - the iPhone has better video editing!), I would bet heavily on using OpenCL rather than GC technology as almost all their computers sold in the last few years have competent GPU's while only a pitiful fraction would have more than 2 CPU cores. If this comes to fruition, a high-clock quad with one or two fast GPU's is going to be the ultimate FCP workstation.

It needs to have both GC and OCL, frankly. OCL has been absolute vapor to date, nothing uses it.

 

[VirtualRain]

It needs to have both GC and OCL, frankly. OCL has been absolute vapor to date, nothing uses it.

Frankly both technologies have not seen very good adoption... especially from Apple.

 

[grue]

Frankly both technologies have not seen very good adoption... especially from Apple.

Well, grand central perhaps not specifically, but there's plenty of multithreaded stuff out there.