Which Mac should I get?
The August 2010 Mac Lineup
There are more choices now than just the “you have to get the fastest Mac available” approach when purchasing an editing sytem for Final Cut Studio. If you don’t need PCI expansion cards (like AJA, Blackmagic, or Matrox), then you don’t have to pony up for a MacPro. MacPro’s are great machines….very fast, very expandable, but can get very expensive. If you are a DV only shop, the last three generations of iMacs are actually more than capable systems. The MacBook Pro laptops give incredible speed and portability, just not as much expandability.
I highly suggest the 17” if you are considering the MBP as an edit system. Not only do you get a bigger screen from the start, you also get the ExpressCard for more expansion options (additional FireWire ports, SxS card compatibility [and SDHC with an adapter], eSata access with adapter [for more storage options and the new Matrox/AJA offerings]).
February 9th, 2010 at 1:37 am
That’s a very interesting post. And helpful too to show to students. I have only one doubt there – you compare 2.66 Xeon Quad (which actually is a Nehalem cores CPU) with iMac’s i5 and 17″ MacBook Pro C2D. I was about to buy iMac 27″ and one thing convinced me to throw in a few hundred bucks – the multithreading of tasks, which boosts performance about 60% while rendering the sequence in FCP7 and moving around huge layers packs with alpha channeled objects in Motion 3.
The local Apple store helped me to do a side-by-side tests. While in FCS2 the differences were small, then in FCS3 runned in Mac OSX 10.6 Nehalem’s advantage was unquestionable.
So, my own conclusion is: if you stick to FCP6 or 7 editing, buy an iMac or MacBook Pro with 3GhZ CPU. But if you edit, motion-design and post prod roundtripping through whole FCS3, Mac Pro is only solution considerable.
February 10th, 2010 at 1:57 am
Thanks for the comment. 60%? Wow that’s a number I haven’t seen yet for the machines I have there. Unfortunately, I haven’t had the pleasure of putting them side-by-side myself. According to benchmarks from others (and none of them with FCS), the 2.66GHz i5 and MP Xeon are very comparable…so much so that Apple has them side-by-side in the Mac Pro’s Compare section of the online store.
I will agree that if you are really pushing the entire FCS workflow, the higher up MacPros give you more to work with. What will be interesting is to see what Apple does with the next generation of MacPros.
To further define the article, editing a piece that involves storytelling without complex graphics or visual effects can easily be created with an iMac or MBP…and that’s whether you are using DV, HDV or even ProRes. I have plenty of clients still on G5s cutting great stories together in FCP5. And with the economy as it is, I have recommended to some to check out used Mac options and FCP 5/6. When they and their credit cards are ready for more bells/whistles and performance, upgrade then. If looking for current performers, MBP and iMacs are very capable editing machines.
April 6th, 2010 at 4:52 pm
Your article provides good insight into the various Mac platforms that will run FCP. Apple lowered the upgrade price, but FCP now requires a hardware upgrade to an Intel based machine. I would be inclined to go for the MacPro for expandability – whenever I can upgrade. I love technology. I just can’t always afford to keep up with it. Last summer I traded a five year old Sony PD170 for a Z5U after the headphone jack failed. Six months later, Sony announces the NX5U. I’m one of those still running FCP5 on a G5, and none of my clients has ever asked what I’m editing on. Sure, some of my competition in a very small market have upgraded. But I just delivered a job in SD, 4:3 – as required by the client.