New Mac Pro for FCP - should I do 8 cores or faster clock?

I'm setting up a FCP station to replace a 2.3 GHz dial G5 and I'm wondering which would be better - an 8-core 2.26 GHz or a 4-core 2.93 GHz Mac Pro.
Right now the G5 is most likely to choke up when rendering/auto rendering within FCP.
Based on price and the trends in parallel processing, I'm guessing I should go with the 8-core, but that old-school MHz addict in me keeps second guessing. I'd appreciate any advice/insights!

American Flannel wrote:
I heard the new four core mac pro dusts my 2.8ghz 8 core in benchmarking
That's not exactly true. I've been doing some research in the past 24 hours and it seems that the benchmarks (like Geekbench) in which the new 4-core "dusts" the previous 8-core are those which include memory tests. Memory tests will run much faster on the new Nehelems because they use faster RAM.
But the early 2008 8-cores are scoring higher on some benchmarks which score single and multi threaded tasks and don't get hung up in cumbersome RAM tests.
As for the current 4-cores versus the current 8-cores, it seems that the 2.96 GHz 4-cores are beating the more expensive 2.26 8-core procs in single-threaded operations. In FCP, only Compressor is optimized for multithreading, so I'm guessing the real benefits of the extra cores won't be visible until both snow leopard and a new version of FCP.
Why a new version of FCP? Because from what I've gleaned, Grand Central will not make single-threaded operations run better, but will give developers tools to more easily utilize parallel processing. So it would seem FCP will need a significant upgrade to take advantage of what 10.6 has to offer. Don't know if it'll be a .5 or a full version upgrade, but I'm betting on one of them.
Please don't take this as gospel... if I'm wrong about any of this, I'd love to hear a contrary opinion.
Message was edited by: Rey Mo

Similar Messages

New Mac Pro for photography (raw edition).

Hi,
I want to buy the new Mac Pro in december for use as my main works station. I work mainly with Photoshop CS6 and Capture one, editing/retouching big amounts of RAW and TIFF files from Nikon and Hasselblad.
Im thinking in buy the 6 cores version with 16Gb or 32Gb if I get the money, (I think the 16Gb is the basic configuration for the six core and looks really good). Like this is a big investment for me, I was wondering if this will be the right configuration for my work. I am a photographer and an advanced retoucher. But I'm not sure if the 6 cores are really necessary for what I do (serious photo edition, fashion and publicity.). Maybe the 4 cores with 32Gb (or more) of Ram is just enough or... Maybe, its the 8 cores the right option.
This machine should last at least five years.
Any advice is welcome.
By the way, anyone knows how to solve the Eizo Colornavigator 6 compatibility with the OS X Mavericks issue?.
Thanks a lot!.
Cristóbal.

Hi FatMac and The hatter,
Thanks for yours suggestions, it's been very helpful!.
i'm using a MacBook Pro (6.2) 2.8GHz i7 8Gb Ram (not upgradable) and 500Gb SSD connected to an Eizo monitor. It does his job but lately having heavy overheating and slow down its performance in a notorius way. Its a good machine but is not made for serious editing.
Before that, I was using an imac 27 quad core 16Gb ram that I sold for get some money for the new Mac Pro.
This should be a notorious improvement for me.
Based on what you saying I think with the 6 cores at 32 Gb ram I will be ok. Im thinking on upgrade the Ram in the future. Probably the 8 cores will be too expensive for my budget and don't make a significant improvement for my work compared to the 6 cores.
Thank you very much for your advice and links!!.
Best,
C.

Questions about buying a new Mac Pro for 4k video editing.

Hi everyone,
I'm currently looking into buying a new mac pro and I have a few questions. I'm a filmmaker/freelance editor looking to get a system that can handle any/at least most 4k formats that I might throw at it, and will hopefully last me around 7 years or so, like my last mac pro has. I've saved up about $5,300 and am becoming more obsessed with getting it asap, but am willing to wait a bit and save up more if necessary. I also play the occasional elder scrolls or civilization game, and might run windows on the new system as well. So here are my questions:
1. I've read rumors that a newer build could be released this year, with newer processors and graphics cards. Is there anything to point to when? I tend to buy things a month before a newer version is released, and I'd like to prevent myself from doing it this time around..
Here's the Build I'm looking at:
6 core
2 D700s
base ram to be upgraded myself to 32Gb (2x16Gb cards leaving 2 slots empty to expand to 64Gb later)
512Gb-1Tb internal hd
2. Should I be considering the 8 core? I'm not too excited about the additional $1500, but I want a system that will last.
3. Is getting the two 16Gb chips of ram and leaving two slots empty a bad idea?
4. I currently work with FCP studio 2 and love it. Not sure whether to go with FCP X, or adobe. Any thoughts?
5. I'm not finding many deals for cheaper ram and hard drives. OWC's prices seem to be comparable to Mac's. I want to do the ram so I have room to upgrade to 64Gb later, but are there any hard drives out there that would make it worth upgrading it myself?
I appreciate any insights you might have. I plan on getting a decent raid and 4k monitor in the next year or so, but for now just want a base system that will keep me editing and will be ready for 4k when I take that next step.

The late 2013 Mc Pro uses Intel Xeon ECC processors (error correction), and as far as I know Intel has not announced any newer Intel Xeon processors than those in the late 2013 Mac Pro. I would not expect to see an update to the 2013 Mac Pro until the end of 2015 at the earliest and probably later than that.
If time is not an issue, then you should be quite happy with the 6 core 2013 Mac Pro. It will do an excellent job with 4K video footage. And, yes, I would suggest getting the best raid system you can afford. That is actually more important than processor speed since I/O is frequently the bottleneck when doing multi camera video or 4K video.
I have the latest version of Adobe's Premiere Pro 2014 CC installed on my late 2013 Mac Pro and i have used it a bit without problems. However, I find it much much slower to edit with than FCP X. Also be advised that if you Google you will find several individuals on the Adobe Forums who purchased the late 2013 Mac Pro and have not been able to use it with Premiere Pro CC because of either a hardware incompatibility or software issues between Premiere Pro CC and BMD's Resolve. It is quite possible that I have not experienced these problems because I have not made very demanding projects with Premiere Pro CC on my 2013 Mac Pro.
I strongly recommend FCP X. Apple released FCP X before it was ready, and many early users were unwilling to take the time to learn how to use this very different NLE which is not track based. Apple has over the last 3 years since FCP X was released, issued more than 10 updates (all free), and the program is stable and blazingly fast. I urge you to check out the FCP X training offered by Ripple Training and/or Larry Jordan. Both are inexpensive, and worth every cent. Watch their training videos and you will be up to speed in FCP X in no time at all, and you will wish you had switched a long time ago.
If you can afford the 1 TB of PCie internal flash storage on your Mac Pro, then by all means get it. For me 1TB is well worth the cost.
As far as editing 4K video, the format of the video will be important to the ease of editing. For example, I am able to edit in its native format (XVAC S) several streams of 4K video form my Sony FDR-AX100 with no problems. If I were editing Sony's XVAC format used in their professional 4K cameras, that might pose a problem that would require transcoding. Similarly for other 4K formats. XVAC S is an easy format to edit natively because it is essentially a high bit rate h.264 format.
Best of luck on whatever you decide to do, and happy editing.
Tom

IMac vs the new Mac Pro for video editing in FCPX?

Hi.
I am currently using a macbook air for all my editing and rendering of videos in FCPX. The editing process is reasonably smooth when dealing with shorter clips, but when I tried to edit multicam clips, things started to slow down. Also, the rendering and compression processes are tedious. I am planning to edit and process a much larger number of videos in the next years to come, so I have decided to do a serious upgrade of my system.
For the moment, I am torn between a maxed out iMac 27", which would be the cheapest alternative, and the 6 core Mac Pro or 4 core Mac Pro.
When I look at benchmarks of the new Mac Pro's in Geekbench, the iMac is never very far away in terms of performance. Does tests like this tell anything about how well the Mac Pro will perform in FCP? Does the hardware in the Mac Pro have features which makes it superior to the iMac, in other ways than for example the "pure power" of the CPU and GPU?
Christopher.

FCP X 10.1, Motion 5.1 Updates w/Dual GPU Support (new Mac Pros) (from Thursday)
Apple released Final Cut Pro X 10.1 Thursday with support for Dual GPUs in the new Mac Pro and more.
Long list in the Final Cut Pro X 10.1 Release Notes that also links to info on How to back up important FCP X 10.0.x files before updating. (Today's Apple docs listing also has more related to Final Cut Pro X 10.1.)
Also out today are Compressor 4.1 and Motion 5.1. Full release notes below but here's a clip from the App store Motion 5.1 changes:
Optimized playback and rendering using dual GPUs in the new Mac Pro
FxPlug 3 with custom plug-in interfaces and dual-GPU support
Faster project loading, especially for complex projects
Share directly to YouTube at 4K resolution
Spanish language localization
Dual FirePro Dxxx Rendering FCP-X
http://www.barefeats.com/tube05.html
Intel Xeon processors are designed to run 24/7 and stay cool and under load.
Mac Pro so far hold up strongly for years, easy to add and upgrade RAM and processor, and maybe, hopefully, even the twin GPUs. Thunderbolt2 for all your projects and storage as well.
6 or 8-cores is going to walk away from iMac which is breathing hard and not designed for constant heat. Haswell was designed to conserve and reduce.

Which new Mac Pro for Logic?

Well, they're out and on the AppleStore and I have about £2800 burning a hole in my pocket...
My question is, for that money I can configure either an 8-core machine running at 2.26GHz, or a quad-core running at 2.93GHz. Can anyone tell me which route is likely to be better for running Logic with lots of tasty plug-ins? I've budgeted for 8Gb of RAM and a second hard drive for sample data, so it's just the processor(s) left to decide on.
At the moment I'm running it on a 1.83GHz Core Duo MacBook Pro, where it limps along painfully, so I don't really have any experience of how well it utilises extra processing cores. I'd welcome any advice.

Hey MIke I agree that some thought should given to technology 5 years down the road but you are making my point about chasing technology. Its all a guessing game. Look at TVs. Look at phones. Etc.
Technology is moving so fast that you have to just use your gear in the moment and hope for the best.
It is not realistic in 2009 to predict 5 years down the road. Its just a big guess. What about the Mac pros that come out in 2 years. Will they make this years new Mac Pro obsolete? People will be having this same discussion in 2 years? They might not even make a desktop in 5 years. Look at the power of laptops now. Desktop sales are very weak and if this trend continues they will fade. I bought my 8 core almost a year ago and I would have had to wait a year if I chose to chase technolgy. When I bought my Apogee Ensemble I did think to myself that great they will probably release a new Ensemble with more Mic inputs. But I am glad I got it and use it and no worries. We are at the mercy of Apple so they will dictate the future and they arent going to tell consumers their 5 year plan anyway. Ok I will shut up.

Can a new Mac Pro run FCP 5.1.4?

I've been checking around to see if I will need to upgrade my FCP 5.1.4 when my new Mac Pro arrives. From what I've read it should run O.K. but I wanted to hear from anyone out there currently doing that to see if there are any issues.
Thanks.
Jamie

FCP 5.1.4 is dubbed the Universal Crossgrade...meaning it works on PwerPC macs and Intel macs.
It will work fine.
Shane

Which Mac Pro for FCP?

I'm considering purchase of a new Mac Pro, hoping that it would allow more real-time playback of our DVPro 50 edits and faster rendering and compression. I'm also considering purchase of a video card for export to DVCAM and Beta SP. Can anyone help us with advice on what kind of configuration would be best? Thanks in advance.

Hi Gerret,
I would opt for the base Mac Pro model over the higher clocked BTO models and put the saved money into adding more memory and- storage.
The card choice absolutely depends on your (input/output connection) needs.
Some DVCAM decks have Firewire in/outs so this would require no card at all.
If you really only need SD i/o then Blackmagic is the only remaining vendor to offer SD-only cards.
http://www.blackmagic-design.com/products/sd/
Depending on the video i/o interfaces on your deck(s) there are two cards available for PCIe machines (like the Mac Pro):
$595 DeckLink SP (analog only)
$895 DeckLink Extreme (analog + SDI)
AJA has the external Io / Io LA / Io LD boxes available.
I can only talk about the Io though. It has great quality, a plethora of in/outputs but sets you back quite a bit, moneywise.
http://www.aja.com/html/productsIoIo.html
http://www.aja.com/html/productsIoIoLAD.html
Maybe you should consider getting a HD capable card, though.
Blackmagic's HD cards start at only $100 more than the SD-only DeckLink Extreme and you would be 'future-proof' then (if that's possible at all
Best regards, Oliver

New Mac Pro for Photoshop

Hi,
I currently have a 2008 Mac Pro 2 x 2.8 Quad Core Intel Xeon that I am thinking of upgrading.
My questions are as follows.
Which set up would be best for photography based work, mainly Photoshops CS6 and Lightroom 4
I use a Drobo as my main working raid style hard drive.
I'm happy to spend money on a quality system but want to know it will be optimum for what I am using and dont want to just go for the 'top of the range' if it is pointless for the type of work I am doing (I never use video software at all)
Would there be a 3rd party company that would be better suited to set it up exactly for photography based work.
Am I right in saying the current Mac Pro's do not have thunderbolt or USB 3.0, so with that in mind, how long do people speculate that the new Mac Pro's will be available.
Thanks in advance.
Jason

YOU can see what Intel says (said?) at the Intel Conference this fall where they lay out for their vendors and everyonne what they plan and have in the oven for the next year.
Intel fell behind last year's plans with the complexity and issues they ran into, plus changes in the landscape. So did Nvidia with their new line. Hence everyone's plans went bonkers. And any IvyBridge Xeon? doesn't look like anything until this time next year, end of 2013. 2014 does have the next tic-toc and improved chips and memory architecture. DDR4 may get out of the labs.
That much is knowable.
But what you can do today: 2010 6-core 3.33 w/ 4x8GB and GTX 670 plus some nice storage hardware.
See this guy's articles and advice, a heavy graphics perspective:
www.macperformanceguide.com
Oh, and just my own personal.... a lot of 2008 owners are not happy campers for various reasons with power, stabilty, sleep/wake/freezes and maybe that 'first Mac Pro w/ EFI64" is showing crack in seams.
2010 for $1800 and up to around $3k - and your system is worth over a grand still once you can move over.

Which new Mac Pro for Logic Studio?

Hi everyone,
I'm on the verge of ordering a new Mac Pro, but am tossed up over the quad 2.93 or the Octa 2.26. I'll be using it mainly for composing with Logic Studio. I find its a bit of a pain to record the sounds from my Motif ES8, so I'm going to start using software instruments more.
Does anyone know if Logic uses multiple cores? I googled this and couldn't find much on it.
If I get the quad, I'm going to load it to the max of 8G RAM. If I get the Octa 2.26, I will get 12G RAM. Will Logic take advantage of the extra RAM?
Right now, I'm leaning towards the quad 2.26. I keep my Macs for a long time. I currently have a 4 year old G5 iMac with 2G RAM.
Thanks for any opinions.

I'm With Dual G5 PowerPC version 3.1 (90nm thecnology)
Logic works fine, but when I need to recording with Omnisphere or Kontakt 3... or any Live Instruments... (anyway I'm able to use the Maximum power request patches of all 3rd party plugs that are installed in My G5)
I need MORE SINGLE THREAD POWER... because Logic and most of 3rdparty plugs allow you to use ONLY ONE CORE (or processor).
The ability to overclocking of the Nehalem processor is very interesting...
you will be able to have up to 3.3Ghz in a single thread operation!
So... I'm not sure to buy a new Mac before Snow Leopard... because I can use my G5 smoothly and if needed I have my Black Macbook for adding power (I have 2X Motu interface (828 MK3 and Mk2).
But if hypothetically I were to buy now...: the best Mac value for money semms to be the Quad 2.93 with full Ram set 8GB!
I don't believe about Multitrhead is needed for Live Audio performances
The power on the single core is very important...
I love to export as Audio the tracks
when I use 3rd party Instruments the ammount of crash risk during the Mix down the percentage are:
with Instruments in Live mode about 80% during professional mixdown
With Audio tracks 0% of crash diring professional Mixdown
Logic Pro is a rock solid DAW if used only with Audio tracks and Logic native instruments!
I'm able to MIX more than 160 Stereo tracks with My System...
I can wait for Snow Leopard Machines.
G

New Mac Pro for film scoring....

Hi guys,
I'm ready to upgrade my Quad G5 to a brand new MacPro.....
I plan to use Logic 9 and NI Komplete, Spectrasonics libraries, VSL Orchestral Cube (+ eventually Appassionata Strings), Kirk Hunter and Gariitan Orchestral Strings, EW Steinway B and PMI Grandioso Bosendorfer 290, Sam Horns and many many other sample libraries converted from Giga format to exs24 and Kontakt format plus a bunch of virtual synths....
My actual template consist of 200 assigned tracks but I only can play simultaneously 30-35 with effects (6 Space Designer and 10-12 Sonnox plugs) at 48 Khz sample rate and low poliphony....
My actual G5 will become a slave (streaming part of my template samples to the new Mac Pro)..
So I'm oriented to the Xeon Quad core "Nehalem" 3.2 Ghz with 16 Giga Ram...
What can I expect in terms of sample streaming and V.I. performance from such a system?
Thank you

Hello,
Up until recently I had a similar setup. My main Mac is a 2008 8-core Xeon with 16 GB RAM, and my main slave machine was a 2005 dual 2.3 GHz G5 with 8 GB RAM. My scoring template for the last 2 years (running on those 2 Macs) contains 300 tracks/instruments and 12 reverb buses, mostly running Space Designer.
On the Mac Pro I host 228 of those instruments; 128 of them are Kontakt instruments, 16 are EastWest Play instruments, 8 are VSL instruments (matrices) and 76 are Logic EXS instruments. All of these stream samples in real time from 9 dedicated SATA drives.
On the G5 I ran 72 more Kontakt-based instruments (East West Platinum orchestra & Storm Drum 1 percussion), also streamed from SATA drives. MIDI was routed via ethernet and audio from the G5 was returned via ADAT litepipe.
That system worked flawlessly - I think you'll be thrilled! I've since replaced my G5 with a new iMac, which is now one of my 2 slave machines - and I've also moved everything (except Logic instruments) into Vienna's Ensemble Pro AU/VST host, which is utterly amazing, and solves a lot of problems.
All in all, you'll have a VERY capable system
Best,

New Mac Pro for server

Dear Apple's Hardware Development Team,
From Apple's Xserve replaced by Apple's Mac Pro Tower Case unit with interface extension on RAID Controller Card, Dual/Quard Ethernet Gigabit Lan Card & Dual/Quard Fibre Channel 4Gbit Card, as network server connect to local LAN with high performance connection and connect to SAN Storage by RAID connection or Fibre Channel connection directly or throughout the SAN Fibre Channel switch hub, etc....
Since 10 June 2013, new Mac Pro enounnced on WWDC 2013 in San Francsico, we saw a fantacy, amazing new Mac Pro in fall in later 2013.
We are concerning about the networ server and server administration maintain in new Mac Pro, how we can do it mounting it fixing into traditional server rack in our owned Data Center or outsourced Data Center service provider.
We knew two x Gigabit Ethernet; four x USB 3.0, six x Thunderbolt 2 be a extension ports be used for external SAN Storage and extended capacity.
Is it same as Apple's Xserve or Apple's old Mac Pro acceptable RAID or Fibre Channel connection in the Enterprise Companies private network too?
On the other side, we are concerning the new Mac Pro how to fufill mulitple power supply for redundancy to prevent the power supply failure, on network server standard requirements.
IT Manager, Greater China
Peter Tsang

Because of Xserve server is discontinuse so I have migrate it into several Mac Pro servers in Virtual Environment by VMWare vSphere ESXi to maintain more than ten OS X servers in virtualized.
In future or when the Mac Pro servers warranty expired we may considered to replace it by new Mac Pro server in this January/February 2013 on IT budget. Now, we need give up it and find other methods to maintain OS X server virtual environment in non-Apple or non-Mac hardware environment, but this is not accepatble by VMWare vSphere ESXi requirement.
The VMWare vShpere ESXi information center is not allowed or not supporting to install OS X server in non-Apple or non-Mac (for example, IBM server, DELL server or HP server, Cisco server etc...).
However I using Mac OS X and server but I using different band of SAN switch, SAN Storage (IBM and Cisco) in this virtual environment, this is working very well in many years.
No extension, No improvement, No supporting on Mac Pro server in the future in my company.
Why I do not consider the Mac Mini Server?
Because of the single CPU in Qual-core Intel Corei7 only, not in double CPUs 6-core Intel Xeon.
This is not enough CPU performance to maintain more then two or three vritual OS X server runing in one phyical server or failover in several server in disaster recovery.

Over from PC...Need help configuringing my Mac Pro for FCP

Just made the move a few weeks to Mac. Bought a Mac Pro ( and 2 Samsung T240 monitors) and am upgrading components for use with FCP. I have been editing for about 10 years (mostly volleyball highlight films and fishing videos) in Premiere Pro. I am currently using the Sony Vx-1000 but will be purchasing either the Sony EX-1 or HVR-Z7U to shoot and edit in HD while still doing some work in SD. I do maybe two or three 40 minute videos per year and some other shorter projects. I edit mainly for friends and family....not as a business. Here are the upgrades which I will be doing:
1. Add 6 GB Ram to the already 2 GB's for a total of 8 1GB chips
2. Install a Decklink HD Extreme card
These is where I need advice:
STORAGE...
I am reading lots about external hard drives for editing. I am assuming that FCP would be on the operating system drive and the scratch disk(s) would be firewire (800) drive(s). I also read somewhere that Time Machine is not designed to back up video editing machines. I do not know if that is true with the smaller amount of work that I do. That would probably change how my storage is set up if Time Machine will not be backing up my files.
Overall I am a recreational editor and but would like a system that is current for editing in High Defintion (and I guess Standard Definition at times.)
Any advice would be much appreciated and I am really looking forward to the "Mac Experience"
Thanks
Kirk

Thanks for that Nick and Jerry.
I now think that the external hard drive posts that I was looking at were for machines that did not have the capability of adding internal hard drives.
I actually have ordered a 1TB Samsung HD103UJ SATA2 32M (as per the Barefeats tests). Hoping that it would be a suitable internal dive.
For the small amount of editing I do I am guessing that doing a raid would not be all that necessary.
And Nick, I do not think that I was looking for a bootable drive for Time Machine, just something that has a copy of my video clips from my different projects in case I have some sort of hard drive incident. I understand how running Time Machine during editing would not be a good idea, but would it be ok to use it to back up my video files if I just ran it each night after editing. I am taking it that FCP has an auto save feature also for my projects backups.
I had actually already ordered a Iomega Prestige 1 TB USB 2.0 3.5-Inch Hard Drive for the time machine drive. Should I be getting a firewire drive for that instead of USB?
This is a brave new journey.....but I am really enjoying it.
Thanks agian
Kirk

Imac vs mac pro for FCP?

Hello folks,
Well, my G5 apparently needs a new logic board. I could cry, or be happy at the excuse to get a new computer... I chose the latter!
Bottom line, what is the consensus regarding imac vs mac pro.
I will be using FCP a lot, that's what I do for a living. However, I rarely run other applications at the same time. Occassionally LiveType or Photoshop, but that's about it. No Motion, no After Effects, etc.
I feel that an imac will suffice nicely and that the mac pro is overkill in both cost and amount of computer. It's like getting an Indy car and driving 40 MPH!
Thoughts? Thank you.
Eric P

hmmm, interesting. Of course the mac pro would be better, no doubt. But for my purposes I still wonder if it's worth the cost.
As for Kevan D's inquirey for more info, yes I work with FCP for a living, at least 50% of my work week maybe more is editing. However, silly little ol' weddings have become the vast majority of my work and they will continue to be for at least a few more years I believe. In that time I do not see HD being a factor in my area. So for the forseeable future I expect to be working soley with SD. That bit of info may change some of your minds to thinking that an imac will suffice.
I admit, that's my hope because I would have to take out a loan for the mac pro, and again, I'm just not certain it's worth it for my purposes. On the other hand, I didn't ask the question so that I could hear what I "wanted", I do want honest opinions from other professionals like yourselves. If the experience is that an imac just isn't worth it then so be it.
As far as expandability (is that anything like drinkability??), I understand that, but again for my purposes I suspect that by the time I need to expand to HD or to using the full benefits of a mac pro, a new computer (and equipment) will be in the order anyway. Does that make sense?
Thanks again,
Eric

Buying A New Mac - Recommendations for FCP?

It is sales tax holiday weekend in my state, so that means I can get a new Mac and save a significant amount of dough. I currently have a 17 inch PowerBook G4, 1.33 Ghz. with 2 Gb of RAM. I use the machine to do all sorts of graphics and video work, using programs like Final Cut Studio, Adobe Creative Suite, iWork and iLife.
I'm interested in opinions on a new machine. There are some budget constraints, but I'd like to know the following:
1. Is the iMac 24 inch a viable option as a video editing station using Final Cut Pro Studio? One option I am considering is to buy an iMac 24 inch and a MacBook, doing my video work on the iMac and presentation work on the Macbook. What is your opinion about this?
2. I've looked on the Apple Store at both new and refurb MacBook Pros. If you had to pick a model, which gives the most bang for the buck? Do you think a refurb Core 2 Duo machine would be fine for my needs? Is there a disadvantage to buying a refurb vs. a new machine for the style of work I am doing?
3. Again, concerning Macbook Pros...do you prefer a 15 inch or 17 inch screen? Are there any disadvantages for going with the smaller screen? Both sizes come in both matte and glossy finishes: do you recommend one over the other for video editing?
4. Are Apple's RAM module prices in line with others? I would like to trick out the machine with as much RAM as possible right now. If Apple is high, who would you buy RAM from? I have used Other World Computing in the past, but I hear Apple is now competitive on this.
Thank you for any help you can provide on this situation!
wncmacs
Message was edited by: David Biddix

It has taken me longer to get resources lined up for my new Mac purchase, but I think the consensus here is to buy the 15 inch MacBook Pro instead of the 17 inch and purchase an external monitor.
I've looked at the refurb units available and they have a 15 inch MBP with a 200 Gb hard drive and 2 Gb of RAM and the NVIDIA GeForce 8600M GT with 256MB of GDDR3 memory for $1699. They also have a 15 inch with the same specs with the exception of a 250 Gb hard drive and a NVIDIA GeForce 8600M GT with 512MB of GDDR3 memory for $1999. Is the hard drive bump and the VRAM increase on the NVIDIA card worth the extra $300?
I also note that there is a 17 inch MacBook Pro that slots in with basically the same computer as the lower priced 15 inch model, save only a 160 Gb hard drive instead of a 200 Gb one for $1899. Should I even think about this one or just concentrate on the 15 inch?
I'm still torn over the screen...glossy or matte. I do lots of Web work and audio/video production on my machine. Is one style advantageous over the other one for what I do?
I'm also thinking about external monitor options for the 15 inch solution if I go that way. Apple has the 20 inch for $499 refurb and the 23 inch (of which my workplace owns 2 of on my workstation) for $749. Is the 23 inch worth the extra $250? Should I consider another make of external monitor?
I'm going to upgrade RAM from 2 to 4 Gb, and Other World Computing has that today for approximately $94. I'll have to remove all of Apple's RAM and add in my own here, right? OWC also has an upgrade for the hard drive to a Hitachi 320 Gb 7200 RPM model for $160. I guess this would be the time to make that move while I'm replacing the RAM, or do you think a better deal will be coming down the line soon?
Thanks again to everyone who has weighed in with their opinion on this. Your advice is greatly appreciated!

New Mac Pro with FCP X makes added text titles gibberish until rendered

While the latest version of FCP X works fine on my iMac, on the 2013 mac pro when I add a title (apple supplied) there is only a bunch of squiggles on my monitor when I try to play the segment. If it renders then all is good. The problem is it is difficult to edit the titles (size, font, etc) since they are not legible. This is with a new project, standard footage beneath the title, etc. I think this is a bug in how the GPU works in the new desktop mac pro. No other problems seen, anyone else?
OS 10.9.2.

I also did re-boot prior to re-opening FCP X. Another thing, once rendered, I can make changes to the text and while it is re-rendering this anomoly does not happen (bar over rendering section with text but can skim normally). It is only when adding new text (such as basic title, blur, etc) that it does not display correctly. I did upgrade my memory with OWC 64 G, and use a promise Pegasus 2 R6 to store all the video only using my internal drive for boot and programs. I have encountered no other problems.

New Mac Pro for FCP - should I do 8 cores or faster clock?

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