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Buying a MacBook for Video Editing: What to Look For? The key to a fast render is a high quality dedicated graphics card, and while lower level work will likely be fine using an integrated card, you'll want a dedicated one for anything beyond the casual home video or Youtube vlog.
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Exclusive Bonus: my free cheatsheet (with examples) of the most used focal lengths in film (PDF file optimized for mobiles and tablets). Apple has always led the way when it came to computer design, at least as far back as I can remember. Where Apple always lagged behind (a matter of opinion and not always fact) is in raw computing power. Other manufacturers must surely be scratching their heads over this one question: How come Apple can create so much excitement and passion over its products, by continuously reinventing and redesigning them, so that their customers (and non-customers) are willing to pay a premium for the privilege of using them? This article is a summary of my thoughts on the new Mac Pro. I am going to try to answer the following questions:. Why is the Mac Pro designed as it is, and how does it help video editors and post production professionals?. Why should you get excited (or not)?.
Does the new Mac Pro deliver on its video editing promises?. Is the new Mac Pro expensive, or can you build a PC for cheaper?. Which model should you buy for best bang for your buck?
What is the new Apple Mac Pro? In many ways, the new Apple Mac Pro is simply an iteration of the old Mac Pro.
It is a workstation-class computer designed for heavy lifting. In our industry, it means faster:. Video Editing. Photography Processing.
Motion Graphics. Compositing and other VFX.
3D Animations Before we go on, it must be understood that a workstation has many other use scenarios, like in the fields of medicine, architecture, business, data centers, and so on. The Mac Pro is not only for video. If I had to sum up Apple’s brief in creating this Mac Pro, I’d say it was somewhat along the lines of: It has to be half as big, but twice as good in every respect. Does it deliver? Here’s my answer, if you don’t want to read the rest of his article: Yes, it does. I believe it is a must-buy – if – you’re in the market for a new workstation-class computer, your favorite applications run on OS X, and you can afford the price of entry.
There is no better deal out there, period. Sareesh Sudhakaran antoinegrasset quote: ———- GTX, though excellent, are not workstation class. They perform better, but workstations are primarily about reliability, service and low power consumption; specifically built for a certain task, not raw power. ———– You seem to contradict yourself. You say that they perform better, that workstations perform worse. So why spend that much money? Service and reliability?
They are exactly the same quality and if it breaks, you get it fixed through warranty, no problem. You might not be aware what the firepro and quattro series are made for: mostly for CAD and such programs, not video editing and graphics design. They often are required by the very specific programs like AutoCAD. They are also wildly overpriced, because they are often sold to companies, that have no choice but to buy them because only they have the certified drivers.
The GTX series is as powerful, if not more (you can see that by the gigantic heat sink), but lack the drivers for these specific programs, hence forcing the buyers to buy the massively overpriced workstation series. Raw power by the way is the thing that gets your video rendered faster, so raw power is very important, it is actually the only thing that matters. What you are saying is like pretending that a car that has half as much horse power is the better race car because it uses less fuel It will still lose every race to the faster more powerful one. I doubt very much that any very powerful system on the planet is energy efficient: There are no graphics cards on the market that give you magically more power for less energy usage, just does not exist. You will also notice that no graphics card in the last 20 years ever had a smaller heat sink and less power consumption than a predecessor. This is because the companies are not stupid, they don’t put such large heat sinks on these puppies just for fun, they are actually needed and if you run a very powerful GPU for number crunching (I use it for Raytracing CGI with Blender 3d, via CUDA), it will get hot and drink a lot of power and create a lot of heat, that can never be avoided. BUT, thanks to CUDA it also finishes the animation or still picture 5 times faster than even the fastest CPU I have seen.
(CPUs are not really that great for number crunching and massive parallel calculations) The Quattro and Firepro GPUs are very specific in their use and backfire on most other applications, besides being horrendously overpriced for their performance. And then in the end even if you would save energy, spending 3000 dollars more for that would never work: How long would you have to run a system at full power till you accumulate that much electricity cost?
YEARS or decades. It is the same pointless thing that some people spend 100’000 dollars on a supposedly fuel efficient race car, but will never in the life of the car be able to save the 50’000 dollars in fuel that they overspend for this more expensive puppy. Sambenelli Sareesh Sudhakaran Hi Sam UltraStudio includes Photoshop plug-ins so you can grab frames from the video input, or send frames to the video output, directly from within Photoshop itself! Obviously you need the CG247 to do this as the 246 does not support 10Bit over hdmi. You will only get the full image and no GUI stuff so not sure if you can actually work on your files or just preview the final image. I don’t have PS in the grading bay here so will ask the guys downstairs to run a test for me:) will let you know.
NormHarvey Sareesh Sudhakaran Hi, I’m really looking for your advice – hope you can help me. I actually own a CG246, but could go for a 247 if necessary: with BDM Mini or other would I be able to work in 10bit with photoshop CC OS X? And would I have inappropriate resolutions for photo retouching using a video device? Can I with a hdmi/display adapter (or something more complex I’m not aware of) send the signal from BDM to the eizo display port, or must I have the CG247 to preserve the 10bit signal?
Thanks a lot, sam. Sareesh Sudhakaran ratibsoufian Sorry Sareesh but you might want to do some homework before sprouting utter nonsense.
The OS is indeed limited to 8bit when connecting a display directly. However my BMD mini monitor is outputting a 10bit signal over HDMI to my Eizo CG monitor via thunderbolt. I tested this and currently use this as a 10bit grading solution. Most of your “reviews” are based on reading specs from the web and not actually reviewing the product (cheap journalism) If you do this then offer it as your personal opinion and don’t put forward your comments as fact! “If the second point above is replaced with ’1080p and 2K’ instead of ’4K’, then a maxed-out 27?
IMac is all you need.” A maxed out 27″ iMac is between $3200 and $3900 depending on the amount of storage and RAM chosen. Considering it only has one graphics card, slower RAM and a lot less IO ports, I do not believe the display makes up for it. I think that even someone who is going to use it for 2K would be better off with the stock Mac Pro at $2900 and a decent display. The iMac is not upgrade-able so in the long term, the new Mac Pro which can have most of it’s components upgraded is a better choice. Not to mention there are better price/performance options out there when it comes to displays.
Not to mention portability. It’s a lot easier to take the Mac Pro to a different studio or to a permanent set location and hook it up to a display rather than haul a 27″ monster with you. Sareesh Sudhakaran PooyanMN Don’t get me wrong. I love the new Mac Pro. I think Apple got everything right with this one. It’s just that I’m spending like $4000 for a workstation and the monitors altogether.
I think 12GB of memory and something like 256GB of storage is not enough for me. I think in order to get a complete Mac Pro workstation, you should spend much more than $3000 or $4000. I do want Thunderbolt actually. But It’s still very new to motherboards and I don’t have any options for getting a Thunderbolt motherboard. That’s what I miss.
I wanted to get an HP or Dell at first, but when Mac Pro came out I realized it has better value over all of those, but still not as much value as personal build. Support is what I should sacrifice. It comes with all the parts separately, though. The i7 processors with the same specs as the Xeon 1600 series are priced exactly the same. So I’d rather go with the workstation processor. GTX is actually not a bad idea, and I’m still not%100 sure if I should get a Quadro over them.
But better OpenGL performance in professional apps is my priority. PooyanMN Hey, if you’re happy that’s all that matters.
My question is: If you don’t want the features of a Mac Pro, then why compare it at all? You don’t want Thunderbolt.
You don’t want OS X. Even if I sold you a Mac Pro for $10 you still wouldn’t think it is better value! I understand why you’re going for a personal build, and I’m sure it’ll do well for your needs.
One red flag is: You want service and support, but then you’re putting together parts piecemeal instead of getting an HP, Dell or Supermicro workstation. If money is really an issue, what’s wrong with an i7 processor and a GTX?
That will probably give you more performance, and be cheaper as well. Workstation parts fail too. Sareesh Sudhakaran PooyanMN Thanks for replying.
To tell you the truth, I created this list long before Mac Pro’s specs were released and I was surprised to see its specs are very similar to what I was gonna build. The motherboard actually is a workstation motherboard with workstation features. The WS on the name stands for Workstation. It has 4 USB 3.0 ports, not two. Which is more than I need, because I’m not gonna use external hard drives anyway. At least not permanently. Yes, the Quadro graphics cards cannot be linked via SLI and they don’t need to!
Just like Mac Pro’s Firepro cards that are not linked via Crossfire. Benchmarks have proven that using two Quadros or Firepros significantly improves the performance on Premiere Pro.
But using SLI cards might be even worse than using a single card. I would use ATI FirePro W7000 instead of the Quadro because of better specs, but After Effects doesn’t recognize ATI cards for rendering, which means you can only render with CPU in after effects if you get the W7000.
The thing is getting a workstation graphics card is not all about specs. If specs are the priority, a card such as GTX 780 Ti would be much better.
It’s the stability and support that matters the most and also the performance in professional applications. Regarding the 4K displays; I don’t have a 4K display now and I’m not planning to buy one unless the prices drop much more than this. It actually takes me several years to get two 4K displays. In reality, 4K is still not the standard. Some TV networks are still broadcasting in SD!
The OS is actually one of the reasons why I don’t wanna get a Mac Pro. I never got along with Mac OS and probably never will. The ONLY thing that makes me hesitate now is Final Cut Pro which only runs on Mac and a lot of people are using it. The power bills wouldn’t be that different. Most of the specs are very similar to Mac Pro’s. I think it IS better value for money.
For the same price you pay for the base specs, you get Six Core CPU, which comes with the $4000 Mac Pro. 32GB of memory instead of only 12GB. You get 256GB SSD AND “8 Terabytes” of disk space, which I’m gonna use as Raid 0 for higher speed (4TB). You get a Blu-Ray burner and a case that is much more configurable than a Mac Pro. And there’s something not many people are not aware of.
Yes, you can get a Mac Pro for $3000. But that’s not how much you’re gonna spend. You should get a monitor, mouse, keyboard and a storage solution. You know how expensive the external Thunderbolt drives are. They start at $700 and go up to $4599. I know they’re extremely fast.
But we’re talking price here. For someone who doesn’t have unlimited amount of cash to spend on a workstation, this is just too expensive. Of course, I know my build is not perfect. You don’t get a Thunderbolt port and its size is way bigger than the Mac Pro. I would totally buy the Mac Pro right now if money wasn’t an issue.
But unfortunately, it is. And that’s why I’m going for the other option. Thanks again for replying and for your informative reviews. I Just wanted to share my views, thought it could be of some use:). PooyanMN I’m not sure about your prices, but let’s assume you are right. The motherboard is not workstation class, and it has only 2 USB 3.0 ports. The GPU cannot be linked via SLI, and is only 192-bit – not in the same class as the ATI.
The Mac Pro can drive 3 4K displays while the K4000 can only drive 2. How is it better? You forgot the OS. And the time it’ll take you to build all this. And half the power bills. Your specs are impressive, and I love the case you’ve chosen, but I don’t think it’s better value for money over a Mac Pro. Hi Sareesh, I’ve been following your articles for some time and I really like your website.
I read this article of yours a few days ago and I wanted to say you might wanna think again about the whole price comparison thing. I’ve been doing a lot of research lately to build a PC and this is the list of the components I came up with. This is actually better than Mac Pro in terms of specs. Better CPU, better memory, better storage and maybe even better GPU? The prices are almost accurate and the shipping cost is also included.
CPU: Intel Xeon E5 1650 v2 Six Core ($600) Motherboard: ASUS P9X79 WS ($360) Memory: Kingston 32GB 1866 ECC ($417) GPU: GeForce Quadro K4000 ($755) SSD: Samsung 256GB EVO ($165) HDD: X2 Seagate Barracuda 4TB Raid 0 ($288) ODD: Pioneer Blu-Ray burner ($85) Case: Raven RV01 ($186) Power: SilverStone Strider Gold 750W ($135) Cooling: Corsair H100i ($100) + Cooler Master Extreme Fusion X1 ($9) Total Price: $3100. AntoinegrassetYou make an excellent point. However, to be fair, this is a workstation comparison. GTX, though excellent, are not workstation class. They perform better, but workstations are primarily about reliability, service and low power consumption; specifically built for a certain task, not raw power.
Most people will be happy with an i7 and a GTX Titan – in fact, more than happy. But then, we should compare it with the price of a Mac Mini or iMac.
Even then, the iMac is better value than an equivalent PC:. I’m a long and attentive reader of your blog and today I’m taking a minute to comment because I think your price comparaison between the MacPro and custom builds is falling a bit short.
You chose to match the MacPro component as close as possible, which is great to give a sense of how much it would cost to build our own MacPro. But this doesn’t reveal how much would cost a setup with different components but matched performance. Simple example, on the hi-end configuration, your GPU choice: 2x AMD FirePro W9000 6GB = $6800 I propose to get instead: 2x GTX Titan 6GB = $2000 So you’re sparing $4800. And a dual Titan system can work faster than the W9000. For example it can render 4k streams with GPU accelerated effect in 33% less time.
Source: The same can apply to CPU and other components. You are very right in saying that build your own computer take skills and time, but I wanted to put in perspective that doing it will spare you some $ and eventually allow you to have a machine that matches your need (for example a Pegasus is great, but I really prefer being able to drop cheap 2 or 4To drives in my case). Anyways, thanks for your working and sharing your knowledge! Antoine (twitter/antoinegrasset) Comments are closed.