CustoMac Pro Advise

[richcamp]

I have been eyeing a Mac Pro for a while as my iMac cannot handle 4K footage well at all. However I would only be able to afford the lowest level Mac Pro and even that is a stretch financially. I was comparing GeekBench scores of the 4-6 core Mac Pro and is seems not as powerful as the CustoMac Pro with:

Gigabyte GA-Z97X-UD7-TH
Core i7-4790K
EVGA GT 740 SC
Crucial Ballistix Tactical (32GB)

I was curious from your knowledge how would this build compare against the actual Mac Pros? I know the Mac Pro's were "designed for FCPX" which is what I use to edit, so how much of a difference does that make?

Is the EVGA GT 740 SC a decent video card for video editing? I was thinking of getting 2x so it would match the Mac Pro a bit more. Is there a benefit to that or is there an issue with doing that?

And lastly, I love the size of the Mac Pro, is there anyway to make a machine comparable in price but smaller than your typical tower?

Thanks!!

 

[WonkeyDonkey]

I have been eyeing a Mac Pro for a while as my iMac cannot handle 4K footage well at all. However I would only be able to afford the lowest level Mac Pro and even that is a stretch financially. I was comparing GeekBench scores of the 4-6 core Mac Pro and is seems not as powerful as the CustoMac Pro with:

Gigabyte GA-Z97X-UD7-TH
Core i7-4790K
EVGA GT 740 SC
Crucial Ballistix Tactical (32GB)

I was curious from your knowledge how would this build compare against the actual Mac Pros? I know the Mac Pro's were "designed for FCPX" which is what I use to edit, so how much of a difference does that make?

Is the EVGA GT 740 SC a decent video card for video editing? I was thinking of getting 2x so it would match the Mac Pro a bit more. Is there a benefit to that or is there an issue with doing that?

And lastly, I love the size of the Mac Pro, is there anyway to make a machine comparable in price but smaller than your typical tower?

Thanks!!

The 4790K is a very good CPU indeed, but what you really need to do to give yourself a better idea is to look at the geekbench scores very closely for both single and multi core values, comparing between the Mac Pro models and other systems using the 4790K.

I dont use FCPX here, but it is well known that some software performs better with higher single core scores and of course some will perform better with higher multi core scores. You should also check that out in relation to FCPX.

If you are doing a lot of video editing you might also want to consider a higher performing graphics card than the 740.

Chassis size will depend on your chosen motherboard; the Z97X-UD7 you have specified is full ATX which means a full size ATX case. You can go a lot smaller if you opted for an matx or even ITX board; you can get some very powerful ones these days and unless you plan to use all of the available slots on an ATX size board, maybe you can reconsider your board choice.

Matx will still give you 4 x ram slots, 2 x GPU if you still insisted on that as well as an additional usable slot for a wifi card (One of the slots will be covered by a GPU that is 2 slots wide).

ITX only gives 2 x ram slots and a single x16 PCIE slot for your GPU but typically have a half height slot on the board for wifi.

My ITX build here is setup in an Ncase chasis which really is 'pint size' by comparison but still has a dual width full fat GPU in there; the Ncase chassis have a very good reputation and I reckon they look quite slick too.

Another small (ITX) case Ive heard good things about is the Coolermaster Elite 110 which is more of a cube shape. I've not used it personally though.

Finally, have a good look at the Buyers Guide; this will give you a good indication of compatible parts and what some of your options are.

 

[richcamp]

Thank you! Very helpful! I will compare the single core vs multicore!

I was choosing the ATX just because it had thunderbolt which is important for me as my raid setup is thunderbolt.

Any recommendations on GFX cards that are more powerful (but not super expensive) that are natively supported in Mac OS X? I have built a couple hackintoshes in the past but had some issues with video cards not working properly. I imagine I would want an ATI one since that's what FCPX works best with.

Thank you so much for your help!

 

[WonkeyDonkey]

Thank you! Very helpful! I will compare the single core vs multicore!

I was choosing the ATX just because it had thunderbolt which is important for me as my raid setup is thunderbolt.

Any recommendations on GFX cards that are more powerful (but not super expensive) that are natively supported in Mac OS X? I have built a couple hackintoshes in the past but had some issues with video cards not working properly. I imagine I would want an ATI one since that's what FCPX works best with.

Thank you so much for your help!

There are thunderbolt options available for matx; the Asus Gryphon Z97 is one such board. Remember this has 4 slots though, so if you consider wifi and thunderbolt it then leaves space for just a single GPU that occupies the space of 2 x slots.

The R9 series graphics cards seem popular right now but there is limited support for them in OSX at this time. Apple has only just started to use AMD again in the 5K iMac, although this is a mobile version of that GPU, not the full desktop version. Search the forums well to see how people are getting on with these R9's. Some of them can be made to work but take some effort to do so, and some of them dont have all of the ports working, which may limit your monitor choice and connection type.

The benefit of the nVidia GPUs is that support is built right into OSX for some of them, plus nVidia makes an OSX driver package available to download for each new version of OSX, so support is generally better overall for nVidia.

If I was putting together a new build, I would certainly favour a single more powerful GPU than risking it with 2 brand new ones and not knowing if you will get the full benefit of both together.

Have a read through the 'User Builds' and 'Golden Builds' section of the site too and see which cards have been used successfully there.

 

[richcamp]

Comparing single core vs multicore, it seems that the Customac would match up with the Mac Pro 6-core in multicore power 18,500 but beat it in single core with 4600 vs 3500.

I've built Hackintoshes on the lower end before and they were fast but I really just want something that will speed through renders, converting, exports, and be able to generally handle editing without the annoying hiccups in playback I get with my iMac (27inch, 2013, quad i5, 24gb ram).

Sorry for all the questions, just want to know everything I possible can before jumping into this purchase. Thank you

Rich Camp