Final Cut Pro X FCPX Graphic Card advice

[hughjaas]

I'm acquiring parts for my first build, and LGA 2011/3930k and I am thoroughly confused as to which video card works best for rendering and exporting with Final Cut Pro X.

Price is not as important as performance. I am willing to pay a premium for speed and stability since it should pay for itself - in terms of rendering time and lack of troubleshooting.

I have done weeks of research here and there is quite a bit of conflicting information and I can't decide. Hopefully this help others in the future as well. I thought I would start a poll of the GPUs I'm considering and see if there is a clear-cut winner or if there is one I missed. Thanks for any vote/response you can give especially concerning brands.

Please vote for your card if it is rock-solid and trouble-free in Final Cut Pro X.

EDIT: I ended up going with an MSI GTX 650ti. Works flawlessly. I added a 2nd identical card (just dropped it in - no configuration needed) and FCPX performance increased dramatically. Using this benchmark my times improved from 76 seconds to 48 seconds:

http://www.fcp.co/forum/hardware/18250-brucex-try-this-new-final-cut-pro-x-benchmark

When looking for a video card, I would get one with as much VRAM as you can afford and the Radeon cards seem to be handling OpenCL much better than the Nvidia.

New thread with benchmark times: http://www.tonymacx86.com/buying-ad...fcpx-graphic-card-performance.html#post771416

 

[Kraken]

Well, Radeon 6870 isn't 100% natively supported in ML 10.8.2. My particular card will only run well with GraphicsEnabler=y. Radeon 7xxx isn't supported in 10.8.2.

So that leaves the nVidia cards. I would vote for "Other" and pick either a GeForce GTX 670 or GTX 680. One important factor is to only buy a 2GB model; I've read that the 4GB models are NOT supported.

This page indicates that GTX 670/680 chips, at least the mobile versions, are supported: http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4664?viewlocale=en_US&locale=en_US

Here is a post with a question similar to yours along with a solution for the GTX 670: http://www.tonymacx86.com/video/60100-help-advice-upgrade-hack-laggy-final-cut-pro-x.html

I expect that either of those cards will work out of the box with no tweaking. I think much of this discussion is prior to the GeForce GTX 6xx models being natively supported in OS X. I hope that helps. IMO, the GTX 680 isn't worth the extra $100, extra heat, and extra noise for about 10% more performance.

 

[dakotaht]

Here's the latest...

The issue with my hack is the Gigabyte vs Corsair memory tussle. Corsair CM.....10 was listed as compatible. So it is, meaning it only works with 2 8 gig pairs NOT 4. I reduced the Motherboard RAM to 16 gigs and a lot of lockups disappeared. The 660TI went back to EVGA and they dutifully replaced it. The system has been upgraded to Mavericks 10.9.1 and FCPX 10.1.1 etc etc. The updated software pretty much solved all the lockup issues and reducing RAM to 16 gig elimated system BSOD. Turns out that the issue with lockups on FCPX is the third party software addins. Renders lock. Cutting in FCPX causes no issues and rendering is fast enough. I'm working through the third party addins.

================
FCPX doesn't seem to care about GPU.. I use a 660TI but there are caveats when running FCPX ( I think there are still bugs in regard to graphic cards with FCPX). It's my experience that FCPX has no GPU specific requirements. I've used a 460 and a 660TI and there has been no benefit.

Look at my profile. Seems that I have no use for Thunderbolt, its there just in case, since USB3 and esata work perfectly. One thing, turn off background render (FCPX locks and this seems to slow the locks down) and be sure to choose better performance rather than High Duality display.

All in all I have a very satisfactory build with Geekbench 64 at 15000. My 2008 Mac Pro tower scores 11000. Good enough until the end of the year.

Don't forget to load the machine with a start SSD (Samsung 840 pro 128 is the best there is) and dual 4TB drives. I currently use Hitachi. USB 3 is fast enough for using as an external event and project drive. My projects are all 1080p from AVCHD. I render out to Prores 422 for archive purposes and burn them to Blurays booting in Windows to do it. (Titanium Pro fails when burning Bluray BR-R in UDF format).

Certainly is quick. A second monitor displays my event files and I use Intelligent Assistants event manager to handle al the details.

 

[Solidww]

It seems as if FCPX and 10.8.2/3 like the GTX6XX cards. I agree that FCPX isn't as GPU dependent as some other programs. It only used the GPU for previewing un-rendered effects during playback. Once, the effects have been rendered then playback won't be an issue.

Here is my experience with FCPX and different GPUs. Choose what you feel works best for you.
9800GT, 2-3 effects and the un-rendered playback would hang up.
GTX 660Ti, 4-5 effects on a un-rendered short clip (under 15 seconds) and no issues. 3-4 effects on clips longer then 15 seconds and it would start to hang.
GTX 285, same as GTX 660Ti.
GTX 560Ti(current card), same as GTX660Ti.

If your planning to work with Motion and/or After Effects then a high end card like a GTX670 would serve well for playback of effects on those programs.
Also, if this machine will be a gaming machine then of course a higher end card will also do well.

Anyway, have fun editing and enjoy your new machine.

 

[hughjaas]

FCPX doesn;t seem to care about GPU.. I use a 660TI but there are caveats when running FCPX ( I think there are still bugs in regard to graphic cards with FCPX).Its my experience that FCPX has not GPU specific requirements. I've used a 460 and a 660TI and there has been no benefit.

Look at my profile. Seems that I have no use for Thunderbolt, its there just in case, since USB3 and esata work perfectly. One thing, turn off background render (FCPX locks and this seems to slow the locks down) and be sure to choose better performance rather than High Duality display.

All in all I have a very satisfactory build with Geekbench 64 at 15000. My 2008 Mac Pro tower scores 11000. Good enough until the end of the year.

Don't forget to load the machine with a start SSD (Samsun 840 pro 128 is the best there is) and dual 4TB drives. I currently use Hitachi. USB 3 is fast enough for using as an external event and project drive. My projects are all 1080p from AVCHD. I render out to Prores 422 for archive purposes and burn them to Blurays booting in Windows to do it. (Titanium Pro fails when burning Bluray BR-R in UDF format).

Certainly is quick. A second monitor displays my event files and I use Intelligent Assistants event manager to handle al the details.

I'm very familiar with all the settings and tweaks to speed up FCPX - that's what prompted me to build a Hackintosh in the first place.

I completed my build a couple weeks ago and it is rock solid - everything is working (optical audio, bluetooth, sleep, etc). No different than my old Mac Pro other than the fans being slightly louder. Toast works fine burning Blu-ray discs for me - I create a BDMV folder and choose that under the Video tab. I only use UDF for standard DVDs. I'm also getting >18,000 with 32-bit Geekbench. I'm loving USB3 and having eSATA ports without needing a PCI card. I will be updating my build thread soon.

I ended up going with a GTX 650ti because Apple just added support for it in the latest 10.0.8 FCPX update, and it was cheap enough that if it didn't work i wouldn't be out that much. You're right, FCPX and even Compressor don't seem to be GPU dependent. However, the Neat Video plugin is about 3 times faster than my old 5770. Adobe Media Encoder is blazing fast too. Encoding a 1 hour ProRes video for Blu-ray takes 20 minutes vs the 1+ hours it was taking before. I'm pretty sure having a better video card would improve on that, but I'm not sure it's worth 3 or 4 times the cost to save another 20% in speed. Too bad there's no way to rent a video card.

Total cost was <$1,500 compared to $4,000 for a similarly spec'd Mac. I wish I had done this years ago.

 

[kapemuna]

I'm very familiar with all the settings and tweaks to speed up FCPX - that's what prompted me to build a Hackintosh in the first place.

I completed my build a couple weeks ago and it is rock solid - everything is working (optical audio, bluetooth, sleep, etc). No different than my old Mac Pro other than the fans being slightly louder. Toast works fine burning Blu-ray discs for me - I create a BDMV folder and choose that under the Video tab. I only use UDF for standard DVDs. I'm also getting >18,000 with 32-bit Geekbench. I'm loving USB3 and having eSATA ports without needing a PCI card. I will be updating my build thread soon.

I ended up going with a GTX 650ti because Apple just added support for it in the latest 10.0.8 FCPX update, and it was cheap enough that if it didn't work i wouldn't be out that much. You're right, FCPX and even Compressor don't seem to be GPU dependent. However, the Neat Video plugin is about 3 times faster than my old 5770. Adobe Media Encoder is blazing fast too. Encoding a 1 hour ProRes video for Blu-ray takes 20 minutes vs the 1+ hours it was taking before. I'm pretty sure having a better video card would improve on that, but I'm not sure it's worth 3 or 4 times the cost to save another 20% in speed. Too bad there's no way to rent a video card.

Total cost was <$1,500 compared to $4,000 for a similarly spec'd Mac. I wish I had done this years ago.

hi hughjaas,

would you be kind enough to share your build that works with final cut pro x? can you also share the links that you used to configure your GTX 650ti? i'm not cutting corners with research but i'm just a newbie who wants to build a mac pro equivalent build. i tried to pm you but it seems i need to make 49 posts first before i'll be able to do that.

thanks!

kapemuna

 

[Going Bald]

If price is no object -
info - http://www.nvidia.com/object/quadro-desktop-gpus.html
driver - http://www.nvidia.com/object/macosx-313.01.01f03-driver.html
http://www.amazon.com/NVIDIA-Quadro-K5000-Dispalyport-Outputs/dp/B00C7XQQLA/

 

[hughjaas]

hi hughjaas,

would you be kind enough to share your build that works with final cut pro x? can you also share the links that you used to configure your GTX 650ti? i'm not cutting corners with research but i'm just a newbie who wants to build a mac pro equivalent build. i tried to pm you but it seems i need to make 49 posts first before i'll be able to do that.

thanks!

kapemuna

I was a newbie too and fortunately my first build went almost flawlessly. It's been over 2 months and my Hack Pro is going strong - has not crashed or hung up once.

I still plan on creating a detailed thread, but here's the components I used:

• GA-X79-UD5 motherboard (all the ports work: firewire 400, optical audio, sound, USB 3!, eSATA)
• Core i7 3930K CPU
• Corsair 650D case (the built-in SATA dock on the top was the key for me. No more external docks. The cable routing keeps it looking clean too).
• Corsair H60 CPU cooler
• Corsair Vengeance CMZ16GX3M4X1866C9 (four 4GB sticks. Motherboard has room for 8)
• MSI GTX 650ti (just saw it on sale for $84: http://slickdeals.net/permadeal/95302 )
• Seasonic X850 modular power supply (modular so you don't have extra wires cluttering up your case and restricting airflow)
• IOGEAR GBU421 USB Micro Bluetooth Adapter (works with my Apple bluetooth keyboard and trackpad. I couldn't get the bluetooth module that was included with the motherboard to work)
• 3 SSD drives (2 striped in RAID 0, 1 for boot)

Total cost right around $1500. Can probably get it for $1400 if you're patient.
I'm getting 18,100 with 32-bit Geekbench.
My previous Mac Pro 1.1 with the CPUs upgraded to Xeon 5355's was only 9,500.
The only Macs faster than this are the 12-core ones and they start at $3500.

As far as setting go, I made the mistake of cloning my existing drive and trying to boot from it. That cost me about a day and a half of troubleshooting. It's better to start with a clean install of everything and then migrate your account and applications over. I used the installation instructions in Ziglen's build as a starting point, but it's been so long I forgot exactly what I did different.

 

[kapemuna]

I was a newbie too and fortunately my first build went almost flawlessly. It's been over 2 months and my Hack Pro is going strong - has not crashed or hung up once.

I still plan on creating a detailed thread, but here's the components I used:

• GA-X79-UD5 motherboard (all the ports work: firewire 400, optical audio, sound, USB 3!, eSATA)
• Core i7 3930K CPU
• Corsair 650D case (the built-in SATA dock on the top was the key for me. No more external docks. The cable routing keeps it looking clean too).
• Corsair H60 CPU cooler
• Corsair Vengeance CMZ16GX3M4X1866C9 (four 4GB sticks. Motherboard has room for 8)
• MSI GTX 650ti (just saw it on sale for $84: http://slickdeals.net/permadeal/95302 )
• Seasonic X850 modular power supply (modular so you don't have extra wires cluttering up your case and restricting airflow)
• IOGEAR GBU421 USB Micro Bluetooth Adapter (works with my Apple bluetooth keyboard and trackpad. I couldn't get the bluetooth module that was included with the motherboard to work)
• 3 SSD drives (2 striped in RAID 0, 1 for boot)

Total cost right around $1500. Can probably get it for $1400 if you're patient.
I'm getting 18,100 with 32-bit Geekbench.
My previous Mac Pro 1.1 with the CPUs upgraded to Xeon 5355's was only 9,500.
The only Macs faster than this are the 12-core ones and they start at $3500.

As far as setting go, I made the mistake of cloning my existing drive and trying to boot from it. That cost me about a day and a half of troubleshooting. It's better to start with a clean install of everything and then migrate your account and applications over. I used the installation instructions in Ziglen's build as a starting point, but it's been so long I forgot exactly what I did different.

Thanks a lot for your reply. Here are the components of the Mac Pro that I intend to setup.

Processor	Intel Core i7-3770k
Motherboard	GIGABYTE GA-Z77X-UP5 TH
RAM	CORSAIR Vengeance LP 16GB (2 x 8GB)
Graphics Card	vga: EVGA GTX 650 Ti SSC Super Clocked 1gb/128bit
HDD	1tb WDC Caviar Black (WD1002FAEX)
Casing	Cooler Master Haf 912
PSU	Seasonic (M12II) 620watts 80Plus Bronze
cpu cooler	Noctua NH U12P SE2

I live outside of the US so some parts are hard to come by. Having it shipped from abroad can be expensive in the Philippines so I'm at the mercy of what is already available in shops here. As you can see, i intend to use a board with Thunderbolt because I'm hoping I can acquire a Black Magic Cinema camera early next year. SSDs are really pricey for me so as much as I want to use one, this has to wait.

We intend to start working on this on the second week of June. We'll give feedback once it's finished. Again, thanks!

 

[ayushh]

I was a newbie too and fortunately my first build went almost flawlessly. It's been over 2 months and my Hack Pro is going strong - has not crashed or hung up once.

I still plan on creating a detailed thread, but here's the components I used:

• GA-X79-UD5 motherboard (all the ports work: firewire 400, optical audio, sound, USB 3!, eSATA)
• Core i7 3930K CPU
• Corsair 650D case (the built-in SATA dock on the top was the key for me. No more external docks. The cable routing keeps it looking clean too).
• Corsair H60 CPU cooler
• Corsair Vengeance CMZ16GX3M4X1866C9 (four 4GB sticks. Motherboard has room for 8)
• MSI GTX 650ti (just saw it on sale for $84: http://slickdeals.net/permadeal/95302 )
• Seasonic X850 modular power supply (modular so you don't have extra wires cluttering up your case and restricting airflow)
• IOGEAR GBU421 USB Micro Bluetooth Adapter (works with my Apple bluetooth keyboard and trackpad. I couldn't get the bluetooth module that was included with the motherboard to work)
• 3 SSD drives (2 striped in RAID 0, 1 for boot)

Total cost right around $1500. Can probably get it for $1400 if you're patient.
I'm getting 18,100 with 32-bit Geekbench.
My previous Mac Pro 1.1 with the CPUs upgraded to Xeon 5355's was only 9,500.
The only Macs faster than this are the 12-core ones and they start at $3500.

As far as setting go, I made the mistake of cloning my existing drive and trying to boot from it. That cost me about a day and a half of troubleshooting. It's better to start with a clean install of everything and then migrate your account and applications over. I used the installation instructions in Ziglen's build as a starting point, but it's been so long I forgot exactly what I did different.

Hello Hughjass,

Congrats and thanks, for sharing this precious experience of making the first ever successful build for fcpx as far as i know on Tonymacx86 there is no one who have made it possible. You are the only ray of hope who can tell most of us video editors who can share an experience and guide on how to make the build possible works. We also want to know what tweaks did u exactly used for making fcpx to be alive on ur build. i m really dying to know all this also what did you did for GPU ? did u used Cuda drivers or did you used Open CL or drivers from multibeast or just the native support for mac. Or if any of these combination made you a success. If you can share some guide or something that can be 100% working. I will be a huge fan of yours and will be alot thankful to your for the same.