Should I upgrade my CPU or start fresh? FCPX

[hiluxtonka2]

G'day all and Merry Christmas.
As you can see in my specs I have an i5 4670k LGA1150 Haswell. I would like my FCPX to render a little faster (a lot faster if possible).
FCPX is just about the only thing I use the Hack for hence the pair of GPUs I chose.

Would I benefit greatly from changing out the i5 for an i7 4770k Haswell (or a different 1150 chip) and a clean install of Sierra or would I do better to get a larger SSD for data transfer speed instead? I don't really want to build a completely new Hack as this one is quite stable and easily OS up-gradable without the headaches.

Cheers for any thoughts on the matters

J

 

[VioletDragon]

G'day all and Merry Christmas.
As you can see in my specs I have an i5 4670k LGA1150 Haswell. I would like my FCPX to render a little faster (a lot faster if possible).
FCPX is just about the only thing I use the Hack for hence the pair of GPUs I chose.

Would I benefit greatly from changing out the i5 for an i7 4770k Haswell (or a different 1150 chip) and a clean install of Sierra or would I do better to get a larger SSD for data transfer speed instead? I don't really want to build a completely new Hack as this one is quite stable and easily OS up-gradable without the headaches.

Cheers for any thoughts on the matters

J

Using a ATI card with Final Cut Pro moves the work load to the GPU instead of the CPU might be affected by lack of Power management in 10.10+. i7 prob won't make much difference tbh.

 

[hiluxtonka2]

Using a ATI card with Final Cut Pro moves the work load to the GPU instead of the CPU might be affected by lack of Power management in 10.10+. i7 prob won't make much difference tbh.

Cheers Dragon,
Would I be better off with Mountain Lion then? Or, is there another way to make the GPUs work harder?

 

[VioletDragon]

Cheers Dragon,
Would I be better off with Mountain Lion then? Or, is there another way to make the GPUs work harder?

Older versions of OS X is fine with ATI cards up to 10.9. You're Haswel machine wont work with Mountain Lion Mavericks will work fine tho not quite sure on the 290x with Mavericks.

 

[hiluxtonka2]

Older versions of OS X is fine with ATI cards up to 10.9. You're Haswel machine wont work with Mountain Lion Mavericks will work fine tho not quite sure on the 290x with Mavericks.

Dragon,
Here is my situation. Maybe I'm being impatient.
I just now, ran the BruceX test and from Share to Quick Time opening with the finished project was 11.8 seconds. I think that's quite fast. My issue is not with the final share but the work flow. I use a lot of affects, slow-mo/sped-up, colour rendering and so forth. I seem to be constantly waiting for FCPX to render so that I can play it back and make sure the music and everything all lines up before going on to work on the next frame/sequence. This is the part of the operation that I would like to be faster. Sometimes it can take minutes to render, like time enough to go to the fridge, get a drink and then play with the dogs.
What am I missing? If I turn background rendering to OFF, then I won't be able to make sure everything lines up.....will I?

J

 

[tallen]

Dragon,
If I turn background rendering to OFF, then I won't be able to make sure everything lines up.....will I?

When I need to preview a heavy effect, I use "Render Selection", and select just the smallest possible segment to avoid long wait times. I never have BG rendering turned on; I find it annoying...

Almost certainly you are GPU limited, but you can use OpenGL Driver Monitor from the Graphic Tools for Xcode package to see what your hardware is doing ("CPU wait for GPU"). Or just use Activity Monitor to see if your CPU ever gets maxed out.

I assume you are working on SSD?

Also, you should overclock your i5 if you haven't already. I have the same chip at around 4.4Ghz. That's a difference you'll likely notice in general use.

 

[VioletDragon]

Dragon,
Here is my situation. Maybe I'm being impatient.
I just now, ran the BruceX test and from Share to Quick Time opening with the finished project was 11.8 seconds. I think that's quite fast. My issue is not with the final share but the work flow. I use a lot of affects, slow-mo/sped-up, colour rendering and so forth. I seem to be constantly waiting for FCPX to render so that I can play it back and make sure the music and everything all lines up before going on to work on the next frame/sequence. This is the part of the operation that I would like to be faster. Sometimes it can take minutes to render, like time enough to go to the fridge, get a drink and then play with the dogs.
What am I missing? If I turn background rendering to OFF, then I won't be able to make sure everything lines up.....will I?

J

I normally turn off rendering in Final Cut Pro. Which works fine and can play back in Final Cut Pro with having rendering on.

 

[hiluxtonka2]

Thanks for your tips guys.
I have turned BG rendering off and will try using it sparingly. I have clocked the CPU to 4.0 gHz Temps are at about 64C when running BruceX so I could could probably clock a little higher.

Tallen,
I am not using an SSD but am looking for a 1TB Evo 850 as we speak for work flow and then I will just use the HDD for storage.
I'm not quite sure what you meant when you said "Almost certainly you are GPU limited"?
The two cards I am running should be more than powerful enough. Or are you telling me that the Hack is using the CPU as priority over the GPUs? If so, is there a way to prioritize? I though FCPX used GPU over CPU if available by default.

Thanks again

 

[tallen]

Tallen,
I am not using an SSD but am looking for a 1TB Evo 850 as we speak for work flow and then I will just use the HDD for storage.
I'm not quite sure what you meant when you said "Almost certainly you are GPU limited"?
The two cards I am running should be more than powerful enough. Or are you telling me that the Hack is using the CPU as priority over the GPUs? If so, is there a way to prioritize? I though FCPX used GPU over CPU if available by default.

Thanks again

No, you're right -- Most FCPX effects/plugin-ins use OpenCL, and thus the processing burden is primarily on the GPU. But these computations can greatly exceed the GPU's capability to preview footage in realtime without dropped frames.

For instance, my heaviest FX runs maybe 3 fps on a single 280x. So I'd need 10 of those cards just to hit my 30 fps preview target. (I'll be GPU limited for the foreseeable future...)

On the other hand, if the FX are light, the GPU will idle when the CPU is doing most of the work. If you see your i5 constantly near 100% use, you might want to consider an overclocked i7.

But moving to an SSD should be your first priority! The whole UI responsiveness, clips and plugins loading should improve dramatically.