What CPU/system for Final Cut Pro X?

[raz0r]

Hello guys, new to this forum.

I have checked out the Buyer's Guide and Golden Builds but would like to ask here as well.

I have a friend who owns a small video editing company and is currently running old Mac Pros.

We want to upgrade to something newer. Since we are talking about 5 computers, I thought going used, preferably with DDR3 compatible hardware because it is more available/cheaper in the used market. He is mostly working with 1080p videos, I am unsure about the format/codec.

My biggest question is, does FCPX favor cores or frequency more? My mind tells me that a dual 8 core Xeon machine at 2.xGHz is going to be much faster than a 4/6 core CPU at 4.0/4.0+GHZ. Is that really the case?

Also, how big of an impact does Intel Quick Sync have? Is it more preferable to buy a 4/6 core desktop chip with Quick Sync and higher clock speeds than a 16 core, 32 thread dual socket system?

How much does HyperThreading help or does it even work? How would a 4 core/8 thread CPU perform against a 6 core / 6 thread one?

What GPU should we use? Is there any noticeable difference in performance between RX570 and RX580 GPUs?

How much RAM should we put in each system? Do you think that 16GB are enough or do we need to go to 32+?

Current Mac Pros are running dual 4 core E5520 Xeons at 2.26 GHz. Would a CPU and GPU upgrade suffice, instead of building new machines?

All editing machines will have access to a 10Gb (12 drives in RAID 10) NAS. All editing is going to be done on the NAS, not local storage.

Any ideas/recommendations or links to documentation/guides/videos will be extremely appreciated.

 

[trs96]

Old dual Xeon systems (Mac Pro 5,1) really can't hold a candle to the new 6 or 8 core Coffee Lake refresh systems currently available. I don't think upgrading to higher core counts would really make much difference either.

In terms of GPU performance, for 1080 editing in FCP X, the RX 570 would work very well. It can even handle 4K monitors quite well if you ever plan on upgrading those and editing 4K video.

I can only give advice on what to do but what really matters most is direct experience of using a system that has macOS installed correctly and working properly. So I'd suggest that you first get some experience by building one new system for your friend with the video editing co. and have him use it for a few weeks. If he likes it and finds the performance to be much better than what he's using now, then you can buy the components to build the other 4. All you'd have to do is clone the boot drive on the one you've already built and copy it to the other 4 SSD drives to be used in new machines. Of course, you'd need to generate a unique serial number for each of the other 4 builds. Very easy to do that.

Here's a $1,052 build that I think would outperform what he's currently using. You can pick any ATX case that has good airflow. Also include a 600W 80+ Gold PSU from a name brand manufacturer such as EVGA or Seasonic. You can follow CaseySJ's Golden Build for the install, it has all that you need for success with this system. You really get a lot for your roughly 1000 dollars in this build. Ultra fast M.2 SSD. 32GB of DDR4 ram and a 6 core overclockable CPU. And don't forget the onboard TH3 ports on the motherboard.

A build like this will cost much less in the long run compared to going with older hardware that has to be replaced much sooner. You can likely build 4 of these for the cost of one of the new 2019 Mac Pros that are supposed to be released this year. You'll be able to handle HEVC (H.265) encoded video, use Quicksync to speed up rendering. This build will completely blow the old Mac Pros out of the water in terms of performance. Don't take my word for it, build one and see for yourself. If your budget allows and it's possible to step up to an RX 580 and an i7-9700K you can certainly do that too. For working with 1080p video this build shown below will be much more than adequate.

 

[Hackintoshron]

Hello guys, new to this forum.

I have checked out the Buyer's Guide and Golden Builds but would like to ask here as well.

I have a friend who owns a small video editing company and is currently running old Mac Pros.

We want to upgrade to something newer. Since we are talking about 5 computers, I thought going used, preferably with DDR3 compatible hardware because it is more available/cheaper in the used market. He is mostly working with 1080p videos, I am unsure about the format/codec.

My biggest question is, does FCPX favor cores or frequency more? My mind tells me that a dual 8 core Xeon machine at 2.xGHz is going to be much faster than a 4/6 core CPU at 4.0/4.0+GHZ. Is that really the case?

Also, how big of an impact does Intel Quick Sync have? Is it more preferable to buy a 4/6 core desktop chip with Quick Sync and higher clock speeds than a 16 core, 32 thread dual socket system?

How much does HyperThreading help or does it even work? How would a 4 core/8 thread CPU perform against a 6 core / 6 thread one?

What GPU should we use? Is there any noticeable difference in performance between RX570 and RX580 GPUs?

How much RAM should we put in each system? Do you think that 16GB are enough or do we need to go to 32+?

Current Mac Pros are running dual 4 core E5520 Xeons at 2.26 GHz. Would a CPU and GPU upgrade suffice, instead of building new machines?

All editing machines will have access to a 10Gb (12 drives in RAID 10) NAS. All editing is going to be done on the NAS, not local storage.

Any ideas/recommendations or links to documentation/guides/videos will be extremely appreciated.

Let me give you both sides of the equation, seeing I just upgraded from the Dual Xeon MacPro 2010. First, you can buy the same video card that you would in your new Hackintosh Build to run in your old MacPro. I actually had the PowerColor Radeon RX 580 4GB which I got on sale I think for around $189. If you catch a sale at NewEgg or somewhere these days, you can get the 580 in the 8GB config for about the same price. I just saw one somewhere for $199. Final Cut loves this card, whether in a Mac Pro or a new Hackintosh build. I like my old system which actually consisted of a Mac Pro 2010 with upgraded CPUs running at 3.46 Ghz I found on ebay for like $50 (search for MATCHED PAIR Intel Xeon X5677 on ebay), 36 GB of RAM, a 12TB internal RAID (4 - 3TB enterprise drives), and a PCI card that houses two 1TB crucial SSDs that were a 2TB RAID, and 4TB drive for TimeMachine Backup. It was a great system! But by todays standards, it was a bit behind because of all the bottlenecks in RAM, processor, disks. The Geekbench scores were around 2,900 single core, and 24,000 multicore. That's not bad for a less than $100 upgrade if you have a Mac Pro plus $200 for the video card. SSDs are cheap now and 1TB 2.5" SSDs can be had for about $130. 32GB of RAM on these machines is about $85 or so on ebay. So, for roughly $500, you could upgrade your 2009 or 2010 Mac Pro to a machine with that kind of speed.
Now the system just suggested is just a little over double that. The question is, will you get double the performance? I haven't seen the benchmarks on that i5-9600K but I'm sure its pretty good. I would opt for an i7 or better but that will cost you more. I would check to see what the Geekbench numbers are on the build above and compare it to see if the price matches the performance. Mind you the newer build will have less limitations, like DDR4 RAM, USB 3 ports and M.2 slots, so I would think carefully about staying with your old system. That's why I upgraded my system to a Pro style machine with the same motherboard suggested here. I was getting frustrated with all the limitations and with waiting for Apple to give me a modular pro machine at a reasonable price. I opted for the i9-9900K processor and a 2TB. M.2 drive which alone are $1,000. Final Cut runs like a dream on it and my Geekbench scores are more like 6,800 and 40,000. It's more than double the speed on the single processor and is only about 8,000 away from double the speed on the multicore with my 5Ghz overclock. Cost to upgrade is approx. $2,000 when all said and done and I was able to move both my RAIDs over with no fuss. I'm guessing this machine will last me another 5 years like my upgraded Mac Pro which I had for about 5 years too. There's even room to grow say with the open m.2 slot, the ability to use higher performance graphics cards like the Vegas and beyond, and the ability of the latest firmware update for this board to use 32GB DIMMs which expanded the RAM limit from 64GB to 128GB. Not to mention two Thunderbolt 3 ports on the board.