I have an early-2008 MBP (pre-unibody) with 4 GB of RAM.

I edited a fairly simple story yesterday using FCPX 10.5 and the computer chugged away a bit. I used optimized media on an eSata external drive (though I did keep my Project saved on my MacBook's internal drive (leftover from FCP7 days).

Anyway, although I know I'm due for an updated computer I'd like to keep using this one for now. The max my comp can take is 6 GB RAM - a 4 and a 2 GB chips. If anyone has done likewise, have you noted a speed upgrade (specifically with memory-intense applications like FCPX)?

Many thanks!
Dave

First, use Activity Monitor to check your system memory usage while running FCPX and no other program besides the Finder. If less than 10% of your memory is green (free) and most is blue (inactive), getting more memory will help but first make sure you don't have any third party system extensions that you have forgotten about installing.

A friend of mine had installed MacKeeper (against my recommendation) and it would grab almost a third of the RAM, as a background process, at start up. Uninstalling it freed up memory but between leaving Firefox and Entourage open all the time, he had to double his RAM to 4gb anyway. Now his computer is working much better, especially after switching to Chrome as a browser.

Thanks William. I opened up Activity Monitor while working yesterday and the RAM was maxed (maybe 150MB free, and another 1GB inactive). The vast majority was being used by FCPX (especially when rendering, etc).

I guess I was just wondering if the speed advantages are worth the $80-90 for a 4GB chip. I see most recommend minimum 8GB to run X smoothly.

Cheers.
Dave

6gb is better than what you have right now but it's probable that it will max out again. A new computer is much more expensive then RAM.

The bottom line is memory right now is really cheap and it does significantly speed things up, and rendering is one of them.

However, using a MacBook Pro for video processing is going to make it work harder than the typical uses. The guys in the Apple store might say it's designed to do video processing but the computer does heat up a lot. I don't know about the early 2008 models but I have a late 2008 2.56 and my vintage, up into 2010, seem to be known for having bad things happen to their circuit boards. Some suggestions:

Back up only data you want to save, and try to keep the computer cool. Exterior cooling fan not running of the USB port.

I have since got a 2006 Mac Pro 1,1 and upgraded it (video card, memory, new hard drive) specifically for FCPX processing with the hopes of keeping the MBP from an early demise. Below is a picture of the OLD video card. Note it has it's own dedicated fan and of course the computer has it's own fan too.

A good no-cost item to help keep things running cooler is to access the cooling fan(s) and fins and clean all the lint out. I've done this on several older computers and it's amazing all the fuzz and "stuff" that restricts the flow of air. In fact, if this hasn't been done I'd put this on a must-do maintenance list. One of them was about 85% blocked and the old one in the picture also had a lot of cooling blockage (before being cleaned).

I have had my portables on fan coolers for so long that I forget to tell people to do it. There are hardware monitor programs that will give you readings from the temperature gauges in the computer. Just lifting the back of the laptop off the table (with something as simple as a pencil box) can achieve a 5% cooling during heavy processing. Fan coolers can reduce the heat by 20%. This is very important for the long life of the laptop. For travel, I have a soft cooling pad that wicks the heat very efficiently for about two hours.

Using optimized media does reduce the strain on the computer and the RAM.

Cheers William. Still not sure whether it's worth it to upgrade one stick to 4GB (ie. if there's any noticeable difference in speed). But I appreciate the time you took to post.

If you were still using FCP7, I would recommend it but as I said, with FCPX you are not using a great computer for the program. Between the low RAM capacity of the computer, the video card in the laptop is not taking advantage of the OpenGL optimization written into FCPX. My 2010 quadcore laptop runs FCPX efficiently but my 2009 dual quad core MacPro with 16GB of RAM only really started to burn when I upgraded the video card from the stock card. You can edit with FCPX, clearly, but it wasn't designed for heavy duty work on older laptops or iMacs. People have used the MacMini with FCPX as well but it's a slow renderer and it doesn't multitask very well. FCPX is an excellent program but it's been optimized for specific Apple computers so you have a decent reason to be angry or frustrated.

Cheers William. If only someone was selling an old Mac Pro tower down here for cheap ...

Guess I'll save my centavos and hold out for a 2011+ Macbook Pro.

Thanks again.

Dave

FCPX - as discussed above you will want the following two things to work and render quickly:

1. As much RAM as possible (I have 12GB but wished I had plunked down a little extra for 16GB)

2. A very fast, current video card (Open CL capable) with as much VRAM as possible.

Note that I didn't mentioned a super blazing fast CPU - that's because the gains there won't be nearly as noticeable as the speed impacts of a fast Open CL video card.

FCPX is Open CL accelerated and you will take a hit on speed without a powerful video card.

YMMV.

Alan

Well I think I'll be soon buying a new MBP (need to get it sent down to Guatemala so no iMac unfortunately ... and they're EXPENSIVE to buy down here).

I've been looking at the 2011 17" MBP as well as the 2010 17" MBP. The 2011 seems to have a superior video card and a faster processor. Both have ability to upgrade to 16GB RAM.

The other option is the 2011 15" MBP with similar specs as 17". Only issue is screen size (I've only used 17" Powerbook/Macbook up till now, though I do normally use a second screen as the "viewer." Also, there's no eSata, which is the connection I use (no usb 3.0 or thunderbolt on my external).

After much debate I think I've decided to edit AVCHD natively rather than convert to Prores on import, so speed is important!!

It's hard to spend other people's money when you're not sure of the budget.
Getting a base model 15" MBP Retina (but with 16GB RAM) gives you HDMI out for very cheap 2nd monitor options. USB3 drives are very inexpensive. You can get an adaptor that'll add an Express port.

2010 MBP should be out of the question. I wouldn't invest in dying technology (lack of Thunderbolt is going to be a major hinderance to expansion).

Unless you're getting some kind of major price break, 2012 15" MBP (non Retinal) would be better than 2011 17" because of the USB3 ports and inexpensive hard drives. You can use Thunderbolt out, with an inexpensive adaptor, to a monitor. The only advantage a 2011 17" would give you is the screen real estate if you can't hook up to an external monitor. Also note you're locked into that Express port (now gone from new Mac laptops), and I think it's a drawback when it comes to future expansion. Keep in mind that 15" MBPr can give you a lot more screen real estate... if you have good eyesight (really small text/icons it you set for maximum screen real estate).

eSATA is nice (and I use it on my 2010 17" MacBookPro with an ExpressCard) but unless you are doing a lot of multi-camera switching with four or more cameras or working with uncompressed files (which AVCHD certainly isn't), you can do a lot with FireWire800. Thunderbolt to FW800 adapters are available.

What about using FW800 to edit AVCHD natively using FCPX? If RAM/processor/video card are appropriate can you get by with FW800? Has anyone tried it? It would save me money on the laptop, and probably get me higher resale down here ...

Cheers

Craig - I agree with what you say.

Problem is that my two editing drives are eSata (not usb 3.0 or thunderbolt). My external monitor is DVI. So if I up to the 2012 macbook pro I'm either upgrading monitor, HDD, etc or buying adapters (thunderbolt to eSata is $200, so 2/3 of the way to a usb 3.0). So a few new drives + new monitor are an extra $500-600 (in the US, add 30-40% down here, so say $800 minimum).

Budget - a guy at Apple HQ has offered me 10% + $100 off a laptop because of some of the problems I've had with mine. I was hoping to spend well under $2K for a replacement laptop (including tax). I still need to get a new camera at some point and that'll be thousands of $s. Man I need to up my rates!!

Thanks guys!

I work with FW800 on road with my laptop and it's indistinguishable from eSATA when working with ProRes, MPEG2HD or AVCHD. When I work on projects that are stored on external drives that move from office to office, I always use FW800 and never have an issue. Once again, unless you are editing Multi camera shoots with more than 4 cameras or are working with uncompressed video, FW800 is fine.

All the eSATA drives I have also have FW800 so if you have similar drives the switch should be invisible.

Firewire 800 would generally work. Actually Thunderbolt doesn't give a great speed advantage over Firewire 800 for a single drive (non RAID). The bottleneck is generally the drive itself. I mention USB3 because Firewire drives are scarce and USB3 drives may even be less expensive. At some point you may need to replace your drives and you'll face the problem by having Firewire ports rather than USB3 ports. That may force you into yet another laptop purchase. At least with the latest MBPs is that you can go Thunderbolt to Firewire for legacy and it has USB3 for a less expensive future.

Dave, my concern is that in the desire to save money you'll actually end up spending more, a lot more, in the very near future. Firewire drives are almost gone as well as eSata. USB3 drives are very inexpensive. There's nothing wrong with buying a Thunderbolt to DVI monitor. I understand the need to keep legacy technology going but the focus on buying to support that without the ability to buy current and less expensive technology means that in as little as a year, you'll have to buy yet another laptop. When buying I recommend buying for the future with means for backwards compatibility

If you can't afford to do this, you definitely need to raise your rates. A very fundamental part of any business model has to include room for maintenance and replacement of gear. Generally you need to consider replacing computers and most peripherals in a 24 to 36 month period give or take.

Also, having the fastest drives isn't a big of a deal as it was a few years ago when everything was printed to tape. Going to HDCamSR is a big deal. These days everything is rendered to files so a blip here and there during playback while editing isn't a problem. Of course if the client is watching, it might be an issue but all I do is replay the area with the blip and it's never there.

That's why I think USB3 is a big step forward over Firewire 800. They're much faster, yet very easy to find at very low prices.

Thunderbolt comes into play when you need a very fast RAID and/or pass through for daisy chaining.
RAID can have value if you're doing multicam. Imagine having 9 AVCHD files or H.264 files from GoPro or DSLR. Even if you transcoded to ProRes, a RAID might help there.

Thunderbolt pass through is important if you need it for Video I/O, External Monitor, RAID, adding PCIe.

For basic editing on system without a lot of peripherals, USB3 would probably be fine though.

This device from Belkin (now pushed back to early 2013) should keep you backward compatible with everything.

Includes eSata, Firewire, Ethernet, USB3, has Thunderbolt pass through.
Thunderbolt Express Dock | Belkin USA Site (http://www.belkin.com/us/thunderbolt)

That's why I think a base level MBP (doesn't have to be Retina) with one Thunderbolt port, might be enough to keep you going for a few years.
The main difference between 2011 and 2012 is this year's model has USB3. You might get a good price on a 2011 (sans USB3) as some may be for sale by people upgrading to Retina. Alas the Belkin dock won't be availble until next year though. It was pushed back from the already passed September delivery date.

Matrox will have this dock for less money but it doesn't have pass through. It does have HDMI or DVI out for monitoring.
http://www.matrox.com/docking_station/en/ds1/

Thanks again guys. You've both given me much food for thought.

Craig - your point about USB 3.0 is interesting ... I didn't know people were using it for editing (thought I'd read something about not being reliable for sustained data transfer at high speeds). Guess that happens when you're living in Guatemala ...

USB2 is a problem given the nature of port communication. It's not just speed but the ability to managed sustained throughput. That's not an issue (at least not a big issue) with USB3. One of the bit BIG differences though between USB3 and Thunderbolt is not so much the data rate but the management of the throughput. That's part of the reason of the difference in cable prices. There's a chip in the Thunderbolt input that manages things that's not part of USB3. But USB3 is fast enough that it's not an issue that it is in USB2.

I'm oversimplifying this but I do want to call to attention that its just about speed but "intelligently" managed throughput.

This might help explaining about USB3.
USB 3.0 - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USB_3.0)

Just to answer a few random points that have come up in this thread.

I have a 17" 2008 MacBook Pro 4,1 with 2.6GHz CPU. I upgraded to 6GB (4GB+2GB) RAM a long time ago & it makes a big difference to performance especially as I am usually running Windows virtual machine. The other upgrade that made an even bigger difference to performance was to upgrade the original 7200rpm hard disk to a 256GB Crucial Solid State Disk. SSDs & RAM are cheaper than when I did my upgrades so it should only cost around $200 for both RAM & SSD.

Thunderbolt is a great option if you want to upgrade an iMac with a SSD as these systems are very difficult to perform an internal upgrade.

Both my wife & I have a Sonnet Allegro USB3 card in our Mac Pros & edit using FCP X &/or Premiere Pro on bare drives sitting in a dual disk dock. The disk performance tested with the Aja or Black Magic tool is comparable to internal SATA disks i.e. around 100MB/s R/W Using a similar FW800 dock the sustained disk R/W rate is around 70MB/s which is still usable unlike USB2 which is down around 20-30MB/s.

I have both USB3 & eSATA ExpressCards that I can use in my MBP but don't see such good performance with USB3 as I do in the Mac Pro. I don't know whether this is a limitation of the ExpressCard slot, the drivers or the cards themselves but it's no better than a FW800 drive connected to the same MBP.

This is from last year but it's FCPX performance compared on various Macs
Final Cut Pro X on three different Macs (http://barefeats.com/fcpx01.html)

Personally I would not use a Mini unless you're just a hobbyist. Given how much the GPU is used, that GPU is going to be a major slow down. Doubly so if you use Motion (which actually is used for much of the FX in FCPX).

On USB3. It really needs to be on the motherboard to be best utilized. Intel only started doing that recently. It's one reason why Blackmagic Shuttle has been a disappointment. Only certified for one MSI laptop and works on a few other Lenovo models (recently probably due to the motherboard) and not at all on Macs.

When I am editing it seems slow to me as well. I import my h.264 .mov files from DSLR into FCPX and i always use "optimized media" which transcodes to prores422.

After that, if i add color grading all is ok, if i add magic bullet mojo or looks on top of that it is kinda choppy and i have to render.

Is it not supposed to support openCL? I have a core i7920 @ 3.80 ghz, 15 GB DDR3 @ 1.7 ghz, and a nVidia Fermi 480 GTX running all new CUDA drivers AND it shows openCL 1.2 from august 2012 installed.

I run luxmark and get 1175 for the SALA test, my 8800GT got 111 on the SALA test.

So my GPU is smoking fast. What is going on with FCPX?

I may be wrong but I was always under the impression that as a plugin Magic Bullet is very slow no matter what NLE it is used with and always never can you expect realtime playback without rendering. There is a lot going on with that plugin that makes it a system hog. Not a bad thing just that it is a rather complex plugin. Some NLE's such as Vegas or Premiere which can playback at 1/4 quality may be able to playback a bit better but that is because there is so much less for the system to deal with at that quality level.

Many third party filters either stack several different filter functions into one filter which all have to be rendered or they are not using the GPU efficiently for various reasons. The Neat Video filter is a good example of a filter that is using several processes and takes a long time to render. The results are great but it's not good for jobs that have to be exported the same day.

When I am editing it seems slow to me as well. I import my h.264 .mov files from DSLR into FCPX and i always use "optimized media" which transcodes to prores422.

After that, if i add color grading all is ok, if i add magic bullet mojo or looks on top of that it is kinda choppy and i have to render.

Is it not supposed to support openCL? I have a core i7920 @ 3.80 ghz, 15 GB DDR3 @ 1.7 ghz, and a nVidia Fermi 480 GTX running all new CUDA drivers AND it shows openCL 1.2 from august 2012 installed.

I run luxmark and get 1175 for the SALA test, my 8800GT got 111 on the SALA test.

So my GPU is smoking fast. What is going on with FCPX?Are you running a Hackintosh? I don't believe that FCP X uses CUDA at all but does benefit from OpenCL acceleration but you need to be running OS X 10.7 or 10.8 (Lion or Mountain Lion) to take advantage of this.

I have just started using FCP X on my 2008 octo-core 2.8GHz Mac Pro 3,1 running Mountain Lion. It has been upgraded with 12GB RAM, 256GB SSD & 6TB RAID array & don't see the awesome speed that everyone else talks about. It's not rendering all the time like FCP 7 but there is still an awful lot chugging away in the background & it doesn't often seem to use more than one CPU. Premiere Pro CS6 is pretty fast in comparison & definitely does use all eight cores. I have a sneaking suspicion that FCP X is optimised to run on the iMac.

Which video card are you using? The stock MacPro video cards that came with 2008 or 2009 MacPros are not very responsive to FCPX.

Are you running a Hackintosh? I don't believe that FCP X uses CUDA at all but does benefit from OpenCL acceleration but you need to be running OS X 10.7 or 10.8 (Lion or Mountain Lion) to take advantage of this.

I have just started using FCP X on my 2008 octo-core 2.8GHz Mac Pro 3,1 running Mountain Lion. It has been upgraded with 12GB RAM, 256GB SSD & 6TB RAID array & don't see the awesome speed that everyone else talks about. It's not rendering all the time like FCP 7 but there is still an awful lot chugging away in the background & it doesn't often seem to use more than one CPU. Premiere Pro CS6 is pretty fast in comparison & definitely does use all eight cores. I have a sneaking suspicion that FCP X is optimised to run on the iMac.

It really wants 16GB of RAM. I think that's part of the issue. I have 16 on a 2009 Mac Pro and its reasonably fast - only chugs during imports.

Mine is faster now, i realized i didnt optimize my media to prores.

I have 15 GB DDR3, 480GTX card and a core i7 920 @3.6 ghz.

I also have a noctua cooler, and 2x 120mm fans that have full control and spit out 250 CFM's. So my cpu stays under 55-60C even at full load and the video card dont get much over 65C itself. Its pretty fast a few lags here and there. I feel that FCPX is WAY better than FCP7 and I believe that FCPX has a concept and workflow as well as user interface that is lightyears beyond Premiere Pro CS6!

Now that 10.0.6 is here with all new feature updates, it just blows PPCS6 away!

Keyword organization, audio sync automatically, detect people and many other features make me very happy.


If Apple was able to somehow loosen up and make full support of ALL video cards and better optimize GPU acceleration just a little more, than I dont believe Adobe has a chance in hell, and probably never would. I can see that my GPU is working voltage goes up and so does temp when I am editing in FCPX, they just have a few more updates and it will be spot on!

Which video card are you using? The stock MacPro video cards that came with 2008 or 2009 MacPros are not very responsive to FCPX.I have a GTX285 which as a CUDA card is great for accelerating Premiere Pro but should be good for FCP X too.

It really wants 16GB of RAM. I think that's part of the issue. I have 16 on a 2009 Mac Pro and its reasonably fast - only chugs during imports.That was what I suspected. The problem is that it's so damn expensive to upgrade the Mac Pro memory. For the price of 32GB I could buy an iMac but putting 32GB in that same iMac would cost just $165.

For various reasons, I keep Activity Monitor open at all times (Compressor issues that are now under control) and I never see FCPX grab RAM like other high end programs do (Adobe programs usually). With 16gb installed on my eight-core 2009 MacPro, the RAM is never more than 1/3 used while running FCPX. That is including RAM that is allocated but not used by the program.

That was what I suspected. The problem is that it's so damn expensive to upgrade the Mac Pro memory. For the price of 32GB I could buy an iMac but putting 32GB in that same iMac would cost just $165.

I don't remember it being too expensive to upgrade. Did you check NewEgg prices?

You can go to OWC/MacSales for example and see how expensive it is to update RAM on earlier Mac Pros compared to other Macs.

Rough numbers (vary by modules)
2008 MacPro 16GB $448-$520
2009-12 MacPro 16GB $155-$198 (35%-40% ish)
2011 iMac 16GB $99-$105 (50%-65%ish of '09-'12 and 20%-25% of '08 )

I have a 2008 MacPro with 8GB and it's really not worth buying more RAM for it when that money can make a significant dent in the price of a new 2012 iMac in Dec or even a current MBP Retina whose performance would rival or possibly exceed a 2008 MacPro.

I wish this Barefeats test was a bit more relevant but the CPU test of Quad i7 Ivy Bridge 2012 Mini vs 2009 Quad MacPro is interesting
Quad-Core mini versus Quad-Core Mac Pro (http://barefeats.com/minivmp.html)

How much would a 2009 Octo MacPro beat it by? What about a 2008 Octo MacPro?
One might guess that the current Quad Ivy Bridge i7 is competitive and give it a reasonable GPU...
There's not much motive in maintaining/expanding an older MacPro IMHO.

After much debate I think I've decided to edit AVCHD natively rather than convert to Prores on import, so speed is important!!

Holy cow dude.

I have a 2011 MBP with 16g ram. Currently editing a car promo vid uncompressed 1080p...And when I have FCPX and Motion open, running 3 layers of titles in fcpx, I get drop frame messages. (before rendering)

Always click "create proxy media"! ALWAYS! I won't make that mistake again.

Also, upgrading Mac memory is cheap if you go aftermarket! Go aftermarket! OWC is my fav: http://www.macsales.com/