8 or 4 core mac pro

Steven Adams · April 20, 2009

Hi,

New here. I'm getting very close to making a decision on a mac pro. Wondering If I should go 8 or 4 core?

I'll be editing HD video for documentary's and indie features.

Looks like B&H have the best deals I have about $4000.00 bucks to spend on Monitor and system. Looking at the Dell 22 monitor.

Any input would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks,

Steven Adams

Satsuki Murashige · April 20, 2009

I don't have the answer, but I suspect the real question you want answered is: will Leopard/Final Cut Studio 2 actually make use of all 8 cores? And what about the announced-but-yet-to-be-released Snow Leopard operating system and rumored release of FCS3 sometime this year? Otherwise, you might as well save your money for a quad-core machine and spend the money on a RAID array and more memory. Start browsing forums like Creative Cow, DV Info, DVX User, and you'll learn a lot. That's what I did when I was looking into buying a Macbook Pro a year and a half ago.

Also think about whether clients will be asking you to see their footage on a color-correct monitor even to color correct their footage. In that case, you'll need to figure out something a little better than the Dell. Look into the Matrox MXO device, which allows you to calibrate a computer monitor in the standard "brightness, contrast, chroma, phase" way much cheaper than using a broadcast HD monitor and an HD-SDI card. There are also cheaper monitor calibration devices like the Pantone Huey Pro and the Spyder (can't remember who makes that one). I have the Huey Pro and for $100 it's not bad at all, much better than not calibrating at all or using the OS calibrator.

Edited April 20, 2009 by Satsuki Murashige

Steve McBride · April 21, 2009

Since I'm moving away from editing to focus on cinematography I'm going to be selling my Mac Pro system that I have when I get my MacBook Pro (which is in a few days).

I got the computer in July 2007 and it has 2x 2.66GHz dual-core Intel Xeon processors, 5gb DDR2 ram, 250gb 7200rpm harddrive, 500gb 7200rpm harddrive. It comes with the keyboard, Logitech Z4 2.1 speakers, and I'll throw in a Hanns-G 22" widescreen VGA/HDMI monitor (it has a bright spot that I think is getting larger in the bottom middle, doesn't effect anything when editing in FCP since it's in the lower half so it should work fine until you get a better one).

Let me know if you're interested in buying, the price will be pretty cheap compared to a new system and the whole package has everything you need to get started editing (minus FCS2) including the OSX Leopard installation disk.

Edited April 21, 2009 by Steve McBride

David Rakoczy · April 21, 2009

Love my 8 Core :wub: .. nice to not have to render every edit... especially in ProRes HQ.. Until everything goes HD (Broadcasting Spots), I use a Sony PVM for color correcting... $450 used from B&H.