First, let’s be clear: The new MacPro is not yet shipping. So, like a group of blind folks describing an elephant, we are getting a lot of different opinions on what this new animal is.
Second, the instant Apple revealed it at the WWDC last spring, I wanted one.
Third, buying new hardware is stressful and expensive; especially when it comes to hardware essential to our business.
So, the question I want to answer today is: Since I need to save my pennies to buy this, where do I get the best bang for the buck? And my answers are the same if I were working with Final Cut Pro X, Adobe Premiere CC, or audio editing in ProTools or Audition.
If money means nothing to you, then buy the system with all the bells and whistles. Then, sit back and smirk while the rest of us hate you. For most of us, buying hardware is a trade-off between what we want and what we can afford. In other words, if finding the balance between the best performance at the best price is important to you, this article is for you.
BACKGROUND
Last week, Apple posted more details about the MacPro (including performance and tech specs): http://www.apple.com/mac-pro/
They also announced two configurations: a four-core CPU system starting at $2,999 and a six-core CPU system starting at $3,999. Within those two categories, Apple has not yet announced any other options or pricing. The MacPro is scheduled to ship in December. No date was announced.
Based on what we know, there are five areas we can spend money on with this unit:
So, given these choices, where should we spend our money?
WHERE’S THE BEST BANG FOR THE BUCK?
Surprisingly, it isn’t the CPU. Any CPU today can easily edit video – even high-resolution video. If you are editing single stream video, even high-resolution, the four-core system will be more than adequate. More cores will be helpful with multicam editing.
Because rendering and exporting is off-loaded to the GPU, a screamingly-fast CPU is not as important as it was in years past. Again, more cores and faster CPU speed is nice, but no longer essential. There are better places to put your money.
Specifically, the best place to spend your money is on the GPU. Get the fastest one you can afford, with as much VRAM as possible. Whether you are editing with Premiere Pro CC or Final Cut Pro X, both max out GPU performance.
RAM is user-upgradeable. This means that you can buy less than you might ultimately need, then upgrade as RAM prices come down and third-party vendors provide reliable upgrades. For me, I’d start with a minimum of 8 GB, then add RAM via third-parties.
NOTE: I don’t expect a lot of RAM options to be available at launch. It will probably take suppliers like Kingston – www.kingston.com – or Crucial – www.crucial.com – a while to ramp up to meet demand.
SECOND NOTE: I spoke with the folks at Kingston earlier today, who told me that, according to the specs of the MacPro: “It can take [RAM] up to 1866MHz in speed, and up to 16GB modules in each of the four slots. We will have memory for this. [Since] the product will be released in December we don’t have an ETA on our memory yet.”
STORAGE
The Mac Pro supports up to 1 TB of SSD (Solid State Drive) storage. First, you don’t need that much, and second, I’m not convinced SSDs are the way to go for media. Instead, an SSD drive is ideally suited for the boot drive. I have an SSD-enhanced iMac (a Fusion drive) that goes from powered off to fully operational in nine seconds. I expect the MacPro to be even faster.
SSD drives are ideal for files that are accessed over and over. This means that you get the best performance when accessing operating system and application files. This also means that you don’t need to get the biggest SSD; the OS and applications you get will never fill it.
Let me give you a specific example. On my current MacPro, my Application folder contains the entire Adobe CS6 and CC Suites, plus the entire Final Cut Studio (3) Suite, FCP X, and every plug-in and software gewgaw known to the mind of man. And the total Application folder takes only 42 GB to store.
In fact, everything on my boot drive – EVERYTHING – is only 220 GB. (And that includes a desktop folder that holds more files than I will ever admit to storing in public.) A boot drive of 250 GB is more than adequate for the OS and applications.
NOTE: There’s an axiom in the storage business that the faster a unit transfers data, the less data it can hold and the more it costs.
Rather than buy a large, internal SSD drive, I plan to spend a small fortune on a high-speed, fully-loaded Thunderbolt RAID 5 with a minimum of 8 drives. THAT provides all the storage and performance I need — even for editing 2K multicam clips containing up to 30 angles!
Think about it. Shoots are creating more and more media. My recent 13-episode 2 Reel Guys shoot geneerated 1.5 TB of data. There is no reason this should be stored on a boot drive. External media is plenty fast, holds a ton of media and can be easily transported from one place to another.
Spend your money on external storage, not the internal SSD drive.
A NOTE ON SPEED
Simply connecting a single hard drive to a computer via Thunderbolt does NOT mean you are getting Thunderbolt speeds. Just the opposite. As a rough measure, a spinning hard disk that is not enhanced with a small internal SSD booster, can read and write data about 120 MB/second, whether it is connected by USB 3 or Thunderbolt. (FireWire, by contrast, slows the drive down to about 80 MB/second.)
This means that in order to get the speed you expect from a Thunderbolt connection, you need to keep combining drives in a single unit (which is what a RAID is). To fully saturate (fill) a Thunderbolt 2 pipe, you would need a RAID containing about 20 drives!
A THOUGHT ON SLOTS
There’s been a lot of complaining about the lack of PCIe slots on the MacPro. I’m sympathetic, but, frankly, I’m not bothered by this.
Every significant vendor who supplies hardware to the Mac community is working on Thunderbolt devices. AJA, ATTO, Blackmagic Design, Matrox, Sonnet — all of them. Why? Because Thunderbolt devices are easier to install, configure, and, most importantly, support.
Plus, the new hardware data bus inside the Mac Pro is faster than the PCIe bus we’ve been using in current MacPros.
NOTE: For those with significant investments in PCIe cards, Sonnet has announced an expansion chassis that holds the cards and converts the interface into Thunderbolt 2.
For me, the simplicity of plugging in what I need and getting on with my work FAR outweighs the slight performance increase that might be obtained by custom-building a system. (Then, again, I’ve never been fascinated by doing my own home or car repairs. Others, though, find it fascinating. Each to his own.) I prefer getting work done to wasting time configuring; and Thunderbolt 2 is so blazingly fast, that I don’t expect to ever fully utilize it; even for high-resolution media.
SUMMARY
I plan to buy a new Mac Pro the week they ship, though probably not the first day. (As I’ve written before, I prefer to let someone else intercept the first arrows.)
I’ll spend more money on the GPU than the CPU. And I’m already looking for storage for this system. As we get closer, I’ll let you know what I decide to buy and how I configured it.
As always, I’m interested in your opinions.
Larry
96 Responses to Larry’s Thoughts on the New MacPro
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Bill Dat says:
October 28, 2013 at 9:59 am
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Randolph Pierce says:
October 28, 2013 at 10:32 am
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Bill Dat says:
October 28, 2013 at 10:45 am
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Larry Jordan says:
October 28, 2013 at 10:58 am
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Dan Weissman says:
November 11, 2013 at 10:16 am
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Leo says:
November 14, 2013 at 9:18 am
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Don B says:
November 14, 2013 at 10:19 am
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Leo says:
November 14, 2013 at 10:27 am
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Leo says:
November 14, 2013 at 10:35 am
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Don B says:
November 14, 2013 at 10:45 am
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Dave Price says:
October 28, 2013 at 11:06 am
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Larry Jordan says:
October 28, 2013 at 11:12 am
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Peter says:
October 28, 2013 at 6:03 pm
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Larry Jordan says:
October 28, 2013 at 6:10 pm
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Don B says:
October 28, 2013 at 6:13 pm
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Larry Jordan says:
October 28, 2013 at 6:30 pm
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William Hohauser says:
October 28, 2013 at 8:16 pm
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Don B says:
October 29, 2013 at 3:30 am
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Larry Jordan says:
October 29, 2013 at 8:58 am
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Don B says:
October 29, 2013 at 8:59 am
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Glenn L says:
October 28, 2013 at 6:40 pm
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John A. Mozzer says:
October 29, 2013 at 2:39 am
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Larry Jordan says:
October 29, 2013 at 8:57 am
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John A. Mozzer says:
October 29, 2013 at 8:31 pm
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Dick Walters says:
October 30, 2013 at 4:38 am
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MARK JONES says:
October 30, 2013 at 12:37 pm
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Bill says:
October 30, 2013 at 12:48 pm
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Jerry_r says:
October 30, 2013 at 5:20 pm
← Older Comments Newer Comments →I’ve been editing off internal drives on my tower for years and never had a problem. I don’t keep anything on the boot drive, but the other drives in that box are filled to the gills with video!
I, too have been editing on internal drives (NOT boot drive) in my MacPro tower for years and the Apple support guys always recommend internal over external for speed and reliability. But I suspect that Larry is referring to boot drives when he recommends not using the internal drive for editing.
Thanks Larry for all the great info! You’re a treasure.
Randolph
I have external drives as well and they don’t have the “always on” feel of the internal drives… but yes you are probably right, Larry is referring to the boot drive.
Thanks, guys.
You are correct. I was referring to the boot drive. On MacPros, editing of separate internal drives is just fine. However, this is an option that doesn’t exist with laptops or iMacs.
Larry
Actually, if you have any MacBook Pro with an optical drive, you can use Other World Computing’s Data Doubler to replace your optical drive w/an HD or SSD. I know several people who do this precisely to keep media files off the boot drive for editing, as the optical drive is of less importance to them relative to the inconvenience of carrying around even a small external drive. (IMHO, I don’t see an SSD as worth the $$ in this media application.)
Sadly — very sadly — Jony Ive’s hell-bent-for-leather drive towards slimmer, lighter MBPs, coupled with Apple’s belief/desire that everyone lives in a world of ubiquitous connectivity (ie, everyone’s streaming, vs watching/burning discs), has led to the elimination of optical drives from every Apple product currently shipping, save a low-end 13″ MBP and the old Mac Pro.
Which is why you’ll find me hanging onto my late-2011 MBP ’til they pry it from my cold, dead hands!
– Dan
I don’t understand how they expect the small guy to deliver final productions without use of disc-based media or at least a user-friendly option of menu driven flash drive options. I’d be willing to deliver some kind of media card to a client or end user if that’s what they preferred, but I don’t see any options for that. So why not allow us to have DVDStudio Pro in updated form?
That’s why my old system will still be operational and essential to my workflow, just to deliver DVDs to people’s hands. But it would be nice to have the same menu and creation options for a BluRay disc that I have for a Std DVD.
What software is anyone else using that works like DVDSP but delivers BR?
Leo, check out Adobe Encore if you have the suite. It’s excellent. I have to deliver DVDs every week. Do a quick DVD in 5 minutes, or very elaborate authoring projects. It’s full featured and easy to learn (check out Lynda.com, take the course for v5/5.5 – $25 for a one month subscription). It too may be on life support (not upgraded at all for v6, but no need to). And it does BR.
Is Encore available for Mac? I don’t own a PC. (Shivers). lol
Larry, I agree that optical discs are going to go away at some point, but I don’t as yet see a delivery format that works when you make your money selling individual discs. Most projects I get paid for the project, but some, I get paid by how many DVDs I sell of a given event. I guess there may be a point when things like recitals and graduations won’t be recorded? Or, maybe a fee will be charged which covers the cost of production and they can “tune in” on YouTube or Vimeo etc and see what they paid for? I just don’t know how that will work out since many live events have music played you can’t control and it will get flagged by YouTube etc software detection.
Oh well, that solution sounds fine for now. They don’t need any updates really since DVD/BR hasn’t changed much for years. lol
Leo, Encore runs on Mac — it’s part of the Adobe suite. If you don’t want to subscribe you can still get CS6 online, but may not be worth it if this is the only program you’ll use. Encore is great. The Adobe Production suite is great, too.
So Larry — I was expecting Apple to announce a replacement for the Apple Thunderbolt Display, but they didn’t. Looking forward to a new display to go with the new Mac Pro. USB 3 and Thunderbolt 2 ports. Thin styling, like the new iMacs. Do you think we’ll see this?
Dave:
Do I think we will see this? Well, we can always hope.
Do I KNOW anything? No.
Larry
If I currently have 2 x HP 24″ monitors, what is going to be the best way to use them with the new MP?
Peter
Peter:
Since the MacPro only supports Thunderbolt (Displayport) and HDMI, you would need a converter between the MacPro and the monitors.
Larry
Great article, as always!
Some quick questions:
– Can you boot externally via Thunderbolt?
– Can SSD drives be cloned to external drives, and external drives cloned back to SSD? (I often clone systems)
– Can an SSD be partitioned? If so, is performance affected?
Thx!
Don:
All good questions and I don’t know any of the answers. We’ll need to wait until the MacPro ships.
Larry
I have read that partitioning SSDs are not a good idea due to the way they distribute data over the chips, don’t know why this is so if it is. Cloning drives should be not a problem as the directory structures are not different. External booting should work.
Thx William.
Larry, those were SSD and TB questions, not specific to MPs.
Don:
No problem – I STILL don’t know the answer.
Larry
Well, if William is correct we both know now 🙂
My sense is that we will see Apple 4K monitors when we also see the rumored next generation Apple TV device(s).
Considering all the talk about a 4K workflow, I’d like to know whether this means an uncompressed 4K workflow, or 4K in a compressed format such as ProRes. I assume that latter, but would like clarification. Thanks.
John:
That depends upon what “uncompressed” means to you. All 4K cameras, that I know about, record to one codec or another – whether it is Redcode RAW, ProRes 422HQ, or one of the Sony formats. No camera records purely unstructured data.
I would assume – note that word – that 4K refers to ProRes 4444, unless another format, such as RED, is involved.
Larry
Thanks. That helps. And I have noted your use of the word assume.
I crave new technology like most folks but I really don’t see much reason to abandon my 2010 MacPro plus my 2 27″ Cinema displays (although I read that the non TB displays will work with Thunderbolt 2). Might be more effective for me to simply upgrade the display card/GPU
I think you just saved me a lot of money by switching my criteria to more GPU and less CPU. I’ll take that grand and spend it on upgrading the graphics cards. I already have 20 TB of storage on my Promise raid units so I’ll also take your recommendation on storage too.
I ordered, and have in hand, 32GB of Ram from Crucial for this new Mac Pro. They already had it in stock but I bet they’ll be busy for the next month.
Like you….I’ll be ordering the first week. I’m hoping they release a new monitor at the same time and I’m betting they will since it’s been almost two years since the last release.
Thanks for the great advice.
Yes so it seems the new macpro and drive array would be $7000-8000. I bought an amd 7970 to speed up Fcpx, well turns out the card offers no speed benefit over and 5770, so I’m wondering if Fcpx is going to be updated to take better advantage of amd chips? Or if the 7970 is a dead end and I’d be better off investing in nvidia?! Thanks!
Thanks this answers a major problem that I saw, without either Fibre Channel or 100GigE networking a group via a SAN is not feasible for smooth 4k production; that will be here soon for some shops and 8K is coming. Assuming the Sonnet supports at least 4 lane PCIe it may solve the problem.
The remaining problem is that RAID5 only protects a single disk failure at a time. If a second disk fails (before the problem is detected or the rebuild is complete) you loose the project. There is a good paper on this that shows that the largest number of disk drives that can operate reliably is ~12–14¹ or 18Tb¹ whichever comes first.
There are PCIe controllers which implement RAID6—you can loose two disks and recover. With the higher MTBF of the latest disks this could get quite large. One way to get around the RAID5 limitations and get much higher throughput is using the SEGATE 15,000 RPM SAS disks but the will get expensive quickly and will require an 8–16 lane controller. AFAIK ATTO makes one and so does Rocket RAID. There are two issues; cost and availability of drivers for the Mac.
¹ With the higher MTBF and better error correction these numbers may need to be revised upwards