What used Mac Pro to choose for FCP 7

I am hired to work with a project in FCP 7 and I realize, since I have been using Avid for the last few years,
that I need to buy both the software (I only have FCP 6 at the moment) and a Mac Pro.

Since I will do limited, maybe even only this project, on FCP 7, I have been looking at a used Mac Pro
and wonder if anyone know how this one work with FCP 7:

Mac Pro, Quad Core, 2.66 ghz, 16 GB RAM, (early 2009) model: A1289

[www.everymac.com]

I plan to install an USB 3.0 card and use an external drive with footage and project.

Any thoughts?

That's an OK Mac Pro for FCP7. Realize that FCP7 utilizes little RAM and just one processor core*, so the 2.66 GHz will largely determine your render times.
Since the Mac Pro has four hard drive bays, consider how you can use them for the edit. I run two 2TB drives internally in OSX RAID 0 -- no RAID card -- for 4TB of edit capacity. This is very fast and trouble free versus external drives.
For the OSX for FCP7, Snow Leopard and Lion are best. I find problems in the FCP7 canvas playback with Mountain Lion and later.

Dennis Couzin
Berlin, Germany

* Error corrected in later post.

Thank you Dennis!

I probably should edit with internal harddrives. You are right about that.

But I have one more question. I know I will be editing 1080p25, but not what
codec (yet). And I got the advice to go with a Mac Pro 8-core late 2008 model
instead. Do you have any thoughts on that?

Would FCP 7 be performing better with 8-core, you think?


Steve Ericsson
Stockholm, Sweden

what's the shooting format?
will you be cutting off-line, with an eventual re-conform?


nick

I erred in writing that FCP7 utilizes just one processor core. Activity monitor shows all my cores used during FCP7 render, but not much. The total use on my 6-core machine is 1.6× what's possible from a single core. FCP7 was not written for multi core, but the operating system has found a way to keep the cores somewhat busy.

There's a mystery here which the internet gossip doesn't answer. If that 1.6× scales, then FCP7 on a 4-core would use 1.07× what's possible from a single core and on an 8-core 2.1×. Then you're much better off with 8 cores than 4. But it probably doesn't scale. A simple experiment could decide this, but has it been performed?

When I had to choose between 3.33 GHz 6-core and 2.4 GHz 12-core I chose the former. 'Hope I chose right.

Dennis Couzin
Berlin, Germany

Thank you for your reply, Nick!

It will be shot in 1080p25, mpeg, HD 422.
Editing with be in ProRes 442, 1080p.

That should work, right?

Steve Ericsson
Stockholm, Sweden

oh, is it XDCam? you can edit that natively in FCP.

however, it's processor intensive, so i'd say go with the most up to date machine you can.

i cut a 3hr documentary last year, all XDcam.
we cut on a range of machines, including 2 fairly recent MacBok Pros (2014 or 2015),
an older iMac
and a 2015 iMac.
all had Yosemite.
not too bad, but i think Mavericks would've been a tiny bit better.
the Laptops started w Mavericks, but were upgraded (Without consulting me) to Yosemite
no choice w the newer iMac: it came w Yosemite.
still... relatively painless.

all external drives, BTW


nick

I use the last 17" MBP from 2011. Probably a 2.2Ghz processor and 16GB ram, with a 512SSD.
Works well with FCP7 with some minor glitches with program.