Considering 17" Macbook Pro to replace Mac Pro

[Mike Halper]

Lately I've been seriously considering replacing my Mac Pro Xeon 8-core 3.0GHz system from 2007 with a new 17" Macbook Pro. I have some questions, but first here's my current Mac Pro configuration:

8-Xeon 8-core 3.0GHz
9 GB RAM
ATI X1900 XT video card
250GB + 400 GB internal SATA HDD
Highpoint Tech. RAID controller
Matox MXO2 Mini
3.5TB (usable) RAID 5 array connected to RAID controller
2 30" Cinema Displays
M-Audio FW410

I have the previous generation 13" Macbook Pro. Recently I had to convert some videos with Compressor on it and noticed it went pretty quick. In fact, a lot quicker than I was expecting. So I threw some more stuff at it, including some Red footage to transcode to ProRes in Clipfinder, and it actually performed really well considering. Since I'm doing vastly more production work than post-production work lately, this appears to be a good option for me. Plus, it would be nice to easily take my editing system anywhere I want to or need to.

So now I'm wondering if a new 17" MBP would perform equal or better than my Mac Pro, or just well enough. I would sell my complete Mac Pro system (computer, displays, RAID array) but keep the MXO2 Mini and FW410. I suspect I would basically be trading my Mac Pro system for a 17" MBP system once I add the eSATA adapter and new external drives. My main concern would be how it would perform in a Red workflow.

Would a 17" MBP be able to playback 2K or 4K media?

How well would it work with the proxies?

Would Color on a 17" MBP handle 2K or 4K media?

I would like to use the MXO2 Mini to monitor through Color, which would use the EC34 slot, so would I be able to run Red footage through FW800 (I'm looking at the OCW Mercury Qx2 eSATA/FW RAID drives) when doing that? And if so, could I still run 2K or 4K? If FW800 isn't enough I could possibly use the DisplayPort to HDMI and calibrate the display for that, but I like the MXO2 Mini's simple calibration abilities.

Basically, I guess I'm wondering if a 17" MBP could work for a complete Red workflow workstation? Thanks for any insight.

-Mike

 

[Eric Cameron]

My i5 17" MBP w/4GB RAM renders RED footage out of Color at almost the exact same speed as an 8-core Mac Pro with a Radeon HD4870. Kind of boggled my mind when I first saw that... YMMV, and I havent used the MBP for dailies transcoding yet. For smaller shows, I think you could probably make the MBP work. Not appropriate for all situations, but maybe workable...

 

[Mel Matsuoka]

My i5 17" MBP w/4GB RAM renders RED footage out of Color at almost the exact same speed as an 8-core Mac Pro with a Radeon HD4870. Kind of boggled my mind when I first saw that... YMMV, and I havent used the MBP for dailies transcoding yet. For smaller shows, I think you could probably make the MBP work. Not appropriate for all situations, but maybe workable...

The only reason why you got comparable render performance results out of Color is because Color uses zero CPU resources when rendering. It relies completely on the GPU (you can verify this by opening up a CPU monitoring utility like MenuMeters or iStatMenus).

For anything CPU-intensive, like transcoding RED dailies, RED proxy playback, FCP rendering, etc. You will be quite disappointed in the performance of even the most tricked out MBP, compared to a MacPro. You are much better off with an i7 based iMac instead, as these benchmarks from Barefeats show:

http://www.barefeats.com/mbpp18.html

 

[Mike Halper]

Color was actually rendering faster on my 13" MBP than it does on my 3-year-old Mac Pro. I understand the iMac would be faster, but I'm not really looking to replace a desktop with another desktop. This would be for usability AND portability. I know it's not a lot of work to pick up an iMac and move it, but you still couldn't throw it in a bag and go.

Transcodes weren't as fast, but my 13" MBP is Core 2 Duo and not i5 or i7 so that's understandable. I'm just wondering if I had a Red project, could the 17" MBP handle it? If I had R3D files on a RAID connected via FW800 (MXO2 Mini connected to the EC34 slot) could I grade 4K in Color? Long waits for transcodes aren't an issue for me, so what could I do and what couldn't I do with the 17" MBP?

Thanks!

-Mike

 

[Eric Cameron]

Yes Color is GPU dependent, I was just amazed that the mobile chipset in my MBP was faster than an HD4870.

 

[Kaku Ito]

I'd recommend to get the 512GB solid state drive for the MBP.

Also, when you get PCIe expansion box and combine with Red Rocket, it gets as powerful as a desktop with Red Rocket.

http://www.istoragepro.com/prod.php?id=id8exp3

With the chassis above will solve the RAID concern, too.

R3D only needs about 30MB/sec for the transferring rate.

 

[Mike Halper]

Thanks for your advice Kaku.

Is that 30MB/sec at 4K resolution?

I'm not looking to dump a lot of money into this. If I want to add PCIe cards or a Red Rocket I might as well keep the Mac Pro. I'm not interested in the SSD either. They're not cost-effective and I'd be running external FW800/eSATA drives for media anyways. I'm assuming I'd edit with the drives connected via eSATA and hook up a larger monitor via a mini DisplayPort-HDMI adapter. Then when I color correct I'd hook up the drives via FW800 and color correct with the MXO2 Mini in Color. I'm pretty much getting out of editing and getting more into production. If I edit, it will be for very small projects or my own things. I'm just wondering what I would and wouldn't be able to do if I had the following config:

17" MBP 2.66GHz w/ 8GB RAM
eSATA EC34 adapter
OWC Qx2 RAID (FW800 and eSATA)
MXO2 Mini

Thanks!

 

[Kaku Ito]

Mike,

Yes, it is at 4K footage. It's amazing how the wavelet makes it so small.

I have the similar config. as you listed and regret I didn't go for the SSD.

 

[Mike Halper]

I had a 1st and 2nd gen Macbook Air with SSD. My 13" MBP doesn't have the SSD, and I miss it. It does make a difference, I agree. The problem is that Apple wants almost $1200 for the SSD upgrade (I'd want and need the 500GB). Maybe later I could upgrade with an aftermarket one when the prices come down. And of course, if need be I could always go with your PCIe expansion option down the road too. It's nice to have the option and ability.

With your setup what have you found that just doesn't run well as far as Red footage goes? Is there anything I should be aware of?

 

[David Battistella]

Mike,

Yes, it is at 4K footage. It's amazing how the wavelet makes it so small.

I have the similar config. as you listed and regret I didn't go for the SSD.

Kaku,

How much does that BOX retail for?

David

 

[Jaime Vallés]

Color was actually rendering faster on my 13" MBP than it does on my 3-year-old Mac Pro. I understand the iMac would be faster, but I'm not really looking to replace a desktop with another desktop. This would be for usability AND portability. I know it's not a lot of work to pick up an iMac and move it, but you still couldn't throw it in a bag and go.

Actually...
http://www.ilugger.com/

 

[Mike Halper]

I should have known something like that existed. Unfortunately there's another reason to pass on the iMac. No eSATA and no EC34 slot.

 

[Kaku Ito]

Kaku,

How much does that BOX retail for?

David

David, I don't know the retail in U.S.. But it could be about the same price or little higher as the 2 slot magma (of course without the hard drives).

 

[Kaku Ito]

I had a 1st and 2nd gen Macbook Air with SSD. My 13" MBP doesn't have the SSD, and I miss it. It does make a difference, I agree. The problem is that Apple wants almost $1200 for the SSD upgrade (I'd want and need the 500GB). Maybe later I could upgrade with an aftermarket one when the prices come down. And of course, if need be I could always go with your PCIe expansion option down the road too. It's nice to have the option and ability.

With your setup what have you found that just doesn't run well as far as Red footage goes? Is there anything I should be aware of?

So far our Core i7 iMac and Core i7 Mac Book Pros are doing fine doing the DIT on location jobs, especially the Mac Book Pro with Red Rocket.
If you weren't giving services to clients with short temper, especially with Mac Book pro with MXO2 mini would give you reasonable Apple Color environment but after transcoding to anything requires over 70MB/sec transferring rate, then since iMac and Mac Book Pro lacks the well implementation to the higher transferring rate RAID, it could be frustrating. If you work within Prores422HQ then you have no problem unless you work on 4K size (R3D being 4K is fine).

I'm yet to test the 3 slot iStoragePro, so I'm not certain how having a Red Rocket and RAID card would work together through the x1 lane Express 34 Slot, but with my 2 slot magma, a Red Rocket and an i/eSATA card is working fine.

So with this 3 slot, my plan is to have a Red Rocket, a RAID card for the internal bays in the chassis, and the host PCIe card for MXO2 LE.
This will give me following functionalities:

Red Rocket accelerated REDCINE-X operation with data on the internal bays in the chassis.

FCP and Apple Color operation with MXO2 LE outputting 10-bit 422 via HDMI and HDSDI either with proxies or transcoded QT.

Avid Media Composer 5 editing environment (I'm aware of incompatibilities of having FCS and MC5 on the same boot, so I have to choose either).

Then when I'm at my studio, Mac Book pro can be connected via 1Gb either net or have a 10Gb card in the iStroagePro, to access SmallTree GraniteStor shared storage solution.

 

[Jaime Vallés]

I should have known something like that existed. Unfortunately there's another reason to pass on the iMac. No eSATA and no EC34 slot.

Indeed. The fastest the iMac can go with attached storage is firewire 800. If you need faster than that, it's the 17" MBP or nothin'.

 

[Kaku Ito]

It will void the warranty, but you can get both iMac and Mac Book Pro with MaxUpgrade to build RAID0 inside of them.

 

[Andrew T Foster]

Hello,

I'm curious to try a little hack with an iMac. Basically, remove the internal drive and run an extension cable from the internal eSATA connection out the bottom (make a small slot with a dremel or figure out another spot..) to an eSATA HUB (port multiplier). Such as this one;

http://www.cooldrives.com/sahub5muussi.html

You would have to run the internal drive externally (or snake another cable back into the machine) but it would provide external eSATA ports for the iMac.

All depends on how well that hub would perform.

Best!

ATF

 

[Mike Halper]

If you weren't giving services to clients with short temper, especially with Mac Book pro with MXO2 mini would give you reasonable Apple Color environment but after transcoding to anything requires over 70MB/sec transferring rate, then since iMac and Mac Book Pro lacks the well implementation to the higher transferring rate RAID, it could be frustrating. If you work within Prores422HQ then you have no problem unless you work on 4K size (R3D being 4K is fine).

Kaku, thanks for all the information. I don't think I'll be providing services to clients that would have a major issue with me running off a MBP. I don't really like editing for third parties anymore anyways, and I'm doing more production now than post-production already. If I do end up with a project for a client it'll likely be something small.

So let me just make sure I got you right. If I do end up with a 4K Red project, you're saying the MBP would work with it "fine"? But if it's 4K in another format, like ProRes it wouldn't work well? I would have thought the opposite.

 

[Jeff Kilgroe]

It will void the warranty, but you can get both iMac and Mac Book Pro with MaxUpgrade to build RAID0 inside of them.

It does not void the warranty, at least not here in the USA. Easiest way to do it is to pull out the optical drive and replace it with another hard drive or SSD. MaxUpgrades is one of a few companies that sell 2.5" HDD brackets that allow you to mount the HDD into a standard slimline optical drive space.

On an iMac there are more options. One thing that's cool on the iMac, is if you need speed more than storage capacity, you can replace the 3.5" HDD with two high-speed 2.5" SSDs and you can still install a third 2.5" storage device where the optical drive is. If you're savvy enough to replace ends on SATA cables, you can pull the optical drive and run a SATA to eSATA cable out through the optical drive slot. Actually, you might get it through the slot with the right finesse and not have to put a new end on the cable to do it. Just be aware that the port is not properly spec'd for eSATA use, so hot-plugging is not recommended.

Those are the simple mods you can do that don't violate warranties. You can get more extreme than that if you're creative.

As for the original topic of this thread, the new Macbook Pro and iMac systems with i7 CPUs are very nice. My new i7 MBP serves as a mobile DIT station and it screams. In terms of raw processing power and RAM capacity, the Mac Pro will trounce a Macbook Pro, but the software needs to hold up its end of the bargain too. If you're running software that only moderately stresses the CPU and confines itself to a single CPU, then the Mac pro is going to seem no better. Just because you may have 8 CPUs /cores/ under the hood doesn't mean your software knows how to use them. In fact, most software does a piss-poor job scaling to a second CPU, let alone to 4 or more. At least Adobe is finally doing something about multiple CPUs with their mercury playback engine. While most people are giving all the credit to GPUs here, it's actually the CPUs that are doing all the work for mercury. GPU acceleration in Mercury is only for color alterations, transitions and FX and of the plugins that facilitate those, it clearly labels which ones are GPU accelerated and which are not.

The biggest bottleneck on the MBP will be storage. On the 17", you still have an ExpressCard slot -- use it. Get a decent external RAID. You can play back proxies just fine and you can run most any software. There are some limitations, but I think you would do best to try it for yourself. I work on my 17" MBP a lot and I even cut several projects on a 2.33GHz 15" MBP from 2006!! using Adobe and Final Cut. External RAID is key. And expect your final rendering to be slower than with a Mac Pro in most situations. But it's entirely do-able. All depends on your needs and what you can handle for processing times.

 

[Mike Halper]

Thanks Jeff. That's pretty much the info I was looking for. I'm okay with slow renders. It's a good excuse for a long break. I'd definitely be getting an eSATA card and RAID (probably the OWC Qx2). So it looks like the 17" MBP is the way to go. I just need to sell my old Mac Pro and 30" Cinema Displays first.