Re: What is the best mac to edit 4 K video or should I wait to buy

I currently have a late 2013 Mac pro. The cylinder shaped mac, or trash can as some might say. It is very slow, I can only edit when using proxies and I am not sure if the drive might be failing or if it is normal to be so slow.
I am ready to buy a new mac, but want to make sure it will work.

The footage I would be editing will be 4 K shot with a Sony FS7 and FS5.

These are the specs of my current computer. What should I purchase or should I wait for the M1 chip in the 27 I mac?

Thank you in advance, Angy


Hardware Overview:

Model Name: Mac Pro
Model Identifier: MacPro6,1
Processor Name: 6-Core Intel Xeon E5
Processor Speed: 3.5 GHz
Number of Processors: 1
Total Number of Cores: 6
L2 Cache (per Core): 256 KB
L3 Cache: 12 MB
Hyper-Threading Technology: Enabled
Memory: 32 GB
System Firmware Version: 427.0.0.0.0
SMC Version (system): 2.20f18
Panel Illumination Version: 1.4a6
Serial Number (system): F5KMK18UF694
Hardware UUID: 46FDEEDE-6935-5EF8-A4E5-A09E94DA233D
Provisioning UDID: 46FDEEDE-6935-5EF8-A4E5-A09E94DA233D

Hi Angy
WAIT!
WWDC is June 7th and new Macs may be announced. The new Apple Silicon M1(?) CPU/GPUs are the future.
While new Macs may not be available @ WWDC but I expect it will be featured in Keynote and available shortly.
Spin your beachballs till then. Think AS will be very important for editing 4K and higher media.

Hope this Helps, Greg

Thank you so much Greg! May I check with you again when the new Macs are out?

I have the same computer as you and I don't really have any issue editing in 4K. Then again I work almost exclusively in ProRes. I don't use Sony cameras so I don't know anything about their codecs. But I also echo the "WAIT" sentiment as that's exactly what I'm doing. I was considering one of the current Mac Pros, but can you imagine spending 10K one one of those things and then Apple abandons it after a few years with stuff that no longer works with Intel processors? I think my trash can can last a couple more years if needed. It plays H.265 quite well in FCP if I need it to, it just takes forever and three days to encode into H.265 for delivery.

Hey Angy
Well no new hardware announced @WWDC, but I'm sure it is coming soon.
Chip shortages, mini-led display issues and Covid has affected delivery times. Rumors say new MBP14&16 inch either 3rd or 4th quarter (3rd quarter is July-Sept)
Larger iMac possible this year. All models rumored to have the new M1X Apple Silicon chips. M1X is seen in backdrops during the WWDC videos.
So IMHO I'd wait and continue to use proxy editing.
Not sure what codec you are using.

I have seen a rumor and Xcode documentation for a new intel MacPro model(s). Find it surprising. Last intel Mac? Xeon and ECC memory may be the hold over reason???

The current M1 based Macs are doing really well with editing 4K and even 8K, including some SONY 4K media, but render times may be long for 8K.
Have to believe the next generation of M1X will handle encoding even better. There is hardware encoding going on as well, so a "Pro" Mac may see improvements here too.

Both Resolve and Premier Pro have reported bugs with M1s so would exercise caution if using.

Still waiting…

Happy Editing, Greg