Final Cut Pro X: 2013 MBP vs 2016 MBP

I've had a late 2013 build of a 15" MBP for about three years now. It's got the following specs:
2.3ghz
16GB
512GB
NVIDIA GPU

I use Final Cut Pro on the MBP to import, edit, and pricess 4K videos on Youtube. I noticed that the MBP was taking a while to upload videos and there was serious lag.

I decided to get a fully loaded 2016 MBP:
2.9ghz
16GB
1TB
Radeon 460.

To make sure I didn't just jump the gun on upgrading for the sake of upgrading, I set up both MBP's side by side to "write" the same video - both plugged in, both using the same wifi connection, and with no other programs running.

The late 2013 build was processing the video much faster than the newer MBP.

How is that even possible with a slower CPU and a slower GPU?

Welcome to our forums.

There's no doubt your new 2016 is a faster machine than the 2013. The question about "how is that even possible" is one we can't answer without digging into all the specifics. On paper, the 2016 should definitely process the video faster. You might want to evaluate the new machine by putting it thru whatever paces and jobs you normally do and then decide if it's a keeper. You would need to return it to Apple before two weeks are up (if you're dissatisfied with its performance).

I would assume, the internal drive on the newer machine is a rotational hard disk (HDD) and not a solid state (SSD) drive.

Actually it is SSD on the newer machine.

I would be more interested in how well it edited. How smooth did it scub video, how fast did it encode, how well does it handle multiple camera editing, how smoothly does it play un-rendered video that has a ton of tweaks? Does it perform significantly faster than the 2013 MBP?

Slow uploading can be a finicky wireless card or an issue with the wireless router/access point. Check to see if your wireless router needs a firmware update. The new macbook pro will be running all the newer bells and whistles and that could be causing an issue. If nothing helps I would have the apple store do a diagnostics and if it all looks great then you have a decision to make - if you keep it or not.

If it is not significantly faster working with video and the uploading speed is that slow - I personally would return it.

Lisa

lclev said:

I would be more interested in how well it edited. How smooth did it scub video, how fast did it encode, how well does it handle multiple camera editing, how smoothly does it play un-rendered video that has a ton of tweaks? Does it perform significantly faster than the 2013 MBP?

Slow uploading can be a finicky wireless card or an issue with the wireless router/access point. Check to see if your wireless router needs a firmware update. The new macbook pro will be running all the newer bells and whistles and that could be causing an issue. If nothing helps I would have the apple store do a diagnostics and if it all looks great then you have a decision to make - if you keep it or not.

If it is not significantly faster working with video and the uploading speed is that slow - I personally would return it.

Lisa

Click to expand...

Thank you for your suggestion.

I did some reading and decided to try another test - instead of a workflow that uploads straight to Youtube, I tried to strictly render a small clip with 3D effects.

The results were finally what was expected - this time the 2016 tMBP destroyed the 2013 MBP in rendering the video. Not sure what the difference is between what I was doing before and this because I'm still learning my way around FCPX - but I was satisfied with the results.

I'm going to do some more comparisons over the weekend.

I had another thought. I do not use Final Cut Pro. I did a free trial once with it so I have some familiarity with it. Can I assume you are uploading directly out of FCP? If so are the setting the exact same on both computers. Encoding quality especially can make a big difference in the time it takes. Check out this video which explains how to look at the export settings.

https://www.lynda.com/YouTube-tutorials/Uploading-from-Final-Cut-Pro-X/118960/133962-4.html

Also you can export from FCP to your tMBP then upload to Youtube. That is the way I do it as I need to keep an archive copy of the video plus I just like to actually go to Youtube and make sure all the settings and information are they way I want them to be. I found the one time I uploaded from FCP it was a lot slower than if I exported to the computer and uploaded from there. It is also possible that the server you were uploading to was very busy and that made things go slow. I have had videos upload in less that 10 minutes (mine are all around an hour long) and others take over an hour all due to the server receiving a lot of traffic at the time I was uploading.

Lisa

I did some reading and decided to try another test - instead of a workflow that uploads straight to Youtube, I tried to strictly render a small clip with 3D effects.

The results were finally what was expected - this time the 2016 tMBP destroyed the 2013 MBP in rendering the video. Not sure what the difference is between what I was doing before and this because I'm still learning my way around FCPX - but I was satisfied with the results.

I also checked the fcp.co site and tried out the Bruce X benchmark.

The tbMBP averaged 19.40 seconds over three attempts while the 2013 MBP averaged over double that.

I think that answers any questions I had about the performance of the machine.