Will I have enough processing power?

[Teereexx]

I am looking to purchase the $1,999 15" MacBook Pro with Retina Display (Can be referenced here http://www.apple.com/shop/buy-mac/macbook-pro). My question is in regards to it's processing power. The specs I'm interested in for it are as follows:

• 2.2 GHz quad-core Intel Core i7
• Turbo Boost up to 3.4 GHz
• 16GB 1600MHz memory
• Intel Iris Pro Graphics

I'm looking to do video editing, music production and graphic design such as Photoshop on this computer. What's also important is I want to be able to edit 4k footage on this computer which I understand can be taxing if there isn't enough processing power. Would this computer be able to comfortably handle processing these programs or should I look at purchasing a 13" quad-core Intel Core i7 with 3.1 GHz for $200 more (Not listed on the Apple website but is in their retail store). Thank you for your input.

 

[lclev]

I would go with the 15" - it actual has a faster processor. Download Mactracker in the app store. It is free and you can compare specs.

The 15" i7 at 2.2 benchmarks at 12313. The 13" at 3.1 benchmarks at 8675. (Higher number is better and faster.)

The graphics card will make a huge difference but you are basically stuck with Apple's choice on that.

Lisa

 

[chas_m]

I don't disagree entirely with Lisa, but processing power is not the be-all and end-all of factors at play here. A good video card and very fast storage would be at least as important, if not more important, than the processor alone when working on large video files.

 

[lclev]

I agree chas_m, but when I checked out the models the OP listed, they both will come with SSD's and it looks like Intel Iris Pro Graphics (different chipsets) and will use up to 1.5 GB of system memory for GPU processing. I did not dig any deeper into the video card aspect of it then that.

I am well aware of how SSD's and a high end video card will add a whole new level of speed to video editing. I just used multi-camera in Premiere Pro to mix a four camera wedding taping. First time I have used my Mac Pro to do this. In the past I have used my Windows 7 editor as the Mac Pro addition is recent. The MP has a nVidia GeForce GTX 780 3GB onboard memory, dual 6-core Xeons, and 32GB of system memory. In the past, on the Windows editor - which has an SSD, dual Xeons, 24GB memory, and Nvidia GeForce GTX 770 with 4GB - I would get some stuttering on the different camera views. I won't go into the total details. I will say there was no comparison and I was more than pleased with the MP's performance.

Yes, I do agree that an SSD plus a beefy video card makes a big difference. But we are talking about a Macbook Pro and there are not as many options. If the OP is planning on doing a lot of 4K long videos then there will be considerable processing time required - like hours. For example, on my MP, I recently finished a project of a taping of a two day conference. It ended up being 4 hours long shot in 4K. It took about an hour and a half to encode then another hour to burn the dual layer DVD. And that is fast when you look at the amount of material, the fact it was 4K, I was squishing it down to fit on the 8.5GB DL disk, and changing the quality because we are not able to mass copy blu-ray yet. I would still be waiting on a MB Pro.

Lisa

 

[pigoo3]

One thing to remember. Not all apps use all cores. Thus in some cases…the quad-core CPU of the 15" MBP may not always be an advantage when doing CPU intensive activities.

- Nick