“The speed and graphics testing site Bare Feats has tested the latest release of Final Cut Pro X on three very different models of Mac — a 2010 Mac Pro 3.33GHz 6-core Westmere with 24G of ECC DDR3 1333MHz RAM and a Radeon HD 5870 GPU (1G GDDR5); a current-model iMac (a 2011 iMac 3.4GHz Quad Core i7 with 16G of DDR3 1333MHz RAM and a Radeon HD 6970M GPU with 2GB of VRAM onboard), and a current-model MacBook Pro (2011 MacBook Pro 2.3GHz Quad Core i7 with 8G of DDR3 1333MHz RAM and a Radeon HD 6750M with 1GB of VRAM),” Electronista reports. “The results showed a surprisingly tight race.”
Electronista reports, “The main finding of the tests is that the Mac Pro is in serious need of an upgrade, which is rumored to be happening in the next few weeks. Current model iMacs and MacBook Pros can come tantalizingly close or even beat the Mac Pro running Final Cut Pro X, which of course has been designed with current and future equipment in mind.”
Advertisement: Students, parents and Faculty save up to $200 on a new Mac.
“In the Directional Blur effect test (across eight clips with background rendering turned off), the iMac surpassed the Mac Pro by three seconds, a 15 percent advantage,” Electronista reports. “The iMac was also faster using the Sharpen Blur effect, besting the Mac Pro by six seconds for a 20 percent faster finish. In both tests, the MacBook Pro was within a second or so of the Mac Pro in performance.”
Read more in the full article here.
Related articles:
Computerworld: Apple’s new iMac looks great, even faster; in a month of testing, it never crashed – July 1, 2011
The Register reviews Apple’s 27-inch iMac: ‘Serious computing beast; GD gorgeous’ – June 17, 2011
SlashGear reviews Apple’s new iMac: ‘A compelling combination of performance, style and convenience’ – May 14, 2011
Like MacBook Pro, Apple’s new iMacs also offer speedy 450 Mb/s Wi-Fi – May 6, 2011
Benchmarks prove 2011 iMacs 25% faster than last-gen iMacs; 70% faster than Core 2 Duo models – May 6, 2011
Thunderbolt-equipped Mac: You’re so going to want this – May 5, 2011
Apple’s new 27-inch iMacs support dual-monitor out via dual Thunderbolt ports – May 3, 2011
Apple unveils new iMac with next-gen quad-core processors, graphics and Thunderbolt I/O technology – May 3, 2011
“Crush”?
Typical MDN hyperbole.
I that back. It was Electronista that described it as such.
Nonetheless “hyperbole”.
Yes, “crush” when you factor in that the iMac is a consumer device compared to the muscle-flinging power of a Mac Pro. There should be no comparison, but clearly the new iMac has superior technology.
And also note that they said a 3 second faster iMac was 15% faster… and 20% in another test.
That means that all these results were on short tests.
Bump the tests up to something requiring a 5 hour Rendering job. Then tell me 15-20% is a “small” amount..
Crush yes, iMac is what’s on a tropical users desktop, the Mac pro isn’t..
It would be like a high school football team beating the super bowl champs by a last second field goal. Small win by points, but a crushing defeat… The “pro” should have wiped the floor with the amateur team.
Just wait until a coconut falls on the iMacs owned by those tropical users…we’ll see who’s laughing then. At least my Mac Pro won’t be hurt, hiding under my desk.
You know… Autocorrect really gets on my nerves somedays lol.
Tropical=typical.
Not that I relish on making fun of typos, but you made me laugh with your comment.
Final Cut or Final Crush Prof? Falling coconut crushes iMac on tropical users desks… Mac Pros unharmed. Video at 10!
As long as the Mac Pro is done rendering!
The irony is that tropical worked, given that you were dropping coocnuts…
What’s a coocnut?
Well, they did test against a “middle” Mac Pro, not the one with TWELVE cores. The next top end model will probably have SIXTEEN cores.
Actually, I don’t even see that particular Mac Pro config (6-core) being offered anymore.
But this does demonstrate the excellence of these new iMacs.
… had a ~50% faster CPU, twice the RAM, and a somewhat improved GPU, compared to the Pro model. It looks to me like the Pro is actually “faster”, in a comparison with more similar equipment. Boost the CPU OR the RAM that much and you should expect at least a 10% over-all speed boost.
The iMac has 16G RAM, the Mac Pro 24G of the same RAM, so the Mac Pro had the advantage there. A big difference could be the video cards as well.
I’m crushing your head!
I’m pinching your face!!
There’s nobody home!!
Ohh noooooo….
I hate it when that happens.
When a Ford Focus beats a Maserati, the ONLY word is “crush”…
“…the Mac Pro is in serious need of an upgrade, which is rumored to be happening in the next few weeks.”
Perhaps the new Mac Pro will be released along with the now-missing, professional elements of FCP X?
And then everyone’s happy again?
*fingers crossed*
I have no problem waiting a few seconds on a Mac Pro because I don’t have to put up with the blinding glaring glassy glossy screens on the iMac. I love my matte screens and may be upgrading soon to the new Mac Pro’s.
It seems that Apple had little sense of customer wished in the matte vs glossy screen department. FCP-X has jumped up and bitten them in the ass. And Lion may too based on some reports. You cannot ignore your loyal customer base for too long and not expect consequences. Stockholders?
“It seems that Apple has little sense of customer wishes in the matte vs glossy screen department.”
Sorry for the typos. My fervor got in the way of my nimble fingers. 🙁
Bugger off.
NO!
I’m delighted with my current glossy-screen iMac.
But I’d be just as happy with a new Mac Pro; a new 27″ display to go with the 24″ Cinema display that’s my current second display would be nice, too. I don’t miss matte displays at all, frankly.
Actually, us stockholders are pretty happy at the moment.
Isn’t it amazing that consumer-level Macs have approached Pro performance? But I agree that it’s time for a refresh of the Pro line, to set the performance bar still higher.
From a sales standpoint, it’s pretty clear that most people prefer the glossy screens. I’ve got two otherwise identical Macs, one with glossy screen and one with matte screen. I confess that I prefer working with the one that has the glossy screen.
Was FCP-X a mistake? I don’t think so, although the move not to provide additional seats for the previous version was premature, and is already being reversed. FCP-X has really important potentials for performance over the older version, and we’ll see pretty rapid evolution of it.
Lion will introduce several OS departures from previous practice, and that will require adjustments for some. The download-only departure will cause me a bit of grief, because I’ve got a slow satellite broadband access. But I’ll get over it. No Rosetta? I’ll keep an older Mac for the very rare instances I may need it.
Yes, it’s great that the performance of the iMac are approaching the performance of the Mac Pro’s, especially when high end iMacs were always in the $3,000+ price range. I’ve been buying and using Macs for decades, and my new iMac configured the same way as the Bare Feats test model is an ABSOLUTE screamer. Apple hit it out of the park with this new model with SSD, and for the money, it’s about time.
There’s a very simple explanation. It’s the GPU. The Radeon 5870 in the Mac Pro is one full generation behind the 6970 and 6750 that are in the iMac and MBP. If they had equivalent graphics cards, the Mac Pro would still be king of the hill. And, while there may be GPU-intensive tasks where the newer Macs have an advantage, the Mac Pro still excels on CPU-intensive tasks in pro apps that take advantage of multiple cores.
All the Mac Pro really needs is a modern graphics card, 6G eSATA internal support for today’s super-fast SSDs, and Thunderbolt. For my high-volume professional photography business, Aperture is still stupidly fast on my 2008 8-core 2.8GHz Mac Pro with an SSD boot and three hard drives as a RAID 0 data volume. It spits out JPEGs from adjusted RAW files 20 times faster than my MBP of the same era.
When Apple releases the “Multiverse Core iMac” it will spank everything in it’s path!
Why not just quote Barefeats directly?
@MacDailyNews Great – More uplifting news for those of us who have put our very livelehoods on the line getting MacPros. What a nightmare.
New Mac Pro’s to have special Intel chip that will appear first in the marketplace in Apple products. I give you your new Mac Pro Models, for application and server use!
Of course, Final Cut Pro 7 “crushes” FCP X in usability. It’s shaking out that FCP is a demo program… looks good when people “demo it” but it lacks so many basic fine control features it is worthless for actually getting anything edited.
Oh, and did I mention the Army of pissed off FCP people that are giving Apple a few weeks to “fix” the FCP mess. If it is not fixed, that Army will turn from being fan boys to major league Apple detractors. Apple is showing signs of going the way of Microsoft (meaning: anything for a buck) and screw the old loyal base that got them where they are today. Pro apps SHOULD require a bit of intelligence and NOT be easy enough to use at the expense of having fine control. Apple should be ashamed of turning from a “cool” company into just another corporate mega giant that cares only for the bottom line.
“Hurts so good
Sometimes love don’t feel like it should
Hurt so good”
Just like that, you go from fan boys to major league Apple detractors?
Your threshold for tolerance is laughable. Pro apps do not a pro make. You can take your army of one and shove it up your ass.
FCP X is hardly finished and if you’re waiting for Apple to abandon it in favor of FCP 8, don’t hold your breath.
Your rhetoric is no different than all those silly whiners who said as much when Apple stopped developing OS 9 in favor of OS X.
All those “pros” who said they’d invested small fortunes in software for OS 9, including third-party plug-ins, and blah blah blah…
No one likes change for change’s sake but FCP 7 is long overdue for a complete rewrite.
FCP X will spawn a new generation of video enthusiasts and you’ll still be doing whatever it is you do.
{=)
I think the real surprise in the results is also how well the MacBook Pro performed telling me how old the Mac Pro is getting.
Mac Pro obviously needs some update love from Apple to stay relevant at this point. My 2008 is still very much rocking these days.
@ Majikthize : Thank you for cutting through the BS!
Geekbench, which measures CPU and memory access performance, not GPU performance, tells the real story: http://www.primatelabs.ca/geekbench/mac-benchmarks/
The latest iMacs and MacBooks have about half the processing capability of last year’s Mac Pros. Presumably this year, the Mac Pro will be again refreshed with the latest GPUs, which hopefully will silence these fluff journal articles.