Opinions, Mac pro 12 core or 6 core for video editing?

If you do rendering, keep the 12-core.

A wash probably, no at best to 12 core though dual is slower and the overhead and software efficiencies, 2nd cpu doesn't pull its own aswell so... I'd base it on which one fetches higher resell. Unless you need a backup system and can keep both.

Go with the clock speed.

http://macperformanceguide.com/Optimizing-Grades.html

http://macperformanceguide.com/Reviews-MacProWestmere-Photoshop-CoresSlower.html

http://forums.creativecow.net/thread/8/1146955

http://community.avid.com/forums/p/105276/609229.aspx

Here is my thinking:

If you dump the 12-core, and your rendering work does not seem to run fast enough, you will kick yourself for dumping the one with more cores -- Regardless of whether it would actually be faster or not.

If you dump the 6-core, and your regular work does not run fast enough, you will say, "This one has more cores than anything. When I can support two again, I should buy myself an additional Mac Pro, maybe just a 6-core."

If you had it all to do over again:

Definitley buy the fast 6-core over the 4-core Base model. Twice the performance at 1.5 times the price. Lower power consumption and less complexity than the dual-chip models. A "sweet spot".

Or buy the base model and plan to upgrade the chip yourself to a fast 6-core later.

If you Mac Pro isnt too new, you can sell the 6 core and later swap the 2.4Ghz processor for Xeon 3.2s. What is you model?

Btw you find that by going to About this Mac > More Info > Hardware > Model Identifier > (MacPro 1,1)

The bit in brackets will be the model ID

After Effects: http://www.barefeats.com/aecs6.html

If you rely on cpu alone, it may look like it is working, or lagging, or wating, but with the combined power of GPGPU can make all the difference.

Communicating over Quick-Path is okay but Intel knows that they need to up the GT and L3 cache to improve it more. ie, there are times when two 6-core Mac Pros are faster than one 12-core, given the same GHz.

the real reason people bought dual with lower clock was hoping it would do more work, but when you have 3.33GHz a lot of work that cann't be dispatched and is not multi-thread or multicore all benefit.

W3680s are relatively cheap @ $600, you will not find X5600 sets unless you can make your system pay for whatever you throw at it and do so in a year to write it off and pay for doing more projects and more income.

This guy goes kind of crazy with custom setup 12-core 3.33s, 960GB SSD PCIe and 96GB RAM.

More RAM helps some areas but not rendering. So find the bottlenecks or throw everything at the problem and hope.

$1660 a piece X5680 - $1470 on Amazon

http://ark.intel.com/products/47916/Intel-Xeon-Processor-X5680-(12M-Cache-3_33-G Hz-6_40-GTs-Intel-QPI)

http://www.amazon.com/Intel-X5680-Processor-Socket-LGA1366/dp/B003ELYSJQ/

Only if you shop ebay for used parts, and by then whatever Intel and Apple agree on next go round new is a better system solution most of the time than to throw $3000 into an older system. $3k would be another 6-core 3.33 if that helps.

That is not a fair test of a 12 cores power. A single effect on a single clip will not be split into more than six threads on most programs and the 6 core will outperform the 12 on anything with less than around 8 intensive threads quite easily. Also take into account that the GPU is leveraged Premiere Pro so everything has other factors involved except AE. (Unless you turn on OpenGL AE does not use GPGPU and if you do AE does not use the processor).

Try opening a finished project with 20+ clips and banks of effects and the 12 core should eat it alive at render and export on everything but FCP (due to the thread limit), unelss the 6 core has a faster GPU and the program is using GPGPU acceleration. If so your solution is to swap the GPU into the 12 core for even more power.

Either way I am keen to see the result. The fact is you are comparing the workstation equivalent of an i7 agains 2 older i7s at a lower clock speed and the 2 should win.

Just to add FCP's limitation is mean to be circumvented by exporting it to compressor. Try it there and there should be a huge performance boost as Compressor has no thread limit.

6-core and 12-core are MacPro 5,1 models from 2010 or later.

Then I stand corrected, you are comparing the workstation equivalent of an i7 agains 2 i7s at a lower clock speed and the 2 should win theoretically.

(I keep forgetting that Sandy Bridge E never made it onto the 2012 Mac Pro)

Nehalem Xeon Westmere's and Quick-Path do not equal i7's nor are 2 a geometric upscale curve.

GHz always matters, esp 1GHz difference

Apple never offered 12@3.33 which wouldbe the killer machine