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Level 1

2 points

Will Upgrading My Graphics Card Speed up Export Time?

Hello:

I am new to FCPX and I shot my first movie yeasterday and loved editing in FCPX. Here s my computer specs before I ask my question

Mac Pro 2009 Quad Core 2.93 GHZ

24GB Ram

Graphic Card - NVIIDA GT120 512mb

I use this computer for my recoridng studio and it works perfectly but now when working with video there are two things I noticed while working with my first project. I shot a 1920 X 1080 60P on my HD camcorder and the moive was 32 minutes. Here are the issues

1. Im FCPX the play head in the time line sometimes seems a little choppy and the background render is pretty slow at times as well.

2. When I went to export, the movie was going to me almost 10GB, so I purchased Compressor and in FCP went under FILE, SEND TO COMPRESSOR. I choose a 720P setting and started to process the batch. It took almost 8 hours to compress that footage which brought the file down to 1.5GB which was really great and the quality looks stunning, so I am happy aobut that.

In doing some reseach, I found that upgrading my stock graphics card may be the solution to some of the speed issues in FCPX. I nver gave that a tohught as I am new to the video editing world. I was looking at a

Sapphire HD 7950 3GB MAC Eddition

This seems like to would be a mjor upgrade to my graphic card. So my question is, by upgrading my graphic card woudl this help my issues I described aobuve? I got to image that it could not hurt for sure.

Thnaks for your time in advance.

Posted on Apr 14, 2014 2:31 AM

34 replies

Apr 15, 2014 7:31 AM in response to vignola

Yes, getting that video card will greatly speed up FCP X.

This web page from Rob shows a Radeon 7970 being over twice as fast in FCP X as a Radeon 5770 on the same 2010 Mac Pro tower:

http://www.barefeats.com/tube05.html

And I think the 5770 is faster than your card!

For just a few hundred bucks, you can make that 2009 Mac Pro sooooo much faster. You can even put in a second video card on that old Mac Pro!

Your hard drive speed is HUGE for responsiveness while editing too. I highly recommend getting a PCI card for that Mac Pro with SSD on it for a working drive and then move projects that are finished to a larger internal HD. I have a 2008 Mac Pro and with my upgraded video card and SSD drive, FCP X is plenty fast enough for 1080p. When I first started using FCP X, I was having all kinds of crashing and spinning wheels of death and it turns out it was simply a slow HD. I put in this PCI card:

http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/SSD/PCIe/OWC/Mercury_Accelsior/RAID

Now, this 6-year old Mac Pro is very responsive with 1080p. I'm actually going to make this machine much faster, again, but getting that Saphire card (I have the 5770).

So for $1,000, you can make your current Mac very close to a new $5,000 Mac Pro in FCP X. Unfortunately, that's why Apple's new Mac Pro has no user upgradable PCI slots. They'd rather you buy a whole new Mac Pro than just getting a $400-$500 video card from someone else. Too bad.

Also, make sure you turn off Background Render in the Playback preference. This saves you a lot of time. You don't need it for most clips and you can render individual clips that are composited that are too choppy.

vignola Author

Level 1

2 points

Apr 15, 2014 8:09 AM in response to Scot Walker

Hi Scot,

So you are sayung that getting the Saffire 7950 Hd card I mentioned in my oriignal post is a good ida and will speed up FCPX? or are you recomending a different card?

I have also considered adding an SSD PCIe card to my system and run the FCP projects off that. Once I export it to a final product the size will only be 1GB to 5GB. Then I can store those finished projects on my 1TB internal HD and I could even delete the project files. My home movies and YouTube tutorials are not somethign I will go back and "re-edit", once its done , its done.

Let me ask you, the PCIe SSD you added, are you using it just for FCPX projects or did you replace your main HD with all your applications with the SSD drive? Should I keep the main Mac HD drive with all the applications, including FCPX and just use the SSD for working projects?

and at the eod of the day, does all of this make the exporting time faster or just the rendering and performance of the program while editing?

Apr 15, 2014 8:24 AM in response to vignola

Yes, I'd recommend getting that 7950. You will see a huge speed increase just doing that.

I have the 480 gig SSD. I did a 113 minute feature film shot on a 5D Mark II and I put all the footage and the FCP X project file on that SSD and nothing else. I also have 4 SATA hard drives, internally, where I keep everything else. I have the fastest SATA 3 TB drives I could find at the time of purchase (Seagate).

Put your working project footage and project file on the SSD. Get the new video card. Turn off background render. BAM! You will see a much, much better editing experience.

vignola Author

Level 1

2 points

Apr 15, 2014 8:36 AM in response to Scot Walker

Ok, thanks for the advice. So your SSD is only for the FCPX project file that you are currently editing?

What about exporting? How did you find that speed? My delimia is that it takes 8 hours to export a 30 min video. Did you see an increase in exporting?

vignola Author

Level 1

2 points

Apr 16, 2014 1:38 AM in response to vignola

Well - Just found out the hard way that the Saffire 7950 is not compatable with the 2009 mac pro, only the 2010 -2012 mac pros. So does anyone recomend a good upgrade graphic card for an early 2009 Mac Pro? All the reseach I have done thus far has not shown much. On apples website they have a couple of different cards but want $1500+ for them and for that kind of money, I'll just buy a new I-mac.....LOL

Russ H

Level 7

22,432 points

Apr 16, 2014 3:55 AM in response to vignola

If you have concluded that the solution to your export times is hardware, why not post in the MP forums for upgrade advice?

Russ

vignola Author

Level 1

2 points

Apr 16, 2014 4:47 AM in response to Russ H

HI rus,

yes I did post something in hardware this moring to see if I can get a solution to my issue. Thank you for your help I do apprecate it. These computers are a pain in the butt....lol

Apr 16, 2014 5:45 AM in response to vignola

Says it supports early 2009 Mac Pros. I've read people using them in 2008 Mac Pros successfully, too. You bought one and it won't work? Maybe it's a defective card.

vignola Author

Level 1

2 points

Apr 17, 2014 4:44 AM in response to Russ H

Hi russ - I did the test with the iphone footage. I took about 15 min worth of footage from my iphone and created a test project in FCPX on my mac pro. I used

export - masterfile - h.264 - 1920x1080

total fotage time in time line was 15min

it took aobut 45 min to export which seems slow to me but comparing that to the 30 min of footage off my camcorder which was shot in 1920x1080 60P that took 8 hours to export.

So it seem like the camcorder footage is really bogging down the system. The question is, is it a Graphic card issue or maybe the HD which is a WD 7200rpm black drive?

I would think that a 30 min project should only take aobut 45-60 min to export.

any words of wisdom?

Russ H

Level 7

22,432 points

Apr 17, 2014 6:52 AM in response to vignola

vignola wrote:

it took aobut 45 min to export which seems slow to me but comparing that to the 30 min of footage off my camcorder which was shot in 1920x1080 60P that took 8 hours to export.

That doesn't strike me as unusually long. H.264 is great compressed codec, but it's not a piece of cake to transcode.

As I indicated earlier, is you were to export the phone footage as Pro Res, it would provide a good indicator of how healthy your setup is. You should get faster than real time, or better, with a Pro Res export.

Just to be clear, I've not been saying that a new card wouldn't speed things up. It would. What I am saying is that something is amiss somewhere that has nothing to do with your card. Increasingly, it appears the problem lies with the media.

Russ

vignola Author

Level 1

2 points

Apr 17, 2014 6:57 AM in response to Russ H

Hi Rus,

I totally hear you. I think certainly a new graphic card and SSD drive would all arond help for sure. How much is not clear but I'm sure it would help. Now my delima is do I spend $1500 on a 2009 mac pro? Part of me thinks that if I plan to keep it another 3-5 years then it's worth the investent. If however, I would eventually end up with a new Mac Pro then I should take plunge now?

decessions, decessions

Russ H

Level 7

22,432 points

Apr 17, 2014 7:03 AM in response to vignola

Another way of looking at this: If most of the editing you do is going to be with footage you, yourself shoot, it might be more cost-effective to buy a different camera.

Russ

vignola Author

Level 1

2 points

Apr 17, 2014 7:04 AM in response to Russ H

I just bought this camera and it takes wonderful video so thats not an option.....lol. I also use it to produce video turtorials for my YT channel so i want the high quality footage for sure.

Russ H

Level 7

22,432 points

Apr 17, 2014 11:20 AM in response to vignola

Good luck.

Russ

vignola Author

Level 1

2 points

Apr 22, 2014 5:58 PM in response to Russ H

I thought someone may want to know because it may help someone else down the road., I found a new ATI radon 5870 still in the Apple packing for $400 from an online retailer. I installed it tonight and I immediately noticed how much more responsive my Mac Pro was in both launching applications and how much more responsive FCPX became. As for rendering, it does seem faster as well.

I took the same project that took nearly 8 hours to export. I used all the same export settings to achieve a fair comparison. As I write this post, that 32 min project is at 85% complete in 1 hr / 15 min. So, it appears that just simply upgrading the video card did in fact help speed up exporting times. Again, the computer runs more "snappy" as well. If I were to upgrade to an SSD as well I'll bet that would help.

Will Upgrading My Graphics Card Speed up Export Time?