Hi Marianna (and other forummemebers),

We're in the middle of building a new edit suite with MC7 and eagerly waiting for the MC7 update that makes an end to the Mavericks issues. Until now we've used MC on PC, but we want to make the switch to mac. And we are going to use artist mix and artist control and aja i/o. So should the new update also make an end to Mavericks issues with Artist mix and control?
What apple system would you recommend: imac i5/i7 or new upcoming Mac Pro? Is the Mac Pro going to be noticable faster and smoother with MC7? I ask the question cause several people told me that MC isn't using the mulitple cores of multiple processor systems optimal. So a mxed out system seems to be throwing money out the door. Any useful advice? Thanks in advance.

Tx in advance 

And will the new Avid MC make use of open CL?

Bart Beckers:

Hi Marianna (and other forummemebers),

We're in the middle of building a new edit suite with MC7 and eagerly waiting for the MC7 update that makes an end to the Mavericks issues. Until now we've used MC on PC, but we want to make the switch to mac. And we are going to use artist mix and artist control and aja i/o. So should the new update also make an end to Mavericks issues with Artist mix and control?
What apple system would you recommend: imac i5/i7 or new upcoming Mac Pro? Is the Mac Pro going to be noticable faster and smoother with MC7? I ask the question cause several people told me that MC isn't using the mulitple cores of multiple processor systems optimal. So a mxed out system seems to be throwing money out the door. Any useful advice? Thanks in advance.

Tx in advance 

Bart

I split the post so this didnt get lost in a 5 page thread on Mavericks.  Here is the scoop on what you need to know from the testing god Dave. :)

The iMac, MacBook Pro and Mac Mini use Intel core i7 processors (quad core with HyperThreading).  They have a maximum virtual core count of 8,  which still has performance limitations with J2K, AVCI and other HD codecs. 

The new Mac Pro has one Intel Xeon CPU with 4, 6, 8, 10 or 12 cores plus HyperThreading (8 to 24 virtual cores). 

This is 3 x more CPU performance than the iMac! Plenty of horsepower for J2K, AVCI, and some 4K codecs.   

Media Composer will definitely use this extra CPU power for codecs and effects.  I can’t tell how much faster this system will be until they are shipping and we have one to test but the tech specificatons show this is what they will do.

However, this new Mac is limited as it only has Thunderbolt IO (no PCI-e slots) and only one CPU chip. 

The high end workstation PCs have dual CPUs for up to 48 virtual cores. These systems also have PCI-e slots, extra drive slots, 8 or 16 DIMM slots (VS 4 DIMM slots on MAC Pro).  The PCi-e slots are still useful for storage controllers, 10GbE controllers, Codec accelerator cards (like Red), and IO interface cards. 

As for the Artist Mix etc.... those are expected to work with Mavericks as well.  I have one and I will be putting it thru the paces this weekend on 7.0.3.

Marianna 

Talking about the as yet unreleased new Mac Pro,  I'm curious if Media Composer 7 makes good use of the GPUs, i.e. when buying a new computer, is it generally worth it to get the higher end GPU offerings by Apple?  Or, does it matter how you use MC, if so, what functions use the GPU vs CPU? (Assuming Avid qualifies all of the GPUs and not just one of them...)

I'm assuming that Dave is saying that more cores (even at a slower clock rate) is better than fewer cores at a faster clock rate for MC 7?  I believe this is how the new Mac Pro will be offered, more cores = slightly slower GHz.

Eric