Retina iMac and Final Cut Pro X Put to the Test

The new iMac gets tested on a broadcasting job, in this article. With the addition of RAM, it proves to be a great video production workhorse.

FCPX and the new Retina iMac: Another real broadcast job, real editing and real deadlines

Peter Wiggens on FCP.co I recently took delivery of a new iMac 27-inch with Retina 5K display. So what better opportunity to test it out than the hardest broadcast job I do all year. So how did it and Final Cut Pro X cope? The last two years were with a Mac Pro, would it be fast enough? Every beginning of January, instead of nursing a hangover from the celebrations, I find myself in a quiet leafy part of Surrey. That is until 1300 fans turn up to make it one of the loudest and most fun sporting events of the year. If this all sounds familiar, you'd be right. I have written about this job in 2014 when I was the first person to be handed a new Mac Pro to test out. I also wrote about it again in 2015 to see what had changed in a year. So was I mad taking an iMac out on the road on a demanding broadcast job? Read on, I think you will be surprised. Out of the box, only 8 GB of RAM was installed, which wouldn't be enough for the intensive editing that I do. I ran the Crucial scanner to find out how much RAM I could fit in, 32 GB. This would involve removing the two 4 GB sticks supplied and installing four 8 GB sticks....[continue reading]