Speeding up FCPX & Motion renders on a Mac Pro with a new NVIDIA GeForce GTX 680 GPU

fcp.co by Andrew Smith

So you are editing on an ageing Mac Pro and you want to speed up your Final Cut Pro X & Motion renders. That's exactly what FCP.co reader Andrew Smith did by installing a new NVIDIA GeForce GTX 680.

As we all know, a new Mac Pro is due to be released this Fall, or for those of us on the east side of the pond, that means after September the 22nd. But what if we want faster renders now or cannot afford the price of the new machine when it is released? Both apps rely heavily on the Graphics Processing Unit, so is it possible to upgrade just that?

It certainly is, Andrew Smith from Sugarway took on the task of installing a new beefy GPU in a 2009 Mac Pro. He also saved over $200 by using the PC model!

This post is going to be a little nerdy but, I hope, useful.

IN the office one of the machines is an early 2009-Intel Xeon X5550 (4,1) maxed out with 32GB RAM an SSD boot drive and 8 CPU cores hooked up to a 30? Cinema display. Day to day Creative Suite work and renders in FCPX, Motion and AE run really quick, however the original 512MB ATI Radeon HD 4870 was starting to show it’s age with some plugins and effects, most notably anything 3D or lighting/lens flare effects. read more...