BruceX: Try this new Final Cut Pro X benchmark

To help people work out which Macs work best with Final Cut Pro X, it is useful to refer to a standard speed test.

All but one of the MacBook Pros with Retina configurations do not have dedicated GPUs. New Mac software is depending more and more on GPU power. Editors want to know if the integrated Intel Iris and Iris Pro Graphics GPUs are powerful enough to run professional software well.

Early testing shows that Iris Pro graphics are better than many expected. Take a look at a new post at Bare Feats:

In the past we sneered at the integrated GPUs and their puny performance. Not any more. The Intel Iris and Iris Pro are every bit the match or master of discrete NVIDIA Mobile GPUs — at least when it comes to OpenCL acceleration.

Although it is great news that integrated GPUs are getting better, many are worried that the MacBook Pros should be avoided until Iris Pro has improved a little more.

A speed test proposed by FCP.co was to time the render of Final Cut Pro X’s built-in ‘Far Far Away’ title on a 23.975 1080p timeline. This test puts enough pressure on main memory and GPU memory to separate older generation Macs from more recent computers.

Over at the the FCP.co forum, qbe asked me to do the ‘Far Far Away’ test on my new late 2013 MacBook Pro 15″ using only the built-in Iris Pro Graphics and also on only the Discrete GeForce GT 750M GPU which I included in my BTO Mac.

It turns out that the test wasn’t tough enough to show a difference between the two GPUs:

MacBook Pro late-2013 Discrete GeForce GT 750M 2GB 18.8 seconds
MacBook Pro late-2013 Intel Iris Pro Graphics 1GB 19.2 seconds

I’ve come up with a test that shows the differences between these GPUs and other Macs…

The BruceX benchmark

BruceX is a small Final Cut Pro X XML file that you import into Final Cut Pro. It creates a very short timeline at a high resolution: 5120 by 2700 (at 23.975 fps). It uses standard Final Cut generators, titles and transitions. As it uses many layers of complex content, it requires lots of GPU RAM.

The Bruce X benchmark is based on timing how long a Mac configuration takes to export the project.

Short instructions

To use this, open the Final Cut Pro library at

https://Alex4D.com/BruceX.fcpbundle.zip

…and time the export of a 5K master file from the timeline.

Detailed instructions

1. Have both QuickTime Player and Final Cut Pro open at the same time.

2. In Final Cut Pro, go to ‘Final Cut Pro:Preferences…’ – in the Playback tab make sure ‘Background render’ is off.

3. Make sure no libraries are open. Open the BruceX.fcpbundle library which contains a very short but complex 5K project.

4. Click the new ‘BruceX Test – 5K ‘ project timeline (this makes the Share command selectable)

5. Export the QuickTime movie by choosing “File:Share:Master File…’

6. In the dialogue box that appears, click the ‘Settings’ Tab

7. In the ‘Video Codec’ section choose a flavour of ‘ProRes’

8. From the ‘When Done’ pop-up menu, choose ‘Open With QuickTime Player’

9. Click the ‘Next…’ button in the bottom-right of the dialogue box

10. In the Save sheet, choose a name and location for the export – export to your fastest drive connected using your fastest connection.

11. Get your stopwatch ready and time from when you click ‘Save’ until you see the movie open up in QuickTime Player.

12. If possible do the export at least three times. Your configuration’s BruceX Score is the average export time in seconds. Before timing the next export, restart Final Cut (otherwise the exports speed up each time because X does a little caching renders to save time).

These results include those posted at the FCP.co Forum and from BareFeats.com.

The results show that BruceX tests processor power, but also shows that Iris Pro Graphics has some way to go to match a discrete graphics GPU in the new MacBook Pro 15″ with Retina

MacBook Pro late-2013 2.6 Ghz Quad Core i7
16GB 1600 MHz
1 TB SSD
Discrete GeForce GT 750M 2GB GPU
OS X 10.9.0
88 seconds

MacBook Pro late-2013 2.6 Ghz Quad Core i7
16GB 1600 MHz
1 TB SSD
Iris Pro Graphics 1GB GPU
OS X 10.9.0
163 seconds

( To choose which GPU to use for the test on my MacBook Pro, I used gfxCardStatus by Cody Krieger – a Shareware app downloaded from gfx.io )