Best used mac models for FCP 4k under $1000 - with OBS as my secondary concern

Question

Level 1

13 points

Best used mac models for FCP 4k under $1000 - with OBS as my secondary concern

Greetings FCP gurus

What are your recommendations for a $1000 used mac for FCP - the better and worse choices considering choices kinda suck for OBS? I am buying a used mac (no preference imac, mini, pro etc) and I need to select best model, year, cpu, graphics

PRIMARILY: to optimize power for FCP 4k editing.

SECONDARILY:

I will be putting together my first programs in OBS(till I can afford a solid windows machine for OBS). I want to begin to use OBS as much as I can producing some streaming zoom programs using as much of the capabilities as my config will allow.

What are the better and worse macs in this scenario - with the contradictions in mind?

1. FCP needing “Metal-capable graphics cards” and “OBS depends on OpenGL on MacOS”

2. Hardware Encoding (NVENC) “reduces the load on your CPU in OBS” - not being available on the mac

3. Tweaking and optimizing for OBS on the MAC

4. Using bootcamp to load windows on the mac and run OBS getting some advantage.

5. Could combining a mac with an eGPU be worth the hassle?

A couple of examples I saw on craigslist today

https://sfbay.craigslist.org/sby/sys/d/mountain-view-imac-computer/7166375743.html

https://sfbay.craigslist.org/sby/sys/d/san-jose-apple-mac-pro-51-fully/7164471863.html

THAAANKS!!!

Mac Pro

Posted on Jul 28, 2020 11:47 AM

Reply

Answer 1

rkaufmann87

Level 10

148,470 points

Jul 28, 2020 12:39 PM in response to Don Spark

First,

Never buy a used Mac from Ebay. Please purchase from a reputable source such as Macsales.com or even better buy an Apple Refurbished computer directly from Apple.

I have no idea what OBS is however "Metal" became available on iMacs beginning in 2012 so any iMac made after 2012 would work. The items to look for on an iMac is never buy a basic model 21.5 that has a Fusion Driver or a 5400 RPM HD. Only buy 21.5" models that have a minimum of 16GB of RAM and the largest SSD possible, you will be VERY sorry if you do not heed this advice.

If you decide on a 27" model iMac get any 2012 or later iMac, again only purchase one with a SSD. The RAM is upgradeable on 27" iMacs so you can buy one with 8GB of RAM then upgrade the RAM yourself, please only use Crucial.com or Macsales.com RAM though as iMacs are sensitive to using quality RAM.

On Mac Mini's "Metal GPUs" became available in 2012 as well.

All Macs since about 2006 have had the ability to install MS Window using Bootcamp. Bootcamp is part of Mac OS and allows one to install and run MS Windows. Please refer to https://support.apple.com/boot-camp#:~:text=Boot%20Camp%20is%20a%20utility,Get%20started%20with%20Boot%20Camp

Reply

Answer 2

Don Spark Author

Level 1

13 points

Jul 28, 2020 3:50 PM in response to BDAqua

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_Broadcaster_Software

https://obsproject.com/

I believe it is the most popular opensource software video/multimedia mixer for live-streaming (also recording) originally developed for livestreaming gaming. It has become an extraordinary opensource project and respectable in it's class...and free.

Reply