TOPIC:

I've got MacBook Pro 2012, 2,5Ghz, i5 and 8GB ram. I think rendering is really slow. Does this have anything to do with the external drive has a lot of clips? It's only 200GB of 1TB.

Do I need a 2,9 with 16 GB to see the rendering time go faster?

More RAM won't make rendering faster. You'd want a faster GPU (not CPU). What I'd ask is, what type of external drive are you using? Firewire, USB 2, USB 3?

I have the Intel HD Graphics 4000, so not any good graphic for video editing.

I'm using USB 3. Is Firewire better for video editing? Or do I want to consider a thunderbolt hard drive when editing?

USB 3.0 is just fine, and MUCH better than Firwire, but not as fast as T'bolt. Unless you're doing huge projects with 2K+ files, USB 3.0 should be fine. Be sure that drive always has at least 10-15% of it's total capacity left as free space. Personally, I'm thinking your bottleneck is the GPU, and there's nothing you can do about that on a laptop.

How large is your Event/Project, and what format is the video media?

The project, so far is 15 GB. The event folder is 25 GB. Format is 1080p some 30fps and a few 60fps.

I'm really thinking of buying an iMac with a better GPU. Rendering 5 clips after color correction takes about 2 minutes. And if I add Mojo you can add another 2 minutes.

Mojo is known to render slow on any Mac.
What is the total duration of those 5 clips you're rendering?

If you have a 2012 MBP, it should be fairly good performance, with a USB 3.0 drive. But, did the 2012 MBP have USB 3.0 ports, or just USB 2.0? Cause if it is only USB 2.0, a USB 3.0 drive won't help. It'll work at the USB 2.0 speeds. I don't remember when Apple started using USB 3.0 ports on the MBP.

I have the mid 2012 Mac, and it has USB 3. Think they started in mid 2012.

The total duration is between 10-15 seconds. Also the color correction in FCPX gives me slow render.

Will render time be noticeable faster with iMac with NVIDIA GeForce GT 750M 1 GB? Is it worth it?

Here's what you do. If your USB drive is small enough, or put the clips on a USB stick, and go to the local Apple retail store. They'll have one with FCP X on it. Copy over the clips in to FCP X, do some experiments. They will let you do that. My students and clients do it all the time here locally in Baton Rouge and New Orleans when they're thinking about getting a new Mac.

Good idea! I will absolutely do that!

By the way, is it waste of money going for2x8 GB. Will I notice any difference overall in video editing?

Thank you for your help!

16 GB RAM is what I'm using, can't hurt.

I just ordered 16G GB RAM. I'll see how that goes, and I will go for your suggestion to try a iMac at the store.

Thanks for your help, Ben!