TOPIC:

I’m considering using a Mac Pro to edit a web series with FCP X and am in need of some configuration advice. I would like the Mac Pro to be able to edit HD and 4K video.

Using the following base Mac Pro specs, what upgrades do you suggest making that aren’t terribly expensive, which would future proof this computer? What monitor would you also recommend?

3.7GHz Quad-Core Intel Xeon E5 with 10MB of L3 cache
Apple 12GB (three 4GB) of 1866MHz DDR3 ECC memory
256GB PCIe-based flash storage
Dual AMD FirePro D300 GPUs with 2GB of GDDR5 VRAM each

Thanks!

First, I'd go with an iMac and a nice T'bolt RAID, 16 GB RAM, SSD drive (I've no evidence flash drives help video editing), D700 GPUs for sure. The 500's have been shown to lag behind the 700's by a great deal. But I'd look at an iMac instead. The newest iMacs perform about as well as the 2013 model Mac Pro, here in 2015, 2 years later with no updates or update options.

Ben,

Are you talking about the 5K iMacs? If yes, it's been reported that they have heating issues when editing and rendering.

Here are two articles about these issues.

forums.macrumors.com/threads/imac-retina...d-fan-noise.1831739/

discussions.apple.com/thread/6641477?start=15&tstart=0

I'm not sure why I would want a 5K screen...

You wrote iMac in your first response. Was that a typo? Did you mean Mac Pro?

Yes, iMac. Just not because of the 5K screen.

What iMac do you recommend?