Benchmark Tests: Adobe Premiere Pro CS6 vs. Apple Final Cut Pro X
- Thread starter Postmaster
- Start date
From a technical standpoint, OpenCL should be capable of great performance on par with CUDA if the programming is done well. The problem with the OpenCL on FCPX is that it's mostly marketing speak. It doesn't really do jack. Claiming that AMD cards do OpenCL "better" is complete misinformation. Nvidia had support before AMD for OpenCL.
FCPX is bad anyways so the point is moot.
FCPX is bad anyways so the point is moot.
simonpwood
Well-known member
Is that last point from a technical standpoint too?
Ok, FCPX is bad.
You naughty little NLE! Bad FCPX! Bad!
Let's keep the discussion relevant to the testing.
Calling one NLE bad or good without providing specific examples leads to sniping, unproductive discourse, and will some times end a thread.
Discussion is good; name calling produces nothing.
Calling one NLE bad or good without providing specific examples leads to sniping, unproductive discourse, and will some times end a thread.
Discussion is good; name calling produces nothing.
KyleProhaska
Veteran
Yea I call bull on the test, because I have a MacPro with a proper ATI card that FCPX loves. If I was doing these exact same tests on my system...I would be getting the opposite result. FCPX beats the pants off Premiere in final export on my machine...in 1080p with filters and all sorts of things, it's much faster then realtime on export. Premiere on the other hand takes a really long time, even just a simple edit with color-correction filters. I was hoping CS6 would speed things up a bit and it's a minor improvement but with my system configuration FCPX is king.
FCPX with the proper card operates like Premiere does with the proper card. They're both insanely fast at exporting given the right components. Neither is going to be much faster then the other with system's optimized for their software.
FCPX with the proper card operates like Premiere does with the proper card. They're both insanely fast at exporting given the right components. Neither is going to be much faster then the other with system's optimized for their software.
Jester2138
Well-known member
Actions speak louder than words, do it and post your results :beer:
KyleProhaska
Veteran
LOL well I'm not gonna take the time to do that and post all that I would need to. I'm just telling you, when I started using FCPX I took identical edits in both and did a simple export to Prores or intermediate codec, not even an export to H264...and FCPX won by a mile. Use what you want, but nothing I've ever used exports as quickly as FCPX does (for me).
Postmaster
Dark Side of the Camera
Of course you would, Premiere would not use an ATI card - but FCPX could have used the Nvida cards open GL.
OpenGL is for 3D graphics. OpenCL is for using a GPU as a processing engine.
KyleProhaska
Veteran
Yea, FCPX is optimized for OpenCL not OpenGL. According to the Adobe folks I heard at their roadshow, OpenCL will slowly be taking more ground in their software as time goes on. We'll see.
Postmaster
Dark Side of the Camera
Yeah, of course I was talking about nvidia's Open CL not open GL.
KyleProhaska
Veteran
So I did a little experiment just to describe what I see when I use both CS6 and FCPX. I took an edit of mine full of Prores422 and 422HQ footage, color corrected it, and exported it as a Prores422 master file on my Hard Drive. This included some sharpening on a few clips, and the color-correction using the color board.
Sequence Length: 2 minutes 24 seconds
FCPX Export Time: 40 seconds
Now you might think this is goofy but just to show what I'm dealing with in CS6, I exported the entire sequence from FCPX without any correction to a Prores file like before which took around 30 seconds or less, didn't time it. I dropped that Prores422 file into Premiere and dragged to the new sequence button so Premiere setup the sequence settings. I check them, they were proper. So you have this 2min 24sec long solid Prores file (no edits) just sitting in the timeline. I go to export, and click "match sequence settings" so there's no trickery going on. Maximum Render Quality was turned OFF.
Premiere Export Time: 1 minute 58 seconds
Now you can see why I prefer the render speeds of FCPX over Premiere. I've tried all sorts of combos, native footage, and also used both my 2011 MBP and my 2009 8-Core 2.93Ghz MacPro with 26GB RAM and ATI 5870 1GB...both give the same or similar results (render time % difference wise). Bottom line in my personal tests on the machines I have, Premiere gets absolutely smoked. I mean I was exporting a solid file from Premiere, I didn't even have a single edit or filter added...and I get these kind of results.
Of course I'm not saying this will happen to everyone, but for those who were interested in what I was talking about...there you go.
Sequence Length: 2 minutes 24 seconds
FCPX Export Time: 40 seconds
Now you might think this is goofy but just to show what I'm dealing with in CS6, I exported the entire sequence from FCPX without any correction to a Prores file like before which took around 30 seconds or less, didn't time it. I dropped that Prores422 file into Premiere and dragged to the new sequence button so Premiere setup the sequence settings. I check them, they were proper. So you have this 2min 24sec long solid Prores file (no edits) just sitting in the timeline. I go to export, and click "match sequence settings" so there's no trickery going on. Maximum Render Quality was turned OFF.
Premiere Export Time: 1 minute 58 seconds
Now you can see why I prefer the render speeds of FCPX over Premiere. I've tried all sorts of combos, native footage, and also used both my 2011 MBP and my 2009 8-Core 2.93Ghz MacPro with 26GB RAM and ATI 5870 1GB...both give the same or similar results (render time % difference wise). Bottom line in my personal tests on the machines I have, Premiere gets absolutely smoked. I mean I was exporting a solid file from Premiere, I didn't even have a single edit or filter added...and I get these kind of results.
Of course I'm not saying this will happen to everyone, but for those who were interested in what I was talking about...there you go.
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KyleProhaska
Veteran
A friend said using native H264 the same way and exporting out to H264 again would be a better test...so I did it.
Tried a sequence of native DSLR footage, 1 minute 33 seconds long. Color-correction in FCPX, edited, etc. Encoding time was 73 seconds out to H264 again, 20000 kb/s 1920x1080, etc. Dropped that exact same file into Premiere, made a proper sequence, exported that solid H264 to H264 again (so no edits like FCPX, a single file to read from, no CC) and it took 1 minute 30 seconds.
I'm not trying to pick a fight here I'm just saying on the systems I use it's not comparable when it comes to render speed. No doubt on a proper PC system Premiere would be awesome, but that's not for me. Premiere has its definite strengths, but I'm always sitting around when I hit the render button.
Tried a sequence of native DSLR footage, 1 minute 33 seconds long. Color-correction in FCPX, edited, etc. Encoding time was 73 seconds out to H264 again, 20000 kb/s 1920x1080, etc. Dropped that exact same file into Premiere, made a proper sequence, exported that solid H264 to H264 again (so no edits like FCPX, a single file to read from, no CC) and it took 1 minute 30 seconds.
I'm not trying to pick a fight here I'm just saying on the systems I use it's not comparable when it comes to render speed. No doubt on a proper PC system Premiere would be awesome, but that's not for me. Premiere has its definite strengths, but I'm always sitting around when I hit the render button.
You don't need to be a PC, you should instead put in a GTX285 and try it again. Since you're using an AMD Radeon card that isn't supported under Premiere CS6 for GPU acceleration your numbers are skewed.
KyleProhaska
Veteran
Well duh, hence my reason to say more then once that "on my system config" things showed the opposite result. The OP's article does the same thing just in the opposite direction lol. It renders both the OP's article a bum test and mine as well. If I put a GTX285 in I'm certain Adobe would win and FCPX would lose.
Bottom line, FCPX isn't a hog during renders, not at all. CS6 isn't either. I don't care to use CS6 most of the time though so I won't be buying a new card. I've given CS6 a try on my 2011 MBP that is able to use my GPU for acceleration and the render speeds between it and FCPX are still night/day. Oh well...