Question for the Computer Geeks (iMac)

Joined
Jun 23, 2016
Messages
865
Reaction score
534
Age
46
Location
Oregon
So I have mid 2011 iMac and that I'm editing in right now. I'm only editing 1080 and don't have plans to try 4K on this machine. I've upgraded my RAM to 12 gigs. I still have room to go to 16 gigs.

My last few projects have been shot @ 60 fps and have really been stressing the machine. For the most part everything is manageable, but when I go to stabilize the clips, it takes forever. My current video I'm working on took about 6-8 hrs (not exactly sure I fell asleep) to stabilize about 4 mins worth of 1080 @ 60 fps. Granite I don't have to stabilize ALL my stuff, but I like to. When my Mac is stabilizing clips I like to watch the activity monitor. Watching this shows the CPU max out. The RAM on the other hand doesn't. I might use 6-7 gigs of RAM in general during this process. The most RAM I've ever seen this Mac use was almost 9 gigs and I probably had several apps open while editing.

My question is, if I upgrade my RAM to 16 gigs, will this help,at all? Will adding RAM remove any load off of the CPU?

Thanks guys!
 
No the reason it takes many people on mac to edit 30 second clips is because the Mac is notorious for having a slow CPU I suggest you get a windows desktop that you built and leave room to add another CPU
 
Thats not going to happen. I will never go back to a windows PC.

So adding more RAM will not free up anything?
 
CPU processes are difficult and are more algebraic RAM is more 2+2 and GPU is like square roots
 
I think you need to go back and read up about how computers work. RAM is just storage - numbers in registers. CPUs and GPUs are where all manipulation of those numbers occurs, independent of the complexity of the manipulation.

So would more RAM help my iMac edit video faster?

And I made a mistake, I only have 10 gigs ATM.
 
So would more RAM help my iMac edit video faster?

And I made a mistake, I only have 10 gigs ATM.[/QUOT.E]

I doubt it, given that Activity Monitor doesn't indicate a RAM issue. RAM only becomes a significant limiting factor once the system has to start paging to the hard drive during processing. You are simply doing processor intensive work on a fairly old processor.

EDIT: Actually the latest iMacs are only about 50% faster than the equivalent 2011 machines, so that's not going to make a huge difference. I guess stabilization is simply processor-intensive.
 
Last edited:
  • Like
Reactions: Helihover
I doubt it, given that Activity Monitor doesn't indicate a RAM issue. RAM only becomes a significant limiting factor once the system has to start paging to the hard drive during processing. You are simply doing processor intensive work on a fairly old processor.

EDIT: Actually the latest iMacs are only about 50% faster than the equivalent 2011 machines, so that's not going to make a huge difference. I guess stabilization is simply processor-intensive.

Thanks! Yes stabilizing is very intensive.
 
Since Macs use intel processors like many PCs I doubt that "just buy a pc" is the only answer. I have a 2011 Macbook pro and what is mostly lacking in older mac laptops and iMacs is the graphics processor. My laptop has 16 gb ram and an intel 2.2ghz i7, and can handle 1080 fine but I can't edit or play any 4k. The AMD gpu in it just isn't capable. And regardless of who made the computer, the speed of the processor is probably the biggest factor in video editing tasks. What is the actual speed of your CPU?
 
Since Macs use intel processors like many PCs I doubt that "just buy a pc" is the only answer. I have a 2011 Macbook pro and what is mostly lacking in older mac laptops and iMacs is the graphics processor. My laptop has 16 gb ram and an intel 2.2ghz i7, and can handle 1080 fine but I can't edit or play any 4k. The AMD gpu in it just isn't capable. And regardless of who made the computer, the speed of the processor is probably the biggest factor in video editing tasks. What is the actual speed of your CPU?

The more recent Macs seem to handle 4k just fine. My 2016 rMB is only running an Intel Core M Broadwell CPU but, surprisingly, plays 4k video perfectly - better than my 2015 MBP.
 
Since Macs use intel processors like many PCs I doubt that "just buy a pc" is the only answer. I have a 2011 Macbook pro and what is mostly lacking in older mac laptops and iMacs is the graphics processor. My laptop has 16 gb ram and an intel 2.2ghz i7, and can handle 1080 fine but I can't edit or play any 4k. The AMD gpu in it just isn't capable. And regardless of who made the computer, the speed of the processor is probably the biggest factor in video editing tasks. What is the actual speed of your CPU?


3.06 GHz Intel Core i3
 
Can anyone give me a Dell Desktop recommendation. My current Dell Desktop is 4 years old and needs to be updated. I use Davinci Resolve 14 to edit videos.
 

Members online

No members online now.

Forum statistics

Threads
143,066
Messages
1,467,354
Members
104,933
Latest member
mactechnic