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Concern for video editors?
- Thread starter vidguy7
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I see the need for an eGPU as an advantange:
- possible to upgrade the GPU down the line, more and more applications are doing calculations on the GPU, this will prolong the life of the machine enormously
- I am not forced to pay for a dGPU i wouldn't use
- I can pick precisely the GPU I want (well AMD only for now...) and am not forced to pay Apple Tax for this component
- using an eGPU will lighten the load on the iGPU and allow for some more headroom for thermals
- it's a stationary machine, so the enclosure personally doesn't bother me (it doesn't use that much more desk space if you put the mac mini on top of the enclosure)
- possible to upgrade the GPU down the line, more and more applications are doing calculations on the GPU, this will prolong the life of the machine enormously
- I am not forced to pay for a dGPU i wouldn't use
- I can pick precisely the GPU I want (well AMD only for now...) and am not forced to pay Apple Tax for this component
- using an eGPU will lighten the load on the iGPU and allow for some more headroom for thermals
- it's a stationary machine, so the enclosure personally doesn't bother me (it doesn't use that much more desk space if you put the mac mini on top of the enclosure)
Max actually addresses two issues in this video.
The first is heat and throttling. That issue has become something of a hobby horse for him and it has been discussed ad nauseam in this forum.
The second issue is the adequacy of the CPU and GPU for editing requirements that are of concern to professionals and advanced/ambitious amateurs, but not to the vast majority of people making YouTube or home videos, including people behind some of the most successful YouTube channels.
On the second issue, he was surprised at how well the mini performed on some tasks and unsurprised that it fell short on tasks that are GPU intensive.
He came to the perfectly obvious conclusion that if you want to do sophisticated editing on 4K footage, an integrated graphics card won't perform like dedicated graphics, and you'll need an external GPU if you want that performance. If you read the comments on his video, the people who have viewed it are not exactly shocked by this conclusion. Nor should anybody be.
And?
The first is heat and throttling. That issue has become something of a hobby horse for him and it has been discussed ad nauseam in this forum.
The second issue is the adequacy of the CPU and GPU for editing requirements that are of concern to professionals and advanced/ambitious amateurs, but not to the vast majority of people making YouTube or home videos, including people behind some of the most successful YouTube channels.
On the second issue, he was surprised at how well the mini performed on some tasks and unsurprised that it fell short on tasks that are GPU intensive.
He came to the perfectly obvious conclusion that if you want to do sophisticated editing on 4K footage, an integrated graphics card won't perform like dedicated graphics, and you'll need an external GPU if you want that performance. If you read the comments on his video, the people who have viewed it are not exactly shocked by this conclusion. Nor should anybody be.
And?
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That's dependent on many things. Are you editing 8bit or 10bit? Are you shooting in SDR or HDR? Are you shooting HD or 4K? How long do you anticipate your videos to be?
The thing that you can take comfort in is that you can always use an external drive if you find your onboard is inadequate. The MM I have coming on Friday, I spec'd out with a 1TB drive, but I'd probably still archive everything to an outboard drive and use the internal drive for the current project.
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I currently have the 256 and wanting to learn Final Cut Pro. Not ever having edited videos before, what’s a safe amount of internal space for the future?
Let’s say for 1 hour of video at the higher settings.
If it were me, I'd go with at least a 500gig drive, but again, you can always use a fast outboard drive. Chances are the internal SS drive on the MM will be the fastest, but I don't know how much of a real difference a fast SS outboard drive would make. I guess if you can afford it, go with the larger drive. Making a 'mistake' with estimating what you need for storage is not the same as making the same mistake with the processor. Once you choose the processor, you're done, there's not much you can do. But with storage and RAM, there are always options for increasing what you have.
If you are starting out with video and learning Final Cut Pro, the likelihood is that you will be making videos that are one to ten minutes long.
If you use your 256GB drive as a workspace rather than as a repository of your life history and music and film collection, 256GB is not only enough, it is more than you need, certainly to start.
If you start doing longer projects, you can put most of the material on an external drive and import it as needed. That is in fact how professional film editors work. Nobody keeps all the footage from a feature film, or indeed a documentary, on an internal drive. It isn't even possible.
It's nice to have a terabyte of internal storage, or even half a terabyte, but it sure isn't necessary.
There is readily available information online - indeed it's on your iPhone, if you have one - that will tell you how much storage you will need per minute of video that you shoot. It may be worth your while to do some calculations.
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As I said in my post, it isn't 'necessary', but it is a nicety. It's nice not to have reload/import a long project every time you make changes. I like to keep the current project resident on the computer's internal drive. Once done, I offload it. However I said what I said since he specifically talked about a one hour video. I thought it safe to assume he'll eventually shoot in 4K like many of us videographers do. He may start with videos a few minutes long, but as he gains comfort his projects may expand. I've been doing this for many many years and it's nice to have a large drive if you can afford it.
But yes, you can always use an external drive as I said originally.
Re @Jrys's question, here is a Blackmagic Design Speed Test. It is for a 500GB Samsung T5 flash drive connected to my new Mac mini. The drive cost me US$95 on sale in early October, although I think that it is currently selling for about $110. There are also 1TB and 2TB versions available, both on sale, at least in the U.S., until Nov. 17.
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