DaVinci Resolve Video Editor Gains New Processing Engine That's Up to 3 Times Faster on M1 Macs

[JMacHack]

The single core performance of the Ryzen is comparable to that of the M1.

If by “comparable” you mean “the best Ryzen there is”

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And by MacBook Pro you mean the entry level one.

 

[leman]

I think this performance increase is more due to the unified memory architecture in the M1 than the GPU. The CPU and GPU can work on the same dataset at the same time. The data doesn’t have to be shuffled back and forth between the two processors.

Unified memory is part of the overall system design. But it doesn't end here. The announcement specifically mentions that Blackmagic is making use of Apple's TBDR architecture to achieve better performance and energy efficiency.

 

[leman]

The single core performance of the Ryzen (7nm) is comparable to that of the M1 (5nm).

With the caveat that the Ryzen model you are taking about is the top of the line desktop configuration where only the CPU costs more than an entire Mac mini Besides, Zen 3 needs about 20 watts to reach that performance where M1 needs 5 watts.

Of course, there is no doubt that Ryzen 5900 series is a much more powerful CPU overall than M1, they occupy entire different categories. At this point, the only Apple Silicon announced is an ultra low-power model that is not designed to complete with high-end desktop or mobile offerings from other manufacturers.

 

[JMacHack]

Why is it whenever an article comes out praising the M1’s performance (or in this case, tangentially related to m1 performance ), there’s always someone coming out the woodwork to say “well this gaming laptop technically has better specs”.

Is it an insecurity thing? Like somehow the PC has to “win”?

Who is cross shopping an M1 Mac and an ASUS ROG gaming laptop anyway?

 

[k27]

They say "up to 3 times faster", which is probably 30-50% faster than 17.2 on average.

The difference in the comparison was so huge that it probably won't be enough to get close. The user who apparently works professionally with DaVinci Resolve and had compared it (4K material at 50FPS and sometimes also RAW and several filters) had even jokingly written that the Asus might even be able to take on two M1s.

If by “comparable” you mean “the best Ryzen there is”

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Ryzen 3

 

[k27]

Why is it whenever an article comes out praising the M1’s performance (or in this case, tangentially related to m1 performance ), there’s always someone coming out the woodwork to say “well this gaming laptop technically has better specs”.

Because some fanboys believe that the M1 is better in performance than anything else. But that is not true. This is only true, if at all, for single core performance. Some fanboys also confuse hardware encoders with software encoders and then come to the wrong conclusions.

I have an M1 myself and I am a Mauser. I like the M1.

 

[arvinsim]

Happy that I picked DaVinci Resolve over Final Cut Pro. Chose the former because I didn't want to be locked to Apple hardware for video editing.

 

[Moonjumper]

Is the steep learning curve for Resolve worth it over FCP/iMovie?

Last time I tried the free version on my 2015 15" MBP it was slow and the fans went crazy, whilst iMovie was responsive and only hits the fans on an export.

I find it easier to use than iMovie. The old iMovie was easy to use, but they changed the way of working years back, and it didn’t feel logical after that. I got up to speed very quickly with Resolve. I was forced into changing because it was the only option I found for editing portrait video (for app store pages), but I am extremely happy I made the move.

 

[JMacHack]

Because some fanboys believe that the M1 is better in performance than anything else. But that is not true. Some fanboys also confuse hardware encoders with software encoders and then come to the wrong conclusions.

I have an M1 myself and I am a Mauser.

People are genuinely impressed by an entry level machine that punches above its weight and are excited for the higher level stuff.

And someone (in this case, you) always have to come in and say “BUT ACKSHUALLY MUH 5950X AND 3080 IS FASTER!”

It’s old. It’s tired. It’s honestly irrelevant. Nobody outside your strawman thinks an M1 is going to out muscle a dedicated high end gpu and a high end cpu with double the threads.

Furthermore it’s not even relevant to this thread. Which is about DaVinci Resolve gaining performance on the M1.

Ryzen 3
Still AMDs top level processor.

 

[arvinsim]

People are genuinely impressed by an entry level machine that punches above its weight and are excited for the higher level stuff.

And someone (in this case, you) always have to come in and say “BUT ACKSHUALLY MUH 5950X AND 3080 IS FASTER!”

It’s old. It’s tired. It’s honestly irrelevant. Nobody outside your strawman thinks an M1 is going to out muscle a dedicated high end gpu and a high end cpu with double the threads.

Furthermore it’s not even relevant to this thread. Which is about DaVinci Resolve gaining performance on the M1.

Ryzen 3
Still AMDs top level processor.

But my 5950x and 3080 IS faster

If I am not on the go, I always use my PC for video editing. Otherwise, I just use my M1 Air.

 

[k27]

And someone (in this case, you) always have to come in and say “BUT ACKSHUALLY MUH 5950X AND 3080 IS FASTER!”

It’s old. It’s tired. It’s honestly irrelevant. Nobody outside your strawman thinks an M1 is going to out muscle a dedicated high end gpu and a high end cpu with double the threads.

What are you talking about? I compared the M1 with an Asus laptop (AMD Ryzen 9 5900HS).
There is nothing weird about the comparison at all, especially for a DaVinci Resolve user.

 

[Scotticus]

Is the steep learning curve for Resolve worth it over FCP/iMovie?

Last time I tried the free version on my 2015 15" MBP it was slow and the fans went crazy, whilst iMovie was responsive and only hits the fans on an export.

I can't say I found Resolve difficult to learn. Watch a couple tutorials and you're good to go

 

[Mizouse]

Is the steep learning curve for Resolve worth it over FCP/iMovie?

Last time I tried the free version on my 2015 15" MBP it was slow and the fans went crazy, whilst iMovie was responsive and only hits the fans on an export.

i don’t know about the latest version of DR, but my understanding is the free version does not leverage hardware acceleration. You need to get the Studio (paid) version for it.

I recently built a gaming PC (5600X and RTX 3080) and was disappointed that even there it was taxing only the CPU. The GPU/NVENC wasn’t being used.

That said, I’m currently using Final Cut Pro when I edit. I bought it when those App Store gift cards were 20% off.
Works great. Smooth and exports pretty quick for simple projects.

 

[TheStof]

Is the steep learning curve for Resolve worth it over FCP/iMovie?

Last time I tried the free version on my 2015 15" MBP it was slow and the fans went crazy, whilst iMovie was responsive and only hits the fans on an export.

I recently made my first video after shooting some drone footage following this tutorial:

I had some issues as I'm on PC so my h265 files would not load initially but after getting that sorted out, all went well. I had to export a few times to get a decent quality export (still working on best settings). I've used, years ago, Premiere but this is free, gets updates and is as good as I remember Premiere being (no idea how good Premiere is today or how it compares to FCP or iMovie).

 

[macduke]

This is why I'm holding out for the pro chips. Gives software time to update and the pro chips will blow all this stuff away even more. I've been thinking about waiting for the second gen pro hardware but I might upgrade earlier. Anyone want to buy a 2019 16" MacBook Pro? I tried using the new Brydge keyboard/trackpad case on my M1 iPad Pro but it just wasn't any good and eventually broke completely. Was going to try to use that for laptop tasks when I'm away from my desktop iMac but I'm starting to think I should just get the new 14" model. I'll be curious to see what kind of GPU performance it has.

 

[kevbag]

Please forgive the newb question - I just downloaded the new Davinci 17.3 - studio version - I have the new iMac with m1 chip and I'm getting a prompt to "reset GPU configuration." I watched a couple of YouTube vids - but still a little confused. Do I just hit "update configuration'? Or do I need to go deeper into the settings? Any help is much appreciated.

 

[bn-7bc]

the free version CANNOT edit 10bit 4:2:2 video. you have to pay for that one.

This is true, but Resolve studio ( or the pro version as some people seem to prefer calling it) does that and a few more things it it costs about the same as FCPX. Btw does fcp sopport hdr grading or would you need other tools for that, Resolve studio alkso includes this

 

[twistedpixel8]

Wait, Resolve is free?!? Oh man, I need to check this out.

The biggest deal is that it’s even free for commercial use! And the limitations are not limiting at all, even for semi-professionals, it’s just super fancy stuff that you can’t use and a limit of 4k for exports. And if you need the pro stuff, I think it’s only like £200 which is a steal given how solid it is.

 

[MacBH928]

Can't wait to utilize M1 power on Asahi Linux!

 

[MacBH928]

The biggest deal is that it’s even free for commercial use! And the limitations are not limiting at all, even for semi-professionals, it’s just super fancy stuff that you can’t use and a limit of 4k for exports. And if you need the pro stuff, I think it’s only like £200 which is a steal given how solid it is.

how they make money? Why would any one pay for premier or final cut or AVID?

 

[leman]

Can't wait to utilize M1 power on Asahi Linux!

You will have to wait a while. There won't be any Linux software to take advantage of the more interesting hardware features.

 

[megastuff999]

I have to say, as someone who bought a Mac mini with 16gb memory primarily to edit in FCP I have been left completely unimpressed by the M1. It’s honestly no different to my 2017 iMac. So much so, I genuinely checked the ‘About this Mac’ when I had it because I couldn’t understand what the fuss was about.
A concrete example, you press play on the timeline and it doesn’t even draw in the waveforms until you pause. Why on Earth can’t it do that as it goes if it’s so good?? This is the same on the iMac but I expected better!

This plus the thunderbolts/USB-C compatibility issues with external drives and I’m left wondering if it’s worth keeping.

 

[Kung gu]

Please forgive the newb question - I just downloaded the new Davinci 17.3 - studio version - I have the new iMac with m1 chip and I'm getting a prompt to "reset GPU configuration." I watched a couple of YouTube vids - but still a little confused. Do I just hit "update configuration'? Or do I need to go deeper into the settings? Any help is much appreciated.

hit update configuration. This problem happens on Windows, Mac and linux. Don't know why it does that.

 

[kevbag]

thank you so much Kung gu - have a great night

 

[dutchyonabike]

Wait, Resolve is free?!? Oh man, I need to check this out.

Totally free with a few limitations. The paid (studio) version is only a few hundred dollars depending on where you live in the world. I used FCP7 until it was killed off, jumped to Premiere for 7 years, and now only use Davinci Studio. It is awesome. Try it out.