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musicalhq

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Mar 20, 2018
2
0
Sorry if this is in the wrong location - this is my first post.

Final Cut Pro on my Late 2012 Retina MacBook pro is extremely laggy, and its almost impossible to do anything. I think this is because of the lack of a dGPU, and maybe a lack of RAM. So, would getting an eGPU to use with my MacBook increase its performance on Final Cut Pro. I think the thunderbolt ports on the MacBook are only thunderbolt 1 - would this bottleneck performance? Would it be better to build a hackintosh with a dGPU instead? I would be using the MacBook plugged into an external monitor.

Also, as a follow up question, what enclosure and graphics card would be best for Final Cut Pro? I've read that Final Cut Pro runs better on AMD cards.
 

chscag

macrumors 601
Feb 17, 2008
4,622
1,946
Fort Worth, Texas
Your machine is going on 5+ years old and the lagging could be related to other things not specifically the GPU performance. How full is the SSD? Have you checked it with Disk Utility (run first aid) for errors? As for Final Cut Pro, it runs best on a machine that has a discrete GPU with plenty of vRAM.
 

musicalhq

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Mar 20, 2018
2
0
I have about 200gb - 150gb free of a 500gb hard drive. I have run first aid from recovery - no errors. I've got the dual-core i7 model. The machine has only 8gb of ram. I guess the ram/cpu could limit performance. Would a eGPU make any performance difference, or would the cpu/ram bottleneck it? Thanks.
 

Samuelsan2001

macrumors 604
Oct 24, 2013
7,729
2,153
I have about 200gb - 150gb free of a 500gb hard drive. I have run first aid from recovery - no errors. I've got the dual-core i7 model. The machine has only 8gb of ram. I guess the ram/cpu could limit performance. Would a eGPU make any performance difference, or would the cpu/ram bottleneck it? Thanks.

Thunderbolt 1 will bottleneck it.

Your best bet would be to sell your current machine and put the money towards a machine that better suits your use case.
 

Fishrrman

macrumors Penryn
Feb 20, 2009
29,205
13,269
Get a 27" 5k iMac with either the midrange CPU or perhaps an i7.
I predict things will go much better... ;)
 
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