Intel UHD 630: will I see a performance decrease for my use case?

[balph]

I currently have a Mid 2015 rMBP with the AMD Radeon R9 M370X discrete graphics card. Since I’m basically never using it anywhere else besides my desk at home I’m thinking about replacing it with the newly announced Mac mini with the 6-core i5 or i7 (not sure which one yet). I’m occasionally doing some photo editing with Capture One, which uses OpenGL hardware acceleration to speed things up (at some point in the future they will probably switch to Metal on macOS). I might also want to do some simple 4K video editing in the future with either Final Cut Pro X or DaVinci Resolve which also benefits from GPU hardware acceleration if I understand correctly.

I’m also doing a lot of iOS development and I think the 6-core i5 or i7 will definitely be faster for that than the CPU in my MacBook Pro, but I’m a bit worried about the performance of the UHD 630 vs. the AMD Radeon R9 M370X that I currently have. I’m quite happy with how Capture One performs on my rMBP currently and I’m wondering if the UHD 630 will actually decrease performance, even though the CPU will be quite a bit faster.

The Mac mini looks like a very nice desktop solution replacement for my current MacBook Pro, I already have a very nice Dell 4K screen + Magic Keyboard and mouse which I can use with the Mac mini. For iOS development I think there will be a nice speed improvement but I’m worried about a performance decrease with graphics applications (photo/video editing etcetera). I know an eGPU is an option, and I can always consider that in the future, but for now I would like it to perform at least on par with my current computer.

What do you think? Is the Mac mini a big step back in terms of graphics performance? Will something like Capture One perform well on it?

 

[satinsilverem2]

I think it will be a wash personally. The Radeon m370x will be faster at certain things I'm sure since it has dedicated memory that isn't shared with the system. I dont think you will notice a difference in day to day usage.

 

[strawbale]

I currently have a Mid 2015 rMBP with the AMD Radeon R9 M370X discrete graphics card. Since I’m basically never using it anywhere else besides my desk at home I’m thinking about replacing it with the newly announced Mac mini with the 6-core i5 or i7 (not sure which one yet). I’m occasionally doing some photo editing with Capture One, which uses OpenGL hardware acceleration to speed things up (at some point in the future they will probably switch to Metal on macOS). I might also want to do some simple 4K video editing in the future with either Final Cut Pro X or DaVinci Resolve which also benefits from GPU hardware acceleration if I understand correctly.

I’m also doing a lot of iOS development and I think the 6-core i5 or i7 will definitely be faster for that than the CPU in my MacBook Pro, but I’m a bit worried about the performance of the UHD 630 vs. the AMD Radeon R9 M370X that I currently have. I’m quite happy with how Capture One performs on my rMBP currently and I’m wondering if the UHD 630 will actually decrease performance, even though the CPU will be quite a bit faster.

The Mac mini looks like a very nice desktop solution replacement for my current MacBook Pro, I already have a very nice Dell 4K screen + Magic Keyboard and mouse which I can use with the Mac mini. For iOS development I think there will be a nice speed improvement but I’m worried about a performance decrease with graphics applications (photo/video editing etcetera). I know an eGPU is an option, and I can always consider that in the future, but for now I would like it to perform at least on par with my current computer.

What do you think? Is the Mac mini a big step back in terms of graphics performance? Will something like Capture One perform well on it?

In your case I'd go for an iMac, best of both world, but would wait for the 2019 update.

 

[balph]

Thanks for your answers, yeah I've actually decided to wait for the iMac refresh. It'll probably still take a while (March or June 2019 I guess) but my rMBP is still working fine for now and I'd rather spend my money on an iMac with a proper dedicated GPU. The Mac mini really looks like a nice little machine but I just don't like spending so much money on a machine that has such a weak GPU.

 

[satinsilverem2]

Thanks for your answers, yeah I've actually decided to wait for the iMac refresh. It'll probably still take a while (March or June 2019 I guess) but my rMBP is still working fine for now and I'd rather spend my money on an iMac with a proper dedicated GPU. The Mac mini really looks like a nice little machine but I just don't like spending so much money on a machine that has such a weak GPU.

if all you are concerned about is a decent GPU dont forget that all TB3 Macs support eGPUs including Apples own BlackMagic one.

EDIT: never mind I saw that you mentioned it in your original post.

 

[balph]

if all you are concerned about is a decent GPU dont forget that all TB3 Macs support eGPUs including Apples own BlackMagic one.

EDIT: never mind I saw that you mentioned it in your original post.

Yeah, a eGPU is certainly an option but the price of the Mac mini (with i7, 256 GB SSD and 16 GB RAM) + eGPU will already bring me into iMac territory. For that money an all-in-one solution is actually my preferred option, it will also give me a really good screen and compared to a Mac mini + eGPU it will also give me a nice clean desk without too much cables etc.