Macbook Pro 2016 for Davinci Resolve GPU vs CPU

[Jeff Costello]

Hi,

i´m about to get a Macbook Pro and i´m asking myself which combination of GPU and CPU to choose. I mostly need it to work with Davinci Resolve. I already decided for the 2,6 GHz Quad‑Core Intel Core i7 and wanted to know if it would be worth the money to get a Radeon Pro 460 4 GB GPU instead of the Radeon Pro 450 2 GB GPU or would the CPU be a bottleneck in most cases anyways? A better CPU is unfortunately over my budget... I´m mostly working with ProRes 4444XQ in both 2K and 4K so no extremely compressed formats like h264. I don´t care how long it takes to export Files, my focus is the performance while editing and doing color. I know that i could get a much faster desktop solution for the same price but as i´m traveling a lot it just doesn´t make sense in my case.

Thank you for your help,

David

 

[campyguy]

My GF uses Resolve, the expensive version. She passed on this snippet from the manual:
"As all laptop systems are designed for portability and low power, for use with DaVinci Resolve we recommend selecting the fastest CPU, 16GB of system memory and the GPU with the most memory that is currently available."

I never question my GF (maybe it's the two black belts she's earned?), however she's using the top-of-the-line new rMBP and using a 2012 Mini Server like mine for rendering (two 1TB Samsung 850 Pro SSDs in RAID 0). IOW, more of everything is just about right… All kidding aside, she related that maxing out a Mac or PC is what you should consider…

BTW, Jeff/David - what's with the Jeff/David bit?

 

[Jeff Costello]

Thank you for your response! Maxing out everything is what i would do if i weren´t on a budget ;-)
As i am, i have to find out in which relation CPU and GPU work within Resolve and if it´s worth investing in a 4GB GPU if i can´t afford the better CPU at the same time...

 

[azpekt]

GPU/vRAM is much more important in that use case, go with this option.

 

[campyguy]

Thank you for your response! Maxing out everything is what i would do if i weren´t on a budget ;-)
As i am, i have to find out in which relation CPU and GPU work within Resolve and if it´s worth investing in a 4GB GPU if i can´t afford the better CPU at the same time...

That quote that I included is a quote, direct from DiVinci's Certified Configuration Guide: http://documents.blackmagicdesign.c...fc/DaVinci_Resolve_12_Configuration_Guide.pdf - not a guess on my part. No offense, a quote from me is a quote. I'd leave it to you to decide while resource is more relevant to your budget…
[doublepost=1485405741][/doublepost]

GPU/vRAM is much more important in that use case, go with this option.

I disagree. See my previous post, quoted directly from DiVinci's own documentation… See Page 14…

 

[azpekt]

I disagree. See my previous post, quoted directly from DiVinci's own documentation… See Page 14…

dont get me wrong, but why wouldnt blackmagic recommend bumping up CPU as well?

my impressions come from personal experience - moving from gt650m/512mb to r370x/2gb not only made whole editing process way faster, it also made editing 4k available

gpu subsystem, then IO speed, then RAM and CPU - i`d place these things in that order of importance

 

[campyguy]

dont get me wrong, but why wouldnt blackmagic recommend bumping up CPU as well?

my impressions come from personal experience - moving from gt650m/512mb to r370x/2gb not only made whole editing process way faster, it also made editing 4k available

gpu subsystem, then IO speed, then RAM and CPU - i`d place these things in that order of importance

No worries, with a caveat now that I see that you've changed systems. My point comes directly with discussion with DiVinci's rep and their documentation, and comparing two PCs with the same graphics card but different CPUs. My caveat - your first system, with the 650M GPU was never 4k capable (I also currently own own one, it's my backup Mac) - the 750M in the late-2013 rMBP was the first 4k-capable rMBP (it's the one I'm using right now… - I need CUDA). You're comparing your experiences between a capable Mac and one that is 5 years old and not designed for more than HD work, at best. Besides, IMHO using a $750 Mac to run a $1k-$20 software package and thousands of $$ of additional hardware - the bottleneck IS the Mac…

I still do not agree with you here, you're new Mac and old Mac are two completely different tools in this regard, even my late-2013 rMBP is a dog with Resolve and I switch to my MP then, and I'd wouldn't base a comparison on those two Macs… Cheers.