Talk me into getting a Mac Mini (or not) : Divinci Resolve Workstation

[BJB Productions]

Hey everyone, would love some advice.

I just dissembled my Hackintosh workstation. Despite how much I enjoyed the process, as a semi-professional film production guy, I got really tired of something always being broken when I needed it to simply just .... work. It came down to a cost / vs time thing.

Anyway, I picked up an Razer eGPU to use with my 2018 base 15" Macbook Pro & Vega 64 in the interim.

Initially I was planning to bite the bullet on the new base Mac Pro with the thinking it would be a worthwhile investment. However, looking over the numbers, I started to wonder if that was actually the wisest decision.

No doubt, it's a powerhouse -- it's the power I want... but that price gives me pause. As I mentioned, I do a lot of professional 4K video editing and grading in Divinci Resolve. I also heavily use Lightroom and Photoshop working with thousands of RAW images at a time.

That got me thinking, I could pick up a 2018 i7 6 Core Mac Mini with upgraded storage and 32gb or 64gb of RAM. The whole eGPU thing to me, honestly, is where I get stuck. It's just kinda a weird / clunky solution in my eyes. It's hard to transition away from a tower after owning one. I've even had mutinous thoughts about building a new PC workstation...

The minimalist in me hates having multiple boxes and stuff. But an iMac is out of the question, just not what I want. I think I also have a bit of PTSD from owning one of the original Mac Minis and feeling like it was always freezing, underpowered, and a general pain in the butt.

TL;DR: So - for those of you who use a Mac Mini for professional video and photo purposes, how does it stack up? Are you happy with your decision? Or do you desire more power?

Thanks!

 

[Fishrrman]

This is unrelated, but I'll raise the subject anyway.

For 4k video editing, I believe both Final Cut Pro and Adobe Premier have "proxy media creation" for 4k editing.
Does Resolve also have this?

Without the ability to create/edit proxy media, I understand that 4k editing (on any Mac) can be quite slow.

 

[lpolarityl]

Throwing an option in the mix, I recommend looking into building a linux workstation and getting a Radeon VII (16GB of video memory) for the graphics card.

 

[smetvid]

What do you hope to gain over your 2018 15" MBP. I believe they are pretty close to the same performance and both have an equal amount of thunderbolt 3 ports for expansion.

I use a Mac Mini for some production work and app development and I find it to be an amazing machine for 4k. 4k performance depends on the kind of format you are working with really. If you shoot ProRes or BRAW with a Blackmagic Design camera then the Mac Mini is a massive amount of power capable to handling many streams of 4k video at once. A more compressed format like h.264 will require more horse power but I edit 4k video from a Panasonic GH4 in FCPX with no problems at all. fullscreen 4k playback with effects all in realtime. 10bit formats from the GH5 struggle but thats due to the unorthodox 10bit h.264 format not using hardware acceleration.

Resolve makes insane use of multiple graphics cards and thats one area where the Mac Mini does very well. You can use up to 4 eGPUs with the Mini and still have a 5Gbps bus for USB3 storage or a 10Gbps NAS for projects. While two eGPUs will have to share the TB3 bus speed they still provide a clear advantage in Resolve for processing effects.

It may not be a tower but what is a tower really. Just a means to combine and contain a set of components. eGPU is really no different except it now site outside of the case. It may take up more space overall compared to four graphics cards in a tower but in the end its still just a stack of components working together.

The CPU may someday become a bottleneck but thanks to better optimized formats like ProRes and BRAW CPU power isn't as critical as it once was. Its all about GPU processing now and Noise reduction and other Resolve tools to help massage your material will benefit a lot from GPU processing.

Its too bad somebody doesn't make a single eGPU enclosure with a massive power supply (1000 watts) and four card slots. Its really the duplicate power supplies that make each enclosure massive in size. Not sure how much of a market there is for such a thing but it would be cool. To be honest I have yet to find a need for more than my single Vega 56 eGPU. I know I could get more processing power but so far I just have not needed it. I'm glad I have the potential to add more in the future if I need to but starting out you will likely be fine with a single eGPU.

 

[BJB Productions]

What do you hope to gain over your 2018 15" MBP. I believe they are pretty close to the same performance and both have an equal amount of thunderbolt 3 ports for expansion.

Its all about GPU processing now and Noise reduction and other Resolve tools to help massage your material will benefit a lot from GPU processing.

You bring up a great point -- I compared Geekbench scores with my colleague's 2018 Mac Mini + Vega 64 to my 2018 Macbook Pro + Vega 64 and his score was only a mere 1,000 points higher.

Ideally, I guess my reasoning was that I enjoy (or, should I say, perhaps I'm conditioned) to having a dedicated workstation. But the reality is I only pull out my laptop when I'm on the road (which is only a few times a month). So it comes in handy, but with a workstation my laptop often sits idle.

So I could just use my Macbook Pro, and retain the option to go portable. I was a bit worried about thermal throttling under heavy load, but perhaps the Mac Mini would experience the same.

 

[Rapidisimo]

All the software you list can be used on Windows. Why don't you use your old hackintosh...as a windows workstation.

Edit: I wouldn't use a mac-mini. I tend to be very picky about performance and the mac mini is just compromises.

 

[smetvid]

All the software you list can be used on Windows. Why don't you use your old hackintosh...as a windows workstation.

Edit: I wouldn't use a mac-mini. I tend to be very picky about performance and the mac mini is just compromises.

what compromises? It equals or beats any MBP once you add a eGPU. The only Macs that are really better are the 8 core iMac, iMac Pro and the new upcoming Mac Pro. The 8 core MBP may beat it in terms of CPU score but then again its at least $1,000 more to do so. Even a RX-580 can beat the Vega 20 in the MBP and once you require the need of a eGPU you are pretty much tethered to a desk anyway so you might as well save money and get the Mini.

I know a lot of professional video producers that use a top 2017 iMac with a quad core CPU and the Mini easily matches or beats that.

I'm not saying the Mini is the best machine but you should at least back up your position with examples to make your point.
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You bring up a great point -- I compared Geekbench scores with my colleague's 2018 Mac Mini + Vega 64 to my 2018 Macbook Pro + Vega 64 and his score was only a mere 1,000 points higher.

Ideally, I guess my reasoning was that I enjoy (or, should I say, perhaps I'm conditioned) to having a dedicated workstation. But the reality is I only pull out my laptop when I'm on the road (which is only a few times a month). So it comes in handy, but with a workstation my laptop often sits idle.

So I could just use my Macbook Pro, and retain the option to go portable. I was a bit worried about thermal throttling under heavy load, but perhaps the Mac Mini would experience the same.

The MBP is a really good Mac and both Macs struggle with extended use of turbo boost. I don't use the term throttling because its an incorrect term. Throttling indicated dropping below the base clock speed. All these Macs will run sustained at their base clock speed that the CPU was designed for. Turbo boost is an extra boost similar to over clocking but in this case the overclocking is dynamic and done on the fly so the CPU doesn't burn out.

I say just use your MBP and save your money for storage and maybe adding a second eGPU. You will lose out on the dedicated 10 Gigibit network speed for storage and the dedicated USB3 controller for extra storage but you can still use some external storage and not impact the second eGPU too much. This is the one area where I love the Mac mini. I can use two eGPUs at full TB3 bandwidth on each and still use the 10gigbit or USB3 for video storage.