Best Mac laptop for DaVinci Resolve

[Nicolas Hanson]

I'm looking for a home office solution (read: sofa solution) to run Avid and Resolve. I don't exactly need to run 8K in full realtime as the directors and clients aren't sitting next to me, but sometimes I will probably need to connect it to a client screen and have a session with others in the room. What Mac laptop would you go for?

[Bruno Mansi]

If you're talking new, There's only really one model, and that's the 16" Macbook Pro 2020.

I guess you probably mean what options should I purchase?

The base model starts at $2.8K and rises to a whopping $6K+ if you go for a maxed out system. 

My personal opinion would be as follow...

Don't bother with the 2.4gHz  processor over the 2.3 - just a 4% difference. (save $200)

Memory is the tough decision here. For many people 64GB would be a sweet-spot - especially if you're dabbling with Fusion. That's going to add $800 to the price.  If memory were up-gradable, I'd go for the minimum and buy more  myself, but you can't upgrade the memory in these models. I think I'd go with 32GB (+$400) and accept the limitations this might bring.

The Radeon upgrade to 8GB seems reasonable (+$100) unless you're considering an  eGPU setup, which will overshadow anything the  inbuilt graphics can achieve.

I would stick with the 1TB of SSD. With Thunderbolt you can attach lots of external SSD storage at half the price Apple will charge you.

This would make my pick retail at $3.3K - not cheap but Avid should run pretty smoothly with it.  The performance in Resolve is really going to depend on what nodes you throw at it, but you can't expect it to perform like a proper workstation with a high-end graphics card (or cards).

Having something like one of Blackmagic's eGPU boxes will really make a difference in Resolve, but you're looking at an extra $700-1200.

As far as connections to an external client monitor is concerned,  there's dirt-cheap (Ultrastudio mini monitor) or something with more flexibility like the Ultrastudio HD/4K mini

 

 

[Igluka]

On 6/6/2020 at 4:24 PM, Bruno Mansi said:

If you're talking new, There's only really one model, and that's the 16" Macbook Pro 2020.

I guess you probably mean what options should I purchase?

The base model starts at $2.8K and rises to a whopping $6K+ if you go for a maxed out system. 

My personal opinion would be as follow...

Don't bother with the 2.4gHz  processor over the 2.3 - just a 4% difference. (save $200)

Memory is the tough decision here. For many people 64GB would be a sweet-spot - especially if you're dabbling with Fusion. That's going to add $800 to the price.  If memory were up-gradable, I'd go for the minimum and buy more  myself, but you can't upgrade the memory in these models. I think I'd go with 32GB (+$400) and accept the limitations this might bring.

The Radeon upgrade to 8GB seems reasonable (+$100) unless you're considering an  eGPU setup, which will overshadow anything the  inbuilt graphics can achieve.

I would stick with the 1TB of SSD. With Thunderbolt you can attach lots of external SSD storage at half the price Apple will charge you.

This would make my pick retail at $3.3K - not cheap but Avid should run pretty smoothly with it.  The performance in Resolve is really going to depend on what nodes you throw at it, but you can't expect it to perform like a proper workstation with a high-end graphics card (or cards).

Having something like one of Blackmagic's eGPU boxes will really make a difference in Resolve, but you're looking at an extra $700-1200.

As far as connections to an external client monitor is concerned,  there's dirt-cheap (Ultrastudio mini monitor) or something with more flexibility like the Ultrastudio HD/4K mini

 

 

Hi Bruno,

I'm new in Lowepost and I'm a dir/DP who would occasionally grade music videos and short-films.  I recently got the 2020 16" MBP at full spec except the ssd (1tb). I'm about to start grading  for a short I DP'd a few months ago, do I need to calibrate the MBP screen for color accuracy? (I used to grade on a mid-2014 maxed out MBP before and hadn't calibrated it).

Also this is my display color settings for the MBP screen. Wondering if it's the right settings to start with.

[Bruno Mansi]

Not owning a Macbbook  Pro, I'm probably not the best person to answer this, but you really cannot do any serious colour grading on a laptop screen - regardless of the make or model.

Ideally, you'd want a separate grading monitor and a video output device from your Mac that bypasses all the OS colour management.

Of course, this costs money and may be beyond your budget.

I'd recommend you do some reading to find out the problems and the compromises you'll inevitably have to make if you grade from a laptop screen.

As a general primer in colour management, I can recommend Jonny Elwyn's web site. Have a look at...

https://jonnyelwyn.co.uk/film-and-video-editing/colour-management-for-video-editors/

[Igluka]

25 minutes ago, Bruno Mansi said:

Not owning a Macbbook  Pro, I'm probably not the best person to answer this, but you really cannot do any serious colour grading on a laptop screen - regardless of the make or model.

Ideally, you'd want a separate grading monitor and a video output device from your Mac that bypasses all the OS colour management.

Of course, this costs money and may be beyond your budget.

I'd recommend you do some reading to find out the problems and the compromises you'll inevitably have to make if you grade from a laptop screen.

As a general primer in colour management, I can recommend Jonny Elwyn's web site. Have a look at...

https://jonnyelwyn.co.uk/film-and-video-editing/colour-management-for-video-editors/

Thank you very much , I am onto some reading to figure this out!

[Nicolas Hanson]

Thanks for going in detail about this Bruno, really appreciate it. At work we have a 2017 Macbook Pro with 3.2gHz, would that be a better choice than a 2020 with 2.3/4gHz?

[Bruno Mansi]

Hi Nicolas.

As I've said previously,  I don't personally own an Apple laptop, but we have them in the house (my wife is a long-time user). The schools I teach at have various types of iMac Pros/Macbook Pros (as do many of the students) so I've got to know how they perform over the years.

For Media Composer, I think both of the models you've mentioned will work fine. I know there are issues using MC with Catalina (look at the Avid forums for details) which might be a problem if you buy a new 2020 Macbook Pro.

A more interesting question is how these models will perform with Resolve. I think the issues will be less about the CPU clock speed and more about the type of graphics chips these models have, as Resolve relies a lot on GPU muscle. If you intend to use an eGPU with your setup, then this will really determine how well Resolve performs. There's also the issue of thermal throttling, which I believe the 2017 models suffered from more than an average laptop.  If your Macbook is going to throttle because of inadequate cooling, the max clock/turbo speeds are pretty irrelevant. I believe Apple have improved the cooling situation with the 2020 models - no doubt there are others on Lowepost who have more experience with these issues and can advise.

With all new hardware, there are always incremental speed improvements over older models, but is it worth the thousands of dollars you'll need to spend? Could the funds be better spent - eg. eGPU and external RAID storage? If your 2017 model is performing reasonably well,  I would definitely consider going for the external graphics and storage solutions as a better option.

[Filip Zamorsky]

Hi Nicolas,
you can check performance of different Macs here:
https://browser.geekbench.com/mac-benchmarks

I would look for best single core performance. Latest Macbook Pros are relatively ok but older models had keyboard issues. Also overheating could be a problem.  

If that Macbook Pro 2017 you use in your company is enough for your needs the newest 2019 model should perform much better.

Edited September 2, 2020 by Filip Zamorsky

[Nicolas Hanson]

Thanks for sharing your thoughts guys!

I think I will go for 32GB, the 8GB update and 1TB SSD, but I'm a bit afraid of the fan noise... any experience with that? Not sure my wife will be very happy if it isn't silent when working from the sofa.

[Bruno Mansi]

10 hours ago, Nicolas Hanson said:

Not sure my wife will be very happy if it isn't silent when working from the sofa.

The not-so-polite answer would be... 'don't work on the sofa when your wife's there!'

Fan noise is inevitable if you want cooling. Good laptop design will keep the fan speed down until it's needed, but ultimately, you cannot get away from the basic laws of physics. With desktops and workstations, you can install more/larger fans which  spin slower and achieve the same cooling, thus reducing noise. Unfortunately, you can't really use this technique and maintain the slim design that most modern laptops aspire to.  The tiny fans in modern laptops have a very high-pitched whine which can really annoy!

If you look at the gaming laptops (which have full blown 2080 GPUs) you'll see how bulky they are because of the fans and cooling fins inside.  I guess the noise doesn't matter so much when you're using a laser blaster to destroy enemy ships!

I see most students wearing headphones when they're editing, so they're not bothered about the fans whining, but it's a pain for the rest of us!

You may be able to download fan software to further tailor the speeds of your fan, but if you end up not giving it enough cooling, you're going to get thermal throttling. One tip I can give is to take care where you rest your laptop. My wife likes to use her Macbook Pro in bed on occasions, but it was really ramping up the fans even on light duties like reading mail. The problem was, she was resting the Macbook on the duvet, which was covering up the exhaust grills sufficiently to prevent adequate cooling.  Using a hard surface helped.

Also, consider removing the rear cover and cleaning out the dust occasionally. I changed the battery on my wife's Macbook recently (due to the dreaded expanding battery pack issue) and the amount of dust in the fans and fins was surprising!

Edited September 30, 2020 by Bruno Mansi