Blackmagic Forum

It's time to upgrade my iMac Pro (Intel - 3 Ghz 10-Core Intel Xeon;Radeon Pro Vega 64/16 gb; 64GB Ram) to a new M2 Studio. My system is connected to a QNAP TVS-672XT populated by SSDs)

Besides Resolve, I use my Macs for After Effects and Final Cut Pro, mostly.

I've ruled out the Mac Pro for a variety of reasons.

I'm looking for advice on the following, trying to keep to a $5,000 build-spec on the M2 Studio only.

Base Ultra 24-core with 60 core GPU or 76-core GPU ($1000 upgrade!)
64GB or 128 RAM - ($800 upgrade)

Base 1TBb storage vs 4TB Storage ($1,000 upgrade)

So to stay at around $5k I can have the following builds:

M2 Ultra 60-core with 128 GB Memory or 4TB Storage or

M2 Ultra 76-core with 64 GB Memory and 1TB storage (and no other upgrades)

I say all of this assuming the Ultra Chip is worth it over the Max. OTH,

M2 Max 38-core GPU with 96gb Memory and 4TB Storage is $4200

In general user experience, how much is the Ultra worth it for either Resolve or After Effects? I assume FCP will fit comfortably in most specs.

And how do folks feel about the new Studio Monitors? I have a Flanders LM240 and an HP Dreamcolor ZDisplay in addition to the iMac Pro 5K monitor, which I really like.

The other thing I'm curious about is whether the laggy display problem with M2 Ultra (seen on both Premiere/AE and Resolve) has been resolved right now. It appears to be linked to the use of 2 monitors.

If you get 60 or even 76 GPU cores, you must get 128 GB RAM or you'll cripple that machine.
There's nothing wrong with having only 1 TB and using external storage. Remember the Ultra has 6 TB connectors.
If you can't afford 128 GB RAM, go for 38 GPU cores and spend your money on other gear. But the Ultra pretty much doubles performance under DR.

Thx Uli. Good point about the core/ram ratio. I agree the storage is the least important considering expansion opportunities elsewhere. The R\W performance of the internals is impressive, so maybe just for disk cache.

Uli Plank wrote:If you get 60 or even 76 GPU cores, you must get 128 GB RAM or you'll cripple that machine.
There's nothing wrong with having only 1 TB and using external storage. Remember the Ultra has 6 TB connectors.
If you can't afford 128 GB RAM, go for 38 GPU cores and spend your money on other gear. But the Ultra pretty much doubles performance under DR.

A little over 14 months later I think Uli just saved me a ton of money. I used to post more here and then got busy, but Uli was always very helpful and generous with his advice.

Still on the i9 Intel MBP and have been seconds away from placing the BH order for the past 24 hours, but between getting to the airport, delayed flights, and the checkout not having been open from Friday - Saturday, I somehow had not yet placed the order.

All to say that the Studio with 60-core GPU and 64GB RAM that was on my radar has now been held off on. Looking at availability for either moving down to another MBP with fewer GPU cores, or going to a more powerful Studio.

Thanks as always Uli. I'm really glad I found this thread and your post on it in the archives

Sean Weaver wrote:Still on the i9 Intel MBP and have been seconds away from placing the BH order for the past 24 hours, but between getting to the airport, delayed flights, and the checkout not having been open from Friday - Saturday, I somehow had not yet placed the order.

My guess is that numerous "Cyber Monday" deals will be happening tomorrow, and prices will be at least as good or better than the Black Friday computer deals. But you gotta jump and buy something sometime -- you can't wait forever.

This thread, the archives, and the note back from Uli helped exponentially.

The short version is I finally jumped.

May I recommend to install Sonoma instead of Sequoia? It should still be the default for it.