Blackmagic Forum

Hey all!

My first time actually posting on this forum so I apologize in advance if this isn't the right thread.

Anyways, I'm looking to invest in upgrading some of my hardware to be better suited for Resolve 15.
I've done a bit of research and this is the route I'm planning on going based on my budget, but BMD's configuration guide is so vague and I would really love to hear any real world advice or suggestions before pulling the trigger on it.

A 21.5" iMac. Retina 4K, 2017 that has an AMD Radeon Pro 555 with 2 GB of vRAM and will upgrade to 32 GB of RAM.
A Blackmagic eGPU with the AMD Radeon Pro 580 with 8 GB of vRAM.
Lastly, the DaVinci Resolve Micro Panel.

I'll be using Resolve 15 Studio, for primarily color grading and occasionally some compositing in fusion. I'm not anticipating using it for editing or fairlight much, if at all.
I mostly work with 4K and 4.5K .R3D files, UHD ProRes 422 HQ files from an Alexa Mini, and 2.5K to 4K CinemaDNG files.
I don't need it to be able to handle 8K RAW footage or dozens of nodes but I'd like to be able to get good noise reduction.
So I'm trying to make sure my machine can handle all that fairly smoothly without getting the "Your GPU Memory is Full" error.

Thanks!

Well, the eGPU will save you from the "Your GPU is full" message.

But the machine will be challenged with decoding of R3D by the CPU and you'll get bandwidth problems with the DNG files from an external drive, since it has only one Thunderbolt controller, which will be busy with the eGPU.

It will work, but it'll not be the smoothest experience.