Looking to buy a "new" editing machine - M1 or PC?

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Xocomil

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Looking to buy a "new" editing machine - M1 or PC?

PostThu Dec 02, 2021 5:09 pm

I need to replace the laptop I've been editing with the past few years with a Desktop computer (I used to travel a lot doing video journalism so needed something portable). Laptop has an 1050ti Nvidia card, 16GB RAM and an i7 8th gen processor. Worked fine with my old camera';s HD files, but not so good with my new cameras 4K files - even when editing on a 1080 timeline, and even after making proxies from the h265 camera files.

I'm very much a P/T editor, so don't want to spend too much (thousands on a graphics card, etc).

Thinking of either a mac mini M1 (8 or 16 GB RAM) or a 2nd hand PC (something like a GTX 1080 / RTX 2070, intel i7-11700 / Ryzen 7, 16-32 GB RAM).

I'm running Resolve 17 Studio.

I've heard great things about the M1 ... and also not so god things about it.

Wondering what folks here would do?
Last edited by Xocomil on Fri Dec 03, 2021 7:52 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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ZRGARDNE

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Re: Looking to buy a "new" editing machine - M1 or PC?

PostFri Dec 03, 2021 3:15 pm

This guy shows a M1 Max is equivalent to a 2070 laptop for some tasks


This guy, for one project of unknown grade shows the M1 about 30% faster than a 3080 laptop. It is obviously pretty simple as both are >60fps renders



The M1 will likely do better on timeline performance as Black Magic can't be bothered to enable hardware decode support in Windows for many of the codecs Nvidia supports
https://www.pugetsystems.com/labs/artic ... udio-2122/


I have not seen any comparisons/limitations of Fusion on M1 vs PC
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Mark Foster

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Re: Looking to buy a "new" editing machine - M1 or PC?

PostFri Dec 03, 2021 4:36 pm

the mini M1 will be a little bit slower as your envisioned PC

but a M1pro or M1max macbookpro is very much faster!
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Andrew Kolakowski

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Re: Looking to buy a "new" editing machine - M1 or PC?

PostFri Dec 03, 2021 7:38 pm

Some real world test (more photos related):
https://www.dpreview.com/reviews/laptop ... -vengeance
MSI Creator 17 looks nice, but it's not cheaper at all and overall I'm not convinced it's really a matched experience to M1 Max. Dell in my experience is garbage. It's just nice in theory.

Unless you go with some 17inch heavy PC laptop with GTX 3xxx, which can properly use its CPY+GPU M1 Max will be definitely better option. If you specifically target Resolve then M1 machines are even more worth it due to very good hardware acceleration. Add very good screen with dedicated presets, multiple refresh rates and ability to do "simple" calibration and you can't match it with PC option. If you plan to work on batter than anything Intel based is simply no match to M1. Mac M1 is actually not really overpriced if you take all into account and compare it to laptops like MSI Creator 17 (just don't buy pointless 2TB SSD which is expensive option).
As a fun (but not really) note- look at MSI venting slots and compare to Mac :) It tells you a lot.
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Xocomil

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Re: Looking to buy a "new" editing machine - M1 or PC?

PostFri Dec 03, 2021 7:55 pm

Sorry guys. I wasn't clear in my post. I'm looking for a DESKTOP, not a laptop.

I'm leaning towards PC as I got frustrated with Apple after my 3rd macbook pro died years ago.

A number of the PC's I've seen (2nd hand, I might add), have Gigabyte / EVGA cards (2060, etc).

Does Resolve treat these the same as a NVIDIA branded card? I presume yes, but just wanted to check before I lay out my cash.

Thanks!
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Andrew Kolakowski

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Re: Looking to buy a "new" editing machine - M1 or PC?

PostFri Dec 03, 2021 8:17 pm

M1 will have 1 big advantage in your case which is good GPU Acceleration for h264/5 (anything 4:2:2 = no acceleration on Nvidia, where eon M1 they are still GPU decoded). In the same time as you said it may be bit too slow in some tasks due to its relatively weak GPU.

PC which you mentioned is fine, it will work ok, but it may struggle on some source files.
I would get better GPU (3x) for the price of 16GB of RAM and cheaper CPU (some AMD- less cores, but high clock).
Or simply try to save on M1 14inch, which could be in your case good option. It's solid package. For someone who uses fairly simple Resolve projects, mainly editing (no heavy filters, noise reduction, etc.) with compressed sources (h264/5 etc) and can deliver as ProRes it would work well thanks to its accelerations. I have feeling that it may actually be smoother experience than quite good PC (better than you mentioned).

You have to go into even more details:
- source files: current and what you may get in short future
- typical projects type
- delivery needs
- is it strictly work machine or for home use as well
- do you have/need color accurate preview
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Re: Looking to buy a "new" editing machine - M1 or PC?

PostSat Dec 04, 2021 3:18 am

To give an informed answer we need to know what kind of files and projects you're doing, but the 16GB M1 pro is probably better unless you need a lot of GPU power.
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Re: Looking to buy a "new" editing machine - M1 or PC?

PostSat Dec 04, 2021 4:51 am

Xocomil wrote: A number of the PC's I've seen (2nd hand, I might add), have Gigabyte / EVGA cards (2060, etc).


Hi.

I don't know how the 2nd hand PC prices are in your area, but have you considered a new HP OMEN 30L Desktop:

https://www.hp.com/us-en/shop/mdp/omen- ... #!&tab=vao

I don't know what Codec you are using. But 11th and 12th Generation Intel CPU have Hardware Decoding Support in DaVinci Resolve Studio for H.265 (HEVC) for 8, 10 and 12 bit 4:2:0, 4:2:2 and 4:4.4, but not H264:

https://www.pugetsystems.com/labs/artic ... udio-2122/

Regards Carsten.
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Uli Plank

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Re: Looking to buy a "new" editing machine - M1 or PC?

PostSat Dec 04, 2021 5:20 am

A Mac mini 16 GB would be sufficient for editing and light grading. As soon as you are needing heavier effects, like NR, SuperScale, Optical Flow or such, something stronger would be needed.
A MacBook M1 Pro is great if you need the portability, but a second-hand desktop PC would be cheaper.
The main problem is the availability of good GPUs at this time.
No, an iGPU is not enough, and you can't use HEVC 10 bit 4:2:2 in the free version.

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Re: Looking to buy a "new" editing machine - M1 or PC?

PostSat Dec 04, 2021 10:15 am

Carsten Sellberg wrote:
Xocomil wrote: A number of the PC's I've seen (2nd hand, I might add), have Gigabyte / EVGA cards (2060, etc).


Hi.

I don't know how the 2nd hand PC prices are in your area, but have you considered a new HP OMEN 30L Desktop:

https://www.hp.com/us-en/shop/mdp/omen- ... #!&tab=vao

I don't know what Codec you are using. But 11th and 12th Generation Intel CPU have Hardware Decoding Support in DaVinci Resolve Studio for H.265 (HEVC) for 8, 10 and 12 bit 4:2:0, 4:2:2 and 4:4.4, but not H264:

https://www.pugetsystems.com/labs/artic ... udio-2122/

Regards Carsten.


If you have Nvidia and Intel will Resolve use Intel for GPU decoding if possible (or does it use only card which been chosen for processing)?
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Re: Looking to buy a "new" editing machine - M1 or PC?

PostSat Dec 04, 2021 11:29 am

Andrew Kolakowski wrote: If you have Nvidia and Intel will Resolve use Intel for GPU decoding if possible (or does it use only card which been chosen for processing)?


Hi.

I don't actually know, as I am using AMD CPU's. Lets hope others can tell us?
If It don't, will I suggest we all together make a Feature Request to BMD?

Regards Carsten.
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Carsten Sellberg

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Re: Looking to buy a "new" editing machine - M1 or PC?

PostSat Dec 04, 2021 1:50 pm

Andrew Kolakowski wrote: If you have Nvidia and Intel will Resolve use Intel for GPU decoding if possible (or does it use only card which been chosen for processing)?


Hi.

Here is a link where 1meter60 tell how he use Intel internal GPU for hardware decoding when using a AMD Radeon VII GPU.

Quote 1meter60: 'Side notes: In the Resolve menu I can activate both GPUs for decoding at the same time. In this case Resolve uses always the AMD GPU. And my AMD Radeon VII shows the video decoding work in the task manager (I use the Pro drivers if that matters).
In Hardware-Encoding the Intel GPU gives much better results in detailed images as the AMD GPU and also the Intel GPU has the option of h.265 10 bit which the AMD GPU lacks.
So I prefer the Intel internal GPU for hardware decoding and encoding over the AMD Radeon VII GPU.'

From the comments of https://www.pugetsystems.com/labs/artic ... udio-2122/

I don't expect using a nVidea GPU will be different to his AMD Radeon VII GPU?

Regards Carsten.
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Re: Looking to buy a "new" editing machine - M1 or PC?

PostSat Dec 04, 2021 1:58 pm

GPU decoding has separate setting (well was too lazy to check it), so yes it should work no problem. You can actually specially turn off Nvidia and leave just Intel decoding on.

In this case having latest Intel GPU is very desired if you work with compressed sources.
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Re: Looking to buy a "new" editing machine - M1 or PC?

PostMon Dec 06, 2021 4:44 am

Hi.

I can se that 4 out of the 7 HP Desktops models in my previous link now are Out of stock.

But if you go to the OMEN 30L Desktop GT13-1350st and 'CUSTOMIZE & BAY'. Do it have
a 11th Gen Intel Core Processor and a choice of 7 different Graphics Cards. Here is a direct link:

https://www.hp.com/us-en/shop/Configure ... quantity=1

Regards Carsten.
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Re: Looking to buy a "new" editing machine - M1 or PC?

PostMon Dec 06, 2021 11:30 am

Xocomil wrote:Sorry guys. I wasn't clear in my post. I'm looking for a DESKTOP, not a laptop.

I'm leaning towards PC as I got frustrated with Apple after my 3rd macbook pro died years ago.

A number of the PC's I've seen (2nd hand, I might add), have Gigabyte / EVGA cards (2060, etc).

Does Resolve treat these the same as a NVIDIA branded card? I presume yes, but just wanted to check before I lay out my cash.

Thanks!
In my humble, personal, subjective and highly biased opinion, I'd choose the desktop setup for DVRS editing, not a laptop.

While we don't have any modern (M1 Max based?) desktop offers from Apple as of now, the PC way looks like the only viable option.

All video cards equipped with NVidia chips will be treated as NVidia GPUs no matter what brand they are labelled with.

For the CPU, I'd probably go for i7-11900K because of its higher per-single-core peak frequency. Also, look for Intel 750 iGPU (bundled with CPU), it may be useful for Resolve Studio because of hardware decoding of some 4:2:2 and 10bit codecs.

32GB RAM is, hmm, Okay I think (though there is no such thing as "too much RAM").

For the GPU, I think any sufficiently modern NVidia GPU (2070, 2080, 3070, 3080 etc.) will be Ok given the card has at least 8GB VRAM (more is better, say 10GB or 12GB VRAM).

A silent cooling system for both CPU and GPU is welcome, too; big slow air fans, or maybe liquid cooling. Keep both your CPU and GPU as cool as possible.

Disks performance is critical; so a pair of NVME M.2 fast SSDs of (at least) 1TB each are welcome to play the role of scratch disks. Also, some 2TB or even 4TB SATA SSD is good for the generic storage of your projects. Mechanical HDDs are Ok for archiving but no good for editing anything larger than FullHD.

AMD CPUs? Okay, they are definitely worth being considered, too; but the idea of fewer cores with higher per-single-core frequency still applies. BTW AMD CPUs are known to operate at a much lower temperature than Intels given the similar performance level. But the GPU still needs to be kept cool, anyway.

Also, there is one interesting hint. I am not sure about AMD, but for Intel CPUs both Windows and Linux have Meltdown/Spectre mitigations inside the OS kernel active by default. Given the fact that there aren't any pieces of evidence on vulnerability exploitation in the wild, I use the Linux kernel command line parameter to disable the mitigations as a whole. This releases the artificially introduced "brakes" and allows CPU performance to rise from 10% up to 30% (under certain software and workloads). I'm using it at my own risk, and I am careful to avoid using any software from unknown (untrusted) sources. I don't know if disabling mitigations is available on Windows or not.
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Re: Looking to buy a "new" editing machine - M1 or PC?

PostMon Dec 06, 2021 12:19 pm

The biggest problem right now is finding a good GPU for an acceptable price.
No, an iGPU is not enough, and you can't use HEVC 10 bit 4:2:2 in the free version.

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Re: Looking to buy a "new" editing machine - M1 or PC?

PostMon Dec 06, 2021 1:51 pm

Hi.

I will suggest you to find different ways to shop for your Resolve Desktop systems.

Many dealers have just increased their GPU prices. I will not say, that I love the way the HP Store.com do it. But I accept to get GPU's a at a good price, I will have to bay a complete computer system. And I love the way you can pick a system on

https://www.hp.com/us-en/shop/Configure ... quantity=1

In other part of the world are HP Desktops only sold via dealers. But I still find fair total prises. Here is a link where I searched for 'HP Omen GT13' on the German price search site idealo.de

https://www.idealo.de/preisvergleich/Ma ... +Omen+GT13

The prices are including the German sales Tax, which I remember to be 19%.
And here is an another link to a German dealer Cool Blue:

https://www.coolblue.de/desktops/hp/hp-omen

If it is very expensive to bay a GPU, in your part of the world. Can you may be look at the prices for a complete computer system?

Regards Carsten.
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Re: Looking to buy a "new" editing machine - M1 or PC?

PostMon Dec 06, 2021 8:37 pm

Hi all.

Thanks for all the replies! Lots of great information there.

I am usually editing XAVC files from my Sony A7S3. I tend to record in 10-bit 4.2.0 as that is recommended for "ease" in editing.

My edits are generally quite simple with minimal color work, stabilization, basic titles, etc. However, timelines can easily go upwards of 10 minutes, and I could potentially work with multiple streams of 4K video (though up until now I tend to work on an HD timeline).

I'm going to pass on the Mac Mini M1, and go the PC route. I'll find an NVIDIA 2070 GPU or higher, 32GB RAM minimum, and SSD drive for the OS / scratch drive.

One question - there are a number of gaming PCs around with AMD Ryzen processors - 1700 up to 3600. I'm wondering if the AMDs are similar to the intel I7-11900Ks in terms of hardware decoding.

Thanks again. THis forum is great!
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Re: Looking to buy a "new" editing machine - M1 or PC?

PostMon Dec 06, 2021 8:52 pm

Xocomil wrote:I'll find an NVIDIA 2070 GPU or higher, 32GB RAM minimum, and SSD drive for the OS / scratch drive.
Make sure your GPU has at least 8GB VRAM.
Xocomil wrote:One question - there are a number of gaming PCs around with AMD Ryzen processors - 1700 up to 3600. I'm wondering if the AMDs are similar to the intel I7-11900Ks in terms of hardware decoding.
I am not aware of the hardware decoding abilities of AMDs.
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Re: Looking to buy a "new" editing machine - M1 or PC?

PostMon Dec 06, 2021 9:03 pm

Xocomil wrote: I'm wondering if the AMDs are similar to the intel I7-11900Ks in terms of hardware decoding.


Hi.

In the paid STUDIO Version of Resolve, can certain combination of Codec, Resolutions, Bit width and Chroma subsampling be hardware decoded/encoded on either a AMD/nVidea Graphics card or in a Intel non Xeon CPU.

So there is no hardware decode/encode in a AMD CPU.

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Re: Looking to buy a "new" editing machine - M1 or PC?

PostMon Dec 06, 2021 9:42 pm

Yes I'm using the STUDIO version ... so both the GPU and certain CPUs can hardware encode / decode in Resolve 17?

I was thinking about this Dell Alienware:

Dell Alienware Aurora R12 with Asus RTX3060 OC 12 GB Non-LHR GPU
11th Gen Intel Core i5 11400F (6-Core, 12MB Cache, 2.6Ghz to 4.4GHz)
512GB M.2 PCIe NVMe SSD
16GB, 2x8GB, DDR4, 3200MHz, XM P
Lunar Light chassis with Low-P rofile Smart Cooling CPU Heats ink

I would likely add 2 more sticks of RAM to start, as well as a 2TB SSD media drive.
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Re: Looking to buy a "new" editing machine - M1 or PC?

PostMon Dec 06, 2021 9:58 pm

Xocomil wrote: I am usually editing XAVC files from my Sony A7S3. I tend to record in 10-bit 4.2.0


Hi.

I want to make sure it is H.265/XAVC HS 4:2:0 10-Bit and not some kind of H.264/XAVC 10-Bit.

If it is H.265/XAVC HS 4:2:0 10-Bit can you may be use a nVidea graphics card and not the CPU to decode/encode.

Here is a link to the nvidea Video Encode and Decode GPU Support Matrix:

https://developer.nvidia.com/video-enco ... matrix-new

Please (Click to expand) both the NVENC - Encoding and the NVDEC - Decoding.
And scroll both expanded screens to the far right.

Then you will be able to se witch codec, bitwith and colorsampling that can be hardware decoded by the different nVidea graphics cards.

And may be you then can use nVidea decoding/encoding and not decoding/encoding by a recent Intel CPU?

Regards Carsten.
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Re: Looking to buy a "new" editing machine - M1 or PC?

PostMon Dec 06, 2021 10:03 pm

Hi Carsten.

Yes it's h.265/XAVC HS 4:2:0 10-bit.

To be honest I'm getting a bit confused as to what I need to get the best editing experience.

Sounds like NVIDIA GPU 3060 or better (with 8GBVRAM minimum), 32 GB RAM, and a decent AMD Ryzen / Intel processor (though processor not as important for Resolve work as long as I"m using the STUDIO version)

Do I have that right?

Thanks again.
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Re: Looking to buy a "new" editing machine - M1 or PC?

PostTue Dec 07, 2021 12:22 am

Xocomil wrote:Sounds like NVIDIA GPU 3060 or better (with 8GBVRAM minimum), 32 GB RAM, and a decent AMD Ryzen / Intel processor (though processor not as important for Resolve work as long as I"m using the STUDIO version)

Do I have that right?
I think you are correct, with one minor note: RTX 3070/80/90 is a safer bet because of hardware decoding/encoding support of a few more modern codecs. Though it may be insignificant in your specific usage case.

Also, I'd suggest keeping some good SSDs in mind, too.

BTW I'd suggest getting your (initial) 32GB of RAM in 2 sticks of 16GB (so later you will purchase 2 more 16GB sticks and keep yourself happy). Otherwise, you will be stuck with 8GB sticks without a clear idea of how to sell these later when you will decide on a RAM upgrade to 64GB.

P.S. The CPU is important. Look for maximum per-single-core frequency, 8 cores / 16 threads are ok given the top-rate per-core peak frequency.
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Re: Looking to buy a "new" editing machine - M1 or PC?

PostTue Dec 07, 2021 10:25 am

Xocomil wrote: To be honest I'm getting a bit confused as to what I need to get the best editing experience.


Hi.

You can use either a Intel CPU or a nVidea graphics card to speed up the decode/encode of H.265 in Resolve Studio. Or you can buy both, and switch between them in the Resolve setting.

Previous in this thread I linked to the difference of the 10th and 11th Generation Intel CPU to show one of the main difference and suggested you to choose a 11th or the new 12th Generation Intel CPU.

Later you wrote Quote: 'I am usually editing XAVC files from my Sony A7S3. I tend to record in 10-bit 4.2.0'
This got me to think that, when you only is using one camera, and you are considering a 2nd hand computer system, you may be can make a better deal, if you aim for nVidea decode/encode of H.265 in Resolve Studio.

But I will also like to ask other forum members if they have any preference, when using Intel CPU or a nVidea graphics card to speed up the decode/encode of H.265 in Resolve Studio

Regards Carsten.
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Re: Looking to buy a "new" editing machine - M1 or PC?

PostTue Dec 07, 2021 4:39 pm

Xocomil wrote:Sorry guys. I wasn't clear in my post. I'm looking for a DESKTOP, not a laptop.
I'm leaning towards PC as I got frustrated with Apple after my 3rd macbook pro died years ago.
A number of the PC's I've seen (2nd hand, I might add), have Gigabyte / EVGA cards (2060, etc).
Does Resolve treat these the same as a NVIDIA branded card? I presume yes, but just wanted to check before I lay out my cash.
Thanks!


After 20 years with Apple (and PC's and others in parallel) and having a background in electronics and software earlier this year I went with a PC for video editing over a new Mac to replace my aging Pro's.

The reason are many fold not least being I can pick and mix, also I can easily replace/upgrade subsystems. IE I can put in 32Gb RAM and later upgrade it to 128GB. IF you pick the right motherboard you can simply add more ram without throwing away the initial RAM. Also it is far easier replace or upgrade storage or Graphics cards. Certainly compared to the new M** Macs

Apple is increasingly going to a monolithic design and removing as many generic parts as possible. Thus reducing any 3rd party repair. Apple repair is a motherboard swap along with all the memory and licenses. If all your apps are through the Apple shop then fine otherwise you are stuffed. So you may have a theoretical raw speed advantage but at the cost of everything else.

I had a new graphics card fail (infant mortality) and it was swapped out in 24 hours. Yes I am sure you can get a mac swapped in 24 hours but when I rebooted my PC it was *EXACTLY* as I left it. With a Mac you will need to reinstall, recover backups and start again…. I t would be the same with any component, except the drive the SW was on of course, However as I have an OS Drive, a data Drive and a backup I am not likely to lose all three at once. Do the iMacs have multiple drives?

If it were just speed they everyone would be driving Ferraris. But you try putting 3 children and a dog in a Ferrari, or the weekly shopping or the scuba kit….. There is more to a computer than pure processing power.
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Re: Looking to buy a "new" editing machine - M1 or PC?

PostTue Dec 07, 2021 6:36 pm

jamedia - I feel the same way, which is why I made the switch from MBP to my Dell XPS 3 years ago after the MBP died. I couldn't handle not being able to opent eh case and replace / upgrade parts, especially as I was living in a village in Latin America where a trip to the apple store took 4 hours one way.

Appreciate the confirmation bias!
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jamedia

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Re: Looking to buy a "new" editing machine - M1 or PC?

PostTue Dec 07, 2021 6:52 pm

Xocomil wrote:jamedia - I feel the same way, which is why I made the switch from MBP to my Dell XPS 3 years ago after the MBP died. I couldn't handle not being able to opent eh case and replace / upgrade parts, especially as I was living in a village in Latin America where a trip to the apple store took 4 hours one way.

Appreciate the confirmation bias!


I have some MBP's (all had memory, and drives upgraded and replacement battteries) and a Pro (upgraded memory, HDD's and Graphics card) However with the new macs none of that is possible. I could still do it with the new Mac Pro crate but I can get double the performance of the base pro for half the cost with a PC..... It became a no brainer.

I am 30 minutes from a 3rd party Mac repair shop and an Apple Genius Bar. However the new laptops and iMacs are being intentionally designed for Apple only service and any repair will be a motherboard swap taking your installed software, emails and data with it. The other problem is there have been several cases of employees at Official Apple repair shops taking and using priate and personal data. I know this is 1 in a million but it has been more than a one off that I have seen.

With the PC's if required you can remove the drive with any sensitve data on it. No I don't mean **** but company accounts, personal accounts, other commercially sensitive data etc.
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Andrew Kolakowski

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Re: Looking to buy a "new" editing machine - M1 or PC?

PostTue Dec 07, 2021 7:21 pm

Xocomil wrote:jamedia - I feel the same way, which is why I made the switch from MBP to my Dell XPS 3 years ago after the MBP died. I couldn't handle not being able to opent eh case and replace / upgrade parts, especially as I was living in a village in Latin America where a trip to the apple store took 4 hours one way.

Appreciate the confirmation bias!


What can you upgrade in XPS? Memory ?

I don't buy those arguments about memory. Unless you have special needs 32GB is plenty, specially in laptop.
When it comes to desktop PCs one thing which makes sense to upgrade is GPU (well you can upgrade memory if such need arise). Other than that- 5 years old machine gets outdated and quite often CPU is already not upgradeable due to different slot, memory also gets outdated, TB is not anymore current version, etc. If you want to be on time then upgrading is not that easy. If you want to make old machine bit better than it's easier.
Many PC users forget about 1 important thing which is price of used Macs. You can always sell after eg. 3 years and buy new one and then cost is actually not that crazy high. This way you are back on time with latest tech. With PC prices goes down a lot and selling is not worth it, so you either update (which is not necessarily cheap) or buy new one anyway.

Apple's repairability abilities is a joke and this simply should be banned on governments level. They are trying, but way not hard enough. I wanted to replace battery in few years old MacBook Pro and they said it's going to cost 3rd of the new machine as they have to replace whole top case, keyboard etc. This is simply a joke and NEVER should be allowed by law. Apple talks about environment and how green they are and when it comes to replacing battery they need to change half o the perfectly working laptop ? :roll: Amazing design Apple. It's funny or actually not funny at all.

Apple's recent desktop machines are joke and pure waste of money. Laptops not necessarily, but you shouldn't really compare one to another. Does anyone know official battery replacement policy in latest MacBooks? They put some battery stripes, so I assume it's more realistic replacement, not half of the laptop one?
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Re: Looking to buy a "new" editing machine - M1 or PC?

PostTue Dec 07, 2021 7:37 pm

![/quote]
Apple's repairability abilities is a joke and this simply should be banned on governments level. They are trying, but way not hard enough. I wanted to replace battery in few years old MacBook Pro and they said it's going to cost 3rd of the new machine as they have to replace whole top case, keyboard etc. This is simply a joke and NEVER should be allowed by law. Apple talks about environment and how green they are and when it comes to replacing battery they need to change half o the perfectly working laptop ? :roll: Amazing design Apple. It's funny or actually not funny at all.[/quote]

I upgraded the XPS's memory and put in a larger nvme ssd ... all with parts I bought online and did it myself in 10 minutes. And if the SSD failed while I was in my little village I could again replace myself without leaving it with apple techs for a week (or longer, as they had to order parts from apple in the US).

Both of my last two MBPs (17" top of the line) had motherboard failures months after the applecare expired. That was in addition to battery replacement, etc under warranty. So while I might have gotten a good price selling second-hand, it's hard to sell a MBP that won't start up :(
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Re: Looking to buy a "new" editing machine - M1 or PC?

PostTue Dec 07, 2021 7:44 pm

You must be very unlucky with those failures.
I forgotten about disks- those are definitely on the top of the list what you may want to replace.
Sorry, but for me XPS pice a piece of crap. There is always something wrong with it and dreaded coil noise is a real joke. Performance is also only 'theoretical'. Those machines have exactly same issue as old Macs- Intel processors which a not really designed to work in thin laptops. Apple and Dell tried hard, but it never really worked properly. Apple realized it, for Dell story continues.
XPS should be sold as everyday machine for internet (like Air). For this they may be actually fine (after some tweaks).

Now I have old MacBook and new one and fact that 2nd one is perfectly quiet even after 1h simple grading in Resolve is worth for me more than about anything else. Then I go to old machine and magic moment is gone- spinning fans for no reason even when I'm doing simplest tasks. It's shocking that for that many years Intel has not designed a proper CPU for a laptop use. Well, they actually could but they had no real competition, so no reason to bother.
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Re: Looking to buy a "new" editing machine - M1 or PC?

PostTue Dec 07, 2021 8:06 pm

Is there anyone out there who's using Resolve and Fusion on a current M1 (PRO or Max) with actual, real world user experience willing to report?

My system (see signature) works pretty well in Edit, but is glacially slow with Fusion. I'm considering a Mac Mini Pro whenever it appears. The attraction is huge memory size and bandwidth to both the CPU and GPU.

Following 40 years of Intel machines, it would be my first Apple computer.
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Re: Looking to buy a "new" editing machine - M1 or PC?

PostTue Dec 07, 2021 8:25 pm

I don't think it will be much faster.
You need to wait for real (new) Pro desktop machine from Apple.
New MacBooks are great, but those are not a desktop workstation and when it comes to really demanding things, like Fusion they can't compete with high-end workstations.
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Re: Looking to buy a "new" editing machine - M1 or PC?

PostTue Dec 07, 2021 10:44 pm

Andrew Kolakowski wrote:I don't think it will be much faster.
You need to wait for real (new) Pro desktop machine from Apple.
New MacBooks are great, but those are not a desktop workstation and when it comes to really demanding things, like Fusion they can't compete with high-end workstations.


Maybe.

One of the biggest limitations I've found with PC-based GPUs is their limited memory. My 8GB P4000 runs out of memory all the time when working in Fusion (or at least it hits its max and then limps along). This has a massive impact on my ability to work with Fusion comps.

If I were to do it again, I might go for a 24GB GPU but with today's prices that would cost me more than a Macbook Pro M1 Max (a Quadro RTX 6000 is priced at over $6800 CAN at newegg.ca - makes me sad).

I've ordered an M1 Max but I won't receive it until late January. When I get it, I will be performing some Fusion tests and will definitely report to this forum. I'm not expecting magic, but I do expect to be able to create comps that I simply cannot create with my desktop system due to limited GPU memory.

We'll see.
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Re: Looking to buy a "new" editing machine - M1 or PC?

PostTue Dec 07, 2021 10:59 pm

Not running out of GPU memory is one thing.
But then you actually need CPU and GPU power to do processing itself and M1 is not really match for high-end workstation.
In the same time if you want job to be just done (even if it takes 10x longer than on high-end workstation) then new Macs are some solution (which is an interesting fact).
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Re: Looking to buy a "new" editing machine - M1 or PC?

PostTue Dec 07, 2021 11:16 pm

The problem with VRAM in DR seems to apply more often to Nvidia than AMD GPUs.
I don't understand why.
No, an iGPU is not enough, and you can't use HEVC 10 bit 4:2:2 in the free version.

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Re: Looking to buy a "new" editing machine - M1 or PC?

PostWed Dec 08, 2021 3:02 am

Hi.

In Resolve the CPU is used to run the app, disk I/O, fusion, decode and encode of codecs.
Resolve does all its image processing in the GPU on the graphics card. Higher CUDA/OpenCL performance is better.

Resolve do all its Image processing in RGB fp32. 4K videos have 4 times the pixels of HD. And for 4K is the absolute minimum 6 GB of vRam on the Graphics Card, but minimum 8 GB of vRam, or more are recommended.

Yes, 'GPU memory is Full' errors are only seen on nVidea Graphics cards. And not on AMD Graphics card. So if you have to many 'GPU memory is Full' errors for your liking, you can either change your nVidea GPU to one with more vRam or to a AMD GPU.

Quote: 'While our 8K test project in CUDA mode with an RTX2080Ti repeatedly breaks off due to memory overflows despite 11 GB DDR6 RAM, strangely enough, this does not happen with the 6GB AMD card. This acts much more slowly, but does not stop processing because the memory is full.'

From this Google translated German link: https://www-slashcam-de.translate.goog/ ... r_hl=en-US

I have read that the way AMD uses vRam is different to the way nVidea is using vRam. And that AMD is able to store some part in the PC's normal RAM.


Here is a link, that in the end of the first table show what hardware decode/encode possibilities there is in AMD Graphics cards for Resolve Studio.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unified_Video_Decoder

All the recent AMD Graphics card have up to 10 bit and either 4K or 8K Hardware decoding possibility.

As I remember don't AMD decode Chroma subsampling of 4:2:2. But I will suggest Xocomil to find out if H.265/XAVC HS 4:2:0 10-Bit is decoded or to use a recent Intel CPU togetter with a AMD Graphics card.

Regards Carsten.
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Re: Looking to buy a "new" editing machine - M1 or PC?

PostWed Dec 08, 2021 10:35 am

AMD GPUs are doing well on Mac machines. But on PC (either Window$ or Linux) driver (in)compatibility problems with DaVinci are often reported. So be careful...
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Re: Looking to buy a "new" editing machine - M1 or PC?

PostWed Dec 08, 2021 4:03 pm

Like others, we stopped using Apple for post. The trashcan "Pro" was a major disaster for us. We fought with Apple over it and we won. Our experience proved without any doubt that Apple has zero interest in serving the pro market the way they once did; that former pro-minded Apple is dead and will never return.

We moved all of our post to PC. It is not perfect and has its own headaches, but is so much better than dealing with Apple. We have far more control over our gear, can service almost anything ourselves, and have much greater return on the investment since we can upgrade parts when needed.

Their $1000 monitor stand sums up their position very clearly.
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Re: Looking to buy a "new" editing machine - M1 or PC?

PostWed Dec 08, 2021 4:29 pm

Matt White wrote:Like others, we stopped using Apple for post. The trashcan "Pro" was a major disaster for us. We fought with Apple over it and we won. Our experience proved without any doubt that Apple has zero interest in serving the pro market the way they once did; that former pro-minded Apple is dead and will never return.


I agree. The New Pro (silver crate) has proved that. Apple bring out a very expensive x86Pro, 5 years too late, when they know their next gen Laptops and iMacs will be M1 CPU's. The M1's were more than a couple if years in the pipleline. Those I have spoken to about the current Pro say it only makes sence if you are buying multiple top end versions. That cuts out all the entry and mid level pro users. As noted by many for entry to mid levle pro's a PC workstation makes far more sense. (even with the Great Satan :- MS Windows :: :D ) In which case Windows laptops also make sense for companies as it means a consistant platform.

The M1 macs might have the edge on pure speed but there is so much more to it that that.
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Re: Looking to buy a "new" editing machine - M1 or PC?

PostWed Dec 08, 2021 5:12 pm

jamedia wrote:
Matt White wrote:
The M1 macs might have the edge on pure speed but there is so much more to it that that.


It's not about speed at all.
There is a way more important feature in case of laptops- thermal efficiency. Intel's mobile CPUs are simply a joke. It didn't even needed M1 to show up on the market (AMD proved that earlier).

ARM may not necessarily scale that well into workstation needs, but Apple at least has now decent mobile CPU. Jut don't try to use them as high-end workstation, which some STILL tend to do.

MS at the end may not be the worst part of PC world- it's just lack of 'solidness' in PC laptops which is annoying. Hard to find a model which has all elements solid. This was always a problem for me with very typical case- good machine, terrible screen. No idea why companies like Samsung, Asus, HP, etc. need to have 50 models in their offer. Why they can't stick few just few targeted correct group of clients and then polish them, so they work well. Who needs ModelA, B, C, ...P where most of them are about the same?

In the same time I had to configure new PC laptop recently and Win initial setup drove me crazy. Even after disabling tons of crap Win started new popups which had to be disabled as well. MS has simply no clue what to do - they now copied bottom bar design, yet keeping behind the scenes old Windows 10 or even 7 elements. It just shows lack of any innovation or proper approach. MS is simply lost for me. Not sure- maybe they need to change key people as they seems to be going no where. At leats they fixed constant OS crashes.
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Re: Looking to buy a "new" editing machine - M1 or PC?

PostWed Dec 08, 2021 6:29 pm

Andrew Kolakowski wrote:
jamedia wrote:
Matt White wrote:
The M1 macs might have the edge on pure speed but there is so much more to it that that.


It's not about speed at all.
There is a way more important feature in case of laptops- thermal efficiency. .


We were talking about workstations not laptops.

The problem with Apple was that they started to put looking good and being quiet over cooling so the Apple laptops were throtteling rather than cooling. So a PC laptop could be better performance wise than an x86 MacBook or iMac.
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Re: Looking to buy a "new" editing machine - M1 or PC?

PostWed Dec 08, 2021 6:32 pm

Yes I definitely agree, for my own budget/performance desired ratio, the good big and heavy desktop PC under Linux is a way to go. I think I'd get 2x performance in DVR this way for the price of the top M1 Pro Apple laptop.
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Re: Looking to buy a "new" editing machine - M1 or PC?

PostWed Dec 08, 2021 6:48 pm

stesin wrote:Yes I definitely agree, for my own budget/performance desired ratio, the good big and heavy desktop PC under Linux is a way to go. I think I'd get 2x performance in DVR this way for the price of the top M1 Pro Apple laptop.


I wouldn't touch Linux at all. But then my Degree is in computer operating systems....
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Re: Looking to buy a "new" editing machine - M1 or PC?

PostWed Dec 08, 2021 7:01 pm

jamedia wrote:I wouldn't touch Linux at all. But then my Degree is in computer operating systems....
Probably, your "degree" is worthless compared to real life experience with different systems since 1985 ;) why don't you like cats? You just don't know how to cook them ;) my first try on Linux was back in late 1993, it was a real **** at the time. But today Linux is one pretty solid OS and environment.
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Re: Looking to buy a "new" editing machine - M1 or PC?

PostWed Dec 08, 2021 7:12 pm

jamedia wrote:The problem with Apple was that they started to put looking good and being quiet over cooling so the Apple laptops were throtteling rather than cooling. So a PC laptop could be better performance wise than an x86 MacBook or iMac.

Because it was a trend forced by users and Apple fall into it same as Dell etc. Their 2016 etc. 'thin' models are their worse machines. Good that they woke up a bit.

People simply expect too much. M1 Air showed that everyday laptop can be silent and easily efficient enough and this should be 1 laptop category. Dell should use slower CPUs and put XPS line there.
Intel i9 (or even i7) processors should never be put into bodies like MacBook or XPS. Maybe you could work out some very efficient, complex and expensive cooling system, but you always have budget constrains and can't just complicate things further and further. Solution is simple- stop trying to make workstations from laptops. Efficient laptops is one thing, but pushing too far is pointless, specially when you want to pack all into thin and light body. Is Dell or Apple doesn't really see it ?
I don't know a fast (good Intel CPU+GPU) which does not throttle and performs at theoretical speeds of its elements (without weighting 4kg and been 17inch bulky monster).
YT with all famous tags and pumping expectations nonsense doesn't help much either. People expect more and more not realising they asking for something unreal.
I also hope Apple learnt a lesson with their XDR display. Don't ever try to compare your product to something miles better :lol: It's better to say during big even that eg. battery life is 10hours and let people find out that it's actually 12h than say it's 15h and have people disappointed that it's only 12h. I bet you in long term it will give better result.
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Re: Looking to buy a "new" editing machine - M1 or PC?

PostWed Dec 08, 2021 7:27 pm

stesin wrote:
jamedia wrote:I wouldn't touch Linux at all. But then my Degree is in computer operating systems....
Probably, your "degree" is worthless compared to real life experience with different systems since 1985 ;) why don't you like cats? You just don't know how to cook them ;) my first try on Linux was back in late 1993, it was a real **** at the time. But today Linux is one pretty solid OS and environment.


My degree in computer opperating systems is backed with 35 years of designing and makeing critical embdeeded systems from baremetal to using an RTOS. I understand the internals of various OS and RTOS. Have you ever run the Linux Kernel though a static analyser?
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Re: Looking to buy a "new" editing machine - M1 or PC?

PostWed Dec 08, 2021 7:34 pm

Andrew Kolakowski wrote:
jamedia wrote:The problem with Apple was that they started to put looking good and being quiet over cooling so the Apple laptops were throtteling rather than cooling. So a PC laptop could be better performance wise than an x86 MacBook or iMac.


Because it was a trend forced by users and Apple fall into it same as Dell etc. Their 2016 etc. 'thin' models are their worse machines. Good that they woke up a bit.
.....................

Solution is simple- stop trying to make workstations from laptops. Efficient laptops is one thing, but pushing too far is pointless, specially when you want to pack all into thin and light body.


+1
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Re: Looking to buy a "new" editing machine - M1 or PC?

PostWed Dec 08, 2021 8:15 pm

jamedia wrote:Have you ever run the Linux Kernel though a static analyser?
No I didn't. Though if you are so skilled, did you run Window$ kernel through a static analyzer? How about FreeBSD? RSX-11M+ maybe?

I think we are losing the point here. As of right now, I think Linux kernel and especially the ecosystem is much more robust compared to Window$ and while MacOS is good, Linux (no matter how "bad" is it) stays on par with Mac with regard to a price/performance and price/usability ratio.

If you don't like it, just don't use it. That's exactly what I do; I trashed Window$ and Micro$oft completely 6 years ago and I'll never be back. But this is my humble, personal, subjective and highly biased opinion, of course.
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Re: Looking to buy a "new" editing machine - M1 or PC?

PostWed Dec 08, 2021 8:22 pm

I'm a DIT for film and TV Production.

I have the first Gen MacbookPro M1 system ( 16GB ). Using Resolve, I can edit BRAW, Prores and MP4 Files like they are nothing. With BRAW, I am running native resolution out to a OLED reference monitor VIA a Ultrastudio 4K Mini. With one Thunderbolt 3 cable ( TB3 has 4 PCIe lanes, TB4 has only 1 ) going to a CalDigit TS3+ ( not sponsored ) I can access the data from a raid drive, and output to the Ultrastudio without any hiccups, and its far from saturating the TB Buss. All this while charging the laptop.


In short, I don't even think about a windows system anymore. ( I used to be a hardcore PC person ).

Also, Prores is my go to output format, and even though windows can create Prores files, but Its just not the same.

I would ABSOLUTELY go with the M1 system with the Max ram. Just my 2 Cents.
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