Apple dumps Intel and shows Final Cut Pro on new Mac with Apple CPU !

[rob norton]

Same as before. The MBA and 13" MBP are more or less the same. Thats why most of the suggestions are to get the MBA. Its only rendering after ten minutes and longer that the MBA starts to slow down a bit due t the heating. Even then at most it may take a 20% hit. Depending on environment temperature as well of course. I live in AZ and if I tried to use a MBA outside in summer I bet it would slow down even more. Use it in February outside in WI and it may not slow down at all.

Most tasks I listed above like importing material, organizing media and doing a rough cut will not tax the system at all. Really only rendering for longer videos or playing heavier games that will start to slow the system down. If you tend to work on smaller projects where your exports take a few minutes you will likely never notice a speed difference between the MBA and 13" MBP.

I would personally get a MBA or 13" MBP and wait for the new iMac. You could get the Intel iMac which is still an amazing Mac with the 5700 XT and will continue to be one heck of a 4k video editing machine for many years to come. Plus desktops don't really need to worry about cooling and battery life the way laptops do. The M1 makes complete sense for why we use laptops. Unplugged portability. Apple may have to give the Apple Silicon iMac 4x the processing power to make the case for it over Intel and AMD. If its about the same then it will be a harder sell for a lot of users. Thats why it might be interesting to wait for the Apple Silicon iMac and try to get by with the M1 portable Mac for now.

When I say just 13" I also mean either the MBA or MBP. Both have a 13" screen. In fact identical screens other than the MBP having an extra 100 nits of brightness which apparently isn't a huge amount when viewing them side by side at full brightness. it may help a tad outdoors in bright sunlight but realistically if the sun makes viewing a 400 nit display impossible its likely not going to make a 500 nit any better. Both will suffer equally in harsh light. Might help a little bit if one insists on sitting in front of a window while they work but again its such a small visual difference I doubt one would be usable if the other is not.

The only reason I might get a MBP is because the MBA is next to impossible to find in stock now. 90% of reviewers suggest getting the MBA over the MBP and rightly so because it just makes sense for the majority of users. That makes it next to impossible to find and forget doing a custom order right now. Looking at end of January to get one. I can still sometimes find a M1 MBP in stock however although I may have to settle for a base 8GB ram version. I really wish Apple had a 16 GB option in stores so it wouldn't be outside of their normal supply chain. The wait times to get a 16 GB right now are insane.

Thanks again Thomas, this all makes perfect sense. That’s a great suggestion for a combo of MBA/iMac. Sounds like the 16” still wouldn’t quite be the unicorn people are after, although might come really close. Fingers crossed the incoming iMacs are a bit more aggressively priced too!

 

[ahalpert]

Thanks again Thomas, this all makes perfect sense. That’s a great suggestion for a combo of MBA/iMac. Sounds like the 16” still wouldn’t quite be the unicorn people are after, although might come really close. Fingers crossed the incoming iMacs are a bit more aggressively priced too!

It seems like the new MBA/MBP have the same entry price and similar upgrade pricing as the previous models did, no? It seems to me like they're trying to maintain the same prices, but now offering a better product. I'd guess the same would happen with the iMac.

What does Thomas et al think about the prospects for eGPU + monitor + 16" MBP vs iMac? Same conclusion? You'd rather have MBA/iMac? With an eGPU, could the 16" compete with the iMac?

 

[David Saraceno]

Remember, there are actually two options for the MacBook Air M1. One is with a 8‑Core CPU and 7‑Core GPU and the other is 8-Core CPU and 8-Core GPU.

Performance difference is likely slight, but there is a reason for the two different models.

 

[filmguy123]

What does Thomas et al think about the prospects for eGPU + monitor + 16" MBP vs iMac? Same conclusion? You'd rather have MBA/iMac? With an eGPU, could the 16" compete with the iMac?

I don't know about right now... but if there is anyway one could wait, I think 2021 might be very exciting for Apple CPU announcements and I would try and hold off a little longer to see what they do with the M1X and GPU, as it might completely wreck the answer one would get at this precise moment in time.

 

[rob norton]

It seems like the new MBA/MBP have the same entry price and similar upgrade pricing as the previous models did, no? It seems to me like they're trying to maintain the same prices, but now offering a better product. I'd guess the same would happen with the iMac.

What does Thomas et al think about the prospects for eGPU + monitor + 16" MBP vs iMac? Same conclusion? You'd rather have MBA/iMac? With an eGPU, could the 16" compete with the iMac?

I'm not sure, I'd say you're right. Yeah I more meant same pricing but better tech = better value. I haven't owned a laptop in years but looking to get back in the game.

Looks like I'm buying two computers in 2021.

 

[Thomas Smet]

Thanks again Thomas, this all makes perfect sense. That’s a great suggestion for a combo of MBA/iMac. Sounds like the 16” still wouldn’t quite be the unicorn people are after, although might come really close. Fingers crossed the incoming iMacs are a bit more aggressively priced too!

I think the 16" is a great unicorn if one can only have one Mac. In the case of those of us that are ok having two Macs I just don't see enough difference to really justify having both a 13" and a 16". Better off getting a 13" for portability and a desktop for sheer power and having the best of both worlds. The 16" is more of a compromise between portability and attempting to get closer to desktop performance.

If I would only have one Mac I would without a doubt wait for the 16". I do however prefer a desktop on a desk and a laptop in my lap. Plus this may seem weird but I hate context switching or having to mess around with changing how the computer is setup all the time. Same is true of no longer wanting to mess with a Mac and using bootcamp for Windows. I hate rebooting all the time and would rather now just have multiple machines I feed inputs into my monitors and just flip a switch to move back and forth. I kind of want a laptop to stay ready to go and my desktop to stay there with everything all hooked up (studio monitor speakers, multiple storage drives, DSLR as webcam and so forth) ready to go as well.

 

[Thomas Smet]

It seems like the new MBA/MBP have the same entry price and similar upgrade pricing as the previous models did, no? It seems to me like they're trying to maintain the same prices, but now offering a better product. I'd guess the same would happen with the iMac.

What does Thomas et al think about the prospects for eGPU + monitor + 16" MBP vs iMac? Same conclusion? You'd rather have MBA/iMac? With an eGPU, could the 16" compete with the iMac?

I use a Vega 56 eGPU now with my 6 core Mac mini. Great setup for only $1,800 that can at times match the iMac Pro. It is a lot of hassle however and sometimes not worth it. I'm not sure the 16" would even see any kind of benefit from a eGPU. TB3 has enough of a bandwidth loss to give it a disadvantage and if Apple really does go 4x the GPU performance for the 16" and iMac there isn;'t a single graphics card out there that would be worth using over TB3. Plus we have no indication eGPU will ever work on Apple Silicon. I think it has part to do with no AMD drivers for Apple Silicon and Apple much like they do with Nvidia now will have no desire to sign drivers for AMD or care about supporting external AMD cards. The only hope for eGPU on Apple Silicon is if/when Apple makes their own rumored dedicated Apple Silicon graphics chips and they decided to provide those as a small SSD size eGPU to plug into lower end Macs like the MBA. Not sure we will ever see that and honestly it isn't really worth the hassle. Much better off to just get an actual desktop Mac and be done with it vs farting around with eGPU.

eGPU had one key advantage Apple never really took advantage of and that was an external means to use multiple GPUs together. Resolve and Blender and really the only two applications that actually do this to a certain level of success. Most other applications typically make use of one GPU and even SLI and Crossover for games was questionable if it was worth it. Almost every review always said eGPU on the iMac was worthless because they performed the same. Yes that was true but when using an application like Resolve it could use both which greatly boosted performance. I am kind of considering keeping my 6 core Mac mini and adding a second and third eGPU for Resolve. About $700 for each one but Resolve will use all three together for some serious processing. Unfortunately Blender GPU rendering is pretty much dead on MacOS and OpenCL only works under Windows. AMD eGPUs work horribly under bootcamp. when they do work they are great but they have a PCI resource error code 12 problem and it takes a divine power to get them to boot up properly. Nvidia cards work better and can be turned on after boot up but then those do not work at all under MacOS. So I either need to keep the Mac mini a 100% MacOS setup for Resolve or a 100% Windows setup and switch graphics cards. Too much hassle to swap the cards all the time. The other issue is its virtually impossible to find any Nvidia GPUs in stock right now and if one does the price is insanely over inflated.

To be honest I'm so sick of the GPU shortage and scalping that I'm really cheering on Apple.

 

[Clermond]

I think the 16" is a great unicorn if one can only have one Mac. In the case of those of us that are ok having two Macs I just don't see enough difference to really justify having both a 13" and a 16". Better off getting a 13" for portability and a desktop for sheer power and having the best of both worlds. The 16" is more of a compromise between portability and attempting to get closer to desktop performance..

there's a very simple reason to have two mobile computers.
Once you have experienced a loss during an assignment on location you will know the reason too.
There are many scenarios from theft to an client who spills his coffee over your laptop.
I learned this with a broken plastic piece inside a firewire port on the 1st day of a one week shooting.
I never go either only with one camera or one lens. As a backup the 13" does the trick

 

[filmguy123]

Yeah, I’ve never had it happen or seen it happen, but I had the thought on a flight once of the attendant accidentally spilling water on my computer. How awful would that be, enroute to rural Nepal for a shoot, and on the way there to lose my only way to review, log, and backup footage as I go?

I’m paranoid about that now, so far unnecessarily so, but I could see the value in having a spare MBA along for the ride as a peace of mind backup!

 

[filmguy123]

To be honest I'm so sick of the GPU shortage and scalping that I'm really cheering on Apple.

Try HotStock and Discord channels for stock alerts, pushes straight to smart watch and phone the second stock becomes available.

 

[vultch2]

Rumours abound on exactly Apple got the ideas for their new generation of processors.

Does this processor seem familiar, its the Fujitsu A64FX. The Apple M1 being described as the Lite/sugar-free version of the A64FX, maybe the coming power machines will be more full flavour.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eXhlDt2SD8o

 

[DLD]

iAuto.

https://www.caranddriver.com/news/a35036439/apple-car-2024/

 

[filmguy123]

For anyone curious, not sure how a high end M1 will compare, but on topic of new workstation desktops:

Testing new build of AMD 5950x and NVIDIA RTX 3090. Opened existing projects in Premiere Pro with h.265 hevc footage from S1H, 10-bit 420 4k non-transcoded straight from camera as LONG-GOP. Hours of footage in a timeline. FLIES THROUGH IT. I can fast forward, and rewind, at high speed, even with 60p files. Random seeks in the timeline are instant. Layering with effects like LUTs, Lumetri, etc. - no problem. Full Quality preview scrubbing silky smooth, everything seems to play at proper FPS. Here and there is a minor stutter when going a little crazy, but it's essentially a blip. This on a large projects as well.

It's hard to find much online of how the new hardware actually handles in use, and not with 4K h.265 - not even Puget had this. So hopefully it helps anyone (Rob?) when considering a new workstation build. Extremely impressed from my first 20 minutes of playing around.

I think I may be able to edit just fine without transcoding. Also, these files were on a spinner HDD and not a QNAP/SSD or anything of that sort. The drive doesn't appear to be getting bottlenecked since the file sizes aren't too big, and the CPU/GPU is doing just fine.

 

[rob norton]

For anyone curious, not sure how a high end M1 will compare, but on topic of new workstation desktops:

Testing new build of AMD 5950x and NVIDIA RTX 3090. Opened existing projects in Premiere Pro with h.265 hevc footage from S1H, 10-bit 420 4k non-transcoded straight from camera as LONG-GOP. Hours of footage in a timeline. FLIES THROUGH IT. I can fast forward, and rewind, at high speed, even with 60p files. Random seeks in the timeline are instant. Layering with effects like LUTs, Lumetri, etc. - no problem. Full Quality preview scrubbing silky smooth, everything seems to play at proper FPS. Here and there is a minor stutter when going a little crazy, but it's essentially a blip. This on a large projects as well.

It's hard to find much online of how the new hardware actually handles in use, and not with 4K h.265 - not even Puget had this. So hopefully it helps anyone (Rob?) when considering a new workstation build. Extremely impressed from my first 20 minutes of playing around.

I think I may be able to edit just fine without transcoding. Also, these files were on a spinner HDD and not a QNAP/SSD or anything of that sort. The drive doesn't appear to be getting bottlenecked since the file sizes aren't too big, and the CPU/GPU is doing just fine.

Thanks for the update. You must be really happy with your new machine - and there's room to keep growing.

Currently I can edit c200 CRL files in a 1080p timeline in resolve with pretty smooth playback (not amazing but not an official issue).

In the future, ideally I'll be able to drag and drop 4k CRL files onto a 4k timeline in resolve with completely smooth playback despite heavy effects like noise reduction etc. It sounds like your build could already handle this?

 

[filmguy123]

Very happy!

I am not sure on CRL files or resolve, except that I always hear Resolve performs much better. Based on my experience with 4k 60p 10-bit 420 h.265 files playback in premiere, I would say so.

I can stack Flicker Free, Filmconvert, Cinematch, and more onto a single clip and still get smooth live playback without dropped frames with that codec! Neatvideo noise reduction still plays a bit choppy as expected, but renders so much quicker.

 

[rob norton]

Very happy!

I am not sure on CRL files or resolve, except that I always hear Resolve performs much better. Based on my experience with 4k 60p 10-bit 420 h.265 files playback in premiere, I would say so.

I can stack Flicker Free, Filmconvert, Cinematch, and more onto a single clip and still get smooth live playback without dropped frames with that codec! Neatvideo noise reduction still plays a bit choppy as expected, but renders so much quicker.

That’s so good. It’s also nice providing fast, higher quality review files for those who aren’t used to seeing an ultra low res video.

I’m just not interested in a future (4K at least) that involves ANY proxies/transcoding.

 

[ahalpert]

Very happy!

I am not sure on CRL files or resolve, except that I always hear Resolve performs much better. Based on my experience with 4k 60p 10-bit 420 h.265 files playback in premiere, I would say so.

I can stack Flicker Free, Filmconvert, Cinematch, and more onto a single clip and still get smooth live playback without dropped frames with that codec! Neatvideo noise reduction still plays a bit choppy as expected, but renders so much quicker.

But doesn't your H265 experience rely on having hardware accelerated H265 decoding and therefore not necessarily predictive of how it will perform with CRL?

 

[AndreeOnline]

Maybe someone here would like to contribute data to a Resolve benchmark?

The link takes you to a post with more information about the benchmark and a link to download it. If you want to try it, but don't know how to set it up (you just need to import the project and relink media) I can explain in more detail. The linked post also has some more info on how to run it. The benchmark can be run on macOS, Windows or Linux.

Regardless of that, here is some initial data for different systems. A MacBook Air M1 down below.

Mac Pro 7.1 2019 | 16 core | two separate Vega Pro II 32GB:

09 Blur: 59 fps
18 Blur: 37 fps
30 Blur: 24 fps
66 Blur: 12 fps

1 TNR: 50 fps
2 TNR: 30 fps
4 TNR: 17 fps
6 TNR: 11 fps

* = This is the data I was given for this dual GPU setup, but this individual's setup is under investigation. Normally Resolve scales almost linearly with dual GPUs.

--------------------------

Mac Pro 7.1 2019 | 12 core | Vega Pro II 32GB:

09 Blur: 46 fps
18 Blur: 24 fps
30 Blur: 15 fps
66 Blur: 07 fps

1 TNR: 53 fps
2 TNR: 30 fps
4 TNR: 16 fps
6 TNR: 11 fps

-------------------------

Mac Pro 5.1: 12 Core, Vega Frontier Edition 16GB

09 blur = 31 fps
18 blur = 16 fps
30 blur = 10 fps
66 blur = 05 fps

01 TNR = 31 fps
02 TNR = 17 fps
04 TNR = 09 fps
06 TNR = 06 fps

-------------------------

iMac 2020 | 10 core | 5700XT 16GB:

09 Blur: 18 fps
18 Blur: 10 fps
30 Blur: 06 fps
66 Blur: 03 fps

1 TNR: 30 fps
2 TNR: 16 fps
4 TNR: 9 fps
6 TNR: 6 fps

-------------------------

MacBook Pro 16" 2019 | 8 core i9 | 5500M 8GB:

09 Blur: 13 fps
18 Blur: 07 fps
30 Blur: 04 fps
66 Blur: 02 fps

1 TNR: 17 fps
2 TNR: 08 fps
4 TNR: 04 fps
6 TNR: 02 fps

-------------------------

MacBook Pro M1 2020:

09 Blur: 07 fps
18 Blur: 04 fps

1 TNR: 09 fps
2 TNR: 04 fps

Looking for more complete data set here.

 

[filmguy123]

But doesn't your H265 experience rely on having hardware accelerated H265 decoding and therefore not necessarily predictive of how it will perform with CRL?

Premiere is now GPU hardware accelerated for h.265 files on nvidia and amd cards. I don’t know about CRL files or resolve but to your point, yes, the smoothness I’m experiencing relies heavily on the GPU decoding.

 

[Clermond]

Testing new build of AMD 5950x and NVIDIA RTX 3090. Opened existing projects in Premiere Pro with h.265 hevc footage from S1H, 10-bit 420 4k non-transcoded straight from camera as LONG-GOP. .

420 is the key for your good performance. They fly on my iMac 2019 and MPB 2018 as well.

422 10bit HEVC is a totally different story. No chance for smooth playback on the Intel Mac but the M1 does.