Mid 2012 Macbook Pro does surprisingly well with 6k

[jonathan murphy]

So... I grabbed my wife's mid 2012 Macbook Pro Retina 15 inch with 2.7ghz i7, 16gb of 1600 mhz ddr3 ram and Nvidia 650 with 1gb vram and it really did amazing with RED 6k footage.

I tried some color grading in resolve along with some stuff in premiere. Had to work at a 1/4 and 1/8 but still. I was surprised to say the least.

Why does this machine with so little handle it so well?

Would a new macbook pro maxed out be considerably better than this?

 

[Josiah Duncan]

I also just edited RED 6k for the first time native in premiere with my 2012 NON Retina MBP and it worked surprisingly decent. (same GFX card and ram). I pretty much had to do everything in 1/8 and render times were not so great but for a computer I already have I'm pretty happy with it.

Was planning on building a desktop soon for the Scarlet-W I ordered but after doing Epic-6K I'll hold off on that and get more lenses instead

 

[Satsuki Murashige]

Did you actually try rendering out Prores files from Resolve on your machine? Because I have the same laptop and it kernel panics and crashes every time I try to render from 4K+ raw footage to HD. R3d's, Sony Raw-Lite, Arriraw, forget it. That little graphics card with 1GB vRAM just isn't enough. The actual grading process is fine, 4-5 nodes no problem. But hit 'render' and the machine chokes and dies. Funnily enough, Redcine-X and Sony Raw Viewer work just fine though.

 

[jonathan murphy]

Did you actually try rendering out Prores files from Resolve on your machine? Because I have the same laptop and it kernel panics and crashes every time I try to render from 4K+ raw footage to HD. R3d's, Sony Raw-Lite, Arriraw, forget it. That little graphics card with 1GB vRAM just isn't enough. The actual grading process is fine, 4-5 nodes no problem. But hit 'render' and the machine chokes and dies. Funnily enough, Redcine-X and Sony Raw Viewer work just fine though.

Yeah I rendered out a 1920 by 1080 clip with nodes and color grades to progres in davinci. It did it no problem and it took 5 min for about 40 seconds of 6k test footage.

 

[M.Halsell]

Im surprised the Mac is under consideration, after your earlier mandate was no Mac. Actually are you closer to a decision?

 

[jonathan murphy]

Im surprised the Mac is under consideration, after your earlier mandate was no Mac. Actually are you closer to a decision?

I am just as surprised as you. Just was playing around with my wife's and its doing better than I thought. DaVinci runs much better on mac. Is that due to apple's OS, or maybe davinci makes OSX their priority?

 

[Josiah Duncan]

Satsuki, make sure you have the latest version of Cuda and Nvidia Web drivers, apples drivers have given me a lot of grief over the past two years since Mavericks.

 

[Jeff Kilgroe]

My MacBook Pro is a mid 2012 as well -- first generation retina 15" and it is still a workhorse. Only problem with it is the RAM, 16GB is not enough. I'm hoping that the next round will give me reason to update. The 2013-2015 updates to the MBP have not brought much new in the way of performance increases. And this is pretty much echoed throughout the PC notebook world as well. Each new round of CPUs from Intel only offer a few % increase in performance and we're still locked at 16GB RAM with the current model. So I plan to move to the next model as it should finally put CPU performance a good 20% or more ahead of my 2012 and will also bring DDR4 memory -- hopefully 64GB, but I'm guessing we'll be restricted to 32GB. And of course we'll get Thunderbolt 3.

Apple has always done a fantastic job at tuning the hardware in the MacBook Pro as well as the iMac to perform very well, given some of the more modest specs. Usually when they come out with a new model it's as powerful (often more so) than any other slim 15" notebook out there. Usually the biggest shortcoming is they make conservative GPU choices. Which fit the needs of 90% of their customers, just doesn't appeal to us cutting edge creative pros and gamers.

Paired with a good Thunderbolt RAID or similar fast storage, the 2012 MBP works well. I've cut lots of corporate projects and a few TV spots on mine, most all of it 5K EPIC-MX and 6K Dragon based.

I'm hoping they go back to nVidia GPUs with the next model, but that's doubtful.

 

[AndreeMarkefors]

I have that same MBP. Each time a new revision comes out I ask myself: why doesn't this computer suck yet? It's the best computer I've even owned (and I've built a lot of PCs and modded two Mac Pros).

Like Jeff, I'm hoping the next revision MBP is the one for me. I'll kick the MBP over to my wife and she'll get another two years out of it for sure.

If you ARE on a Mac—don't rule FCPX out. You don't have to use it as a primary editor if you don't want to, but its library system with auto generation of proxies can be really powerful and you can access RED's metadata directly. It also has great turn around capabilities with Resolve.

 

[jonathan murphy]

My MacBook Pro is a mid 2012 as well -- first generation retina 15" and it is still a workhorse. Only problem with it is the RAM, 16GB is not enough. I'm hoping that the next round will give me reason to update. The 2013-2015 updates to the MBP have not brought much new in the way of performance increases. And this is pretty much echoed throughout the PC notebook world as well. Each new round of CPUs from Intel only offer a few % increase in performance and we're still locked at 16GB RAM with the current model. So I plan to move to the next model as it should finally put CPU performance a good 20% or more ahead of my 2012 and will also bring DDR4 memory -- hopefully 64GB, but I'm guessing we'll be restricted to 32GB. And of course we'll get Thunderbolt 3.

Apple has always done a fantastic job at tuning the hardware in the MacBook Pro as well as the iMac to perform very well, given some of the more modest specs. Usually when they come out with a new model it's as powerful (often more so) than any other slim 15" notebook out there. Usually the biggest shortcoming is they make conservative GPU choices. Which fit the needs of 90% of their customers, just doesn't appeal to us cutting edge creative pros and gamers.

Paired with a good Thunderbolt RAID or similar fast storage, the 2012 MBP works well. I've cut lots of corporate projects and a few TV spots on mine, most all of it 5K EPIC-MX and 6K Dragon based.

I'm hoping they go back to nVidia GPUs with the next model, but that's doubtful.

So is it safe to say that with a new mbp,(the next release) raid connection and a red rocket x card card would be able to do some pretty intense tasks including secondary grades in davinci?

 

[Jeff Kilgroe]

So is it safe to say that with a new mbp,(the next release) raid connection and a red rocket x card card would be able to do some pretty intense tasks including secondary grades in davinci?

I suppose it depends on what you consider to be pretty intense. Even with the latest and greatest CPUs and mobile GPUs coming to market this year, it's still going to be much less powerful than a good desktop workstation. In typical Apple fashion, it will launch with current CPU options and will definitely have TB3 (dual ports expected, along with USB 3.1, quite possibly 3.5). From there, we don't know what else Apple may do. They have a habit of using upper mid level GPUs, but not always the greatest, usually picking one that provides a good balance between performance and power consumption, leaving a lot of us power users hungering for more. I'm expecting a redesign this time around with a much improved screen and the layered battery tech we see in the new MacBook. Combine that with the thinner keyboard system they have developed and the thinner screen tech and I think we're looking at a bit slimmer offering than what is out there now. If they keep similar external dimensions, which I expect, we could very well see 14" and 16" screens now instead of the 13" and 15" sizes and that would be welcome. There's a somewhat reliable rumor floating around about a 16" UHD resolution panel built on the same design as what is in the MacBook. I'd buy it just for that.

If you want maximum CPU power and a solid GPU offering in something that resembles a laptop, then the Clevo 870 is probably the way to go. If you want something more streamlined in terms of a notebook that is similar to current MacBook Pro size and offers the newer CPU and TB3 options, the Dell XPS 15 is definitely a choice. The next MacBook Pro is an unknown at this point and I'm expecting more than a re-hash of the current design since Apple hasn't launched yet. To me that says they will drop a new re-design at WWDC in June or perhaps just before then. One thing that does worry me with a new re-design is that they will continue their overly aggressive slimming trend and we may very well get the latest and greatest mobile CPU, flash storage and memory tech, but it will come at the expense of the GPU and possibly some expansion ports. I could see them giving us two TB3 enabled USB-C v3.5 ports and that's it. Meaning that connecting a lot of stuff would require adapters or expansion boxes.

 

[Satsuki Murashige]

Satsuki, make sure you have the latest version of Cuda and Nvidia Web drivers, apples drivers have given me a lot of grief over the past two years since Mavericks.

Thanks. I do have the latest CUDA drivers, though not ruling anything out. It would be nice if the solution was that simple! Am grading a half hour episode shot on Sony Raw-lite and Arriraw on a Mac Pro tower today, Resolve just rips right through that footage like butter.

 

[Daniel Kelly Brown]

Came across this video yesterday: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9DyUitTVWlw

Looks like if you can keep you apple laptop cool somehow you can get much much better performance.

I for one would take a slightly larger macbook in exchange for better cooling tech, but we all know apple will NEVER go that route.

Just blows my mind they have not updated their trash cans yet.

 

[Jeff Kilgroe]

Came across this video yesterday: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9DyUitTVWlw

Looks like if you can keep you apple laptop cool somehow you can get much much better performance.

I for one would take a slightly larger macbook in exchange for better cooling tech, but we all know apple will NEVER go that route.

All laptops work this way. The Dell XPS15 or other slim laptops all benefit from better airflow or cooling. Generally speaking the MacBook Pros actually cool them selves better than most of their PC counterparts.

Just blows my mind they have not updated their trash cans yet.

Yeah, but update to what? There is one newer generation of CPUs, which offer ZERO performance increases in terms of power per watt or clock speeds or computation per clock... They have chips with more cores, which also consume more power, and they're all more expensive. The real advantage is the current generation of Xeon does support DDR4 memory, however it has been prohibitively expensive until very recently and new Xeon CPUs and chipsets are due in the coming months. I figure we'll see an updated Mac Pro when they can launch with updated 14nm Xeons and Thunderbolt 3.

The GPUs could have and should have been updated some time ago and the option given to existing customers to buy upgraded GPU components. Unfortunately Apple and AMD pulled up lame on these GPUs and they never fully supported or utilized their power. I don't know what Apple's current love affair with AMD is all about, but I'd really like to see them make the shift back to nVidia for the next MacBook Pro and Mac Pro.

 

[Josiah Duncan]

Thanks. I do have the latest CUDA drivers, though not ruling anything out. It would be nice if the solution was that simple! Am grading a half hour episode shot on Sony Raw-lite and Arriraw on a Mac Pro tower today, Resolve just rips right through that footage like butter.

Did you "upgrade" to whatever version of OS X you're on? The kernel panics and artifacts in CUDA renders didn't stop for me until I did a complete format and clean install of El Cap with Nvidia web drivers and Cuda drivers. Honestly took a lot of trial and error but I wont be upgrading my MBP in a long while, because the Nvidia/Apple/Adobe "partnership" is awful and unstable.

 

[Sergio Perez]

My MacBook Pro is a mid 2012 as well -- first generation retina 15" and it is still a workhorse. Only problem with it is the RAM, 16GB is not enough. I'm hoping that the next round will give me reason to update. The 2013-2015 updates to the MBP have not brought much new in the way of performance increases. And this is pretty much echoed throughout the PC notebook world as well. Each new round of CPUs from Intel only offer a few % increase in performance and we're still locked at 16GB RAM with the current model. So I plan to move to the next model as it should finally put CPU performance a good 20% or more ahead of my 2012 and will also bring DDR4 memory -- hopefully 64GB, but I'm guessing we'll be restricted to 32GB. And of course we'll get Thunderbolt 3.

Apple has always done a fantastic job at tuning the hardware in the MacBook Pro as well as the iMac to perform very well, given some of the more modest specs. Usually when they come out with a new model it's as powerful (often more so) than any other slim 15" notebook out there. Usually the biggest shortcoming is they make conservative GPU choices. Which fit the needs of 90% of their customers, just doesn't appeal to us cutting edge creative pros and gamers.

Paired with a good Thunderbolt RAID or similar fast storage, the 2012 MBP works well. I've cut lots of corporate projects and a few TV spots on mine, most all of it 5K EPIC-MX and 6K Dragon based.

I'm hoping they go back to nVidia GPUs with the next model, but that's doubtful.

I'm also on the Retina and was really contemplating upgrade last year, but thanks to your advice in these boards, Jeff, I went for the new iMac 27" Retina. Can't thank you enough!

It would be foolish to do such a minor upgrade, since my laptop is my workhorse and where I am at 80% at a time. Am waiting for the next upgrade, hopefully soon?

EDIT- Concerning El Capitan my Macbook Pro just can't upgrade. Always crashing. Tried format, clean install, nothing works, so went back to Yosemite.