Macbook Pro with ATI vs. NVidia Graphics

Macbook Pro with ATI vs. NVidia Graphics

by Kilian Hirt

on Dec 20, 2012 at 11:47:33 am

Hey Guys.

Just wondering if it´s worth buying a new 2012 Macbook Pro opposed to a well cared for 2011 model. With both I´d get a 1 year warranty and the 2011 model does not really lose that much in performance. Considering a difference in price of about 500€ this is worth a thought!

What worries me, though is that Adobe Premiere and Da Vinci resolve, for ex., build on Nvidia CUDA cores for acceleration and it might be a drawback some time in the future that the 2011 model has a Radeon HD 6490M, whereas the 2012 generation features a GeForce GT 650M.

What´ya think? Is this also significant for other Video-like applications?

Thanx,
K.

Re: Macbook Pro with ATI vs. NVidia Graphics

by Neil Patience

on Dec 20, 2012 at 1:49:51 pm

I decided to get a 15" 2012 2.7Gig i7 MBP but went for the hi res anti glare display over the Retina which is around £450 less so may compare well with the 2011 model price.
Other than the screen it is pretty much identical in spec to the Retina model however it retains the optical drive, has FW800 and Gig ethernet connections as well as Thunderbolt and 2 x USB 3 ports. Since I have a few FW peripherals I still use, made it a lot easier than buying Thunderbolt adapters on top.
The Nvidia site says the GT650M has 384 Cuda cores so as you say it will help with Resolve etc.
I am very happy with the machine, its very quick, it beats my old 8 core MacPro in just about most areas. Might be worth a look for you.

best wishes
Neil
http://www.patience.tv

Re: Macbook Pro with ATI vs. NVidia Graphics

by Kilian Hirt

on Dec 20, 2012 at 2:27:51 pm

Thanks for the answer.

I am just wondering if Resolve really cooperates with the GT650M. Adobe Premiere still seems to be very picky about which graphics card to use and I think it wouldn´t work right now.

It´s just more an investment into the future if I´d buy the new one I guess!?

Re: Macbook Pro with ATI vs. NVidia Graphics

by Neil Patience

on Dec 20, 2012 at 3:33:58 pm

I primarily edit on Avid Symphony which actually runs very well on the MBP. I still use FCP legacy which equally runs well. I used Premiere CS5.5 recently although only on some simple assembly of clips however that ran absolutely fine. It was a very simple edit of 4x15 min 720P h264 .mp4 clips onto a ProRes LT timeline (without rendering.) Then exported as a 1 hour ProRes LT clip which took just over 9 minutes which seems pretty quick to me. So certainly the basics seem to run very well.

Resolve-wise I have to say I have not used it in anger on the MBP however I have installed the 9.04 Lite version just to play around. It certainly does not report any issues or errors. Just to test have applied some fairly heavy grades to 1920x1080 material, added vignettes and blurs all together and it still plays realtime, which is actually better performance than my macpro with the standard 5770 card. Not really taxed it any more than that but it certainly seems to be using the GPU quite well but accept thats hardly a scientific test.

Certainly investment-wise yes the 2012 model is going to be better plus as I mentioned before the non retina model could work out not much more expensive than the 2011 model.

best wishes
Neil
http://www.patience.tv

Re: Macbook Pro with ATI vs. NVidia Graphics

by Shane Ross

on Dec 20, 2012 at 6:44:19 pm

I too have the 2012 MBP with high res anti glare display. NON-Retina. IT is rock solid with Avid, FCP 7 and PPro. Nothing but good times with this laptop.

OH, I did install an SSD drive and max out the RAM to 16GB too.

Shane
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