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eGPU performance
We bought an egpu for using specifically with some VR work that is upcoming. So far so good…in a way. The eGPU works fine, as does the Vive, but relying on Steam drivers for the VR is a pain in the ass, but after a couple of days of testing it works well. FCPX for VR – great.
We bought a Razer Core Chroma (because it had a nice IO panel at the back with USB and 1GigE, and installed a Radeon 64. This powers the HTC vive nicely.
Once that was working I thought I would have a play and see how it speeded up FCPX editing.
So far in testing with FCPX, the results are very mixed. Even when you force FCPX to prefer the external GPU, although playback performance improves, exports do not. I tried a 1m sequence with a mix of red 8KHD footage and some 3 and 4K slow motion footage, with an export to ProRes 422HQ. With the eGPU enabled, the export took 3m8s. With the eGPU disabled, the same export took 2m07s. For ProRes exports, the times were identical. Great for editing performance, but not good at all for exports. The Red footage was butter smooth to edit and preview, and playback, but the export times are worse by a full minute? What?
Even ProRes exports are not speeded up – can anyone else corroborate what we are seeing here?
Co-owner at Pollen Studio
http://www.pollenstudio.co.uk -
3 Replies
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[Tom Sefton] “Even ProRes exports are not speeded up – can anyone else corroborate what we are seeing here?”
I did a couple of reviews of the BMD products. Maybe these will help. The basic eGPU review was before the preference setting was enabled. The Pro review was afterwards. It really depends on the machine you are running. The eGPU products take the load off for display management and accelerate less-powered machine. If you are using a Mac Pro or high-end iMac or iMac Pro, it won’t do much for you.
https://digitalfilms.wordpress.com/2018/08/03/blackmagic-design-egpu/
https://digitalfilms.wordpress.com/2019/03/07/blackmagic-design-egpu-pro/
– Oliver
Oliver Peters – oliverpeters.com
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Sorry should have said, this is with a 6 core i9 MacBook Pro with 32GB ram and a Radeon vega 20. Not tested on iMac Pro yet
Co-owner at Pollen Studio
http://www.pollenstudio.co.uk -
On a 2018 MBP with the high end Radeon card (non-Vega) a Vega 56 eGPU more or less hands down makes it a much faster machine in Resolve at least. We’re talking around 2X increase or more in performance. Still can’t touch our old dual D700 MacPro’s.
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