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Adobe support for Mac hardware – GPU accelleration
Greetings,
I need to buy a new Mac. Upon doing research not only am I a little discouraged because it looks like they’re going to release a new Macbook Pro in a couple of months, but it also seems Adobe does not support the current video card in the MacBook Pro. Could anyone please explain to me how the video card would help or hinder in Premiere and after effects especially? It seems Adobe does support the card in the iMac Pro. I would prefer notebook because I have to move it quite often, but I could probably make it work with an iMac Pro and it is a more powerful computer. What are the advantages? Will I really notice a difference? Does the current MacBook Pro edit 4K footage well, including color grading? Would it be an issue if the card is not fully supported, where could I go into opencl setting that would at least give partial support? Current iMac Pro comes with Radeon Pro Vega 56 with 8gb. That seems to be a supported card. I would be getting it with a 10-core Xeon Processor and 64 GB of RAM. The MacBook Pro would be an eight core i9 processor, with 64GB of RAM and a AMD Radeon Pro 5500M with 8GB of GDDR6 memory. The MacBook really should have been upgraded to the next gen Intel processor, but I get the feeling they are waiting to go with their apple silicon model. I don’t want to really be the beta tester in that group. Any info anyone could give me on how these computers work with Adobe software that would be wonderful. Also, any insights on how these computers work with other software, such as DaVinci Resolve and fusion would be great. I’m assuming they work fabulously with all of the Apple software, which of course I do not use. I am locked into the Apple Paradigm because of certain employers that I have, there is a difference in video output between the apples and windows machines. I’m talking about the physical output if you output to a second monitor, or a recording device. Again, any help would be great.Rich Kaelin
Kaelin Motion Production Services
http://kaelinmotion.com
New York -
4 Replies
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Hi Rich,
It looks like Adobe’s system requirements for Premiere Pro do not list the 5500M or the 5600M as “recommended” graphics cards. However, those are Metal GPUs so I assume they will work, since Metal-compatible GPUs have the most current support for Mercury Playback Engine acceleration in Premiere Pro. I assume the same is true for AE.
By contrast, OpenCL support is deprecated in PP, which means it’s on the way out as a supported method of GPU acceleration.
The MacBook Pro has the advantage of portability, but in my opinion the iMac would be better for heat dissipation. Neither option is ideal in this respect because they both have tight interior spaces (and therefore the internal components can be more susceptible to possible heat-related damage over time). However the iMac at least has more interior space to allow for better heat dissipation. And really, if you spend an extra few bucks on fan control software and use it to increase your Mac’s default fan speeds, then heat can be dissipated much more effectively. TG Pro by Tunabelly Software is a good one to use, and it only costs $10 on sale or $20 regular price (a very small price to pay for the huge benefit of mitigating the effects of heat).
Another option may be the newest 27″ iMac, just released last week. It has significant performance gains over the previous model year, and it can be upgraded to a 10-core i9 and a Radeon Pro 5700 XT with 16GB GDDR6. It also has the advantage of user-upgradable RAM, which is a real money saver if you purchase your RAM from someone other than Apple (such as OWC). With the MacBook Pro you would have to get the RAM upgrade from Apple at the time of purchase. With the iMac Pro a RAM upgrade after time of purchase would mean paying Apple or OWC to do it for you. And, since the new iMac has just been released, you’ll enjoy more years of macOS support over and above the iMac Pro, which is already 3 years old. Also if the reports are correct, the new 27” iMac will likely be the last release of that specific model to use an Intel chip.
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Rich,
I was just reading this article on barefeats.com:
https://barefeats.com/16-inch-macbook-pro-5600M-versus-desktop-macs.html
Note the summary at the bottom which says:
“The 16-inch MacBook Pro with new Radeon Pro 5600M GPU came in first when running our Motion, Lightroom, and Photoshop tests. It came in second place running Final Cut Pro X and Premiere Pro.
The 2017 iMac Pro came in first running Final Cut Pro X, Compressor, and Premiere Pro tests.”
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Good to know. I was reading another article where people had =to disable graphics for photoshop to run. also, I am ordering the 5500m…it is A LOT more $$$ for the 5600, but now I will have to consider it. I may just go with the iMac…but portability is a consideration…
Rich Kaelin
Kaelin Motion Production Services
http://kaelinmotion.com
New York -
Hi Rich,
I am in a similar situation. Did you ever make a choice? The 5600 sure is expensive for something that is unclear Adobe is even supporting….
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