[John Welsh]

Sounds great, did you go for any of the customisable options? Takes longer to come but possibly worth it.

You may need an external dvd / bluray drive – if based in the UK, this is a good one.
https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B00H90FKAY?psc=1&redirect=true&ref_=oh_aui_search_detailpage

[John Welsh]

Thanks for clarifying Andrew, good luck in your decision.

I certainly have no real regrets about my decision to purchase the 15 inch MBP with Nvidia card so I’m sure you’ll be happy with it if you get it. I do sometimes wish the RAM was a bit more expandable though. That’s not a huge problem right now, but it might have been a nice option to have as software / os eventually gets heavier on resources.

Kind regards,

John

[John Welsh]

Hi again Andrew,

As far as I’m aware, there are two versions of the MacBook Pro 15 inch.

They’re here if you scroll down.
https://store.apple.com/uk/buy-mac/macbook-pro

15 inch with 16GB RAM and Intel iris integrated graphics card (running at various processor speeds and with varying drive space depending on customisation option selected at time of purchase)

or

15 inch with 16GB RAM, Intel iris integrated graphics card and Nvidia GeForce GT 750M (running at various processor speeds and with varying drive space depending on customisation option selected at time of purchase)

As far as I’m aware as far as graphics go in MacBook Pros just now, you have the options of

A – Intel Iris integrated graphics card
or
B – Intel Iris integrated graphics card + Nvidia GeForce GT 750M discrete graphics card

But you don’t have the option of Intel Iris + Nvidia GeForce GT 750M + a second Nvidia GeForce GT 750M
(Apologies if I’m misunderstanding your previous posting though)

If you’re using CS6 (which I realise yo may not be) you’ll need to install the Nvidia driver and add the Nvidia GT 750M to the list of supported graphics cards as described at this link – this works fine, no problems in my experience.
https://creatorup.com/enable-premiere-effects-mercury-playback-gpu-acceleration-cuda-imac-macbook-geforce-video-card/

This page I think gives advice on AE’s use of a discrete graphics card and the integrated card.
https://helpx.adobe.com/after-effects/using/rendering-opengl.html

My impression is that Premiere takes more overall advantage of the discrete graphics card than After Effects. If you’re buying just now I think I’d suggest going for the model with the discrete Nvidia graphics card as well as the Iris integrated card – it seem to me like a better choice for the longer term.

Hope the above is helpful.

Kind regards,

John

[John Welsh]

Hi,

I’m still relatively new to this and others may be able to offer a more thorough explanation – however my understanding is that Premiere takes the greatest advantage of the Nvidia GT750m graphics card in day to day running. After Effects uses it primarily for 3D ray tracing but as far as I’m aware that’s all.

I’ve briefly compared my workplace’s 2012 i5 13 inch MacBook Pro (16GB RAM) with my personal 2014 i7 15 inch MacBook Pro.

I found the i7 15 inch loaded a big After Effects project into RAM preview in roughly half the time it took the i5 13 inch and this is something of an advantage if you need to play back a long clip. It also opened the big After Effects file more quickly etc. However I don’t think this was a consequence of the Nvidia GT750m graphics card because as I mentioned, I understand After Effects CS6 only uses this for 3d Ray tracing.

If you use Premiere a lot it’s probably worth getting the graphics card, if it’s just After Effects you work with, you might not notice the difference.

On the whole actually, the 13 inch i5 holds up pretty well and the 16GB RAM we installed in it makes a big difference. (It previously had just 4GB RAM). Although it took longer to load up my big test file, once in RAM it played back fine. With new MacBook Pro laptops coming (possibly next year sometime) that may support 32GB RAM maybe it’s worth holding off until then if you have an i5 13 already.

If you have a test file you want to make available as a download via a Dropbox link or similar I’ll be happy to compare how it runs on both Macs.

All the best,

John

[John Welsh]

PS I meant to say, I have Adobe CS6 not Creative Cloud 2014, so please can you save any test files in CS6 compatible format. We don’t have CC2014 just yet.

Thanks,

John

[John Welsh]

Hi Eric,

In the end I bought a 15 inch MacBook Pro i7 with 16GB RAM and dedicated graphics card.

Shortly after, my workplace upgraded my 13 inch MacBook Pro i5 from 4GB RAM to 16GB RAM.

I compared them doing a couple of things. The 15 loads in large After Effects projects into RAM about twice as quickly as the 13. But once loaded in, playback in RAM preview is about the same.

With Premiere exporting, again, the 13 is considerably slower than the 15. I’ve used the 13 for basic editing (not too many video layers) and find it performs well.

If you make a Premiere project and / or After Effects project that you think will tell you what you need to know available as a download (eg as a zip file from Dropbox) I’ll download this and compare the performance of both machines.

I’m guessing that if you went up to the max RAM for your computer you’d see quite a difference. Certainly with new Broadwell based laptops coming (at a guess between Jan and July next year) it may be worth you waiting. I’ve read they’ll support 32GB RAM which for me is the more important thing than the faster processor.

But as I said, if you want to make some test video files available online for me to download and compare it’s no problem to do this and I’ll let you know the outcome.

Thanks and kind regards,

John