graphics card advice

[Jeremy Roussak]

The options for graphics cards in the new MacBook Pros confuse me. They are, in order of expense:

Radeon Pro 555X with 4GB of GDDR5 memory
Radeon Pro 560X with 4GB of GDDR5 memory
Radeon Pro Vega 16 with 4GB of HBM2 memory
Radeon Pro Vega 20 with 4GB of HBM2 memory

I don't do video and I don't play games. The only processor-intensive work I do on the laptop is photography: mostly Lightroom, some Photoshop and plugins, mainly Nik's.

Assuming that the rest of the spec is adequate, am I likely to see any real difference between these cards?

Jeremy

[Slobodan Blagojevic]

Following.

[rdonson]

Jeremy,

If you don't process video and you aren't a gamer my opinion is that any of the video cards will be more than sufficient for you purposes.

[kers]

Capture one uses the GPU intensively- LR does not- only for enhanced detail.
Photoshop also hardly uses the GPU -only for some tasks and filters.
ptGui uses the GPU but a modest GPU is sufficient to speed it up.
So i agree with rdonson - a modest will do for now- but we don not know what will come and the computer has to last 5- 10 years.

[Slobodan Blagojevic]

Well, how about the latest AI software, for instance Topaz? Doesn’t it need the best possible video card?

[Jeremy Roussak]

Well, how about the latest AI software, for instance Topaz? Doesn’t it need the best possible video card?

It might, Slobodan; but given that Topaz's stuff is glacially, unusably slow even on my iMac Pro, I can't imagine being able to use it on a laptop, whichever graphics card is installed.

Jeremy

[Slobodan Blagojevic]

For us, the unwashed masses, who can not afford the iMac Pro, it still begs raises the question which of the four cards would be the best choice for the regular iMac if one plans on Topaz at some point. Or for LR’s Enhance Detail.

[kers]

Enhanced detail takes about 5-10sec for one 50mp raw on A moderate card.
See macperformance guide by diglloyd for detail.
The resulting dng is much quicker to develop to a tiff for already is demosaiced.
So the real delay is about 5 sec.

[PeterAit]

It might, Slobodan; but given that Topaz's stuff is glacially, unusably slow even on my iMac Pro, I can't imagine being able to use it on a laptop, whichever graphics card is installed.

Jeremy

Topaz is slow, not quite as slow with a good GPU, but it works perfectly well without any GPU. And with its batch processing capability, you can queue up the images you want processed and go to bed.

[Joe Towner]

This may or may not help your decision making. There are 2 different question threads this should be broken into:

- 15" i7 or i9 model which offers the 555x and 560x
- 15" i9 model with the 560, Vega16, Vega20

If you're thinking the i7, I'd do just the baseline items ($2,400).  If you're going to do any upgrading, do the second one, with the i9 as it's base cpu. It'll have the 560x, plus the 512gb ssd & the i9 for $400 more (but would cost $600 to add to i7 base model).  Since they all can do eGPU's, doing the Vega's seems to be unnecessary unless you're a road warrior who's editing footage on a plane.

The one other thing I'd consider is how long you tend to keep a computer. Personally I'm at 1.5 years on my 15" 2017 MBP, and did over 6 years with the previous one (2011 with dedicated graphics, see earlier thread). If you keep a machine longer, or it's your one and only workstation, I might lean to the $2,800 model.  Otherwise the $2,400 (possibly with a larger ssd) would be my recommendation.  Just keep in mind that the 13" they sell only offers the Intel integrated option

[Jeremy Roussak]

Topaz is slow, not quite as slow with a good GPU, but it works perfectly well without any GPU. And with its batch processing capability, you can queue up the images you want processed and go to bed.

But I can't tell what it's going to do, Peter. That's why I need the preview; and the preview takes more than two minutes to calculate on the iMac Pro. I don't have the patience.

This may or may not help your decision making. There are 2 different question threads this should be broken into:

- 15" i7 or i9 model which offers the 555x and 560x
- 15" i9 model with the 560, Vega16, Vega20

If you're thinking the i7, I'd do just the baseline items ($2,400).  If you're going to do any upgrading, do the second one, with the i9 as it's base cpu. It'll have the 560x, plus the 512gb ssd & the i9 for $400 more (but would cost $600 to add to i7 base model).  Since they all can do eGPU's, doing the Vega's seems to be unnecessary unless you're a road warrior who's editing footage on a plane.

The one other thing I'd consider is how long you tend to keep a computer. Personally I'm at 1.5 years on my 15" 2017 MBP, and did over 6 years with the previous one (2011 with dedicated graphics, see earlier thread). If you keep a machine longer, or it's your one and only workstation, I might lean to the $2,800 model.  Otherwise the $2,400 (possibly with a larger ssd) would be my recommendation.  Just keep in mind that the 13" they sell only offers the Intel integrated option

I keep it until it breaks, usually. My current MacBook Pro is a little over six years old and is fine for everything I do with it save for photography. It's not my only machine. My policy is to buy the top of the range, or close to it, and keep it for a long time; my previous Pro lasted just over six years before its graphics suddenly collapsed completely, so I'm getting ready for it to happen again. If it won't benefit me, I don't want to waste money on a high-end graphics card which could be more usefully spent elsewhere (a faster processor or a larger SSD, for example).

Jeremy