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Blog Mac Pro Configuration Recommendations December 12th, 2019 in Articles / Video / Workflow No Comments → I’ve had a chance to work with the Mac Pro for close to a month at this point and to test out Apple’s Final Cut Pro X, DaVinci Resolve, Adobe Photoshop and Adobe Lightroom Classic with the formats listed in the table below and I believe I can share some insights that will likely help photographers and filmmakers choose the most optimal configuration for them ( and save $$$ ) I’ve also had the benefit of speaking directly with people from Apple about the ideal configurations. NOTE: these are MY opinion and not endorsed by Apple in any way. I would recommend you configure your Mac Pro to be optimized for your specific workflows as more information comes out. I’ll share those test results next week – I’m in the middle of two projects right now and I want to do it right. Here’s what I’ve had the MacPro process thru, and I’ve compared that to the iMac Pro (fully loaded) the 16″ MacBook Pro fully loaded, and the 2017 13″ MacBook Pro . Final Cut Pro X & Davinci Resolve: Apple ProRes Format Arri Alexa ProRes Format RED 8K, 5K R3D footage Black Magic Pocket Camera DJI Mavic Pro 4K H.264 Footage GoPro Hero 7 4K H.264 Footage Adobe Lightroom and Apple’s Photos Software: Canon 5DsR 50 MP CR2 Leica M9 18 MP DNG Fuji GFX 100 – 100 MP RAF PhaseONE IQ4 – 150 MP IIQ For now however, what I can do quickly is to share the configurations I’d recommend and WHY: For Photographers: The configuration above is a fantastic solution for photographers. Currently Adobe Photoshop and Lightroom cannot take advantage of more than 10 or so cores simultaneously – in fact a 10-core Mac is the sweet spot for photography. Anything greater than 10 cores is going to be wasted with photography workflows to be perfectly honest. If you’re looking to save money you can of course get a 1TB SSD instead of the listed 2TB and I’d get the initial 32GB of RAM and look to 3rd party for more RAM down the line. Remember – this machine is UPGRADABLE over time – things aren’t soldered in like in the past ? Please note that the Radeon Pro W5700X graphics card will also be an interesting alternative – especially for photographers. It’s not available just yet though. Also note: the iMac Pro configuration below continues to be a dream machine for many. If I were looking more long term and wanted toAs far as photography, the configuration above loads my 150 Megapixel stills instantly and pretty much any still photography format. Note that while my current config that I’m testing has two Radeon II card, I’ve recommended only one Radeon Pro Vega II card in this configuration – which will allow you to add another one down the line or swap graphics cards. Debayering and scaling is very CPU intensive so the more cores the better… the GPU won’t really help you speed up RED footage so onto the dream config” next… if you want to stay ahead of the game, instead of getting two Radeon Pro Vega IIs, I would suggest you consider getting a Duo” card now and save a slot – it’s the same price as two cards and you keep a free slot. The only difference is that I’m not sure you’ll get as many ports as w/ the two cards (I haven’t see the Duo so I don’t know if they double up on ports yet.) Please note that the Radeon Pro W5700X will also be an interesting alternative – especially for photographers. It’s not available just yet though. T he Dream” Configuration: I don’t see the need to get a Mac Pro with anything more than the configuration above at this time. None of the software that I currently use will benefit from more at this point. The CPU Cores are maxed out and I should be able to test the 28-core model at some point soon. I’d be interested to see how much faster it makes my exports and also if I can playback 8K footage with heavy layers in real time. I really don’t see ANY need for a single GB more than the 192GB. This much RAW will allow me to use multiple apps at once without blinking. The only RAM hungry app that I use if After Effects that likes to load clips into memory. I’d personally wait for the 8TB internal as it moves data at nearly 3,000 Megabytes per second – and I can work on the majority of my projects off of the internal drive. That definitely falls in the luxury” bin for now. But it WILL make a difference notably if you have slower spinning drives externally. G-Tech makes quite a few great SSD options ( fast drives here faster and RAIDED here and extremely fast portable drives here: ) that I’ve been using for a month now. You’ll see significant performance improvements with Lightroom catalogues for example using SSDs. And you’ll be able to scrub through footage like you’ve likely not been able to before when you use SSDs vs spinning drives – it’s just pure physics: no spinning drives to search through for your source files. As far as graphics I’d get the Vega Duo” (see above config) as I went into why I’d get that vs two Vega IIs that take up two slots. I wanted to keep the config down – but if you’re spending this much money, I’d get the Afterburner card as people are going to be able to update it and write specific software FOR it. Or… wait until that happens and get it later. IMPORTANT : Metal support will potentially change a LOT of this. It’s hard to tell. A lot of current software is relying purely on the GPU right now such as the RED cameras. Once they incorporate the Metal SDK that will change to the GPU or a mix. Hard to tell exactly how just now. Until then however – the more cores the better to tackle 8K playback / debayering / exports. And I also don’t need th need for wheels – the current model slides extremely easily for access to the rear ports on my desk....