Improving GPU performance on my MacBook Pro 13”

gilbouk

gilbouk

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I’m new to the eGPU world and looking for guidance on buying one to hopefully improve performance of Capture One on my 2020 intel MacBook Pro 13” which has 16GB RAM. Currently I experience delayed rendering when moving between photos and laggy changes when moving sliders in Capture One.

Would I be better off with a Mac Mini with more RAM if going down the route of an eGPU, or would I be better waiting for the new machines coming out with M1X chip and trading in my MacBook instead of buying an eGPU?

Which eGPU would give me a descent improvement?

@TimHughes maybe you can help as I found a thread which says you use one along with a Mac mini
 
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Why do you think it's the GPU? CPU is really not the most powerful in there. And what about photo storage?

Some rtx 2060 or better 3060 ti would be plenty but I just don't see it making much difference. For the price you may as well upgrade to something newer and more powerful
 
LongLensPhotography said:
Why do you think it's the GPU? CPU is really not the most powerful in there. And what about photo storage?

Some rtx 2060 or better 3060 ti would be plenty but I just don't see it making much difference. For the price you may as well upgrade to something newer and more powerful
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I was considering an M1 processor however I'm hearing similar issues with them in relation to Capture One performance with the consensus on forums that there is a need for a dedicated GPU for a better experience. How can I tell where the bottle neck is on my setup?

Essentially I want to avoid spending too much on the latest high end machine when I could instead go for a second hand 2018 mini for example - upgrade it to 64GB and use a second hand egpu in order to achieve faster processing.

How about a Blackmagic Radeon Pro 580 8GB - would that be a cheaper option worth considering?
 
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The M1X release is a few weeks away, it would be worth considering that for future-proofing and reducing complexity, before jumping into an eGPU setup.
As you mentioned not going for a high-end machine but going second-hand, even an M1 goes toe to toe with a high-end 2020 non-ARM chip.
From some quick research it seems that there is some optimisation issues with Capture one on M1 Macs, but that isn't the processor, that's the software programming. that seems to be the case because other programs have jumps in performance improvements. It's a certain bet that the Capture one code will be further optimised for ARM processors in the future, and performance will improve along with the hardware.
I know this isn't what your plan is, but I think it's worth waiting a few weeks to consider.
 
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CavGez said:
The M1X release is a few weeks away, it would be worth considering that for future-proofing and reducing complexity, before jumping into an eGPU setup.
As you mentioned not going for a high-end machine but going second-hand, even an M1 goes toe to toe with a high-end 2020 non-ARM chip.
From some quick research it seems that there is some optimisation issues with Capture one on M1 Macs, but that isn't the processor, that's the software programming. It's a certain bet that the code will be optimised for ARM processors in the future, and performance will improve along with the hardware.
I know this isn't what your plan is, but I think it's worth waiting a few weeks to consider.
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Thanks @CavGez - you are right, I should just wait and bear with my current setup until the announcement comes from Apple. Just becomes frustrating when you have a heavy workload and want a quick fix :). Also hoping Capture One addresses the 'memory leak' which people mention of when using the ARM version on their M1 based machines.
 
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gilbouk said:
How about a Blackmagic Radeon Pro 580 8GB - would that be a cheaper option worth considering?
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That's 2017 or so? Slow and should be £80 but its probably the cost of new 3060 for the reasons I'm sure you know. Of course with a mac you are stuck with AMD cards... and they don't even support newer ones. It will be obsolete soon; and will never be supported on ARM at all.

gilbouk said:
Essentially I want to avoid spending too much on the latest high end machine when I could instead go for a second hand 2018 mini for example - upgrade it to 64GB and use a second hand egpu in order to achieve faster processing.
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While it is not a bad system you seem to want fairly high performance. I'm pretty anti M$ and anti-Windows as I can be but still ended up building a fairly powerful box and the upcoming Intel 12th gen will be a major boost still if you consider laptops.
With a MAC you have to wait out the month for M1X systems. I may get one as per above... I need a portable device anyway.

If C1 has issues on Macs then clearly that is that. All you can do is complain to them a lot or switch.
 
gilbouk said:
I’m new to the eGPU world and looking for guidance on buying one to hopefully improve performance of Capture One on my 2020 intel MacBook Pro 13” which has 16GB RAM. Currently I experience delayed rendering when moving between photos and laggy changes when moving sliders in Capture One.

Would I be better off with a Mac Mini with more RAM if going down the route of an eGPU, or would I be better waiting for the new machines coming out with M1X chip and trading in my MacBook instead of buying an eGPU?

Which eGPU would give me a descent improvement?

@TimHughes maybe you can help as I found a thread which says you use one along with a Mac mini
Click to expand...

At this point, I would also wait for the M1X.

FWIW
- I don't have any issues with C1 on the Mac Mini (2018, i7, 64GB) I have an EGPU which I got for video editing, I'm not sure if it helps C1.
- I did have problems with my Macbook Pro (2014, 8GB) which started crashing repeatedly with the latest versions of the software.
- I upgraded that to an M1 MBP (16GB). This is much better but needs care with the memory especially working alongside Photomechanic as it soon fills up and needs clearing fairly frequently.
 
I would say this is a software issue? A 2020 MacBook with 16Gb should be able to handle anything thrown at it?

I use Lightroom on my 2013 MacBook and its fine. No doubt the new model would be quicker but works fine.
 
cambsno said:
I would say this is a software issue? A 2020 MacBook with 16Gb should be able to handle anything thrown at it?

I use Lightroom on my 2013 MacBook and its fine. No doubt the new model would be quicker but works fine.
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Good point, there’s probably more to it than the latest software. In my case I think the problem is the increasing picture file sizes. My 2014 MBP works fine with 12Mpx files. Working with full resolution files from R5 or GFX is the problem. C1 recommends min 16GB for high res files.
 
TimHughes said:
At this point, I would also wait for the M1X.

FWIW
- I don't have any issues with C1 on the Mac Mini (2018, i7, 64GB) I have an EGPU which I got for video editing, I'm not sure if it helps C1.
- I did have problems with my Macbook Pro (2014, 8GB) which started crashing repeatedly with the latest versions of the software.
- I upgraded that to an M1 MBP (16GB). This is much better but needs care with the memory especially working alongside Photomechanic as it soon fills up and needs clearing fairly frequently.
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How do you monitor your RAM usage?
 
cambsno said:
I would say this is a software issue? A 2020 MacBook with 16Gb should be able to handle anything thrown at it?

I use Lightroom on my 2013 MacBook and its fine. No doubt the new model would be quicker but works fine.
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I started a new Session which I think has helped but the adjustment sliders like exposure are still slow to respond - so much so you can move the slider and it can sometimes take a couple of seconds for the effect to be seen - although the problem seems to get worse when working quickly between photos. It can be frustrating for it to work as expected sometimes but other times take much longer to respond

Storage wise I have around 70GB of free space on my onboard 512SSD. I may move more data off to see if that has an impact too as I note it becomes unusable when I have only 20GB free for example. I close all other apps but may also close apps that run on startup to see if I can squeeze more performance. I guess I just want a ‘no loading’ experience.

Perhaps Lightroom is the answer as I’ve heard that performance wise it’s more suited to handling large volumes of photos. Will probably upgrade to a machine with the new processor when announced and if I’m still not happy go back to Lightroom
 
gilbouk said:
How do you monitor your RAM usage?
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either with the "Activity Monitor" app that is in utilities or "CleanMyMac" app (paid). CleanMyMac gives warnings when memory is filling up and has a button "free up" for memory.
 
I don't use C1 and it sounds like it is an issue associated with that only, not sure a M1x will solve the issue if it is a C1 code problem.

I nearly went down the eGPU road and swerved at the last minute and bought a MBP M1 (16gb/512) and am still amazed how fast it is! It was bought with the task of a 5 hour live stream for a client, and did it floorlessly and without the fans going. My older 2015 MBP i7 would have had fans whirring from 2 minutes in and sounded like it was going to take off by 5 minutes in!

All the adobe offerings run really well especially compared to the i7, premier and after effects are really smooth now.

T
 
cambsno said:
I would say this is a software issue? A 2020 MacBook with 16Gb should be able to handle anything thrown at it?

I use Lightroom on my 2013 MacBook and its fine. No doubt the new model would be quicker but works fine.
Click to expand...

Ditto, my 11 inch 2015 runs the apps just fine (even After Effects!)
 
Hi folks, well I have had activity monitor open and it seems that both my CPU and GPU are put to the test when working with Capture One. I think the fact I am driving a secondary 4k monitor with the resolution set to 2560 x 1440 might also be challenging my setup too.

348% CPU 222%GPU

I'm guessing buying eGPU would be pointless given the processor is under so much load?

I'm really thinking about changing my setup now as Capture One is not getting any faster - in fact it's almost at the stage of being unusable as when I make adjustments with the sliders, there is no feedback for some time, and when the image does change, it's often by too much, so it becomes very tedious trying to guess the right position the slider should be in and having to wait to see the results.

The new MacBook Pros are extremely expensive - and I'm swaying towards changing to a Asus Zephyrus G14 with AMD Ryzen 9-5900HS and a Nvidia GeForce RTX 3060 (6GB), 32GB RAM, 1TB SSD which looks to be me a hell of a lot more affordable, or an HP Z1 G8 desktop with either an 10th or 11th generation i7, 16GB DDR4 (which I will upgrade), 512GB SSD, NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 (8GB). I've heard that the Asus laptops do run very hot which does concern me about longevity, however the portability is very attractive. What would your recommendations be with a budget of £1500? Would HP / Dell XPS be a better option?
 
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LongLensPhotography said:
Activity monitor should give you a pretty good idea if and and if so what you are maxing out at any given time.

Is there any anti-malware active on it?
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No Anti-malware - I've pruned down all the background running tasks but it doesn't seem to be enough to achieve a good working setup
 
Tdes said:
I don't use C1 and it sounds like it is an issue associated with that only, not sure a M1x will solve the issue if it is a C1 code problem.

I nearly went down the eGPU road and swerved at the last minute and bought a MBP M1 (16gb/512) and am still amazed how fast it is! It was bought with the task of a 5 hour live stream for a client, and did it floorlessly and without the fans going. My older 2015 MBP i7 would have had fans whirring from 2 minutes in and sounded like it was going to take off by 5 minutes in!

All the adobe offerings run really well especially compared to the i7, premier and after effects are really smooth now.

T
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It does seem like C1 is resource hungry - everything else runs fairly smoothly. Affinity is a bit slow to load and glitchy - and takes time to in-paint. I've been reading that C1 utilises GPU more than Lightroom, and so it's advantageous to have a high performance GPU. I don't think my integrated intel graphics are up to the job
 
You can get a 13 inch m1 MacBook Pro with 16Gb ram for under 1500. That'll blitz through pretty much anything. The newer m1 pro chip is even faster but you do pay for it.

I use my 13 inch for 4k video editing, photo editing in lightroom and Photoshop and it just copes with it all.
 
TCR4x4 said:
You can get a 13 inch m1 MacBook Pro with 16Gb ram for under 1500. That'll blitz through pretty much anything. The newer m1 pro chip is even faster but you do pay for it.

I use my 13 inch for 4k video editing, photo editing in lightroom and Photoshop and it just copes with it all.
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I was considering the M1 but the speeds of similarly priced PC are better.

https://www.dpreview.com/reviews/asus-zephyrus-g14-2021-review-the-m1-macbook-pro-killer

The review on the Asus has a section about Capture One and it seems to be even faster than a Mac with an M1 chip, but not by any means as fast as a Mac with a M1pro or M1max chip
 
There’s no doubt C1 eats resources. I recently updated my 2014 MBP with a 2020 M1 MBP for this reason, C1 was too unstable on the MBP for time critical work.

How does C1 perform on the M1 MBP? It’s stable and fast but guess what it uses pretty much all available RAM on that too.

and on 64GB Mac mini? You guessed it, taking most of that RAM too.

ill check the preferences maybe there is a setting for RAM limit?

With all that said I still prefer using it to LR…
 
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