If there was one technology improvement over the last six months that was directly relevant to editors, it's the use of eGPUs. We have assembled a few videos to explain why.
Ever since Final Cut Pro X was released back in 2011, it has relied heavily on the graphics processing unit. As Moore's Law proved to be technically challenging to sustain, the GPU has become the most import component of a Mac for editing. We have ridden on the back of gamers and Bitcoin miners who demand the fastest GPUs they can buy, but we want shorter render times and smoother playback instead of higher frame rates in Fortnite and expanding cryptocurrency wallets.
2019 will be the year when the new Mac Pro gets unveiled to all us eager FCPX editors. It has been said that it will be modular and hopefully that will allow us to change and maybe even run more than one GPU at a time.
We have had a hint of what's to come from Mojave supporting eGPUs, so we thought it would be a good idea to collect together a few YouTube videos from those who have been experimenting with eGPUs.
First up is FCP.co friend Michael P. Schmidt who took delivery of a RADEON RX VEGA 64 and installed it as a eGPU.
What is slightly worrying is the performance of FCPX with larger sizes of RED footage. It seems that in this case, 2019 Premiere Pro outperforms FCPX. You don't read that very often.
Next is another FCP.co friend Michael Kammes who returns with the return (did it go offline?) of his five things video on eGPUs and the Mac Mini.
Again another interesting watch and 473% faster is a pretty amazing statistic.
Finally, although our French isn't really up to anything more than ordering a croissant at CDG, we took a look at this video from the guys at YakYakYak.
They have some good figures and make some thought provoking comparisons between how an eGPU works with FCPX and DaVinci Resolve. Interesting that FCPX allows you to continue to edit during an export using the eGPU whereas DaVinci Resolve doesn't. (We really need a shorter name for DaVinci Resolve - can we suggest DaVe? - Maybe not.)
All very interesting and it really has got us wondering what the new Mac Pro will be like when it debuts this year. Will we be able to stack up GPUs to turbocharge rendering? We will have to wait to find out.
