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We’ve had the 2020 16” MacBook Pro in the office for just over a week now and even
though there's only 1 change on the surface, I found something else that I’ll mention
in just a bit, I have to say i'm so impressed that I’m considering selling my $15,000
Mac Pro and just using one of these MacBooks with the new 5600M instead.
Now the Mac Pro is definitely more powerful, mine has 192GB of RAM, a 12 Core Xeon processor,
and mine has the super powerful Vega 2 gpu with 32GB of HMB2 memory. On top of that I
have the afterburner installed which accelerates ProRes and ProRes RAW and this thing costs
$2000 by itself but I’ll talk about why many of you probably won’t need it with
the new MacBook Pro.
My Spec of the MacBook Pro costs $4,099 and realistically you can buy the base 8 core
that has pretty much the same real world performance to make it a flat $4000. It has the 2.4Ghz
8 core i9 processor, the new AMD Radeon 5600M and 32GB of RAM which yes I know is a lot
less than the 192GB in my Mac, but more on this as well in just a bit.
Before we get into performance numbers including various benchmarks like Blender, video editing,
gaming, and photo editing, I want to first point out the benefits of buying each of these
Macs.
With the MacBook Pro, you can get work done anywhere and unlike most windows laptop you
don’t have to be plugged in since the performance is the same unplugged. To add to this, you
can now get fairly inexpensive battery packs that will power your Mac through USB-C and
even charge it up while you’re doing serious work and at least double your battery life.
Now the Mac Pro, on the other hand, is a different beast.
You definitely don’t get the same bang for the buck. The base model is slow for the money,
in fact this MacBook Pro costs $2000 less than the base and is faster in every way.
In order to get more value you have to spend more, but It’s a commercial grade computer
that gives you top-notch reliability for computing tasks and performance that you simply can’t
get on any other Mac.
Everything from the RAM, graphics, storage and even the processor is upgradeable. In
fact, we saved over $2000 by upgrading the RAM ourselves instead of buying it from Apple,
and that’s just 192GB instead of the maximum 1.5TB of RAM.
If you’re interested in upgrading it yourself, check out our do it yourself RAM upgrade guide
at the end of this video.
Now specs do matter, but they don’t tell the whole storey. What really matters is real-world
performance and I’ve been using this machine as my main rig for over 6 months now so I
have some real world observations and comparison that I have to get out there.
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Starting off with processor performance using Geekbench 5, the Mac Pro’s processor is
way faster in terms of raw multi-core performance. It only has 4 more cores but a lot of the
gain is because it's not thermally limited like the thin MacBook.
Now running Cinebench R20, which pushes all cores to the limit like when you’re transcoding
footage or doing CPU rendering, the Mac Pro is once again much faster. On top of that,
the Mac pro stays cool and completely silent instead of getting loud towards the end of
the test.
Now moving onto graphics performance with Geekbench 5’s Metal test, Once again the
Mac Pro is faster, in fact its more than twice as fast but I want to point out that the new
AMD 5600M graphics cards is much faster than the previous best 5500M.
If you judge by the name the 5600M doesn’t sound much more powerful but its has way more
cores now, going from 24 cores to 40, and it now uses HMB2 memory just like my Mac Pro,
which is why the graphics upgrade is so expensive.
So we have up to 200% more performance and way more RAM, but does it stack up the same
in real world use.
I know these Machines aren’t for gaming, but I want to throw it in. Running Unigine
heaven the Mac Pro is 50% faster, which is a good improvement but not as much as we’d
expect. I also want to point out the MacBook pro has a killer score, actually being better
for gaming than the best 5K iMac and the $5000 iMac pro.
If you’re doing graphic rendering, I compared both using blender benchmark and the Mac Pro
took 16 min compared to 22 min with the MacBook. Another big difference but not the 2x difference
I expected.
Now before we test photo editing in Lightroom Classic, let’s get into video editing with
Final Cut Pro.
The Mac Pro finished the graphics-heavy BruceX test in just 6 seconds which is crazy fast,
but the new MacBook pro took just 9 sescont which really surprised me. The previous best
16” MacBook Pro takes 13 which was already a big improvement but now this 2020 model
is actually closer to the Mac Pro then to the 5500M.
Now testing 4K stabilization, the Mac Pro took just 4 seconds to stabilize a 20 second
clip, but the MacBook Pro was just as fast. That seems absolutely crazy and the only way
I can explain it is that other factors are limiting the Mac Pro and the 5600M is fast
enough that its not a graphics limitation anymore.
Moving onto exporting a 5 minute 4K project with many effects using h.264 footage, which
is the format that most youtubers use. The MacBook Pro does take longer than the Mac
Pro but only by 32 seconds.
This means that if you had a 20min project there would only be a 2 min difference, and
as far as actual editing smoothness, I couldn't tell any difference.
Now running the same test but using an 8bit h.265, or HEVC, the export speed is identical
since they are both using the same T2 chip to encode and the graphics isn’t a limitation.
Now if you stack an insane amount of effects the Mac Pro will pull ahead but even for my
toughest projects it's hard to tell a difference.
Now onto the much heavier stuff, like raw editing. Working with Crazy 8K RED RAW footage
the Mac Pro is faster but not by as much as I’d expect. This is because in the final
cut the CPU’s are the limitations. Looking at a program like Davinci Resolve the Mac
Pro has a bigger lead and the same thing goes for C200 footage but playing back this codec
results in the same perfect performance even with 4K 60 raw footage with effects.
This wasn’t possible previously and the footage playback was stuttery and most of
the time you’re editing not exporting. I know that we mostly touched on final cut but
the differences are similar in Resolve and now Premiere Pro as well.
Software is now getting more efficient and more things are being moved to graphics which
really helps the MacBook. Because of this and the much faster new 5600M Graphis people
who may have needed a 10 to 15,000 Mac Pro 6 months ago may not need one now.
I even played back some 8K ProRES RAW footage on a 8K timeline with effects and it playbed
back almost perfectly on the MacBook without the $2000 Afterburner card which shocked me.
The Mac Pro can actually do 3 streams of it but personally I have no need for that and
I think most don’t either.
Now onto photo editing. I literally noticed no difference when editing. The MacBook Pro
is as smooth as butter just like the Mac Pro even though on paper you’d think it would
be and this is using 42Megapixel RAW images where most edit 24 megapixel or lower.
Basically we’re at a point that the 8 core 5600M MacBook is so fast and the software
is finally better optimized with the latest versions that you don’t need better specs.
Now exporting 500 RAW photos with effects in Lightroom Classic resulted in the Mac pro
being almost twice as fast so you’ll definitely get some speed improvements there and that's
actually only a CPU limitation not graphics so if you routinely exports hundreds of raw
images each day that might be a dealbreaker.
I said I’d mention the huge difference in RAM so here it is, I honestly didn’t notice
a difference between it. In the last few versions of MacOS ram usage is more efficient and even
with 192GB or RAM in my Mac Pro I’ve never seen more than 72GB used, in fact its usually
about 40GB-60GB.
If you know you’ll have multiple big programs open you get 64GB in the MacBook for $400
more but from what I can tell 32GB is the sweet spot as MacOS will compress ram and
store things on the ultra fast SSD’s.
Another thing I noticed is the 2020 MacBook Pro seems to run a little bit cooler which
results in slightly higher CPU scores than last year with the same processor which is
a nice surprise.
Overall, now that software is more efficient, and we have faster graphics in the MacBook
even less people need a Mac Pro and can save money and be mobile at the same time. I still
have to decide if I’ll sell my Mac Pro, but if I didn't’ already own one, I would
definitely be buying the MacBook over the Mac Pro.
Let us know you’re thoughts down in the comments section below and if you want to
save some money on a MacBook we’ll have links in the video description.