Im looking for some advice from you guys who is using MacBook Pro.
Im currently running Pix4D desktop on a laptop with the following specs:
- Intel® Core™ i7-6700HQ processor
- Nvidia® GTX® 1060 med 3GB GDDR5
- 128 GB M.2-SSD + 1 TB HDD (7200 rpm)
- 16 GB DDR4 2133MHz
I only use it to process volume measurements in Pix4D. Usually the projects contains of 100-200 images from Phantom 4 PRO. For all other things besides Pix4D I use a iMac 2017. I want to be able to process Pix4D projects when Im traveling and I like to replace the laptop with the new MacBook Pro with the following specs:
- 2,2 GHz 6-core 8th gen Intel Core i7, Turbo Boost 4,1 GHz
- Radeon Pro 555X with 4 GB GDDR5
- 16 GB 2400 MHz DDR
- 256 GB SSD (+ external SDD connected via USB-C)
- Running Pix4D Windows version with Boot camp
I know the Pix4D benefits from the Nvidia GPU that I have on my present laptop so thats one negative side with the MacBook Pro. But overall, the specs on the Macbook is much better and I guess the processing time should be less on the MacBook Pro? Any other cons on running Pix4D on Boot camp?
Hello Anders,
In this article, you can find the results of some testing we performed with different setups. Additionally, the same article contains important information about the different hardware components that are used during processing and how each one of them affects the processing time.
A CUDA enabled GPU significantly improves the processing speed for steps 1 and 2. Processing time of step 3 is not affected by the GPU. The GPU affects considerably the visualization of the rayCloud. For more information about the GPU processing you can check here.
An SSD hard drive can optimize the processing time, especially for step 3. The images and the project files should always be stored on the SSD for maximum performance. This is the most important component for fast processing during volumes computation.
Regards,
Thanks for the input and the links!
Seems like I will increase the processing time of step 1, but step 2 and 3 will not be a big difference. Probably step 3 will be faster on the MacBook due to faster CPU, SSD and RAM.
I have never used Boot camp before but I understand that it allows you to run Windows on a separate partition and install Win apps on a Mac.
Should I expect any issues/bugs with Pix4D when its running in boot camp compared to a Win laptop?
Hello Anders,
As far as I am aware, there are no issues when using Boot camp to run the latest Pix4D version on a Windows computer.
There are several users following this workaround. You can check the comments or directly ask the community in the following post.
Regards,