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ASK DN: Macbook Pro Intel Iris Pro good enough for graphic design?

8 years ago from Aaron S, Product Designer

  • John PJohn P, 8 years ago (edited 8 years ago )

    Illustrator

    Illustrator is almost entirely rendered on the CPU, the GPU acceleration in the latest version isn't really ready for prime time.

    Sketch

    Uses the GPU for blur effects but that's about it and the overall slowness in most use cases appears to be a bottleneck elsewhere in the pipeline not really related to the GPU.

    Don't you think you need a GRAPHIC card for GRAPHIC design?

    You don't actually*, Adobe apps rarely use the thing.

    • 90% of Photoshop is CPU code, GPU is only used in a few places for rotating the canvas and the 3D tools no one uses etc.
    • Illustrator didn't use it at all until the latest version
    • InDesign doesn't use it at all
    • After Effects uses it for some compositing but the difference is negligible and almost all other effects are CPU rendered. CUDA is utilised for encoding, probably the main thing you'll notice.

    * Obviously you need one to run a modern composited OS, I mean you don't need a powerful one.

    6 points
    • Manuela Santos Gonzalez, 5 years ago

      Hi John P

      You seem well rounded about graphic design I am going to study a course in graphic design. Can you please advise which video card is enough for me to run mainly Photoshop, illustrator, InDesign and Sketch?

      1)One of the MacBook Pro I checked, it has Radeon Pro 560x with 4GB. Its 2018 released

      2)Other MacBook Pro. Released May 2015. It has the combination of the following 2GB VRAM AMD RADEON R9 M37OX (games, apps etc) INTEL IRIS PRO 5200 1GB VRAM (reserved for system) 

      I would much appreciate your response

      Kind regards

      Manuela

      0 points