Do you want an optimised Workstation for DaVinci Resolve? This guide gives you the information you need to choose the perfect configuration for your DaVinci Resolve Workstation.
DaVinci Resolve is one of the most powerful and popular tools for post-production and visual effects professionals. The software started over a decade ago as a premium colour grading and correction tool.
Since then, the platform has evolved to include audio post-production and visual effects. DaVinci Resolve is the go-to choice for high-end tv and film creators worldwide.
The varied capabilities of the application can make it difficult to configure an optimised Workstation for DaVinci Resolve. This article will help guide you through this process to get a system ideally suited to your needs.
What Is The Best CPU For DaVinci Resolve?
How amount of GPUs you require in your build will influence your CPU choice. The Intel® Core™ and AMD Ryzen™ processor ranges will work great for DaVinci Resolve but will only support one GPU.
If you require more than one GPU, we recommend AMD Ryzen™ Threadripper™ Pro or Intel® Core™ X-Series Workstations. Both these high-performance Workstation ranges support up to four graphics cards.
We have found that 10 – 14 high-speed cores are the sweet spot for DaVinci Resolve users. Going beyond this offers minimal benefit and is often significantly more expensive.
Luckily all our recommended Workstations are capable of reaching these core counts. We recommend our WS IC Intel® Core™ and WS AR AMD Ryzen™ Workstations to maximise clock speeds while providing 10 – 14 cores.
The Workstation Specialists WS IC Intel® Core™ Workstation range and WS AR AMD Ryzen™ range can be configured online in minutes and are ideally suited to DaVinci Resolve.
Should You Use Intel® Xeon® For DaVinci Resolve?
Intel® Xeon® was a popular choice for DaVinci Resolve users some years ago. The high core counts and large capacity for GPU expansion made them popular options for DaVinci Resolve.
In recent years, however, Intel® Core™ X-Series and AMD Ryzen™ Threadripper™ Pro Workstations have offered better performance. They can also often be cheaper and support up to four Graphics Cards.
Therefore, we believe there is no longer a reason to use Intel® Xeon® processors for DaVinci Resolve.
What GPU Should I Configure For DaVinci Resolve?
Colour grading & visual effects work within DaVinci Resolve are predominantly performed on the GPU. As a result, we recommend allocating a large portion of your budget towards this area.
DaVinci Resolve can use multiple cards, but it does not scale perfectly. For example, adding a second GPU will improve performance, but it will not double the performance.
Additionally, the performance improvements will further decrease with every card you add. Therefore we recommend purchasing fewer high-end cards instead of many low to mid-range cards.
When choosing which types of graphics to go with, we recommend NVIDIA GeForce RTX™ for DaVinci Resolve Workstations. The high-end models offer plenty of VRAM for your needs and provide good stability and fantastic performance.
Should I Select NVIDIA Professional Graphics (Formerly Quadro) or AMD Radeon™ Pro Graphics?
These professional graphics options work very well with DaVinci Resolve, but they have some disadvantages compared to NVIDIA GeForce.
ProfessionalNVIDIA Graphics and AMD Radeon™ Prographics cards offer robust driver stacks, excellent reliability and lots of VRAM. The high VRAM featured on these cards may be critical if you work with high-resolution projects and many visual effects.
The downsides to the professional GPU options are that they often cost more and do not deliver as high performance.
If you are working on up to 8K projects, then we recommend theNVIDIA GeForce RTX™ graphics for DaVinci Resolve.