There are quite a few Mac users who would love to have Nvidia support, but until Apple and Nvidia can come to some kind of agreement, it is not going to happen.
Also Nvidia has worked hard to try and get their proprietary CUDA architecture to be a de facto standard, and this is at odds with Apple wanting to build developer support for the Apple Metal graphics API. And when that Nvidia GPU died for good, you could not start the computer, you had to write off that motherboard. It is said that the high failure rate of Nvidia mobile GPUs (which affected at least one of my MacBook Pros) soured Apple on Nvidia because of what it cost Apple to run a service program to repair/replace those at no cost to the customer…a fix that did not always stick. The reasons are not technical or related to the users, but strictly political. But it is exactly that relationship that is said to be why Nvidia is not currently supported on Macs.
You can still put Nvidia GPUs into the older Mac Pros (2006–2012) the models lacking Nvidia driver support are the ones requiring later versions of macOS.Īnd for MacBook Pro laptops, Nvidia was the supplier of their discrete GPUs for many years. There are Mac users who do like to build their own systems they are the ones who buy the Mac Pro tower models with multiple PCI card slots and drive bays, or people like me who dropped a graphics card into an eGPU enclosure to augment my Mac laptop’s integrated graphics. Currently, a GPU helps the most in the Develop module and for displays and raw images with very high pixel counts.Ĭlick to expand.There are reasons why Nvidia GPUs are not available for Macs right now, but they're different reasons than those. Right now, making a long-term decision about a graphics card should not hinge too much on Lightroom Classic, because GPU support in Lightroom is currently limited, but improving over time, and Adobe is probably not done with it.
Just to be clear, Windows and Mac users have separate and quite different criteria and constraints with regards to graphics cards:
If Lightroom Classic is your primary application, then for a Windows 10 computer it's probably good to use the Puget Systems GPU guidance for Lightroom Classic as a guide. A GPU that can satisfy those needs is probably going to be fine for Lightroom Classic for the next few years. The GPU buying decision should depend less on Lightroom and more on how many large displays you plan to drive, and on the needs of other, GPU-hungrier applications you might use like your video editing application, games, 3D.
for exporting), a GPU doesn’t help, no matter how much you spend. And just as important in the GPU buying decision is understanding that in Lightroom Classic outside of those areas (e.g. Currently, a GPU helps the most in the Develop module and for displays and raw images with very high pixel counts.
The discussion will involve one or the other, since neither platform supports both. For macOS, it's the opposite: Apple Metal performance is critical because Adobe Mac applications including Lightroom are building their Mac GPU support around this API, and Nvidia should not be part of the discussion because Nvidia graphics have zero driver support for any current Mac.īecause of that, a GPU discussion with either a Windows or Mac user should not mention both Metal and Nvidia.For Windows, Nvidia is a strong choice, and Apple Metal support should not be part of the discussion because Metal is an Apple-only API.Click to expand.Just to be clear, Windows and Mac users have separate and quite different criteria and constraints with regards to graphics cards: