Four days after the massive release of DaVinci Resolve 17, Blackmagic has pushed to users the 17.1 version, which was built to support the newly released M1 powered Macs. According to Blackmagic, Resolve 17.1 offers up to 5 times better performance. Read on. 

DaVinci Resolve 17

Blackmagic Design has released DaVinci Resolve 17 at the beginning of this week. Resolve 17 constitutes a major upgrade compared to the last version (16.3) and defined as “The biggest update in the history of DaVinci” by Blackmagic’s CEO Grant Petty. Resolve 17 includes over 100 new features and 200 improvements in almost every aspect (Cut, Edit, Color, Fairlight, and Fusion). There is no post-production segment of the software that has left behind. Make sure to read our article that covers this announcement ((DaVinci Resolve 17 Released: “The Biggest Update in the History of DaVinci”).

M1 powered Macs

24 hours after the announcement of DaVinci Resolve 17, a new announcement was made by Apple, presenting its new M1 powered Macs. For those who live inside a cave, and don’t know what the M1 chip is (just kidding:-)), please check out our article that explains and covers Apple’s announcement (Apple Reinvents the Mac With its own M1 Chip). Basically, the M1 is Apple’s in-house chip dedicated to Mac. This architecture will be utilized in the upcoming macOS Big Sur. Furthermore, yesterday Apple released its first Pro App that supports M1, which is Final Cut Pro (Read: Final Cut Pro X 10.5 Introduced: Optimized for Apple Silicon).  Of course, the applications need to be M1 supported in order to utilize Apple Silicon (Apple’s new architecture). This support is supposed to allow more speed and efficiency.

DaVinci Resolve 17.1 Beta 1

Today, Blackmagic Design has announced DaVinci Resolve 17.1 which was built to support the newly released M1 powered Macs. DaVinci Resolve 17.1 Beta 1 offers universal app support for M1 powered Macs to provide better performance on small laptops. Plus the unified memory architecture on M1 enables DaVinci Resolve 17.1 to leverage the power of CPU and GPU processing more effectively, avoiding the need for PCI Express transfers. As stated by Blackmagic: “Significantly, the combination of M1, Metal processing, and DaVinci Resolve 17.1 offers up to 5 times better performance when compared to previous generation computers”. DaVinci Resolve 17.1 is also compatible with macOS Big Sur and is initially only available for Mac.

Release notes:

• Support for Apple Silicon on Mac.
• General performance and stability improvements

The public beta of DaVinci Resolve 17.1 for M1 powered Macs is available for download now from the Blackmagic Design web site.

Significantly, the combination of M1, Metal processing, and DaVinci Resolve 17.1 offers up to 5 times better performance when compared to previous generation computers.

Blackmagic Design

Final thoughts

Blackmagic claims that Resolve running on M1 Macs will be 5 times faster. If so, the M1 architecture which combines the CPU and the GPU altogether might be the weapon of choice for many post-production professionals. However, the eGPU which is Blackmagic’s GPU will not be supported anymore. Let the benchmark tests begin!