Created to transform the workflow for film and video professionals, Afterburner accelerates ProRes and ProRes RAW video codecs in Final Cut Pro X, QuickTime Player X, and supported third-party applications. A PCI Express card exclusively for Mac Pro, Afterburner can be installed in any full-length slot, but it delivers maximum capability in a PCIe x16 slot. Apple’s Mac Pro has this magic Afterburner Pro Res card, so let’s use that as an excuse to double up and use some of those PCIe slots. Total so far: $2,561.71. The Afterburner card, an optional add-on for the Mac Pro that helps improve the video-editing experience, is priced at $2,000 when ordered preinstalled in the new modular Mac workstation. Created to transform the workflow for film and video professionals, Afterburner accelerates ProRes and ProRes RAW video codecs in Final Cut Pro X, QuickTime Player X, and supported third-party applications. A PCI Express card exclusively for Mac Pro, Afterburner can be installed in any full-length slot, but it delivers maximum capability in a PCIe x16 slot. The Apple Afterburner is a PCIe accelerator card that offloads the decoding of ProRes and ProRes RAW video codecs in apps like Final Cut Pro X. The Afterburner can be added to the Mac Pro when.
In June 2019, Apple introduced a ‘Game-Changing Accelerator Card.’ And now that the Afterburner Accelerator Card is here, it is surrounded by several questions: What is it? Why and when would someone need it? Is it truly worth the price? Could it change the Game?
Well, we might have the answer to this and some other queries related to Apple Afterburner. On paper, it is a hardware accelerator card that can ‘transform the workflow for film and video professionals.’ Now, let’s see what it can do off the paper.
What is Mac Pro Afterburner Accelerator Card and Why You Need it?
Built with a programmable ASIC and over a million logic cells, Afterburner can process up to 6.3 billion pixels per second. This allows an exemption to proxy workflows, so you can directly start work on the 8K or 4K files extracted from the camera.
It is a specially designed accelerator card that can encode videos using Apple’s ProRes and ProRes RAW codecs. When installed, your Mac Pro can handle up to 6 streams of 8K ProRes RAW or 23 streams of 4K ProRes RAW.
Does it really mean what we think it means? Yes, the card seamlessly takes care of this aspect, freeing up your cores (up to 28 cores) to apply and process for other more creative effects and processing. To simplify, a significant part of the process involved in video editing and rendering is taken up by Afterburner Accelerator Card.
This relieves your GPU from the extreme pressure it may otherwise face, making for an overall smoother, faster, and efficient workflow. However, that is not just it. Afterburner is also a better way of editing videos than proxy files.
Ditch Proxy Workflows With Mac Pro Afterburner
If you are not familiar with the concept, let us elaborate. Videos that are made using the high-quality camera are heavier, making direct editing difficult and slow. Traditionally, the native file formats are converted into lightweight proxy files to make things smoother.
Upon editing, the proxy files are relinked to the original native files for the final render. While this surely makes things easier, there are undoubtedly some significant troubles in this method. First and foremost, you are not actually editing the real 4k or 8k video; you are basically rendering a copy with lower resolution.
Apart from the precious time spent in transcoding, there are a million things that can go wrong in final rendering from codec to storage overheads. Afterburner is thus such a breakthrough for video editors. You can ‘blaze through 8K video’ and perform real-time color correction, effects, and much more.
As per Blackmagic Design’s CEO, Grant Petty, “The new Mac Pro is easily the fastest way to edit, grade, and finish movies and TV shows.”
The Cost vs The Effect: Should You Buy One?
The $2000 price tag is enough to raise some eyebrows and questions about cost-effectiveness. Also, note that Afterburner is only compatible with Mac Pro as of now. So, it’s not just $2000; you will have to shell much more to be privy to this masterpiece.
In all honesty, it is worth a pick if you are a professional video editor who deals with ProRes or ProRes RAW. You may earn the investment back soon, with all the time and effort saved, and the great work done. However, for anyone else, this accelerator card is virtually useless, even if you are a content creator using an iPhone or DSLR videos.
Well, it is what it as of right now. As of right now?? Is there something more to Afterburner than what meets our eyes? There will always be a world full of possibilities; let’s check some of them out.
What Does The Future Entail?
As mentioned, Mac Pro Afterburner is built with a programmable ASIC, i.e., FPGA (Field-programmable gate array). What this means is that the card has reconfigurable digital circuits. To put it simply, an FPGA can be programmed for a specific task, for instance, a GPU for video editing purposes.
Now that the flood gates are open, we can hope that over the years, there can be more use cases of this smart, programmable accelerator card. Who knows, one day we can all own custom Afterburner, that can help in making music, mining cryptocurrency or running complex algorithms. I can only dream of better possibilities.
Is Mac Pro Afterburner a match for you?
The Mac Pro claims to possess the ‘Power to change everything.’ And with the Afterburner Accelerator Card addition, it can surely do so for video editing professionals. If you are one of them, Afterburner, albeit expensive, is a great match. What are your thoughts on the matter? Do share with us in the Comments section below.
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What does Afterburner do?
Afterburner accelerates decoding and playback of multiple streams of ProRes and Pro Res RAW video files.1
What are the main benefits of using Afterburner?
Play back multiple streams of ProRes and ProRes RAW in resolutions such as 8K.2
Free up Mac Pro (2019) CPU processors (up to 28 cores) for additional processing and effects.
Faster transcoding and sharing of ProRes and ProRes RAW projects and files.
Which Apple apps can use Afterburner?
Msi Afterburner Mac
Any Apple application that plays back ProRes or ProRes RAW files can take advantage of the capabilities of Afterburner. This includes Final Cut Pro, Motion, Compressor, and QuickTime Player.
Can third-party apps use Afterburner?
Third-party app developers may include support for Afterburner. Contact the developer for information.
What codecs are accelerated by Afterburner?
Afterburner accelerates all ProRes and ProRes RAW codecs.
Does Afterburner accelerate ProRes or ProRes RAW encoding?
You can buy a Mac Pro with Afterburner pre-installed and ready to use.
You can also buy Afterburner separately and install it in Mac Pro (2019) yourself. You can install Afterburner in any full-length PCIe slot in Mac Pro, but for best performance Apple recommends installing Afterburner in slot 5. If slot 5 is occupied, install Afterburner in slot 3. If both slots 3 and 5 are occupied, then install Afterburner in slot 4.
How many Afterburner cards can I install in a Mac Pro (2019)?
Up to three Afterburner cards will provide increased performance of ProRes and ProRes RAW decoding
How should I configure the CPU of my Mac Pro (2019) if I plan on installing Afterburner?
Afterburner decodes ProRes and ProRes RAW content, which reduces the load on the CPU, freeing CPU resources for other processing and effects. So, when configuring the CPU of your Mac Pro, take into account the processing demands of your projects, workflows, and the other applications you use.
How should I configure the graphics card (GPU) of my Mac Pro (2019) if I plan on installing Afterburner?
Afterburner decodes ProRes and ProRes RAW content. However, demosaicing frames of ProRes RAW is handled by the GPU. If you use ProRes RAW files, you should also consider graphics processing performance.
Do Thunderbolt expansion chassis support Afterburner?
Afterburner is supported in Mac Pro (2019) and is not supported in Thunderbolt expansion chassis.
Does Boot Camp support Afterburner?
Afterburner decoding acceleration is available in macOS and is not available when using Windows with Boot Camp.
How does Afterburner interact with the built-in graphics card (GPU) or with an external graphics processor (eGPU)?
Afterburner accelerates decoding of ProRes and ProRes RAW files, but does not affect GPU or eGPU performance.
1. Afterburner does not accelerate interlaced ProRes media.
Mac Pro Afterburner Vs
2. Through optimizations in Final Cut Pro that leverage Afterburner and the multiple cores on the Mac Pro, a 28-core Mac Pro with Afterburner can play back six streams of 8K DCI ProRes RAW at 29.97 fps or 23 streams of 4K DCI UHD ProRes RAW at 29.97 fps in full quality. Testing conducted by Apple in November 2019 on preproduction 2.5GHz 28-core Intel Xeon W-based Mac Pro systems with 384GB of RAM and dual AMD Radeon Pro Vega II graphics with Infinity Fabric Link and 32GB of HBM2 each, configured with Afterburner and a 4TB SSD. Tested on macOS Catalina with Final Cut Pro 10.4.7.