MP 7,1 2019 Mac Pro Roll Call

[skippermonkey]

Spent a fortune on my Intel 24-core system, and later added a W6800X Duo for rendering in Blender. But when the M2 Ultra came out, with very similar levels of performance, and Blender's devs stated they were having problems with Apple's crappy GPU drivers and would soon drop support, the writing was clearly on the wall. Sold it on eBay for a pittance. In that respect, it's the worst Apple kit I've ever bought. I have an M2 Ultra Studio now, but will be upgrading to M3 Ultra the second it's announced.

 

[TrevorR90]

That's good ... I thought I read somewhere Bootcamp doesn't work well in the 2019 and onwards intel Mac Pros.

I bought an M3 MacBook Pro 16.2", with a 1 TB drive, 38 MB Ram and Max processor. That's the lesser of the Max processor choices. I had a discount on that, as retailers in Australia discount them 10% now and then, and the maximum drive capacity that such mass market sellers get from Apple are the 1Tb variety. I returned it because I reckon 1 TB will not be enough in a few years. So to buy from Apple, I'd pay full price and to upgrade the drive capacity, costs 2.5 times more than a faster NVME drive. I have a RAID card in my CMP. I find my CMP is super solid, better than my 2017 i7 MacBook Pro 15.4". Which is getting flakey since Apple replaced the keyboard (for free too although I had to try a second time to the replacement). I thought the M3 Max was a good replacement, and thought I'd put the RAID card into a T-3 box ... but if I do all that, I might be better off buying a used Mac Pro Intel. A lot slower, but at least it's flexible. I'd also then have to buy another MacBook I guess ... I guess a 15" Air. Which brings me back to Apple's retail prices for an M3 Max ... I have a lot of videos to compile, I'm now retired. Somehow I feel secure with a Mac Pro tower.

You technically don't need Bootcamp to run windows on mac pro. Windows runs natively on the 2019 Mac Pro because for all intents and purposes, the hardware is the same as a PC.

The 2019 Mac Pro being a lot slower than Apple silicone is very debatable. It depends on what workflows.

 

[H. Flower]

have you thought about upgrading the GPU? If your signature is correct the Radeon 580 is a big limitation. Think of a W6800X 32GB or a reference Radeon 6900XT if you don't need 32GB VRAM.

Beware the length of the Radeon 6900, only certain ones will fit. Keep your 580X so you have the thunderbolt ports.

Also upgrade to Sonoma.

Thank you for the advice, I appreciate that. Actually forgot to upgrade my signature 😂

I did upgrade to W5700X. Thinking about the 6800x or duo 6800x, but worried Im going to spend a giant chunk of cash (especially for latter) just see a modest improvement over w5700x.

My biggest use case is After effects which does still really lag for big compositions. I know AE performs well on the M chips. Don't know whether to wait to see what happens with studio / pro later this year.

 

[J-MI]

What do you do with the Nvidia to prevent any issues on the MacOS side?

Use OpenCore to completely disable the Nvidia card on MacOs side. As it is not detected, there is no Sleep/Wake functionality issue

 

[avkills]

Thank you for the advice, I appreciate that. Actually forgot to upgrade my signature 😂

I did upgrade to W5700X. Thinking about the 6800x or duo 6800x, but worried Im going to spend a giant chunk of cash (especially for latter) just see a modest improvement over w5700x.

My biggest use case is After effects which does still really lag for big compositions. I know AE performs well on the M chips. Don't know whether to wait to see what happens with studio / pro later this year.

I can attest that the M3 Max pretty much wipes the floor of my 16-core 2019 Mac Pro in After Effects. Machine specs in signature. So even if Apple only does a M3 Ultra, I believe even that will be very performant. Puget Bench shows the M3 Max (with the max configuration) pretty much beating everything in After Effects. It really is insane how well the M3 performs in AE.

Lightwave 3D native silicon version was just released and rendering seems to be a lot faster than the 2019 Mac Pro also. Going to do a render test on the Mac Pro tomorrow to compare.

 

[skippermonkey]

Thank you for the advice, I appreciate that. Actually forgot to upgrade my signature 😂

I did upgrade to W5700X. Thinking about the 6800x or duo 6800x, but worried Im going to spend a giant chunk of cash (especially for latter) just see a modest improvement over w5700x.

My biggest use case is After effects which does still really lag for big compositions. I know AE performs well on the M chips. Don't know whether to wait to see what happens with studio / pro later this year.

Do not buy the W6800X Duo – not unless you can find it dirt cheap somewhere (and I mean DIRT CHEAP). It's simply not worth the investment: the tech is more than half a decade old now and was hardly cutting edge when it was released. The GPU cores in my M2 Ultra are more powerful.

 

[H. Flower]

I can attest that the M3 Max pretty much wipes the floor of my 16-core 2019 Mac Pro in After Effects. Machine specs in signature. So even if Apple only does a M3 Ultra, I believe even that will be very performant. Puget Bench shows the M3 Max (with the max configuration) pretty much beating everything in After Effects. It really is insane how well the M3 performs in AE.

Lightwave 3D native silicon version was just released and rendering seems to be a lot faster than the 2019 Mac Pro also. Going to do a render test on the Mac Pro tomorrow to compare.

Interesting. It sounds like Switching to M chips is the way to go.

Please post the results of any of your tests!

 

[H. Flower]

Do not buy the W6800X Duo – not unless you can find it dirt cheap somewhere (and I mean DIRT CHEAP). It's simply not worth the investment: the tech is more than half a decade old now and was hardly cutting edge when it was released. The GPU cores in my M2 Ultra are more powerful.

Thanks for the tip.

Is that the same for all 2019 mac pro graphics offerings? Does it make sense just to switch to M chips at this point, in terms of graphics performance?

 

[skippermonkey]

Thanks for the tip.

Is that the same for all 2019 mac pro graphics offerings? Does it make sense just to switch to M chips at this point, in terms of graphics performance?

Apple no longer cares about OS updates or GPU drivers for Intel machines – they're dead. If you can make the jump from Intel to M (preferably an Ultra system), the difference will be noticeable. For M3 Ultra, it'll be night and day. I can't wait! By all accounts, it will be twice as fast in Blender GPU rendering as my M2 Ultra, which is slightly faster than the W6800X Duo was. But with the integrated memory, I can throw pretty much anything at the machine and it will render, almost irrespective of scene size.

 

[avkills]

Apple no longer cares about OS updates or GPU drivers for Intel machines – they're dead. If you can make the jump from Intel to M (preferably an Ultra system), the difference will be noticeable. For M3 Ultra, it'll be night and day. I can't wait! By all accounts, it will be twice as fast in Blender GPU rendering as my M2 Ultra, which is slightly faster than the W6800X Duo was. But with the integrated memory, I can throw pretty much anything at the machine and it will render, almost irrespective of scene size.

Yes I will concur that spending money on a W6800X Duo would be a waste of money. For just a bit more you could get a fully loaded M3 Max Mac Book Pro 16" and have much better performance overall.

H.Flower you can see some benches I posted a while ago in the thread link below...

First Impressions.

Even so, I am going to keep my Mac Pro in commission because for my personal stuff it is way super overkill. I was pretty much using it for work also until the M3 laptop was approved.

 

[Melbourne Park]

A thing I am concerned about with using a MacBook Pro M Max (etc.) is that while they are well made, I just don't think their reliability can remain there for after say several years, compared at least to machines that have separate keyboards etc etc.

I now have a number of things I don't like about Apple too:
- Their outrageous Drive and Memory pricing (ie drive per TB is roughly 2.5 times the cost of PC)
- That we have to decide on purchase what we may need in the future (ie RAM & Drives)
- Apple keeps changing the OS interface, across all their products. Each upgrade seems great and then suddenly, something isn't there anymore. You have to do internet searches to find out how to do something basic. Like my watch - one day, no swipe to call my phone ... eventually I found Apple changed it to push a physical button. On complaining to Apple about their OS change in Preferences - they said their teams reckon that change is good - the young enjoy change of interfaces. Apple seems to think its "fun" to change interfaces.

Support & battery life for notebooks is good though.

 

[flowrider]

^^^^You're in the wrong place my friend🤔

Lou

 

[Regulus67]

I have read your comments, that is not worth buying the W6800X Duo.
Still, I saw two of them on auction on e-bay and made a bid yesterday. I was the only bidder, and thought perhaps everybody agrees with you.
I forgot the exact time of the auction end today, and missed it. Someone beat me to it 3 minutes before close 😂

 

[H. Flower]

Yes I will concur that spending money on a W6800X Duo would be a waste of money. For just a bit more you could get a fully loaded M3 Max Mac Book Pro 16" and have much better performance overall.

H.Flower you can see some benches I posted a while ago in the thread link below...

First Impressions.

Even so, I am going to keep my Mac Pro in commission because for my personal stuff it is way super overkill. I was pretty much using it for work also until the M3 laptop was approved.

Wow,

Thanks for posting those benchmarks! Looks like waiting to see what happens with M3 is way to go for me. Thanks for advice.

 

[H. Flower]

Apple no longer cares about OS updates or GPU drivers for Intel machines – they're dead. If you can make the jump from Intel to M (preferably an Ultra system), the difference will be noticeable. For M3 Ultra, it'll be night and day. I can't wait! By all accounts, it will be twice as fast in Blender GPU rendering as my M2 Ultra, which is slightly faster than the W6800X Duo was. But with the integrated memory, I can throw pretty much anything at the machine and it will render, almost irrespective of scene size.

Thanks for the advice. I think your'e right : best to not pour any more money into Intel systems.

 

[Regulus67]

... Blender GPU rendering as my M2 Ultra, which is slightly faster than the W6800X Duo was. ...

This comment makes me very happy.
I ordered a W6800X Duo today, from Amazon. $2600 if I convert the currency, (25% VAT included).
Weirdly, the W6800X has a higher price.

 

[Regulus67]

Yes I will concur that spending money on a W6800X Duo would be a waste of money. For just a bit more you could get a fully loaded M3 Max Mac Book Pro 16" and have much better performance overall.

For just a bit more?

That is close to twice as expensive. And not fully loaded. Or did you compare the card price from Apple, while Apple still was selling them?
I am not saying that the laptop isn't great. But I wonder if it really makes more sense to sell a Mac Pro at substantial loss, instead of upgrading it? At least for those of you who purchased the machine from Apple.

Granted, I ordered my W6800X Duo today, as I saw Amazon drop the price. And I believe there are good bargains to be found if one is lucky, and patient

 

[avro707]

Granted, I ordered my W6800X Duo today, as I saw Amazon drop the price. And I believe there are good bargains to be found if one is lucky, and patient

I'm watching and will swoop in when a W6800X Duo comes at the right price. My norma W6800X runs nicely but a pair of Duos would be nice.

 

[AndreeOnline]

Still, I saw two of them on auction on e-bay and made a bid yesterday. I was the only bidder, and thought perhaps everybody agrees with you.
I forgot the exact time of the auction end today, and missed it. Someone beat me to it 3 minutes before close 😂


View attachment 2350265

As we all know, the Mac Pro community (especially 2019) is pretty small. I can't say I'm super surprised to find your post here. To complete your story, from my perspective—I was the one who picked those up, sorry:

I have gone to MacSales (OWC) on a semi-regular basis, as I missed a sale they had more than a year ago where they sold W6800X Duos for something like $2400 or whatever, to see if I could upgrade my 2019 Mac Pro with two Pro Vega II (singles) to W6800X Duo over the long term and at a good price.

When I get a hunch, I check the Swiss local sales platforms like Tutti, Ricardo, and occasionally eBay. When I went to eBay a few days ago, you can imagine my surprise when I found two W6800X Duos going for around $3000 for BOTH. Then again, the idea is: to offer for a pretty low price and let interested parties bid on them until their true market value is reached (whatever that is). Of course... if could also just be a scam.

There was already one bid placed at the starting price of 2800 CHF. I set a reminder for when the action was going to end to see what it looked like at that point. When I went there, I still only saw one (your) offer. I placed a bid and saw I was registered for 2810 CHF. The clock just kept ticking down and nothing happened... until it reached 0 and it said: 'congratulations, you are the winner'. I was kind of scratching my head at that point.

Anyway, the seller was oddly enough pretty local, and yesterday we met in person, talked a bit about 3D rendering woes, shook hands and parted ways... with me carrying a substantial load of two large and heavy MPX modules.

-------------------------

I also own a MacBook Pro 16 M3 Max, so I know exactly what both of these platforms can do. Most people should just go with Apple Silicon and never look back. It is actually turning out to be a really great general computing platform. Even in 3D workflows, when you actually WORK on your scene, viewport performance is great on M3 Max.

At the same time, the Mac Pro with two W6800X Duos is faster than my M3 Max (with hardware raytracing), but not by that much. The M3 Max is in turn faster than an M2 Ultra, so the hierarchy in Blender is:

two W6800X Duos --> M3 Max 40 --> M2 Ultra

This is just looking at pure performance and isn't taking price, size, or power into account. I'll reserve final judgment until they work perfectly in Blender. As it is now, two Duos work perfectly in 3.6.8 but there are some issues that are being addressed in version 4+.

In DaVinci Resolve it looks like this for a few selected Macs:

 

[Regulus67]

As we all know, the Mac Pro community (especially 2019) is pretty small. I can't say I'm super surprised to find your post here. To complete your story, from my perspective—I was the one who picked those up, sorry:

Great to hear this story 👍
I am happy you got them, as you absolutely need them more than I do. I am learning Blender, to compliment my photogrammetry efforts.
Very cool you got to meet the seller in person.

And I also appreciate the comparison you present here.
It is quite hard to find much on the internet, about the Mac Pro 7.1. Was a lot of coverage in the first few months.
And now, when they are affordable. It is rare to find anyone bothering to present updated information.

 

[startergo]

I have read your comments, that is not worth buying the W6800X Duo.
Still, I saw two of them on auction on e-bay and made a bid yesterday. I was the only bidder, and thought perhaps everybody agrees with you.
I forgot the exact time of the auction end today, and missed it. Someone beat me to it 3 minutes before close 😂


View attachment 2350265

That is how eBay auction works. I always bid in the last 10-15 seconds and I usually always win.

 

[AndreeOnline]

That is how eBay auction works. I always bid in the last 10-15 seconds and I usually always win.

I haven't bought anything else from eBay, but other platforms that I know always extend the timer by 5-15 minutes or so, to make sure two competing bidders reach the right level based on price and not some technicality, like placing a bit at the exact split-second.

Doesn't eBay work like this?

 

[frou]

Doesn't eBay work like this?

Nope, and that's why the "auction house" metaphor as most people understand it doesn't really apply to eBay. From a buyer's perspective there's no reason to bid at any time but the last second, because otherwise you give your competition an opportunity to respond and needlessly push the price up.

 

[avkills]

For just a bit more?

View attachment 2351056

That is close to twice as expensive. And not fully loaded. Or did you compare the card price from Apple, while Apple still was selling them?
I am not saying that the laptop isn't great. But I wonder if it really makes more sense to sell a Mac Pro at substantial loss, instead of upgrading it? At least for those of you who purchased the machine from Apple.

Granted, I ordered my W6800X Duo today, as I saw Amazon drop the price. And I believe there are good bargains to be found if one is lucky, and patient

I am talking about the price from Apple. Me personally would not buy a card like this second hand or used; unless I personally knew who owned it before. Just my personal opinion. Knock yourself out if you can find it cheaper. Apple was the only game in town when I purchased mine.

 

[avkills]

As we all know, the Mac Pro community (especially 2019) is pretty small. I can't say I'm super surprised to find your post here. To complete your story, from my perspective—I was the one who picked those up, sorry:

I have gone to MacSales (OWC) on a semi-regular basis, as I missed a sale they had more than a year ago where they sold W6800X Duos for something like $2400 or whatever, to see if I could upgrade my 2019 Mac Pro with two Pro Vega II (singles) to W6800X Duo over the long term and at a good price.

When I get a hunch, I check the Swiss local sales platforms like Tutti, Ricardo, and occasionally eBay. When I went to eBay a few days ago, you can imagine my surprise when I found two W6800X Duos going for around $3000 for BOTH. Then again, the idea is: to offer for a pretty low price and let interested parties bid on them until their true market value is reached (whatever that is). Of course... if could also just be a scam.

There was already one bid placed at the starting price of 2800 CHF. I set a reminder for when the action was going to end to see what it looked like at that point. When I went there, I still only saw one (your) offer. I placed a bid and saw I was registered for 2810 CHF. The clock just kept ticking down and nothing happened... until it reached 0 and it said: 'congratulations, you are the winner'. I was kind of scratching my head at that point.

Anyway, the seller was oddly enough pretty local, and yesterday we met in person, talked a bit about 3D rendering woes, shook hands and parted ways... with me carrying a substantial load of two large and heavy MPX modules.

-------------------------

I also own a MacBook Pro 16 M3 Max, so I know exactly what both of these platforms can do. Most people should just go with Apple Silicon and never look back. It is actually turning out to be a really great general computing platform. Even in 3D workflows, when you actually WORK on your scene, viewport performance is great on M3 Max.

At the same time, the Mac Pro with two W6800X Duos is faster than my M3 Max (with hardware raytracing), but not by that much. The M3 Max is in turn faster than an M2 Ultra, so the hierarchy in Blender is:

two W6800X Duos --> M3 Max 40 --> M2 Ultra

This is just looking at pure performance and isn't taking price, size, or power into account. I'll reserve final judgment until they work perfectly in Blender. As it is now, two Duos work perfectly in 3.6.8 but there are some issues that are being addressed in version 4+.

In DaVinci Resolve it looks like this for a few selected Macs:

Glad you found some of these second hand and are working good. Based off of your Sig, I would highly recommend getting a lot more RAM; if you indeed only have 48 GB, then your VRAM pool is larger than your system RAM and this is not the ideal situation to be in. My jump from 32 to 240 was like a night and day difference in a lot of workflows. (Bought from OWC)