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aytan

macrumors regular
Dec 20, 2022
161
110

First benchmark for Blender appeared (M2 Ultra 76 GPU cores), slightly better than 3070 Laptop. It seems to scale quite well compared to M2 Max
Looks like a low benchmark score. We actually will see what is going on with M2 Ultra by Redshift and Octane benchmarks.
 

Xiao_Xi

macrumors 68000
Oct 27, 2021
1,627
1,101
1686499233386.png


SoC​
#Cores​
Blender 3.5 score​
m2​
76​
3412​
m2​
38​
1917​
m1​
64​
1831​
m2​
30​
1565​
m1​
48​
1527​
m1​
32​
1036​
m2​
19​
968​
m1​
24​
859​
m2​
16​
839​
m1​
16​
521​
m1​
14​
438​
m2​
10​
392​
m2​
8​
299​
m1​
8​
255​
 

aytan

macrumors regular
Dec 20, 2022
161
110
It looks like way faster than AMD 6900 XT and nearly 3 times faster than AMD Radeon PRO W6800X Duo, this is quite impressive I guess.
 

aytan

macrumors regular
Dec 20, 2022
161
110
View attachment 2216554

SoC​
#Cores​
Blender 3.5 score​
m2​
76​
3412​
m2​
38​
1917​
m1​
64​
1831​
m2​
30​
1565​
m1​
48​
1527​
m1​
32​
1036​
m2​
19​
968​
m1​
24​
859​
m2​
16​
839​
m1​
16​
521​
m1​
14​
438​
m2​
10​
392​
m2​
8​
299​
m1​
8​
255​
this is quite well generational improvment, thanks
 

Numa_Numa_eh

Suspended
Jun 1, 2023
87
105
First blender benchmark for M2 Ultra
3412 seems pretty good without hardware ray tracing.

EDIT: beaten to it by...quite a few people! lol
 

Xiao_Xi

macrumors 68000
Oct 27, 2021
1,627
1,101
3412 seems pretty good without hardware ray tracing.
Without hardware-accelerated ray tracing, RTX 3090 scores slightly better than M2 Ultra 76 cores.

Device NameCompute TypeMedian ScoreNumber of Benchmarks
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090CUDA3899.881
Apple M2 Ultra (GPU - 76 cores)METAL3412.291
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080CUDA3291.311
 
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Numa_Numa_eh

Suspended
Jun 1, 2023
87
105
Without hardware-accelerated ray tracing, RTX 3090 scores slightly better than M2 Ultra 76 cores.

Device NameCompute TypeMedian ScoreNumber of Benchmarks
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090CUDA3899.881
Apple M2 Ultra (GPU - 76 cores)METAL3412.291
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080CUDA3291.311
Yes correct. Blender has been optimised for years on Nvidia gpus, both on Cuda and Optix. A good result I think.
 
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Homy

macrumors 68030
Jan 14, 2006
2,507
2,459
Sweden
Okay, they just confirmed upgradable memory and GPU is not coming to Apple Silicon so now we can put that discussion to rest.

"Fundamentally, we've built our architecture around this shared memory model and that optimization, and so it's not entirely clear to me how you'd bring in another GPU and do so in a way that is optimized for our systems," Ternus told Gruber. "It hasn't been a direction that we wanted to pursue."

 
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terminator-jq

macrumors 6502a
Nov 25, 2012
719
1,513
It’s definitely looking more and more like the M3 generation will be the one to bring major graphical upgrades. I suppose the A17 will give us some clues. Particularly if the ray tracing tech that was rumored to be a canceled feature from the A16 makes it in. Furthermore, I’d expect more exclusive features for the Ultra and “Extreme” variants.

On the graphics side, Apple cannot compete with other desktops if they keep forcing their Mac Studio and Mac Pros to use a mobile based chip. The new Mac Pro makes this issue even more serious since they have killed off the ability to add extra GPU power via PCI. In this way, the Intel Mac Pro could be the better option for GPU work since it can continue to use newer GPUs from AMD. If Apple is forcing everyone to use their GPUs, we need to see GPU performance that is on par with other desktops. Especially for 3D use.

On another note: What’s everyone’s opinion of the Vision Pro when it comes to 3D work? I wouldn’t expect a native version of Blender or anything like that (at least not in the short term) but they did show the ability to use the vision pro as a Mac screen while also having the ability to use the built in eye and hand tracking to interface with the Mac. That could open up some interesting workflow possibilities… Imagine moving polygons around with one hand while the other hand rotates the view. Certain apps would be more naturally suited (like Zbrush) while programs like Maya, Max and Blender would probably require a plug-in to make the interface work.
 
Last edited:

Lone Deranger

macrumors 68000
Apr 23, 2006
1,899
2,141
Tokyo, Japan
On another note: What’s everyone’s opinion of the Vision Pro when it comes to 3D work? I wouldn’t expect a native version of Blender or anything like that (at least not in the short term) but they did show the ability to use the vision pro as a Mac screen while also having the ability to use the built in eye and hand tracking to interface with the Mac. That could open up some interesting workflow possibilities… Imagine moving polygons around with one hand while the other hand rotates the view. Certain apps would be more naturally suited (like Zbrush) while programs like Maya, Max and Blender would probably require a plug-in to make the interface work.

Selecting individual vertices or edges might be difficult with focus tracking? Not sure how well that would work. Especially with Blender's lack of pre-selection highlighting.
 

bcortens

macrumors 65816
Aug 16, 2007
1,324
1,796
Canada
It’s definitely looking more and more like the M3 generation will be the one to bring major graphical upgrades. I suppose the A17 will give us some clues. Particularly if the ray tracing tech that was rumored to be a canceled feature from the A16 makes it in. Furthermore, I’d expect more exclusive features for the Ultra and “Extreme” variants.

On the graphics side, Apple cannot compete with other desktops if they keep forcing their Mac Studio and Mac Pros to use a mobile based chip. The new Mac Pro makes this issue even more serious since they have killed off the ability to add extra GPU power via PCI. In this way, the Intel Mac Pro could be the better option for GPU work since it can continue to use newer GPUs from AMD. If Apple is forcing everyone to use their GPUs, we need to see GPU performance that is on par with other desktops. Especially for 3D use.


Considering how close they are getting without any dedicated RT hardware this perspective seems kind of off to me. For Pure GPU compute the m2 ultra looks phenomenal - approaching 3090 levels. AMD add in cards wouldn’t bring NVIDIA Optix so that’s not even really that helpful.
 

Standard

macrumors 6502
Jul 8, 2008
296
59
Canada
Vray works fine with AS Machines. Mx Ultra is fast with Arnold and Vray based on CPU rendering. Redshift and Octane are different story on AS Macs. If M2 Ultra will be equal 3070 ti or 3080 you could use it for your compute demands by Rddshift and OCtane ( Both of them works well with C4D, Redshift works well on ZBrush ). You can check for 1st generation AS M1 Ultra rendering differences by render engine here.
Thanks so much. Have you done any testing if the vray sample scenes with the characters?

I’m going to test both octane and redshift on my M2 for now. Can you please provide any insight on Octane? Their website is extremely confusing. I’d like to test it for Houdini and Maya, but the download links say they are from 2020/2021, etc, so I don’t know if I’m getting current builds or not that are fully supporting AS. I guess I better contact support?

Also, with your testing, have you done any heavy scenes with full hair, sss, and shading? The zbrush test is a bit difficult to judge for vfx work with such a simple character.

Thanks for your help!
 

innerproduct

macrumors regular
Jun 21, 2021
222
353
Thanks so much. Have you done any testing if the vray sample scenes with the characters?

I’m going to test both octane and redshift on my M2 for now. Can you please provide any insight on Octane? Their website is extremely confusing. I’d like to test it for Houdini and Maya, but the download links say they are from 2020/2021, etc, so I don’t know if I’m getting current builds or not that are fully supporting AS. I guess I better contact support?

Also, with your testing, have you done any heavy scenes with full hair, sss, and shading? The zbrush test is a bit difficult to judge for vfx work with such a simple character.

Thanks for your help!
Octane plugins are available through their forum. Very confusing. Go tonthe forum, look for plugins, then click for example “houdini”. That subforum will have a thread on releases. In the top there is 2022.1.1 that you can download. Same goes for maya. You won’t need anything else.
 

aytan

macrumors regular
Dec 20, 2022
161
110
Thanks so much. Have you done any testing if the vray sample scenes with the characters?

I’m going to test both octane and redshift on my M2 for now. Can you please provide any insight on Octane? Their website is extremely confusing. I’d like to test it for Houdini and Maya, but the download links say they are from 2020/2021, etc, so I don’t know if I’m getting current builds or not that are fully supporting AS. I guess I better contact support?

Also, with your testing, have you done any heavy scenes with full hair, sss, and shading? The zbrush test is a bit difficult to judge for vfx work with such a simple character.

Thanks for your help!
y r wellcome :) I tend to use Redshift more than Octane.
Octane can be different behavior on every other DCC.
There is a dedicated Octane Hair Material for C4D and it works. I test hair material on C4D it work well and really fast, Octane can use native C4D Hair Material or it's Native Octane Hair material. Looks like using Octane Hair Material is simplier than C4D native hair material.

Octane could be very confusing and you could get serious issues for specific workflows.
For animation Octane Toon shader is great for purpose. But for long term animation projects it could be risky for my opinion.
Also there are some VRAM usage issues with Octane ( same at PC/Nvidia setup as could as I can understand ). Somehow Octane uses much more memory than other renderers and this could be a serious issue.

For still frames, Keyframe Product renders Octane is great on any DCC. But it could be little bit challenging for Animations.
I believe Scott Benson's Behance pages are most useful for Octane insight. https://www.behance.net/scottbenson
However I have used Octane on Blender for testing couple of character hair setup. It works fine but we decided to use Cycles.
Octane uses native C4D hair objects based on Splines and hair shader, also which can exported from ZBrush after grooming and works fine.
At the end Octane really very fast but it is a 3rd Party Renderer, it has own issues like any other 3rd party renderer.

I can only suggest you, stick with the native renderer for each DCC.
If you use Maya Arnold is great for what you looking for.
In C4D Redshift is works really well, integration is seamless and reliable for any workflow.
In Blender Cycles/Evee is really fast and solid.

Hair/SSS and any kind of Shading Redshift is quite handy and solid. You can any of your needs on C4D/Redshift if you have Maxon one any Maxon product could be use. C4D/Zbrush workflow is kind of necessary thing for me. ( I still use ZBrush for any kind of Modeling/Texturing workflow. C4D and ZBrush integrates very well this year. Lots of thing looks me easier to do on ZBrush including UV Unwrap and Retopology )

I do not use Vray often. I have used Vray for a Project and it works perfectly well on AS. I did not use Vray for Character Animation but I m sure Vray will handle any workflow easly. I do not have Vray subscription right now and can not help you about the subject.

For Blender there is not Redshift for AS machines yet. In redshift forums Pedro writes ''the macOS support for the Blender addon It is scheduled for 3.5.16''. This means in if they release 3.5.16 on schedule in July you could use Redshift also in Blender with AS.

Also Blender has great updates for Hair and Grooming without any plugin ( Which I did nor test yet, on paper it looks great ).
 
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leman

macrumors Core
Oct 14, 2008
19,521
19,675
I am not sure whether this has been mentioned already, but Metal 3.1 adds support for ray traced curves (with flexible curve types). This seems to match the capabilities of Nvidia OptiX, and I don’t think any gaming RT API has curves yet? At any rate, this could be a big thing for production rendering with Apple Silicon, especially if the next-gen hardware has support fir curve rendering.
 

jmho

macrumors 6502a
Jun 11, 2021
502
996
My 60 core M2 Ultra that just arrived gets 2878 points in Blender. Not too shabby.

Geekbench only gives me 206k, but again that's definitely very useable.

I think it's easy to get carried away staring at the 4090, but taking a step back, this is definitely a very capable machine for 3D graphics.
 

bcortens

macrumors 65816
Aug 16, 2007
1,324
1,796
Canada
My 60 core M2 Ultra that just arrived gets 2878 points in Blender. Not too shabby.

Geekbench only gives me 206k, but again that's definitely very useable.

I think it's easy to get carried away staring at the 4090, but taking a step back, this is definitely a very capable machine for 3D graphics.
The 4090 set a new standard not just in performance but in power consumption. We've kind of started normalizing this trend towards ever increasing GPU power consumption, people can tell us yeah power consumption doesn't matter but at some point it will. A 300W CPU + 500W GPU is already half of what you can reasonably put on a single North American home breaker circuit.
 

NT1440

macrumors Pentium
May 18, 2008
15,092
22,158
The 4090 set a new standard not just in performance but in power consumption. We've kind of started normalizing this trend towards ever increasing GPU power consumption, people can tell us yeah power consumption doesn't matter but at some point it will. A 300W CPU + 500W GPU is already half of what you can reasonably put on a single North American home breaker circuit.
I do have to wonder, what’s next for GPU’s? Are they just going to keep cranking up the power requirements?
 
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