The Mac pro 8'1 debate is a ground well covered revolving around :
- Multiple Internal expansion slots for 3rd party cards (GPU mainly)
- Cannot self-upgrade CPU/Ram etc
- With the Mx series = lacking self-upgrade = Even less incentive to go for 8'1.
- Cannot run Windows on the mac pro in a dual boot configuration.
- By some miracle, if you can, support for windows' vast library of available apps, running them natively with full features as currently seen on the x86 platform is a long way off. Plugins won't work, certain features won't work, No Arm version of apps etc., etc.
- Existence of the Mac studio :
- This automatically segregates Mac pro users further.
- Those who want an iMac pro class system but don't want the monitor.
- Those who do not upgrade post-purchase but still need more power than the MBP’s capacities
- With Apple focusing on Metal, it closes the window almost completely on Nvidia (unless Nvidia supports metal) and Windows itself being virtually absent on the Mx platform, plugging in Nvidia GPUs via windows is a moot point.
- Thus 3rd party GPUs are limited to AMD.
- Which in turn, has poor support from a wide variety of GPU renderers
Seeing the above challenges automatically puts many mac pro users like me in a fix.
More and more, it seems that the Mx mac pros might be dicey.
CPU side? Pretty competitive with the likes of Intel/AMD. Impressive actually.
GPU? Middling at best.
With the speed at which Nvidia (and now AMD) are packing in performance, would it make sense for me to invest in the 8’1 ?
- Add to it the relatively abysmal GPU performance of the ultra, and it makes the case of SOC GPU with no option to add another, more powerful GPU to circumvent that lack of performance…very weak.
While Apple may be fine having expansion move outside the ‘box’, the 7’1 proves that internal expansion is desirable for most. A Mac Pro mini doesn’t address that facility. As much as Apple tried to push the 6'1's blame on the thermal corner, it’s also true that plugging in expansions wasn’t as popular as some might suggest.
The only silver lining is the massive ‘VRAM’ available to the GPU. So the rumoured 128/160 core GPU will score what in octane bench/ redshift and Blender? What about Clarisse, Renderman, Sidefx Karma, Arnold, keyshot, Vray etc.?
If Apple does some RTX magic with its SOC (RTX GPUs bump performance by 2x on already fast GPU renderers but are limited by having to fit all geo on the GPU VRAM…which shouldn’t be much of an issue on an Apple GPU.
VFX simulations moving to GPU where possible. Again its tight integration with the CPU and unified memory with massive capacity is a very attractive feature.
So unless Apple supports multiple expansion slots, support for at the very least AMD GPUs or its own dGPU, failing which at least go 2x 4090 speed and/or give RTX acceleration, the 8'1 is a 'meh' option for me.
