OK, look. The Mac Mini is good, but not for my use. If you are using FCP in a simple environment, go ahead and get one. Otherwise, the hype machine needs to calm down. Not interested at all in the Mac Mini, sorry. Maybe if I was a YouTuber working with prosumer H.265 in FCP, then yeah.
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MP 7,1 Does it make sense to purchase a 7,1 Mac Pro today?
- Thread starter ghostwind
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The only macOS product at the moment that meets my needs is the MacPro. I think that much is clear. The point is that it's a debatable investment, so I need to look at PCs. Tools.Also look at Boxx if you’re trying to find fully configured PC based workstations instead of MacPro, or have decided to move on:
High Performance Workstation Computers | BOXX Technologies
BOXX is a workstation manufacturer specializing in high performance computer workstations purpose-built for Architecture, Engineering, Design, Media, Entertainment, AI and Manufacturing.www.boxx.com
If not, may be good time to get this thread back on track to your original need of which MACOS based product meets your needs. This will get off track quickly, especially when the AMD Threadripper discussions begin.
That's weird about Premiere and the XDR or even a 5K LG you're saying? I've pretty much ruled out the XDR due to negative reviews, and will get an Eizo CG319X instead.
The M1 looks promising, but again, all I've seen on YouTube are FCP users exporting simple stuff and going bananas. Let's move on. I don't use FCP and don't care. The MacMini will also be obsolete in less than 1 year....
A colleague has a simple 4K screen running in hdpi mode and has the same issue. It’s mindblowingly bad!!
Massive mistake. You need to reassess your workflow and tools, not be stuck in the past. A Mac Mini with 8Gb is more than adequate.
Dude, please just stop. You keep repeating the same thing over and over, yet your posts have zero convincing power. Reassess that.
Hmm. Weird indeed. I had the LG 5K monitor a year or so ago to evaluate, and don't recall any such issues with Premiere then on it. Maybe a new bug?
I don’t know why, but indeed on iMacs it runs fine. Sometimes I’m sitting at client’s offices and am surprised about the performance of premiere on these machines, whereas here...
check it out:
Example
this issue plagued premiere since many years, I had the same before on the trashcan with a 5k display. there’s Threads over at the Adobe forum too. After effects and Lightroom classic are the same. Just too annoying!
I went back to re-read the entire thread to draw some conclusions, and this stood out the most really. While the Mac Pro may not be the absolute fastest now, and especially in 2-3 years, in reality, what I do with it won't really change too much, so if it's more than fine now, it will be more than fine in 3 years the same. It's not like I'm going to keep chasing the latest Canon cinema cameras, or shoot in 12-16k or whatever. For photography it's already plenty, so I'm only concerned with video. And I just don't see that changing all too much. I am looking at PCs now with the AMD 5950X, and yes they are a bit faster now, but in 3 years? Same deal - they also stay the same. I could change the GPU on them, hope that Windows gets better, dunno. Advantage with PCs? Faster now a bit, down the road, not sure the benefits. Downside? I have to leave the macOS system I'm used to and that also ties into my personal devices - iOS, etc. The PC would be an island basically, disconnected from all my other devices. That's a big downside. And in 3 years time, $10k MacPro vs $7k PC - both will ether be replaced or not. Both will run at the same current speed. But if in 3 years I go to an ARM Mac Pro and macOS, the transition from a PC would suck. In other words to go to a PC now means really 2 transitions - one now, and one when I get ARM Mac later. Just thinking a bit more practically. Computers are never really investments, more like cars.
I think whatever choice I make - Mac Pro or PC, I would have to stay on that platform for 10 years for it to make sense. Meaning if I go PC now, I will stay on PC for 10 years before going to another Mac. Moving back and forth is too time consuming for workflow, hardware, ecosystem, etc.
One thing about these PCs that you linked to that might be relevant (the AMD equipped ones anyway) - they have a faster PCIe bus, already enabling much speedier SSDs. I would imagine that's nothing to sneeze at for video work. Apparently with AMDs its also not unusal to be able to pop in newer processors as time goes by. Unlike Intel they do not seem to throw out their socket with every generation.
PC as an island in a sea of Macs - I have that here as well. It's fine for my work (3D) because it prevents me from using the system for anything but work so it stays nicely fast and lean. zero desire to just install some plaything to try it out. Important when dealing with Windows.
Anyway late last week the computer started to shut down randomly. Power supply on its way out, a high powered GPU apparently does that. I was able to pick one up the next day, install myself and be up and running again to make my deadline later this week. That should be a lot harder with an MP as the main moneymaker.
Had my trashcan go bad on me a while back. That involved months of sending it back and forth. Today it's been up for 163 days straight. Yet I still don't trust it again and skip a heartbeat whenever it appears to behave a little strange. Just no way to fix this thing myself.
I don't like to be the guy that's objecting all the time but just to clarify one thing. Sequential read/write speeds on consumer SSDs rarely mean anything... Most of the SSDs if not cooled properly will start throttling and tbh it's all about the cells and NAND used. So don't worry about the bandwidth limit of the PCIE3.0 "yet" that even an RTX 3090 can't saturate, by the time we upgrade our machines, PCIE4.0 will be a must.
Agree, I just put the sonnet 4x4 card in my Mac Pro 7.1 and the ssd speeds are insane. Nothing any video operation that I’m handling today could every saturate!
Easy enough to buy a new one (6,1). Black Friday deals, OWC selling new ones for under 2k. I presume Apple care is available. Only 16 core ... I don't know the specs, but evidently, FCP loves duel GPUs, which is what the trashcan will do ... external drives are usable later too ... in a few years, the M2/m3 or whatever CPU would be very quick and who knows about GPU design ... maybe the an M* CPU will have a fast GPU architecture built in for FCP and music etc.
If going for a PC - it would be time to pay the rent for non Apple and give up all the Apple software. For many, that's a big and who knows - it might be a painful step.
From a retired person's perspective - my MBA number crunching ... do the financial math. How much is it costing you, ghostwind, with your current setup? Are you loosing money by having too much demand for your hardware? Write down what it is likely to cost you, in the next 6 months. Then then stretch that to 40 months. If you lease or rent the new hardware, you can remove the tax benefit from the cost - which should lower your cost quite a bit. Or just say in 30 months your machine will loose 50% of its value. Divide that by the 30 months. So 12k spent, becomes a full 6k expense. 30 months into that 6k - $200 a month. Can you make more than $200 extra a month? And if its worth nothing in three years, and there is no tax benefit at all - can you make $400 extra a month?
And what is the opportunity cost of waiting for some considerable time, to achieve the productivity that is available right now, without having to be re-learning anything? And do the PCs have reliable Xeon processors? If you went to Windows, what would happen to your productivity?
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In your opening post you clearly stated "But all this M1/ARM stuff has thrown many unknowns into my decision to pull the trigger on this system. I don't want to spend this much and then see an iMac next summer that will run circles around my Mac Pro. Or worse yet, an ARM Mac Pro. I know eventually they will happen, but nobody knows when and the specs. A lot of unknowns." You even titled this thread "Does it make sense to purchase a 7,1 Mac Pro today?"
The M1 Macs are here and proven to be amazing performers. This isn't hype. Real world tests have shown the M1 Mini and Air to be improvements of the Mac Pro for editing and rendering. It doesn't make sense to buy a 7,1 for your use case. I know it's a big adjustment to transition from thinking that your work is so demanding and important that you absolutely need the most expensive computer that Apple offers, to actually accepting that the cheapest computer is sufficient, but it doesn't make your work any less "pro" or that they're only for "Youtubers".
I was never referring to the current M1 offerings, and in fact I stated they will not work for me. If I were a Canon R5 or Sony A7SIII shooter, shooting in H.265, they would be an easier choice I said, but for me, not an option. I don't know why this upsets you. All the reviews I've seen focus on a FCP H.265 workflow (with those 2 specific camera codecs too for many of them), where the biggest gains are on the current offerings. And that is the workflow of many YouTubers, hence the hype. Is the M1 a good chip? Clearly it is, nobody is arguing that it isn't. Are the current M1 Macs the solution for everyone (as you seem to imply - change workflow, etc.)? No, that's laughable. Again, it's not just the M1 Macs. but it's having to run buggy Big Sur, having to run stuff in emulation in beta or unsupported, having to deal with bugs, etc. It will be 6-12months before Adobe ports stuff over, before other software I use is even ported, and there will be bugs in the transition for sure. Buying an M1 Mac now is premature for anyone running a business with mission critical apps.
I mentioned I use LightSpace as well. And many other Windows apps in Parallels. You don't know my entire use outside of the main video I spoke about. Can I run those on M1? No.
I don't care about form factor - I care about function. I'm not looking to spend more than I need. But for the last time, the current M1 offerings aren't suitable.
One thing about these PCs that you linked to that might be relevant (the AMD equipped ones anyway) - they have a faster PCIe bus, already enabling much speedier SSDs. I would imagine that's nothing to sneeze at for video work. Apparently with AMDs its also not unusal to be able to pop in newer processors as time goes by. Unlike Intel they do not seem to throw out their socket with every generation.
PC as an island in a sea of Macs - I have that here as well. It's fine for my work (3D) because it prevents me from using the system for anything but work so it stays nicely fast and lean. zero desire to just install some plaything to try it out. Important when dealing with Windows.
Anyway late last week the computer started to shut down randomly. Power supply on its way out, a high powered GPU apparently does that. I was able to pick one up the next day, install myself and be up and running again to make my deadline later this week. That should be a lot harder with an MP as the main moneymaker.
Had my trashcan go bad on me a while back. That involved months of sending it back and forth. Today it's been up for 163 days straight. Yet I still don't trust it again and skip a heartbeat whenever it appears to behave a little strange. Just no way to fix this thing myself.
I know, I used to build PCs in college and replace stuff in and out, etc. Those days are long gone, but I understand the easiness once you are into it. But the question is also, is this more likely to happen on a PC than on a Mac? From my experience with PCs in the past, the answer is yes. GPUs killing power supplies in Macs? I haven't heard that. On PCs? Yep. In any case I would get AppleCare.
This. And if you care about the development progress and apps compatibility with ASi in the future there you go:
Is Apple Silicon ready?
The Complete Guide to MacOS Apps Optimized for Apple Silicon Macs and the M1/M2 Processors
isapplesiliconready.com
FWIW, there are some early reports LightSpace works with CrossOver on M1. I personally would never rely on that for business work, but it might be possible on M1/ARM without Parallels.
Lot's of great thoughts and perspectives in this thread. Ghostwind, I think waiting another (two) year(s) for an M2 Mac Pro will be of disservice to your time and creativity. The M2 will have trade-offs. The M1 already doesn't scale well for your current (and definitively future) workflow.
My conclusion and thoughts:
- Mac Pro still offers great value (especially if you get outlet business pricing; I've saved 30+ percent on an Outlet XDR Display, Mac Pro combo that way) for video workflows. If you are able to squeeze in ProRes (RAW) in your workflow for example; you already have your 'Apple Silicon' speed improvements here and now with the Afterburner (or any third party PCIE-card that speeds up a specific part of your workflow for that matter) and freed up your CPU runway.
- Technology not always becomes better; nowadays you see more and more trade-offs to get the price down / speeds up. For example: The latest and greatest SSD's have a way lower TBW lifetime and terrible sustained writing speeds when offloading your raw video files by using cheaper TLC/QLC combined with some ram. Perfect for marketing, terrible for pro work. You'll be pushed to expensive enterprise hardware. Second example: The Apple M1 chip uses shared RAM for cpu + video tasks. You can guess that Apple has a high incentive to force you to decide on your RAM-amount on the point of sale and charge high amounts on any future M2 / M3 Mac Pro. And we're not even touching the hope that any new Mac Pro will let you buy your own RAM. The new Navi-chips seem to have ditched the superb HBM2 of the Vega II (Duo) cards for 4k+ content in favour of cheaper ram (maybe Apple can surprise us with new Mac Pro specific AMD 6900 MPX modules with HMB2 ram?). From now on for this too you'd have to go enterprise.
- The resale value should still be great; this Mac will probably the last one that'll also run x86 Windows. And on the GPU side you'll be under the wings of AMD and NVIDIA for years to come. My last Mac Pro I've sold at 4% loss at the time (after two years of use and making money) as I had bought it with a 12% discount. You can definitively see that every inch of the Mac Pro has had the highest possible tender, love and care (except for - you always have bad Apples - the W5700 drivers, so go Vega II). A true testament to Ive's last months as head of Design at Apple.
- In the end, in my daily experience what makes the Mac Pro valuable now, is the simple fact that because you can work with certain workflows without waiting times, you'll actually be more open to experimentation and create stuff you wouldn't have on your Macbook Pro. That is already priceless.
My conclusion and thoughts:
- Mac Pro still offers great value (especially if you get outlet business pricing; I've saved 30+ percent on an Outlet XDR Display, Mac Pro combo that way) for video workflows. If you are able to squeeze in ProRes (RAW) in your workflow for example; you already have your 'Apple Silicon' speed improvements here and now with the Afterburner (or any third party PCIE-card that speeds up a specific part of your workflow for that matter) and freed up your CPU runway.
- Technology not always becomes better; nowadays you see more and more trade-offs to get the price down / speeds up. For example: The latest and greatest SSD's have a way lower TBW lifetime and terrible sustained writing speeds when offloading your raw video files by using cheaper TLC/QLC combined with some ram. Perfect for marketing, terrible for pro work. You'll be pushed to expensive enterprise hardware. Second example: The Apple M1 chip uses shared RAM for cpu + video tasks. You can guess that Apple has a high incentive to force you to decide on your RAM-amount on the point of sale and charge high amounts on any future M2 / M3 Mac Pro. And we're not even touching the hope that any new Mac Pro will let you buy your own RAM. The new Navi-chips seem to have ditched the superb HBM2 of the Vega II (Duo) cards for 4k+ content in favour of cheaper ram (maybe Apple can surprise us with new Mac Pro specific AMD 6900 MPX modules with HMB2 ram?). From now on for this too you'd have to go enterprise.
- The resale value should still be great; this Mac will probably the last one that'll also run x86 Windows. And on the GPU side you'll be under the wings of AMD and NVIDIA for years to come. My last Mac Pro I've sold at 4% loss at the time (after two years of use and making money) as I had bought it with a 12% discount. You can definitively see that every inch of the Mac Pro has had the highest possible tender, love and care (except for - you always have bad Apples - the W5700 drivers, so go Vega II). A true testament to Ive's last months as head of Design at Apple.
- In the end, in my daily experience what makes the Mac Pro valuable now, is the simple fact that because you can work with certain workflows without waiting times, you'll actually be more open to experimentation and create stuff you wouldn't have on your Macbook Pro. That is already priceless.
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All very good points. My other concern, that perhaps I didn't mention, is one of support from Apple. In the last transition to Intel from PowerPC, OS and software support for the PowerPC didn't last too long. Will it be the case now too? It's a concern for sure.
Still the absolutely ridiculous thing is the fact you cannot upgrade anything on an M1 or even add an eGPU. If they adopt this mentality with the mac pro.....pppffffff.