I have been holding off buying my first Apple silicon machine in order to consider the Mac Pro version. But, for what I would use, the new Mac Studio may be a great option. So I would be most grateful for answers to a couple of questions (and any other thoughts that any of you might have).
Background:
My main use case is GPU compute, with custom-written OpenCL and CUDA code. My two main applications can run for several minutes, occasionally several tens of minutes. The two main systems I currently use are a 2013 (trashcan) Mac Pro with upgraded GPU and an Nvidia Jetson AGX Xavier development kit. I also use a 16” MacBook Pro for development (but take care not to run the GPU too hard, having cooked the GPU in my old 2012 retina MacBook Pro).
So I am keen to try porting at least some of my code to Metal, to see just how good the M2 GPU is for my workload (which involves a lot of long integer and bitwise operations, not floating point or short AI-style integer work). One of the big attractions for me is the unified memory, which I would like to compare against Nvidia’s implementation.
Now, I had assumed that an M2 Mac Pro would be the unavoidable (if rather pricey) option. But I am astonished to find that the latest Mac Studio can offer the same M2 — and, in particular, GPU — versions. Expandability via PCIe cards is of no interest to me (I am assuming that there is no real prospect of being able to fit a heavy-duty Nvidia GPU card in the new Mac Pro!). It seems that, with the Studio, I could save myself around £3,000 (UK pounds).
Three questions:
1. For running the M2’s GPU hard, sometimes for tens of minutes, is there any material advantage in the Mac Pro’s thermal design, or should the Studio be perfectly adequate?
2. Would the answer to question (1) be the same for the M2 Max and Ultra? (I realise that the Mac Pro is Ultra only.) Obviously, the Ultra’s GPU is more powerful, but would it risk overheating, or at least throttling, the Studio if pushed too hard?
3. Is there any reason to suppose that the M2 GPU might have significantly different integer performance from recent (e.g. Ampere) Nvidia GPUs of comparable power?
With many thanks in advance for any replies or other thoughts — and apologies for the hopelessly long and rambling post!
Andrew
Background:
My main use case is GPU compute, with custom-written OpenCL and CUDA code. My two main applications can run for several minutes, occasionally several tens of minutes. The two main systems I currently use are a 2013 (trashcan) Mac Pro with upgraded GPU and an Nvidia Jetson AGX Xavier development kit. I also use a 16” MacBook Pro for development (but take care not to run the GPU too hard, having cooked the GPU in my old 2012 retina MacBook Pro).
So I am keen to try porting at least some of my code to Metal, to see just how good the M2 GPU is for my workload (which involves a lot of long integer and bitwise operations, not floating point or short AI-style integer work). One of the big attractions for me is the unified memory, which I would like to compare against Nvidia’s implementation.
Now, I had assumed that an M2 Mac Pro would be the unavoidable (if rather pricey) option. But I am astonished to find that the latest Mac Studio can offer the same M2 — and, in particular, GPU — versions. Expandability via PCIe cards is of no interest to me (I am assuming that there is no real prospect of being able to fit a heavy-duty Nvidia GPU card in the new Mac Pro!). It seems that, with the Studio, I could save myself around £3,000 (UK pounds).
Three questions:
1. For running the M2’s GPU hard, sometimes for tens of minutes, is there any material advantage in the Mac Pro’s thermal design, or should the Studio be perfectly adequate?
2. Would the answer to question (1) be the same for the M2 Max and Ultra? (I realise that the Mac Pro is Ultra only.) Obviously, the Ultra’s GPU is more powerful, but would it risk overheating, or at least throttling, the Studio if pushed too hard?
3. Is there any reason to suppose that the M2 GPU might have significantly different integer performance from recent (e.g. Ampere) Nvidia GPUs of comparable power?
With many thanks in advance for any replies or other thoughts — and apologies for the hopelessly long and rambling post!
Andrew