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MP 7,1 Has anyone seen a benchmark?
- Thread starter danwells
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
I'd suggest a couple of threads:
- Useful application benchmarks for major apps
- Less useful benchmarks like Geekbench and synthetic benchmarks - particularly "memory virus" tests
What is your problem dude? Why be so patronising and bitter? Amd has a faster cpu for less money than apple. Understood. But Apple doesn’t offer an Amd CPU. If the Mac Pro doesn’t work for you, move on. You should be happy enough with your fast Amd machine, especially with the new 64core, so fill your boots and be happy you can get an amazing machine at a relatively cheap price.
Well, my 2019 Mac Pro finally arrived. I got the 16core with 32GB of Ram and the 580X. I proceeded to add another 32GB (16x2) and a single Radeon VII to the system. The 580X is running the GUI. Second VII will be here Thursday.
I went back and looked at Puget benchmarks and looked at what the numbers I were seeing and what Puget was seeing with the 3rd Gen Threadripper. "Color" me very very surprised.
I don't have many formal numbers to post, YET, I will by the end the week. But I'll say this, with just a single Radeon VII, this Mac Pro is beating the 24core 3rd Gen Threadripper and keeping pace with the 32core. Call BS if you want, I will post numbers end of the week. This is with performance mode off. I am not sure what Puget Systems was doing.
Their set up is a 24 Core 3960x and 24GB Titan RTX for the RED files. For the other tests they had a 11GB 2080Ti . First Number is Puget / Second Number is Mac Pro. I took the lower of the FPS if it was between two on the Mac Pro.
Test : 4K Prores444
3x Temporal NR - Better 2 Frames= 8 / 9
OpenFX - Lens Flare + Tilt-Shift Blur + Sharpen= 20 / 25
Test : 4K H264 150mbps
3x Temporal NR - Better 2 Frames= 8 / 9
OpenFX - Lens Flare + Tilt-Shift Blur + Sharpen= 20 / 26
Test : 4K RED
Temporal NR - Better 2 Frames= 15 / 17
3x Temporal NR - Better 2 Frames= 7 / 8
OpenFX - Lens Flare + Tilt-Shift Blur + Sharpen= 19 / 22
Basic Grade = 47 / 58 (sometimes it would keep realtime, but not consistent)
Numbers pulled from here.
www.pugetsystems.com
www.pugetsystems.com
I went back and looked at Puget benchmarks and looked at what the numbers I were seeing and what Puget was seeing with the 3rd Gen Threadripper. "Color" me very very surprised.
I don't have many formal numbers to post, YET, I will by the end the week. But I'll say this, with just a single Radeon VII, this Mac Pro is beating the 24core 3rd Gen Threadripper and keeping pace with the 32core. Call BS if you want, I will post numbers end of the week. This is with performance mode off. I am not sure what Puget Systems was doing.
Their set up is a 24 Core 3960x and 24GB Titan RTX for the RED files. For the other tests they had a 11GB 2080Ti . First Number is Puget / Second Number is Mac Pro. I took the lower of the FPS if it was between two on the Mac Pro.
Test : 4K Prores444
3x Temporal NR - Better 2 Frames= 8 / 9
OpenFX - Lens Flare + Tilt-Shift Blur + Sharpen= 20 / 25
Test : 4K H264 150mbps
3x Temporal NR - Better 2 Frames= 8 / 9
OpenFX - Lens Flare + Tilt-Shift Blur + Sharpen= 20 / 26
Test : 4K RED
Temporal NR - Better 2 Frames= 15 / 17
3x Temporal NR - Better 2 Frames= 7 / 8
OpenFX - Lens Flare + Tilt-Shift Blur + Sharpen= 19 / 22
Basic Grade = 47 / 58 (sometimes it would keep realtime, but not consistent)
Numbers pulled from here.
DaVinci Resolve Studio CPU Performance: Intel Core X-10000 vs AMD Threadripper 3rd Gen
People often overlook the CPU when it comes to DaVinci Resolve, but in many cases the CPU is just as important as the power of your GPU(s). With Intel and AMD both launching new HEDT processors, getting a powerful Resolve workstation is easier than ever. The lower price of the Intel X-10000...
www.pugetsystems.com
DaVinci Resolve Studio 16.1.2 Update - RED SDK improvements
The latest version of DaVinci Resolve (16.1.2) includes an update to the latest RED SDK which is supposed to greatly improve performance when working with R3D files in DaVinci Resolve. But exactly how much of an impact does this make in the real world? (Hint: it is a lot!)
www.pugetsystems.com
it is not useless. mac pros are for professionals and professionals consider and compare all existing hardware on the market and and the return of investment. but you can create a thread of course.
be sure not to mix up CPU performance with GPU performance.
if you do mainly (GPU intensive) davinci work, the pro is a good choice for now.
looking forward to see your results!👍
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Of course comparing is interesting, but I am some kind of bored reading 100 post were I read: "I can build a faster PC which is also cheaper" and all is based on synthetic benchmarks.
The MacMini/MBP seems to be as fast a the MacPro in some benchmarks. But who wants to work with a Mac that has constantly spinning fans at full speed for hours?
The MacPro is a complete different machine than any self built PCs or MBP or MacMini. You can load the MacPro with full work and it's still completely silent. Also pure benchmarks are not representing stability and longlivety. What is the benefit to start calculation a scientific problem which seems to be done much faster with a cheaper PC when the results are wrong due to RAM/CPU calculation problems or the calculation aborts due to hardware and/or driver errors? It's useless to compare a Xeon workstation with a cunsumer CPU being used for playing games or office work. The same is for GPUs. NVIDIA are great for CUDA ok but AMD is great for Metal. Does it make sense to compare them in their specific tasks and software environment? I guess no.
These comparisons will be ok if we'll see the rumored gaming Mac once on the market or any other consumer Macs targeting the same work as the PCs.
If a consumer-segment part produces identical computational results as a professional-segment part for a given task (functionally all x86-64 chips do), and does so with acceptable failure rates for the purchaser, then surely that comparison is valid.
For many sparsely threaded tasks a modern i9 ‘consumer’ chip will run laps around an older Xeon, and do so with a similar mean time before failure. The Xeon platform itself may have certain capabilities that outstrip the i9 (memory bandwidth, PCIe lanes, etc.), but measuring the impact of those variables through independent, consistent benchmarks and then comparing them to the tasks you ask your computer to do is the whole point.
If silent operation is important, then compare that. By all accounts the MP is an extremely quiet machine. Some PC's operate in that space, too, so it isn't unreasonable to make comparisons to those.
Anecdotally, I’ve never in my life heard of an x86 chip that was fed in-spec voltage ever fail. Apple certainly uses consumer-marketed chips in their professional laptops, which many professionals (including myself) have run ragged for years as their daily drivers.
For many sparsely threaded tasks a modern i9 ‘consumer’ chip will run laps around an older Xeon, and do so with a similar mean time before failure. The Xeon platform itself may have certain capabilities that outstrip the i9 (memory bandwidth, PCIe lanes, etc.), but measuring the impact of those variables through independent, consistent benchmarks and then comparing them to the tasks you ask your computer to do is the whole point.
If silent operation is important, then compare that. By all accounts the MP is an extremely quiet machine. Some PC's operate in that space, too, so it isn't unreasonable to make comparisons to those.
Anecdotally, I’ve never in my life heard of an x86 chip that was fed in-spec voltage ever fail. Apple certainly uses consumer-marketed chips in their professional laptops, which many professionals (including myself) have run ragged for years as their daily drivers.
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It needs comparing against both workstations and custom-build PC's. Why? Because the old machine did start at a low enough price to be accessible to the small business/enthusiast market and the expectation is the new one should be too. Just because people on forums are saying 'this machine isn't for you' doesn't mean the requirement that was served by the old Mac Pro has gone away or has been met by other products in the Mac range. it hasn't. At the same time it does need comparing at the top end against HP Z, etc as this is where it actually represents value. Apple should benchmark this as you can bet your life HP, Lenovo an Dell will compare their products directly against the Mac Pro, but then they will be more expensive. Should also compare warranty/maintenance options too if this is going to be a fair comparison with these machines.
Back to the enthusiast market. What would be the point in benchmarking against Threadripper? Mainly just to put the performance into context. The base machine will be beaten by some laptops, it's laughable that Apple have put out such a low spec for such a high price and Apple do need to wake up here as they have nothing in the mid-tier that isn't an all-in-one. Yes you can move to PC, but what if you don't want to or your apps are Mac OS only? There is a glaring hole in the product set here that Apple will not address and too many fanboys are quick to defend. Isn't it realistic to expect an i7/i9 modular desktop starting at around $3k, with mainstream graphics and a RAM limitation of say 128GB to clearly differentiate it from the Mac Pro. It would still be more expensive than the equivalent PC, but many would accept that just to run Mac OS.
Nothing to do with Mac. It's the same for a pro PC...INtel vs AMD comes down to a few things.
Clock speed vs core count vs Power use
AVX-512 Apps you may use
You can swing your Threadripper core (64 core is still $4k and 7K for a Epyc) counts around all you want... it's pointless in a lot of cases.
If your are a pragmatist....who cares who has more cores. I have 40600 Cores at my disposal at a renderfarm... I can render out in 1 hour something that would take a week on a 64 core thread ripper. I am charging the client for rendering... AND can carry on making money with my machine instead of having it locked up for a week.
For me it's about the balance of clock speed single core and the things that use multi CPUs ( suprisingly few in my apps... After effects is pretty pointless in that regard for example and Cinema 4D does most things in CPU.
AVX-512 is Intels major edvantage and is a massive boost in Video compression and some 3d operations. I suspect this one reason Apple are sticking with Intel. Encoding with Metal and AvX-512 is incredibly fast... let alone using Afterburner with Prores footage.
Intel AVX-512 can accelerate performance for workloads and use cases such as scientific simulations, financial analytics, artificial intelligence (AI)/deep learning, 3D modeling and analysis, image and audio/video processing, cryptography, and data compression.
- 63 times faster high-performance computing* (!)
- 2 times faster AI/deep learning*
- 1 times faster cryptographic hashing performance*
- 2 times faster data protection*
Intel® Advanced Vector Extensions 512 (Intel® AVX-512)
Intel® Advanced Vector Extensions 512, the latest x86 vector instruction set to accelerate performance for your most demanding computational tasks.
Oh and the other major benefit to using the Mac Pro... I don't have to use windows anymore which is awful on so many levels. Obsolete code they won't remove due to enterprise use, Two whole interface designs (metro / classic ) and dual Control panels, Impossible Error codes, 2 hour forced windows updates, The clusterF that is the windows Registry, Font handling, Monitor scaling, Lack of keyboard shortcuts, Lack of recognition of Filetypes / thumbnails. Video codec handling. Components from windows 1995 still, Loads of 32 Bit apps still. Incomprehensible error codes, Insane Driver handling ( mainly 3rd party issues - tried working out what Hellish files you have to install from a motherboard company or a damn printer? )
Windows could be great but they need to burn it all to the ground and lose the rubbish.
And the whole "I could build a PC that is faster for 10th price"... nope you can't. Build me a pro PC with Xeons/Epyc and Quadro RTX/AMD Pro cards with 8 PCIE slots, 1400w PSU, Video acceleration like afterburner ( Red Rocket Or Avid AMX ) 12 DIMM slots with 6 Channel memory and Dual 10gb ethernet. It's impossible for the price and also impossible as No workstation MOBO can do ALL this at once.
Oh and building an maintaining a Work PC is really, really boring. Fine for a games machine... but freaking hell if it breaks mid project.
Nothing to do with Mac. It's the same for a pro PC...INtel vs AMD comes down to a few things.
Clock speed vs core count vs Power use
AVX-512 Apps you may use
You can swing your Threadripper core (64 core is still $4k and 7K for a Epyc) counts around all you want... it's pointless in a lot of cases.
If your are a pragmatist....who cares who has more cores. I have 40600 Cores at my disposal at a renderfarm... I can render out in 1 hour something that would take a week on a 64 core thread ripper. I am charging the client for rendering... AND can carry on making money with my machine instead of having it locked up for a week.
For me it's about the balance of clock speed single core and the things that use multi CPUs ( suprisingly few in my apps... After effects is pretty pointless in that regard for example and Cinema 4D does most things in CPU.
AVX-512 is Intels major edvantage and is a massive boost in Video compression and some 3d operations. I suspect this one reason Apple are sticking with Intel. Encoding with Metal and AvX-512 is incredibly fast... let alone using Afterburner with Prores footage.
Intel AVX-512 can accelerate performance for workloads and use cases such as scientific simulations, financial analytics, artificial intelligence (AI)/deep learning, 3D modeling and analysis, image and audio/video processing, cryptography, and data compression.
Even Games are using it now.
- 63 times faster high-performance computing* (!)
- 2 times faster AI/deep learning*
- 1 times faster cryptographic hashing performance*
- 2 times faster data protection*
Intel® Advanced Vector Extensions 512 (Intel® AVX-512)
Intel® Advanced Vector Extensions 512, the latest x86 vector instruction set to accelerate performance for your most demanding computational tasks.www.intel.com
Oh and the other major benefit to using the Mac Pro... I don't have to use windows anymore which is awful on so many levels. Obsolete code they won't remove due to enterprise use, Two whole interface designs (metro / classic ) and dual Control panels, Impossible Error codes, 2 hour forced windows updates, The clusterF that is the windows Registry, Font handling, Monitor scaling, Lack of keyboard shortcuts, Lack of recognition of Filetypes / thumbnails. Video codec handling. Components from windows 1995 still, Loads of 32 Bit apps still. Incomprehensible error codes, Insane Driver handling ( mainly 3rd party issues - tried working out what Hellish files you have to install from a motherboard company or a damn printer? )
Windows could be great but they need to burn it all to the ground and lose the rubbish.
And the whole "I could build a PC that is faster for 10th price"... nope you can't. Build me a pro PC with Xeons/Epyc and Quadro RTX/AMD Pro cards with 8 PCIE slots, 1400w PSU, Video acceleration like afterburner ( Red Rocket Or Avid AMX ) 12 DIMM slots with 6 Channel memory and Dual 10gb ethernet. It's impossible for the price and also impossible as No workstation MOBO can do ALL this at once.
Oh and building an maintaining a Work PC is really, really boring. Fine for a games machine... but freaking hell if it breaks mid project.
While the apps that use AVX-512 are limited, you are right that it can massively improve speed. I use HeliconFocus for focus-stacking product shots, and this past year they implemented support for AVX-512. The performance difference between my MBP and Mac Pro is huge as a result, as much as a 70% reduction in speed.
The price difference has been overblown for over a decade, I've heard that ever since Apple went Intel in 2006. Yes, if you compare just the processor, RAM and graphics card. But when you figure in the entire package, the total quality of design and construction, the Apple premium is pretty small. For many people only the CPU, RAM and graphics matter and I can understand that, but it doesn't mean that the rest doesn't matter, and matter a great deal to many people.
For many the price issue isn't with comparable PCs but rather the cMP.
Agree.. And if this sells well I wonder if we will see "Return of the Mac"
Not a mini.. not a Pro but something in-between with i9 etc, Desktop GPUs and a few PCIE slots. I do love the cMP and looking forward to buying one when they hit like £300 for the Design alone.
True! The question is whether Apple will decide to segment below this and do an "upgradeable" Mac that isn't tied to a screen like the iMac/iMac Pro. I suspect they view the market as too small and/or it will just cannibalize sales from the high-end iMac and low-end Mac Pro side. If that's the case then financially it would make no sense for them.
Not at 1/10th the price , but it is possible for a Cascade Lake Xeon PC logic board to do this all at once at a lower price . When I got bored with Apple delaying the release of the MP7,1 , as a matter of fact I built the PC version of a Mac Pro to test some of the latest components .
Lian Li PC-A75 chassis 11 PCIe Slot = $160 .
EVGA Supernova T2 1600W PSU ( 220-T2-1600-X1 ) = $410 .
Supermicro X11SPA-TF Logic Board ( with 4 x 16 Lane Rev 3.0 PCIe ) = $600 .
Intel Xeon 6212U 2.4GHz 24 Core CPU = $2100 .
Supermicro SNK-P0070APS4 LGA 3647-0 4U CPU Heat Sink = $060 .
96 GB ( 6 x 16 GB ) PC4-23400 DDR4 2933MHz ECC = $385 .
4 x AMD Vega Frontier Editions 16 GB HBM ( I rebuilt these used cards ) = $1600 .
2 x 1TB NVMe M.2 PCIe SSD = $200 .
14x Blu-ray burner LG WH14NS40 = $055 .
Windows 10 Pro Workstation and Oracle Linux ( RHEL ) = $145 .
Total cost , current configuration = $5715 .
Everything is brand spanking new , except for the GPUs which I bought used and upgraded their cooling systems .
The logic board has four onboard NVMe M.2 SSD connectors , two of which are operational when the four compute GPUs are installed . I don't believe there is a capacity limitation of the drives .
Apple has limitations with the proprietary factory installed drive ( or interleaved pair of ) , because you need Apple's cooperation and an Apple branded product to change it . The installation of this drive is mandatory for the Mac Pro to boot .
The only drawback is the board I used can not support thunderbolt of any flavor .
As for a graphics acceleration with a card like Red Rocket , the chassis still supports three open single width PCIe cards ( eight slots are already occupied with GPU ) . All I'd need to do is run a shielded 3M PCIe extension cable and snake it under one of the GPUs to connect to one of three of the electrically unoccupied PCIe Slots .
I can install up to 3TB of 2933 MHz DDR4 ECC memory , but only up to 1TB with the current processor installed .
My machine also supports Intel DC Persistent memory ( look , folks ! Exciting new technology ! ) , something the Mac Pro cannot .
My machine currently has four Vega F.E.s ( basically WX9100s without the GPU ECC and fancy driver support ) . She can support up to four of any 300 W class cards , like the Quadro RTX 8000 . Macs cannot currently handle , of course , nVidia CUDA . Metal , yes . CUDA , no .
And nVidia compute runs quiet at load . Air cooled AMD compute in a PC can be quite un-quiet if you push it hard enough . The Mac Pro 7,1 is also quiet .
The logic board has an immense amount ( 3 x 8 pin EPS , total of 840 W ) of booster power wired to it from the PSU to push all the installed high end component interfaces . GPUs have their eight 8 pin booster connectors fed straight from the same PSU , as well .
It has one onboard 10 GbE Port , but I can add more through PCIe add on cards as per above method .
There is a large amount of SATA storage capacity I have not even explored yet . At least eight 2.5" or 3.5" drives can be connected and mounted right now . And you don't need any fancy mounting module , either . Pegasus comes to the Mac Pro crowd and greedily takes our hard earned money in its hooves and quickly flies away to the nearest bank with a %@$! eating grin on its mouth .
The chassis has support for liquid cooling , if I want to go that route . I personally think its too risky .
The cherry on top of the sundae is I have an internal Blu-ray burner for burning archival Verbatim M-discs that can still be read after any Mac Pro 7,1 has long since turned to dust . Sorry , but it's true .
Oh , there are no layers of security nonsense that have blocked any of my upgrades , so far .
This machine is rock solid and went to system load for over 24 hours as a test , so its a good configuration .
I love my Mac Pro 7,1 and will keep her for years . I like macOS . It's more stable than Windows , easier to use than Linux and despite its over-complexity I still like the basic look and feel .
But for the price of a basic , entry level Mac Pro 7,1 ( $6000 ) , you could build your own very powerful PC rendering machine . There are some trade offs and also some advantages , too . But PCs win the low cost award , again .
Shown in a mixed GPU configuration running power distribution and stability tests :
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I am usually in the "tired of cheaper PC builds" camp, but you went into enough detail to make the point without (much) Apple bashing, and I applaud your skill. I can't do that, and I certainly couldn't troubleshoot it. You can, and I admire that, too.
I know a mechanic who regularly works on subway cars. He can disassemble an automobile, manufacture worn parts, and reassemble it - and does this whenever his daughter buys a used car. I am in similar awe of his skills. (I hope you don't see this comparison as insulting. Good engineering is hard, whether mechanical or electronic.)
Keep impressing us!
[automerge]1578500902[/automerge]
I don't think the market is too small - gaming PCs, for example. But the segment's prices may have already raced to the bottom and there is not enough profit there.
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IMO if it were to cannibalize sales from the iMac/iMac Pro to the point where it would no longer make financial sense for them then perhaps Apple should stop selling them.
what is interesting is the mac pro cpus...
i just checked that now, and found a store where i can buy them in my country.
important is the 8, 12 and 16 core models apple uses can only address 1tb
the 24 and 28core can address 2tb (apple supports up to 1.5tb)
now, it makes no sense to order the pro with an 8core and upgrade the processors yourself,
because if you cant sell the 8core, you make no benefit of that.
but... ! if you take a 24 or 28core model which can only address 1tb, then you can save $ !
apple charges about 7.5k for the 28 core and a W-3275 (not W-3275M) is only about 5.5k
the same applies to the 24core W-3265 which costs about 4.4k.
in both cases you would save 2k, if you can live with a max of 1tb
to change the cpu is easy, but i don't know if your warranty is still valid, then...
i just checked that now, and found a store where i can buy them in my country.
important is the 8, 12 and 16 core models apple uses can only address 1tb
the 24 and 28core can address 2tb (apple supports up to 1.5tb)
now, it makes no sense to order the pro with an 8core and upgrade the processors yourself,
because if you cant sell the 8core, you make no benefit of that.
but... ! if you take a 24 or 28core model which can only address 1tb, then you can save $ !
apple charges about 7.5k for the 28 core and a W-3275 (not W-3275M) is only about 5.5k
the same applies to the 24core W-3265 which costs about 4.4k.
in both cases you would save 2k, if you can live with a max of 1tb
to change the cpu is easy, but i don't know if your warranty is still valid, then...
I don't think you're looking at the math from the right perspective. The benefits of producing a third model to please a certain business segment would have to outweigh any costs of producing it. That includes all of the R&D to make it *and* any cannibalization of sales from their own existing market as well as long-term support costs. For example, if the iMac serves say, 90% of Apple's market that buys a desktop very well, and the Mac Pro the rest, then the marginal gain is probably way too small.
Like it or not the configurable/upgradeable PC market is small, and has shrunk massively from where it was a decade ago. Probably close to 100% of that market is gamers, and Apple is not going to get those folks to switch to a Mac because the gaming ecosystem is too small on the Mac side, never mind the price points and hardware flexibility that market wants isn't Apple's sweet spot.
For years now the market has moved towards laptops and tablets. From that perspective the iMac is great for Apple in terms of reducing overall R&D costs and helping on volume purchases of components--basically the iMac is the MacBook or MBP tucked behind a large screen. They don't break out product numbers anymore but I'm willing to bet that the number of laptops they sell is at least a factor of 10 greater than iMacs if not more.
Most of the folks who are clamoring for a configurable high-end Mac are either at the bottom of the potential Mac Pro buyers--either for hardware needs or costs--or at the top end of the iMac buyers. From Apple's perspective the iMac Pro is their current product that fills that niche. I potentially see Apple updating that product going forward--it would be the ideal place to put some of Intel's HEDT processors rather than the Xeons they currently use. But I'm skeptical they will make it expandable like the Mac Pro; they'll probably just keep the same format. It gives them an overlap on production and design costs with the iMac, lowering the costs to make it, and doesn't eat into the other existing product lines.
there is A LOT of bias in these sentences .-)
and ...
I guess, that is just guessing. The Mac Pro has fans, and if you render for a longer time with a 28core you will need cooling! But actually that is an interesting topic... anyone with a 16/24/28core here to share his experience with noise (or silence) under heavy load?
I know a few TDs that will rip your head off and poop down your neck hole if you eat up a farm with test renders and one offs. If it were only as easy as you claim. Nobody is talking about rendering a whole movie via threadripper, but it sure does speed up test renders for particular elements. Most of the time the farm doesn’t even exist until it’s needed at which time a bunch of nerds will set up and create the renders for a knuckle dragging artist such as myself. I’d have to piggyback an existing queue or just arrange to have time. This could take a day or it could take a week. Lots of factors I don’t particularly want to navigate just to see if my work is up to spec.Nothing to do with Mac. It's the same for a pro PC...INtel vs AMD comes down to a few things.
Clock speed vs core count vs Power use
AVX-512 Apps you may use
You can swing your Threadripper core (64 core is still $4k and 7K for a Epyc) counts around all you want... it's pointless in a lot of cases.
If your are a pragmatist....who cares who has more cores. I have 40600 Cores at my disposal at a renderfarm... I can render out in 1 hour something that would take a week on a 64 core thread ripper. I am charging the client for rendering... AND can carry on making money with my machine instead of having it locked up for a week.
For me it's about the balance of clock speed single core and the things that use multi CPUs ( suprisingly few in my apps... After effects is pretty pointless in that regard for example and Cinema 4D does most things in CPU.
AVX-512 is Intels major edvantage and is a massive boost in Video compression and some 3d operations. I suspect this one reason Apple are sticking with Intel. Encoding with Metal and AvX-512 is incredibly fast... let alone using Afterburner with Prores footage.
Intel AVX-512 can accelerate performance for workloads and use cases such as scientific simulations, financial analytics, artificial intelligence (AI)/deep learning, 3D modeling and analysis, image and audio/video processing, cryptography, and data compression.
Even Games are using it now.
- 63 times faster high-performance computing* (!)
- 2 times faster AI/deep learning*
- 1 times faster cryptographic hashing performance*
- 2 times faster data protection*
Intel® Advanced Vector Extensions 512 (Intel® AVX-512)
Intel® Advanced Vector Extensions 512, the latest x86 vector instruction set to accelerate performance for your most demanding computational tasks.
Oh and the other major benefit to using the Mac Pro... I don't have to use windows anymore which is awful on so many levels. Obsolete code they won't remove due to enterprise use, Two whole interface designs (metro / classic ) and dual Control panels, Impossible Error codes, 2 hour forced windows updates, The clusterF that is the windows Registry, Font handling, Monitor scaling, Lack of keyboard shortcuts, Lack of recognition of Filetypes / thumbnails. Video codec handling. Components from windows 1995 still, Loads of 32 Bit apps still. Incomprehensible error codes, Insane Driver handling ( mainly 3rd party issues - tried working out what Hellish files you have to install from a motherboard company or a damn printer? )
Windows could be great but they need to burn it all to the ground and lose the rubbish.
And the whole "I could build a PC that is faster for 10th price"... nope you can't. Build me a pro PC with Xeons/Epyc and Quadro RTX/AMD Pro cards with 8 PCIE slots, 1400w PSU, Video acceleration like afterburner ( Red Rocket Or Avid AMX ) 12 DIMM slots with 6 Channel memory and Dual 10gb ethernet. It's impossible for the price and also impossible as No workstation MOBO can do ALL this at once.
Oh and building an maintaining a Work PC is really, really boring. Fine for a games machine... but freaking hell if it breaks mid project.
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Nothing to do with Mac. It's the same for a pro PC...INtel vs AMD comes down to a few things.
Clock speed vs core count vs Power use
AVX-512 Apps you may use
You can swing your Threadripper core (64 core is still $4k and 7K for a Epyc) counts around all you want... it's pointless in a lot of cases.
If your are a pragmatist....who cares who has more cores. I have 40600 Cores at my disposal at a renderfarm... I can render out in 1 hour something that would take a week on a 64 core thread ripper. I am charging the client for rendering... AND can carry on making money with my machine instead of having it locked up for a week.
For me it's about the balance of clock speed single core and the things that use multi CPUs ( suprisingly few in my apps... After effects is pretty pointless in that regard for example and Cinema 4D does most things in CPU.
AVX-512 is Intels major edvantage and is a massive boost in Video compression and some 3d operations. I suspect this one reason Apple are sticking with Intel. Encoding with Metal and AvX-512 is incredibly fast... let alone using Afterburner with Prores footage.
Intel AVX-512 can accelerate performance for workloads and use cases such as scientific simulations, financial analytics, artificial intelligence (AI)/deep learning, 3D modeling and analysis, image and audio/video processing, cryptography, and data compression.
Even Games are using it now.
- 63 times faster high-performance computing* (!)
- 2 times faster AI/deep learning*
- 1 times faster cryptographic hashing performance*
- 2 times faster data protection*
Intel® Advanced Vector Extensions 512 (Intel® AVX-512)
Intel® Advanced Vector Extensions 512, the latest x86 vector instruction set to accelerate performance for your most demanding computational tasks.
Oh and the other major benefit to using the Mac Pro... I don't have to use windows anymore which is awful on so many levels. Obsolete code they won't remove due to enterprise use, Two whole interface designs (metro / classic ) and dual Control panels, Impossible Error codes, 2 hour forced windows updates, The clusterF that is the windows Registry, Font handling, Monitor scaling, Lack of keyboard shortcuts, Lack of recognition of Filetypes / thumbnails. Video codec handling. Components from windows 1995 still, Loads of 32 Bit apps still. Incomprehensible error codes, Insane Driver handling ( mainly 3rd party issues - tried working out what Hellish files you have to install from a motherboard company or a damn printer? )
Windows could be great but they need to burn it all to the ground and lose the rubbish.
And the whole "I could build a PC that is faster for 10th price"... nope you can't. Build me a pro PC with Xeons/Epyc and Quadro RTX/AMD Pro cards with 8 PCIE slots, 1400w PSU, Video acceleration like afterburner ( Red Rocket Or Avid AMX ) 12 DIMM slots with 6 Channel memory and Dual 10gb ethernet. It's impossible for the price and also impossible as No workstation MOBO can do ALL this at once.
Oh and building an maintaining a Work PC is really, really boring. Fine for a games machine... but freaking hell if it breaks mid project.
This is the problem with the 2019 Mac Pro, it is aimed only at the market you have just specified and this is the only place it shines. As a general purpose workstation (i.e. a high-end modular PC) it's not so great from a price/performance perspective and this is why there are many comparisons with threadripper, etc.
The old Mac Pro served multiple markets, the current one just serves one. That's the issue and why it is compared with seemingly unrelated products. The old one started as a high-end desktop computer and went some way to be a workstation, but wasn't high enough spec compared to other workstations. This time it's a good workstation, but not a great high-end desktop as the base spec is too low for the price. There should also be an i7/i9 version with a much lower RAM limit, less PCI slots and more mainstream graphics. This would serve a lot of old Mac Pro customers very well and still keep a single chassis for the modular desktop - just have a different motherboard for the 'Pro' and non-Pro versions. I'd happily pay 4k for that, but not 6k as it's just not worth the investment for the spec. There's no point investing in a machine that can accept very high-bandwidth GPU's and 1.5TB RAM when I will never need this, but a good proportion of the cost is the engineering to support this. There are a lot of customers who don't work with high-end media, but have a need for a modular Mac. They also don't have infinite budgets, even if they can lease the kit.
Well, my 2019 Mac Pro finally arrived. I got the 16core with 32GB of Ram and the 580X. I proceeded to add another 32GB (16x2) and a single Radeon VII to the system. The 580X is running the GUI. Second VII will be here Thursday.
I went back and looked at Puget benchmarks and looked at what the numbers I were seeing and what Puget was seeing with the 3rd Gen Threadripper. "Color" me very very surprised.
I don't have many formal numbers to post, YET, I will by the end the week. But I'll say this, with just a single Radeon VII, this Mac Pro is beating the 24core 3rd Gen Threadripper and keeping pace with the 32core. Call BS if you want, I will post numbers end of the week. This is with performance mode off. I am not sure what Puget Systems was doing.
Their set up is a 24 Core 3960x and 24GB Titan RTX for the RED files. For the other tests they had a 11GB 2080Ti . First Number is Puget / Second Number is Mac Pro. I took the lower of the FPS if it was between two on the Mac Pro.
Test : 4K Prores444
3x Temporal NR - Better 2 Frames= 8 / 9
OpenFX - Lens Flare + Tilt-Shift Blur + Sharpen= 20 / 25
Test : 4K H264 150mbps
3x Temporal NR - Better 2 Frames= 8 / 9
OpenFX - Lens Flare + Tilt-Shift Blur + Sharpen= 20 / 26
Test : 4K RED
Temporal NR - Better 2 Frames= 15 / 17
3x Temporal NR - Better 2 Frames= 7 / 8
OpenFX - Lens Flare + Tilt-Shift Blur + Sharpen= 19 / 22
Basic Grade = 47 / 58 (sometimes it would keep realtime, but not consistent)
Numbers pulled from here.
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What's the price/specs of both systems just so we can add some context?
Your statement:
I suspect they view the market as too small and/or it will just cannibalize sales from the high-end iMac and low-end Mac Pro side. If that's the case then financially it would make no sense for them.
Says that a "mini" Mac Pro might cannibalize sales of high-end iMac and low-end Mac Pro. If that's the case than I propose Apple discontinue offering a high-end iMac and low-end Mac Pro instead of not offering a "mini" Mac Pro.