MP 7,1 Help me spec a Mac Pro 7,1 for various creative purposes...

[Shadow Puppets]

Hey guys,

Would love your help in spec’ing a new Mac Pro. I am primarily a music producer / run a small studio, but I also dabble in other areas including music videos and short film production, and would like a computer to:

- run large Pro Tools sessions (100-150 tracks), with a mixture of audio and virtual instruments.

- something that can easily handle 6k video editing in Premiere.

- in my spare time I do like to do a bit of gaming...I have my eye on the new Microsoft Flight Simulator coming next year. I know that Mac Pro isn’t the ideal setup for that but if there’s a spec I could choose that would see me through with that it’d be great.

So my questions are threefold really:

1) with Pro Tools / audio, is there a preferential CPU to go for based on any benchmarks? I read a lot about the single core base clock speed being the most important factor for virtual instruments, but I’m no expert in the world of how the computers work...I just know how t produce.

2) RAM...I’m happy to upgrade the RAM myself so will probably go with 32GB or 64Gb to start with, but my question is, at what point does RAM not matter? For example, would 64GB be big enough for everything I’d ever want to do, or is more ALWAYS better.

3) CPU - for the video editing, I’m imagining the Vega or Vega Duo is the right choice for longevity, but for Gaming will they really hold up (in Bootcamp)? Or am I best potentially looking to install a second “gaming specific” GPU aftermarket for when I want to game.

I would appreciate some help with this. Budget wise, I make my living doing what I do so I don’t really mind spending £20k on a machine that I can pay off relatively quickly and will last me 5 years+.

Thanks in advance!

 

[Shadow Puppets]

Anyone at all?
[automerge]1577352547[/automerge]
Anyone at all?

 

[Bradleyone]

There have been a number of threads with almost these exact requirements. After all, the MacRumors forums are meant to be any archive of useful information, not just a simple Q&A venue. Anyway, my recommended spec:

16-core - the sweet spot, single core will turbo all the time to the fastest 4.4GHz this line of Xeons can do

96GB - ample, guaranteed RAM, no hassle ordering and fitting

Radeon Pro Vega II - single, overkill for audio, good for Premiere, more than adequate for gaming (does better than my PC's watercooled 1080 Ti)

4TB storage - for all those instruments & samples in the Application Support folder

 

[Shadow Puppets]

I appreciate the feedback.
For longevity, isn’t the 24 or 28 core still a better option though? Or is the base clock speed the most important thing for audio?

And with the Vega 2 vs the Duo, can you expect double performance in the gaming world?

 

[ssgbryan]

You might want to take a look over on the Has anyone seen a benchmark thread. I can't speak to protools, but it doesn't look like the 7,1 is cut out for tile based rendering. Hopefully, what we are seeing over there is a misconfigured system.

1. The thing to understand with Intel's Turbo clock ratings, is that unless specified, that is 1 core for 1 second or so. So once you are over 12 cores, the base clock speeds drop. Added bonus - if using something that heavily uses the AVX-512 instruction set, you are going to lose even more speed.

2. Ram no longer matters when nothing is being cached (short answer). There are a lot of variables involved, based on your workflow. My Mac Pros (see sig), saw a jump in responsiveness under heavy load when I went over 64Gb of ram. Different workflow (3d art), but I wasn't swapping memory around with 96Gb of ram. I'd recommend getting 32Gb dimm sticks. They aren't cheap ($168 ea), but nothing is more annoying than having to toss memory to make room for more memory.

3. Apple is the only company still putting GCN GPUs in brand new machines. The Vega CPUs aren't going to provide the response you see in Windows. AMD doesn't write the OSX drivers, Apple does, so no Radeon Adreneline drivers for OSX users.

Everybody else has moved to Navi GPUs. Personally, I'd recommend just getting a dedicated gaming rig. A 2nd gen Ryzen CPU & either an RX 5700, or a GTX 2070 Super.

 

[Parzival]

You might want to take a look over on the Has anyone seen a benchmark thread. I can't speak to protools, but it doesn't look like the 7,1 is cut out for tile based rendering. Hopefully, what we are seeing over there is a misconfigured system.

1. The thing to understand with Intel's Turbo clock ratings, is that unless specified, that is 1 core for 1 second or so. So once you are over 12 cores, the base clock speeds drop. Added bonus - if using something that heavily uses the AVX-512 instruction set, you are going to lose even more speed.

2. Ram no longer matters when nothing is being cached (short answer). There are a lot of variables involved, based on your workflow. My Mac Pros (see sig), saw a jump in responsiveness under heavy load when I went over 64Gb of ram. Different workflow (3d art), but I wasn't swapping memory around with 96Gb of ram. I'd recommend getting 32Gb dimm sticks. They aren't cheap ($168 ea), but nothing is more annoying than having to toss memory to make room for more memory.

3. Apple is the only company still putting GCN GPUs in brand new machines. The Vega CPUs aren't going to provide the response you see in Windows. AMD doesn't write the OSX drivers, Apple does, so no Radeon Adreneline drivers for OSX users.

Everybody else has moved to Navi GPUs. Personally, I'd recommend just getting a dedicated gaming rig. A 2nd gen Ryzen CPU & either an RX 5700, or a GTX 2070 Super.

Do you happen to know if the Turbo Boost feature is used in software like Logic/Cubase/Pro Tools at all?

 

[Shadow Puppets]

You might want to take a look over on the Has anyone seen a benchmark thread. I can't speak to protools, but it doesn't look like the 7,1 is cut out for tile based rendering. Hopefully, what we are seeing over there is a misconfigured system.

1. The thing to understand with Intel's Turbo clock ratings, is that unless specified, that is 1 core for 1 second or so. So once you are over 12 cores, the base clock speeds drop. Added bonus - if using something that heavily uses the AVX-512 instruction set, you are going to lose even more speed.

2. Ram no longer matters when nothing is being cached (short answer). There are a lot of variables involved, based on your workflow. My Mac Pros (see sig), saw a jump in responsiveness under heavy load when I went over 64Gb of ram. Different workflow (3d art), but I wasn't swapping memory around with 96Gb of ram. I'd recommend getting 32Gb dimm sticks. They aren't cheap ($168 ea), but nothing is more annoying than having to toss memory to make room for more memory.

3. Apple is the only company still putting GCN GPUs in brand new machines. The Vega CPUs aren't going to provide the response you see in Windows. AMD doesn't write the OSX drivers, Apple does, so no Radeon Adreneline drivers for OSX users.

Everybody else has moved to Navi GPUs. Personally, I'd recommend just getting a dedicated gaming rig. A 2nd gen Ryzen CPU & either an RX 5700, or a GTX 2070 Super.

So on point one, it’s better to get 12 or 16 core because the base clock is higher?

And regarding dedicated gaming, are you referring to actually buying a second windows machine purely for gaming, or buying one of those graphics cards and fitting it in the MP?

 

[Snow Tiger]

Hey guys,

Would love your help in spec’ing a new Mac Pro. I am primarily a music producer / run a small studio, but I also dabble in other areas including music videos and short film production, and would like a computer to:

- run large Pro Tools sessions (100-150 tracks), with a mixture of audio and virtual instruments.

- something that can easily handle 6k video editing in Premiere.

- in my spare time I do like to do a bit of gaming...I have my eye on the new Microsoft Flight Simulator coming next year. I know that Mac Pro isn’t the ideal setup for that but if there’s a spec I could choose that would see me through with that it’d be great.

So my questions are threefold really:

1) with Pro Tools / audio, is there a preferential CPU to go for based on any benchmarks? I read a lot about the single core base clock speed being the most important factor for virtual instruments, but I’m no expert in the world of how the computers work...I just know how t produce.

2) RAM...I’m happy to upgrade the RAM myself so will probably go with 32GB or 64Gb to start with, but my question is, at what point does RAM not matter? For example, would 64GB be big enough for everything I’d ever want to do, or is more ALWAYS better.

3) CPU - for the video editing, I’m imagining the Vega or Vega Duo is the right choice for longevity, but for Gaming will they really hold up (in Bootcamp)? Or am I best potentially looking to install a second “gaming specific” GPU aftermarket for when I want to game.

I would appreciate some help with this. Budget wise, I make my living doing what I do so I don’t really mind spending £20k on a machine that I can pay off relatively quickly and will last me 5 years+.

Thanks in advance!

Audio editing programs just love lots of memory and have been known to assign dedicated hardware resources to every track . So the more the merrier . Go with at least 192 GB ( 12 x 16 GB ) of memory . Fill up all 12 slots of your Mac with matching memory modules and you will obtain the highest possible memory bandwidth .

 

[bsbeamer]

If ProTools is your desire WAIT TO PURCHASE. No Avid product is certified for MP7,1. Hearing late January 2020 at the earliest and with restrictions. On top of it, apparently there is a semi major issue with 10.15.2 compatibility that may or may not be addressed with or around 10.15.3.

 

[Shadow Puppets]

If ProTools is your desire WAIT TO PURCHASE. No Avid product is certified for MP7,1. Hearing late January 2020 at the earliest and with restrictions. On top of it, apparently there is a semi major issue with 10.15.2 compatibility that may or may not be addressed with or around 10.15.3.

Various people are having success with PT already on Mac Pro over on Gearslutz.
But either way, I use Logic for composing, Pro Tools for recording. Not the end of the world if Pro Tools isn’t available for a month or so.

 

[Polymorphic]

OP and I have similar usage scenarios. For Logic Pro X, Cubase, and some Final Cut Pro X usage, I went with the following spec:

- 16 cores
- 96 GB RAM
- 4 TB SSD
- 580X (will upgrade to W5700X eventually)

 

[bsbeamer]

“Works” vs certified is a whole different beast when it comes to Avid products. They’re very similar to Autodesk in that they’ll only really support certified setups.