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macrumors 6502
Original poster
Jul 8, 2008
296
59
Canada
Hi everyone,

I think I have finally reached the end of life with my current workstation, at least where real-time projects are concerned. I need some advice on which machine to purchase. I am considering the MacBook Pro M2 Max and the Mac Studio M2 Ultra.

My current workstation specifications are as follows, Ryzen 3900x, 64GB RAM, GTX 1080. At the moment, I can get by with my vfx character work, albeit slowly. Real-time creation is ok as well, but the look development and rendering process is virtually impossible because of my gpu. It's not as simple as slapping a new GPU in the machine, as it will require a new case, power supply, etc. I prefer Mac OS to Windows, and nearly all the software I use, (Maya, Houdini, Mudbox, zBrush, Marvelous Designer, Marmoset Toolbag, Unreal Engine, Arnold, Redshift, Substance Suite), runs on Apple Silicon, aside from Mari. I will likely delegate the current machine for Mari use only.

I'm a bit lost because I can technically do all of the asset creation on my M2 MacBook Air with 24GB of RAM. For example, I can do high resolution facial sculpting in Mudbox, applying Texturing XYZ VFACE to the sculpture, advanced character and creature grooming with XGEN or Houdini, cloth tailoring with Marvelous or Houdini is fine. Hell, I can even texture in Substance Painter MORE smoothly than my workstation with the 1080. I can barely open Painter with the 1080, let alone paint UDIMS. The MacBook Air can't handle any of the rendering for the VFX work as it takes too much time and memory to load, but it appears that it can for real-time. At least as a laptop, not being plugged into a monitor.

So here's my question, would a MacBook Pro M2 Max 12-core CPU and 38-core GPU with 96GB of RAM be a significant upgrade over my current workstation? Or would we be sitting in a similar realm of power, but just a bit better? The reason why I am wondering about the MacBook Pro is because the Air is quite powerful. It can outperform my current workstation in some areas.

That being said, would a MacBook Pro be a substantial upgrade at this point? I was planning to wait on the Studio until M3 comes around next year, but it looks like I need to upgrade now. As far as the M2 Ultra, I was considering maxing the RAM at 192GB, but unsure on the 60-core GPU vs the 76-core GPU.

Hope I was clear with the situation and my questions. Thank you and I look forward to any insight into this matter.
 

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macrumors 6502
Original poster
Jul 8, 2008
296
59
Canada
Just an update. I purchased a loaded 16" MacBook Pro. Waiting for it to arrive. I'll do extensive testing with it and share my results with the community. I'm very curious as there is essentially no information YouTube with regards to my work and these machines.
 

Flowstates

macrumors 6502
Aug 5, 2023
333
397
If the performance is somewhat consistent with the ratio seen across ML benchmarks. Be prepared to refund that machine. Get some 30 or 40 series card with enough VRAM, build a pc around it and buy a base spec macbook with the remaining delta.
 

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macrumors 6502
Original poster
Jul 8, 2008
296
59
Canada
If the performance is somewhat consistent with the ratio seen across ML benchmarks. Be prepared to refund that machine. Get some 30 or 40 series card with enough VRAM, build a pc around it and buy a base spec macbook with the remaining delta.

Interesting. I don’t know anything about ML. I’d like to stay in the Apple world for my personal workstation. Based off my experience with my Air, I am assuming things will work smoothly. If not I will return and get a Studio. The heaviest aspect I am expecting will be CPU rendering with many UDIMS, but, I’ll be able to extensively test with Arnold, Karma and Redshift now.
 

Flowstates

macrumors 6502
Aug 5, 2023
333
397
Interesting. I don’t know anything about ML. I’d like to stay in the Apple world for my personal workstation. Based off my experience with my Air, I am assuming things will work smoothly. If not I will return and get a Studio. The heaviest aspect I am expecting will be CPU rendering with many UDIMS, but, I’ll be able to extensively test with Arnold, Karma and Redshift now.

I don't know anything about CG, but I believe that most modern rendering engines running path tracing and stochastical de-noising gain disproportionately from the CUDA cores found on NVIDIA chips (a main driver behind the company's current valuation).

Again, I only played around in blender to test my mbp against the pc using Cycles/Optix.

Sadly if you are quite intent on staying in the ecosystem you will have some serious ceiling on performance/cost. I ended up compromising and using windows on the mac through parsec.

If you are intent on thoroughly testing I'd gladly read the results.
 

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macrumors 6502
Original poster
Jul 8, 2008
296
59
Canada
I don't know anything about CG, but I believe that most modern rendering engines running path tracing and stochastical de-noising gain disproportionately from the CUDA cores found on NVIDIA chips (a main driver behind the company's current valuation).

Again, I only played around in blender to test my mbp against the pc using Cycles/Optix.

Sadly if you are quite intent on staying in the ecosystem you will have some serious ceiling on performance/cost. I ended up compromising and using windows on the mac through parsec.

If you are intent on thoroughly testing I'd gladly read the results.

Thanks for the information. I don't know enough about the technology to actually contribute to the discussion. It's something I will have to research, thanks for the insight.

What I can say is this. My work is in the production stage of asset creation. So I am not rendering 24/7. My rendering is not animation, but rather, studio lighting for characters, creatures and portraits, etc. As far as simulation goes, it will primarily be for cloth tailoring, and again, not simulation for animation.

I tried testing one of the sample Blender scenes months ago when the Metal version was released and it took about 8 minutes or something on my MacBook Air M2, while my old workstation took roughly half that time, if I remember correctly. I don't use Blender at all for my work but I was just curious to see how things were at the time.

MBP is scheduled to arrive next week. Looking forward to getting setup. Will post updates.
 

Flowstates

macrumors 6502
Aug 5, 2023
333
397
As far as simulation goes, it will primarily be for cloth tailoring, and again, not simulation for animation.

You peeked my interest. What kind of software do you use ? Is it mainly for digital production / digital marketing or are you a product designer ? Clo comes to mind but my knowledge on the subject is minimal.

I had a phase wanting all tailored clothing of my own design, I rapidly came to grips that my skills with cissors and a sewing machine wouldn't cut it, that could re-kindle it =).
 
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innerproduct

macrumors regular
Jun 21, 2021
222
353
You peeked my interest. What kind of software do you use ? Is it mainly for digital production / digital marketing or are you a product designer ? Clo comes to mind but my knowledge on the subject is minimal.

I had a phase wanting all tailored clothing of my own design, I rapidly came to grips that my skills with cissors and a sewing machine wouldn't cut it, that could re-kindle it =).
Marvelous was mentioned. It ran horrible on my mac m1 max last i tested it but at the time it had not metal Gpu acceleration for the cloth sim and had to rely on cpu. Emulated. I assume this is fixed now since @Standard mentioned it above. Would love to hear more about that actually from him(?) that actually is real user!
 

Standard

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Jul 8, 2008
296
59
Canada
You peeked my interest. What kind of software do you use ? Is it mainly for digital production / digital marketing or are you a product designer ? Clo comes to mind but my knowledge on the subject is minimal.

I had a phase wanting all tailored clothing of my own design, I rapidly came to grips that my skills with cissors and a sewing machine wouldn't cut it, that could re-kindle it =).

I'm an artist in visual effects and game. Marvelous Designer and Houdini for cloth tailoring for digital characters and creatures.

Marvelous was mentioned. It ran horrible on my mac m1 max last i tested it but at the time it had not metal Gpu acceleration for the cloth sim and had to rely on cpu. Emulated. I assume this is fixed now since @Standard mentioned it above. Would love to hear more about that actually from him(?) that actually is real user!

Yes, Marvelous Designer is right. I only briefly tested it on my M2 Air a while back. I'll be doing extensive testing now that my MacBook Pro arrived and will be sharing my results with the community.
 
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