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Thanks for the tip. Yeah maybe 3rd party ram sooner than later is good idea. How do you know if your ram is filled or not? I presumed for normal C4D rendering ram wasn't a massive deal, but I'd love to be educated differently! And more ram will definitely help After Effects from what I've read.

Well if I render something in after effects I can watch the ram filling up in activity monitor within seconds. Ok, it doesnt use up ALL memory, but 54 gb of my 64 easily during a not too wild render.

Adobe always recommended to allocate about 4-5 gb of ram per core in after effects back in the day when you still were able to set that manually (CC14), so I assume they still do something similar internaly. Not sure about C4d, but would be surprised if it was LESS hungry ;)
 
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I am wondering if he is asking if there will be any option of upgrading the SSDs using Apple's products in the future or is he stuck with his purchased SSD configuration forever like some apple computers.

Apple opened that door a bit when mentioned that iMac Pro may be service technician upgrade in RAM memory. Pragmatically I don't think they have done much with pushing that forward as a widely available option. And they didn't extend that to the daugthercard NAND blades on the iMac Pro.

Will the dynamics of having two Macs that use the same daughtercard NAND blades give the enough ecosystem to get into the non failed component sales? I doubt it. Both of these together are probably sub 200K if not sub 100K per year run rates. So it is relatively small and Apple will need components to cover the whole lifetime to Obsolete status ( which if they are doing 2 (or more) upgrade cycles is a long time. ). Over 4 years that would be a user base of 400K which even if 2% are looking for disk upgrades (8K/year ) would be something viable if Apple was paying attention. I just doubt they would... as opposed to Rip van Winkle the issue as being "too small' to pay attention to.

It also probably isn't just a drive replacement. I suspect the security keys may have to be flushed too so basically getting a "new" ( blank slate ) Mac back after the process. If folks don't have pristine backups they'll be upset. ( they'll get folks who will blame Apple for encouraging them to change the disk which lead to data loss and create 'drama'. ).

On the other hand, it is probably going to generate problems for a subset of folks who later upgrade the Mac Pro to > 250GB of RAM when stuck with the default allocation path for the swap space. I suspect that Apple will have warnings about memory configs in BTO that mismatch the drive ( and 'push' many folks into the 1TB option). There will be carrots to upgrade when you buy so don't even get to this "need one later" stage for most.
 
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Can someone advise me - Is it better to use 6 sticks of Ram or 12 when speccing up a Modular Mac Pro?

Apples site mostly lists as 6 sticks, is this for performance, or just so you can upgrade to more later.

Can you just keep putting sticks as and when, such as would is a weird number like 9 be fine to do?
 
As I said, Apple uses custom blades and hasn’t ever sold them. If you can get them second hand, it should work, but who is going to sell them second hand if nobody can buy upgrades from Apple after the sale? Really only folks parting out dead machines years from now.

Second hand probably isn't going to work for a long while. The blades have to be re-certified with the T2 host so need an Apple tool to do that. At some point a few of those tools will float out into market too but that would only be long term as Apple got more disinterested in that version.

Used, boneyard, blades are likely to be a bit dubious too over the longer term. They would have already seen wear. Apple is also likely going to want swamps for replacement parts ( will send new replacement blade for old failed blade ). Over time some parts will leak out. Apple works with 3rd party repair folks and at some point there will be someone who will make parts "fall off the back of the truck or out of a parts holding bin".

Over the short term I wouldn't count on that.

But at the same time, you aren’t going to be locked into the Apple SSD to boot. Buy either an adapter card or RAID card for M.2 PCIe SSDs and load that up instead. With something like this you can get faster speeds than what the Apple SSDs are even capable of via RAID0:

If not pushing one of the top end CPUs that is dumping maximum heat there are also more affordable SATA SSD options internally too if just need buik $/GB capacity at "good enough" speeds.
 
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Not sure about C4d, but would be surprised if it was LESS hungry ;)
I've just done a test render watching the memory use in activity monitor (thanks for that idea). C4D only uses like 1.5gb of ram on my 8 core trash can. So not much.

As you say, After effects on the other hand just keeps eating up ram as much as it can for ram previews, leaving a bit spare for the system.
 
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Can someone advise me - Is it better to use 6 sticks of Ram or 12 when speccing up a Modular Mac Pro?

Apples site mostly lists as 6 sticks, is this for performance, or just so you can upgrade to more later.

Can you just keep putting sticks as and when, such as would is a weird number like 9 be fine to do?

The Xeons the Mac Pro uses have six memory channels, so multiples of that number are ideal.

In practical terms, though, I've pretty much never seen a case where RAM speed, etc. matters more than the actual amount of it. All the benchmarking of RAM speeds in enthusiast cases seems to point to the fact that it's overall a very small part of the performance picture. If you need more RAM and it doesn't neatly map to memory channels, just get the RAM.
 
Can someone advise me - Is it better to use 6 sticks of Ram or 12 when speccing up a Modular Mac Pro?
We don't have the specs for the MP7,1 - but due to the extra load (and longer paths) it is not uncommon for the RAM to downclock a bit when more DIMMs are installed on a channel.

In practical terms, though, I've pretty much never seen a case where RAM speed, etc. matters more than the actual amount of it.
I agree. The CPUs have huge caches, which can mask a minor reduction of theoretical bandwidth.
 
Can someone advise me - Is it better to use 6 sticks of Ram or 12 when speccing up a Modular Mac Pro?

Apples site mostly lists as 6 sticks, is this for performance, or just so you can upgrade to more later.


If you are thinking about paring those 6 up later with other DIMMS from other markers that is probably more of an issue.

12 means can't prudently mix and match future DIMMs without also going into pairs without selectively removing some of those and rematching.


Can you just keep putting sticks as and when, such as would is a weird number like 9 be fine to do?

If just running from dealer to dealer discount special just to find the cheapest 8Gb can stuff over time until all 12 slots are filled up and then start chasing future 16GB DIMMs close outs and deals until rotate through the slots again ... that probably isn't the best way to go.


I think many of these DIMMs are Buffered. Unbuffered and buffered generally don't get along.


If what need to get the active workload to comfortable fall into RAM so don't have much paging and that is 9 then fine. But if six is enough to do work then can just stop until can get to get to later time and make a batch acquisition set then.
 
It isn't the MP7,1 that the article pegs as a key group tightly coupled to $3K. It is the folks out in the cold ( because the MP7,1 isn't $3k ... that's why they are out in the cold; because there is no Mac product directly in their market subset. ).

The article is using mostly the same framework as the $1-2K xMac crowd has classically made. Apple could sell so many more if they just made a cheaper box with slots in the sub $2k zone. There is just yet another new group ; $3-4K ( or Apple has caused a bigger group to form that spans a broader range).

Apple isn't trying to sell everything to everybody. They also are not trying to sell only to the exact same folks from 10-15 years ago either. ( the essentially dropped most of the sub $1K mini market. dropped the dual CPU package only crowd too. )

The question has been asked many times, I know, but who are the not everybody Apple is aiming the MP7.1 at ?

As for the exact same folks from 10-15 yeras ago - the exact same clientele still exists, arguably even more of them .
The big difference - 10-15 years ago that clientele made quite a bit more money .
For one person shops to medium sized companies in the creative field, income has declined significantly in that period of time .

A 3k base workstation , 4-5k to get it properly specced, is still the middle ground today , after the economy has never recovered enough to make up for the seemingly permanent income losses in the industry .

At the same time, the Imacs and Minis will only ever be sufficient for a small segment of that clientele , part of which might be using laptops instead anyways .

The long and short of it - Apple has all but abandond the Mac as a viable heavy-duty workstation for any but the most affluent customers - which are a limited amount of bulk buying companies .
 
The question has been asked many times, I know, but who are the not everybody Apple is aiming the MP7.1 at?

I believe it is for operations (businesses) that are represented by the Pro Workflow Teams groups at Apple. Same with the MacBook Pro (16) and Mac Mini. As these folks are probably the "10 percenters" (the top-end of the pyramid of "pro" users), what they need should offer enough performance for the rest, who likely don't need the maximum configurable specification. The caveat to that is to be able to support very high performance, the base costs rise (at least for Mac Pro and Mac Mini - they held the line on the MBP).
 
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I think the moment game console comparisons appear this thread has really gone off the rails!

Yeah, the whole observation that the base 7,1 will have roughly the same computing horsepower as a next gen console went right over everyone's head.
 
As I said, Apple uses custom blades and hasn’t ever sold them. If you can get them second hand, it should work, but who is going to sell them second hand if nobody can buy upgrades from Apple after the sale? Really only folks parting out dead machines years from now.

But at the same time, you aren’t going to be locked into the Apple SSD to boot. Buy either an adapter card or RAID card for M.2 PCIe SSDs and load that up instead. With something like this you can get faster speeds than what the Apple SSDs are even capable of via RAID0:


I found the information you referenced:
Sonnet’s M.2 4x4 PCIe card enables you to mount four M.2 NVMe PCIe SSDs(1) onto a single x16 card slot—it can transform the way you work.
Thanks so much for explaining it.
Even with two VEGA II Duo Cards, there is still an x16 PCIe available for a card like this.
 
Which one will perform better? Xeon 8 cores mac pro or i9 imac 2019? I need to edit video in FCPX in 4k smoothly. I guess basic CPU and 580X will be enough. My idea is to gradually improve the gpu with a 5700xt for example. Because apple options are very expensive and I don't think I need that much today. I need to capture gameplays from consoles in 4k, but I'm afraid that in Mac Os X there are no capturers. Therefore, you may need to use Windows. Can I use Avermedia 4k grabber on the new Mac Pro in Windows 10? I love editing in FCXP and I resist buying an iMac where I will not be able to expand the graph (only through egpu) or the CPU. I have an iMac 2013 top of the range and I don't want to move on to Windows and its problems. Also, having to adapt to a new video editor.

Thank you all for your information
 
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Which one will perform better? Xeon 8 cores mac pro or i9 imac 2019?
This is the big question I'd like to know the answer to. My guess would be the i9 iMac 2019.

Xeon 8 core turbo boosts to 4GHz. i9 Mac turbo boosts to 5Ghz.

People say the iMac thermally throttles so that boost may not be sustained for a long time when say rendering. Real world benchmarks when the Mac Pro is out will be very interesting.

Personally I'm wondering if a 12C turbo boosting to 4.5Ghz will beat a i9 Mac boosting to 5Ghz on single core workloads.


As is often the answer, best buy is probably the i9 iMac.
 
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Which one will perform better? Xeon 8 cores mac pro or i9 imac 2019? I need to edit video in FCPX in 4k smoothly. I guess basic CPU and 580X will be enough. My idea is to gradually improve the gpu with a 5700xt for example. Because apple options are very expensive and I don't think I need that much today. I need to capture gameplays from consoles in 4k, but I'm afraid that in Mac Os X there are no capturers.

As long as not getting into exoticly high 4K frame rates (and flexible on capture format ) there are options. A couple found real quick by looking at some historical video capture vendors that have had Mac products before.

https://www.elgato.com/en/gaming/game-capture-hd60-s-plus

https://www.atomos.com/shogun-inferno / https://www.atomos.com/ninja-inferno

https://www.blackmagicdesign.com/products/decklink/techspecs/W-DLK-36

(the latter being more "studio" capture oriented rather than lowest latency passthrough capture. The middle having a time limit based on capture drive size. )

The CPU probably isn't a the majority "gating element" with most of FCPX. Where FCPX can get mileage out of leveraging the GPU , it typically does so at this point. if there was some part of the end of your flow that was skewed toward Intel's Quicksync encoder then the iMac might have some leverage, but for most part the entry MPX 580X will probably be in the same ballpark at the iMac highest end options and run cooler over long term sessions.

If you don't already have a quality 4K (or more) monitor then the iMac is certainly more affordable. Both would probably do the job limited to this narrow workflow. the Mac Pro isn't going to do a $3K better job at something this straightforward. If that is 98+ % of the workflow for the foreseeable future I don't see the match.




Therefore, you may need to use Windows. Can I use Avermedia 4k grabber on the new Mac Pro in Windows 10?

RGB lighting as a card feature. I doubt that will come to macOS, but their may be a few more options over time ( Elagto has a card which they may expand OS support on. )
 
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Which one will perform better? Xeon 8 cores mac pro or i9 imac 2019? I need to edit video in FCPX in 4k smoothly. I guess basic CPU and 580X will be enough. My idea is to gradually improve the gpu with a 5700xt for example. Because apple options are very expensive and I don't think I need that much today. I need to capture gameplays from consoles in 4k, but I'm afraid that in Mac Os X there are no capturers. Therefore, you may need to use Windows. Can I use Avermedia 4k grabber on the new Mac Pro in Windows 10? I love editing in FCXP and I resist buying an iMac where I will not be able to expand the graph (only through egpu) or the CPU. I have an iMac 2013 top of the range and I don't want to move on to Windows and its problems. Also, having to adapt to a new video editor.

Thank you all for your information

You don't need much grunt power at all to capture video game plays, I'd personally opt to build a small PC rig fit for the purpose and use the Elgato capture card linked to above
 
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There is another new trend apple barely embracing with afterburner aic: fpga accelerators, while there are an independent Opensource toolchain for fpga in macOS it is intended to hobbyist, there should be an entire division of apple working to offer Xcode fpga toolchain development support, either supporting Intel Altera SyCL or Xilinx Virus, etc

Why in the world would they do that? You have described the smallest most niche group possible - hobbyist fpga developers.
 
You don't need much grunt power at all to capture video game plays, I'd personally opt to build a small PC rig fit for the purpose and use the Elgato capture card linked to above
Based upon what I've read on a lot of Mac Rumor Threads, it seems many people who talk about purchasing the Mac Pro 7.1 will be buying much more computing power than they actually need for their workflows or personal needs.
 
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It's interesting human psychology that people will spend a lot of money on things they want but really don't need. Somebody told me that it's the spice of life. I think it must be true.
Life would be pretty boring if one only purchased what they need. I'm of the mindset buy whatever you want for whatever reason you want as long as you do so within your means.
 
Why in the world would they do that? You have described the smallest most niche group possible - hobbyist fpga developers.
In Mac ecosystem it's niche, go to Wallstreet and ask for high frequency trading and the hardware they're using right now, the own afterburner card it's a clear flag on this new trend, new super computers are being designed around a complex that includes a scalar CPU, a massive parallel compute unit (GPGPU) and a reconfigurable low latency general purpose logic unit (name it a fpga) and maybe non volatile RAM just to depart from Von Neumann, I don't know if you do realize what it means.
 
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