Okay, I updated to the new web driver and ran Unigine Heaven on my Core i7-4790K and GTX 1080. While most of the scenes were GPU limited according to OpenGL Driver Monitor, there were plenty of sections where the GPU utilization dropped down to 80% or less. Given that my score is nearly 50% faster than most of the others posted here, I think it's fair to say that Unigine Heaven is quite CPU limited in a cMP when a GPU as fast as the 1080 is used.
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Webdriver for GTX 1080&1070
- Thread starter chenfromchina
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The GTX 1080 in BootCamp on a cMP is barely CPU limited when running these benchmarks or gaming at 1600p which would put the blame squarely on the Mac drivers and/or macOS.
We are talking about 1600x900, not 2560x1600. It is well known that Apple's OpenGL framework is not efficient, but this is solely on Apple's side of things (i.e. it has nothing to do with the hardware driver). My comments here are specific to Unigine Heaven under macOS.
Okay, this is more like it -- MacVidCards tested Pascal at 5K resolution with Unigine Valley:
http://www.macvidcards.com/blog/5k-valley-testing
GTX 980 Ti = 11.6
GTX TITAN X (Maxwell) = 10.4
GTX 1080 = 14.8
TITAN X (Pascal) = 19.3
So, with a real workload, you can see the Pascal cards do significantly better than the previous-generation Maxwell cards.
http://www.macvidcards.com/blog/5k-valley-testing
GTX 980 Ti = 11.6
GTX TITAN X (Maxwell) = 10.4
GTX 1080 = 14.8
TITAN X (Pascal) = 19.3
So, with a real workload, you can see the Pascal cards do significantly better than the previous-generation Maxwell cards.
^^^^Yes, the latest 378 web driver will work just fine, but only in 10.12.4, build (16E195).
Lou
Lou
Thanks guys for clearing this up
I also saw the MVC benchmarks, that's very informative.
To sum it all up.
So the real cpu bottleneck is only in OpenGL on the MacOs side because of the poor Apples OpenGL implementation.
Under the windows in OpenGL the cpu of cMP is barely bottlenecked so it should be like this in games too.
That's all I need to know, thanks!
Great cards for pro use and for gaming, still on old & rusty cMP.
Happy waiting for my 1080ti from MVC then
PS. Anybody want to buy 2x680 4gb ?
While OpenGL might be better on Windows, it still sucks when compared to DirectX and would probably be bottlenecked by CPU in low resolutions in Windows too.
When comparing Heaven and/or Valley benchmarks between Mac and Windows, you have to look to see if the Windows benchmarks were done with OpenGL or DirectX.
Metal is supposed to bring DirectX-like levels of performance. Software companies just need to take advantage of it.
It's not the "Apple OpenGL implementation". I't's just the "OpenGL implementation".
Which might be problematic - given it would be a pretty reasonable assumption that a lot of developers who have a large exposure to OpenGL, and associated slowdowns on macOS, are probably cross platform developers, who are using OpenGL on Windows, Linux & Mac. Metal probably won't help their users - so hopefully part of this push back into servicing Pro users will include tuning up OpenGL.
In my opinion, we won't see much if any "tuning" of OpenGL on macOS anymore. As far as I know, macOS is still on OpenGL version 4.1 (which was released in 2010) while the most current is 4.5. Even 4.5 was released back in 2014. Seems like a dead end to me...
Apple wants everyone to use Metal and for good reason. It's far superior in every way.
Summary of Geekbench 4 Metal benchmarks here in the forum:
- GTX Titan X (Maxwell): 55507
- GTX 1070: 60994
- GTX 1080: 62502
- GTX 1080 Ti: 69161
- GTX Titan Xp: 69436
Metal: GTX 1080 Ti/Titan Xp ~25% faster than GTX 980 Ti/GTX Titan X.
GPGPU computing: GTX 1080 Ti/Titan Xp ~17-25% faster than GTX 980 Ti/GTX Titan X, depending on application.
- GTX Titan X (Maxwell): 55507
- GTX 1070: 60994
- GTX 1080: 62502
- GTX 1080 Ti: 69161
- GTX Titan Xp: 69436
Metal: GTX 1080 Ti/Titan Xp ~25% faster than GTX 980 Ti/GTX Titan X.
GPGPU computing: GTX 1080 Ti/Titan Xp ~17-25% faster than GTX 980 Ti/GTX Titan X, depending on application.
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...but probably a non-starter, unless it's on multiple platforms.
yes... the pro app market for apps that need strong 3d support probably isn't big enough for a mac-based single platform vendor, so they're going to be using cross platform deployment. Hell, half the time you're lucky to even get a native UI, more likely it's some uncanny valley mac-like thing based on Qt, because it's cross platform.
Yes, a byproduct of cross platform development... Marginalized user experience. Which is why Apple wants everyone to use Metal.
What Apple wants people to use is irrelevant. The entire nMP debacle more or less boils down to "the Pro world doesn't give a flying toss what Apple wants them to do". The Pro app userbase is self-limiting, and unless Apple is about to produce a product that is SO compelling that 100% of Linux and Windows users are going to jump ship, single-platform technologies from Apple simply isn't going to be an option.
Are we talking about OpenGL or the MacPro6,1? MacPro6,1 discussion is an entirely different topic.
If you are hoping that OpenGL will be improved on macOS, you may end up waiting forever. Metal is what will be updated and maintained. If a developer cares about giving users the best experience, he/she will use it. If they don't care and are lazy, they will continue to use cross-platform technologies.
If you don't like these facts, then maybe Linux or Windows is more suited to your desires.
To walk in to Apple's ecosystem and not expect proprietary products and technologies is as foolish as using Google services and not expect to be data mined.
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It's got nothing to do with 3rd party developers being lazy or not caring, it's simply a matter of economics - In a lot of cases, Apple can not bring enough users to the table to cover the costs of maintaining an entire Metal version of apps that are currently using OpenGL. For most of these apps, if they leave the Mac, so do their users, and with them goes the viability of the Mac as a solution for doing the task that app did, because noon'e going to come in and make equivalents based on Apple's technologies.
That remains to be seen.
The economics has always favored Windows and probably always will. There's nothing new here. This situation was even stronger back in the days of the PowerPC Macs and before that, yet Macs were still sold and apps were still developed.
In theory, now that engines like UE4 and Unity have a Metal back-end, any game that uses such an engine could have a Mac version with minimal effort. It hasn't really played out like that yet of course, but we'll see what happens over the next few years. Personally, I'm not holding my breath.
Attempted to install Hackintosh on my overclocked Skylake with GTX 1070. A bare bones install with Clover detects everything in the PC. However the Nvidia web driver doesn't stick when I reboot. Always reverts to software driver. There are kexts and settings to get around it but I'm not wasting my time. Looking at the results on forums the same issues that plagued Maxwell are still present:
- macOS OpenGL still holds the Pascal card back.
- Metal isn't mainstream yet
- Even on the same computer running the same apps and OpenGL/CL/CUDA benchmarks, the Pascals are signicantly faster in Windows compared to macOS
- Some OpenCL bugs and Metal glitches still present
- iBooks not showing book content
- Driver will probably remain in beta forever and never made official. Same old Maxwell story repeating itself.
Would be a good eGPU for laptops though but I can't help feel the 980Ti represents better value for money if it is generally outperforming the 1080 on macOS according to the Barefeats results. Despite over 800Mhz difference!
- macOS OpenGL still holds the Pascal card back.
- Metal isn't mainstream yet
- Even on the same computer running the same apps and OpenGL/CL/CUDA benchmarks, the Pascals are signicantly faster in Windows compared to macOS
- Some OpenCL bugs and Metal glitches still present
- iBooks not showing book content
- Driver will probably remain in beta forever and never made official. Same old Maxwell story repeating itself.
Would be a good eGPU for laptops though but I can't help feel the 980Ti represents better value for money if it is generally outperforming the 1080 on macOS according to the Barefeats results. Despite over 800Mhz difference!
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