MP 7,1 Worth to get a 16-Core Mac Pro for audio production over an i9?

[Meads]

I'm a freelance audio engineer working in post and I've changed from the old Mac Pro to using hackintoshes many years back.
Right now I use an i9 9900KF and so far I'm happy with the machine. I however would feel better to run a genuine Mac as my whole business is centered around my rig and while hackintoshing has always been very stable for me, I have to admit I never "felt" as "secure" as I did back in the day with the old 5,1.

So I'm contemplating now if getting a 16-core Mac Pro would make sense. The expense is not an issue but I do not want to downgrade my rig when I invest that chunk of money. And that's where I'm uncertain.
Geekbench scores show that single core performance is substantially higher on the i9, while multicore goes to the 16 core, obviously.

Are there any audio guys here (running Pro Tools would be great) who I can bounce some questions off of?

 

[codehead1]

I have mine on order (24th-1st delivery), I went with the 16-core. Audio projects benefit from cores, and although I can't give you any experience on it yet, clearly the best incremental bang-for-buck is the 12-core (+50% cores for $1k), but the 16-core is probably the sweet spot for high-end audio uses while leaving margin. Beyond that, the price goes ballistic and its doubtful the additional cores are necessary.

So I'm not adding much here, just give a vote of confidence. While the 12-core is also a good choice, when it comes down to it, a 33% increase in cores to the 16 for $1k is very reasonable. Not something you're going to kick yorself over even if you find that 12 would have been fine—and you have room to grow.

 

[Meads]

Thanks for chiming in.
The 12-core is out of the question for me. While I agree with your reasoning, I just want to make a future proof purchase. Suffer one hard blow and be good for the next couple years without the need to tinker and swap out CPUs.

Basically what's keeping me from pulling the trigger is the fact of losing single core performance. And I'm just not sure how much the number of cores will make up for that in my day to day.

 

[xraydoc]

Thanks for chiming in.
The 12-core is out of the question for me. While I agree with your reasoning, I just want to make a future proof purchase. Suffer one hard blow and be good for the next couple years without the need to tinker and swap out CPUs.

Basically what's keeping me from pulling the trigger is the fact of losing single core performance. And I'm just not sure how much the number of cores will make up for that in my day to day.

Open Activity Monitor while you're running your most-used apps and look at the processor core/thread activity bars. If you see them all highly active during your main workflow, then multiple processor cores will benefit you more than single core speed. If only a few bounce around at a time while most sit more or less idle, then single core performance is what you're after, and you can look at a lower core count in exchange for higher clock speeds.

 

[Meads]

Thanks for the info, I am aware of that, though.
The thing is, that for DAW use both single core performance and number of cores are important, depending on the specific tasks within a project.
So I'm afraid the only way to answer the question for my use case would be to run a project on both systems and compare activity meters and bounce times. ?

 

[Ph.D.]

The i9 iMac will be about 10% faster in single core, but 77% slower in multi-core than a 16 core Pro (according to geekbench).

You won't notice a 10% difference in single core performance. With the Pro, you definitley will notice the 77% increase in speed in long multi-core jobs - and the lower noise levels. With a faster graphics card (e.g. the W5700X), you might very well find the "single core" (low load) performance to be snappier anyway, and especially better able to cope with multiple monitor setups, too.

 

[Meads]

The i9 iMac will be about 10% faster in single core, but 77% slower in multi-core than a 16 core Pro (according to geekbench).

You won't notice a 10% difference in single core performance. With the Pro, you definitley will notice the 77% increase in speed in long multi-core jobs - and the lower noise levels. With a faster graphics card (e.g. the W5700X), you might very well find the "single core" (low load) performance to be snappier anyway, and especially better able to cope with multiple monitor setups, too.

My i9 is overclocked. Geekbench scores are 1342 / 9931 vs 1114 / 14498. So the balance is 17% faster in sc and 45% slower in mc.
Still your statement is food for thought, thank you.

 

[Ph.D.]

Nothing Apple makes will ever be overclocked, so it's not really fair to use your machine as a benchmark if it's time for you to go legit. Still, I'd claim that even 17% would be difficult to notice in day to day use unless one is desperate to find any minor difference, or of course when running an explicit benchmark.

 

[Meads]

Well, it might not be fair, but it IS my benchmark. The Mac Pro would be replacing this very machine, so it has to beat it, or otherwise the expense wouldn't make too much sense.
But I agree, 17% is not necessarily that much of a difference, whereas almost 50% surely is. I hadn't considered those numbers, so thanks for the input.

 

[Ph.D.]

Well then, if you will wind up obsessing about the difference in a single metric (meant as a friendly observation - I can totally relate!), maybe you should wait a few years and see what comes down the road.
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By the way, I also run a 9900k, with a set-and-forget 5GHz all-core overclock (in my linux box). I also kind of cringe at the drop in clock speeds that would be inevitable in the 'Pro. But at least it can be bought with lots more cores.

I was waiting for the wheels, then I was waiting for the W5700X, and now I'm waiting for ... uh, Apple, help me out here, there's got to be something "coming soon" (in 6+ months)!

 

[codehead1]

Thanks for chiming in.
The 12-core is out of the question for me. While I agree with your reasoning, I just want to make a future proof purchase. Suffer one hard blow and be good for the next couple years without the need to tinker and swap out CPUs.

Basically what's keeping me from pulling the trigger is the fact of losing single core performance. And I'm just not sure how much the number of cores will make up for that in my day to day.

OK, in case you missed it, I got the 16-core for the same reasons as you are contemplating. Just saying for those that really need to minimize cost, the move from 8 to 12 for $1k is more significant than the move from 12 to 16 for another $1k.

But to the single-core issue that several mention here, cpu-hungry audio plugins really benefit from multiple cores. For audio, this is going to trump single-core performance. That is, if you're doing something that is really pushing the cpu in any manner with a large audio project, I suspect a multicore system is going to beat faster single-core performance every time. And if you're not pushing it, then it's not an issue either way.

Full disclosure: While I do overwhelm my ancient SSD-enhanced 2009 Mac Pro 8-core way too easily (I have at least one plugin that by itself is too power hungry to run reliably in real time), I probably will be hitting the new Mac pretty lightly (guessing)—I don't do giant sessions, I just record me (plenty of virtual instruments and plugins). On the flip side, I'm a plugin developer, and I'd go for more cores and ignore any minor slowing of the individual cores, no contest. This may have not been true in the past, where a single UI thread could tax the cpu pretty heavily. I'm making assumptions, but I'd be surprised if geving up some single-core performance for more cores, to a point, isn't the right way to go. But check the forums on some of the audio gear websites for people with experience.

Honestly, I'm still stressing about the display options. Oh yeah, I did wait for the W5700X.

 

[darthaddie]

I strongly feel that besides the cores, the additional computational headroom in Xeons, favor far more efficient workflows.

You cannot go wrong in the long run. My Mac Pro has been, as many have said, "Effortless"

 

[profdraper]

I'm a freelance audio engineer working in post and I've changed from the old Mac Pro to using hackintoshes many years back.
Right now I use an i9 9900KF and so far I'm happy with the machine. I however would feel better to run a genuine Mac as my whole business is centered around my rig and while hackintoshing has always been very stable for me, I have to admit I never "felt" as "secure" as I did back in the day with the old 5,1.

So I'm contemplating now if getting a 16-core Mac Pro would make sense. The expense is not an issue but I do not want to downgrade my rig when I invest that chunk of money. And that's where I'm uncertain.
Geekbench scores show that single core performance is substantially higher on the i9, while multicore goes to the 16 core, obviously.

Are there any audio guys here (running Pro Tools would be great) who I can bounce some questions off of?

I run a couple of workstations: a dual 12core Xeon Dell T7910 & a 16 core Xeon-W Mac Pro. Obviously the mac is vastly overpriced etc but the main snag for me is the mandatory Calalina, a real dog and has been so much more trouble than Windows 10 for Workstations on the Dell. Both run Pro Tools Ultimate 2020.3 (as well as DaVinci Resolve, Nuendo, many VIs & plugs etc). The AMD GPUs are also a waste of money on the mac & the RTX 2080Ti in the Dell outperforms the Vega II by far (but that's about film-making, not pro audio).

Having said all of that & back to your original question: the current version of ProTools on MacOS is by far superior to that running on Windows. And really, that's about all that I can say is better on the mac pro for now. I tend to agree about staying away from hackintoshes, PITA & worst of both worlds. Confirmed then: ProTools with a 16 core mac pro has been excellent (overheads, buffer sizes, latency, CPU usage and the rest). Its also damn quite.