MP 7,1 Would you buy a 2019 Mac Pro now?

[Roopster]

I need to buy a new Mac for my music studio. I’ve been on a 2016 MacBook Pro since that was released.

I bought a 16 core Mac Pro from the refurbished store before they announced the new MacBook Pro’s. It has a 1TB drive and I picked some used 8gb RAM sticks on eBay from people upgrading theirs to have 96gb memory. Was going to buy two additional SSD’s to install, one for samples & one for as the audio file disk.

Then the new laptops came out and I feel I’ve bought a (very capable, but expensive) horse & cart just as a cheaper motor car has become available!

I can still return the Mac Pro. Apart from the fan issue, the maximum RAM in the laptops was a concern (I use a lot of heavy Kontakt sample libraries). Does anyone have any experience of the unified memory and how that might work with sample libraries?

And of course some third party plug ins are still not native on the M1 chip. But I assume in a years time, everything will be and how long will software manufacturers support the older Intel chips?

I never do video work, no gaming, it’s only audio with Logic as my main DAW (occasionally Ableton). I can get the top of the line MacBook Pro with an 8TB drive for £1500 less than the Mac Pro (with the additional internal drives and RAM).

Would appreciate people’s thoughts, especially from any Logic Pro / audio users.

 

[ondioline]

I can still return the Mac Pro.

Only because you still can, you probably should. Making the decision today I'd unquestionably go with the M1 Max MBP. In fact I have one on the way!

Just things like the PCIE v4 NVME and DDR5 sell it for me. The 8TB SSD on the MBP will have 2X+ the R/W speed. It's a total upgrade in everything except memory capacity, GPU, and multi-core.

 

[Roopster]

Only because you still can, you probably should. Making the decision today I'd unquestionably go with the M1 Max MBP. In fact I have one on the way!

Just things like the PCIE v4 NVME and DDR5 sell it for me. The 8TB SSD on the MBP will have 2X+ the R/W speed. It's a total upgrade in everything except memory capacity, GPU, and multi-core.

Thanks for the reply. I think you’re right. For my needs, the GPU isn’t important.

I think the multi core speed of the 16 core Mac Pro vs the M1 max may be similar (although in a real world situation I think the Mac Pro would be better - but again for my needs I don’t think that would be a limiting factor).

I wouldn’t use more than one or two pcie slots, and only to add drives - which I wouldn’t need to do if I get an 8TB ssd in the MBP.

Which only leaves memory and potential fan noise as issues.

 

[Camarillo Brillo]

Since you're doing audio only, keep in mind the M1 Pro and M1 Max both have 10 cpu cores. There is no reason to go with the Max for audio, it will only run hotter and consume more power. Unless you absolutely need 64gb ram, that is.

 

[DFP1989]

I sold my 2019 Mac Pro on eBay a couple of weeks before the new MBPs were released, and I thrilled that I did. I got about 15% less than what I paid for it new over a year ago, and picked up a loaded 16-inch MacBook Pro (specs in sig).

It's immediately proved itself to be immensely capable in my FCP workflow filled with 6K Canon Cinema Raw Light and 10-bit HEVC 422 footage, and is unbelievably superior with the latter. I have it connected to my Thunderbolt 3 ASUS PA32UC that powers the computer, and connects storage and a USB Gigabit ethernet adaptor all with one cable.

 

[deconstruct60]

I need to buy a new Mac for my music studio. I’ve been on a 2016 MacBook Pro since that was released.

I bought a 16 core Mac Pro from the refurbished store before they announced the new MacBook Pro’s. It has a 1TB drive and I picked some used 8gb RAM sticks on eBay from people upgrading theirs to have 96gb memory. Was going to buy two additional SSD’s to install, one for samples & one for as the audio file disk.

Internal storage and 50% more memory than top configuration M1 Max.

I can still return the Mac Pro. Apart from the fan issue, the maximum RAM in the laptops was a concern (I use a lot of heavy Kontakt sample libraries). Does anyone have any experience of the unified memory and how that might work with sample libraries?

RAM is RAM. "Unified" isn't going to make much of a difference if you've loaded in 65GB of data. Once spill out of physical RAM onto the disk ( swap ) , you will take a performance hit. Unified Memory has much deeper traction with graphics. ( e.g., remove duplicate loading and copying of textures, communication buffers , data structures, etc. If remove duplicates then can have more room for other application data. ).

Apple has some compression techniques but that probably work as well with already compressed data ( encoded audio ).

If basically trying to create substantively large virtual RAM SSD (i.e., load large bulk data into RAM and use from there ) then a real issue is just how large of a RAM SSD you need. Open Activity monitor and see what the RAM utilization rates are on large jobs. If hovering above the 60GB level, then there is a trade-off issue in favor of the Mac Pro . Under 50GB range and the M1 Max has more traction as an option.

And of course some third party plug ins are still not native on the M1 chip. But I assume in a years time, everything will be and how long will software manufacturers support the older Intel chips?

Actually probably the other way around for small , cash strapped plug-in vendors. If the last update for the plug-in was 3-5 years ago, there is a decent chance it is in 'cash cow' mode and stuck. The harder cases will be the ones that adopted some AVX2 into their code and then stopped. There probably are not many of those but that would an problem. Rosetta2 works fine and will continue to work. So some tools that have no development budget are just going to point at Rosetta2 mode until Apple says Rosetta2 is "dead" (which won't be for a substantively long time. Probably runs after they stop x86_64 macOS builds. )

I never do video work, no gaming, it’s only audio with Logic as my main DAW (occasionally Ableton).

Ever consider a hardware DAW card to augment your toolkit. That would be a bigger gap between laptops and Mac Pro; actually using the PCI-s slot bays for something other than GPUs. If almost all software DAW then MBP has far more traction. If "remote control" the external hardware and just capturing audio at end then again there is more even synergy offered by both MP and MBP. ( the external could be a single (small cluster) DSP connected via Thunderbolt ).

Doesn't seem to match your current use case, but there is bigger gap when want Mac to control a relatively large number of DSPs. At some point Thunderbolt gets awkward (and/or expensive). Mac Pro leaves a bigger door open to go that way in the future. But more than a few folks never get on that kind of DAW path.


If Apple stuck a. M1 Max into the current Mini chassis, then that would probably be a better match if don't need the mobile aspects of the MBP at all. ( not an option right now, but plausible ).

I can get the top of the line MacBook Pro with an 8TB drive for £1500 less than the Mac Pro (with the additional internal drives and RAM).

Trying to run a whole DAW setup on one drive may not be a good thing. If going to load a huge sample library up into a RAM SSD anyway then paying Apple's inflated prices for SSD capacity for only at rest persistent storage doesn't make much sense. Apple is going to inflict a high Apple tax from the RAM for your "RAM SSD" and then turn around and pay them even more for the 'at rest' storage capacity.

The Mac Pro can go way past 8TB internal storage. There is an extra cost to get on that capacity option (and start to use up more of the PCI-e slots to do it with sacrificing bandwidth/speed). Same with the RAM. It is extra for the much larger capacity.


So I'd stay it is more so what you are coupling to Logic ( now and longer term plans ) that is the bigger differentiator . Apple's software , in and of itself, isn't going to really push it one way or the other.


P.S. that you survived many years previously with a MBP 2016 is indicative that your MP PCI-e slots would go mainly unused. There is just much lower value-add the MP 2019 provides if don't fill up more than just the default GPU and default I/O card. So a legacy MBP upgrade path is more firmly matched to the new MBP. Folks with large sunk costs into. PCI-e cards and 2.5"-3.5" drive $/capacity needs will make a different call.

 

[Hottogo66]

First things first don't worry about having the latest and newest machine it will never be the minute you purchase something it's out of date. I used my 5.1 until the day AVX became an issue, there's some things about the M1 that will never at this point work for me in a music studio let's start with the simple fact that I have a Sonic card loaded with 16 terabytes music samples let's also look at the fact of 192 gigs of RAM that's sometimes get used up to the point of 85 to 90 gigs when loading virtual instruments with opus and some large projects I do. There's no doubt the silicon SOC chips the future for Apple. I've been doing this business for quite a few years ran multiple computers as slaves and Masters I could tell you right now my 2019 16 core can I perform any of the four systems I had in the past included windows set ups, and considering the fact that most people don't understand that most high and music programs don't even want you to go past Catalina for full support you could probably buy one and get at least six more good years out of it I plan to turn mine into a music stem machine when the new M1 Mac Pro's get launched and of course I'll buy one and that will be obsolete too within months of purchase. All I'm trying to tell you buy what you need don't wait for something better A lot of people have been getting by on 4.1 and 5.1 Mac Pros in LA where I travel all the time and do work you don't even need a 7.1 but it is nice to have 400 tracks running on one machine to see omnisphere with kontakt 6 and spitfire audio running on the same machine with no dropouts is a dream come true take care

 

[fastlanephil]

I can still return the Mac Pro. Apart from the fan issue, the maximum RAM in the laptops was a concern (I use a lot of heavy Kontakt sample libraries). Does anyone have any experience of the unified memory and how that might work with sample libraries?you‘re

If you’re creating music using a lot of Kontakt libraries you might run into issues with some of them. The last I heard, your Kontakt libraries will load into Native Access but NI won’t guarantee their functionality.

https://support.native-instruments.com/hc/en-us/articles/360014683497-Apple-Silicon-M1-Compatibility-News