UrbaneLegend

About

Banned
Username
UrbaneLegend
Joined
Visits
6
Last Active
Roles
member
Points
182
Badges
0
Posts
48
  • Apple's Mac Studio launches with new M1 Ultra chip in a compact package

    Depending on your productions needs the Mac Studio is either a bargain of a lifetime or not a particularly great deal. For video and 2d creative work I think you'd need your head seen to if you didn't but a Mac Studio either version will run rings around most PC boxes running Resolve. I can see many post production studios coming back to the Mac and the lower end Studio being the hot seller, I predict this model will fly off the shelves.

    Unfortunately for 3D artists like myself the GPUs are just too weak for rendering and there's no hardware raytracing and what's more disappointing Apple's own software acceleration structure isn't particularly great. There's still issues with the size of the kernel Metal is able to work with so it looks like it's going to be behind Optix/HIP in performance and features for a while.

    Towards the end of the year both nVidia and AMD will be dropping their next gen GPUs which are predicted to be of the order 2x (maybe even more) the performance of their current GPUs and that probably puts daylight between an M1 Mac Pro let alone the Studio. Leaks coming from the nVidia hack show that the GPUs will have double the VRAM so 48GB renders the unified memory advantage of the M1 moot. No one is going to try and render a 64GB 3d scene on a GPU as weak as the Studio's.

    For me as predominantly a 3D artist I can't see beyond a PC workstation but I will probably pick up a low end Studio for video and compositing to replace my iMac. I might wait until M2 to do that though.
    williamlondoncgWerkswatto_cobraargonaut
  • Apple's $5,999 modular Mac Pro now available to order

    It took Apple six years but they pulled it off, they built a Mac Pro that'll sell even less well than the Trashcan.
    williamlondondysamoria
  • Apple's new Mac Pro is being manufactured in China

    dewme said:

    Agreed. Anyone who actually needs a Mac Pro as a business enabler and not simply because they lust after cool tech gadgets, is not complaining about the price. Businesses purchase tools and machinery to sustain their business and they pay for these as a cost of doing business. 
    I take it you aren't exactly in business with a comment like that?

    To suggest business customers aren't as price sensitive or don't want the best value for money they can get shows a complete lack of understanding of how business works. We are in competition if I spend 2-3 times more on a computer that does exactly the same as a much cheaper computer what does that do to either my profits or the rate I have to charge my customer?

    Businesses want to keep their overheads as low as possible, I'd be happy to spend 2-3x more on a computer if it gave me some competitive advantage or it did a task 2-3x better but the Mac Pro is just a workstation that runs MacOS instead of Windows or Linux. There is no advantage for me in MacOS and if there was it wouldn't be worth spending 2-3x more on it. The reality is that PC Workstations are vastly cheaper, much easier to customise to best fit your business demands (e.g Intel or AMD CPUs and nVidia or AMD GPUs) and come with better warranties.

    As others have noted the Warranty and service agreements that other Workstation vendors offer, Apple's lug it back to an Apple store for servicing when we get round to it is so far from the expectations of business customers it isn't funny.

    I don't see what the Mac Pro brings to the table, it can't now even bring manufacturing jobs back to the US because the overt SJW CEO would rather off-shore US jobs to China. Where's the social justice in that decision?
    gatorguyKITAchemengin1
  • High-end users on 'Why I'm buying the new Mac Pro'

    From the List it looks like the 24 core and 28 Mac Pros will use the M variant CPU to give them the 1.5 TB Mem support. M as in MASSIVE dent in your wallet.

    24 core = $4.5k
    28 core = $7.45k

    I don't know if they're even end user prices, they won't be Apple prices.

    The 8 core - 16 core Mac Pro would be handed its arse by a 16 Core Ryzen ($749) let alone a 32 core Threadripper based workstation for creative tasks.

    Again, who the heck is going to buy this? I'm still waiting to hear from someone who is going to spend their own money on this new Mac Pro.

    https://en.wikichip.org/wiki/intel/xeon_w


    W-32233 June 2019$ 749.00€ 674.10
    £ 606.69
    ¥ 77,394.17
    816160 W8 MiB8,192 KiB
    8,388,608 B
    0.00781 GiB
    16.5 MiB16,896 KiB
    17,301,504 B
    0.0161 GiB
    3.5 GHz3,500 MHz
    3,500,000 kHz
    4 GHz4,000 MHz
    4,000,000 kHz
    4.2 GHz4,200 MHz
    4,200,000 kHz
    W-32253 June 2019$ 1,199.00€ 1,079.10
    £ 971.19
    ¥ 123,892.67
    816160 W160,000 mW
    0.215 hp
    0.16 kW
    8 MiB8,192 KiB
    8,388,608 B
    0.00781 GiB
    16.5 MiB16,896 KiB
    17,301,504 B
    0.0161 GiB
    3.7 GHz3,700 MHz
    3,700,000 kHz
    4.3 GHz4,300 MHz
    4,300,000 kHz
    4.4 GHz4,400 MHz
    4,400,000 kHz
    W-32353 June 2019$ 1,398.00€ 1,258.20
    £ 1,132.38
    ¥ 144,455.34
    1224180 W180,000 mW
    0.241 hp
    0.18 kW
    12 MiB12,288 KiB
    12,582,912 B
    0.0117 GiB
    19.25 MiB19,712 KiB
    20,185,088 B
    0.0188 GiB
    3.3 GHz3,300 MHz
    3,300,000 kHz
    4.4 GHz4,400 MHz
    4,400,000 kHz
    4.5 GHz4,500 MHz
    4,500,000 kHz
    W-32453 June 2019$ 1,999.001632205 W205,000 mW
    0.275 hp
    0.205 kW
    16 MiB16,384 KiB
    16,777,216 B
    0.0156 GiB
    22 MiB22,528 KiB
    23,068,672 B
    0.0215 GiB
    3.2 GHz3,200 MHz
    3,200,000 kHz
    4.4 GHz4,400 MHz
    4,400,000 kHz
    4.6 GHz4,600 MHz
    4,600,000 kHz
    W-3245M3 June 2019$ 5,002.00€ 4,501.80
    £ 4,051.62
    ¥ 516,856.66
    1632205 W205,000 mW
    0.275 hp
    0.205 kW
    16 MiB22 MiB22,528 KiB
    23,068,672 B
    0.0215 GiB
    3.2 GHz3,200 MHz
    3,200,000 kHz
    4.4 GHz4,400 MHz
    4,400,000 kHz
    4.6 GHz4,600 MHz
    4,600,000 kHz
    W-32653 June 2019$ 3,349.002448205 W205,000 mW
    0.275 hp
    0.205 kW
    24 MiB24,576 KiB
    25,165,824 B
    0.0234 GiB
    33 MiB33,792 KiB
    34,603,008 B
    0.0322 GiB
    2.7 GHz2,700 MHz
    2,700,000 kHz
    4.4 GHz4,400 MHz
    4,400,000 kHz
    4.6 GHz4,600 MHz
    4,600,000 kHz
    W-3265M3 June 2019$ 6,353.00€ 5,717.70
    £ 5,145.93
    ¥ 656,455.49
    2448205 W205,000 mW
    0.275 hp
    0.205 kW
    24 MiB24,576 KiB
    25,165,824 B
    0.0234 GiB
    33 MiB33,792 KiB
    34,603,008 B
    0.0322 GiB
    2.7 GHz2,700 MHz
    2,700,000 kHz
    4.4 GHz4,400 MHz
    4,400,000 kHz
    4.6 GHz4,600 MHz
    4,600,000 kHz
    W-32753 June 2019$ 4,449.00€ 4,004.10
    £ 3,603.69
    ¥ 459,715.17
    2856205 W205,000 mW
    0.275 hp
    0.205 kW
    28 MiB28,672 KiB
    29,360,128 B
    0.0273 GiB
    38.5 MiB39,424 KiB
    40,370,176 B
    0.0376 GiB
    2.5 GHz2,500 MHz
    2,500,000 kHz
    4.4 GHz4,400 MHz
    4,400,000 kHz
    4.6 GHz4,600 MHz
    4,600,000 kHz
    W-3275M3 June 2019$ 7,453.002856205 W205,000 mW
    0.275 hp
    0.205 kW
    28 MiB28,672 KiB
    29,360,128 B
    0.0273 GiB
    38.5 MiB39,424 KiB
    40,370,176 B
    0.0376 GiB
    2.5 GHz2,500 MHz
    2,500,000 kHz
    4.4 GHz4,400 MHz
    4,400,000 kHz
    4.6 GHz

    philboogie
  • High-end users on 'Why I'm buying the new Mac Pro'

    @cgWerks

    I rather doubt you have the necessary chops for the level of condescension that was flowing through every paragraph of your reply. I have over 20 years working in animation at all budget levels and have the temerity to run my own motion graphics studio. I speak from experience.

    You are justifying that Apple's brand new not even released yet top of the Mac range should ship with a 3 year old GPU and 256GB SSD. I am embarrassed for you. Apple requires people like you to maintain their reality distortion and repeat their cliched marketing talking points.

    I love the fact that you quoted Dave McGavran marketing quote, because the Redshift developers themselves are altogether far more circumspect about Redshift and Metal. They make no promises about performance and only 'hope' to be as fully featured as the current CUDA version. I've been a Redshift user for nearly 2 years and I'm well up to speed on what the actual developers themselves have said constantly about Metal support but that wouldn't make great copy for Apple marketing quotes.

    From the C4D plugin developers at Greyscale Gorilla who have all switch to PC from Mac in recent years.
    "From a hardware perspective, it’s exactly what I feared it would be. Underwhelming and overpriced. With no NVIDIA support, which everyone feared, it is not really going to win over anyone in the professional 3D space. But hey, it comes with wheels."

    https://greyscalegorilla.com/2019/06/thoughts-new-mac-pro-3d/

    Maxon have ProRender running on Metal and it is ridiculously slow, if Redshift ends up as bad as this then no one will be interested and it will have been a complete waste of developers' time.

    I rather think the sour grapes are all yours pal, I get that you've bought into the Apple bubble and it must be tough to find out that actuality is vastly different, every single one of my close work colleagues has ditched the Mac over the last 5 years, yeah every single one of us were Mac Pro users. Some jumped soon after the Trashcan was released others like me hung on and hung on but couldn't wait any longer. Not a single one of my colleagues is the slightest bit interested in the Mac Pro, it misses every single mark, it's not fit for purpose.

    The people who will care about ZombieLoad and the rest of the Intel microcode security issues are the people you claim won't need a half decent GPU because they're running a 'high-performance database' your words.. In the real world Hyperthreading is being turned off in exactly these workloads. Get a clue.
    Sanctum1972elijahggatorguy