Figueroa

jdb8167 said:

Figueroa said:

This is so frustrating and would appreciate input from someone more knowledgeable than me. I'm a long-time Mac user who's productivity and enjoyment of work has depended so much on this system for over 15 years. Now it's time for me to upgrade my workstation and I hate the iMac or iMac Pro form factor and lack of upgradeability. I work on a wide variety of projects for my employer; everything from video editing and 3D animation to programming, and since money is not too much of a concern for me right now I'm seriously considering a Mac Pro with the following configuration:

3.2GHz 16‑core Intel Xeon W processor
32GB (4x8GB) of DDR4 ECC memory
Radeon Pro Vega II with 32GB of HBM2 memory
1TB SSD storage

I would then upgrade the RAM and storage myself.

I'm willing to pay for this for two reasons: future upgradeability as my needs grow and staying on macOS.

Everyone here has made excellent points on both side of the argument and I've put serious consideration into a custom build with AMD Threadripper 3970X and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2080 Ti. I found this great website that allows me to configure what I want myself: https://www.extreme-pc.ca/customize.asp?productid=381793

I can't decide on what to do and the more research I do the deeper I go into this rabbit hole with no end in sight. My biggest concern with the Mac Pro is the Xeon W. From what I've read, the Threadripper blows it out of the water.

Any guidance from any of you smarter folks on my dilemma would be appreciated.

It depends on what you do with your workstation. If you are busy and making significant money for most of your work-week, the last thing you want is to spend time and potentially money maintaining your computer. A 16-core XEON is going to destroy most workflows. The Threadripper might be cheaper for the amount of compute power but it isn’t likely to be enough faster to get you through your work much faster. If you value MacOS then a Threadripper is not enough of an incentive to make a switch to Windows or Linux. If your time is valuable, a hackintosh shouldn’t even be a consideration. 

A Xeon is not all about CPU performance. It is also designed for high memory and IO throughput. You should consider more than what a simple CPU benchmark will give you. Only you can evaluate your particular needs but more information on what software packages you use with your workstation would help others to give advice.