Boxx or new Mac

[TheBadger]

Hey,

Supposedly the Mac pros get a refresh end of this month.

I have been going back and forth about continuing with Apple. Still always come to the OS thing. But even so, the upgradability of a pc like boxx and the larger parts ecosystem really appeal. More so with the gpu situation. Dell too I guess, but I really like boxes box, but I think that you can get 12 and 14 cores off the shelf with dell now, no idea about dollar on that right now.

Anyway, it's difficult for me to track all the facts and figures, so help will be needed. TG is only one soft, I need to be able to run everything as best as I can afford.

Please let me know your thoughts this month when we see some details about Mac specs.

Thanks in advance

[ajcgi]

The only thing that comes to mind is GPU-accelerated rendering. As an example, one of my clients is a very small animation studio, rendering almost exclusively using CUDA GPU rendering in RedShift. I can't work from home for them with my iMac as it's a model with ATI graphics.
However I'm not a huge fan of working at home on animation and VFX work. I crave human contact really. I mention it because if you do plan to render a lot, software limitations of clients can sometimes change your hardware requirements.
I like my Mac.

[inkydigit]

looking forward to see the 'new' MacPro too!
...my graphics card on the Mac I have is CUDA (NVIDIA GeForce GTX 775M 2048 MB)
though some apps won't render displacement map info on models as "Direct3D 11 Tessellation and Displacement are not yet supported on OS X"
doesn't worry me too much as i am not concerned so much with low poly models...

J

[Oshyan]

I'll just make a general statement of warning about the MacPro by pointing to what happened with the last "Cylinder" model. The dual GPU solution sounded great on paper, as did everything else, and yet they were never well utilized by anyone, not even Adobe, and Apple doesn't support or allow support for CUDA (last I heard). The MacPros (unlike most other Macs these days) are also pretty overpriced for the specs you get. Boxx is frankly overpriced too, but at least it's flexible, upgradeable, etc. Personally I'd say Dell is fine, but I like Puget Systems for nice, reasonably affordable custom PCs: https://www.pugetsystems.com/
Both Matt and I have our systems built by them.

So, unless Apple learned a huge lesson from the last MacPro (about which I heard tons of complaints), I would avoid. Form over function.

- Oshyan

[TheBadger]

as I understand, cudda is proprietary and that is the reason apples AMDs can't get along. Does that sound right? Well GPUs are very important to me these days, that is for sure. I have read all kinds of stuff about what Apple may or may not do. But it's impossible for me to believe that they are not aware of the fact that their previous pro bombed. Because it did.

Don't get me wrong, Apple did well for who it thought it cared about, but they got a lot wrong for sure.
Since so many of their pro users don't think the pro line is a pro line, gpu stuff being not a small factor.

I have read that Apple will skip vr and concentrate fully on AR. Which would fit into their sales world. There will be a lot more interest in academia for AR than VR. And Apple sells a lot of units to schools and universities.

I'm not sure I understand why VR Vs. AR would mater in terms what GPUs they go with, unless it has something to do with selling ar or vr headsets somehow. All this is based on rumors anyway, but vr and ar interest me deeply! Though I can't afford to buy into ar at all yet to learn it anyway.

Real time everything are also very important to me. So GPUs are a big focus. Which is why boxx caught my eye. Certainly won't have trouble building a GPU bank over time there? Well I'm actually very open minded these days about what to do. I need power, I need life span, and I would like to not pay for any of it😄. Just wish there was a An open source OS that worked like OS X and was supported like win... Sorry that is not UNIX.


Well whatever happens, I'm sure I'll check here before I do anything, so thank you!

[Oshyan]

CUDA is an Nvidia platform, sure. But Apple has used Nvidia GPUs before, and still does in many of its other machines. Yet, still no CUDA. It's largely because Apple has their own "Metal" API that they want people to use instead of CUDA or OpenCL or Vulcan (the latter two of which are totally open and support both Nvidia and AMD GPUs). In short, Apple's desire to control everything is still getting in the way of people being able to use their systems for what they want.

I haven't heard from anyone who really thought Apple "did well" for them with the MacPro of last generation. Have you? At least not for the price and the promises made.

Boxx has nothing special when it comes to GPUs. Every high-end PC manufacturer has the same capabilities, basically. Puget Systems included. And Puget is cheaper.

- Oshyan

[TheBadger]

Checked out your link, oshyan. Lifetime tech support interests me!! Thanks, does sound very expensive too though. I would like to stay under 2.5 k with lots of room for additions and upgrades. And because of some past problems, I never want to over heat. I frankly don't care if I have to live in a wind tunnel, thigh I would choice not to of I can. I will wear earplugs for fan noise if I have to, but again, I would choose not to if I can.

Guess I'm starting with some specific things but, I hope we can talk about CPUs later too.

[Oshyan]

Puget's machines are solid as far as cooling, for sure. $2.5k is not a ton to spend for a high end machine, but do-able. Certainly not in the Mac world though.

- Oshyan

[TheBadger]

Apple did ok with people who don't use their apples for pro work but like having towers. No I don't know any pros were very happy. Most photographers and videographers I know still use much older macs. I don't personally know game developers. And I am the only hobby vr person in my personal circle, so haha, no. But don't forget it's always also about OS. And that the last pro did not ship win only, did keep at least a few people content.

But there has definitely been a distubance in the force. Some rumors say that Apple will kill its pro line. I dont think they will, but I guess it's possible.


Sorry for typos, using tiny hand held.

[TheBadger]

I can spend more, prefer that to be over time through upgrades if possible some how.

[Oshyan]

I don't think Apple is interested in the Pro line long-term, unless Tim Cook's reign will be shifting more toward better support. Everything in the last 5+ years has shown the opposite. Final Cut X gutted features that pros needed and/or wanted, for no significantly good reason. The MacPro hardware was mostly an exercise in design, a sort of trophy to hold on to their Pro reputation, but without real thought and understanding of how to actually build and utilize a performant system. Their increasing integration of iOS approaches and functionality also speaks to a less Pro-oriented mindset. I don't see Pro-oriented hardware lasting in their product portfolio for more than another  5-7 years.

- Oshyan

[TheBadger]

Yeah, you should read Mac rumors web site. More hate for Apple there than on sites dedicated to hating Apple. That's why I think you may be right. Cqnt sell a "pro" if pros don't buy it.

Well we will have much better idea soon. My bet is the MacBook Pro will be updated and people will like it. And that Apple will continue a long time with the MacBook Pro.

But I feel no confidence at all to make any bet on the mac pro towers. Be real sad though if there is only mswindows from here on out.

Never understood how people could like win and hate OS X though. And how can people want only one operating system for the whole world? F-ing crazy.

I have been using a cheap pc for daily things now. Win7. It's not exactly torture, but I do hate it. The real bitch of it all is that in the early 2000s when Apple was on the brink and took a loan from gates
(remember that gates bought up Apple stock), the deal meant that Apple would never sell OS X for pc users.

Would love to have a better priced top of the line pc that ran OS X properly!

Well, here's hoping Apple gets it right this month.

Otherwise I'll for sure need help on Windows or UNIX. Probably will anyway, because I need to get the most bang for my dollars. I have no argument at all that I can make in favor of apples priceing.

Your link claimed life time free support and free labor for a number of services, oshyan.
This was a BIG attention grabber for me for sure. Fixing a broken Mac is f-ked up thing to deal with if out of warranty.

[ajcgi]

In the photographic side of my life, I have an iMac almost entirely because it was bang for the buck when it came to buying a decent machine and a 4k screen. Consequently a 5k imac made sense. The colours aren't perfect but can get pretty close to decent, plus I prefer using a Mac for image work. It's a personal preference I picked up at college 15 years ago.

However not for 3D work. The CUDA limitations, the lack of openness (as is pointed out, OSX isn't strictly Unix), and the sheer cost make it difficult. A render farm of Macs is almost laughable. But for day to day photography work, home Terragen fun and net surfing, give me my iMac and iPhone combo any day. For me, that just works. Like I say, it's a personal preference. I don't do much 3d at home.

That being said, having worked at Framestore for the past 6 months, I can see why Linux is ideal for large scale VFX. Windows would be a pain in the butt here, especially with the whole pipeline being pretty custom made. I have a win machine here alongside the linux one. My Win machine, used for Terragen, Photoshop, Global Mapper, PT Gui and the like, is Win 7 . The windows machines may as well be offline they get used so little. I'm typing this on a custom install of Scientific Linux. This is a Dell Precision T3610 according to the label on the front. Knowing this place though, the guts have probably been replaced a few times. eg a hard drive failed on my first day.

In short, my 5c based on the past 15 years is if you're doing 3d a lot; PC.

[plugsnpixels]

I work in higher ed IT and a colleague in the Art department tells me their many Mac Pros (trashcan model) render less efficiently than the iMacs. And they overheat.

I will have to explore this for myself as I am taking over that area next semester ;-).

[PabloMack]

You need to ask yourself what you are after. It may just boil down to three things:

1. Will it run my software?
2. How much performance will it have?
3. How much resolution will it support (on the output devices such as monitor).

The thing that turns me off about GPUs is that they are not general-purpose. They are hard-wired for real time video graphics and that's all they do well. That doesn't cover all the bases for what folks like Terragen Users want to do. Current GPU technology doesn't handle large data sets very well. As we wait for more software support on GPUs we are seeing the main providers of CPUs add more cores to their processors. As Intel gets closer to a total monopoly they feel they don't have to do very much and they sit on their laurels and hike the prices. Have you seen how much money Intel gives in grants? It is huge. So when you buy Intel you are funding those grants and not getting what you are paying for. If it weren't for the presence of AMD, Intel would really stagnate so I am an AMD supporter. For several years now they have been working on Zen which is supposed to hit the market next year and possibly even near the end of this year. They have already demonstrated engineering hardware and have shown it to be on par with Intel's high-end. I am looking forward to seeing the Naples processor become available slated for Q2 of 2017. There will be dual processor (server) motherboards. Each processor will have 32-cores (Starship will have 48) with true symmetric multi-threading (=hyperthreading). On paper, one thread should have the performance of one core of the type I am using in my current quad-core workstation. If that turns out to be the case, then I should be able to build a 64-core (128-thread) system that will have 32X the performance of my main workstation and 4X the performance of my current render farm which is 32-cores spread between four 8-core systems. Those 32-cores cost me about $2500. If I can spend the same amount for one 64-core AMD system I will be in heaven. CPUs are starting to look more like GPUs used to be and they can reach all of your system's address space.

Personally, I think CPU makers should start building asymmetrical multi-core processors. You should have one really souped-up core (that will have high single-threaded performance) and a whole gaggle of lower powered (not so heavily pipelined) cores. You could assign Core-0 to your interactive program and assign the rendering job to the other 1024 low-powered x86 cores. You should be able to get the same effect as with a GPU but you wouldn't have to rewrite any of the code because all of your cores would run the same native instruction set.

http://wccftech.com/amd-naples-32-core-zen/
http://wccftech.com/starship-amd-processor-48-cores-7nm/