What Mac do you use, that you are happy with, and can manage some rendering?

[Ragnar]

Hi!

 

I am using a Mac Book Air M1 2021, and it is fine as long as I am not rendering 3D. Then it doesn't take long until my patience run out. Will a basic Mac Book Pro do the trick?

 

[Pat Stanford]

Memory, you want more memory.  You probably want a machine with at least 32 if not 64 GB of RAM if you are going to be doing much 3D rendering.

 

Also the MBPro has a better "thermal cycle" than the air.  Because it does not have a fan, after about 10 minutes of flat out operation the Air will throttle back the CPU to minimize temperature rise in the chip. The Pro with the fan and active cooling can basically run flat out for a far longer period of time without throttling.

[zoomer]

I don't think so.

10 MBP vs MBA's 8 core CPU does not change that much.

(AFAIK the max specced current MBP, with M1 Max, has the same

amount of CPU cores, just more GPU cores)

 

I think you would get nearly the same render speed as the M1 MBP

when you buy a MBA M2 instead 🙂

 

If you want something noticeably better for RW Rendering by Apple ARM,

you would need to buy the Studio with M1 Ultra.

But that is still only about as fast as my 3 year old Ryzen PC.

 

I would recommend to wait some more (4-14 ?) months ....

 

[zoomer]

I am not sure about the RAM,

I have the 16 GB M1 Mac Mini, I did not have memory shortages with

RW Rendering for reasonable sized projects so far.

Just not suitable for my client's crazy IFC or RVT sources.

But not just on rendering but in general usage.

Unfortunately I have a similar bad working experience on the PC with

64 GB RAM too.

 

Of course the M1 Mini was just an ambition try.

I would never spec any serious CAD work machine with less than 64 GB

of memory. It is just astonishing what M1 Mini with memory limit is able

to do though.

 

But even the M2 basic offers up to 24 GB now at least.

Although the M2 is quite a bit disappointing compared to the famous

M1 release 2 years ago.

That is why I would wait for reasonable M2,

or better M3/Pro/Max/Ultra/Extreme announcements.

Which should arrive starting beginning from March 2023, or we will have

another global disappointment ....

 

Also thermal throttling of the fan less MBA isn't that much of an issue.

Even the super cooling system Studio Ultra does not really scale much

over the MBA in comparison.

(I am sure my M1 Mini would have much more thermal potential if Apple

would have wanted, but they didn't for any model)

 

 

 

The only plus on the MBP side could be the GPU cores, if you can make

use of Redshift GPU rendering, but not necessarily with the MBP base model ....

 

(I personally did not get any faster or better renderings with Redshift mode

so far - but what do I know about rendering - I still use classic RW CPU rendering)

[mjm]

I bought a MBP M1 Max w/ 32 gb ram. Nothing wears this thing down, not Photoshop, Lightroom, capture one, Final Cut Pro, the entire MS suite (minus Outlook, because…outlook). VWX does tho.  Actually makes it hot, not uncomfortably so like the 2019 intel i7 before it. And the battery drains, not faaast, but noticeably.
 

For rendering with M1 / M2 in VWX, go with all the ram you can possibly afford. I kick myself every day that I did not go for the 64gb.