new mac

[Phil hunt]

i am thinking of upgrading my computer to

3.5GHz 6-Core Intel Xeon E5 processor

16GB 1866MHz DDR3 ECC memory

Dual AMD FirePro D500 with 3GB GDDR5 VRAM each

256GB PCIe-based flash storage1

At present i am running VW14 and wanted to make sure that this will run ok on the above.....i use vw to build my models that are rendered in artlantis 5

any advice will be appreciated

many thanks

[J. Wallace]

Hi Phil

I have an older 6 core mac pro(http://www.everymac.com/systems/apple/mac_pro/specs/mac-pro-six-core-3.33-mid-2010-westmere-server-specs.html) with 3.3 Ghz Westmere chip,12 GB of ram and a OWC 240 gb solid state drive for my operating system and programs. Love it...the old units were big but I can change out hardrives in around 2 min...the new macpros look very good other than the need to run your optical and hard drives via thunderbolt cables...you can still pick up old refurbished ones at http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/Apple-Systems/Used/Mac-Pro

I forgot to mention the old macpros have four hard drive bays plus you can run a PCI SSD(http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/SSD/PCIe/OWC/Mercury_Accelsior/RAID) and I have an optical bay open for an additional drive if needed...

Edited September 28, 2014 by J. Wallace

[Phil hunt]

Thanks for that sound advice....I do have a thunderbolt 27inch screen that I run as my second screen for my 27 inch iMac that I intend to use with the new machine, and for my backups a AirPort Time Capsule...

As clearly you have a great knowledge of hardware do you think I would be better to source the older machine or purchase the new Mac Pro

Many thanks

Phil

[J. Wallace]

Hi Phil

I would not go so far as to say I'm any type of expert. However if I was looking to replace my current computer I would seriously consider an refurbished macpro such as units you can find at OWC (http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/Apple-Systems/Used/Mac-Pro) I like the fact that you can swap in and out hard drives with ease whether they are ssd or not. I'm sure the new generation of macpros is faster..better but I'm not convinced that this is necessary as my old clunker is extremely fast and if I felt the need for more speed there are numerous upgrades available. I'm sure others will have advise that supports the newer model, I'm one that never buys new technology as I've found the slightly older models are better value and do a great job. After all there are people out there running VW on mac minis...Take care Phil and have fun selecting a new unit. Ow and by the way I, like yourself, ran Imacs for years before upgrading to the macpro, that in itself is a huge upgrade. Take a look at some of the OWC upgrade instructional videos and you'll see how easy the older macpros are to work on.

[PVA - Admin]

Unfortunately Vectorworks can not yet take advantage of dual graphics cards, other than that the specs of the machine in the original post are excellent for running and rendering in Vectorworks.

[Phil hunt]

thanks jim so does that mean i cannot install vw14 on the mac book pro at all?

[PVA - Admin]

(Assuming you mean the Mac Pro discussed earlier rather than Macbook Pro)

You could install it and it would run just fine, it would only use one of the graphics cards however. It wouldn't NOT work, it would just leave one of the GPUs idle.

[Phil hunt]

ok thanks jim

[Diamond]

Hi Jim,

If you are using 4K displays, isn't having that video grunt going to help? I think this is something that hasn't been raised.

Am trying to remember how it divides up the work for attaching multiple displays across the video cards, and the thunderbolt buses. But if using a HiDPi display (or multiple regular displays on a single thunderbolt bus), can the Mac Pro be set to use one graphics card for the display, and one for Vectorworks?

Thanks.

[PVA - Admin]

Am trying to remember how it divides up the work for attaching multiple displays across the video cards, and the thunderbolt buses. But if using a HiDPi display (or multiple regular displays on a single thunderbolt bus), can the Mac Pro be set to use one graphics card for the display, and one for Vectorworks?

Currently on OS X, the control of what cards power what is under the discretion of the OS if the software package doesn't control it directly, which we currently can not do. I think Apple's Final Cut and a few other packages can as of now.

On Windows, the display of what is onscreen can only be one card unless the two or more cards are hardware linked via SLI or Crossfire.

Some applications use the GPU as core for rendering but not display, which is where Vectorworks would benefit the most from in the future from what I understand.