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I know this issue has been dealt with on the forum before, but I'm a bit confused on which of the components of a computer are essential to optimal performance when using VWs or other 3d modeling programs such as Cinema 4d or Rhino.

Taking the the new Mac Pro as an example:

Processor core - 6, 8, 12

Is there a substantial difference in performance between 3.0GHz 8-core with 25MB of L3 cache and 2.7GHz 12-core with 30MB of L3 cache?

SDRAM

32GB (4x8GB) of 1866MHz DDR3 ECC vs. 64GB (4x16GB) of 1866MHz DDR3 ECC, any substantial difference in performance?

Graphics Cards

Dual AMD FirePro D500 GPUs with 3GB of GDDR5 VRAM each or Dual AMD FirePro D700 GPUs with 6GB of GDDR5 VRAM each?

I'm assuming these are the main components to be concerned about. Please correct me if i am wrong.

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  • Vectorworks, Inc Employee

Amount of RAM is important for Renderworks Renderings, but anything 16GB or over should be plenty. Type of RAM these days is effectively irrelevant when choosing between Macs since theyre so similar.

Graphics card is the most important for moving around in 3D wireframe and OpenGL, but we can only use one graphics card at a time, dual cards wont help. Vectorworks will just use a single one.

Both the FirePros are excellent, but likely you would not notice a huge difference in Vectorworks functionally, they would both be great choices, with the D700 being more futureproof but dramatically more expensive.

For the Processor, The difference would likely be a 30% decrease in rendering time with the 12 core over the 8 core. Not EXACTLY that difference in all cases, but in the indirect lighting/rendering segments of a render (not the geometry portion, specifically) it would be a very obvious improvement.

However if you go with ANY of the new Mac Pros, you'll be good to go for a couple years without issue. Theyre great hardware, if pricey.

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when using VWs or other 3d modeling programs such as Cinema 4d or Rhino.

Taking the the new Mac Pro as an example:

Processor core - 6, 8, 12

Is there a substantial difference in performance between 3.0GHz 8-core with 25MB of L3 cache and 2.7GHz 12-core with 30MB of L3 cache?

More cores are better for Rendering (VW, Cinema, Modo, VRAY, ...)

For all (most) tasks that can only use one core, faster GHz is better.

6 core 3.5 GHz core is the sweet spot.

8 core 3.0 GHz isn't bad if you can spend the money. It is faster when rendering.

(Google for Cinebench results, about 1200 to 960 of the 6 core)

And at least the 8 core isn't slower for single core tasks, as it has the same GHz

as the 4 and 6 core in Turbo Boost Mode.

12 core is even faster for multi core rendering but as it has lower GHz it will be

slower in most task and much more expensive.

SDRAM

32GB (4x8GB) of 1866MHz DDR3 ECC vs. 64GB (4x16GB) of 1866MHz DDR3 ECC, any substantial difference in performance?

Faster GHz and DDR X n+1 is faster.

The number of GB doesn't matter in speed as long as it IS enough for your tasks.

If not it will swap to disk which is much slower or even crash.

nMac Pro is fastest if all 4 slots are used. So f.e. 2x16 GB for the beginning is no good idea.

I took 32 GB.

16 GB was enough for me in most cases. You can update your memory at any time later with

cheaper 3rd party RAM. But that always means to throw away the 4 older modules.

And registered ECC RAM isn't that cheap and won't get so much cheaper in the future.

(The modules cost about that what apple wants for an upgrade over the existing RAM)

So instead of ordering 16 GB and replacing it with 32 3rd party GB, I ordered the 32 GB

upgrade from Apple for the same cost.

May be different if you can need the old RAM elsewhere or want to sell it.

Graphics Cards

Dual AMD FirePro D500 GPUs with 3GB of GDDR5 VRAM each or Dual AMD FirePro D700 GPUs with 6GB of GDDR5 VRAM each?

D700 is a bit faster in some benchmarks, f.e. GPU rendering like Luxmark, that is one of the

few Apps, beside some Apple Apps, that currently can use both GPU of a nMac Pro.

The future of Rendering will be GPU Rendering.

But currently even VRAY RT will not support nMac Pro GPU at the moment but run CPU only :(

Another thing is, that GPU render needs the whole model loaded to the GPU SDRAM, if it is

not enough, no GPU rendering at all. So the D700's 6 GB is an advantage.

Same for OpenGL views. My old (8 year) Mac Pro had only 512 MB GPU RAM, this was not enough

for my current 3D models and therefor Cinema4D freezed the whole computer.

As a Mac Pro will be used for a longer period, I chose the D700 upgrade, hoping to profit in the

future of the extra OpenCL Power.

If you can wait for the next nMac Pro update, (I could not or did not want to any longer ;) )

the new Haswell Xeons are out for some months.

Same for similar ATI Pro GPUs, with lots of more processors and nearly doubled RAM amount

per model.

And if you're also much drawing and don't render for days, the new i7 Retina iMac is the fastet

Mac in single core tasks and multi core rendering is still between 4 and 6 core nMac Pro.

The new 295X GPU is nearly as fast as one D700 !

And you will get a nice 5k display nearly for free :)

And not to forget that rendering special animations or large still images can be done by a

renderfarm too.

BTW

the nMac Pro is very calm, even when rendering.

Edited by zoomer
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  • 1 month later...

Hi Jim,

I'm in the process of purchasing a new workstation.

I do residential design build, and tend to model a fairly high level of detail. I do like to do high quality renders, but relatively infrequently.

Could you compare a top end 5K iMac (the 4.0 i7, better video card, 32GB RAM, 1TB SSD) with the MacPro line, 6 or 8 core...

Specifically, the video card performance vs CPU performance.

I'm looking at a dual monitor setup.. the concern is that the performance of

whatever operations are GPU bound, would be hurt in the case of the iMac

with a dual monitor, whereas with the separate thunderbolt channels available on the MacPro, this would not be an issue. Then, with operations that are CPU bound, (assuming single core) the iMac would trump the MacPro. So, if I am primarily drawing and modeling, and rendering relatively infrequently.. seems like the iMac might be superior...

but would the dual monitors remove that advantage?

Seems like a serious support article should be written on the subject re: what operations are handled by which subsystem, I assume only rendering is multi-core aware at the moment.

Most professionals want to get the best bang for the buck within a particular budget and it can be difficult to make that judgement call of cost vs benefit. Thanks for your time, and thanks for your contributions to the forums..

David Rosenfeld

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  • Vectorworks, Inc Employee

If you're going for dual monitors, I would go with the MAc Pro. I have gotten reports unrelated to Vectorworks of users with the 5k displays having stuttering or lag onscreen. This is understandable as while the graphics in the iMac are powerful, they aren't powerful enough to drive a 5k display AND another display of comparable resolution.

I would expect even the lower end Mac Pro 6core D300 graphics to be much better off driving two 3K or 4K displays, if thats the intention.

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  • 2 months later...

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