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new macbook pro Hardware advice


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Hi,

I am about to buy a new Macbook Pro 15'.  This is my only computer as I travel a lot and carry my work everywhere.

I am a lighting designer and therefore render 3D set models with lighting.

 

I can afford to boost my expensive new toy only with one feature.  CPU, RAM or Graphic card.

Which on will speed my render the most? 

1- Going from Intel hexacore i7 2.6 Ghz to Intel hexacore i9 2.9 Ghz?

2- Going from 16 Go of RAM to 32 Go of RAM?

3- Going from Radeon Pro 560x 4Go GDDR5 to Radeon Pro Vega 20 4Go HBM2?

 

Thanks for the advise.

 

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1.

If you render for longer time the i9 won't be faster as the thermal limit and so throttling

is given by the small body and so same for both.

The i9 will help only for short burst loads.

 

2.

It will not really get faster if you have more RAM than you need. But it will get really slower

when you have less RAM than you need.

And as it is not upgradeable, I would go with 32 MB, which isn't too much for todays or near

future needs.

 

3.

Seems like the Vega is really faster and worth its money.

Pity it has also only 4 GB VRAM, which isn't that much today.

It will help in OpenGL and Viewport performance (and possible GPU Rendering or Video

encoding in other Apps than VW)

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Looking at the same MacBook Pro for my business. The Vega 20 GPU has improved thermals over the previous 560X GPU. See this review. Has a Cine Bench score of over 1100 so its twice as fast as my existing desk monster. This is not a CAD review but does cover Cine Bench scores. The only issue is is expensive machine to cart around. Get a heavy duty backpack.

 

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But, yes,

the Cinebench OpenGL test doesn't seem to be very demanding as my

2070 won't even start to rotate its Fans for it. So not very suitable Benchmark

to compare GPU Hardware power itself.

 

Slightly similar to the CPU tests. They do force CPU cores to 100% load,

but CPU Power Consumption and Temperatures stay reasonably low.

Far below any artificial CPU Stress Benchmarks.

 

(Like a TR 2990WX will only consume about 200 W in Cinebench,

while it has even an official TDP of 250W,

which again isn't meant as a real limit for Power Consumption,

which again can exceed the TDP by far in some situations)

 

But Cinebench CPU is still a very trusty Benchmark for CPU Render Speed.

Like a new CPU that has double the points in Cinebench will be double as

fast for my CPU Renderings. No matter if Rendering in C4D or Modo.

 

And it could be that similar is true for the Cinebench OpenGL Test.

Very different High End Cards may get similar CB Test Results - because that

may be a typical load from a typical 3D App Viewport.

With a result that a VW OpenGL View Pane may not rotate much faster just

because you replace your old GTX 1060 with a RTX 2080Ti.

 

But you will have the Power available for Apps that may make use of it,

like Games, Blender Eevee or GPU Rendering and

awake your RTX AI and RT cores from sleep and finally start the Fans.

 

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Thanks everyone for all your comments and tips.  It is very interesting but I must admit I am somewhat more confused today.  I thought I would get a simple and unanimous response such as :"Go for the Graphic card!" or whatever.  It seems that it is more complex although I don't really see why it should be knowing my quest is only in regards to using VW with the main purpose of rendering 3D stage design with lights. 

At the moment, I feel that there cannot be a single choice and one should upgrade everything to get a clear vote.  I wish it was that easy financially for me.

Perhaps we should turn to VW engineers who exactly know what hardware is most useful to boost their 3D engine.

But again, thank you all for the time you have taken looking at this issue.

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Based on the CPU/GPU scores posted it would seem that the VEGA 20 is better but not by a lot. You can buy a eGPU in the future if you ever need to have more power but you can’t get more ram. So I would go for the 32GB ram. I am also struggling with the purchase of a new mac. We all have to be careful not spend more than we need on tech which gets old real fast. I have been able to keep my 2010 Mac Pro upgraded since it is an open system that had a lot of upgrade options. Todays macs are closed boxes and you are stuck with old tech the minute you leave the store. Thats why they only give 14 days. So what ever you buy it has to start making money ASAP.. You might check out the Apple Refurbished Store. https://www.apple.com/us-hed/shop/refurbished/mac/macbook-pro. My present Mac came from there and is still working fine 8 years later.  “Idleness is a holiday for fools”

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  • 3 weeks later...

Is anyone running Vectorworks 2019 on a new 2018 13” MacBook Pro? I have a 2016 13” MBP that ran Vectorworks just fine until I upgraded to Mojave. Now it’s unusable. I’m thinking about upgrading before the end of the year. I like the 13” MBP for portability and it works great for light drawing and modeling. The 15” MBP has a better GPU, but I’d rather not lug that around if possible. 

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  • 4 months later...

The Cinebench OpenGL results depend more on CPU single core speed than on the GPU. It's because the test doesn't stress modern GPUs at all so the bottleneck is always the CPU no matter how strong your GPU is. It just shows the performance with small models. Much more important than the Cinebench GPU score is that the model fits into the VRAM of the graphics card and that it is quickly loaded into it. That's why many users prefer the more expensive gamer graphics cards for Vectorworks.  They have more VRAM and more cores than consumer graphics cards and still have faster clocked VRAM and faster clocked cores than professional cad graphics cards.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Apple Releases Macbook Pro 8-Core, "Fixes" Keyboard:

 

http://www.loopinsight.com/2019/05/21/apple-releases-macbook-pro-8-core-fixes-keyboard/

  • Year old pricing on year old GPU/RAM/storage components/upgrades in spite of the cost lowering year over year
  • Single core base clock speed is down from 3.5ghz (2017 13") to 2.4ghz not good for modeling in Vectorworks
  • “Up to 5.0GHz Turbo Boost” lies
  • “Experience smooth real-time performance when rendering 3D models in Cinema 4D” more lies
  • Other than reducing the base clock speed,  not sure what Apple or Intel have done to improve thermal throttling

Possibility of a GPU bump to 6gb in the fall (similar to last year). Otherwise, this is probably as good as it's gonna get for this generation (before they screw up the next generation).

 

@JuanP , do we have any updates on the reality of using an eGPU with a MBP? I'm still on High Sierra since Mojave is still a half-baked buggy mess (in general) so they can push subscriptions "services", which means I also have the option to go with NVIDIA.

 

Edited by Mark Aceto
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On 12/26/2018 at 5:58 PM, ThreeDot said:

Is anyone running Vectorworks 2019 on a new 2018 13” MacBook Pro? I have a 2016 13” MBP that ran Vectorworks just fine until I upgraded to Mojave. Now it’s unusable. I’m thinking about upgrading before the end of the year. I like the 13” MBP for portability and it works great for light drawing and modeling. The 15” MBP has a better GPU, but I’d rather not lug that around if possible. 

 

Mojave is trash (in general not just VW). You can add an eGPU to the 13" for the best of both worlds (and have modular upgradability in the future). Plus, if you're running HS, you can use a NVIDIA GPU if you prefer.

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On 12/5/2018 at 7:06 AM, rjtiedeman said:

Based on the CPU/GPU scores posted it would seem that the VEGA 20 is better but not by a lot. You can buy a eGPU in the future if you ever need to have more power but you can’t get more ram.

 

I think it's still sinking in for a lot of users that buying the base GPU, and then adding an eGPU is the 2019 version of modular upgradability. They've just moved the guts to the exterior (like it's on life support because it basically is at this point). It feels wrong to buy the cheapest (discreet) GPU in a disposable machine but...

 

That was also the promise of TB3.

 

Cloud storage is another workaround to overpriced SSD upgrades that aren't modular / can't be upgraded.

 

Edited by Mark Aceto
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So it worked REALLY well on a MBP if the GPU the MBP had included was already weak like the Intel options the 13" models had. But I saw very little change in actual performace when i added an external GPU to a MBP that had a decent GPU already inside it. The detriment you get to performance over thunderbolt 3 is minimal compared to older cords, but it still existed.

Also, High sierra eGPU support is really rough, a LOT of manual poking can get you there if youre persistant, but it was a headache. Mojave compatibility was basically plug and play, but came with the limit to AMD cards only, and even then a small selection of them.

That said, the new 15" MBPs have solid graphics choices for a laptop honestly, bringing in the 8core CPUs finally is a nice change as well. My work now has me on windows-only, but I still plan to keep an eye on the Silver Side.

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Howdy,

 

I am running VW19 SP3 on a 2018 MBP 13 (2.7Gh, 16 GB ram, 1T SSD, 10.13.6, Intel IRIS 655).  I am a light user in terms of rendering and prefer the smaller laptop.  I'd say it works fairy well.  

 

I am however curious of how much performance difference the new Radeon Pro Vega 20 15" MBP will offer.

 

On 12/26/2018 at 8:58 PM, ThreeDot said:

Is anyone running Vectorworks 2019 on a new 2018 13” MacBook Pro? I have a 2016 13” MBP that ran Vectorworks just fine until I upgraded to Mojave. Now it’s unusable. I’m thinking about upgrading before the end of the year. I like the 13” MBP for portability and it works great for light drawing and modeling. The 15” MBP has a better GPU, but I’d rather not lug that around if possible. 

 

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On 5/30/2019 at 2:50 PM, Inspectorjack said:

I am running VW19 SP3 on a 2018 MBP 13 (2.7Gh, 16 GB ram, 1T SSD, 10.13.6, Intel IRIS 655).  I am a light user in terms of rendering and prefer the smaller laptop.  I'd say it works fairy well.  

 

I am however curious of how much performance difference the new Radeon Pro Vega 20 15" MBP will offer.

 

A machine with a dedicated Vega 20 would feel twice as fast as the same machine with an integrated GPU for everything except rendering (which is mostly CPU intensive; particularly the number cores). That will only continue to be the case.

 

However, you might get more bang for your buck by using an eGPU with your current machine. You could even use a Vega 64 with 16GB VRAM, and ride out this generation of MBP until the mythical 16" MacBook Escape with scissor keys appears in the next year or so. Considering, Windows laptops are now available with 16GB NVIDIA GPU's, hopefully Apple will offer at least an 8GB GPU by then (instead of a paltry 4GB).

 

Edited by Mark Aceto
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