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Need More Oomph for VW2021 using Mac


Loren

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I have a late 2013 Trashcan MacPro:

OS X 10.15.7

3.5 GHz 6-Core Intel Xeon E5

64 GB 1866 MHz DDR3

AMD FirePro D500 3 GB

Running 3 displays, two 24" and one 30" Apple Cinema display.

 

I do mechanical design and some of my files are very large and complex.  The issue is rendering time in 3D.  It's damn slow in wireframe and ridiculous in any other kind of rendering.

 

I am looking for ways to improve the performance.  Either I get a new machine or do something to pump up the power (I am guessing an external GPU is one possible choice).

 

What are my suggested options?

 

Thanks!

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From what I have seen posted, you might want to try and hold out a little longer.

 

The current M1 machines using Apple Silicon seem to be showing about the same performance, maybe a little better than your 2013 machine. You could get a fully loaded Mac Mini. But in order to connect three monitors, you will have to do some research about different video connectors you can use. There are a number of videos/web sites that have specifically talked about this.

 

Your other option are:

 

1. Buy a higher end Intel Mac. Probably your best option for today for getting a higher powered Mac solution for VW. But you will be buying the very last of the Intel machines and are likely to hinder yourself long term. If you don't buy another new machine for 8 years (2013-2021), you will probably miss out on a lot of improvements.

 

2. Hang in there until the fall. Sometime before the end of the year I expect there will be a second generation of Apple Silicon machines that will provide substantially better performance that the first generation. What the exact systems and pricing will be are completely unknown.

 

An external GPU will only help if OpenGL rendering is acceptable.  All of the other rendering modes run on the CPU.

 

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I second Pat.

 

You can wait, maybe another 6+ months (?) for the larger M? iMac

or even longer for an ARM Mac Midi or Mac Pro (?)

 

If you can't wait,

eGPUs will somehow work on the Trash Can but are not without issues

Or,

go with the 2020 Intel 27" iMac with 5700 XT GPU and 8-10 core

i7-9, user upgradable RAM amount of choice and 1 TB or more SSD

(10 Gb LAN, Keyboard with NumBlock, Touchpad, ....)

 

Not sure if there is any Adapter for TB to 30" Cinema with "Dual DVI"

(My 30" died, Power Supply)

Maybe your miniDP to Dual DVI Adapter will work plugged in to a

TB to miniDP (?)

 

(I have the Apple USBC/TB to TB2(miniDP) Adapter but was not able

to get any DP Monitor running on my M1 Mac over that adapter.

I use it for an external TB2 SSD case only)

 

I think we can expect the next M? generation to support more  than

2-3 external Monitors with less hassle.

Edited by zoomer
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  • 4 weeks later...

I hear you all saying there should be another version of M chip coming hadn't thought of that as I too have been mulling over the last Intel machines. 

 

In terms of the Intel machines I am only trying to figure the real performance difference in 8 vs 10 core chips with rendering, it seems from what I dee online there is maybe a 10 percent to 15 percent boost only between the 2 processor options. Anyone have real world experience with both to weigh in between them?

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For which task ?

 

For VW in general it is mainly about single core performance.

So with latest Intel, AMD and especially M! or follow ups,

you are on the good side.

 

If it is about RW (CPU) Rendering, Cinebench is your scale.

Compare the results. The more cores the better.

 

If Apple brings a next 10core M? chip soon, it means that

its 8 performance cores will be double as fast for multithreaded

tasks than the current M1 with its 4+4 performance cores.

 

For Intel iMac 27", indeed the jump from i7 8 core to i9 10 core

isn't that impressive, considering the upgrade price.

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