The Mac Pro – A Year in the Studio | Hacker News Reader

The Mac Pro – A Year in the Studio

lunaranimation.com

62 pointsArmandGrillet36 comments

The problem I have with Mac Pro reviews is that they all seem to be written by people that live in a world without AMD Threadrippers and NVIDIA GPUs.

A much, much cheaper Windows or Linux workstation will run circles around a Mac Pro. Many more threads, much more memory, much faster I/O, much better video cards. The latter is especially key for modern real-time raytracing workflows that utilise either the RTX or CUDA APIs.

This is a bit like reviewing a Leica camera, going on and on about how good the image quality is for a "mere" $40K USD, and failing to point out that a $5K Nikon or Canon has not only has better image quality, but also more features, more choice, and better ergonomics.

Because you are assuming people buy Apple or Lecia for practical reasons.

I’d almost say the guy bought it so his desk looks nice.

>written by people that live in a world without AMD Threadrippers and NVIDIA GPUs.

They live in an Apple world / ecosystem. Which means they will need the best they can get. If their workflow has strategic advantage or a need for CUDA, they should not be on the Mac platform in the first place.

You can switch a Camera brand without much issue, switching OS platform and software is going to be an order of magnitude more expensive.

Now that Apple will be using their own silicon, I wonder how those Pro Tools market will react.

How did they manage to stay in the apple ecosystem at all with no updates for 5+ years before this machine?

They're kidding themselves.

The Mac Pro was released in December of 2019. Perhaps you're thinking of the iMac Pro?

I can only speak for scientific computing, and really just neuro image processing, but the people I know in that field genuinely love their trash can Mac Pros and iMac Pro’s. They work so well for that kind of research and have a ton of life left. I know a professor who actually switched to all System76 Thelios and loves those too, but they still keep iMacs around to make figures for publications.

To be fair, if you exclude GPGPU workflow, the peak performance of CPU has changed all that much from 2014 - 2019 and arguably even earlier. You want an upgrade that give you at least double the performance. AMD only becomes competitive in ~2019.

For reference, I have 6900XT. I don't plan to ever purchase NVIDIA again.

> If their workflow has strategic advantage or a need for CUDA, they should not be on the Mac platform in the first place.

That's not all that NVIDIA is good at. You've left out the RT and ML cores which, as it turns out, are completely and utterly game-changing for 3D workflows. In the article they mention being able to "multitask while a preview is rendering." With RT and ML cores you don't wait for previews at all. It's practically realtime. Corridor Crew, who use quality tools and not brands, have a video on this.

AMD has a major blindspot in the pro 3D tools arena. I'm tempted to guess that using integrated graphics would have made no difference to their experience whatsoever.

The Xeon is 16cores. It's okay, but a waste of money. 3D workflows wouldn't be using it if they had NVIDIA.

Finally, 3D software is notorious for being available on both Mac and Windows.

>You can switch a Camera brand

Not if you've bought thousands worth of Nikon lenses

>Now that Apple will be using their own silicon, I wonder how those Pro Tools market will react.

Seems like Apple already got the majority of them to support Metal.

If true, with Metal Apple has already demonstrated accelerating apps that leverage Metal transparently with custom hardware. With Apple Silicon they could start to put all kinds of interesting accelerator cores for various functions. Look at pro workflows, see where current software is bottlenecking and address it in hardware. They already did this with the M1 and Javascript.

Things could get really spicy. Very spicy indeed!

>Seems like Apple already got the majority of them to support Metal.

That is good to know. I guess part of it is AutoDesk and Adobe are already invested and have huge demand for their Apps within iPad Pro user base. So moving other apps across to Apple Silicon should be relatively easier.

And once the two industry leader moved others will have to follow to compete.

The next stage will properly be courting Fortune 500 companies to move their Windows Desktop to future Mac mini. The road to 200M Active Mac users.

And you didn't need to wait... ~5 years between updates, during which time you were using a flawed and extrememely unsuitable previous model, with hard fixed, outdated GPUs that often thermal throttled.

It's a wonder that anyone was left in the Mac ecosystem prior to the release of the newest Mac Pro.

And upon seeing that it's back to just being a PC tower filled with commodity parts, a wonder that anyone continued there.

> better ergonomics

Wrong. I would argue this is the main reason people prefer Leica/Apple over competitors.

It probably a big reason... But mine is different.

I was windows up through windows 7, at which time I transitioned to Linux. I Loved Linux. A little clunky sometimes, but I don't mind futzing with the command line, rather like it. Started getting much heavier into dev work.

Accidently got a MacBook air, it was small and handy (ergonomics) but relatively capable and fast... And the 'nix environment was familiar.

Fast forward a few years, and the better tools are on windows and Mac and don't work so good on Linux. I start using my now old Macbook air for serious work... And it compiles as fast my coworkers windows machines that have 4x the ram and way more powerful processors. I am amazed.

I need a new machine. I think about getting a nice powerful laptop and going back to Linux, but I'm just too damn lazy. I buy a maxed out m1 air.

It runs circles around my coworkers windows machines that they spent 2x on. I'm talking project complies in 45-50 seconds on mine and 3 minutes on theirs. My emulated Rosetta stuff runs at about the same speed as their windows compiles do.

There are warts, with corner case incompatibilities for the M1 still in the dev space, but overall my experience has been good.

Then I started using the iwork stuff for documents and affinity for images and screw it im sold.

I hate it because it gives me a rash in my open source, but I spend half the time making docs that look twice as good.

The interface plus the ecosystem, with all the top shelf templates, themes, images, etc is impossible to beat for someone who doesn't want to invest a couple thousand hours to become a software-x jedi.

It's impossible to compare it with the tools I had on Linux. It makes me look competent at desktop publishing, which arguably I am not.

Overall, while I don't doubt that for really high compute tasks there is no substitute for threads, ram, and cycles. But For my work flow as a dev using vscode and node.js based tools, I spent half the money and got way better performance and insane battery life.

And I got access to an application ecosystem that let's me produce competent work products in areas that I really don't have competence.

For me, being drug into the Mac ecosystem has been a win, albeit a begrudging one.

Yet people still think that Macbooks sell just because they are pretty.

Btw you forgot the 18 hours battery life.

But the priorities are different when you’re doing anything related to computer animation/VFX/image/video editing. If you’re mainly using the professional software that’s not only on Mac but also on Windows (such as Adobe/Autodesk products), then Macs might seem more like a luxury rather than a godsend, since raw performance is more important to your workflow than anything else. Though it’s a bit different for audio production, since it doesn’t require as much production as video/animation so you can get away with using mainstream Macbook pros, and Apple’s audio drivers and the ecosystem around it are top notch. And obviously you might want to use a Mac if you use Logic or Final Cut Pro, but they’re (surprisingly) not that widely used in the professional world.

The ~1000 euro I might save by switching to a Windows machine will quickly cost more in all the software that's not available under Windows either I need to find a replacement for or build myself which definitely costs more.

> A much, much cheaper Windows or Linux workstation will run circles around a Mac Pro.

Assuming the software on those "much cheaper" machines runs in exactly the same way.

Which it doesn't. Even if you use the same apps on Windows vs. a Mac, the OS's and their workflows are different in substantial ways.

Which they explain in the article.

Raw hardware cost is not the only driving factor in people's calculus of value. Also not sure where you thought you were going with the Leica example - especially with the image and ergonomics comments. Maybe you just don't know how to wield the tools - I have good friends with over 40 years of professional photography experience and the differences they get between their Leica and Nikon/Cannon cameras are more than noticeable.

Good grief. Just curious - how many billable hours in 3D modeling and animation do you have under your belt?

I've written a 3D engine and worked with dozens of graphics artists. They all used Windows.

Apple used to have some unique software a long time ago, but generally Windows now has the same set of products and also many Windows-only products not natively available for Macs.

It's like saying only Linux is viable for software development in a world where Visual Studio and IntelliJ IDEA exist.

The text on this site is unreadable in portrait mode on my giant phone.

Turning to landscape keeps the text the same size, but makes the lines wider.

I usually don’t complain about website design, but this is illegible.

The behavior and aesthetics of this site reminds me of designs of artists who typically design for print. Fully constrained width, zero use of content reflow, yet theres a 'finished' look to the design (multiple columns, alternating figure placement).

+1 to this I had to change it quite a bit to read it comfortably on my MacBook, and I have 20/20 vision. Applying these CSS changes fixed it for me:

    #siteWrapper {
      font-size: 16px;
      letter-spacing: 0px;
      font-weight: 600;
    }

It’s not better on a computer. Tiny grey text on a dark background, without padding (touching the edges of the browser’s window unless I make it wider).

I switched straight into Reader View on iPad. Typography on that site is a joke of course.

I have reader on by default. Simply makes life easier in most cases.

"Web design isn't the solution. Web design is the problem."

Me, a while back:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9041142

Apologies if a bit off-topic, but the piece is quite challenging to read.

Base font size on their blog is 11px... one cannot even ⌘+ zoom to victory. Compelling article packaged in poor accessibility.

Safari reader mode helped a lot, without that the website is very very bad.

Within reader mode I used Accessibility to zoom in.

Too bad about the horrible presentation, I learned a lot from the article.

The 27 inch layout looks a lot like my typical Xcode layout & the XDR looks a lot like my Xcode layout with my own pro display (except instead of a char its simulator). The XDR is truly a wonderful monitor. It’s size is perfect and resolution decent. Multiple monitors become tiring to move my neck to look at, and the curved monitors only get utilized in the middle (nothing really on the sides for me)

Agreed, I love mine. The color and brightness is also so good it makes my Wacom screen look like total garbage in comparison haha. It’s crazy how bad most monitors are, and how I didn’t even notice until using something that’s actually decent. Blows my mind.

It'd better be more than decent for 10k!

Like a lot of Apple's pro stuff, they've included tons of stuff that 90% of people don't care about, and a cost that retains profitability. But there's no good alternative for any apple user who wants a monitor to use for programming / home use.

If they at least sold their 5K 27" iMac screen as a monitor for a sane price I'd be there in a second. But you look across the average office of programmers and you will see nothing but Dell screens regardless of what machines they're using.

Pro Display XDR is $6K with stand, $7K with nano texture. Still an insane price, but you're off by over 50%.

This is so wonderful to read! Thank you so much for sharing!!

I'm trying to get more in the 3D world myself. I do plenty of 2D/graphic design professionally and I bought the mac pro (base version*) thinking I can upgrade it later.

The main problem I ran into for Maya was the Arnold Render. I will have to come back to this document and research how they render real time using their GPUs and not their CPUs. I see they're using RedShift. I'll have to learn about that!

Maya's Arnold render doesn't support rendering with AMD's GPU (AMD Radeon Pro W5700X 16 GB) so I tried the RadeonRender Plugin but it's a pain trying to apply the textures to be the same.

Are their Maya tutorials that anyone recommends on this?

Amusingly, the final video embedded on the page seems to have be taken down for copyright reasons:

> This video contains content from UFC, who has blocked it on copyright grounds.

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