Isleofgough Posted February 12, 2020 Share Posted February 12, 2020 I am trying to keep buying a Mac Pro under $9000 with discount. I burned out my iMac from probably overheating with many days of rendering. If rendering models with high definition texture maps but little simulations is the goal, would it be best to upgrade the processor from 8 to 12 cores, expand RAM, or upgrade the graphics card to a Vega? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kleer001 Posted February 12, 2020 Share Posted February 12, 2020 If you have $9000 to spend on a rig you're better off buying a box for Linux. Waaay more bang for your buck. If you buy all the components from the same store they can usually put it together for you. This was my rig I put together last year for $4000 and it's screamingly fast. https://pcpartpicker.com/list/4hGHsZ Also consider rendering with Redshift. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lukeiamyourfather Posted February 12, 2020 Share Posted February 12, 2020 The 2019 Mac Pro is an utterly terrible computer for 3D workflows no matter how you spin it. As was the 2013 Mac Pro. Apple hasn't had a serious contender in the workstation market for over a decade. You can do your own research but this video sums it up pretty well. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Isleofgough Posted February 12, 2020 Author Share Posted February 12, 2020 Thank you. With the amount and type of other software I use, not to mention data only on a time machine backup, switching operating systems is not desirable. The comments on configurations were helpful. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lukeiamyourfather Posted February 13, 2020 Share Posted February 13, 2020 (edited) If you must use a Mac then I'd get the base model and upgrade the CPU and memory. If you're not comfortable with upgrading the CPU then I would buy that from Apple. The memory and GPU upgrade prices from Apple are a joke. You might consider buying something like a Mac Mini for macOS specific tasks and then building or buying another machine. It would be faster than a Mac Pro for 3D work and still cheaper after buying two separate machines. The longer you do 3D work on Apple the more your work will suffer. If you can do more iterations in the same amount of time then your work will improve faster. It's not about this platform or that platform is better. It's about optimizing your time and improving your work. Better hardware is essential for that. Don't kid yourself into thinking the raw performance isn't a big factor because it is. https://www.wiredzone.com/shop/product/41110244-supermicro-sys-7049a-t-tower-barebone-dual-processor-7056?search=7049A-T+ https://www.wiredzone.com/shop/product/10030030-intel-cd8069504213901-xeon-silver-4216-2-10ghz-16-core-processor-gen-2-4033?search=xeon+silver+42 https://www.wiredzone.com/shop/product/41110434-supermicro-mem-dr432l-cl01-er26-memory-32gb-ddr4-2666mhz-rdimm-3299?search=supermicro+32gb+ecc+ddr4 https://www.wiredzone.com/shop/product/41113212-samsung-mz-v7e2t0bw-hard-drive-ssd-2tb-pcie-3-0-nvme-m-2-970-evo-2075 https://www.wiredzone.com/shop/product/10030198-seagate-st16000nm001g-hard-drive-16tb-sata-6gb-s-7-2k-rpm-3-5in-2471?search=16tb https://www.nvidia.com/en-us/geforce/graphics-cards/rtx-2080-super/ Food for thought. That's a build for a machine with 32 cores (64 threads) at 2.1GHz with 3.2GHz turbo, 512GB of ECC memory, 2TB NVMe SSD, 64TB of HDD storage, and a Nvidia RTX 2080 Super. It would be under $9K including Windows or you could throw Linux on there. It's faster and better than the Mac Pro in every way by a long shot. If you didn't want the HDD storage you could get two video cards, or add more memory, or upgrade the processors. Edited February 13, 2020 by lukeiamyourfather Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
schwungsau Posted February 13, 2020 Share Posted February 13, 2020 first of all comparing mac pro with self build system is not fare. mac is always more expensive. you have compare mac pro with window/linux workstation when some specs from Dell, Boxx or HP, then realize the price is not much different. btw. i am willing to pay more to apple design, osx, service, but i my case, i had get a 2nd linux workstation for my needs. anyway the value for money is a imac pro with with max mini. for 9k you get 10 core xeon with medium amd card (unbeaten 5k screen) which runs forever plus a 2-3 mac mini's as render salves. mac mini are very good as cpu farm, not expenive fast small and stackable. or even better regular imac with decent specs and much more mac mini's as farm. many here scream but you can build own renderfarm much cheaper and put in ikea drawers --> (https://www.instructables.com/id/Ikea-Helmer-Renderfarm/) but do you want this ? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
flcc Posted February 13, 2020 Share Posted February 13, 2020 10 minutes ago, schwungsau said: you have compare mac pro with window/linux workstation when some specs from Dell, Boxx or HP Why ? Dell, HP or BBox, for high-end workstation are the most expensive solutions on the market. You can find everywhere specialized store who build competitive solutions. I get a threadripper 2950, 128G RAM, 3xGTX2080, SSD500 + M2 500 + 4T° storage , all assembled, and tested for 7000€ (8000 $ ?) The same with MacPro is about 14000€. It's twice the price ! But I can understand Isleofgough reasons as I'm a also a long time Mac User. PC for 3D task, Mac for video tasks. And Yes when you have tons of media and projects archived on osx drives, it's not easy to switch. But now even for video since they gave up quicktime, and other codecs tends to dominate these days, (even ProRes is now standard with last versions of adobe products), the cons for video tasks become minimal. Is why I wanted to make a total switch, but hey, for a long time user it's not easy. I choose an intermediate solution with Hackintosh. I have two and i'm very happy with it. I use them for my video task, and I can even switch to windows if needed. Problem with that, is you better to know somone who build it. And for administrative task, a macmini. Conclusion: I haven't gotten rid of apple. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lukeiamyourfather Posted February 13, 2020 Share Posted February 13, 2020 4 hours ago, schwungsau said: first of all comparing mac pro with self build system is not fare. mac is always more expensive. you have compare mac pro with window/linux workstation when some specs from Dell, Boxx or HP, then realize the price is not much different. It's not my fault Apple doesn't sell parts to build one. That doesn't mean the rest of us have to pay through the nose though. 4 hours ago, flcc said: But I can understand Isleofgough reasons as I'm a also a long time Mac User. Me too. Since System Software 6 to macOS. I've been burned enough times by Apple to know better at this point. I can see the secondary uses and lighter duty processing but as a primary 3D workstation? Pass. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
schwungsau Posted February 14, 2020 Share Posted February 14, 2020 1 hour ago, lukeiamyourfather said: It's not my fault Apple doesn't sell parts to build one. That doesn't mean the rest of us have to pay through the nose though. Me too. Since System Software 6 to macOS. I've been burned enough times by Apple to know better at this point. I can see the secondary uses and lighter duty processing but as a primary 3D workstation? Pass. right, i forgot hardware guys are dead serious here. i didn't say its forbitten to build your own system, just was saying if you compare prices, compare complete system vs complete system. DIY system vs HP workstation --> hp workstation its much more expensive and Hp does not sell components separate either. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
flcc Posted February 14, 2020 Share Posted February 14, 2020 (edited) I'm really not a hardware guy and I did meant complete solutions. Check here, that's where I bought my equipment. It's a little french compagny. They know very well 3d world, and build nice and fully tested configurations. You can obviously call them if you have specific requests. Really not DIY systems. Pretty sure you can find equivalents in your countries. Edited February 14, 2020 by flcc Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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