MP 7,1 I need help making a decision please...

[pudcraft]

Hi everyone, I am looking for your opinion on a purchase I am considering making.

First and foremost, I understand and am very well aware that the Mac Pro product line is intended for professionals. I am a designer and entrepreneur of several things. In design, I help create visual communication assets, UX/UI flows, interface designs, and much more. Some tasks may be graphically intensive while some may not.

Secondly, I am also an avid gamer. I love to play Blizzard games. Games such as World of Warcraft, Starcraft II, Diablo, and Hearthstone. I grew up on Blizzard games and I will always continue to play them.

I am AWARE that Mac has never been the "desired" gaming platform. I have gotten suggestions like, "build a PC and save money." While these suggestions are strongly considered, I must disregard them because the majority of software I use for my work is MAC ONLY.

I have gotten suggestions to build a PC for gaming, spend the rest on a Macbook, iMac, or Mac Mini and use an eGPU. I'm not looking to overcomplicated my setup and definitely not interested in settling on maximum hardware buildout dependent on budgetary allowance.

SO....heres my QUESTION to YOU!

I have been carefully eyeballing getting the latest generation Mac Pro (7,1) with the base 8-core CPU, base RAM, and upgrading the GPU to the Radeon Pro W5700X.

I am CONFIDENT that my professional required work and software will run very efficiently with this setup. Do YOU believe that I will also be able to satisfy my gaming desires (all of which run on Mac OS) without any severe graphical limitations?

These games CAN be graphically intensive: I do know that WoW is a more CPU intensive game, lately pressing more emphasis on utilizing the GPU as well.

I'm looking forward to your constructive feedback!

 

[defjam]

The question I have: Does it really matter? You've decided on purchasing the 2019 Mac Pro which has three GPU options: Radeon Pro 580X (entry level out of the group), Radeon Pro W5700X (mid-level out of the group), and Radeon Pro Vega II (high end out of the group).

The option you're inquiring about is the mid-level. Unless you're willing to consider moving up to the Radeon Pro Vega II there is no choice to be made. How it performs is largely irrelevant as you have only one other choice (assuming you want to remain with Apple provided GPUs).

 

[ssgbryan]

Your gaming performance on a 7,1 Mac will be meh, at best. It all comes down to drivers for the video card. OTOH, Blizzard games are designed to run on potatoes, so you can do it, just remember your $6,000 - $8,000 7,1 will be outperformed by a $500 gaming PC (or a next generation console).

AMD does not write the OSX drivers for Mac video cards. You will not be able to take advantage of all of the support and driver fixes that AMD provides with their adrenaline drivers. AMD is still providing driver optimizations for Polaris cards - you won't be getting them. You are unlikely to get ray tracing support, image sharpening, etc.

AMD has a regular driver upgrade roadmap - that road map does not apply to OSX drivers.

You will be stuck with whatever level of support Apple feels is "good enough". And they don't care about gaming - it is not a market they are interested in.

If gaming is important - get a PC for gaming. I know you don't want to hear that, but the reality is PC Gaming is NOT an area Apple is interested it.

 

[erroneous]

Provided the Apple continue to support future 3rd party AMD GPUs in the Mac Pro chassis, and the games you wish to play continue to be supported on MacOS, you should be fine until either of those change.

 

[tsialex]

Your gaming performance on a 7,1 Mac will be meh, at best. It all comes down to drivers for the video card. OTOH, Blizzard games are designed to run on potatoes, so you can do it, just remember your $6,000 - $8,000 7,1 will be outperformed by a $500 gaming PC (or a next generation console).

AMD does not write the OSX drivers for Mac video cards. You will not be able to take advantage of all of the support and driver fixes that AMD provides with their adrenaline drivers. AMD is still providing driver optimizations for Polaris cards - you won't be getting them. You are unlikely to get ray tracing support, image sharpening, etc.

AMD has a regular driver upgrade roadmap - that road map does not apply to OSX drivers.

You will be stuck with whatever level of support Apple feels is "good enough". And they don't care about gaming - it is not a market they are interested in.

If gaming is important - get a PC for gaming. I know you don't want to hear that, but the reality is PC Gaming is NOT an area Apple is interested it.

You can install Adrenaline drivers when running BootCamp, no problem.

Btw, Apple video drivers when mature, like RX 580 are now and VEGA 10 are becoming (NAVI drivers are a cluster**** with Windows or macOS at the moment), don’t miss much for Windows counterparts performance wise.

 

[h9826790]

I can't see why the 7,1 can't gaming well (in macOS). Even my 2009 Mac Pro can do gaming very well.

And this is just the performance in macOS. In Windows, the same game usually can do 50% better.

If the W5700 eventually can't satisfy your gaming need, you can always upgrade the graphic card on the 7,1. It's the PCIe slots make my 2009 Mac Pro still able to game well in 2020.

P.S. the Youtube video is in 32:9 because my monitor is a 32:9 3840x1080 gaming monitor. The game was running at this double 1080P resolution (or half 4K).

 

[ssgbryan]

You can install Adrenaline drivers when running BootCamp, no problem.

Btw, Apple video drivers when mature, like RX 580 are now and VEGA 10 are becoming (NAVI drivers are a cluster**** with Windows or macOS at the moment), don’t miss much for Windows counterparts performance wise.

How is image sharpening working out?

 

[deconstruct60]

....
AMD does not write the OSX drivers for Mac video cards. You will not be able to take advantage of all of the support and driver fixes that AMD provides with their adrenaline drivers. AMD is still providing driver optimizations for Polaris cards - you won't be getting them. You are unlikely to get ray tracing support, image sharpening, etc.
.....

There is a difference between "does not write" and "does not arbitrary distribute without direct Apple supervision outside of the macOS release process".

Historically, the lowest levels of the drivers are done by the GPU vendors. The OpenGL stack was a bit split. top "half" Apple had major hand in maintaining. The "lowest level" was a farmed out the folks most familiar with the bowels of the hardware. So the issue is whether circumvent Apple's release processes and toss stuff out to the public. Just because Apple sits on top of the macOS update release process doesn't mean they are literally doing all of the work.

Metal is a smaller stack. Apple probably owns more. But I'd be surprised if it was 100%.

What doesn't get down on macOS typically is to have multiple track drivers. One for stability and another tweaked for framerates and quirks of a subset of apps to goose speed. Those two models don't necessarily point to who is doing what.
[automerge]1587323966[/automerge]

....
First and foremost, I understand and am very well aware that the Mac Pro product line is intended for professionals. I am a designer and entrepreneur of several things. In design, I help create visual communication assets, UX/UI flows, interface designs, and much more. Some tasks may be graphically intensive while some may not.

Secondly, I am also an avid gamer. I love to play Blizzard games. Games such as World of Warcraft, Starcraft II, Diablo, and Hearthstone. I grew up on Blizzard games and I will always continue to play them.
....

Those two can be highly at odds when it comes to screen resolution. if the business has higher requirements for a single large "real estate " , ultra high resolution monitor then it pragmatically comes into huge conflict with the latter.
An ultra high resolution monitor isn't necessary to play games primarily for 'fun'. (as oppose to epic networked battles at heightened competition levels. )

If have two 4K monitors and only game on one of the 4K monitors than not as much of a problem . If have a 5K and a 4K monitor and try to game on the 5K then have a substantive issue. Similarly a single 5K (or higher) monitor.

If primarily looking at color critical monitors ... again the usage doesn't match up well. (especially at the those kinds of monitors get more vertically specialized and more expensive. )

if you have 1-2 2K monitors then in a pretty good dual usage match zone.

In short the resolution "load" you put on the monitor matters. ( It is possible to change the monitor resoution mode explicitly to lower that (and make parts of the screen 'dark'. ) ..

If the gaming is a second "job" ( intense) then a second job computer is probably a better fit. What is left on the Mac Pro with the new midrange card is good enough for "for fun" gaming.

 

[goMac]

AMD does not write the OSX drivers for Mac video cards. You will not be able to take advantage of all of the support and driver fixes that AMD provides with their adrenaline drivers. AMD is still providing driver optimizations for Polaris cards - you won't be getting them.

This meme has been going around these forums for a while and it absolutely not true. AMD writes their GPU drivers for macOS. There’s been a lot of talk and sourcing elsewhere about this. AMD has dedicated engineers for the Mac drivers.

Same with Nvidia and Intel, but the story was that Nvidia is the least responsive to Apple on bug fixes, which is part of why they are getting dropped.

AMD has a regular driver upgrade roadmap - that road map does not apply to OSX drivers.

Mostly not true. AMD does have a macOS driver roadmap. The difference is that Apple controls all the releases, so the drivers are on a different release schedule. That’s important for gaming. And even though they work with the Windows driver team, there is no gaming control panel for Mac.

 

[OkiRun]

Use the 7.1 for business and a PC for gaming. That way the IRS (if you are in the states) doesn't ferret out your ass when you keep posting that you play games on your company computer all the time.