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Mac Pro Can Now Be Customized With Radeon Pro W5700X Graphics Cards
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The reviews I have read with people running the VegaII's seem to be happy. They are not gaming cards, but they do quite well with applications that can use them like Resolve and FCP X. Premiere I would say is only so-so.
I have the 580x and it is actually better than I expected it to be. Lightwave 3D layout is fairly good. Not as good as the 1080ti, but definitely usable for basic to medium sized scenes.
I will wait for some reviews before going with the W5700X vs. a VegaII or maybe something better later this year.
I have the 580x and it is actually better than I expected it to be. Lightwave 3D layout is fairly good. Not as good as the 1080ti, but definitely usable for basic to medium sized scenes.
I will wait for some reviews before going with the W5700X vs. a VegaII or maybe something better later this year.
these are the speeds I'm getting. I have the Dual Vega II Pro Duo (so essentially 4 gfx cards). The system is a beast.
I use Resolve for professional Color Grading and haven't been able to make these gfx cards sweat (yet).
I really wish you could buy the tower with high end gaming graphics cards. I know Mac's are designed for gaming, but I wish I could buy a mac to game on :|
My God, how many people can afford to buy an Apple Pro in these times we're living in? I quickly skimmed through this entire thread to find my answer but I didn't find it.
I got a the same config, minus the w5700wx, when it launched. I bought several v-Color 32GB (2x16gb) 2-packs from amazon and they have worked flawlessly. Keep the 8GB sticks because you can use them in conjunction with higher capacity sticks and also in case you need to do any diagnostics.
Its a pretty nice power cord though. And the box is nigh on a flight case- very reusable. Just saying.
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I bought mine 2 weeks before the hammer dropped, heh. I’m sure most professionals in my industry are not investing in their studios / workstations atm though. Things will pick up in a year I hope, but unless we get price drops many will sitting on their savings and CC’s
Yep. The businesses that will come out of this in decent shape are those that are either classified as "essential" (and are therefore still operating), or have zero debt on the books and have shut down most spending. And are NOT using credit cards to pay for anything! And that kind of goes for individuals too. And governments. Things that make you go "hmmmm...."
Cast another vote from me for CUDA. You can call it "lock in", but the others are right: There is a lot of compute software that works only with CUDA. So Nvidia it is for me. Meaning that I can't justify a Mac or a MacBook Pro at this time. Shame, really!
At the risk of being trolled (not saying you are a troll, but this type of question on a forum usually raises my eyebrows as the ensuing discussion usually boils down to "You don't need that much power"; "What a waste of money"; or the tried and true "More money than common sense"):
My career is that of an attorney - drafting legal briefs; performing legal research
However, I also write music and create videos
The main reason for purchasing this machine is that it is upgradeable, thus allowing me to keep this one machine and update it as needed rather than buying a new machine every 3 years or so)
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Well, I am using a 2015 iMac with 32GB Ram and, I routinely get up to 30GB RAM usage just from a small Logic Pro X project while also having YouTube open - forget about using FCPX at the same time
I have always been of the belief that you can never have too much RAM
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Good idea - thank you
You are going to laugh but Safari frequently uses up to 70GB of RAM on my Mac Pro 2019 with 96GB of RAM! Granted I have over 100 Safari browser windows open too. I remember writing an AppleScript that would tell me how many Safari browser windows I have open at the same time. Maybe I need to dig that script up and run it to get the exact number. I am not sure why Safari needs that much RAM? It may be a bug? On top of that Xcode & Unity still run fine. I also use Houdini Indie, Blender 2.8, & Maya but usually not all at the same time. I am an iOS App developer focusing on AR / VR, etc... Note that the AI denoising in Blender is almost close to real time ray tracing, but this currently runs only on the Nvidia RTX 2080. Please note that Blender does not use the AMD GPU on the Mac at all since it is optimized for NVIDIA but AMD is working with the Blender Foundation on a Metal->Vulkan implementation for Blender that will allow real time AI denoising. The big guys at Pixar have similar workflows, except with Renderman instead of Blender, lol, and a lot of them use the Mac Pro, so I am sure RDNA 2 will be made available for the Mac Pro once the new 5900 cards come out.
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Wow. That's pretty crazy, given that Safari is a pretty optimized piece of software. But RAM is there to be used, so it is generally a good thing that your applications are using so much RAM. I have 40 GB of RAM in my iMac, and I don't think I've ever gotten close to maxing that out, even with FCPX and Lightroom open simultaneously.
I'm pretty sure AMD efforts w/ Blender will be optimized for RDNA2 and RDNA2 GPU's ray-tracing & deep-learning hardware more than anything else to have parity with Maxell & RTX's steller tensor cores + the latter's ray-tracing cores.
Yes, and Houdini is also working on AMD Metal GPU optimization for their new Karma Universal Scene Description renderer for Houdini 18! As you know Universal Scene Description (USD) is a Disney / Pixar open source initiative. Also, USD is heavily supported in Apple's Development APIs.
When it comes to RAM? Any properly spec'd memory modules from a reputable manufacturer should be fine.
That said? What Apple has often done in the past is selected memory with slightly less common "timings", which causes a lot of the stuff you'd otherwise just buy off the shelf from a major retailer not to work well or at all.
OWC has always been a pretty convenient source for Mac upgrades, primarily because they do the research and leg work for you, to only sell you components that are appropriate and verified to work well by them first. Transcend has also, historically, been a good option (though I never researched if they offer RAM for the current Mac Pro tower)?
On my "trash can" Mac Pro I owned before, I just bought RAM from a dealer on eBay who had the lowest prices I could find anyplace to upgrade to 64GB. But he did specify he was using RAM with Samsung chips on it, so I knew they weren't just second-rate parts. For a new machine at this price point though, I completely understand why you'd want the extra reassurance you could do a warranty exchange if you had issues....
That said? What Apple has often done in the past is selected memory with slightly less common "timings", which causes a lot of the stuff you'd otherwise just buy off the shelf from a major retailer not to work well or at all.
OWC has always been a pretty convenient source for Mac upgrades, primarily because they do the research and leg work for you, to only sell you components that are appropriate and verified to work well by them first. Transcend has also, historically, been a good option (though I never researched if they offer RAM for the current Mac Pro tower)?
On my "trash can" Mac Pro I owned before, I just bought RAM from a dealer on eBay who had the lowest prices I could find anyplace to upgrade to 64GB. But he did specify he was using RAM with Samsung chips on it, so I knew they weren't just second-rate parts. For a new machine at this price point though, I completely understand why you'd want the extra reassurance you could do a warranty exchange if you had issues....
Okay now for the community to figure out which third party Radeon RX5700 cards are Mac / Hackintosh compatible!
The GPU options on this otherwise incredible machine are embarrassing. If Apple would support Nvidia, you could put a $300 2060 in this machine that would make it respectable. Certainly better than the 580X. I think the 1660 outperforms the 580X.
But having to pay +$1800 just to get something contemporary is kind of ridiculous. The DOA graphics are what's preventing me from buying the iMac Pro.
But having to pay +$1800 just to get something contemporary is kind of ridiculous. The DOA graphics are what's preventing me from buying the iMac Pro.
Upgrade price from Apple to go to 96GB: $1000
OWC price to add another 8x8GB: $600
OWC price to buy 6x16GB: $650
Resale price to sell Apple's 4x8GB: up to $300 (let's say $150 realistically to sell quickly)
Resulting net price to sell Apple 4x8GB and buy OWC 6x16GB: $500
The answer is clear, sell the Apple 4x8GB "second-hand" and buy the OWC 6x16GB, total net cost of $500. This leaves you with the ability to upgrade down the track by adding another 6x16GB, which will probably be half the price in a couple of years when you need it. OWC sell quality stuff, and give a solid warranty.
The $600 upgrade price for the 5700XT is reasonable. Nice 5700XTs are >$400 and they only have 8 GB of RAM. Add in the top-notch thermals of the GPUs for these machines, stable drivers (unlike on Windows), and the extra RAM and you are well within the range of reasonable pricing.
I did something similar. I lucked out using stock to buy mine before wall street lost their minds a week or two after I ordered.
Or the company is big enough that they tend to keep spending through recessions because they can, and they see a competitive advantage to doing so. Real estate, the tech giants, etc. They don't call it a war chest for nothing. :|
Yeah, it reminds me a lot of Direct X. A proprietary platform that is actually not bad to work with, and gets the job done. And it's part of an increasingly entrenched ecosystem. Nvidia I think doesn't need CUDA as a way to keep people on their GPUs, but it certainly helps them.
If you're saying that the Mac Pro should use more consumer GPUs in the official parts. You maybe have a point. That said, you can also go buy a consumer 5700 or 5700 XT and pop it in. I am not sure Apple really thinks there's much value in trying to compete with the consumer cards.
That said, comparing consumer level cards to workstation cards isn't exactly an even comparison. The prices aren't even remotely the same, even from nVidia. The low end level RTX Quadro, the 4000, is just shy of 900$ street price, and doesn't spec out quite as good as the W5700 at 800$, or the W5700X at 1000$.
It's really 1000$ (the 400$ difference is the "credit" for the 580X they aren't including in your BTO). But the W5700X compared to the W5700 (800$) is still not a terrible price for double the VRAM, adding TB3 ports, and a better binned workstation GPU. It's cheaper than the WX8200, at least, which is the Vega workstation GPU in this performance slot.
I'm glad you took the time to answer my question. I definitely was not trolling. I am a retired attorney and am looking to upgrade to a more powerful Mac. The ability to upgrade your Mac in the future is, IMO, a very good reason to buy the Mac Pro. There are videos on YouTube where people are still making the original cheese grater run very fast. As you can see from my sig, I'm a flight simmer, so I'm thinking about the Mac Pro or maybe the (hopefully) upcoming iMac Pro refresh.