MP All Models So long, old friend.

[leifp]

What I ever wanted from a Mac wrt gaming was full access/support. It never needed to keep up with the newest/greatest but I wanted to have a single computer for work and play. I’m just a little too demanding and with the AS Macs this option is completely dead. That’s fine; I’ll figure something out. Probably just sticking with two computers in my office…

 

[Flint Ironstag]

Performance at what, though?

Video processing?
Compute?
Realtime 3d engines in high resolution?

This is the thing I'm always skeptical about when it comes to AS performance claims, sure Apple might be great about video processing*

*ProRes video in a codec explicitly built into the processor

...but show me an Apple silicon machine hooked up to a VR headset, driving stereoscopic dual high resolution viewports at 90-120hz competitively with a 5080.

A sports car that's competitive in a drag race with a tow truck isn't the achievement some would claim.

Winner winner chicken dinner. A bunch of us here will remember the old days of cherry-picked benchmarks - PowerPC AltiVec vs. Intel. 😂. Yeah, they absolutely scream on paper. In the real world, not so much outside of focused tasks.

 

[SDAVE]

Performance at what, though?

Video processing?
Compute?
Realtime 3d engines in high resolution?

This is the thing I'm always skeptical about when it comes to AS performance claims, sure Apple might be great about video processing*

*ProRes video in a codec explicitly built into the processor

...but show me an Apple silicon machine hooked up to a VR headset, driving stereoscopic dual high resolution viewports at 90-120hz competitively with a 5080.

A sports car that's competitive in a drag race with a tow truck isn't the achievement some would claim.

Gaming performance is what I'm talking about. Specifically the 7,1 Mac Pro.

 

[Charlie Bonesx]

What I ever wanted from a Mac wrt gaming was full access/support. It never needed to keep up with the newest/greatest but I wanted to have a single computer for work and play. I’m just a little too demanding and with the AS Macs this option is completely dead. That’s fine; I’ll figure something out. Probably just sticking with two computers in my office…

I saw metro exodus enhanced edition was on sale for $6 or something so I figured it was a good chance to see what my m4 studio could do

playing through crossover looks amazing and runs decent

4k, ultra settings, ray tracing set to high and no problem with 60 fps (that's my monitors refresh anyway)

if I needed more fps I could probably turn dlss down an notch and still be good

edit: I actually had ray tracing on ultra. switched to high and now up 90 fps, so not too many more tweaks prob to get to 120

 

[maflynn]

edit: I actually had ray tracing on ultra. switched to high and now up 90 fps, so not too many more tweaks prob to get to 120

Not a huge fan of Ray Tracing. Visually it adds to the ambiance, but overall, I don't really feel is worth the overhead. I generally turn it off completely and don't feel the games are any worse for wear - YMMV but that's me

 

[Charlie Bonesx]

MacBook Pro 14,1

Not a huge fan of Ray Tracing. Visually it adds to the ambiance, but overall, I don't really feel is worth the overhead. I generally turn it off completely and don't feel the games are any worse for wear - YMMV but that's me

by no means am I cheerleading for ray tracing. Just pointing out that it works just fine on Apple silicon, and via crossover on a windows game at that

 

[maflynn]

MacBook Pro 14,1

by no means am I cheerleading for ray tracing. Just pointing out that it works just fine on Apple silicon, and via crossover on a windows game at that

I have been very happy with the performance of Crossover and my M4 Max Studio, its an excellent combination.

 

[Charlie Bonesx]

I have been very happy with the performance of Crossover and my M4 Max Studio, its an excellent combination.

In fact you talked it up enough to help help convince me to buy one 😉

 

[leifp]

Not a huge fan of Ray Tracing. Visually it adds to the ambiance, but overall, I don't really feel is worth the overhead. I generally turn it off completely and don't feel the games are any worse for wear - YMMV but that's me

The problem with raytracing is that for it to be a genuine benefit it needs to be the sole lighting method rather than a selectable option. And path tracing, (“full” raytracing) takes a chunk of discipline. The value, however is undeniable. Vastly superior lighting with vastly reduced coding requirements. That makes “more realistic” (an argument for another space) both easier to achieve and reduces “fakeness” of the image, whose false shadows pull one out of the game. E.g. things floating on the surface, like a typewriter on a table, rather than seeming to sit firmly upon it.

 

[SDAVE]

Please expound on sloppily controlled fans?
For PCs, there's a lot more flexibility, control and freedom to define a fan curve that fits a lot better for your usage, then what the Mac offers. If you're referring to Apple's fan control, and needing a utilty to give you manual control, yes, I agree

As for the looks, beauty is in the eye of the beholder, I agree when that mac pro came out, it was a head turner, and its still eye catching, but and I think its big but. There are other beautifully designed and professional looking computer cases available that offer more freedom/flexibility in building out a great computer


And this was probably one of the major reasons why Apple killed off the Mac Pro. There were people willing to buy the MP, just not at the price apple was charging 700 dollars for wheels? That's just insulting to consumers.

The other poster isn't wrong about PC fans. Look, I've been building PCs since the 90s and I can get very in depth regarding Fan Curve science. It takes some time to set it up the way you want to on a PC especially on a fresh built. By default, the mobo settings such as "auto" never work well so you have to manually set the curves and cap RPM, see how many fans you have, the sizes of them, where your intake and outtake is, etc etc. Unless you know what you're doing, your PC will kick fans in gear when its medium-hot range. This isn't to say that you can set up your fans correctly, just takes some time.

To me, keeping the Mac Pro around is nice its like furniture. I'll set the Mac Studio on top of it (as it sits on my floor to my right) and then get a KVM switch for one of the Studio Displays and keep both systems running all the time so if I want to game, I can just use the KVM switch to switch to windows. It's going to cost me an additional $3,000 (not counting GPU) just to build an SFFPC, there's no point as I'm a casual gamer nowdays. I will want to put really high end parts in it. I'd rather put that money towards a Mac Studio M5 Ultra. My last PC build had really high end parts and was water cooled, I am not going in that direction again. I even tried to select the least eye-sore of a case and it still looked cheesy. PC cases have gotten better for sure and there are some very minimal SFFPC cases, but they are $400-600.

Everyone has their need, 4% performance drop (as see in Tech Jesus' video) between Gen 3 and Gen 5 on a RTX5090 is no big deal.

 

[SDAVE]

The problem with raytracing is that for it to be a genuine benefit it needs to be the sole lighting method rather than a selectable option. And path tracing, (“full” raytracing) takes a chunk of discipline. The value, however is undeniable. Vastly superior lighting with vastly reduced coding requirements. That makes “more realistic” (an argument for another space) both easier to achieve and reduces “fakeness” of the image, whose false shadows pull one out of the game. E.g. things floating on the surface, like a typewriter on a table, rather than seeming to sit firmly upon it.

Path Tracing even runs bad on a 5090 without any upscaling. We're still early on that.

 

[maflynn]

I've been building PCs since the 90s and I can get very in depth regarding Fan Curve science

I've been building, selling and repairing PCs since the 90s and the fan control that PCs offer far exceed what you can do in the Mac.

 

[SDAVE]

I've been building, selling and repairing PCs since the 90s and the fan control that PCs offer far exceed what you can do in the Mac.

Where did I say in my post that fan control on PC doesn't exceed vs a Mac? 🤣

If you are a tinkerer and love wasting hours building PCs go for a PC. We're talking about something completely different here. Prolonging the life of the dead end Intel Mac Pro 7,1 that we already own outside of it being a macOS machine.

I frankly would rather spend time with my loved ones now that I'm older than spend time tinkering RGB lights and fan curves on a PC. I've outgrown that stuff. I only use computers for work + sometimes pleasure.

 

[maflynn]

Where did I say in my post that fan control on PC doesn't exceed vs a Mac? 🤣

Right here:

The other poster isn't wrong about PC fans.

 

[SDAVE]

Right here:

Where did I say PC can't be controlled further than a Mac through custom thousands of different variations of fans/sizes, thousands of cases, thousands of if BIOS/Software fan curve settings?

I was simply confirming with the other post that Apple has already developed a really nice fan system (using high quality ball bearing fans, a beautiful chassis that has great airflow) and fan curve via hardware/firmware on the Mac Pro 7,1. Which is correct. Users don't need to do anything it runs at low speeds and only kicks up slightly when you're really pushing the system.

Not sure why you're in a Mac Pro thread talking about PCs?