# New Mac Pro orders start Tuesday, December 10th



## Symfoniq

Apple to Release Mac Pro and Pro Display XDR on December 10


Apple plans to release the new Mac Pro and the Pro Display XDR on Tuesday, December 10, according to "Save the Date" emails that Apple began...




www.macrumors.com


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## Wunderhorn

Forget all about the piddly Black Friday gallivanting - now this is the REAL shopping!


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## ridgero

How many people on this forum will buy it? Under 1%?


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## jamwerks

Or buy a similary spec'd PC and a car!


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## Jeremy Spencer

ridgero said:


> How many people on this forum will buy it? Under 1%?



I haven't seen the pricing yet, but may consider one if it's in the $6K range for a "starter". If it lasts me a decade, it's worth every penny IMO.


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## ridgero

Wolfie2112 said:


> I haven't seen the pricing yet, but may consider one if it's in the $6K range for a "starter". If it lasts me a decade, it's worth every penny IMO.



I don’t think a 8 Core machine will last you a decade. If it was a 10 or 12 core, I would consider it too.


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## OleJoergensen

I look forward to hear about the use of the new Mac pro in music production
...


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## Jeremy Spencer

ridgero said:


> I don’t think a 8 Core machine will last you a decade. If it was a 10 or 12 core, I would consider it too.



If I can get 10 or 12 for around $8, I may consider. It will be interesting to see the pricing. However, my gut is telling me that it will be super high :(


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## ridgero

Honestly: I don’t pay that much money for such a small upgrade in 2019. 10 / 12 Cores for 8k? Nope, I‘m out.

Comet Lake with an i9 10 Core is coming in Spring 2020.

I will wait for the WWDC and see what Apple is going to offer then.


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## ridgero

About to order :DD


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## Wunderhorn

I think it's do-able. 16 cores seems to be the sweet spot.
The prices for SSD and RAM however are close to fraud.
Waiting to see what OWC can offer in that department.


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## Damarus

LOL over 50k fully loaded


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## Damarus

I configured one for around $9400 - 16core, 96 gb ram, 1Tb ssd. That's still absurd but i'd say do-able if you absolutly had to stay Apple and wanted to keep this for 6-10years


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## gsilbers

yeah..i dont think the high price is an exlusive apple thing...

hp can get pricey too... $60k-90k, which is what apple actually is competing against for hollywood back end dominance, or you think they just want to give you free/low price tv content in apple tv for kicks? its a very lucrative business they aiming for that buying this sort of configuration is peanuts for a lot of LA studios. 

we just keep assuming the macpro is like our old Mac Pro and used for some some semi large templates...
or video games.
for that, the i9 has a pretty sweet price point.


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## Jeremy Spencer

ridgero said:


> I don’t think a 8 Core machine will last you a decade. If it was a 10 or 12 core, I would consider it too.



The 12 core with the base 32GB Ram, plus a 1TB SSD, is nearly $10 CDN. Yikes.


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## Damarus

gsilbers said:


> yeah..i dont think the high price is an exlusive apple thing...
> 
> hp can get pricey too... $60k-90k



Yeah you probably get nearly twice the computer from HP though.

Edit: jk its still overpriced.


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## jamwerks

But let's not forget what that $50k is really getting you: a computer worth $7k, $20k goes to donations to the republican party, and $23k goes towards the purchase of their private corporate jets. 

They are so delighted to still have so many generous members of the Apple cult


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## macmac

Wolfie2112 said:


> The 12 core with the base 32GB Ram, plus a 1TB SSD, is nearly $10 CDN. Yikes.



Their Mac IIFX back in 1990 was 10 grand+ too.


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## ridgero

Wolfie2112 said:


> The 12 core with the base 32GB Ram, plus a 1TB SSD, is nearly $10 CDN. Yikes.



So whats your plan? 

Refurb iMac Pro 10 Core with 128 GB Ram?


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## Jeremy Spencer

ridgero said:


> So whats your plan?
> 
> Refurb iMac Pro 10 Core with 128 GB Ram?



Holding out for a Mini with an i9, wishful thinking?


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## Damarus

Wolfie2112 said:


> Holding out for a Mini with an i9, wishful thinking?



That would make a good "early 2020" Mac Mini Model!


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## artomatic

My config. Will be looking at OWC for RAM upgrade, etc.
With CA tax, total is $9,091.92
With its upgradability, I should be good for years to come.


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## Jeremy Spencer

artomatic said:


> My config. Will be looking at OWC for RAM upgrade, etc.
> With CA tax, total is $9,091.92
> With its upgradability, I should be good for years to come.



What about your 2013? Not powerful enough?


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## Gerd Kaeding

artomatic said:


> My config. Will be looking at OWC for RAM upgrade, etc.
> With CA tax, total is $9,091.92
> With its upgradability, I should be good for years to come.


This config. costs some 9379.-Euro (incl. Tax) in the german store. 
This is 13700.-Canadian Dollars , 10300.-U.S. Dollars . Ouch ...


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## ridgero

Wolfie2112 said:


> Holding out for a Mini with an i9, wishful thinking?



That would be my favorite!

Mac Mini 8 cores, 128 GB RAM


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## Sarah Mancuso

I would not advise spending massive amounts on a super-high-end x86 Mac when Apple is projected to move to ARM chips within the next few years. Your x86-based model won’t be supported for as long as you want it to be.


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## Wunderhorn

Interesting bits on RAM:
I assume that soon OWC and others will offer official solutions.

There are now support documents online that show what memory configurations you can install:




__





Mac Pro (2019) memory specifications


Learn about the types of memory (RAM) used in Mac Pro (2019).



support.apple.com




and




__





Install and replace memory in your Mac Pro (2019)


Learn how to remove and install memory in your Mac Pro.



support.apple.com





An interesting piece of information is the difference between LR and R DIMMs. Once you want to move beyond 192GB you basically have to get rid of your RAM and buy everything new again.

Right now the matching memory (not officially confirmed that it works with the Mac Pro) at Crucial's web site seems to go for roughly $170 per 32GB. That would be about $1000 for 192GB. Instead of the insane price of $3000 what Apple wants to charge.


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## Symfoniq

Sarah Mancuso said:


> I would not advise spending massive amounts on a super-high-end x86 Mac when Apple is projected to move to ARM chips within the next few years. Your x86-based model won’t be supported for as long as you want it to be.



If professional Macs do in fact move to ARM, I'd bet money that they will be the very last to do so.


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## Lee Blaske

It's reported to be dead silent, even in max configuration. That's worth a premium.

Also, my two fully loaded 2013 Mac Pros are going to be worth something on the used market. Is a 2013 PC worth much?

Logic Pro is also a money saver over the years.

I'm not going to be able to make a move until more things are ready for Catalina, but I think I'll probably be going for a 16 core, with 192Gb memory from OWC. It'll be interesting to see if we can get the SSD from a third party. 

I am looking forward to this, especially because my plan is to go with a single machine without using a slave. It'll be nice to be free of that hassle.


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## Wunderhorn

Lee Blaske said:


> It'll be interesting to see if we can get the SSD from a third party.







This does not sound good. I am sure there will be solutions - but I was hoping to just move some of my regular drives over into these slots.


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## gyprock

I maxed it out in Australia and it came to $AUD 84,778. I think I'll just buy the Apple Logo sticker.


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## ptram

Wolfie2112 said:


> f it lasts me a decade, it's worth every penny IMO.


Catalina has dropped support for the 2012 model. So, the current Mac Pro will likely have official support until year 2025. It you plan to use it with a four-year old OS during the last phase, it will last ten years.

Paolo


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## artomatic

Wolfie2112 said:


> What about your 2013? Not powerful enough?




I also edit videos. 
It still keeps up but a hiccup here and there, especially working with 4k. 
And at the moment I'm running a slave PC for VEP.
In this day and age, being able to have an upgradeable Mac Pro is a must for me. 
And upgrading to a more powerful machine is inevitable.


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## Dewdman42

I agree, nobody is going to use a mac for ten years unless they are willing to get into hacking land, as 2012 users will be for the next few years. Tell yourself whatever you want to hear to justify spending this big money. My money is waiting until Apple pulls their head out.


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## Damarus

Lee Blaske said:


> It's reported to be dead silent, even in max configuration. That's worth a premium.
> 
> Also, my two fully loaded 2013 Mac Pros are going to be worth something on the used market. Is a 2013 PC worth much?



Lol, good machine forsure. Not worth the 200% premium, unless you want to edit videos.

Also, Your mac cost a lot more than equivalent PC hardware. Technology always depreciates so I'm not sure what that comment was about.


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## Symfoniq

While I agree that the new Mac Pro is expensive, I've been configuring comparable HP Z6 workstations, and the prices are pretty close.


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## Damarus

Symfoniq said:


> While I agree that the new Mac Pro is expensive, I've been configuring comparable HP Z6 workstations, and the prices are pretty close.



Yeah I just saw that, but there is no reason to buy a server for DAW work honestly.


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## nolotrippen

Symfoniq said:


> Apple to Release Mac Pro and Pro Display XDR on December 10
> 
> 
> Apple plans to release the new Mac Pro and the Pro Display XDR on Tuesday, December 10, according to "Save the Date" emails that Apple began...
> 
> 
> 
> 
> www.macrumors.com


A top of the line Mac II with monitor sold for about that in the 80s. And people bought them!


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## Jack Weaver

What do people think the sweet spot is for the number of cores for large template Logic Pro work?

.


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## Symfoniq

Jack Weaver said:


> What do people think the sweet spot is for the number of cores for large template Logic Pro work?
> 
> .



At a guess without benchmarks, I'd say the 16-core.


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## mc_deli

I am looking at a maxxxxed out Mac Pro for the eye watering sum of 63 227,98 €

OMG but someone will!


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## Jeremy Spencer

Dewdman42 said:


> I agree, nobody is going to use a mac for ten years unless they are willing to get into hacking land, as 2012 users will be for the next few years. Tell yourself whatever you want to hear to justify spending this big money. My money is waiting until Apple pulls their head out.



A know a couple of composers still on original 2009 cheese graters.


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## VinRice

If you can't justify the price as a business cost then it's not the machine for you. 

I certainly can't at the moment but I don't resent its very existence. Irrational and dumb.

Get over yourselves.


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## gsilbers

Damarus said:


> Yeah you probably get nearly twice the computer from HP though.
> 
> Edit: jk its still overpriced.




not really. sometimes people match 1:1 apple components vs pc and come around the same price or just a little higher, the problem is its hard to compare since they have many custom parts. and the parts that apple chooses are very specific like not using i9 and going for xeon. if it wasn't cuz of my image no one would of known that HP sells PC that are $70k and no one gave a crap.


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## gsilbers

Sarah Mancuso said:


> I would not advise spending massive amounts on a super-high-end x86 Mac when Apple is projected to move to ARM chips within the next few years. Your x86-based model won’t be supported for as long as you want it to be.



thats a good point. hopefully they've learned the lesson with universal binary and keep programs for both platforms for a while in the transition . and if im not mistaken, the ARM cpu is mainly because the heating vs performance of intel chips for small devices. intel didn't seem to wanna go the small route. but the arm cpu could be geared towards iPad OS which seems eerily MacOS looking. my guess would be apple could code FCP and logic pro for iPad os and w arm cpu that would be fast enough for casual music writing, hiphop and electronica sort of stuff. and release also laptops like the MacBook air w iPad OS and make a slow transition away from mac os for the average consumer.


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## Dewdman42

Wolfie2112 said:


> A know a couple of composers still on original 2009 cheese graters.



and they are definitely hacking, in order to do so. Half the people talking bout wanting a new computer are saying they want a new one because they don't want to have to make their 2009 or 2010 or 2012 cheese grater work on Catalina with various hacks. They want something official supported. Ok. But apple has a history of not officially supporting anything for 10 years. So the very people saying they will use it for 10 years are the same ones complaining about what it takes to keep a 2009 macPro going. 

I agree, I would make it work fro 10 years. I intend to use my 2012 MacPro until at least the year 2022, so there you have it. But its an interesting mixed message being laid out...that its too hard to use a 2010-12 mac now, but the new one somehow will be ok in 10 years from now, so go ahead and spend $10k now. That justification doesn't compute. Those same users will be leaving it well before 10 years.


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## charlieclouser

nolotrippen said:


> A top of the line Mac II with monitor sold for about that in the 80s. And people bought them!



I did. Mac IIfx with a 13" RGB Sony CRT monitor - I was in heaven! With two 8mb NuBus SampleCell I cards and 4 tracks of hard disc audio recording (and no plugins of any kind) on a 600mb hard drive ($4k) it was nearly $20k all in. I made a bunch of great records with that rig.


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## InLight-Tone

Is the CPU soldered down or will that be upgradable? If so I'd go for the 8 core for now...


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## colony nofi

CPU is upgradable. 
Keep an eye on the rocket yard blog - they'll be going thru all sorts of possible upgrades once they get their first test machine in. 

I would anticipate being able to use this machine for 7+ years fully supported by Apple. Any more and it will be potentially requiring work arounds (hacks) - but thats never been difficult. 

For our post production studios, I think this is overkill, and I'm not sure what the upgrade from their mac pro machines will be. For my composition rig - if a gig comes up that my current machine can't handle, then I'll def consider this! 

I'm also looking very hard at building a hackintosh just to try it out... and possibly have it as a spare PC for the studios. We run nuendo, so will build one around its requirements. The trick for a place with more than one studio is making the hardware as similar as possible. Setups as similar as possible. Every time a tech is called in is big$. 

I'm also keen to bench some of the new AMD workstation chips with a post pro workflow - and maybe even throw some composition work at it. 

Now - this will be in my "spare" time. A business generally can't afford to muck around like that unless they're lucky enough to have a full time tech on board.


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## InLight-Tone

colony nofi said:


> CPU is upgradable.
> Keep an eye on the rocket yard blog - they'll be going thru all sorts of possible upgrades once they get their first test machine in.
> 
> I would anticipate being able to use this machine for 7+ years fully supported by Apple. Any more and it will be potentially requiring work arounds (hacks) - but thats never been difficult.
> 
> For our post production studios, I think this is overkill, and I'm not sure what the upgrade from their mac pro machines will be. For my composition rig - if a gig comes up that my current machine can't handle, then I'll def consider this!
> 
> I'm also looking very hard at building a hackintosh just to try it out... and possibly have it as a spare PC for the studios. We run nuendo, so will build one around its requirements. The trick for a place with more than one studio is making the hardware as similar as possible. Setups as similar as possible. Every time a tech is called in is big$.
> 
> I'm also keen to bench some of the new AMD workstation chips with a post pro workflow - and maybe even throw some composition work at it.
> 
> Now - this will be in my "spare" time. A business generally can't afford to muck around like that unless they're lucky enough to have a full time tech on board.


Snazzy Labs just built a 12 core AMD Hackintosh here. At least there are still lower cost alternatives for those who need them!:
AMD Hackintosh...


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## windshore

Many of us haven't bought a new Mac Pro for a LONG time. I'm still on a Mid 2010 & running strong. If I spread my investment out over the 8-9 years I've used it, it's laughably worthwhile. I believe I can get started with a decent configuration on the new Pro for around $10k. If I get another 10 years out of it I will be paying about a grand per year. 

My Avid subscription is a bit under half that!


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## Symfoniq

charlieclouser said:


> I did. Mac IIfx with a 13" RGB Sony CRT monitor - I was in heaven! With two 8mb NuBus SampleCell I cards and 4 tracks of hard disc audio recording (and no plugins of any kind) on a 600mb hard drive ($4k) it was nearly $20k all in. I made a bunch of great records with that rig.



Are you going to be picking up a Mac Pro 7,1 Charlie?


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## ridgero

Hmmm, what do you think about an iMac Pro, 8 Cores and 128 GB Ram.

Is a 8 Core still future proof?


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## Lee Blaske

macmac said:


> Their Mac IIFX back in 1990 was 10 grand+ too.



I recall that I spent $14,000 for a Mac Quadra 900 and 21" color CRT monitor, and that was a special education price. My iPhone is now a zillion times more powerful. 

And FWIW, I thought that Quadra was inexpensive compared to my Synclavier. The music biz was a LOT more profitable back then.


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## AndyP

Who will be the first to grab it? Please write a review!


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## Lee Blaske

Wunderhorn said:


> This does not sound good. I am sure there will be solutions - but I was hoping to just move some of my regular drives over into these slots.



Well, you'll always be able to have as much third party external storage as you want. If you're not using all your PCI slots, you could buy cards that hold SSDs.


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## Symfoniq

AndyP said:


> Who will be the first to grab it? Please write a review!



I'll likely be picking one up very soon.


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## Lee Blaske

Jack Weaver said:


> What do people think the sweet spot is for the number of cores for large template Logic Pro work?
> 
> .



That is a good question. I'd like to see a discussion of processor speed vs. more cores for Logic. Has anyone run across a good thread anywhere? When the new Mac Pro was announced, Apple was showing Logic running on a 28 core machine. I think that was part of the rationale behind expanding Logic to be capable of running 1,000 tracks.

Higher processor speed has been an advantage for some things in days gone by, but I would imagine it also depends on how powerful the cores are. And, I would assume that Apple is continually upgrading software to better take advantage of more cores.


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## Alex Fraser

Its all about perspective, right?
As a business purchase for about 7 years of full time use as a principle machine, it's a good investment.

Always worth remembering that the average buyer for one of these machines will want to get it out the box, put it to work immediately and not fettle too much with it.

It's a tool, not a hobby. Albeit a very pretty one.


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## charlieclouser

Symfoniq said:


> Are you going to be picking up a Mac Pro 7,1 Charlie?



Ehhh. I may at some point, but I'm not sure why.

- I don't need PCIe slots, like... at all. The only reason I might want PCIe slots at some point is if someone comes out with a really badass long card that can host about a dozen NVME m2 SSDs. With m2 drives topping out at 2tb right now I'd need to jam 16 of them in there to equal what I'm already running in BlackMagic MultiDocks (8x 4tb Samsung SATA SSDs). The current PCIe m2 hosts that hold two or four m2's are nice and cheap but the capacity isn't there for me... yet. Sure, they're faster than my SATA drives but the SATA drives are plenty fast for what I do... plus they're WAY cheaper, and more convenient since I can swap 'em easily - grab-n-go. Sure, I could use the latest MultiDock with USB-C, but that's a step sideways.

- All the pro video stuff doesn't really apply to me. Afterburner, VegaII Dual, etc. - big bucks but no benefit to me, at least not until there's some crazy new displays that the Mac Pro cylinder won't drive. If there was a double-4k super-wide-screen I might be tempted, but all current super-wide displays have fewer vertical pixels than what I've been using for four years, so... As sexy as those curved 49" displays are they only give me more width but less height, and I want maximum vertical pixels.

- T2, encryption, secure enclave, etc.... don't need. 

- More cores or higher clock speed? Maybe. The 24 or 28 core would give me more cores / threads, but at roughly the same clock speed that my current 12-core cylinder has - and I never come close to filling all my cores even on my biggest projects. The only time I come close to hitting any sort of ceiling is on that "last core" thing in Logic, but ever since I upgraded to Mojave and Logic 10.4.7 that situation seems to have changed, and the last core doesn't seem to be loading up as severely as on Yosemite and Logic 10.2.4 where I stayed for years. I haven't done rigorous testing, but something seems to have changed for the better in that department. And now with 10.4.7's "load in disabled mode" even my new template, with 512 EXS instances loaded with sounds / 128 audio tracks with comp+eq / 256 VEPro feeds, loads in five seconds. I'm still building that template but so far the "load disabled" thing is a miracle, and lets me have absolutely massive templates that act as snappy as an empty project.

It seems like the 16-core chip is the best balance between core count and cpu speed, and would indeed give me a boost in single-core performance (and four more cores as a bonus) over my current 12-core, but until I see a real reason to go there.... I can wait.

Unlike some, I really like the form factor and expandability of the cylinder Mac Pro. I've never run out of ports or heard the fan kick in, and none of the stuff I have hanging off the TB2 ports is available as a PCIe card anyway. I never really got the argument that it was somehow better to jam all that stuff inside the box - for me it just means I have to pop the lid to get at anything. For video guys who want baller cards, sure... but that ain't me. 

The tower form factor just means I can't stash the box behind the displays on my work surface, where I now have two cylinders and a Mac Mini - in fact, my entire rig, including MultiDocks, UAD boxes, Avid MADI and SyncHD, Unitors, MOTU AVB, two OWC dual-drive docks for spinners, and all three computers fits behind just two of my three 32" displays on the back deck of my Argosy Dual-15k. Can't see it, can't hear it. Compared to the refrigerator-sized rack my old cheese grater rig needed it's amazing. If I get the new Mac Pro then all of a sudden I've got this big silver box to try and find a place for. I do like that a rack-mount version will be available though - sexy.

So... short answer = not until someone puts 8 or more m2's on a PCIe card or I hit the ceiling in Logic, which has never happened. But I'm starting a movie this week with my new huge template, so we shall see how the old cylinder holds up.


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## Symfoniq

charlieclouser said:


> Ehhh. I may at some point, but I'm not sure why.
> 
> - I don't need PCIe slots, like... at all. The only reason I might want PCIe slots at some point is if someone comes out with a really badass long card that can host about a dozen NVME m2 SSDs. With m2 drives topping out at 2tb right now I'd need to jam 16 of them in there to equal what I'm already running in BlackMagic MultiDocks (8x 4tb Samsung SATA SSDs). The current PCIe m2 hosts that hold two or four m2's are nice and cheap but the capacity isn't there for me... yet. Sure, they're faster than my SATA drives but the SATA drives are plenty fast for what I do... plus they're WAY cheaper, and more convenient since I can swap 'em easily - grab-n-go. Sure, I could use the latest MultiDock with USB-C, but that's a step sideways.
> 
> - All the pro video stuff doesn't really apply to me. Afterburner, VegaII Dual, etc. - big bucks but no benefit to me, at least not until there's some crazy new displays that the Mac Pro cylinder won't drive. If there was a double-4k super-wide-screen I might be tempted, but all current super-wide displays have fewer vertical pixels than what I've been using for four years, so... As sexy as those curved 49" displays are they only give me more width but less height, and I want maximum vertical pixels.
> 
> - T2, encryption, secure enclave, etc.... don't need.
> 
> - More cores or higher clock speed? Maybe. The 24 or 28 core would give me more cores / threads, but at roughly the same clock speed that my current 12-core cylinder has - and I never come close to filling all my cores even on my biggest projects. The only time I come close to hitting any sort of ceiling is on that "last core" thing in Logic, but ever since I upgraded to Mojave and Logic 10.4.7 that situation seems to have changed, and the last core doesn't seem to be loading up as severely as on Yosemite and Logic 10.2.4 where I stayed for years. I haven't done rigorous testing, but something seems to have changed for the better in that department. And now with 10.4.7's "load in disabled mode" even my new template, with 512 EXS instances loaded with sounds / 128 audio tracks with comp+eq / 256 VEPro feeds, loads in five seconds. I'm still building that template but so far the "load disabled" thing is a miracle, and lets me have absolutely massive templates that act as snappy as an empty project.
> 
> It seems like the 16-core chip is the best balance between core count and cpu speed, and would indeed give me a boost in single-core performance (and four more cores as a bonus) over my current 12-core, but until I see a real reason to go there.... I can wait.
> 
> Unlike some, I really like the form factor and expandability of the cylinder Mac Pro. I've never run out of ports or heard the fan kick in, and none of the stuff I have hanging off the TB2 ports is available as a PCIe card anyway. I never really got the argument that it was somehow better to jam all that stuff inside the box - for me it just means I have to pop the lid to get at anything. For video guys who want baller cards, sure... but that ain't me.
> 
> The tower form factor just means I can't stash the box behind the displays on my work surface, where I now have two cylinders and a Mac Mini - in fact, my entire rig, including MultiDocks, UAD boxes, Avid MADI and SyncHD, Unitors, MOTU AVB, two OWC dual-drive docks for spinners, and all three computers fits behind just two of my three 32" displays on the back deck of my Argosy Dual-15k. Can't see it, can't hear it. Compared to the refrigerator-sized rack my old cheese grater rig needed it's amazing. If I get the new Mac Pro then all of a sudden I've got this big silver box to try and find a place for. I do like that a rack-mount version will be available though - sexy.
> 
> So... short answer = not until someone puts 8 or more m2's on a PCIe card or I hit the ceiling in Logic, which has never happened. But I'm starting a movie this week with my new huge template, so we shall see how the old cylinder holds up.



Always enjoy reading your thoughts, Charlie.

Sounds like we both would benefit from a "Mac Mini Pro." I don't need huge GPUs, either, but I do need to drive a lot of displays, and the lack of a discrete GPU of any kind makes the Mac Mini a nonstarter for me. I don't want to go the eGPU route, which increases the outlay on a Mini considerably.

If the Mini was big enough to accommodate and cool a discrete GPU (even a soldered one like on the iMac Pro--doesn't have to be a big PCIe card), I'd be in the market for it.

But Apple doesn't make this mythical Mac Mini Pro, so the computer of least compromise for me is a Mac Pro, sans Vega II or Afterburner upgrades.


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## -tm-

charlieclouser said:


> Ehhh. I may at some point, but I'm not sure why.
> 
> - I don't need PCIe slots, like... at all. The only reason I might want PCIe slots at some point is if someone comes out with a really badass long card that can host about a dozen NVME m2 SSDs. With m2 drives topping out at 2tb right now I'd need to jam 16 of them in there to equal what I'm already running in BlackMagic MultiDocks (8x 4tb Samsung SATA SSDs). The current PCIe m2 hosts that hold two or four m2's are nice and cheap but the capacity isn't there for me... yet. Sure, they're faster than my SATA drives but the SATA drives are plenty fast for what I do... plus they're WAY cheaper, and more convenient since I can swap 'em easily - grab-n-go. Sure, I could use the latest MultiDock with USB-C, but that's a step sideways.
> 
> - All the pro video stuff doesn't really apply to me. Afterburner, VegaII Dual, etc. - big bucks but no benefit to me, at least not until there's some crazy new displays that the Mac Pro cylinder won't drive. If there was a double-4k super-wide-screen I might be tempted, but all current super-wide displays have fewer vertical pixels than what I've been using for four years, so... As sexy as those curved 49" displays are they only give me more width but less height, and I want maximum vertical pixels.
> 
> - T2, encryption, secure enclave, etc.... don't need.
> 
> - More cores or higher clock speed? Maybe. The 24 or 28 core would give me more cores / threads, but at roughly the same clock speed that my current 12-core cylinder has - and I never come close to filling all my cores even on my biggest projects. The only time I come close to hitting any sort of ceiling is on that "last core" thing in Logic, but ever since I upgraded to Mojave and Logic 10.4.7 that situation seems to have changed, and the last core doesn't seem to be loading up as severely as on Yosemite and Logic 10.2.4 where I stayed for years. I haven't done rigorous testing, but something seems to have changed for the better in that department. And now with 10.4.7's "load in disabled mode" even my new template, with 512 EXS instances loaded with sounds / 128 audio tracks with comp+eq / 256 VEPro feeds, loads in five seconds. I'm still building that template but so far the "load disabled" thing is a miracle, and lets me have absolutely massive templates that act as snappy as an empty project.
> 
> It seems like the 16-core chip is the best balance between core count and cpu speed, and would indeed give me a boost in single-core performance (and four more cores as a bonus) over my current 12-core, but until I see a real reason to go there.... I can wait.
> 
> Unlike some, I really like the form factor and expandability of the cylinder Mac Pro. I've never run out of ports or heard the fan kick in, and none of the stuff I have hanging off the TB2 ports is available as a PCIe card anyway. I never really got the argument that it was somehow better to jam all that stuff inside the box - for me it just means I have to pop the lid to get at anything. For video guys who want baller cards, sure... but that ain't me.
> 
> The tower form factor just means I can't stash the box behind the displays on my work surface, where I now have two cylinders and a Mac Mini - in fact, my entire rig, including MultiDocks, UAD boxes, Avid MADI and SyncHD, Unitors, MOTU AVB, two OWC dual-drive docks for spinners, and all three computers fits behind just two of my three 32" displays on the back deck of my Argosy Dual-15k. Can't see it, can't hear it. Compared to the refrigerator-sized rack my old cheese grater rig needed it's amazing. If I get the new Mac Pro then all of a sudden I've got this big silver box to try and find a place for. I do like that a rack-mount version will be available though - sexy.
> 
> So... short answer = not until someone puts 8 or more m2's on a PCIe card or I hit the ceiling in Logic, which has never happened. But I'm starting a movie this week with my new huge template, so we shall see how the old cylinder holds up.



Hi Charlie,

Would you consider the 16-core in the nMP a hard requirement for serious scoring sessions?
I'm considering the 12-core chip because the 16-core is a little too rich for my blood, would you feel comfortable working with that?

Many thanks.


----------



## charlieclouser

-tm- said:


> Hi Charlie,
> 
> Would you consider the 16-core in the nMP a hard requirement for serious scoring sessions?
> I'm considering the 12-core chip because the 16-core is a little to rich for my blood, would you feel comfortable working with that?
> 
> Many thanks.



It really all depends on whether you're in Logic / Cubase / ProTools, how many instances of Kontakt vs Omnisphere vs EXS you use, etc. I've been working on a slower 12-core Xeon in the cylinder Mac Pro for years and it's plenty for me, but that's because I use mostly EXS which puts negligible pressure on the CPU. If I used lots of Kontakt then I might hit the ceiling sooner. Since the new one is so expensive, and there will be lots of other related expenses to get up and running, I consider the price difference between 12 and 16 cores to be not that big a concern. 

The only reason I wouldn't automatically go for the 28-core or whatever is because the higher the core count, the lower the base clock speed - and that HAS been an issue for me once in a while - but that seems to have changed now that Logic doesn't load that last core so heavily.

But I'm sure that even the new 12-core will be a blazing fast machine. But since I'm already on a (slower) 12-core cylinder that's why I wouldn't just buy the new one in 12-core form, since it's a lot of bucks for the same cores just running a bit faster. So I'll either go for 16-core and get a few more cores and a bump in clock speed, or just say fukkit and go all the way. 

Either way I will wait to see some benchmarks or other tests with actual music sessions.


----------



## gjelul

Wolfie2112 said:


> A know a couple of composers still on original 2009 cheese graters.




2009 model here and still going strong 

7 TB of SSD
20 TB of storage @ 7200
128 gigs of RAM


----------



## Eskmo

For what its worth, first benchmarks for the 28 core here:
multi-core: 21303
single-core: 1180

For comparison, the fastest mac currently out is the imac pro with a score of 
multi-core: 13254


----------



## Wunderhorn

would be nice to see benchmarks of all core configurations individually.


----------



## barteredbride

$63k on a new computer is cool and everything, but those samples will still sound exactly the same.


----------



## davidson

Running a heavy novo preset or any of the sonokinetic phrase libraries is still going to spike a single core like its nothing. I wish we could get some kind of hybrid processor option where we have a single highspeed option for live input along with multiple slower cores.


----------



## Wunderhorn

davidson said:


> Running a heavy novo preset or any of the sonokinetic phrase libraries is still going to spike a single core like its nothing. I wish we could get some kind of hybrid processor option where we have a single highspeed option for live input along with multiple slower cores.



I think the traditional CPUs have hit their ceilings in terms of single core performance. It will take a new technology, a completely new approach in order to make that quantum jump to faster CPU speed. Until then we are stuck adding on cores as the only option. That and software optimization to distribute the load better. I hope Intel, AMD etc are starting to look outside the box in their research departments. It is time. I want to see 8K 3D rendered frames being rendered in real time. Everything else feels like using a horse cart.


----------



## robgb

Time for a Hackintosh.


----------



## Shad0wLandsUK

Wolfie2112 said:


> Holding out for a Mini with an i9, wishful thinking?


If that really came along I would throw my i7 6-Core on ebay and get one too


----------



## Shad0wLandsUK

Dewdman42 said:


> I agree, nobody is going to use a mac for ten years unless they are willing to get into hacking land, as 2012 users will be for the next few years. Tell yourself whatever you want to hear to justify spending this big money. My money is waiting until Apple pulls their head out.


Well I think going with Intel for this one was a strange idea...
Since AMD are launching a 64-Core TR2 next year

For far less money!


----------



## Shad0wLandsUK

robgb said:


> Time for a Hackintosh.


With a 64-Core AMD Proc


----------



## tmhuud

I’ll get one as soon as someone creates a rackmount for it. Hopefully MAXX will.


----------



## AndyP

Symfoniq said:


> I'll likely be picking one up very soon.


I think about it, but wait until I know how stable audio is under the new system.


----------



## charlieclouser

tmhuud said:


> I’ll get one as soon as someone creates a rackmount for it. Hopefully MAXX will.



"coming soon" from Apple for $500 more than the desktop version:


----------



## tmhuud

How do you like that! Thanks for posting that. Interesting APPLE didn’t leave that mod for a 3rd party. 😃


----------



## Symfoniq

An audio-focused overview:


----------



## BenHicks

Went ahead and placed an order for the 16 core machine yesterday. My 8 core trashcan has, unfortunately, been on its last leg for a little while, so it was time. Served me well over the last 5+ years, though.

It'll arrive on the 17th, but I have 128GB of third party RAM (never, ever, EVER purchase RAM from Apple) that should arrive a couple weeks later, so after I have that installed I can go ahead and run some proper tests for you guys in Cubase and Logic. Feel free to let me know what kinds of tests you wanna see and I'll put it through its paces. Hopefully it'll help some of you with your decision to buy/pass. 

Cheers.


----------



## Wunderhorn

BenHicks said:


> Feel free to let me know what kinds of tests you wanna see and I'll put it through its paces.



I'd like to know what your plans are regarding storage, since the new Mac Pro has no simple drive bays (which in my books is a full star deduction). Are you going to get a PCI to SATA card or are you just use external solutions like we had to do with the trashcan?

Also, I would be curious if it is possible to install Mojave on the Mac Pro as opposed to the pre-installed Catalina.


----------



## BenHicks

Wunderhorn said:


> I'd like to know what your plans are regarding storage, since the new Mac Pro has no simple drive bays (which in my books is a full star deduction). Are you going to get a PCI to SATA card or are you just use external solutions like we had to do with the trashcan?
> 
> Also, I would be curious if it is possible to install Mojave on the Mac Pro as opposed to the pre-installed Catalina.


I plan on sticking with my two Blackmagic Multidocks using Thunderbolt 3 adapters. They're fast enough for what I need, so I don't really see any need to change anything in that dept. Maybe down the road I'll consider it. 

I have backup system drives with Mojave 10.14.4 on them, so I can try booting from one of those drives... you know, for science.


----------



## Wunderhorn

BenHicks said:


> I have backup system drives with Mojave 10.14.4 on them, so I can try booting from one of those drives... you know, for science.



Well booting from an external drive might work. I am more curious if the internal T2 chip might prevent you from installing Mojave.

I have a few pretty useful applications that don't run on Catalina, I also don't like the reduced freedom that all this security hype brought with it. So, if possible I'd like staying with Mojave for a while longer - I know this won't be possible indefinite but at least worth a try.


----------



## BenHicks

Wunderhorn said:


> Well booting from an external drive might work. I am more curious if the internal T2 chip might prevent you from installing Mojave.
> 
> I have a few pretty useful applications that don't run on Catalina, I also don't like the reduced freedom that all this security hype brought with it. So, if possible I'd like staying with Mojave for a while longer - I know this won't be possible indefinite but at least worth a try.


I hear you. Since I have a few days before it arrives, I'll see if I can find any more info on this. If I find out anything, I'll share it with you. If I can't find anything out until then, I'll give it a whirl.


----------



## Wunderhorn

BenHicks said:


> I hear you. Since I have a few days before it arrives, I'll see if I can find any more info on this. If I find out anything, I'll share it with you. If I can't find anything out until then, I'll give it a whirl.



Thank you for being willing to give it a try - I have been looking around too in multiple forums, but I think until someone actually tries to do it we won't have reliable information.


----------



## Prockamanisc

BenHicks said:


> Feel free to let me know what kinds of tests you wanna see and I'll put it through its paces.


I'd love it if you can put Cubase through its paces on the lowest buffer size. All of the demos so far have been for Logic, and I feel very left out. How many VST tracks can you get going before it starts to sputter and crackle? 

Also, if you were to run a project in 96kHz, how many VST tracks can you get running before it starts to sputter? 

My dream, if you couldn't guess, is to do all of my projects from here on out in 96k, at the lowest buffer size. Typical sessions of mine have around 5 synths, maybe 5 instances of Omnisphere, and 30-50 orchestral tracks of VSL and/or Spitfire. I'd love to know if my dream is within reach.


----------



## Virtuoso

Trying to decide on a spec, but I'm wondering about this whole turbo business...

There's usually a trade off between the number of cores and the base clock speed, with the 8 core running at 3.5GHz and the 28 running at 2.5GHz. However, the higher models (12 core and above) all turbo up to the same 4.4GHz.

Normally this means that one core will run at 4.4 and the rest at 2.5. However, I built a PC recently with an i9-9900KS which runs all 8 cores flat out at 5GHz, only dropping to 4GHz when idling. Rendering performance has been great so far.

Since the new Mac Pro has supposedly been designed to run flat out 24/7 without breaking a sweat, might this mean that the 28 core can run all cores at a steady 4.4GHz? If so, it would be worth the hefty premium. If not, I'll probably go for the 16 core.


----------



## tabulius

Virtuoso said:


> Trying to decide on a spec, but I'm wondering about this whole turbo business...
> 
> There's usually a trade off between the number of cores and the base clock speed, with the 8 core running at 3.5GHz and the 28 running at 2.5GHz. However, the higher models (12 core and above) all turbo up to the same 4.4GHz.



That is the Intel Xeon way to roll. With new Threadrippers you’ll get silly amount of cores but still get the impressive clocks. I’m too thinking of number of Pc upgrade options. Amd, Intel, Xeon, Clock speed or cores, Windows, Hackintosh? It is hard to decide because there are so little audio and VI related data.

Those who actually are adventurous enough to get the new Mac pro, please test the low buffer sizes. 64-128 with demanding big VI projects and throw a lot of algoritmic reverbs like B2. Push it when it cracks.


----------



## Jeremy Spencer

Prockamanisc said:


> My dream, if you couldn't guess, is to do all of my projects from here on out in 96k, at the lowest buffer size. Typical sessions of mine have around 5 synths, maybe 5 instances of Omnisphere, and 30-50 orchestral tracks of VSL and/or Spitfire. I'd love to know if my dream is within reach.



Not sure why you'd want 96k as your standard, but it's definitely achievable without a Mac Pro. I just did a project in 96k (which was a weird request), and it had 25 tracks; BBCSO, Hollywood Strings/Brass Gold, and a few other libraries. This was all on my MacBook Pro!


----------



## tabulius

Wolfie2112 said:


> Not sure why you'd want 96k as your standard, but it's definitely achievable without a Mac Pro. I just did a project in 96k (which was a weird request), and it had 25 tracks; BBCSO, Hollywood Strings/Brass Gold, and a few other libraries. This was all on my MacBook Pro!



I agree, you don't need to spend 10k for running 50+ instrument tracks, I'm doing similar projects with soft synths with my trusty old I7 6700k - of course not in 96k, but 48k. Keep in mind that with 96k, you can put larger buffer sizes, because 96k has a lower latency. I think 9900K with 5Ghz 8-cores would run this type of project pretty well.

Personally, 96K is overkill tho and I use it only when recording something and doing some time stretching and sound design in mind. But it shouldn't be too much of a deal with lower-priced CPUs as well.


----------



## Symfoniq

Virtuoso said:


> Trying to decide on a spec, but I'm wondering about this whole turbo business...
> 
> There's usually a trade off between the number of cores and the base clock speed, with the 8 core running at 3.5GHz and the 28 running at 2.5GHz. However, the higher models (12 core and above) all turbo up to the same 4.4GHz.



The devil is in the details. That 4.4 GHz figure is the maximum turbo for a single core. IIRC, the all-core turbo is 4.0 GHz on the 12-core and 3.9 GHz on the 16-core. I'm having a hard time finding all-core turbo numbers for the 28-core (Xeon W-3275), but it will be lower than the 12-core and 16-core, as these are all 205 watt CPUs.


----------



## Symfoniq

tabulius said:


> I agree, you don't need to spend 10k for running 50+ instrument tracks, I'm doing similar projects with soft synths with my trusty old I7 6700k - of course not in 96k, but 48k. Keep in mind that with 96k, you can put larger buffer sizes, because 96k has a lower latency. I think 9900K with 5Ghz 8-cores would run this type of project pretty well.
> 
> Personally, 96K is overkill tho and I use it only when recording something and doing some time stretching and sound design in mind. But it shouldn't be too much of a deal with lower-priced CPUs as well.



I don't necessarily disagree, but unfortunately Apple doesn't sell a 9900K without a display attached.


----------



## gsilbers

robgb said:


> Time for a Hackintosh.




i have a feeling that apple will clamp down on this somehow. they where pretty layback for a few years... but there was a time apple really fought legally the hackintosh sites and business doing this service. 
now that they have a real pro system...


----------



## gsilbers

Wunderhorn said:


> Also, I would be curious if it is possible to install Mojave on the Mac Pro as opposed to the pre-installed Catalina.




im not sure why this type of comments keep popping up... did something change? if you can do target disk mode then you can wipe out the orignal MAC OS and install a previous version. some hardware caveats like for example having to have metal gpu and some other os vs hardware incompatitabilites but apple normally lets users install up to 3-4 version before. w/o firewire im guessing its a little different?


----------



## robgb

gsilbers said:


> i have a feeling that apple will clamp down on this somehow. they where pretty layback for a few years... but there was a time apple really fought legally the hackintosh sites and business doing this service.
> now that they have a real pro system...


By letting it go for so many years, however, isn't that tacit approval? I'm no lawyer, but I think there would be a case to be made that their failure to fight those sites for a decade works against them. I imagine the only thing they could try to enforce is the EULA on the software, and that would be nearly impossible.


----------



## robgb

gsilbers said:


> im not sure why this type of comments keep popping up... did something change?


Catalina does not allow you to use any 32-bit plugins. So if you have a bunch, you're out of luck.


----------



## gsilbers

robgb said:


> By letting it go for so many years, however, isn't that tacit approval? I'm no lawyer, but I think their would be a case to be made that their failure to fight those sites for a decade could work against them. I imagine the only thing they could try to enforce is the EULA on the software, and that would be nearly impossible.



they did before stating these services coudnt be done and won. same as some sites. or braking the compatitability with one versino to the next for non apple installations. so if you made a hackingtosh w mojave.1 then apple would break it for mojave.2.. if i remeber correctly. its been a while.


----------



## gsilbers

robgb said:


> Catalina does not allow you to use any 32-bit plugins. So if you have a bunch, you're out of luck.



hmm.. 64 bit plugsin still work for older versions. so if themac pro cames w catalina and you have only 64 bit plugins then you can still wipe out the hard drive, instal mojave and use the plugins like always.


----------



## robgb

gsilbers said:


> they did before stating these services coudnt be done and won. same as some sites. or braking the compatitability with one versino to the next for non apple installations. so if you made a hackingtosh w mojave.1 then apple would break it for mojave.2.. if i remeber correctly. its been a while.


The breaking is still happening, I believe, but I do think their failure to enforce over a specific period of time would make any lawsuits against sites that provide information almost impossible. The sites aren't themselves breaking the law, as far as I can tell.


----------



## robgb

gsilbers said:


> hmm.. 64 bit plugsin still work for older versions. so if themac pro cames w catalina and you have only 64 bit plugins then you can still wipe out the hard drive, instal mojave and use the plugins like always.


Or... you could move into the present and use only 64-bit plugins...


----------



## gsilbers

robgb said:


> Or... you could move into the present and use only 64-bit plugins...



uff... my 300+ 32 bit plugins and apps (all updated the latest version) might disagree... but soon though


----------



## Sarah Mancuso

It remains to be seen whether or not the new Mac Pro can be downgraded to Mojave. There's a possibility that it will only run Catalina or later, and not support OSes older than the computer itself is.


----------



## robgb

The big question is, why would anyone buy one at the price they're asking. I saw a video that said you can actually max out a Mac Mini and make it competitive for only $3,000.


----------



## Jeremy Spencer

robgb said:


> The big question is, why would anyone buy one at the price they're asking. I saw a video that said you can actually max out a Mac Mini and make it competitive for only $3,000.



From what I've read, it seems it's geared towards video editing, etc. The big production houses will definitely be the main purchasers (Disney, etc). The Mac mini just doesn't have the capacity to house the same type of video processors that the Mac Pro has. For a composer using virtual instruments? That's another story. I'm not an expert, but I think a loaded Mini would be a monster. I'll probably jump to one in 2020 if there's an i9 model released.


----------



## Lee Blaske

gsilbers said:


> i have a feeling that apple will clamp down on this somehow. they where pretty layback for a few years... but there was a time apple really fought legally the hackintosh sites and business doing this service.
> now that they have a real pro system...



Agree. I think they just gave it a pass for awhile because they didn't have their pro system ready. Going forward, it's going to be a risk unless you're okay with setting a system up and unplugging from the internet.


----------



## gsilbers

Wolfie2112 said:


> From what I've read, it seems it's geared towards video editing, etc. The big production houses will definitely be the main purchasers (Disney, etc). The Mac mini just doesn't have the capacity to house the same type of video processors that the Mac Pro has. For a composer using virtual instruments? That's another story. I'm not an expert, but I think a loaded Mini would be a monster. I'll probably jump to one in 2020 if there's an i9 model released.



yep... i worked on one of these prodcution houses doing stuff for fox, disney, warner etc. they normally buy the HP that i posted earlier that go for up to $70k. they also buy systems like amberfinn, baton qc and digital rapids that go for a pretty high price. .
but since disney took up pro res as the default distribution file sent to every broadcaster around the world, these systems need a pro res license. therefore apple knows the potencial of how many high end mac pro they could potentially sell in LA. Plus since they are paying for tv shows and movies, and want a lot of family shows, they will probably asks these production houses to switch to mac or... at least do some sort of back end deal to use macs for video editing , rendering animation and so forth.
plus these prodcution houses use high end monitors that are as expensive as the apple one. the studio i worked had about 25 qc bays... each one had a sony $6k monitor for example. 
so its defintly not geared for us when the mini or imac would more than handle templates. although i woudlnt mind a mac mini pro


----------



## gsilbers

Sarah Mancuso said:


> It remains to be seen whether or not the new Mac Pro can be downgraded to Mojave. There's a possibility that it will only run Catalina or later, and not support OSes older than the computer itself is.



i still dont see why ... and why in the past year or so this keeps coming up... it was never an issue.


----------



## Wunderhorn

gsilbers said:


> i still dont see why ... and why in the past year or so this keeps coming up... it was never an issue.



Because of the new customer foot shackle called T2


----------



## gsilbers

Wunderhorn said:


> Because of the new customer foot shackle called T2











How to downgrade your Mac from macOS Big Sur back to Catalina


If you've tried Big Sur but you've decided you want to go back to Catalina, it's not hard but takes a few steps.




www.imore.com





seems its possible... 

so its a concern in future version of catalina apple will cut this off?


----------



## Wunderhorn

gsilbers said:


> How to downgrade your Mac from macOS Big Sur back to Catalina
> 
> 
> If you've tried Big Sur but you've decided you want to go back to Catalina, it's not hard but takes a few steps.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> www.imore.com
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> seems its possible...
> 
> so its a concern in future version of catalina apple will cut this off?



... on older machines it does seem to be possible, yes.

We won't know for sure until someone does it and reports on it. On such a new machine like the Mac Pro the T2 can potentially be programmed to make the installation of Mojave impossible. The reason can also potentially be in the hardware architecture, who knows. Theoretically, of course, why not - but you can't be 100% certain until you try. I might be getting one of the new beasts too in the not so distant future and I will certainly try this myself if nobody else has done it by then.


----------



## lpuser

robgb said:


> Or... you could move into the present and use only 64-bit plugins...



Does not help if the manufacturers are long out of business and due to this, 64-bit versions are not available :-( Some of my most used plugins share this fate and it´s frustrating ...


----------



## macmac

Wunderhorn said:


> ... on older machines it does seem to be possible, yes.
> 
> We won't know for sure until someone does it and reports on it. On such a new machine like the Mac Pro the T2 can potentially be programmed to make the installation of Mojave impossible. The reason can also potentially be in the hardware architecture, who knows. Theoretically, of course, why not - but you can't be 100% certain until you try. I might be getting one of the new beasts too in the not so distant future and I will certainly try this myself if nobody else has done it by then.


Even on my previous 2014 computer I was not able to boot from an OS older than what that computer came with. When I tried, it just sat there and I had to force a shut down. Yet taking that same OS (external drive) and booting into an older "appropriate" computer was fine. Made me realize things are not the same as the old days.


----------



## rlw

BenHicks said:


> I hear you. Since I have a few days before it arrives, I'll see if I can find any more info on this. If I find out anything, I'll share it with you. If I can't find anything out until then, I'll give it a whirl.


Very interested in your findings. Did you go to OWC to buy memory for the new Mac Pro ?


----------



## Mike Fox

I'm still happily rock'n my 2008 Mac Pro (64gb ram, 8 cores, 4 SSD's). It gets the job done, and I very rarely feel the need to upgrade.

Maybe in 10 years when prices significantly drop on these new mac pros, I'll buy one.


----------



## Technostica

charlieclouser said:


> - I don't need PCIe slots, like... at all. The only reason I might want PCIe slots at some point is if someone comes out with a really badass long card that can host about a dozen NVME m2 SSDs. With m2 drives topping out at 2tb right now I'd need to jam 16 of them in there to equal what I'm already running in BlackMagic MultiDocks (8x 4tb Samsung SATA SSDs). The current PCIe m2 hosts that hold two or four m2's are nice and cheap but the capacity isn't there for me... yet. Sure, they're faster than my SATA drives but the SATA drives are plenty fast for what I do... plus they're WAY cheaper, and more convenient since I can swap 'em easily - grab-n-go. Sure, I could use the latest MultiDock with USB-C, but that's a step sideways.



I have a PCIe 3.0 x4 adapter with a U.2 SSD in my desktop and those top out at 16TB or higher so you’d only need two of the adapters and 2 free PCIe 3.0 x4 slots to get you to 32TB.
The adapters are $50 or so but the 16TB U.2 drives are a bit more. 
The other option is 110mm M.2 drives as they top out at around 4TB. So if the quad M.2 adapters take 110mm drives that again comes down to 2 free slots but this time they’d need to be 16x rather than 4x.
I’d be more inclined to go the U.2 route and Apple like U.2 if I recall from the iPod freebie!

Added. You can buy an Intel 15.3TB PCIe 3.0 x4 drive without the need for an adapter:








Intel® SSD D5-P4326 Series (15.36TB, 2.5in PCIe 3.1 x4, 3D2, QLC) - Product Specifications | Intel


Intel® SSD D5-P4326 Series (15.36TB, 2.5in PCIe 3.1 x4, 3D2, QLC) quick reference with specifications, features, and technologies.




www.intel.co.uk


----------



## BenHicks

rlw said:


> Very interested in your findings. Did you go to OWC to buy memory for the new Mac Pro ?


Yeah. Starting off with 128GB (4x32GB modules) for now. I’ll order more later on if needed.


----------



## rheudabaga

Would love to see a comparison of Mac Pro vs iMac Pro, both running Logic with 100 tracks of Kontakt and 20 soft synths, typical reverbs loaded, some bus processing. And video. Would also like to see load times for such sessions on each.


----------



## bonebones

I ordered the 16 core, 4TB, 96 Gb ram. I think the 16 core is the sweet spot for multi core and single core tasks. I've also received the Pegasus J2I with a 860 EVO 4TB and the stock 8TB enterprise spinner. So I am locked and loaded with 8TB of fast storage and 8TB 7200 RPM backup.
As soon as I receive I will post some results. It can only be wonderful......


----------



## Damarus

For those with USB 2.0 interfaces, fyi


----------



## Virtuoso

I'll be getting my memory from OWC, but is there any reason why all the Apple memory options are 6x<chip size>?

I'd like to get 64GB modules ideally, just so I don't need to throw them away if I upgrade in the future (64/128GB LRDIMMs can't be used with 8/16/32GB RDIMMS), but I don't really need 384GB!

Can you just install 2 or 4 chips?


----------



## Technostica

Virtuoso said:


> I'll be getting my memory from OWC, but is there any reason why all the Apple memory options are 6x<chip size>?
> 
> I'd like to get 64GB modules ideally, just so I don't need to throw them away if I upgrade in the future (64/128GB LRDIMMs can't be used with 8/16/32GB RDIMMS), but I don't really need 384GB!
> 
> Can you just install 2 or 4 chips?


The system supports 6 channel memory which is why most configurations are multiples of 6.
For best performance you want to use multiples of 6 but not sure you will lose that much performance using multiples of 4 as quad channel is double what regular systems use anyway.
Also, not sure that DAWs are that demanding on RAM bandwidth.


----------



## John Zuker

Yeah, on the Apple site at https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT210103 it says "For maximum performance, install DIMMs in a 6 or 12 DIMM configuration." Wonder what actual performance difference there'd be if you went with another config.


----------



## Eskmo

Virtuoso said:


> Trying to decide on a spec, but I'm wondering about this whole turbo business...
> 
> There's usually a trade off between the number of cores and the base clock speed, with the 8 core running at 3.5GHz and the 28 running at 2.5GHz. However, the higher models (12 core and above) all turbo up to the same 4.4GHz.
> 
> Normally this means that one core will run at 4.4 and the rest at 2.5. However, I built a PC recently with an i9-9900KS which runs all 8 cores flat out at 5GHz, only dropping to 4GHz when idling. Rendering performance has been great so far.
> 
> Since the new Mac Pro has supposedly been designed to run flat out 24/7 without breaking a sweat, might this mean that the 28 core can run all cores at a steady 4.4GHz? If so, it would be worth the hefty premium. If not, I'll probably go for the 16 core.


This is exactly what I’ve been wondering as well. In convo w a couple folks at the logic team and will share advice here once I hear back fully


----------



## jcrosby

Wunderhorn said:


> ... on older machines it does seem to be possible, yes.
> 
> We won't know for sure until someone does it and reports on it. On such a new machine like the Mac Pro the T2 can potentially be programmed to make the installation of Mojave impossible. The reason can also potentially be in the hardware architecture, who knows. Theoretically, of course, why not - but you can't be 100% certain until you try. I might be getting one of the new beasts too in the not so distant future and I will certainly try this myself if nobody else has done it by then.



People have tried this with the new MBP. From what I've read it's impossible. I've gone through a number of threads where people have gone through every conceivable scenario, including installing Mojave to an external disk and disabling the T2's secure boot, it doesn't work.

This is totally inline with Apple's history as well... With new hardware profiles (like the nMBP and nMP) you've never been able to install an OS older than the OS it ships with. (Apparently there are a few rare "refreshes" where you could, but despite all of the macs I've gone through I've never seen one.)

With machines like these with totally new hardware though, it's a safe bet that the odds of anything prior to Catalina installing on it are near-zero.

You can complain about it using the feedback form but that's about it... (Couldn't hurt..)








Product Feedback


We would love to hear your comments about any of our hardware and software products. Send us your thoughts.



www.apple.com


----------



## Dewdman42

If that is true, then its another very compelling reason to hold off on a new MacPro for audio work until all the software catches up to catalina.


----------



## BenHicks

My machine arrived a day early, so, after cleaning up behind/around my desk area and getting everything set up, I decided to run a quick stress-test before bed. (I'll be doing more of these)

Mac Pro Specs:
CPU: 16 core
RAM: 32 GB (I ordered 4x32GB modules that are still on the way, so I'm currently working with the minimum amount of RAM atm)
GPU: AMD Radeon Pro 580X
OS: Catalina 10.15.2

DAW: Cubase 10.0.5
Audio Interface: UAD Apollo Twin
Buffer: 256

I loaded up 320 separate instances of Massive (default preset) playing an 18th note ostinato at 120bpm and let it run for a few minutes. Cubase continued to run smooth as butter and the CPU load load was nicely distributed across all cores with the machine pretty much hovering around 50% total load. My real-time peak inside Cubase's Audio Performance meter was basically nothing.

The only plugin I had running inside Cubase was a Pro-L2 on the stereo out (for safety lol). Aside from that, it should be noted that I had google chrome open and I use Sonarworks Reference 4 in systemwide mode, so it's always running in the background.

Once the RAM that I ordered from OWC arrives, I can start putting together a proper template and report my findings. In the meantime, I'm quite happy with what I'm seeing so far. Cubase feels super snappy, even when all 320 instances of Massive were playing.

Okay, time for bed.


----------



## Olfirf

BenHicks said:


> My machine arrived a day early, so, after cleaning up behind/around my desk area and getting everything set up, I decided to run a quick stress-test before bed. (I'll be doing more of these)
> 
> Mac Pro Specs:
> CPU: 16 core
> RAM: 32 GB (I ordered 4x32GB modules that are still on the way, so I'm currently working with the minimum amount of RAM atm)
> GPU: AMD Radeon Pro 580X
> OS: Catalina 10.15.2
> 
> DAW: Cubase 10.0.5
> Audio Interface: UAD Apollo Twin
> Buffer: 256
> 
> I loaded up 320 separate instances of Massive (default preset) playing an 18th note ostinato at 120bpm and let it run for a few minutes. Cubase continued to run smooth as butter and the CPU load load was nicely distributed across all cores with the machine pretty much hovering around 50% total load. My real-time peak inside Cubase's Audio Performance meter was basically nothing.
> 
> The only plugin I had running inside Cubase was a Pro-L2 on the stereo out (for safety lol). Aside from that, it should be noted that I had google chrome open and I use Sonarworks Reference 4 in systemwide mode, so it's always running in the background.
> 
> Once the RAM that I ordered from OWC arrives, I can start putting together a proper template and report my findings. In the meantime, I'm quite happy with what I'm seeing so far. Cubase feels super snappy, even when all 320 instances of Massive were playing.
> 
> Okay, time for bed.


To me, what would be really interesting is the VI test like scan pro audio does it. Scan Pro Audio testing is not perfect, but it is the best thing we have, as lots of tests have been done with lots of CPUs - unfortunately all in Windows and never Xeons. According to Scan Pro Audio, the Xeons don’t work as well for most audio applications, including Kontakt voices, which is arguably the most important benchmark for composers (well, those with large orchestral arrangements).
I would find it really interesting, how far a 2019 Mac Pro with 16 cores would get you regarding Kontakt voices without a Asio Guard! Can it replace using two or more VEpro machines?


----------



## -tm-

BenHicks said:


> My machine arrived a day early, so, after cleaning up behind/around my desk area and getting everything set up, I decided to run a quick stress-test before bed. (I'll be doing more of these)
> 
> Mac Pro Specs:
> CPU: 16 core
> RAM: 32 GB (I ordered 4x32GB modules that are still on the way, so I'm currently working with the minimum amount of RAM atm)
> GPU: AMD Radeon Pro 580X
> OS: Catalina 10.15.2
> 
> DAW: Cubase 10.0.5
> Audio Interface: UAD Apollo Twin
> Buffer: 256
> 
> I loaded up 320 separate instances of Massive (default preset) playing an 18th note ostinato at 120bpm and let it run for a few minutes. Cubase continued to run smooth as butter and the CPU load load was nicely distributed across all cores with the machine pretty much hovering around 50% total load. My real-time peak inside Cubase's Audio Performance meter was basically nothing.
> 
> The only plugin I had running inside Cubase was a Pro-L2 on the stereo out (for safety lol). Aside from that, it should be noted that I had google chrome open and I use Sonarworks Reference 4 in systemwide mode, so it's always running in the background.
> 
> Once the RAM that I ordered from OWC arrives, I can start putting together a proper template and report my findings. In the meantime, I'm quite happy with what I'm seeing so far. Cubase feels super snappy, even when all 320 instances of Massive were playing.
> 
> Okay, time for bed.



Very nice!
Looking at this, I wonder what the performance of the 12-core model would be.


----------



## D Halgren

Slightly off topic, but does anyone know if I use a Mac pro as a slave with VEPro, should I still separate the OS drive and sample drive? Thanks for any info!


----------



## tabulius

BenHicks said:


> I loaded up 320 separate instances of Massive (default preset) playing an 18th note ostinato at 120bpm and let it run for a few minutes. Cubase continued to run smooth as butter and the CPU load load was nicely distributed across all cores with the machine pretty much hovering around 50% total load. My real-time peak inside Cubase's Audio Performance meter was basically nothing.



Congratulations on the new and shiny Mac! Thanks for the first quick test. The Massive is super light for the CPU so I'm looking forward to more demanding tests.


----------



## Symfoniq

D Halgren said:


> Slightly off topic, but does anyone know if I use a Mac pro as a slave with VEPro, should I still separate the OS drive and sample drive? Thanks for any info!



My opinion is that this practice hasn't been particularly necessary since SATA SSDs became commonplace, and became positively outdated once NVMe SSDs entered the picture. I no longer worry about putting OS and samples on the same SSD.


----------



## Symfoniq

BenHicks said:


> My machine arrived a day early, so, after cleaning up behind/around my desk area and getting everything set up, I decided to run a quick stress-test before bed. (I'll be doing more of these)
> 
> Mac Pro Specs:
> CPU: 16 core
> RAM: 32 GB (I ordered 4x32GB modules that are still on the way, so I'm currently working with the minimum amount of RAM atm)
> GPU: AMD Radeon Pro 580X
> OS: Catalina 10.15.2
> 
> DAW: Cubase 10.0.5
> Audio Interface: UAD Apollo Twin
> Buffer: 256
> 
> I loaded up 320 separate instances of Massive (default preset) playing an 18th note ostinato at 120bpm and let it run for a few minutes. Cubase continued to run smooth as butter and the CPU load load was nicely distributed across all cores with the machine pretty much hovering around 50% total load. My real-time peak inside Cubase's Audio Performance meter was basically nothing.
> 
> The only plugin I had running inside Cubase was a Pro-L2 on the stereo out (for safety lol). Aside from that, it should be noted that I had google chrome open and I use Sonarworks Reference 4 in systemwide mode, so it's always running in the background.
> 
> Once the RAM that I ordered from OWC arrives, I can start putting together a proper template and report my findings. In the meantime, I'm quite happy with what I'm seeing so far. Cubase feels super snappy, even when all 320 instances of Massive were playing.
> 
> Okay, time for bed.



Those results look very strong. Thanks for posting them!

I ordered the same Mac Pro configuration and it should arrive tomorrow.


----------



## PeterKorcek

If it is possible to swap out the graphics card (MPX module) down the line, I would go for 16 core with base RAM and Graphics, without Afterburner and 2 TB of SSD storage - 8800 USD


----------



## BassClef

PeterKorcek said:


> If it is possible to swap out the graphics card (MPX module) down the line, I would go for 16 core with base RAM and Graphics, without Afterburner and 2 TB of SSD storage - 8800 USD



Same here... add aftermarket RAM as needed... upgrade GPU later if needed... add internal SSDs (SATA or NVMe) as needed... and NOT the Apple display!


----------



## bonebones

BenHicks said:


> My machine arrived a day early, so, after cleaning up behind/around my desk area and getting everything set up, I decided to run a quick stress-test before bed. (I'll be doing more of these)
> 
> Mac Pro Specs:
> CPU: 16 core
> RAM: 32 GB (I ordered 4x32GB modules that are still on the way, so I'm currently working with the minimum amount of RAM atm)
> GPU: AMD Radeon Pro 580X
> OS: Catalina 10.15.2
> 
> DAW: Cubase 10.0.5
> Audio Interface: UAD Apollo Twin
> Buffer: 256
> 
> I loaded up 320 separate instances of Massive (default preset) playing an 18th note ostinato at 120bpm and let it run for a few minutes. Cubase continued to run smooth as butter and the CPU load load was nicely distributed across all cores with the machine pretty much hovering around 50% total load. My real-time peak inside Cubase's Audio Performance meter was basically nothing.
> 
> The only plugin I had running inside Cubase was a Pro-L2 on the stereo out (for safety lol). Aside from that, it should be noted that I had google chrome open and I use Sonarworks Reference 4 in systemwide mode, so it's always running in the background.
> 
> Once the RAM that I ordered from OWC arrives, I can start putting together a proper template and report my findings. In the meantime, I'm quite happy with what I'm seeing so far. Cubase feels super snappy, even when all 320 instances of Massive were playing.
> 
> Okay, time for bed.



Awesome thanks for sharing, I'd also love to see how it goes with 20 Kontakt's running some heavy libraries. You have two monitors in your avatar. How did you hook those up to the 580x? HDMI?


----------



## -tm-

bonebones said:


> Awesome thanks for sharing, I'd also love to see how it goes with 20 Kontakt's running some heavy libraries. You have two monitors in your avatar. How did you hook those up to the 580x? HDMI?



20 instances of Kontakt is not much of a test  
How about 100-200?


----------



## bonebones

-tm- said:


> 20 instances of Kontakt is not much of a test
> How about 100-200?


Load up Sonokinetic minimal or any other large Kontakt phrase based library, now duplicate it times 10, now put them in a group and trigger them all at once with a chord. Still smiling?


----------



## AndyP

bonebones said:


> Load up Sonokinetic minimal or any other large Kontakt phrase based library, now duplicate it times 10, now put them in a group and trigger them all at once with a chord. Still smiling?


TM and many scripts running in the background pull the most power. So this is an interesting suggestion.


----------



## Jeremy Spencer

bonebones said:


> Load up Sonokinetic minimal or any other large Kontakt phrase based library, now duplicate it times 10, now put them in a group and trigger them all at once with a chord. Still smiling?



Errr....no problem on my MB Pro. Trying this 200 tracks would be a better test.


----------



## Dewdman42

many tracks will be no problem for the new mac Pro. Generally when you are mixing many tracks, then all the cores are used. Single core performance is tested in live mode on any given track. if you have a big layered instrument with many plugin instances being fed from a single live track..that will test the metal of single core performance. Layer on a bunch of FX too....test live mode to find out single core performance. That is the big question with these new machines.

Even my 2012 MacPro can handle many tracks no problem at all when not in live mode. That has never been something that anyone suffers from. The performance question about the new mac pro will be


How much stuff can you slap on a live mode track (single core) before the CPU drops out
how small of a sample buffer can you go without problems (ie, low latency)


----------



## bonebones

E


Dewdman42 said:


> many tracks will be no problem for the new mac Pro. Generally when you are mixing many tracks, then all the cores are used. Single core performance is tested in live mode on any given track. if you have a big layered instrument with many plugin instances being fed from a single live track..that will test the metal of single core performance. Layer on a bunch of FX too....test live mode to find out single core performance. That is the big question with these new machines.
> 
> Even my 2012 MacPro can handle many tracks no problem at all when not in live mode. That has never been something that anyone suffers from. The performance question about the new mac pro will be
> 
> 
> How much stuff can you slap on a live mode track (single core) before the CPU drops out
> how small of a sample buffer can you go without problems (ie, low latency)



Exactly, hence my point about grouping ten or however many tracks in a track stack and then playing a chord. It automatically arms each constituent part. Throw in ten CPU intensive audio plug ins and there ain't no Mac I've yet tried on the planet that is comfortable with a repeated 16th trigger. Hoping my nMP 16 core will ease it in!


----------



## Dewdman42

its not likely to impress you. More cores won't help. Its the single core performance that matters and by 2019 standards the single core performance on the new macPros is just mediocre.


----------



## Greg

Dewdman42 said:


> its not likely to impress you. More cores won't help. Its the single core performance that matters and by 2019 standards the single core performance on the new macPros is just mediocre.



The geekbench score is 1100 compared to 611 on the 12 core 2012 mac pro in your signature. That would impress me


----------



## Dewdman42

that's why I said in 2019 terms. Any modern mac will out perform a 2012 cheese grater for single core. The question is how the new Mac Pro will compare to other modern macs for single core..and I don't expect it to impress anybody.


----------



## bonebones

Given my dependence on PCIe then you know I am updating from an old tower. So I will be impressed no doubt. If at all for the NVMe performance and DDR4 Ram


----------



## Dewdman42

you should be able to get lower latency live mode to then!


----------



## bonebones

Something else to look forward to. Painful to see everyone around the globe get theirs whilst even though a senior creative at Apple personally ordered mine I am still being 'processing' here in OZ. Obviously China feeding Europe first whilst US feeds US. Poor Aussies.


----------



## Wunderhorn

Current Geekbench benchmarks: https://browser.geekbench.com/mac-benchmarks


----------



## Dewdman42

single core performance not the top of the list, lower then a mac mini. Almost double the single core performance of a loaded up cheese grater though @barebones. 

single core performance is what is going to determine the factors mentioned earlier...how low latency can you go and how many instruments and fx on the live tracks you're playing your instruments on as you record and edit them.

I would be very interested to hear the single core bench mark of an i9 hackintosh, especially after overclocking. 

Multi-core is impressive, #1 on the list. More than double the multi-core of my loaded up cheese grater. I view that as somewhat irrelevant for what we do though. Its the single-core perf that really matters.


----------



## BenHicks

More test results for you guys. Again, before I get into the test, here are the specs:

Mac Pro Specs:
CPU: 16 core
RAM: 32 GB 
GPU: AMD Radeon Pro 580X
OS: Catalina 10.15.2

DAW: Cubase 10.0.5
Audio Interface: UAD Apollo Twin
Buffer: 256

This time, I have 90 individual instances of CSS Violins 1 playing an 8th note ostinato at 120bpm across two octaves (essentially an A minor up/down). On each of those tracks is an instance of Fabfilter Pro Q3 with a few tweaks as well as an instance of 2cAudio's B2 reverb. I chose to use the B2 since it's a bit more CPU intensive, and while I know that one will ever use 90 instances of the B2 on individual tracks, this is for science. lol


----------



## BenHicks

And in case you're curious, here's the Audio Performance meter during playback when all of those plugins are disabled.


----------



## -tm-

A couple of benchmarks just showed up:



Mac Benchmarks - Geekbench Browser


----------



## davidson

The benchmarks show the need for a mac mini pro, but I imagine apple know that would have a huge impact on sales of the imac and mac pro. 

Even if money were no object, it's hard to justify a new mac pro with that single core performance.


----------



## Hywel

-tm- said:


> A couple of benchmarks just showed up:
> 
> 
> 
> Mac Benchmarks - Geekbench Browser


I was going to go for a low end new Mac Pro (12 or 16 cores) but these benchmarks have stopped me in my tracks...
Now I don't know what to do to replace my ageing late 2014 Mac Mini.
I'm a hobbyist but will be retiring soon from my day job and hoping to spend more time with my hobby... I mean wife...
I really didn't want an iMac because of the built in screen, I don't want a laptop or a Hackintosh or a PC, so a new Mac Mini could be a temporary solution until... I know not what.
One of the things that puts me off a new Mac Mini is that I would have to buy it with the full Apple RAM "tax" because I don't really want to have to go lift the bonnet up and mess around with the insides.
I perhaps should mention that I am a keen photographer and would be using the computer for image manipulation as well.
A dilemma...


----------



## Prockamanisc

PeterKorcek said:


> If it is possible to swap out the graphics card (MPX module) down the line, I would go for 16 core with base RAM and Graphics, without Afterburner and 2 TB of SSD storage - 8800 USD


If you sign up for Apple Business Pricing, you'll get this for a little under $8300.


----------



## BassClef

single core versus multi core... my 5 year old iMac (4.0 GHz i7-4790K 4 core) is pretty high on the Single core chart but way down the line on multi core performance. 

Since I use Logic which uses all cores, why is single core performance so important?


----------



## Dewdman42

This applies to all daws but in Logic Pro when you select a track header it record enables it. That track goes into live mode. In live mode any and all plugins that are in the signal path of that selected track are handled by a single core. 

So your single core performance will determine how much can be processed in live mode, which is anytime you are playing your midi keyboard and hearing software instruments, then all the sound produced by playing your keyboard in that moment will be focused on one core.

this will also determine how low you can set the sample buffer. The better the single core performance is the lower you can set that buffer and thus get lower latency without audio dropouts.

multi core performance is the rest of the mix.

if you don’t have any track in live mode and are just mixing then it’s all about multicore but in that situation you can also make the sample buffer as large as you want without noticing it. So the cores will all have a lot more breathing room. Generally any modern computer has plenty of multicore performance to mix down even the biggest projects.

single core performance in live mode is where the rubber meets the road for daw work.


----------



## BenHicks

bonebones said:


> Awesome thanks for sharing, I'd also love to see how it goes with 20 Kontakt's running some heavy libraries. You have two monitors in your avatar. How did you hook those up to the 580x? HDMI?


HDMI, yeah. 


bonebones said:


> Load up Sonokinetic minimal or any other large Kontakt phrase based library, now duplicate it times 10, now put them in a group and trigger them all at once with a chord. Still smiling?


I’ll try this today. Picked up Minimal (finally) during the sale a few days ago.


----------



## gsilbers

did you guys see the benchmarks already? 



Mac Benchmarks - Geekbench Browser



seems the macbook and imac are about the same or better in single core and in multi core you need at least more than 10 cores to make a difference w the macbooka and imac.


----------



## Hywel

Dewdman42 said:


> This applies to all daws but in Logic Pro when you select a track header it record enables it. That track goes into live mode. In live mode any and all plugins that are in the signal path of that selected track are handled by a single core.
> 
> So your single core performance will determine how much can be processed in live mode, which is anytime you are playing your midi keyboard and hearing software instruments, then all the sound produced by playing your keyboard in that moment will be focused on one core.
> 
> this will also determine how low you can set the sample buffer. The better the single core performance is the lower you can set that buffer and thus get lower latency without audio dropouts.
> 
> multi core performance is the rest of the mix.
> 
> if you don’t have any track in live mode and are just mixing then it’s all about multicore but in that situation you can also make the sample buffer as large as you want without noticing it. So the cores will all have a lot more breathing room. Generally any modern computer has plenty of multicore performance to mix down even the biggest projects.
> 
> single core performance in live mode is where the rubber meets the road for daw work.


That's very interesting @Dewdman42 I didn't know that.

Thanks for enlightening me.


----------



## BassClef

Dewdman42 said:


> This applies to all daws but in Logic Pro when you select a track header it record enables it. That track goes into live mode. In live mode any and all plugins that are in the signal path of that selected track are handled by a single core.
> 
> So your single core performance will determine how much can be processed in live mode, which is anytime you are playing your midi keyboard and hearing software instruments, then all the sound produced by playing your keyboard in that moment will be focused on one core.
> 
> this will also determine how low you can set the sample buffer. The better the single core performance is the lower you can set that buffer and thus get lower latency without audio dropouts.
> 
> multi core performance is the rest of the mix.
> 
> if you don’t have any track in live mode and are just mixing then it’s all about multicore but in that situation you can also make the sample buffer as large as you want without noticing it. So the cores will all have a lot more breathing room. Generally any modern computer has plenty of multicore performance to mix down even the biggest projects.
> 
> single core performance in live mode is where the rubber meets the road for daw work.



Thanks for the great explanation. Does Apple's Turbo boost help with this scenario in Logic?


----------



## gsilbers

Hywel said:


> I was going to go for a low end new Mac Pro (12 or 16 cores) but these benchmarks have stopped me in my tracks...
> Now I don't know what to do to replace my ageing late 2014 Mac Mini.
> I'm a hobbyist but will be retiring soon from my day job and hoping to spend more time with my hobby... I mean wife...
> I really didn't want an iMac because of the built in screen, I don't want a laptop or a Hackintosh or a PC, so a new Mac Mini could be a temporary solution until... I know not what.
> One of the things that puts me off a new Mac Mini is that I would have to buy it with the full Apple RAM "tax" because I don't really want to have to go lift the bonnet up and mess around with the insides.
> I perhaps should mention that I am a keen photographer and would be using the computer for image manipulation as well.
> A dilemma...




id say check out a few more videos on how to change the ram on the mac mini. sounds like the new mini will be your best bet. owc sells it w a kit to make it easy. 

but i do get u.. the imac screen is very limited and having to open the mini seems counter intuitive for apple prodcuts design to not have to mess like pc stuff. 

the mac pro does seem a little over most poeples needs. doesnt seem its like prevuous mac pros where we could use them and be fine w it. this new one seems to be competing w far higher market players like dell and hp who sell similar system of $50-70 k systems for large animation, video render and re-recording mixers. but for semi pro and hobbist seems we need a mac mini pro  or a screen-less imac. 
maybe if they come out with a new mac cube (remeber that one?) where its like two mac minis on top of each other in size and has up to 128gb ram and swappable ssd drives then i would be happy. 
basically an option for non video guys. 
but yeah, seen the benchmarks for the macpros and realizing that you need to spend upwards of $8k to get a better system than the otherssucks.

i have the old mac pro cheesegrater and a 2012 macbook pro. I use the laptop closed and have a monitor i like hooked to it. so maybe you can see it that way, like a flat mac lol, but having to pay for that screen... and well. basically double what the mac mini w owc ram kit would cost.


----------



## Dewdman42

Use the old cheese grater case, put a Mac mini pro with pci slots and i9 inside. Under $5000 fully loaded. I’ll buy it immediately.


----------



## gsilbers

Dewdman42 said:


> Use the old cheese grater case, put a Mac mini pro with pci slots and i9 inside. Under $5000 fully loaded. I’ll buy it immediately.



nice. . 

seems apple doesnt want to compete directly w pc's in the intel i7/i9 in the same form factor. its either imac form or mac mini that has their form limitations or now huge leap up w the mac pro and xeons. 

what do you think of getting?


----------



## Virtuoso

The single core benchmarks aren't surprising really - given that they are clocked lower both on base frequency and turbo.

But the multicore advantage isn't as great as I was expecting. The 24 core model is just under 2x as fast as the 8 core i9-9900KS and the difference in price is vast.


----------



## Dewdman42

gsilbers said:


> nice. .
> 
> seems apple doesnt want to compete directly w pc's in the intel i7/i9 in the same form factor. its either imac form or mac mini that has their form limitations or now huge leap up w the mac pro and xeons.
> 
> what do you think of getting?



I am planning to continue running my 5,1 for a couple more years. I'm waiting to see what Apple will do. if they come out with something closer to what I noted above, I will probably get it. if not, then I might build a hackintosh, but I can't predict right now what I will do or what the situation will be in 2-3 years from now, until we get there. For now the 5,1 is totally fine. Its entirely possible that the changes coming down the pipe will make hackintosh building much more difficult then it is now, in which case my options will be more limited. But honestly unless they come up with a more reasonable computer for what we do, I am also not discounting entirely the possibility of changing over to Windows.

Apple might move to AMD in the future, etc. we don't know what they will do or whether future machines will tend to be multi-core biased as opposed to stronger single core performance, etc. I think Apple has a blind spot for the mid tier prosumer class of customer, particularly audio related. 

Make no mistake, the single core performance on the new Mac Pro is not terrible. Its only 10% slower then the iMacPro, etc. its twice as fast as my 2012 MacPro. Its definitely an upgrade. But for what they are charging for it, I would expect better...and I think there are more changes coming from the industry and from Apple... 

Who knows maybe I will even end up buying a 7,1 MacPro someday as a used machine for a lot less money. Its not out of the question either. But for certain, I don't want a mac mini or an iMacPro because of form factor and lack of PCI slots. And the 7,1 MacPro is cost prohibitive for me. And my cheese grater is working fine for now! We'll see what the options are in 2023.


----------



## bonebones

BassClef said:


> Thanks for the great explanation. Does Apple's Turbo boost help with this scenario in Logic?


Absolutely theoretically yes. nMP high ends should keep 4.4gHz performance, that's why these benchmark scores are not specific to what we do. We need to test in situ. Ben Hicks' test will give us a good idea. He should be able to trigger 16ths when he tests the following and get less than 50% load.
Load up Sonokinetic minimal or any other large Kontakt phrase based library, now duplicate it times 10, now put them in a group and trigger them all at once with a chord. 
When Apple decide to send these things to Australia I will also do some tests...


----------



## Pier

Wunderhorn said:


> Current Geekbench benchmarks: https://browser.geekbench.com/mac-benchmarks



Pretty disappointing... specially for the price.


----------



## BenHicks

bonebones said:


> Absolutely theoretically yes. nMP high ends should keep 4.4gHz performance, that's why these benchmark scores are not specific to what we do. We need to test in situ. Ben Hicks' test will give us a good idea. He should be able to trigger 16ths when he tests the following and get less than 50% load.
> Load up Sonokinetic minimal or any other large Kontakt phrase based library, now duplicate it times 10, now put them in a group and trigger them all at once with a chord.
> When Apple decide to send these things to Australia I will also do some tests...


Cubase Minimal (x10) Test

I hope I understand what you were asking. No audio, since I was just using Quicktime's screen recording feature, but that's 10 separate instances of Minimal duplicated, all playing at the same time.

Aside from the spike when I first trigger the chord, it seems to handle it pretty well.

Edit: I should note that this is the 24bit patch, not the 16bit. Also, buffer is set to 256.


----------



## BenHicks

Here's that same test with 50 instances.


----------



## Wunderhorn

Pier Bover said:


> Pretty disappointing... specially for the price.



If you consider that for about 15 years we have not seen any major performance breakthroughs in processor technology this is no surprise. It is still an improvement at least somewhat.

I hope Intel & Co will find a way and courage to think outside the box in order to find a new and different approach to CPU development. If we want to move into the future and move in to serious VR worlds for example we need to be able to render an 8K image not within 20 hours, but within 1/30 of a second. In real time. Then shit's gonna get sexy. Til then we just have to deal with our little steam engines.


----------



## Geoff Grace

This complete disassembly shows what you're getting for your money:



Best,

Geoff


----------



## ridgero

Still way too much for such a „base“ configuration.

10 Cores, Vega 56, 1 TB RAM should have been the base.


----------



## Prockamanisc

Dewdman42 said:


> This applies to all daws but in Logic Pro when you select a track header it record enables it. That track goes into live mode. In live mode any and all plugins that are in the signal path of that selected track are handled by a single core.
> 
> So your single core performance will determine how much can be processed in live mode, which is anytime you are playing your midi keyboard and hearing software instruments, then all the sound produced by playing your keyboard in that moment will be focused on one core.
> 
> this will also determine how low you can set the sample buffer. The better the single core performance is the lower you can set that buffer and thus get lower latency without audio dropouts.
> 
> multi core performance is the rest of the mix.
> 
> if you don’t have any track in live mode and are just mixing then it’s all about multicore but in that situation you can also make the sample buffer as large as you want without noticing it. So the cores will all have a lot more breathing room. Generally any modern computer has plenty of multicore performance to mix down even the biggest projects.
> 
> single core performance in live mode is where the rubber meets the road for daw work.


@Guillermo Navarrete Is this how Cubase works, too? I'm very interested in a Mac machine that works best with Cubase.


----------



## BassClef

Interesting video... I did not know that the base model CPU did not support the faster RAM of the higher up models.


----------



## Virtuoso

The 8TB option is now available - $2600 ($2444 with business discount). Not as bad as I had feared considering that a 1TB 970 Pro is $300.

For memory, this site has the 64GB chips at a really good price. 6x64GB (upgrade) at Apple =$6000, at OWC =$2550 and at AllHDD =$1620! Any red flags?

https://www.allhdd.com/memory/pc4-23400/64gb/m386a8k40cm2-cvf-samsung-64gb-1x64gb-2933mhz-pc4-23400-cl21-ecc-registered-quad-rank-x4-1.2v-ddr4-sdram-288-pin-lrdimm-memory-module-for-server.-new-retail-factory-sealed-with-full-manufacturer-warranty.-clone/?src=ggl&gclid=EAIaIQobChMI3fjei9fC5gIVFcZkCh0oggGTEAYYAyABEgIYAPD_BwE


----------



## Technostica

Virtuoso said:


> For memory, this site has the 64GB chips at a really good price. 6x64GB (upgrade) at Apple =$6000, at OWC =$2550 and at AllHDD =$1620! Any red flags?



CL21 is slow and especially for RAM rated for only 2,933 so what does the system support in CAS latency terms?
16 would be good or less even better.

“ECC Registered Quad Rank X4 1.2v DDR4 SDRAM 288-Pin Lrdimm”

Not sure what the specs are for the system!



Virtuoso said:


> The 8TB option is now available - $2600 ($2444 with business discount). Not as bad as I had feared considering that a 1TB 970 Pro is $300.



The Corsair MP600 2TB PCIe 4.0 is $420 on Amazon for another perspective, but even so the mark-up isn’t that bad provided it’s not QLC NAND which seems unlikely.


----------



## Virtuoso

Technostica said:


> CL21 is slow and especially for RAM rated for only 2,933 so what does the system support in CAS latency terms?


It looks like the same spec as the OWC memory and is actually slightly faster than the official Apple memory, which is apparently Micron CL22!


----------



## Technostica

Virtuoso said:


> It looks like the same spec as the OWC memory and is actually slightly faster than the official Apple memory, which is apparently Micron CL22!


OEMs do like to use low performing RAM but CL22 is poor.
3,200 CL16 is mainstream now so the Apple stuff has an actual latency 50% higher than that.
That seems odd!

Note: The RAM speed is set by Intel but maybe the CL is restricted on these CPUs also!


----------



## ridgero

RAM Speeds are so massively overrated...


----------



## Technostica

ridgero said:


> RAM Speeds are so massively overrated...



This has a 6 channel memory controller for improved RAM bandwidth so speed is less important here than for a quad or dual channel system where it can be very important.
But we were discussing latency which is relevant and for memory intensive workstation workloads definitely so.

Note: It's probably so high because of the very high density sticks.


----------



## bonebones

G


BenHicks said:


> Here's that same test with 50 instances.




that’s very impressive. But I don’t think you could do 50 if all the tracks were armed at the same time. Can you put them in a track stack or container then trigger the track stack? If you play in 8ths or even 16ths would be even more impressive! Mine arrives on Wed so I’ll try in a week or two. Hope you’re enjoying Minimal, it’s stunning!


----------



## chimuelo

Here’s an interesting read.

Had no idea RAM is soldered onto the DIMMs and the SSD is proprietary.









iFixit teardown reveals Apple's new Mac Pro is a "Fixmas miracle"


When you think about Apple's products for the past four or five years, they're not exactly the most easy to open up and fix by yourself. It's...




www.techspot.com


----------



## lpuser

chimuelo said:


> Had no idea RAM is soldered onto the DIMMs and the SSD is proprietary.



RAM is user replaceable, however the boot SSD is protected by the T2 chip, which means either another interal SSD via PICe or external via USB-C if larger capacities are required.


----------



## BenHicks

bonebones said:


> G
> 
> 
> that’s very impressive. But I don’t think you could do 50 if all the tracks were armed at the same time. Can you put them in a track stack or container then trigger the track stack? If you play in 8ths or even 16ths would be even more impressive! Mine arrives on Wed so I’ll try in a week or two. Hope you’re enjoying Minimal, it’s stunning!


Well, I guess I misunderstood. They’re all being triggered at the same time, but you’re talking about them being record enabled and playing a line with them? Also, are there 8ths/16ths patches, or are you just saying to have chord changes every 8th/16th note? I thought minimal (and most of sonokinetic’s other phrase-based libraries) was meant more for holding down a chord and letting the phrase play out for a bit. I’ll be home in a bit, so I can mess with it some more.

Edit: Okay, hold the phone. It seems as though Cubase 9.5 runs MUCH smoother on the new Mac Pro compared to Cubase 10, at least during this test. I just ran it through again to your specifications (video is currently uploading to Youtube, but since I have garbage internet, it could be a little while) and it handled it really well. 50 instances, all being triggered simultaneously by the folder track they were in as I recorded in a line (playing in 8ths and 16ths as well).


----------



## BenHicks

Here's Test 2, in Cubase 9.5 this time.


----------



## chimuelo

lpuser said:


> RAM is user replaceable, however the boot SSD is protected by the T2 chip, which means either another interal SSD via PICe or external via USB-C if larger capacities are required.



A most impressive machine. Love it when reviewers just reverse build and analyze.


----------



## jcrosby

-tm- said:


> 20 instances of Kontakt is not much of a test
> How about 100-200?


I got roughly 200 playing back simultaneously on a 9900k hackintosh 😉

Patches ranged from Spitfire to sample logic, to novo to forzo, Heavyocity to 8dio, etc... All the usual suspects... (Not a single hiccup btw.)

200 sustain patches played back with zero issues, some CPU headroom left over to boot...


----------



## simsung

Whats the reason why you chose the 16 core? Steinberg writes on the homepage: better less cores with higher speed than more cores with less speed. 
I wonder if thats not the case anymore. in your video it seems that all cores are used.
That issue was actually the reason why i switched from a 12 core to a 6 core.


----------



## -tm-

jcrosby said:


> I got roughly 200 playing back simultaneously on a 9900k hackintosh 😉
> 
> Patches ranged from Spitfire to sample logic, to novo to forzo, Heavyocity to 8dio, etc... All the usual suspects... (Not a single hiccup btw.)
> 
> 200 sustain patches played back with zero issues, some CPU headroom left over to boot...



Exactly! I have yet to see a truly challenging test for this machine


----------



## Pier

Wunderhorn said:


> If you consider that for about 15 years we have not seen any major performance breakthroughs in processor technology this is no surprise. It is still an improvement at least somewhat.
> 
> I hope Intel & Co will find a way and courage to think outside the box in order to find a new and different approach to CPU development. If we want to move into the future and move in to serious VR worlds for example we need to be able to render an 8K image not within 20 hours, but within 1/30 of a second. In real time. Then shit's gonna get sexy. Til then we just have to deal with our little steam engines.



I recently built a $1500 Ryzen PC with a 3700X that beats the entry level Mac Pro on Geekbench. Not only that, it beats every Mac ever made on single core performance.

Also a Ryzen Threadripper 3970X beats the 28 core Mac Pro by a fair margin.

See these results:

8 core Mac Pro

28 core Mac Pro

Ryzen 3700X

Ryzen 3970X


----------



## Dewdman42

How hard was your t to build did you have to do any kext hacks or things like that?


----------



## Virtuoso

Ordered! The Mac arrives early Jan and the monitor mid Feb. Couldn't be more excited - I've waited almost 12 years to properly replace my trusty old 2008 Mac Pro and 30" Cinema Display, managing with an iMac and PCs in the meantime.

90% of my work is video, so I went for the Mac Pro 16 core with 8TB, Vega II and Afterburner, plus the monitor and billion dollar stand. Saved $1500 using business pricing and, with the end of year 6% offer, I should get another $1250 cashback by using an Apple Card. Still the most I've ever paid for a computer by a long stretch.

I've been using a PC with an 8 core 9900KS and a 2080Ti for video so it will be interesting to compare it to the Vega. At least the Mac won't randomly reboot in the middle of the night while I'm doing an 8 hour render!


----------



## Monkey Man

Congrats man. Sounds killer. :emoji_beers:


----------



## jcrosby

-tm- said:


> Exactly! I have yet to see a truly challenging test for this machine


I'm pretty happy with it 😀 I'm not surprised that even the 9900k iMac outscores the nMP in single core performance by a pretty substantial margin... It does insanely well at real time performance under hefty CPU load ...


----------



## jcrosby

Dewdman42 said:


> How hard was your t to build did you have to do any kext hacks or things like that?


I followed the guide below. Basically all the work is done for you and you can have it up and running within a day... That said it's a good idea to spend some _off the clock time_ on the forum after it's up and running to get a handle on any stuff you don't understand...

The only hiccup I ran into was a step that was looked over last spring, but has since been added to the guide... Basically just need to make sure you follow the instructions for which USB ports to avoid when installing macOS the first time... Once it's running all USB ports will work, but on initial install you need to omit a few things and install them after the 1st macOS boot... (Again it's all documented in step-by-step detail that literally just about anyone should be able to follow...) 

*EDIT*: VI-C apparently doesn't like hackintosh links...
Pop this into google and the first thing you should get is the build guide:

_[SUCCESS] Gigabyte Designare Z390 (Thunderbolt 3) + i7-9700K + AMD RX 580_

The build works OOTB with 9900k and the EFI folder's been fine for me on High Sierra and Mojave.


----------



## Symfoniq

I'd love to know how many hackintoshes are actually being used in professional contexts.

While the idea of spending hackintosh money instead of Mac Pro money is certainly appealing to me, I can't afford the risks one assumes by using an unsupported platform to earn their livelihood.


----------



## Dewdman42

Thanks jcrosby, sounds like a great machine. My question was meant for the guy that built the Ryzen build.

i think you chose a well known good motherboard for building hackintosh. I probably would choose that system also but I am curious to know how the ryzen compares both in terms of benchmarking but also in terms of how vanilla the install is.


----------



## Dewdman42

Symfoniq said:


> I'd love to know how many hackintoshes are actually being used in professional contexts.
> 
> While the idea of spending hackintosh money instead of Mac Pro money is certainly appealing to me, I can't afford the risks one assumes by using an unsupported platform to earn their livelihood.



I see no reason why not. But it’s not for everyone.


----------



## Jeremy Spencer

BassClef said:


> Thanks for the great explanation. Does Apple's Turbo boost help with this scenario in Logic?



But in reality, what on earth would the average composer be doing to bring the Mac Pro to a halt?


----------



## Dewdman42

Trying to record a track with a cpu heavy instrument and lots of fx plugins on it as you record it, with sample buffer set to 32


----------



## Jeremy Spencer

Dewdman42 said:


> Trying to record a track with a cpu heavy instrument and lots of fx plugins on it as you record it, with sample buffer set to 32



Buffer of 32? Now that would be impressive!


----------



## gsilbers

Virtuoso said:


> Ordered! The Mac arrives early Jan and the monitor mid Feb. Couldn't be more excited - I've waited almost 12 years to properly replace my trusty old 2008 Mac Pro and 30" Cinema Display, managing with an iMac and PCs in the meantime.
> 
> 90% of my work is video, so I went for the Mac Pro 16 core with 8TB, Vega II and Afterburner, plus the monitor and billion dollar stand. Saved $1500 using business pricing and, with the end of year 6% offer, I should get another $1250 cashback by using an Apple Card. Still the most I've ever paid for a computer by a long stretch.
> 
> I've been using a PC with an 8 core 9900KS and a 2080Ti for video so it will be interesting to compare it to the Vega. At least the Mac won't randomly reboot in the middle of the night while I'm doing an 8 hour render!




whats the discount amount for business owners? or how does it work discount-wise? i just read discountts from 5%-20% but thats it.


----------



## BassClef

How likely will these new Mac Pro mother boards accept future new Xeon processors?


----------



## bonebones

BassClef said:


> How likely will these new Mac Pro mother boards accept future new Xeon processors?


pretty much 99% confirmed, I think someone has ordered a variety of current Xeon and installed over on MR


----------



## Virtuoso

gsilbers said:


> whats the discount amount for business owners? or how does it work discount-wise? i just read discountts from 5%-20% but thats it.


6% on everything except the Afterburner card which was 10%.


----------



## BRVLN

Oh man!! You guys really start to make me second guess myself!

Little background, I'm a full time composer, using TONS of VI's (Kontakt, EW, Omnisphere, etc.).
Current setup is a hackintosh with a 10 core i99-7900X with 64 gb of RAM. Primary DAW is Cubase 10 running 97% of the time at 1024 buffer (got used to it I guess).

My original plan was to go with 28 cores MP, 32 gb of RAM (upgrade to 96 with 3rd party RAM), and 1 TB of SSD (Libraries to run of extternal 2.5'' SSD's on a Blackmagic Multidock).
Could I actually get *better* performance from the 16-core MP Just because of the base clock speed?
(Or would that not matter as much since my buffer is usually at 1024?)


----------



## Technostica

BassClef said:


> How likely will these new Mac Pro mother boards accept future new Xeon processors?


Intel's next server platform is unlikely to be compatible with this. 
Unless it's yet another rehash of their ancient 14nm design in which case it won't offer a significant performance boost. 
They have been in crisis for a number of years due to serious flaws with their 10nm fabrication processes. 
It's hard to say if they will ever release a decent server platform on 10nm in which case the wait will be for the 7nm processes. 
So the current platform might not be significantly beaten in performance terms for a couple of years. 
At least by Intel as AMD are already trouncing them. 
So unless Apple jump to AMD, I can't see them updating their Pro systems in a significant way for years. 

It's a good time to build a Hackintosh as the CPUs in the iMac Pro are now 50% less. 
Well the newer models which are a mild refresh are 50% less than the old ones in the Macs. 
This due to AMD having a dramatically faster and better value platform.


----------



## chimuelo

I follow threads like this with extreme interest.
Mostly because Mainstage on an iPad got me interested and then the thought I can finally use ESX 24.
I’ll get a MacPro the day they switch to AMD.
Until then iPad through my AOC, out to K4, into my recent 8086k 1U PC.
So far this beast is Poly King mostly because my i7 4790k started benching slower.
I usually swap out parts after 2 years, but noticed lags.
Never knew a CPU could actually slow down, but I’m 60+ hours a week, 8 a day of high poly pounding.

Definately a MacPro in my future.
Have to support American Labor too. It’s a Union thing.


----------



## simsung

What are the best pcie For cards ssds such as 2,5 and m.2? Or do all work


----------



## Prockamanisc

simsung said:


> What are the best pcie For cards ssds such as 2,5 and m.2? Or do all work


There's a Sonnet 4x4 m.2 card that people seem to be using. Apple even showed it during their Mac Pro release announcement.


----------



## Pier

Symfoniq said:


> I'd love to know how many hackintoshes are actually being used in professional contexts.
> 
> While the idea of spending hackintosh money instead of Mac Pro money is certainly appealing to me, I can't afford the risks one assumes by using an unsupported platform to earn their livelihood.



A lot. Specially freelancers working at home.

I've built probably a dozen hackintoshes in the last 10 or so years so I have a bit of experience. Hackintoshes can be annoying but once you get it up and running these are as solid as a mac. There is no risk. It's not like your SSDs are going to explode one day and you will lose all your data. A hackintosh is just a PC.

I would probably not recommend one for general computing, but for a workstation it works fine if you have the patience to get it up and running which may take days or even weeks if you need to swap hardware components. A hackintosh is a hobby in itself. You have to decide if saving a couple thousands dollars is worth your time or not.

For me it's not worth it anymore. Thank god I left Logic years ago so I can pick whatever OS and hardware that fits my needs and budget for using my DAW.


----------



## Virtuoso

My 16 core arrived this morning! It was supposed to come 6-10 January so that was a nice bonus. I will be spending the next couple of days getting it fully installed and online, but in the meantime some early thoughts/impressions...

The packaging is really heavy (~80lbs!) but the actual Mac is much lighter and easy to carry. Lighter than my 2008 Mac Pro actually. Build quality is exceptional and it really looks beautiful in person. Not as imposing as the online pictures suggest - it's smaller than a Fractal Design R4/5 PC case.

It's not silent, but it is VERY quiet and what little noise there is does not seem to increase under load.

The 8TB SSD option does not provide any speed increase. Since there are 2x4TB modules, I wondered if they might configure them in a RAID0 but it seems not. Read and Write speeds are both around 3GB/s. I'm planning to add more storage via a PCIe card loaded with SSDs once I've found a dependable model.

I put in 384GB of Samsung memory from Memory.net which is working perfectly and cost $1680 vs $6000 from Apple! I still have 6 slots free if I ever need more... :D

There's a USB port inside the case that's ideal for an iLok/eLicenser.

My Geekbench multi-core score tested quite a bit higher than the online charts - 15638.

More to follow...


----------



## Symfoniq

Virtuoso said:


> My 16 core arrived this morning! It was supposed to come 6-10 January so that was a nice bonus. I will be spending the next couple of days getting it fully installed and online, but in the meantime some early thoughts/impressions...
> 
> The packaging is really heavy (~80lbs!) but the actual Mac is much lighter and easy to carry. Lighter than my 2008 Mac Pro actually. Build quality is exceptional and it really looks beautiful in person. Not as imposing as the online pictures suggest - it's smaller than a Fractal Design R4/5 PC case.
> 
> It's not silent, but it is VERY quiet and what little noise there is does not seem to increase under load.
> 
> The 8TB SSD option does not provide any speed increase. Since there are 2x4TB modules, I wondered if they might configure them in a RAID0 but it seems not. Read and Write speeds are both around 3GB/s. I'm planning to add more storage via a PCIe card loaded with SSDs once I've found a dependable model.
> 
> I put in 384GB of Samsung memory from Memory.net which is working perfectly and cost $1680 vs $6000 from Apple! I still have 6 slots free if I ever need more... :D
> 
> There's a USB port inside the case that's ideal for an iLok/eLicenser.
> 
> My Geekbench multi-core score tested quite a bit higher than the online charts - 15638.
> 
> More to follow...



I have had my 16-core for a few days and agree with everything you wrote, including Geekbench scores being higher than what’s on the official chart. My multi-core score is the same as yours, and single-core is consistently in the 1150 range, which is also higher than the official score and good for second- or third-fastest Mac ever in single-threaded performance. An unexpected but nice surprise.

I hate noise, so I’m happy to report that I can definitely live with this machine. It’s sitting on my desk right now and is barely audible. Under a desk I wouldn’t be able to hear it.


----------



## Dewdman42

make sure to submit your geekbench score to their website and it will bump it up in the charts. those numbers simply come from people like you running the test and submitting the result.


----------



## rlw

Virtuoso said:


> My 16 core arrived this morning! It was supposed to come 6-10 January so that was a nice bonus. I will be spending the next couple of days getting it fully installed and online, but in the meantime some early thoughts/impressions...
> 
> The packaging is really heavy (~80lbs!) but the actual Mac is much lighter and easy to carry. Lighter than my 2008 Mac Pro actually. Build quality is exceptional and it really looks beautiful in person. Not as imposing as the online pictures suggest - it's smaller than a Fractal Design R4/5 PC case.
> 
> It's not silent, but it is VERY quiet and what little noise there is does not seem to increase under load.
> 
> The 8TB SSD option does not provide any speed increase. Since there are 2x4TB modules, I wondered if they might configure them in a RAID0 but it seems not. Read and Write speeds are both around 3GB/s. I'm planning to add more storage via a PCIe card loaded with SSDs once I've found a dependable model.
> 
> I put in 384GB of Samsung memory from Memory.net which is working perfectly and cost $1680 vs $6000 from Apple! I still have 6 slots free if I ever need more... :D
> 
> There's a USB port inside the case that's ideal for an iLok/eLicenser.
> 
> My Geekbench multi-core score tested quite a bit higher than the online charts - 15638.
> 
> More to follow...


Was wondering how you like the new Mac Pro ? Very interested in what you think or Any who has the New Mac Pro


----------



## simsung

rlw said:


> Was wondering how you like the new Mac Pro ? Very interested in what you think or Any who has the New Mac Pro



well its a struggle... there is a reason why people say you should stay at least one osx behind ... 
the lowest point for me was after realizing i totally messed up trying to install the software and got totally stuck, then reset everything, meaning formatting the system drive, while formatting the computer freezed. then it took around 1 hour until it got everything together again to install osx again. round 2 installing the software with much much patience then worked out for most of my stuff. to be honest, installing cubase, opening it and wondering wow is this snappy and fast - this effect is gone once all plugins are installed. its the same feeling i had with the mac mini 2018. 
But the mac pro will last much longer since i can update it myself . thats the reason to keep it. it doesnt make big jumps as you see when changing from a 5200u/min to a ssd. i guess you will just see it that it handles more tracks then other computers.
but this catalina is such a ... (the worst installing was UAD which totally messed up UNTIL opening cubase - from that point on it suddenly worked out flawless, which doesnt make any sense)


----------



## Gerd Kaeding

Video concerning the MacPro Rack Version :


----------



## rlw

Iswhatitis said:


> As cool as the new Mac Pro is as an all in one solution, unless one is getting more than 512gb of ram I don’t see how it makes sense to get the new Mac Pro over multiple faster 🖥 iMacs. Anyone can buy a 128gb ram 27” 5k iMac with a 2tb internal SSD. Anyone can buy three of these and create a 24 core iMac network using VE Pro with 384gb ram and three 2tb internal SSDs for $12,000 total (includes price of ram) whereas a loaded 24 core Mac Pro with 384gb ram and 4tb is about $17,000 (does not include price of monitors) and you still gotta buy monitors whereas each iMac is a 27” 5k monitor. Plus if the Mac Pro goes down your whole studio is down. With three iMacs this is not really an issue. Plus, each iMac core is a 3.6ghz 5.0ghz turbo boost speed and each Mac Pro core is only a 2.7ghz 4.4ghz turbo boost speed. People don’t realize that turbo boost does not activate nearly as much as one would assume it does so the iMac is a 33% faster machine for less money. Now if someone wants 1tb-1.5tb ram then get the Mac Pro, but otherwise I’m not so sure this new Mac is worth it unless you want loads of ram. For $16,000 anyone could get four iMacs making a 32 core 512gb ram networked machine and you would still save $1,000 at least. If one is in the middle of a production and an iMac goes down it’s not a big deal when you have 2-4 iMacs in your network, god forbid your one Mac Pro goes down when you need it most.



My biggest concern with the iMac is the fan noise. For sure, the price and performance is very compelling but I have heard so many comments about the fan noise. Currently I am leaning toward a second iMac pro as I definitely need more slaves for my large templates.


----------



## rlw

Iswhatitis said:


> I really wanted to get an iMac Pro both for more cores more ram and slightly quieter fan but I’m not paying Apple ram pricing. 128gb of ram with lifetime warranty cost me $500 on Amazon. The iMac is no where near as loud as my old mirror doors drive power Mac, which was ridiculous.



I understand, these are challenging decisions to wrestle with.


----------



## David Kudell

I love my iMac Pro, which I use for video production as well. I have 128 GB of RAM. have no need to upgrade to a Mac Pro for a few years. The new Mac Pro will be my next system but not needed anytime soon.


----------



## pulse

Hey all my old Mac Pro (pre-trash can era) is finally heading on the way out :( I'm now looking to purchase the new Mac Pro. So far it seems people are liking the 16 core CPU. I'm wondering if it is worth considering the 24 core version (I'm guessing the 28 core is overkill?) also is there any need to upgrade the video card or will the basic one do? The main thing is that I would like the new computer to last a decent amount of time. My current Mac Pro has lasted around 9 years... not bad for a computer 

Many thanks!


----------



## khollister

Folks have been promoting the 16 core due to cost ($4000 US less than the 24, $5000 US less than the 28) and a higher base clock, thinking that should translate into faster speeds in real-world DAW use.

So far, both the 16 and 28 appears to be under performing in clock speed compared to expectations (and compared to what the iMac Pro achieves with the previous gen Xeons). It is early days yet, so IMHO there is a lot we don't know yet.

Based on the limited testing I've read here and at GS, it is not clear the 28 is at much, if any, of a disadvantage running CPU-intensive VI's compared to the 16. And, of course all those extra cores do offer a real advantage - assuming your DAW can use all the threads.

I have not read of anyone getting a 24, probably because once you swallow the big price delta from the 16, the 28 is only another $1000 more. The 28 can also accept 1.5TB of RAM, not that it's a big concern for audio.


----------



## pulse

khollister said:


> Folks have been promoting the 16 core due to cost ($4000 US less than the 24, $5000 US less than the 28) and a higher base clock, thinking that should translate into faster speeds in real-world DAW use.
> 
> So far, both the 16 and 28 appears to be under performing in clock speed compared to expectations (and compared to what the iMac Pro achieves with the previous gen Xeons). It is early days yet, so IMHO there is a lot we don't know yet.
> 
> Based on the limited testing I've read here and at GS, it is not clear the 28 is at much, if any, of a disadvantage running CPU-intensive VI's compared to the 16. And, of course all those extra cores do offer a real advantage - assuming your DAW can use all the threads.
> 
> I have not read of anyone getting a 24, probably because once you swallow the big price delta from the 16, the 28 is only another $1000 more. The 28 can also accept 1.5TB of RAM, not that it's a big concern for audio.


Many thanks for the reply


----------



## pulse

khollister said:


> Folks have been promoting the 16 core due to cost ($4000 US less than the 24, $5000 US less than the 28) and a higher base clock, thinking that should translate into faster speeds in real-world DAW use.
> 
> So far, both the 16 and 28 appears to be under performing in clock speed compared to expectations (and compared to what the iMac Pro achieves with the previous gen Xeons). It is early days yet, so IMHO there is a lot we don't know yet.
> 
> Based on the limited testing I've read here and at GS, it is not clear the 28 is at much, if any, of a disadvantage running CPU-intensive VI's compared to the 16. And, of course all those extra cores do offer a real advantage - assuming your DAW can use all the threads.
> 
> I have not read of anyone getting a 24, probably because once you swallow the big price delta from the 16, the 28 is only another $1000 more. The 28 can also accept 1.5TB of RAM, not that it's a big concern for audio.


I'm guessing there is no need to get anything more than the basic video card?


----------



## khollister

pulse said:


> I'm guessing there is no need to get anything more than the basic video card?



The 580 is fine if you are just running a DAW, etc. If you plan on doing any non-trivial video editing, a more powerful card is really nice. Also bear in mind that the Vega and upcoming 5700 cards have another thunderbolt controller with 2 ports that connects to the CPU through the MPX connector that is part of the graphics cards. The 5700 card is really going to be the sweet spot once it is released since it should be closer to the performance of the Vega than the 580 (which is a pretty basic Radeon these days), has TB/DP ports on board and should be considerably cheaper than the single core Vega card.

However, no one really knows when it will be available.


----------



## pulse

khollister said:


> The 580 is fine if you are just running a DAW, etc. If you plan on doing any non-trivial video editing, a more powerful card is really nice. Also bear in mind that the Vega and upcoming 5700 cards have another thunderbolt controller with 2 ports that connects to the CPU through the MPX connector that is part of the graphics cards. The 5700 card is really going to be the sweet spot once it is released since it should be closer to the performance of the Vega than the 580 (which is a pretty basic Radeon these days), has TB/DP ports on board and should be considerably cheaper than the single core Vega card.
> 
> However, no one really knows when it will be available.


Cool many thanks for the information


----------



## tmhuud

This is a very nice summary. Thanks for posting this. I’m trying to correlate between various forums like GS and here, etc for the optimum system.



khollister said:


> Folks have been promoting the 16 core due to cost ($4000 US less than the 24, $5000 US less than the 28) and a higher base clock, thinking that should translate into faster speeds in real-world DAW use.
> 
> So far, both the 16 and 28 appears to be under performing in clock speed compared to expectations (and compared to what the iMac Pro achieves with the previous gen Xeons). It is early days yet, so IMHO there is a lot we don't know yet.
> 
> Based on the limited testing I've read here and at GS, it is not clear the 28 is at much, if any, of a disadvantage running CPU-intensive VI's compared to the 16. And, of course all those extra cores do offer a real advantage - assuming your DAW can use all the threads.
> 
> I have not read of anyone getting a 24, probably because once you swallow the big price delta from the 16, the 28 is only another $1000 more. The 28 can also accept 1.5TB of RAM, not that it's a big concern for audio.


----------



## khollister

tmhuud said:


> This is a very nice summary. Thanks for posting this. I’m trying to correlate between various forums like GS and here, etc for the optimum system.



Since I don't have a 7.1 MP yet (I'm running a 10 core iMac Pro), it is difficult to really understand what is going on with the clock speeds. And to be fair, it seems anyone running real projects or one of the standard Logic tests are getting fantastic results due to the number of cores. A couple threads over on GS got derailed with benchmarking Diva and analyzing clock speeds - it is very unclear how that correlates with actual production use. If I do eventually get one, it willl be the 16 just because the cost differential for the 28 is huge.


----------



## Dewdman42

Where you will notice things struggling with low clock speeds is when you try to use small buffer, low latency, on live record enabled tracks. All the tests where people are reporting lots of Diva tracks, are not in live mode and are using a large buffer. The clock speed is more then enough for many tracks on many cores that way. Where the slow clock speed may not shine so great is on low latency live mode, especially with a CPU heavy plugin chain in live mode.


----------



## khollister

Dewdman42 said:


> Where you will notice things struggling with low clock speeds is when you try to use small buffer, low latency, on live record enabled tracks. All the tests where people are reporting lots of Diva tracks, are not in live mode and are using a large buffer. The clock speed is more then enough for many tracks on many cores that way. Where the slow clock speed may not shine so great is on low latency live mode, especially with a CPU heavy plugin chain in live mode.



Yeah, that is one reason I am not moving off of the iMP right away. I can play anything at 64 sample buffer except the Spitfire strings performance legato (it is right on the edge with 2 mics active). Most stuff I could play at 32. Of course the other reasons I'm not jumping to the nMP is the eye-watering cost and the fact I don't actually need one yet.


----------



## Symfoniq

Neil Parfitt has been posting some interesting videos about his new (rack-mounted) Mac Pro in music contexts (Logic Pro, Pro Tools, VE Pro). Here's the latest:




And here's the hardware configuration:


----------



## pulse

Symfoniq said:


> Neil Parfitt has been posting some interesting videos about his new (rack-mounted) Mac Pro in music contexts (Logic Pro, Pro Tools, VE Pro). Here's the latest:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> And here's the hardware configuration:



Very interesting I wonder which cpu core system he bought?


----------



## rlw

Symfoniq said:


> Neil Parfitt has been posting some interesting videos about his new (rack-mounted) Mac Pro in music contexts (Logic Pro, Pro Tools, VE Pro). Here's the latest:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> And here's the hardware configuration:



Does anyone know how many cores Neil's CPU is. Based on the price, I think 28 cores but I could not hear or see the number of cores.


----------



## khollister

pulse said:


> Very interesting I wonder which cpu core system he bought?



28


----------



## rlw

The only questions I have is that in his testing, what latency and buffer were Neil using with LPX. I wonder how well Live mode works with the 28 core chip. Otherwise I was very impressed by his test.


----------



## charlieclouser

Weird that he's addressing VEPro by way of inter-app MIDI and a separate audio card. That way lies madness. 

I believe JohnG just went through a bit of hassle because his (separate) slave machines were receiving hardware MIDI and sending audio back via hardware instead of using the VEPro plugin, and as a result was having timing issues. 

No plugin = no latency compensation, so playback of MIDI tracks is just as laggy and delayed as live playing from the keyboard = not in sync. I guess Neil has a reason related to audio flow that convinced him to do it this way, but.... ouch. 

Extra stress on everything to keep latency low on the VEPro side instead of letting Logic's Process Buffer deal with playback tracks and essentially send the MIDI ahead of time in order to get the audio back right on the grid.

But it's good to see that he can have three apps, each with a separate audio card, even if I think it's a little nuts. Seems like the Mac Pro has the juice.


----------



## pulse

Looking at Neils videos again... he was talking about some sort of Anvil Tech card that houses 4 SSD hard drives. Unless I'm going deaf or crazy I can't seem to find this product online. Does anyone have a clue?


----------



## Virtuoso

If you mean NVMe M.2 blades, the it's probably the *Amfeltec* Squid he's talking about. They have a board for around $800 which takes up to 6 SSDs:-



https://amfeltec.com/pci-express-gen-3-carrier-board-for-6-m2-or-ngsff-nf1-pcie-ssd-modules/



...and a cheaper card (not sure of the price) which takes up to 4:-





__





PCI Express Gen 3 Carrier Board for 4 M.2 PCIe SSD modules | Amfeltec Corporation







amfeltec.com





There are alternatives available from HighPoint, OWC and Sonnet. Check compatibility though - some of the boards only accept single sided SSDs.

I'm using the HighPoint 7101-A and getting great results - no problems so far. Just make sure to get the latest v2 revision which enables fan control so you can keep things quiet.





__





M.2 Non-Bootable - Gen3 | HighPoint-tech.com


SSD7000 series controllers are fully independent NVMe RAID storage solutions. Unlike the vast majority of NVMe controllers available for mainstream PCIe 3.0 host platforms, SSD7000 series controllers are not restricted to a particular chipset or motherboard series, and require no bifurcation...




highpoint-tech.com






If you want to use *SATA* SSDs on the other hand, there are two Sedna cards I know of (one with RAID) which will take 4 SATA SSDs:-





I couldn't find any user reports on them, so I went with the new Sonnet Fusion RAID card instead which just came out this week - it arrives Thursday so I'll report back when I've had a chance to set it up. It only takes 2 SSDs but the specs are better:-









Fusion Dual 2.5-inch SSD RAID (with hardware RAID controller and 10Gbps USB-C port • Add your own SSDs)


Dual 2.5-inch SSD PCIe 3.0 card with hardware RAID controller, plus 10Gbps USB-C port. Add your own SSDs.




www.sonnetstore.com


----------



## pulse

Virtuoso said:


> If you mean NVMe M.2 blades, the it's probably the *Amfeltec* Squid he's talking about. They have a board for around $800 which takes up to 6 SSDs:-
> 
> 
> 
> https://amfeltec.com/pci-express-gen-3-carrier-board-for-6-m2-or-ngsff-nf1-pcie-ssd-modules/
> 
> 
> 
> ...and a cheaper card (not sure of the price) which takes up to 4:-
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> __
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> PCI Express Gen 3 Carrier Board for 4 M.2 PCIe SSD modules | Amfeltec Corporation
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> amfeltec.com
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> There are alternatives available from HighPoint, OWC and Sonnet. Check compatibility though - some of the boards only accept single sided SSDs.
> 
> I'm using the HighPoint 7101-A and getting great results - no problems so far. Just make sure to get the latest v2 revision which enables fan control so you can keep things quiet.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> __
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> M.2 Non-Bootable - Gen3 | HighPoint-tech.com
> 
> 
> SSD7000 series controllers are fully independent NVMe RAID storage solutions. Unlike the vast majority of NVMe controllers available for mainstream PCIe 3.0 host platforms, SSD7000 series controllers are not restricted to a particular chipset or motherboard series, and require no bifurcation...
> 
> 
> 
> 
> highpoint-tech.com
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> If you want to use *SATA* SSDs on the other hand, there are two Sedna cards I know of (one with RAID) which will take 4 SATA SSDs:-
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> I couldn't find any user reports on them, so I went with the new Sonnet Fusion RAID card instead which just came out this week - it arrives Thursday so I'll report back when I've had a chance to set it up. It only takes 2 SSDs but the specs are better:-
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Fusion Dual 2.5-inch SSD RAID (with hardware RAID controller and 10Gbps USB-C port • Add your own SSDs)
> 
> 
> Dual 2.5-inch SSD PCIe 3.0 card with hardware RAID controller, plus 10Gbps USB-C port. Add your own SSDs.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> www.sonnetstore.com



Many thanks mate for the very helpful reply... I'll have a good look at your links and have a read


----------



## rlw

Virtuoso said:


> If you mean NVMe M.2 blades, the it's probably the *Amfeltec* Squid he's talking about. They have a board for around $800 which takes up to 6 SSDs:-
> 
> 
> 
> https://amfeltec.com/pci-express-gen-3-carrier-board-for-6-m2-or-ngsff-nf1-pcie-ssd-modules/
> 
> 
> 
> ...and a cheaper card (not sure of the price) which takes up to 4:-
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> __
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> PCI Express Gen 3 Carrier Board for 4 M.2 PCIe SSD modules | Amfeltec Corporation
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> amfeltec.com
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> There are alternatives available from HighPoint, OWC and Sonnet. Check compatibility though - some of the boards only accept single sided SSDs.
> 
> I'm using the HighPoint 7101-A and getting great results - no problems so far. Just make sure to get the latest v2 revision which enables fan control so you can keep things quiet.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> __
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> M.2 Non-Bootable - Gen3 | HighPoint-tech.com
> 
> 
> SSD7000 series controllers are fully independent NVMe RAID storage solutions. Unlike the vast majority of NVMe controllers available for mainstream PCIe 3.0 host platforms, SSD7000 series controllers are not restricted to a particular chipset or motherboard series, and require no bifurcation...
> 
> 
> 
> 
> highpoint-tech.com
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> If you want to use *SATA* SSDs on the other hand, there are two Sedna cards I know of (one with RAID) which will take 4 SATA SSDs:-
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> I couldn't find any user reports on them, so I went with the new Sonnet Fusion RAID card instead which just came out this week - it arrives Thursday so I'll report back when I've had a chance to set it up. It only takes 2 SSDs but the specs are better:-
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Fusion Dual 2.5-inch SSD RAID (with hardware RAID controller and 10Gbps USB-C port • Add your own SSDs)
> 
> 
> Dual 2.5-inch SSD PCIe 3.0 card with hardware RAID controller, plus 10Gbps USB-C port. Add your own SSDs.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> www.sonnetstore.com



Should I be able to use any M.2 PCI SSD 2280 ? Looked at Sargent because of price but they have some small quotes that an adapter may be needed for Mac. Seemed funny to me but was wondering which Drives you used with the HighPoint 7101-A. I really like what I see in the overview. Also @Virtuoso does the HighPoint software allow you on the same PCI card to have 4 configured as "2 drives mirror Raid 1" and 2 drives Raid 0.


----------



## rlw

I know the internal factory SSD drive on the Mac Pro is not accessible but does anyone know if CPU can be upgraded in the future without taking it back into Apple. I was considering the 16 core Mac Pro with just the 250 Gb drive for now and using one of the PCI M.2 card options for my drive spaces. Wondering if I could upgrade the CPU as others did on the previous 5.1 Mac Pro? I believe that in the future there will be improved and possibly less expensive 28 cores with better clock speeds and I might consider upgrading the Mac Pro in a couple of years.


----------



## robh

rlw said:


> I know the internal factory SSD drive on the Mac Pro is not accessible but does anyone know if CPU can be upgraded in the future without taking it back into Apple. I was considering the 16 core Mac Pro with just the 250 Gb drive for now and using one of the PCI M.2 card options for my drive spaces. Wondering if I could upgrade the CPU as others did on the previous 5.1 Mac Pro? I believe that in the future there will be improved and possibly less expensive 28 cores with better clock speeds and I might consider upgrading the Mac Pro in a couple of years.


Yes, the CPU is upgradeable.


----------



## Virtuoso

rlw said:


> ...was wondering which Drives you used with the HighPoint 7101-A. I really like what I see in the overview. Also @Virtuoso does the HighPoint software allow you on the same PCI card to have 4 configured as "2 drives mirror Raid 1" and 2 drives Raid 0.


I am using 4x Gigabyte Aorus 2TB drives - they have a really good copper heat sink and, with the Mac Pro airflow, you don't need to use the HighPoint fan or shroud to keep the temperatures down. Mine run at ~102F with no fan at all. They are PCIe 4.0 spec but run fine in the PCIe 3.0 Mac (you just don't get the full 5GB/s from each drive - more like 3GB/s each).



Without any HighPoint drivers installed, the SSDs appear (and work fine) as 4 external drives. You can use Apple RAID or SoftRAID to configure them however you like. If you choose to install the drivers, you do have to disable boot security.

If you want to use the hardware RAID on the card itself (which is faster) you can only run a single RAID at a time. You can still use any other remaining drives, just not in the hardware RAID. Check page 12 of the User Manual for more info.

http://www.highpoint-tech.com/PDF/NVMe/SSD7101A-1/SSD7101A-1_Manual_v1.00_17_07_11.pdf

Bear in mind that if you are using it for sample libraries, RAID is not necessarily the best configuration, since it tends to be slower at the key 4k transfer speed. I'm using mine predominantly for video where huge sequential files are the norm. I would recommend running some tests before you start to fill up the drives.


----------



## pulse

robh said:


> Yes, the CPU is upgradeable.


I thought the CPU upgrade was not officially supported by Apple? Part of me wonders if Apple have some sneaky software code preventing full OS compatibility with CPU upgrades installed outside the official path. Either-way it would be amazing if it was officially supported by Apple.


----------



## jcrosby

pulse said:


> I thought the CPU upgrade was not officially supported by Apple? Part of me wonders if Apple have some sneaky software code preventing full OS compatibility with CPU upgrades installed outside the official path. Either-way it would be amazing if it was officially supported by Apple.



Historically this would void your Apple warranty. Although I don't know for sure I wouldn't assume anything, and would expect them to stick to their previous policies.


----------



## pulse

jcrosby said:


> Historically this would void your Apple warranty. Although I don't know for sure I wouldn't assume anything, and would expect them to stick to their previous policies.


Yeah I agree I think that ultimately to be safe... we can say that a CPU upgrade is not officially endorsed by Apple. So if a third party outside of Apple does the upgrade and there is an issue with the computer... the likely scenario is that Apple will not help in fixing the problem. So for those of us who want to buy a fully spec'd out Mac Pro CPU wise we are stuck with whats on offer.


----------



## edhamilton

Linus (big youtube tech channel) did a vid on upgrading the cpu. No issues.

There is also a thread in macrumors of a guy doing a cpu upgrade. Worked but had an issue because he didn't tighten the heat sink enough. Once that was sorted he's up and running.

The issue will be compatible CPU's. Apparently the 7,1 needs one of the very few specific cpu's. Its not like you can wing it with one of the several minor variants out there.
Also no guarantee that it will work with the latest cpu's in a few years. 
Annoying.


----------



## jcrosby

edhamilton said:


> Linus (big youtube tech channel) did a vid on upgrading the cpu. No issues.
> 
> There is also a thread in macrumors of a guy doing a cpu upgrade. Worked but had an issue because he didn't tighten the heat sink enough. Once that was sorted he's up and running.
> 
> The issue will be compatible CPU's. Apparently the 7,1 needs one of the very few specific cpu's. Its not like you can wing it with one of the several minor variants out there.
> Also no guarantee that it will work with the latest cpu's in a few years.
> Annoying.


It’s not that you can’t. I upgraded my old cheese grater. It’d be wise to at least be aware of their history of not supporting it...

I think the cheesegrater approach is the way to fly unless apple announces it won’t void the warranty; let the warranty or Apple care expire, then have a field day with it...

The other option would be to DIY it and keep the original CPU around until the warranty/AC expires. That way if it needs servicing you can put it back to factory condition yourself.


----------



## Gerd Kaeding

rlw said:


> Wondering if I could upgrade the CPU as others did on the previous 5.1 Mac Pro?



Hi , here's a Video showing you how to upgrade the CPU of the MacPro 7.1 by yourself.

-

-

Best ,
Gerd


----------



## rlw

Gerd Kaeding said:


> Hi , here's a Video showing you how to upgrade the CPU of the MacPro 7.1 by yourself.
> 
> -
> 
> -
> 
> Best ,
> Gerd



Thanks so much. @Gerd Kaeding . That really helps my decision


----------



## jononotbono

Anyone bought one yet and used Cubase? Is the cursor smooth yet?


----------



## InLight-Tone

Can anyone summarize given that you can upgrade the CPU, the DOWNSIDE of starting with the base 8 core configuration? Thanks!


----------



## charlieclouser

Still want to see an actual CPU swap performed and working, with test results. In the video above he doesn't actually swap the CPU, he only removes it, waves it around, and then puts it right back in.

So, yeah, he shows that you can get it out - but he doesn't show a swapped CPU working.

He shows pricing and some specs for other "compatible" CPU chips, but notes that the $3k 28-core chip he found on CDW only supports 512gb of RAM and only at the slower 2666 speed, which is what the 8-core Mac Pro uses. So there was not definitive info on what happens when you start to mix and match 8-core base machines with swapped CPU chips, and what happens if you start with a 16-core that uses the faster memory and swap in the 28-core that uses the slower memory. Does the CPU tell the motherboard how fast to clock the memory, or is this set in some PRAM somewhere that we can't get to? 

So many more questions....


----------



## khollister

charlieclouser said:


> Still want to see an actual CPU swap performed and working, with test results. In the video above he doesn't actually swap the CPU, he only removes it, waves it around, and then puts it right back in.
> 
> So, yeah, he shows that you can get it out - but he doesn't show a swapped CPU working.
> 
> He shows pricing and some specs for other "compatible" CPU chips, but notes that the $3k 28-core chip he found on CDW only supports 512gb of RAM and only at the slower 2666 speed, which is what the 8-core Mac Pro uses. So there was not definitive info on what happens when you start to mix and match 8-core base machines with swapped CPU chips, and what happens if you start with a 16-core that uses the faster memory and swap in the 28-core that uses the slower memory. Does the CPU tell the motherboard how fast to clock the memory, or is this set in some PRAM somewhere that we can't get to?
> 
> So many more questions....



Guy seems to have been successful in this thread:








CPU upgrade in 2019 Mac Pro


Has this scam impacted current generation Xeons? https://www.pcgamer.com/psa-beware-of-fake-processors-being-sold-at-retail-sites/




forums.macrumors.com


----------



## edhamilton

8 core to 28 core upgrade plus ram and stuff.


----------



## robh

edhamilton said:


> 8 core to 28 core upgrade plus ram and stuff.



Linus said you can get the CPU from, "any reseller that you like," but I can't find it.


----------



## edhamilton

I couldn't either.


----------



## Symfoniq

It's going to be a while before Cascade Lake Xeons are easy to find, particularly on the used market, but that's usually the way it goes with relatively new high-end workstation CPUs.

If you can find one, the CPU is easily upgraded. This has been done by numerous people now.


----------



## Prockamanisc

I read that the power consumption of the current processors is around 200 watts, but the socket is able to provide 350 watts, making me think that there will be room to upgrade over the next few years.


----------



## samphony

Iswhatitis said:


> As cool as this is, I still feel 2-3 iMacs or iMac Pros is not only significantly cheaper than Neil’s fully loaded Mac Pro but much faster too.
> 
> A 3 iMac 🖥 setup loaded each with 128GB RAM & 2TB SSD is $12,000 total ($4,000 each) all running at 3.6Ghz (5Ghz Turbo) 24 cores total 384GB RAM 6TB SSD internal connected by VEPro. Neil must have spent $20,000, for what? For $20,000 anyone can get a 5 iMac 🖥 setup totaling 40 cores 640GB RAM 10TB SSD internal drives. If any one iMac goes down your studio doesn’t miss a beat. If Neil’s Mac Pro goes down his whole studio is shut down. I just don’t see the advantage to having it all in one box for so much more money and so much slower clock speeds.


His goal was to reduce clutter and to have all in one box.


----------



## Neil Parfitt

samphony said:


> His goal was to reduce clutter and to have all in one box.



Key factor: 
I am so tired of maintaining multiple systems... sample library authorizations, management and also multiply this setup x 3 as I work with another composer and there’s a remote rig involved as well. Before it 3 systems each, then 2, now 1.

This simplified everything - and that’s worth the Apple tax. I’d rather go outside and see the sun 

Sometimes you shell out the money to make problems go away. This was one of those moments and is never factored in when looking at the list price on paper.

Also - having these mega templates load on a single computer with no compromise is kinda glorious!


----------



## PeterKorcek

Exactly, I am still thinking sometimes about adding slave to my current PC (I tried it some time ago, it was working, but it was also a lot of hassle and trying to keep everything organised, etc was a bit of a headache for me), but having 1 system where everything resides is just more straightforward and you have more time to compose. Unless you like to tinker around and do this stuff...I don't have time for that right now.


----------



## samphony

Neil Parfitt said:


> Key factor:
> I am so tired of maintaining multiple systems... sample library authorizations, management and also multiply this setup x 3 as I work with another composer and there’s a remote rig involved as well. Before it 3 systems each, then 2, now 1.
> 
> This simplified everything - and that’s worth the Apple tax. I’d rather go outside and see the sun
> 
> Sometimes you shell out the money to make problems go away. This was one of those moments and is never factored in when looking at the list price on paper.
> 
> Also - having these mega templates load on a single computer with no compromise is kinda glorious!


Neil as you are about to create new videos could you please elaborate on your workflow? I’m about to go the same route and im particularly interested in why you stream/ record live (vep into pro tools etc) instead of using the vep server workflow and work in pro tools directly like some fellow composers do?!?

thank you for sharing your view!


----------



## InLight-Tone

Neil Parfitt said:


> Key factor:
> I am so tired of maintaining multiple systems... sample library authorizations, management and also multiply this setup x 3 as I work with another composer and there’s a remote rig involved as well. Before it 3 systems each, then 2, now 1.
> 
> This simplified everything - and that’s worth the Apple tax. I’d rather go outside and see the sun
> 
> Sometimes you shell out the money to make problems go away. This was one of those moments and is never factored in when looking at the list price on paper.
> 
> Also - having these mega templates load on a single computer with no compromise is kinda glorious!


Speaking my language!


----------



## VinRice

Iswhatitis said:


> Apple learned nothing from how companies like Dell and Microsoft succeeded over the Macintosh. Lower margins mean lower prices which means significantly higher numbers of units sold which leads to higher profits for the company.



Dell and Microsoft did not succeed over Apple. The Apple Mac division makes more profit than all the other PC manufacturers put together. Apple learned how to be one of the most successful companies in the world.


----------



## Dewdman42

uhm.. Apple makes most of its money from iPhones..not macs. Also iTunes and the app store. Its a very successful company no doubt.


----------



## VinRice

Dewdman42 said:


> uhm.. Apple makes most of its money from iPhones..not macs. Also iTunes and the app store. Its a very successful company no doubt.



Of course! However I don't think you understand just how big the numbers are for each division. 

$25 billion in Mac sales last year. My statement is correct.


----------



## Dewdman42

what is your statement exactly? That apple charges too damn much for their computers and makes shit tons of money? or you think somehow microsoft and Dell are inferior or failing?


----------



## Dewdman42

By the way, here are the numbers in terms of market share for laptops in 2018 for example. Apple is not the top. Not even close









Laptops by the Numbers: Market Share and More | Fortunly


The laptop market share is dominated by the three vendors accounting for 60% of all unit shipments. The industry faces a number of challenges.




fortunly.com


----------



## VinRice

Dewdman42 said:


> what is your statement exactly?



Dell and Microsoft did not succeed over Apple. The Apple Mac division makes more profit than all the other PC manufacturers put together. I don't know how repeating will help though.

Apple clearly doesn't charge too much for their computers or people wouldn't buy them


----------



## Dewdman42

as I said, you can not attribute Apple's financial success to pc's alone. iPhone and online services make a lot more money their then computers. Post some facts..you're blowing hot apple-love now..


----------



## VinRice

Dewdman42 said:


> By the way, here are the numbers in terms of market share for laptops in 2018 for example. Apple is not the top. Not even close
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Laptops by the Numbers: Market Share and More | Fortunly
> 
> 
> The laptop market share is dominated by the three vendors accounting for 60% of all unit shipments. The industry faces a number of challenges.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> fortunly.com



An this is EXACTLY the point. Market share does not equal profitability.


----------



## Dewdman42

profitability does not prove that their pc sales beat everyone else either..because it doesn't. And by the way I could CARE LESS how profitable they are!


----------



## VinRice

Dewdman42 said:


> as I said, you can not attribute Apple's financial success to pc's alone. iPhone and online services make a lot more money their then computers. Post some facts..you're blowing hot apple-love now..



You're being silly. Let me explain it one more time. Ignore iPhone's, iTunes etc. The Mac division on it's own is more profitable than all other PC manufacturers put together. That insistence on profitability over commodity box-shifting paid for the development of the iPhone and all the other things that Apple does, just as the iPhone's profitability will pay for whatever comes next.

I would love a new Mac Pro. I can't afford it. It doesn't make me irrationally angry with Apple.


----------



## robgb

Iswhatitis said:


> For the money you paid Apple, they should have at least included an updated Cherry 🍒 9000


Why are they using the theme from Taxi Driver in this trailer?


----------



## Dewdman42

who's angry?

Here is another article which happens to have Apple's 2019 Q3 sales listed out:

https://blog.technavio.com/blog/iphone-market-share



> iPhone: $25.99 billion
> Services: $11.46 billion
> Mac: $5.82 billion
> Wearables, Home and Accessories: $5.53 billion
> iPad: $5.02 billion



again, as a consumer I care absolutely zero zilch about profitability. But Apple's big picture in terms of sales and profitability are much bigger then just their PC sales, so trying to use that argument to justify the price of the new MacPro? That I simply do not understand. Mac's were 1/5 in terms of sales compared to iPhones last year. Even their online services made double the revenue of the macs.. They even made more from accessories and wearables then from their computers... Mac's represented 10% of total revenue last year.

Apple makes a lot of money no doubt...but its really not clear what argument you are even trying to make other than just be another annoying apple tool trying to justify their high pricing which neither you nor I can afford, while other manufacturers make computers for a fraction of the price that we can afford.

Do the others make less profit? Ok..maybe... at least they make less than Apple in the big scheme of things, but its not clear that they are making more then competitors in terms of desktop/laptop sales. Maybe as a profit percentage due to their high markup. Apple has for decades made their brand more about aesthetics then raw performance value. Some people are willing to pay for that and they eeked out 10% of revenue last year from that according to this report

Even their iPhone sales are behind 2 other big manufacturers.... But in the big picture, between all the different things they sell...they make a lot of money. They are a successful company no doubt...


----------



## Dewdman42

Iswhatitis said:


> You forgot the 1980s and 1990s when Apple almost went out of business if not for Bill Gates’ investment of cash into Apple. Apple would not even exist today as a company if not for Bill Gates. I wasn’t referring to Apple’s current success but almost colossal collapse when Dell and Microsoft were putting Apple out of business.



its funny, I was watching that Steve Jobs movie the other day. Funny to me the whole argument between Jobs and Woz about whether computers should have slots in them. Jobs was vehemently against it. That's one reason the toaster flopped financially. 

But here we are in 2020 and Apple still doesn't want to put friggin slots in their computers! Oh wait, they finally have one again...but it costs a small fortune.


----------



## VinRice

Iswhatitis said:


> You forgot the 1980s and 1990s when Apple almost went out of business if not for Bill Gates’ investment of cash into Apple. Apple would not even exist today as a company if not for Bill Gates.



I didn't forget at all. I know Apple's entire history. I don't see the relevance to your assertions 

If you're interested it was a gesture of $150 million stock purchase that Jobs, freshly returned to Apple, wanted to show the market that MS were not abandoning the Apple OS platform. It stabilised Apple's stock position. (Had Gates held onto the stock it would now be worth $58 Billion.)

Apple was in trouble precisely because Gil Amelio had started down the commodity route of Compaq and all the others, and Jobs turned that around.

This was 1997, a full year before the first iMac was revealed.


----------



## VinRice

Dewdman42 said:


> Apple makes a lot of money no doubt...but its really not clear what argument you are even trying to make other than just be another annoying apple tool trying to justify their high pricing which neither you nor I can afford, while other manufacturers make computers for a fraction of the price that we can afford.



Oh for goodness sake. It doesn't matter how many units you sell of something if you are not making a profit! Apple makes more money out of selling PC's than any other company. It makes more money out of selling Laptops than any other company. It makes more money out selling mobile phones than any other company. What is it about that metric that you do not understand?

The point I was making - which is a very simple and obvious one - Apple did not 'lose' the PC market by refusing to go down the modular commodity box-shifting route, quite the opposite. I was correcting a stupid and false statement.

I don't have to justify anything and neither do Apple. They charge whatever the fuck they want and the market will decide. It seems to be doing OK.


----------



## VinRice

Iswhatitis said:


> The main purpose of my original post about this was that Apple used to care more about its users. I still own a Mac mini and iMac where the RAM is user accessible. The company only stopped doing this to overcharge for Apple installed RAM and bolster the stock price



You really have no clue.


----------



## VinRice

I'm done arguing with a 14 year old.


----------



## Dewdman42

Iswhatitis said:


> The consumer will have the final say and in the end my prediction is Apple will be forced to lower prices on iMac Pro and Mac Pro or discontinue them eventually because they didn’t sell well enough given their absurd excessive prices. Mr. T knows what’s coming to Apple for being overly greedy.



I personally think they missed the boat on the new MacPro and agree, they are missing out a ton of market share. I think they will sell ok to a niche market. But I don't expect to see huge sales from it. Apple doesn't publish their specific sales counts anymore, so there is no way to know how many units they sold other than looking at overall revenue and making some guesses.

The new MacPro is simply way way out of line for most consumers...including a significant portion of prosumers. Its a nice looking piece and they can brag about their lovely display and so forth, but in terms of sales...I just don't see how they will sell that many, but we'll never know how many units they actually sell of it.

But i do think in a couple years they will either go back to iMacs and Minis while licking their wounds from trying to do that expensive over-engineered thing...or they will come out with something more affordable along the same lines, but I kind of think they will do the former, go back to making more minis and iMacs and Laptops...and count their dollars from iPad and iPhone sales.


----------



## pulse

Just another quick question re the Mac Pro plan 

I was thinking to get 2 things a Sonnet Pci-e card that can allow for 4 x 2TD SSDs and also get a Promise 32TB 7200rpm SATA drive solution for other things like general project sessions etc... any thoughts on the promise?

Many thanks
Anthony


----------



## Virtuoso

pulse said:


> Just another quick question re the Mac Pro plan
> 
> I was thinking to get 2 things a Sonnet Pci-e card that can allow for 4 x 2TD SSDs and also get a Promise 32TB 7200rpm SATA drive solution for other things like general project sessions etc... any thoughts on the promise?


Just one thought - how important to you is low noise? I would image having 4 7200rpm drives whirring and clicking would break the karmic silence! If you need that kind of capacity, I'd go external so you can deal with the noise better - it won't have any impact on transfer speed.

I'm up to 24TB of internal storage (all SSD) now on mine and it's still _extremely_ quiet (almost silent) even with all cores running flat out. The iMac that I've been using for 5 years now seems obnoxiously loud in comparison!


----------



## pulse

Virtuoso said:


> Just one thought - how important to you is low noise? I would image having 4 7200rpm drives whirring and clicking would break the karmic silence! If you need that kind of capacity, I'd go external so you can deal with the noise better - it won't have any impact on transfer speed.
> 
> I'm up to 24TB of internal storage (all SSD) now on mine and it's still _extremely_ quiet (almost silent) even with all cores running flat out. The iMac that I've been using for 5 years now seems obnoxiously loud in comparison!


Looks like we lost a bunch of posts due to the website being offline. Just too repost... my computer will reside outside the control room in a small machine room... so noise isn't such a big issue. I was thinking the SSDs would just be for samples and the 7200rpm for day to day stuff like logic and protools sessions etc... I always thought that over a long period 7200rpm drives handle daily use better. Also I was reading online that apple are dumping intel for their arm processors. I wonder how much life you would get out of a new Mac Pro? It would be sad to invest a big sum of money in a high end spec Mac Pro just to find in a few years that they won't support it?


----------



## Virtuoso

pulse said:


> I always thought that over a long period 7200rpm drives handle daily use better.


All drives fail eventually, so it's good to have a proper backup strategy. Traditional hard drives sometimes start to sound odd when they're about to fail (clanking/clicking/whirring etc), which is a signal to backup and replace asap! SSDs when they fail just disappear suddenly, usually with no option to recover any data. SSD technology is new and improving, and expected lifetime is measured in 'Terabytes Written', which for most people would mean a decade or more of usage. If noise isn't a factor, which one you go for ultimately is down to capacity, speed and cost.


pulse said:


> Also I was reading online that apple are dumping intel for their arm processors.


I think we'll see this in the entry level laptops first - I wouldn't expect to see ARM in the Mac Pro/iMac Pro for several years yet. It will be interesting if they start including multicore AMD CPUs though - their latest chips are very good bang for the buck.


----------



## charlieclouser

pulse said:


> Also I was reading online that apple are dumping intel for their arm processors. I wonder how much life you would get out of a new Mac Pro? It would be sad to invest a big sum of money in a high end spec Mac Pro just to find in a few years that they won't support it?



If this happens, like Virtuoso said it will be a multi-year transition period, with the non-Intel CPUs showing up first in lower-end laptops, then pro laptops and mid-range desktops, and finally, after a couple of years warming people up to the idea and getting high-end silicon ready, the pro desktops.

We've been through this once before, when Apple finally switched away from Motorola processors to Intel. It was a long process, and lots of people griped about it. But once the smoke cleared we looked back at those Motorola G3/G4/G5 machines and laughed at how miserable they were compared to the new hot Intel boxes we had just bought.

So if a switch does occur, we'll all be very glad in the end because we'll be staring down the throat of some insane 64-core bonkers CPUs or something equally mind-bending, that will make our current 28-core Xeons that cost thousands look like a bad dream.


----------



## pulse

Virtuoso said:


> All drives fail eventually, so it's good to have a proper backup strategy. Traditional hard drives sometimes start to sound odd when they're about to fail (clanking/clicking/whirring etc), which is a signal to backup and replace asap! SSDs when they fail just disappear suddenly, usually with no option to recover any data. SSD technology is new and improving, and expected lifetime is measured in 'Terabytes Written', which for most people would mean a decade or more of usage. If noise isn't a factor, which one you go for ultimately is down to capacity, speed and cost.
> 
> I think we'll see this in the entry level laptops first - I wouldn't expect to see ARM in the Mac Pro/iMac Pro for several years yet. It will be interesting if they start including multicore AMD CPUs though - their latest chips are very good bang for the buck.





charlieclouser said:


> If this happens, like Virtuoso said it will be a multi-year transition period, with the non-Intel CPUs showing up first in lower-end laptops, then pro laptops and mid-range desktops, and finally, after a couple of years warming people up to the idea and getting high-end silicon ready, the pro desktops.
> 
> We've been through this once before, when Apple finally switched away from Motorola processors to Intel. It was a long process, and lots of people griped about it. But once the smoke cleared we looked back at those Motorola G3/G4/G5 machines and laughed at how miserable they were compared to the new hot Intel boxes we had just bought.
> 
> So if a switch does occur, we'll all be very glad in the end because we'll be staring down the throat of some insane 64-core bonkers CPUs or something equally mind-bending, that will make our current 28-core Xeons that cost thousands look like a bad dream.


Thanks to you both for your thoughts... yeah you are both right end of the day it will be a slow process before Apple remove all trace of intel from their hardware and software. Well I'm going to order the new Mac Pro tomorrow. I'll head down the 28 core path... hopefully I get a few years of use out of it


----------



## charlieclouser

I bet that if Apple switches away from Intel processors, they won't go to some off-the-shelf chips like AMD Ryzen or Threadripper or whatever - they'll do their own silicon from the ground up, like they've done with iPhones etc. Then they can slam the door shut on the hackintosh crowd once and for all and have total control (which they love), and be able to do proprietary stuff in the storage and throughput arenas, widening the gap between them and everybody else. 

I also would not be surprised if they just bought AMD outright and discontinued all non-Apple chips.


----------



## pulse

charlieclouser said:


> I bet that if Apple switches away from Intel processors, they won't go to some off-the-shelf chips like AMD Ryzen or Threadripper or whatever - they'll do their own silicon from the ground up, like they've done with iPhones etc. Then they can slam the door shut on the hackintosh crowd once and for all and have total control (which they love), and be able to do proprietary stuff in the storage and throughput arenas, widening the gap between them and everybody else.
> 
> I also would not be surprised if they just bought AMD outright and discontinued all non-Apple chips.


True sometimes its like watching a tv show called 'Apple' play out. Either-way it will be interesting to see what eventuates. End of the day I'm thankful my pre-trashcan has lasted 9 years... not bad for a computer. I think AMD have some interesting things going on... so there is a good chance they might very well jump on board that ship.


----------



## pulse

I know this is a long shot... would anyone know if the Mac Pro rack version fits in a 500mm (50cm) deep rack? I had a look on Apples website and the total depth including the handles at the front is 53.95cm. That said the handles are outside of the rack so the part of the Mac Pro that sits in the rack would theoretically be less? or would I need a 600mm deep rack to be safe? All thoughts are greatly appreciated


----------



## Virtuoso

pulse said:


> I know this is a long shot... would anyone know if the Mac Pro rack version fits in a 500mm (50cm) deep rack? I had a look on Apples website and the total depth including the handles at the front is 53.95cm. That said the handles are outside of the rack so the part of the Mac Pro that sits in the rack would theoretically be less? or would I need a 600mm deep rack to be safe? All thoughts are greatly appreciated


I thought it was 24", which would be 61cm?

Yes - _minimum_ 24" see installation guide here:-





__





Install Mac Pro in a rack


Learn how to install Mac Pro into a rack.



support.apple.com


----------



## Cat

I got a topped up Mini and it is pretty good.


----------



## OleJoergensen

Cat said:


> I got a topped up Mini and it is pretty good.


Can I ask the spec? And how noissy is it?


----------



## pulse

Virtuoso said:


> I thought it was 24", which would be 61cm?
> 
> Yes - _minimum_ 24" see installation guide here:-
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> __
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Install Mac Pro in a rack
> 
> 
> Learn how to install Mac Pro into a rack.
> 
> 
> 
> support.apple.com


Ah ok I see... so its just a breath over 600mm. Most racks are either 50 or 60cm deep. This will be interesting to see if there are any 70cm deep racks.

Thanks for spotting that info


----------



## Cat

i7, 1tb internal ssd (+2 tb external usb-c SSD), 64 GB ram which I personally install (Amazon). Since I had to open it I also reapplied CPU thermal paste which improved the benchmark performance by about 15%.

It could get at times somewhat noisy, not very much, but don’t expect the quietness of, say, Trashcan Mac Pro. I tested it while placed in my proximity. I since moved in a separate machines room where I intalled an extra external fan because...I want it to be super safe. But I did not really need to.
Please note that if you use Logic on high resolution screen (like 4K) you will need external gpu or else you will get cracks. Or so I heard. I use Cubase and 2k monitor+ HD TV and it’s fine. I might add an eGPU at some point but I am not sure.
I also installed Macs Fan Control app which I really like!



OleJoergensen said:


> Can I ask the spec? And how noissy is it?


----------



## pulse

Hi I was wondering if anyone had any thoughts on this owc ssd PCIe card setup:



https://www.macfixit.com.au/8-0tb-owc-accelsior-4m2-pcie-3-0-m-2-nvme-ssd-storage-solution/



I was considering a sonnet but there seems to be a delay here in Australia getting them in.

Many thanks 

Anthony


----------



## Virtuoso

pulse said:


> Hi I was wondering if anyone had any thoughts on this owc ssd PCIe card setup:
> 
> 
> 
> https://www.macfixit.com.au/8-0tb-owc-accelsior-4m2-pcie-3-0-m-2-nvme-ssd-storage-solution/


- It's a x8 (half speed) card rather than a x16 so you won't get the full potential of 4 NVMe drives in a RAID - speed will max out around 6GB/s vs more like 9-12GB/s on a 16x card.

- If sustained write speed is a concern, note that the OWC SSDs use TLC memory with SLC caching. When the cache fills up, the drives will significantly slow down.

- Something to watch out for... there's a warning on the OWC page that says:-
_"Please note that the initial batch of Accelsior 4M2 drives have a heat sink that prevents the device from being properly installed in the 2019 Mac Pro. These models were given a specific part number that begins with OWCSSDACC4M2. Those models which will install normally on a 2019 Mac Pro were given the base part OWCSSDACL4M2"_


----------



## pulse

Virtuoso said:


> - It's a x8 (half speed) card rather than a x16 so you won't get the full potential of 4 NVMe drives in a RAID - speed will max out around 6GB/s vs more like 9-12GB/s on a 16x card.
> 
> - If sustained write speed is a concern, note that the OWC SSDs use TLC memory with SLC caching. When the cache fills up, the drives will significantly slow down.
> 
> - Something to watch out for... there's a warning on the OWC page that says:-
> _"Please note that the initial batch of Accelsior 4M2 drives have a heat sink that prevents the device from being properly installed in the 2019 Mac Pro. These models were given a specific part number that begins with OWCSSDACC4M2. Those models which will install normally on a 2019 Mac Pro were given the base part OWCSSDACL4M2"_


Many thanks that is a big help! I think I'll just wait for the sonnet. The Mac will still take a couple of weeks to arrive (maybe more due to worldwide delays)... so an extra couple of weeks for a better technology will be worth it


----------



## rlw

pulse said:


> Many thanks that is a big help! I think I'll just wait for the sonnet. The Mac will still take a couple of weeks to arrive (maybe more due to worldwide delays)... so an extra couple of weeks for a better technology will be worth it


I was wondering why you were considering the Sonnet over the Highpoint Pcie solution. Thanks @khollister for helping me correct my post.


----------



## khollister

I was going to mention the Highpoint 1701 (I think that's the model number) as well. Many success stories in a long thread over on Macrumors.com. Amfeltec Squids also are a proven nMP solution.


----------



## pulse

rlw said:


> I was wondering why you were considering the Sonnet over the Highpoint Pcie solution. Thanks @khollister for helping me correct my post.


To be honest I wasn’t looking at the HighPoint option... totally forgot to consider it. I’ll check it out


----------



## pulse

khollister said:


> I was going to mention the Highpoint 1701 (I think that's the model number) as well. Many success stories in a long thread over on Macrumors.com. Amfeltec Squids also are a proven nMP solution.


Cool thanks 🙏


----------



## Virtuoso

The Highpoint 7101-A is the one I use. I've had no issues so far (it's been used daily for 2 months now) and speeds are around 9GB/s for both read and write, compared with 3GB/s for the Apple SSD. One advantage of the Highpoint is that you can add a second one and RAID them together for _really_ high speeds!

Just make sure you get the latest revision which has proper fan control. I turn the onboard fan off completely and the temperatures are fine.


----------



## Jack Weaver

Virtuoso,
Which NVMe's are you using?

Thanks.

.


----------



## Virtuoso

Jack Weaver said:


> Virtuoso,
> Which NVMe's are you using?


4 of these:-


The big copper heatsinks mean the temperatures stay well under the 140F recommended maximum, even with no fan running. They typically run at 82F idle and 102F under load. This is in Seattle though - if you live somewhere where the sun actually shines, your mileage may vary!


----------



## Jack Weaver

Virtuoso said:


> The big copper heatsinks mean the temperatures stay well under the 140F recommended maximum, even with no fan running. They typically run at 82F idle and 102F under load. This is in Seattle though - if you live somewhere where the sun actually shines, your mileage may vary!


I lived in Seattle most of my life... never had air conditioning. Phoenix is a tad different than that so my studio is appropriately cooled.

Are the Auorus singled-sided so they could fit in a Sonnet PCIe NVMe card? I wonder if the copper shield will make it so they could not fit onto the Sonnet mounting plate. 

Specs seem good, though. 

.


----------



## Virtuoso

Jack Weaver said:


> Are the Auorus singled-sided so they could fit in a Sonnet PCIe NVMe card? I wonder if the copper shield will make it so they could not fit onto the Sonnet mounting plate.


The heatsink is quite chunky (see side profile below). You can remove it, but I doubt you would find a higher quality alternative. Best to check the dimensions against the Sonnet specs.


----------



## pulse

Virtuoso said:


> The Highpoint 7101-A is the one I use. I've had no issues so far (it's been used daily for 2 months now) and speeds are around 9GB/s for both read and write, compared with 3GB/s for the Apple SSD. One advantage of the Highpoint is that you can add a second one and RAID them together for _really_ high speeds!
> 
> Just make sure you get the latest revision which has proper fan control. I turn the onboard fan off completely and the temperatures are fine.


Hey mate when you mean latest revision... do you mean firmware update? or is there a hardware change to be aware of? and if so is there an easy way to tell 

Thanks for the help it is greatly appreciated! I wonder how the sonnet would compare with the highpoint.


----------



## Virtuoso

pulse said:


> Hey mate when you mean latest revision... do you mean firmware update? or is there a hardware change to be aware of? and if so is there an easy way to tell


It's new hardware - the latest boards say v2 and the fan should have a 3 pin connector to enable the speed control. I ordered direct from Highpoint to make sure I got the current one as some older boards are still in circulation with resellers. It's important because the tiny fan is otherwise quite noisy and you don't want that in the new Mac Pro!


----------



## pulse

Virtuoso said:


> It's new hardware - the latest boards say v2 and the fan should have a 3 pin connector to enable the speed control. I ordered direct from Highpoint to make sure I got the current one as some older boards are still in circulation with resellers. It's important because the tiny fan is otherwise quite noisy and you don't want that in the new Mac Pro!


Awesome thanks mate


----------



## pulse

Virtuoso said:


> It's new hardware - the latest boards say v2 and the fan should have a 3 pin connector to enable the speed control. I ordered direct from Highpoint to make sure I got the current one as some older boards are still in circulation with resellers. It's important because the tiny fan is otherwise quite noisy and you don't want that in the new Mac Pro!


Hey mate just one last little question how do you find the build quality of the highpoint. I've read that some people feel the sonnet is a better build?


----------



## OleJoergensen

Cat said:


> i7, 1tb internal ssd (+2 tb external usb-c SSD), 64 GB ram which I personally install (Amazon). Since I had to open it I also reapplied CPU thermal paste which improved the benchmark performance by about 15%.
> 
> It could get at times somewhat noisy, not very much, but don’t expect the quietness of, say, Trashcan Mac Pro. I tested it while placed in my proximity. I since moved in a separate machines room where I intalled an extra external fan because...I want it to be super safe. But I did not really need to.
> Please note that if you use Logic on high resolution screen (like 4K) you will need external gpu or else you will get cracks. Or so I heard. I use Cubase and 2k monitor+ HD TV and it’s fine. I might add an eGPU at some point but I am not sure.
> I also installed Macs Fan Control app which I really like!


Thank you for explaining.
ive not thought about an external fan, I will search for that.


----------



## Virtuoso

pulse said:


> Hey mate just one last little question how do you find the build quality of the highpoint. I've read that some people feel the sonnet is a better build?


It's just a circuit board - I didn't notice anything out of the ordinary about the build quality. I haven't used the Sonnet but note that it needs to be modified (which invalidates the warranty) to take double sided SSDs (usually ones 2TB or over). I'm not using the heatsink as the SSDs I'm using already have better full copper heatsinks fitted.


----------



## pulse

Virtuoso said:


> It's just a circuit board - I didn't notice anything out of the ordinary about the build quality. I haven't used the Sonnet but note that it needs to be modified (which invalidates the warranty) to take double sided SSDs (usually ones 2TB or over). I'm not using the heatsink as the SSDs I'm using already have better full copper heatsinks fitted.


Great to know... I’m feeling the highpoint is the better option. Plus I don’t have to wait a month


----------



## lastmessiah

Are you guys really running projects with 100+ instances of Kontakt or Omni or whatever? What is the utility of that? Seems excessive to the extreme even if your goal is to sound "huge".


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## John Zuker

Just testing the limits of its performance. its a lot of $ to spend for anything that's less than super powered..


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## Jack Weaver

I talked with Sonnet presales support today. It looks like their PCIe NVMe cards are 'way, 'way out. Because of the situation in China we might not see them until June - but honestly, I got the idea they don't know when they'll see the parts. 

.


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## pulse

Virtuoso said:


> The heatsink is quite chunky (see side profile below). You can remove it, but I doubt you would find a higher quality alternative. Best to check the dimensions against the Sonnet specs.


Hey Mate

Just bought the Highpoint 7101A-1. Tech support said that they didn't think the Aorus would fit due to the thick heatsink. How did you go fitting them to the card?

Thanks again... just trying to finalise which SSDs to buy


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## Virtuoso

They fit fine but you won't be able to put the heatsink shroud back on the 7101-A, but you don't need to because the Aorus SSDs have their own (much better) heatsinks anyway!  I'll get a picture of mine...


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## pulse

Virtuoso said:


> They fit fine but you won't be able to put the heatsink shroud back on the 7101-A, but you don't need to because the Aorus SSDs have their own (much better) heatsinks anyway!  I'll get a picture of mine...


Ah I see Thanks a picture would be great


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## pulse

Virtuoso said:


> They fit fine but you won't be able to put the heatsink shroud back on the 7101-A, but you don't need to because the Aorus SSDs have their own (much better) heatsinks anyway!  I'll get a picture of mine...


Sorry just to check when you mean the heatsink shroud do you mean the black casing around the card? if so by removing it is there any issue with how the fan performs?


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## Virtuoso

Here it is with the SSDs installed. No need for the heatsink as I mentioned above and I just switch the 7101-A fan off (using the Web GUI tool) - it's noisy and unnecessary. The airflow in the Mac Pro is good enough to keep up to 4 high end GPUs and a 28 core CPU cool, so it's good enough for the SSDs! Mine run around 82F idle and 102F under load (recommended max is 140F).

If you want to use the fan, that's ok. If you have the current model with the 3 pin fan, there are 4 speed settings so you can trade off airflow against noise to suit your preference.

To be on the safe side, I put a heatsink on the PCIe switch chip - if you do this, just make sure that the fins are inline with the airflow. Peel and clean the grey goop off the chip first using isopropyl alcohol and then use thermal tape to stick the heatsink on.


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## pulse

Virtuoso said:


> Here it is with the SSDs installed. No need for the heatsink as I mentioned above and I just switch the 7101-A fan off (using the Web GUI tool) - it's noisy and unnecessary. The airflow in the Mac Pro is good enough to keep up to 4 high end GPUs and a 28 core CPU cool, so it's good enough for the SSDs! Mine run around 82F idle and 102F under load (recommended max is 140F).
> 
> If you want to use the fan, that's ok. If you have the current model with the 3 pin fan, there are 4 speed settings so you can trade off airflow against noise to suit your preference.
> 
> To be on the safe side, I put a heatsink on the PCIe switch chip - if you do this, just make sure that the fins are inline with the airflow. Peel and clean the grey goop off the chip first using isopropyl alcohol and then use thermal tape to stick the heatsink on.


Many thanks that is a great help!

So just to clarify you bought a seperate heatsink for the small chip by the fan? is it easy to install... using a Mac I've been lazy getting my hands dirty in tech land lol

I'm wondering if I decide to be lazy again... and go for a less messy option do you think the Samsung 970 EVO Pro would be a good alternative?


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## Virtuoso

pulse said:


> do you think the Samsung 970 EVO Pro would be a good alternative?


Definitely - it's one of the best SSDs out there! They will fit perfectly as they are just bare chips. I use the Aorus SSDs as I already had 2 in a PC. They are overkill really for the Mac Pro as it is PCIe 3 rather than 4, so it can't deliver the full speed of the SSDs.


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## pulse

Virtuoso said:


> Definitely - it's one of the best SSDs out there! They will fit perfectly as they are just bare chips. I use the Aorus SSDs as I already had 2 in a PC. They are overkill really for the Mac Pro as it is PCIe 3 rather than 4, so it can't deliver the full speed of the SSDs.


cool thanks they might be a good option then  greatly appreciate your help!


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## Jack Weaver

So... I've ended up getting two of the Highpoint 7103 PCIe cards (from the factory directly) and a bunch of Samsung 970 EVO Pro's from Amazon. I've been notified my computer is coming shortly. 

I decided to opt for the more expensive NVMe's even though they are still PCI3 - figuring that they are reliable enough so I won't have to worry about replacing them for a few years - and I'd be surprised that this machine will ever be PCI4 capable. I'll probably be getting a NAS backup next week. 

.


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## pulse

Jack Weaver said:


> So... I've ended up getting two of the Highpoint 7103 PCIe cards (from the factory directly) and a bunch of Samsung 970 EVO Pro's from Amazon. I've been notified my computer is coming shortly.
> 
> I decided to opt for the more expensive NVMe's even though they are still PCI3 - figuring that they are reliable enough so I won't have to worry about replacing them for a few years - and I'd be surprised that this machine will ever be PCI4 capable. I'll probably be getting a NAS backup next week.
> 
> .


Looks like you will be SSD heaven


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## Virtuoso

Do you know if the 7103 can be configured in Cross Sync mode?

The reason I went for the older 7101 is that it does support that mode for super high speeds if you combine multiple cards. The 2020 https://www.highpoint-tech.com/PDF/FAQ/NVMe%20Seq-Performance_Mac_20_02_17.pdf (performance guide) doesn't include the 7103 for some reason and it doesn't mention Cross Sync on the product webpage.

From what I understand, it's essentially the same card but with Windows boot functionality added, so hopefully it should work just the same.


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## Virtuoso

NB assuming you both mean 970 EVO _Plus_ SSDs (confusingly there are 970 Pro, 970 EVO and the latest 970 EVO Plus available), watch out for a firmware issue that caused kernel panics with Macs. The firmware should begin with '2...' rather than '1...'. If it says '1...' you will need to flash them before you start using them.


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## pulse

Virtuoso said:


> NB assuming you both mean 970 EVO _Plus_ SSDs (confusingly there are 970 Pro, 970 EVO and the latest 970 EVO Plus available), watch out for a firmware issue that caused kernel panics with Macs. The firmware should begin with '2...' rather than '1...'. If it says '1...' you will need to flash them before you start using them.


Many thanks yes I actually meant 970 EVO plus  does get a little confusing lol


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## Jack Weaver

Virtuoso said:


> Do you know if the 7103 can be configured in Cross Sync mode?
> 
> The reason I went for the older 7101 is that it does support that mode for super high speeds if you combine multiple cards. The 2020 https://www.highpoint-tech.com/PDF/FAQ/NVMe%20Seq-Performance_Mac_20_02_17.pdf (performance guide) doesn't include the 7103 for some reason and it doesn't mention Cross Sync on the product webpage.
> 
> From what I understand, it's essentially the same card but with Windows boot functionality added, so hopefully it should work just the same.



First of all, I ordered the EVO 970 PLUS NVMe's. I mistakenly said I ordered the PRO's. Their naming convention is confusing. But I ordered the one with the higher specs. I didn't really appreciate ordering the more expensive ones but after losing two sample RAIDs late last year I felt this was a more solid investment. It has been a bit of a nightmare. 

Regarding the Highpoint 7103, I wasn't really interested in combining multiple cards so I didn't bother looking at that spec. 

.


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