My 2009 Mac Pro has had an upgrade a few years ago to a 12 core Xeon 2x2.93 motherboard with 48GB Ram, AMD Fire Pro D700 graphics etc. It’s been fine up till now for anything I threw at it both video and audio wise, but I seem to have come up against a wall with my recent Spitfire BBC SO purchase. Like many others I suspect I’m wondering what machine to replace it with - a decent iMac with limited upgrade potential, or the new Mac Pro with all its newbie problems manifesting on this thread? I know we are all in the same boat, so watching this thread interestedly. What are people going for to run a library like BBC SO at the moment?
I have been keeping an eye on the new Mac Pro threads here and at Gearslutz since I'm kinda thinking about trading up from my iMac Pro 10 core.
First, I have not seen any real issues reported other than performance with certain circuit-modeled synths like Diva/Repro and questions about the clock frequency control (runs below what is expected based on the stated all-core turbo specs). The Diva thing is real, but IMHO not particularly relevant for how many actually make music (as opposed to running benchmark tests). The patch used earlier in this thread for a test of 50 tracks on a 5.1 MP is a mono patch and based on some really cursory tests on my iMP, I could likely get at least 60-80 instances. However going to one of the poly patches with a track having 5-10 voices, you are talking 6-12 tracks. And these limitations appear to be due to both very poor scaling of the plugin (design/coding) as well as possibly some oddness with how the plugin manages threads and CPU resources on Xeons as opposed to i7/i9 CPU's - although that is far from clear so far.
My take on this is while it would be nice to run 200 voices of Diva in divine mode, I can't imagine ever arranging something that used anywhere near that number of voices with a synth like Diva. It's an interesting test of single core performance, but may not be a real-world limitation for most folks.
The clock speed not being as high as expected may be a bug in firmware/Catalina for the nMP, or it may have to due with the AVX512 instruction set. Intel specs the turbo frequencies to be much lower when AVX512 is being used and we do not know for certain (rumor is Logic uses AVX512) which plugins/DAWs make use of AVX512.
That said, everyone who is using a nMP seems to be pleased with the performance on everything except synthetic benchmarks with certain plugins.
If you style of music making relies almost exclusively on dense arrangements of circuit-modeled analog synths (like Diva), you might be more comfortable with an i9 iMac. If, like many of us here, you typically reply on large number of tracks of sample-based instruments (Kontakt/PLAY/UVI etc), you will likely be over the moon with a nMP (cost aside).
Two things to think about on the iMac approach:
1) It again depends on workflow and compositional style, but the iMacs (and Mac Minis) have very real potential for thermal throttling or loud fans (or both) under prolonged high loads. The iMac Pro and Mac Pro have far more robust thermal designs.
2) The iMacs and Minis have a single TB3 bus with 2 ports. The iMac Pro and Mac Pro have 2 busses with 4 ports (double the bandwidth). Whether this is a problem depends on your storage and peripheral configuration. Since I'm using UAD Satellites and multiple TB/USB3.1 connected SSD's for sample streaming, I need/want the 2 TB busses.
If you are looking for a new rig because of Spitfire stuff, I suspect you would be quite happy with a nMP. Of course whether tha is a cost effective choice is a decision only you can make. There is also no doubt that from a CPU standpoint, an i9 iMac would clobber your 5.1 MP as well assuming you dont hit the TB bandwidth or thermal speedbumps.