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New M1 Pro and M1 Max MacBooks!

Many of the plugins are GPU intensive, like Avenger, renders everything with OpenGL at 60fps.
At Macs with integrated GPUs connected to 4K monitors, it suffers, and often the audio also is getting impacted from the performance bottlenecks.

An expensive GPU probably wont make a difference, but a humble discreet GPU can help in Audio Applications. I was intending never to get a Mac, with integrated graphics again, that's the reason I replaced the Mac Mini in the first place.
If Avenger is chewing up too much GPU, there is a setting tucked away that will rein it in a bit - go to the Sys tab in the middle of the plugin and down the bottom there's a setting called FPS Mode, with three values - Eco, Mid, and Hammer That Fan (jk about the last one).

I agree that some plugins have got a bit too carried with the animation update rate. ExpressiveE's Noisy is perhaps the most bizarre as it seems to update at some insane rate judging by the CPU consumption when it's window is open but it's often just moving three or four controls (this seems to be exacerbated by some changes Apple made to rendering that unless plugin writers are really careful means the entire window gets redrawn each time). Krotos Concept is another one that eats processor time when the window's open.

I often have Turbo Boost Switcher running when using these as it stops the fan starting up and only has a minor effect on overall real-time DAW performance (though for rendering, re-enabling Turbo Boost makes sense).
 
Those 2012 i7 MacBook Pros are really good. I have one myself still in daily service and aside from memory it holds up well compared to my top end consumer i7 quad iMac from 2015. But it’s blown away by my 2020 iMac i9. And 16GB is a severe limitation for many music production set ups.
Appreciate your considered comment to my post!... you say the 2020 iMac i9 blows it away but the iMac is a desktop machine not a laptop!
 
Appreciate your considered comment to my post!... you say the 2020 iMac i9 blows it away but the iMac is a desktop machine not a laptop!
Indeed and I also didn’t say my 2015 i7 iMac blew it away! The 2020 i9 is objectively better across the board but the 2015 i7 iMac was better mostly because of the additional memory (64 GB instead of 26. The i9 has 128GB so there’s no comparison).

I still use the 2012 MBP daily and rarely experience any issue with running the normal productivity software such as word processors, spreadsheets, presentation software, web browsers, pdf readers, etc. it runs the latest version of zoom with all the image filters and such. It transcodes video at a decent speed. Almost a decade old, it remains a more than serviceable machine. And it has taken a pounding over the next years too.
 
That's plenty for the OS and apps isn't it? The integrated storage is sooo expensive compared to external. Apart from convenience, what are the advantages of more onboard storage?
I think external solutions give you slower read/write rates and from what I read, heat (and potential throttling) is also a problematic factor with fast external drives. On the other hand, we don't know yet how the internal memory of the new macs performs over longer periods of time and if the additional speed is actually relevant in real world DAW use.

I will certainly go external simply for cost considerations like you do. But if I could afford it easily, I would take the internal storage of course.
 
Indeed and I also didn’t say my 2015 i7 iMac blew it away! The 2020 i9 is objectively better across the board but the 2015 i7 iMac was better mostly because of the additional memory (64 GB instead of 26. The i9 has 128GB so there’s no comparison).

I still use the 2012 MBP daily and rarely experience any issue with running the normal productivity software such as word processors, spreadsheets, presentation software, web browsers, pdf readers, etc. it runs the latest version of zoom with all the image filters and such. It transcodes video at a decent speed. Almost a decade old, it remains a more than serviceable machine. And it has taken a pounding over the next years too.
I actually went from the latest G5 at the time to the 2012 MBP. I was fed up with the bulk and non portability of a machine that wasn't giving me any comparable increase in efficiency. Indeed the i7 chip was new on the block back then and no doubt the modern equivalent is a fair bit faster however how fast does one really need?! As I said I run huge orchestral mockups on my 2012 no problem even before needing to freeze any tracks. Yes having more RAM is always useful but it's the fact that one is forced to add hubs and hang ones peripheral SSDs off the modern laptop plus the huge price tag that continues to put me off upgrading to a new laptop based system!

I seem to be a pro composer very much in the minority here being satisfied with 16gig of RAM and the speed of the i7 chip set! The only thing that might force me to change would be new facilities only available on Big Sir (I haven't even bothered moving to Catalina!) that I really felt were going to transform my composer/production workflow in the studio. However the mere lack of being able to add extra internal drives in the modern MBP for me defeats the object of having a laptop!
 
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I think external solutions give you slower read/write rates and from what I read, heat (and potential throttling) is also a problematic factor with fast external drives. On the other hand, we don't know yet how the internal memory of the new macs performs over longer periods of time and if the additional speed is actually relevant in real world DAW use.

I will certainly go external simply for cost considerations like you do. But if I could afford it easily, I would take the internal storage of course.
Honestly, I think the biggest selling point of internal vs external is simply convenience.

Theoretically, TB3 gives you up to 40Gbps of bandwidth which is 5GBps. I think the fastest M2 SSD goes up to something like 7GBps for sequential read speeds. So yeah, in theory an external drive can be slower, but unless you're reading huge files you're probably not going to notice it. It really depends on what type of external storage/enclosure you're using.

Intel Macs do get hotter when using TB ports. I've experienced this on all my TB equipped Intel Macs. From TB1 to TB3. On average, the CPU gets +10ºC when connecting anything to the TB port. Has anyone noticed this on M1 Macs too?
 
TB3 and TB4 both encapsulate PCIe 3.0, so no benefit in using a PCIe 4.0 SSD.
40Gbs is the gross bandwidth, so you have to deduct the encoding overhead and look at what TBx reserves for other protocols.
In practice, I think ~3GBs is roughly the maximum you will get and 3.5GBs is the maximum for PCIe 3.0 anyway.

As for Apple's internal SSD, as well as hitting ~7GBs, it could also have better latency than using an external SSD.
Will have to wait to see reviews for that info.
You also need to look at real world figures, including sustained workloads to get a sense of how important this is, which will also depend on your workflow.
SSDs can't be judged by a single metric, in terms of deducing real world performance.
 
Here’s a technical look at the SoC.

Based on that, the higher memory bandwidth of the Max version, probably won’t lead to a significant or possibly any advantage in pure CPU performance.
So for audio work where only the cores are stressed, the upgrade seems unnecessary for this generation.
I believe this, but only the Max allows 64gb RAM, which seems like the minimum for pro work.
 
"There were several media-related demo projects that Apple included to show the performance of the system, including some Logic Pro projects, X Code, Cinema 4D, and Affinity Photo among others.

I played around with them all, opening one after the other until they were all running. The M1 Max didn’t break a sweat as I played around with them, tabbing between video editing at 4K with Final Cut Pro, Logic Pro composing over 1000 tracks, Cinema 4D rendering scenes, Affinity Photo editing some beautiful HDR images, and X Code doing whatever X Code does.

At one point I started playing back all of the above apps that could playback all at one time and the system handled it pretty well. Vidoe playback got a bit choppy here and there, but that’s way more than you’d ever ask it to do. Audio was fine. Part of this capability is because of the super-fast SSD."
From https://www.provideocoalition.com/review-16-inch-apple-macbook-pro-m1-max-for-video-editors-part-1/

Disk speed test from a YouTube review:

M1 Max disc speed test.png
 
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I know that my photo software (mostly Lightroom Classic), Final Cut Pro, and Davinci Resolve should all make some use of the extra GPU cores on the Max, so I'd lean that way even if I didn't go beyond 32GB of RAM.
I'll be interested to hear how DaVinci Resolve does with it.

Also Gigapixel AI, the one program that causes my Mac's fans to roar.
 
I'll be interested to hear how DaVinci Resolve does with it.

Also Gigapixel AI, the one program that causes my Mac's fans to roar.
That's one of the Topaz plugins I don't have, but they've admitted it's going to be some time before they have Apple Silicon native versions out, so it will be interesting to see how that whole suite behaves on M1 Pro/Max.
 
That's one of the Topaz plugins I don't have, but they've admitted it's going to be some time before they have Apple Silicon native versions out, so it will be interesting to see how that whole suite behaves on M1 Pro/Max.
I have a number of older Topaz licenses, but don't use them anymore. My toolkit is pretty much Capture 1, Affinity Photo, Nik ColorFX, SilverFX & HDRFX, Luminar and On1 - all of which are native already. Luminar and On1 are used for creative effects and utilities, not for RAW processing. The native version of Capture 1 flies even on the M1. I can't imagine what happens on teh M1Max.

I shoot Fuji and C1 nails the raw development for Fuji files. Gave up on Adobe for anything a couple years ago.
 
I have a number of older Topaz licenses, but don't use them anymore. My toolkit is pretty much Capture 1, Affinity Photo, Nik ColorFX, SilverFX & HDRFX, Luminar and On1 - all of which are native already.
Affinity Photo is really great. It doesn't strain my 5,1 12-core, though - at least not with anything I've asked it to do.

Gigapixel AI is amazing.

This is zoomed way, way in (obviously Gigapixel-processed version on the right). What I do starts with photographs, but you wouldn't know that 95% of the time, so this is an edge-case application:

1635189008183.png
 
I have a number of older Topaz licenses, but don't use them anymore. My toolkit is pretty much Capture 1, Affinity Photo, Nik ColorFX, SilverFX & HDRFX, Luminar and On1 - all of which are native already. Luminar and On1 are used for creative effects and utilities, not for RAW processing. The native version of Capture 1 flies even on the M1. I can't imagine what happens on teh M1Max.

I shoot Fuji and C1 nails the raw development for Fuji files. Gave up on Adobe for anything a couple years ago.
I've heard that Adobe doesn't handle Fuji's colors as well as Capture 1. I've had Capture 1 licenses off and on for many years (currently have a limited one from my Sony RX10 IV), but I know my way around Lightroom very well, it gets me what I want from my Olympus and Sony cameras, and getting Photoshop as well for $10/month — less if you find an annual package on sale, which I've done a few times — is below my pain threshold, given that my website is included in the deal.

Topaz Sharpen and Denoise were the New Hotness a few months ago, so I grabbed them. DxO occasionally does things to tick me off (like emailing every day to encourage upgrades before a certain date, then running a better sale literally three weeks later), but I've kept current with PhotoLab for the things it does better than anything else (really bad noise, pre-Topaz AI) and perspective correction. Still undecided about updating this year, but will wait for their BF sale, regardless.

Most of my important things are M1 native now, save some plugins that are still in the previous Photoshop format. Since I'm on Adobe's pre-release testing program (I don't think I'm prohibited from saying that, only talking about the software), I can keep one copy of Photoshop running native and the other running in Rosetta.

Most of my computer "upgrades" over the last few years have been incremental (thanks to Intel), and some were even downgrades in performance for upsides in other areas (like the last time I tried to switch to a laptop as my main computer, in late 2016 - didn't stick, at least in part because that generation of Intel chips was awful). My last big upgrade, from a mid-2017 3GHz i5 21.5" Retina iMac to a 2018 i7 Mac mini with a Vega 56 eGPU, came with a big increase in complexity and noise (both from the mini and the eGPU), and some new headaches (like having to remember to disconnect the eGPU before doing system updates). Going from that to an M1 mini was a decent (though not huge) CPU upgrade, but a substantial GPU downgrade (though not really noticeable in day-to-day use). So, M1 Pro/Max is my first opportunity to do a BIG upgrade with no substantial gotchas (he said, knocking on wood) in a very long time.

My big dilemma at this point remains the laptop question. I have not, historically, been a heavy laptop user, and it's difficult for me to look at a laptop that is likely to be in clamshell mode the vast majority of the time as anything but a waste of money (especially with a Mini-LED, ProMotion screen). On the other hand, 18+ months of running two computers and keeping things in sync has demonstrated the extra cognitive overhead (not to mention time) involved, and getting a laptop with enough storage to eliminate that whole "do everything twice" scheme (4TB would do the trick, but be pricey; 2TB would eliminate one currently-essential external from the mix) has its attractions. A theoretical 2-4TB M1 Pro/Max mini might give the same option, but I would still need a laptop for travel, leaving me with an M1 MacBook Air that sits in a bag at least 99% of the time. The same applies to any future M1 Pro/Max iMac, with the further caveat of being more strongly tied to a single desk.

So, I continue to ponder. I want to believe that dropping a lot on one of these laptops would set me up for a few years - the performance of a 10c/32c/32GB/2TB Max would be far above my bright-line performance needs. But this little voice in my head keeps asking if that's the only consideration that might sway me two years down the line. Would an iMac with a Mini-LED screen and ProMotion persuade me that having one good computer (the M1 Air) and one great computer (said iMac) would make the two-computer dance worthwhile? My current BenQ display is very nice, but it's still 4k scaling to look like 5k, and while it has excellent color, it's still just a nice 60Hz LED display with mediocre brightness (and thus mediocre HDR).

So, in the long run, which means more to me: a portable solution that eliminates the drudgery of installing everything twice and keeping two computers in sync, but connected to my (fine, really) current displays for most of its use, or an iMac with a world-class display and probably even better performance, but that only replaces one of my two current computers and is tied to one of my two workspaces? Or a (theoretical) M1 Pro/Max Mac mini that splits the difference (and suddenly seems like the least attractive option)?
 
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