Hey, folks!
I want to upgrade my system to get better performance. I’m looking at either a 2013 MacPro (probably with the D300 or D500 GPUs) or a 2018 MacMini. I’m wondering which would have the fastest and most robust GPU for blender.
Thanks!
Apple Silicon Mac only. Even the cheapest M1 Mac is faster than Mac Pro 2013 in Blender. Mac mini 2018 is an Office/Web machine and not 3D.
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Save yourself some cash and go for the latest M2 Mac Mini.
From another point, the case is that the price hard-limit is a Mini M2 for 800$ straight out of the box and you are covered.
In other ways, cutting down the price is a hit-or-miss in terms of usefulness. Perhaps is good or not depending on how much money you spend. So for example say that you get whatever iMac or Mini for 400$ and lower might be a bit interesting but still you hit the hard limits of performance.
Perhaps you could go for an experimental eGPU solution but still the cost could climb again up to 800$.
P.S. While it seem that with Apple the price limit is 800$ for a brand new PC could be the same or even higher and lower. And you will still be in the game because you can select the parts you want depending on your budget. While for the Apple choice you are either this or that.
It’s wild to imagine buying a 10 year old computer to upgrade.
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I’m finally upgrading from my Intel Macbook, and I decided to go with the M1 Macbook over the M2 since they’re $500 cheaper.
But I’ve seen a couple of comparison videos which all report that the M2 does GPU rendering about 60% faster than the M1.
The jump from Intel to Metal is such a massive boost that the speed difference will already be a huge, huge improvement, but I’m having a moment of buyer’s remorse thinking about that 60% bump I can get for an extra $500, or about 16% more dollaridoos.
As much as I love Blender, I don’t make any money from it, and the M1-M2 differences in the software I do use to make money are small enough to be negligible, but it is kinda nagging at me a little.
What do y’all think?
Metal works for Intel as well.
Check Blender open Data, which has GPU scores for many models:
Apple M2 Pro (16 cores) 656.16
Apple M2 (10 cores) 335.75
AMD Radeon HD FirePro D500 108.43
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My current machine is a 2008 8 core Mac Pro, so just about anything is an upgrade. 
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Hack it with Open Core, install Ventura, get RX6800 and patiently raise money for Apple Silicon Mac.
HAAAAAAAAAAA! If I could afford one of those graphics cards, I could afford an M-series Mac without the cluster of Open Core.
Thank you very much. I didn’t know that site existed.
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On some Intel machines, yes, but not all, so you can probably guess how old the machine from which I’m upgrading is, and laugh derisively. 
Anyway, I’ve made my peace with the M1. I’m going to see an insane speed boost from what I am used to, and if I have an imposing rendering task, even M2 Metal is still far slower than PC GPUs, so it will be much faster just to pay a few bucks to a render farm.
Alternatively you can get dirty cheap used RX6600 which is pretty good basic and native working card for macOS. Add to that simple M.2 adapter and an SSD from an outlet for a few bucks and you have the out of this world machine.
I would be very careful when trying to update a very old machine with a modern GPU. I have had compatibility problems adding Vega to a 2011 PC. The motherboard had outdated BIOS that could no longer be updated. As a result, the computer would not “see” the GPU, you would only get it recognized as a basic display device. So, beyond displaying the desktop, the card was useless. I suspect the same would happen with this old Mac.
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Agreed…at that point might as well go full on Hackintosh.
I thought about getting a 2013 Mac Pro too at some point but even the D700 seems slow these days.
My vote goes to M2 Pro Mac mini.
From blender opendata:
Apple M2 Pro (GPU - 19 cores) 762.71
AMD Radeon HD - FirePro D700 141.25
Everything under the D700 seems very limited in Vram too.
However the “good” spec of the M2 Pro mini will cost you 2199 USD.
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Yeah. My budget is nowhere near the price of an M2. But my current machine is a 2008 MacPro, so just about anything will be a significant improvement.
You could of course take the base model of the M2 Pro too which is 1299 USD about the same price some good condition Mac Pro 2013 cost around here.
Or build a hackintosh with an Rx 6600 should be doable for about 1000-1200 too I guess.
Something like this, just picked some parts to give you an idea not sure if the mainboard for example is the ideal choice.
https://pcpartpicker.com/list/Bx39mr
How about looking at the official refurbished category at the apple website? Plenty of IMacs and other M1 machines for a reasonable price.