Yes, that would be OK,
Although I would prefer it quite a bit less expensive.
But if I think of the last Mac Pro,
just to a get a little bit faster and similarly specced as my 3000+ € Ryzen,
MP would have cost more about 16,000 € range …
I don’t mind Apple charging what they will for top of class specs, but they need to offer a reasonable option that is affordable by professionals. The 8-core 16Gb Mac Pro for $6K was a cruel joke to many of us who simply can’t justify such an expense, or feel that the money is better spent elsewhere. If the 8-core cost $3000, and the $6000k was for the 24-core model, I would have bought the 8-core (or perhaps the next step up) for sure.
I really hope they don’t make the same mistake again, and it is a mistake since I can’t imagine those machines sold at the quantities that Apple would have wanted.
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Maybe it was sold exactly the quantities Apple wanted - not much.
As those who did, may not update to anything Apple Silicon again
so soon.
Maybe.
Last Mac Pro was a cruel joke indeed.
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Yeah I agree - however those Macs were made for people in industries were 6$ is just not an issue.
I think often this aspect is overlooked who Apple made those Macs primarily for.
In many aspects Apple is a trend setter or sometimes also a simply well organized and profitable company. Look at Google and how many things they start and later kill off. MS the same.
In the past Apples bad build in webcams are often brought up. And I agree. However the fact is also that not everybody has a limitless access to internet and not having 4K conference steams and only 1080 makes sense.
With that in mind Apple rather focusing on signal processing is also smart because it tries to optimise data without just going after more mega pixels.
Some stuff is also marking talk but I would say they are putting more money into R&D than others.
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That’s about the status quo for Apple. Their catalog has traditionally ignored the higher end freelance/hobbyist space where we sit at, giving you nice and affordable machines at the low end that aren’t quite good enough for what you need, then jump immediately to these awesomely powerful machines that cost a mint.
It’s the primary reason why I’ve yet to buy a Mac. I’ll look at one, get extremely tempted, then change my mind at the last second, because, as nice as those Macs otherwise are, I really need a decent GPU at an affordable price point.
I’m not sure.
I think the G4 and G5 was.
When I switched to Apple in May 2007 with the Mac Pro 2.1 8 core,
I spend 2-3 times of what I had spend of PCs before.
But I replaced PCs every 2-3 years and thanks Intel stalling the Mac Pro
was in use for 8 years …
So it paid of anyway.
2013 Mac Pro Trash can was quite expensive and just a Final Cut Station
But 2019 Mac Pro was an insult.
While now M1 Macs are a bargain. Even with Apple RAM and SSD Tax.
For now.
If they go crazy again I really have to go to Linux with all limitations.
But then I may be so annoyed that I will bear these limitations happily.
Hi,
I am following this (very interesting) discussion but I have a doubt: Maybe I have misunderstood but, for what I have read, not every things in blender uses the GPU (on windows PC), and some aspect of blender only use one core of a multicore CPU (I think the simulations).
So I was wondering: when blender uses the GPU, for exemple an Nvidia, and when will it use all the cores of a CPU (metaball? clothes simulation?..) or just one?
Is it documented somewhere?
I gotta tell you that after a quarter of a century in the entertainment industry, I have yet to meet those people you’re talking about. Unless you’re referring to high-powered lawyers who just want a $20k Mac Pro for the hell of it so they can use Word on it.
Every single post house I’ve ever worked with has always been incredibly cost conscious and always wanting the biggest bang for the least buck (which the Mac Pros are definitely not).
To this day I only know two people who own one of the new Mac Pros, one is a music composer friend of mine who bought one because he literally had extra cash burning a hole in his pocket (and who will likely never push the CPU past 50%), and the other is a high-end colorist who frequently has clients in his suite and having visual bling in the room helps to justify the hourly rates.
I think the latest Mac Pro was a “show of force” on the part of Apple more than anything.
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Yeah I fully agree here. I am very sure with the M1 chip Apple has no issue delivering consumer products that work well - on the software side it all seems to make a pretty smooth transition unlike years ago when they switched from PPC to Intel.
Just those GPUs that for me is the most fascinating story.
That’s a good question. I believe the CUDA/Optix is primarily only used to speed up Cycles and for noise reduction in the rendering.
I am not sure if work is being done to optimize Blender’s code for more optimal and efficient multi-threading. It doesn’t appear to be mentioned in the current roadmap, although I do hope that it’s being worked on; particularly if geo nodes are going to become more used.
I dont think that it sells in high volumes either. But I also don’t think that it was just a show product.
WHile with the now annoucned swit
I think so too - Apple in the past announced that they are serious about the Mac.
I have the feeling the ARM version just matured faster and well we know how Intel dragged their feet with better CPUs.
The overlap with the ARM macs is a tick funny but with the displays you can see how the tech from one product like the MacPro gest into the iMac.
They don’t develop those products in 3 months.
Don’t get me wrong, it’s not like Apple intentionally wanted it to undersell. I just don’t think that they were trying to relaunch the Mac Pro as a flagship best selling product. My guess is that by the time the new Mac Pro was ready to go, they were already heavily invested in ARM and likely already had an ARM Mac Pro machine in the prototype stages (likely one that outperformed the Intel one even back then). I think it was decided that they couldn’t wait another two or even three years to release it, and so they released the Intel version as a stopgap to give them more time to work on the ARM architecture.
I am really hoping that Apple is not insane enough to think that $6K for a bare-bones base machine is reasonable for anyone in any industry, and hopefully the ARM version will correct this bizarre decision.
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Anything that can utilize more than 1 core will utilize more then one. The only way to know for sure is either to
- look through the source code
- Look at activity monitor and see how many cores its using
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I was looking for the post I saw either here or on dev talk… Let me paraphrase what I remember of which I could be very well saying wrong.
Some actions in Blender will only operate on a single core i.e. simulations, on count of the sims need to know the instructions in a perfect linear world combined with what the prior action is to complete the current action. Same but different also applies for animations in a round about way.
I know my description is confusing. But like Einstein said, “If you can’t explain it simply than you truly don’t understand it.” 
Also, I very well could be miss remembering or not truly understand the example given by someone a lot smarter than me describing why a lot of Blender’s functions are still single core. 
I think it’s OK to be a fanboy of anything, including Apple and Blender, as long as you respect the choices of others.
Same here. I love my bike. Don’t even have a car, never had one too. I’m sitting in front of my desktop PC for hours and hours every day, so anything I do away from my computer needs to involve exercise.
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At the moment, buying a PC won’t give you that either.
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hi!
Thanks for your answers! 
True, but we’re under special circumstances at the moment.
well those people who need multiple 3090’s usually use them for workloads better suited to linux or windows anyways. I would love apple to make a successor to the vega duo, but I doubt it
Sorry to go off topic, but I love bikes especially for commuting in the city. Much quicker, cheape, and it gets you pumped for the rest of the day
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