exit iMac for Blender ?

It seems that the new iMac line up , released yesterday, no longer has an option to order a 21 inch configuration with a g-force graphics card. Only Intel Iris cards. This means that any mac user (me for 25 years) who has to or wants to replace his old mac , after that no longer can use hardware rendering in cycles. I hope that any one that is in the same situation , will react to Apple by al ways of communication, so they still add one configuration for the graphics users.

Well you can purchase 27" one with AMD cards?

Well, if i had the money …sure :frowning:

Well, yes…if i had the money…

They did the same thing with the Mac Pro laptops. Only the largest 15" and as well, only top of the line 15" model has a GPU option available, but it’s a lower end GPU with a ceiling of 2GB of GDDR5 ram. You can see it here “Radeon R9 M370X” just search for it on the page, it’s sitting at the middle of the list (this list compares all cards both desktop and mobile variants) Specifically mobile variants usually have an “M” at the end of their model name (at least on the NVidia side) and you can see what’s sitting where and is available on this list.

http://www.videocardbenchmark.net/high_end_gpus.html

There are a lot of laptops out there with mobile GPU’s that sport 8 and even 16GB of GDDR5 memory (and no I’m not confusing that with system ram, that’s dedicated memory on the GTX Video Card 16GB).

For example: MSI GT60 DominatorPro (old laptop by today’s standards): NVidia GeForce GTX 880M GPU w/8GB GDDR5, Intel i7-4800MQ, 16GB System Ram. etc…
http://www.videocardbenchmark.net/gpu.php?gpu=GeForce+GTX+880M&id=
That’s the 880M it has inside, 8GB GDDR5.

Point is, their available offerings are quite limited now-adays compared to what is actually available, and that wasn’t so much the case in years past, the top of the line Macbook Pro had a lot more options/flexibility than it does today for it’s mobile GPU offerings and I guess we are seeing that again with the iMac line-up.

Some recent laptops (and I think it’s more fair to call them semi-portable desktop replacements because they are big machines) managed to cram in full Desktop GPU’s and not the mobile “M” variants. These are obviously bigger, heavier machines and aren’t cheap, but the option is there.

I think the over-all market for Apple, where they really make there money, is in the ultra-portables, phones and tablets. Their change in product offerings reflects this. Whether they will step back and provide some additional offerings that will cater to 3D developers and the like looking for more of a portable (travel friendly) workstation vs. an ultrabook style device is anybody’s guess, it’s all going to depend on demand.

Personally, my advice, don’t get married to any one platform. I just got Windows 10 Pro set up, and I love it after a clean install (upgrade install was a joke), but just to be safe, I’m making sure I have another computer (hard disk partition) around that can run Blender, Krita and UE4 on Linux (probably OpenSuse + GNOME running on two installs one for stability and another with rolling release to test the latest versions of software). I won’t keep much else on these installs, or expect them to be the same as a Windows device in terms of experience/variety, but it’s nice to have an alternative at hand in case MS jumps the deep end and makes me want to run away entirely, at least I won’t be starting from scratch and can keep working in my main applications. You’d be wise to do the same over in Mac Land, it’s just nice to have working options/backup plans available.

The available GPU’s in the 27" iMac configurations are listed: AMD Radeon R9 M380, R9 M390, R9 M395, or R9 M395X. Those should all be newer cards, I’m not certain but I’m pretty sure the “M” even on the Radeon side (sometimes at the beginning sometimes at the end here) means these are mobile variants, which makes sense for the iMac design.

EDIT: I first tested OpenSUSE with KDE (the desktops GUI) but after further testing, I much prefer GNOME (an alternate GUI). They both come with the system, and I hear that there is an easy way to switch between them without even having to reboot, but for sake of ease, you select which one you want during install, I recommend GNOME to start with.

Well it is obvious that Apple does not care much about Pro anymore.

I would recommend switching off of the Mac build onto the Linux build (or the windows build at the very least). It’s a very open system which means you won’t be blocked off like this anymore.

It’s been obvious for years.

-Killing Shake
-Not updating the Mac Pro for ages
-Releasing FCP X before it really should’ve been
-Killing 17" MBP
-Replacing the not-upgraded Mac Pro with that impractical trashcan thingy
-Then not updating the trashcan either - the spec options haven’t changed in 2 years
-Killing Aperture
-No more dedicated GPUs in the 21" iMac
-Everything to do with their graphics drivers

I love Apple’s software and still love my iOS devices, but that sort of philosophy just doesn’t make sense for workstations. The market is just not worth the money for them. Don’t blame them, really.

Ordering my new pc parts today, and i’m not actually that sad about moving away from apple.
The hard thing is l’m going to loose Logic, and a few other software packages that i’ve invested a lot of time an money in, but the world move on, nothing lasts forever.
I’m really excited to reclaim some flexibility and choice, i might even turn the pc build thing into a bit of a hobby and go for an all out custom water-cooled system in the future. If one door closes another always opens.

Keep your existing Mac around for Logic. Or you can investigate any of the windows or linux Daw options. There are many to choose from.

The Mac Pro is actually rather well-designed for Blender. It has dual workstation GPUs as standard, high quality RAM, super fast SSDs, a Xean processor. These are just the kinds of things that make Blender fly. Except for the fact the Blender has previously performed poorly with AMD GPUs. But that’s changing anyway.

As soon as they update the Mac Pro (probably they are waiting for the higher end Skylates) it should be a great workstation for Blender / OS X users.

IRT: Mac Pro desktops and Xeon CPUs

Xeon CPU’s (and even dual socket Xeon motherboard setups which Apple doesn’t actually offer in their current line-up, they used to on the previous generation boxes but no longer) and using more expensive ECC (error correcting) Ram, etc., this all costs substantially more than a standard i5/i7 build and is most often, overkill to the needs of a serious workstation user. Xeon’s exist primarily to power mission critical servers. Your standard 3D Workstation doesn’t need be running 24/7, at full work load, 365 days a year, etc…

Xeons do work as excellent workstation/desktop systems, but they are cost prohibitive (which is why most people don’t do it).

http://www.cpubenchmark.net/high_end_cpus.html

Take a look at this well regarded CPU benchmark chart. The top of that list is full of (the newest) Xeon CPU’s and you can see their up to date prices (automatically updated and relevant). Look at the prices, they range from ($1,100 - $4,000+). (and that’s for a single CPU, not two of them!!!)

Now scroll down that list just a bit and look for the Intel Core i7-5930K @ 3.50GHz for under $600. That sub-$600 CPU is getting a 13,701 score. At the very top of the list is a CPU that costs more than $4,600 and it’s score is 22,892. It’s not even twice as powerful as the $585 chip but it costs 8x as much money. You can decide for yourself if the extra power is needed for your own use cases.

If you take this sort of logic into consideration for all of your system builds, you can put together something that is quite amazing (compared to the best CPU on the market), for just a fraction of the cost (in this case, 1/8th the cost for a machine that is just more than half as powerful). That’s money well spent elsewhere or saved for a brand new computer build next year, and the year after that, and the year after that… you get the idea. And AND even that $600 cpu that now looks like a bargain, is probably overkill for most 3D Workstation needs!

For your convenience, here is a list of the specific CPU’s that are used in the current Mac Pro line-up and today’s retail prices for one of those CPU’s alone and you can easily search/find them in the above list to see how they compare to other offerings.

Intel Xeon E5-1620 v2 @ 3.70GHz (4-core) ($315)
Intel Xeon E5-1650 v2 @ 3.50GHz (6-core) ($605)
Intel Xeon E5-1680 v2 @ 3.00GHz (8-core) ($1,983 from Amazon)
Intel Xeon E5-2697 v2 @ 2.70GHz (12-core) ($2,650)

At least now, you know what you are getting (the vast majority of persons who do purchase, or even consider purchasing one of these systems, have no idea what they are actually buying, and are usually purchasing based on faith or misconceptions).

I second this notion, keep the old machine around, having more than one machine (and OS ecosystem) will prove handy in production. Then you can take your sweet time finding/learning a viable replacement for “Logic” that doesn’t lock you into one particular ecosystem. http://alternativeto.net/ (great tool for finding replacement software, lets you search by OS compatibility and license type i.e. ‘open source’ etc.)

I’m putting together a Linux setup that doesn’t do everything my Windows 10 Pro machine can do, just to have a backup alternative ecosystem at the ready that can cover the majority of my business’s needs (UE4, Blender, Krita, etc.).

Not really. The MacPro is great for video editors, but falls short as a good 3d machine. There are driver issues which prevent the dual GPUs to be used for Cycles and other OpenCL tasks. And Apple’s OpenGL drivers are problematic in general as well.

OpenSubDiv still does not work on Macs, for example.

And overheating issues have popped up in relation to rendering both video and 3d work.

Tread carefully - it is an expensive machine which does not offer any internal expansion options. Perhaps the next version will be a better proposition.

Too expensive and not good for Blender, or even any 3d work compared to what you get from competition for that price.

I just updated my system, my old one was about 6 years old. I purchased the following parts:

1 x ($389.99) Intel Core i7-5820K Haswell-E 6-Core 3.3 GHz LGA 2011-v3 140W BX80648I75820K Desktop Processor

1 x ($219.99) MSI X99A Raider LGA 2011-v3 Intel X99 SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.1 USB 3.0 ATX Intel Motherboard

1 x ($199.99) G.SKILL Ripjaws 4 Series 32GB (4 x 8GB) 288-Pin DDR4 SDRAM DDR4 2400 (PC4 19200) Desktop Memory Model F4-2400C15Q-32GRR

1 x ($30.99) Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO - CPU Cooler with 120 mm PWM Fan

With shipping it ended up being $871.00.

I didn’t include disks, ssds, gpus, or power supply as I just moved the current ones I had over to the new system because they are fairly new.

So far it’s worked out really well and for under $1000 US it’s not too extravagant. :slight_smile: I think this system should perform well in comparison with Apple systems.

I can always get something faster by putting things together myself - duh that is even the same with PCs.

Looks like the Apple haters again fail to see that it is not just the hardware you get.
Have an issue with device - go to a store and get help for free.
Mhhh lets try that at BestBuy

iMacs are also very silent. Noise reduction also means obviously specific thermal requirements better said limitations.

All my equipment is from around 2008 and nothing here lags or hurts on my side.
Even that old iMac 2008 works flawless.

The only area where you always can make use of the latest stuff is obviously tasks for brute computation force
aka rendering. And yes an iMac with AMD or a GTX will always be slower than a self build tower.

And those who claim about the MacPro not having any extension for internal component fail to see that
the trend is going to small computation devices that and via outside networks you can add what you need.

Years ago this was not an option but today we have so fast connectivity options that PCIE might not be the only
option anymore.

Not defending Apple here but if you want to compare apples to oranges you should do that based on many aspects.

Just to clear this up - this email was written on my Win10 workstation.

I forgot to say that those new Intel integrated GPUs are not slow devices anymore. Obviously they cannot compete with any dedicated GPU. Question is if you need CUDA or what render engine you want to use. After 3 years working professionally with Cycles I love the nodes but hate the render speed. Other engines are just faster sometimes.

However before I would buy anything, just go to a BestBuy or an Apple store with a jumpdrive that includes a test / benchmark file and Blender and then test the file inside the stores.

That is what I did 5 years ago when I needed a new rig.

@waynestate, just out of curiosity… why do you seem to think everything related to PCs revolves around bestbuy?

On another note, I have owned a PC since intel’s 486…thats a whopping 16mhz cpu right there! Since then I have not once had to “take my pc in” to get “help”. Not sure what kind of “help” you would need at a retailer unless you know nothing about computers or cant seem to problem solve on your own. This idea that if you have a computer you will always need help or somebody to come in and fix it is a bit… “old”. Experienced PC users generally dont have a need for so called “geniuses” to help them… it should go without saying why that is the case. If physical support is needed in a readily available fashion though (especially for laptop/notebooks), one reason people purchase DELL workstations is because you do get support…and depending on where you live the support can even go to your house. Case in point, I had a friend with dell mobile workstation which had a broken screen, Dell service drives up in van, replaces screen and leaves in less than 20 min. So not a big issue…at all.

@Handlebar, Congrats. Custom rig building is a fun and rewarding hobby. A bit of advice though, unless you like doing a lot of maintenance and dont mind the risk of frying hardware… I would definitely avoid going crazy with custom cooling solutions. Not saying one shouldnt but resist the urge as much as possible. Current closed loop solutions, many which look great, are the best and safest way to get into liquid cooling.

As a former Logic user myself I recommend Studio One. It’s like Cubase and Logic had a love child. Anyway back OT.