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Tks for the input! Yeah I'll do audio and CPU rendering basically. I'm not into building stuff myself (yet) but the guy at the local store would love to get a project like that:) So I'll consider the option. My initial thought was going for what I assume is some kind of base model (8 cores/32GB RAM) but probably expanding the RAM to 48 or 64. And tks for the warning, I will definitely check the OS:)
As kenshaw011267 noted, the version of macOS that you get might be Big Sur, but if the Mac you get had been out since before Big Sur, you can easily install an earlier version of the OS. I think you're limited to what was originally shipped on the initial hardware release and maybe another option. Recent non-Apple Silicon systems should let you go back to Catalina if they now ship with Big Sur. There are some tech articles on apple.com that walk you through the process. I actually did that with a Retina 12" MacBook that I gave my mom a few weeks ago. Installed an old version of macOS and moved it up to Catalina (didn't want Big Sur on her laptop.)
Lee
Not sure what kind of audio work you do but in things like Logic Pro when you're mixing multiple audio tracks it's best to have one thread per track. Unless you're mixing a symphony maybe an 8c/16t CPU might be sufficient but considering that the Mac Pro isn't likely to see a new version any time soon I'd plan to keep it for some time.
Installing RAM is very easy, you can find plenty of videos on YT on doing so.
Well, since you ask, I use Digital Performer atm. Don't know how many threads my current IMac has, but with 8GB of RAM it's perfectly capable of running more than 40 audio tracks + a number of aux tracks + a number of effect returns and still do background rendering, granted the rendering will be slowed down considerably:) So I'd expect to see an allround improvement regarding the rendering?
I've actually installed RAM myself and that's about all I know about that stuff
Turns out Apple's not the only one designing its own chips. Microsoft's getting in on the act, too, but it seems they're not immediately focusing on consumer hardware, but that's down the road.
Um, no. Unless you have externals with non-standard interfaces or drivers, you should be able to use whatever display, keyboard, mouse, printer, speaker, etc., you want. I have a laptop, so it's not relevant for me, but I used to use a Dell monistor with my Mac. Worst case scenario, you'll need to buy an adaptor. What you might have to buy is new software, depending on what software you're using and how its licensed. It might not be a good solution for you, but you're not forced to buy everything from Apple, just the computer itself.
Amazon is, too, and there's a new company that specializes in huge ARM core counts for servers. I suspect the server market will be mostly ARM soon—it's so much more efficient.
Digital Performer isn't something I've terribly familiar with. If your older system is able to handle your needs then a base Mac Pro would be way more than enough.
Just don't exaggerate, Windows is freezing enough already.
I just saw a mentioning of someone using 4.11 with Big Sur. Is it only the latest DS build (4.14) that is incompatible? I'm still on 4.9.2.70 with no intention whatsoever to upgrade. Anyone knows if I still should go for Catalina or if it works with Big Sur?
ETA: Considering a Mac Pro, not the M1, for CPU rendering.
...been doing that a lot for me lately, particularly when I'm using Chrome. Feel like I'm going to wear out my [CTR], [ALT], & [Delete] keys soon.
Unless they have CUDA, whatever GPU they have will never be utilized. Nvidia and Apple have real bad blood between them and straight up refuse to work together, so it is highly unlikely that Apple will ever support Nvidia GPUs again. That means if Daz is able to ever support the new processors, they would be strictly CPU rendering. Even the fastest Threadrippers, CPUs that cost over $2000, cannot beat the faster of the rapidly aging Pascal GPUs that released back in 2016. I believe it was about on par with a 1080. That might have been ok back in 2016, but 4 years later the 1080 has been utterly destroyed by all RTX cards. So unless these M1 chips are faster than the fastest Threadrippers on the planet, no, they will not perform very well. Even the most basic RTX GPU will render much, much faster than these Threadrippers. The 2060, the lowest RTX model you can buy, is faster than the fastest Pascal, the 1080ti. The 3000 series has drastically improved Iray performance on top of that.
And I am talking about a $2000 CPU. I rather doubt Apple can approach that level of performance, and again that is assuming Daz ever supports it.
In my mind, it doesn't make sense to consider the new M1 Macs until there is a large collection of mainstream software that is "Big Sur" native. Examples, DAZ Studio, Adobe products, etc. I have a sneaking suspicion that we might not see a significant number of "Big Sur Native" software for another year or more.
Adobe has said they won't release Apple silicon native versions of their suite for at least a year and considering Adobe's history with new releases I wouldn't want to use it.
That's what I was using, a late 2015 27-inch iMac.
Have been super happy with the switch to a M1 Mac mini. It's like magic in comparison. Even for intel based programs like Poser, they still run a lot faster even through its Rosetta 2 emulation. With programs actually made for the M1, even better.
I've read that the latest version of Poser runs a little quicker on the m1 Macs, and that they're working on making an Apple Silicon-native version, it'll be interesting to see how that works out. DAZ is still working on getting it running with Big Sur, and hopefully with Filament support, but I haven't seen any word on if they're even considering making D|S native (it would be fantastic if they did, but doubtful).
We'll see who's where in another month or two, it might be time to upgrade my Poser.
-- Walt Sterdan
Don't we talk about two different things here?
- DAZ running on Big Sur (on Intel)
- DAZ running natively on M1
Adobe's Photoshop does already run on M1. With some exceptions though but it is supported. And one can run it via Rosetta without those exceptions.
I'm still on an Intel MacBook Pro running the latest version of Catalina. And - as I like complaining - I would be happy enough if I could still/only/again/finally run DAZ with all it's features. Sure GPU-rendering would be nice but my discrete AMD Radeon 5500 8 GB does not support CUDA so I can only use it for heating up my coffee. Fine with my, I can live with CPU rendering. But an 8-Core i9 with 64 MB RAM should at least have no problems with fillament (ever supported on Mac) and dForce (broken since the last security update).
So any idication by DAZ what they will support to what extent and when would be not to bad.
I have tested a recent MacBook Pro with Apple M1 CPU and Unity compiled application.
It run really fast and the visuals are very nice.
Unity has already an option to compile specifically for Apple M1 or both together with Intel CPU.
Great potential there... and this 5 nm chip can really deliver.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_M1
The other interesting part of Apple M1 chip is dedicated neural network hardware in a 16-core Neural Engine,
capable of executing 11 trillion operations per second.
I have no idea yet, how to use it, but will be watching documentation and examples, if Apple made them available.