eGPU Possible now?
- Thread starter RandyQ
- Start date
I don´t think it has to do with Catalina but as the specs will tell you from the main site it´s CPU rendering:
Cheers
Frank
Cheers
Frank
Was asking because I thought one of the benefits of Metal is that it allows the CPU to seemlessly offload tasks to an eGPU or a GPU - therefore Cheetah3d would have benefited. Now I'm asking that because this means we need to buy the fastest CPU (i7 vs i5). Am asking also because I am also upgrading for FCPx and for FCPx it seems that having a fast SSD drive and GPU makes more impact than a fast CPU.
Swizl
0
Hi RandyQ,
This can be a confusing topic, but I'll try to break it down. You have two sides of the equation, the hardware and the software. Traditionally most renderers have used the CPU for rendering. Nvidia came out with CUDA, which allowed some software makers to start utilizing it for rendering (most notably Octane and Redshift, and somewhat for Cycles). The big issues here are that you need software support from the OS (Windows, Linux, Mac OS) in the form of GPU Drivers, and software support from the app that you want to use. And they must work in conjunction with very specific hardware (in this case the GPU you have). All of these have to align for what you are wanting.
As of Mac OS Mojave (and now Catalina) there is no support for Nvidia drivers for any GPU that didn't natively come with a Mac. Especially no CUDA support for these two newest Mac OS versions. So any eGPU that would have an Nvidia card in it, wouldn't work no matter what the application you want to use, unless you revert back to High Sierra. Which is what I have to keep on my MacPro at home to render with Octane or Redshift. AMD card(s) could work in an eGPU for a Mac as long as you have a fast enough connection. But only certain apps that have the software programmed for it, would be able to utilize it fully.
The three big GPU manufacturers are Intel (integrated), AMD, and Nvidia. AMD is working on something called ProRender, but I've used different incarnations of it, and it's not really that great IMO (yet). Rendering with an Nvidia GPU / CUDA is pretty amazing though. Since most Macs either come with an integrated Intel GPU or a discreet AMD one, there would have to be a framework that Martin could incorporate into C3d that would allow rendering on the GPU (Possibly some form of ProRender?). I don't know how much work that would be for him, but most likely it wouldn't be incorporated any time in the near future.
Some of the rendering software companies are supposedly working with Apple to develop non-Nvidia / non-CUDA based rendering solutions, so that AMD cards could be used in much the same way as Nvidia cards are now. If Martin ever allowed third party renderers to plug into C3d, that would be when you could see the most benefit from a powerful GPU.
So for now the higher CPU clock speed and more cores you have, the better C3d will perform at rendering. Are you looking to buy an iMac, or something else?
This can be a confusing topic, but I'll try to break it down. You have two sides of the equation, the hardware and the software. Traditionally most renderers have used the CPU for rendering. Nvidia came out with CUDA, which allowed some software makers to start utilizing it for rendering (most notably Octane and Redshift, and somewhat for Cycles). The big issues here are that you need software support from the OS (Windows, Linux, Mac OS) in the form of GPU Drivers, and software support from the app that you want to use. And they must work in conjunction with very specific hardware (in this case the GPU you have). All of these have to align for what you are wanting.
As of Mac OS Mojave (and now Catalina) there is no support for Nvidia drivers for any GPU that didn't natively come with a Mac. Especially no CUDA support for these two newest Mac OS versions. So any eGPU that would have an Nvidia card in it, wouldn't work no matter what the application you want to use, unless you revert back to High Sierra. Which is what I have to keep on my MacPro at home to render with Octane or Redshift. AMD card(s) could work in an eGPU for a Mac as long as you have a fast enough connection. But only certain apps that have the software programmed for it, would be able to utilize it fully.
The three big GPU manufacturers are Intel (integrated), AMD, and Nvidia. AMD is working on something called ProRender, but I've used different incarnations of it, and it's not really that great IMO (yet). Rendering with an Nvidia GPU / CUDA is pretty amazing though. Since most Macs either come with an integrated Intel GPU or a discreet AMD one, there would have to be a framework that Martin could incorporate into C3d that would allow rendering on the GPU (Possibly some form of ProRender?). I don't know how much work that would be for him, but most likely it wouldn't be incorporated any time in the near future.
Some of the rendering software companies are supposedly working with Apple to develop non-Nvidia / non-CUDA based rendering solutions, so that AMD cards could be used in much the same way as Nvidia cards are now. If Martin ever allowed third party renderers to plug into C3d, that would be when you could see the most benefit from a powerful GPU.
So for now the higher CPU clock speed and more cores you have, the better C3d will perform at rendering. Are you looking to buy an iMac, or something else?
Thanks Swizi, thats a clear answer, and I guess that means its an i7 for me whether I get an iMac or an MBP.
Re: your question, I am using an old 15" MBP (late 2014) for editing both FCPx and Cheetah3D. Its an i7 with 16GB RAM and SSD - OK for editing but renders are slow, and I'm looking to upgrade.
My default choice will be a new iMac - but only i5 is available over here and it takes over a month to get the i7 variant. This will be great for FCPx, and I guess some improvement over my old MBP.
However, sometimes I need a mobile solution, so I was hoping to get a 13" MBP and use an eGPU. This is also OK for FCPx editing, but apparently I will need an i7 if I want an improvement over what I have now.
rgds/ RandyQ
Re: your question, I am using an old 15" MBP (late 2014) for editing both FCPx and Cheetah3D. Its an i7 with 16GB RAM and SSD - OK for editing but renders are slow, and I'm looking to upgrade.
My default choice will be a new iMac - but only i5 is available over here and it takes over a month to get the i7 variant. This will be great for FCPx, and I guess some improvement over my old MBP.
However, sometimes I need a mobile solution, so I was hoping to get a 13" MBP and use an eGPU. This is also OK for FCPx editing, but apparently I will need an i7 if I want an improvement over what I have now.
rgds/ RandyQ
Swizl
0
Good luck with the new hardware, I'm sure it will work out alright. I have the same laptop as you, but I use it mostly for when I travel. I have a 2015 5k iMac at work, that has an i5 in it. My longer animation renders I run on my 2012 MacPro tower at home. I've done several upgrades over the past few years. So it can render relatively fast. The clock speed isn't that great (3.4Ghz) compared to the newer i7 / i9 chips, but I did upgrade it to two 6-Core X5690's. Which gives me 12 cores total. So it works relatively well in multi-threaded apps. I haven't tested for the exact speed difference, but my guess is it's probably at least x4 faster than my work iMac for C3d rendering.
Here's a rundown of the hardware and what I paid:
- MacPro5,1 dual tray, 32Gb RAM, 1Tb HD on eBay = $600 (shipping included)
- Two X5690 Xeon CPUs: eBay $200
- GTX1080FE (8Gb) - Got this one from MacVidCards that has the flashed EFI so I can see a boot screen. Think I paid around $900, which was about $150 more than stock PC version before flashing at the time (several years ago). Pretty much paid for this with one freelance job. A non-flashed version will work, but no boot screen. Some people are also now putting AMD RX580's in these, since they will work in Mojave (but still no boot screen). The MVC guy has a flashed version of this card too that gives a boot screen.
- Samsung 850 EVO 1TB SSD: I think this was around $150 when I got it.
- OWC Accelsior S PCI Card for SSD: $50. This gives me much faster access speed to the SSD. Plugged into the second x16 slot.
- USB3.1 4 port PCI card: $50. In x4 slot
- 4TB HDD for a Windows BootCamp install. I think this was around $150
I'm not sure what country you're in, but I think some of these used MacPro4,1 and MacPro5,1 will start coming down in price even more than they have the last few years. So if you ever wanted to eventually set up a dedicated machine for rendering, you could find a dual slot one and upgrade it. You wouldn't even need all the other stuff I put in mine. Mainly just the multi-core CPU's would do nicely for C3d rendering. I've seen some people posting on Reddit about finding some occasionally in the $200 range (caveat, this is in the US, so it can vary depending on location). The 5,1's are the easiest to upgrade though when it comes to the CPU's. The 4,1's require a delidded chip (fancy name for the metal cover). Which can be a p.i.a. to do. The CPU swap for my 5,1 took about 15 minutes to do. Basically like putting Lego's together (but I did use a guide).
https://www.reddit.com/r/macpro/
https://www.reddit.com/r/appleswap/
https://www.reddit.com/r/hardwareswap/
I know this may not be something you're interested in, but if you are and have any questions, just let me know! I'm sure the i7 iMac will be enough to cover what you need.
Somian
0
While the above about CUDA is true, this doesn't mean that GPU acceleration is impossible on a mac. It would just have to use Metal instead of CUDA.
However, Since Cheetah 3D renders in software (on the CPU), this doesn't matter either way.
You can use the multimode geek bench Mac list as a rule of thumb on how fast a given Mac will render in Cheetah 3D. (the higher, the faster the CPUs are and the more samples/pixels it can render per second):
https://browser.geekbench.com/mac-benchmarks
The Mac Pro 5,1 is indeed a good value for this (the 3.4 ghz CPU is not on the list because it didn't originally ship with those CPUs from Apple, but it geek benches around 6300 in geek bench 5).
It does, however, use a LOT of power. (300W+) when doing that, so rendering all day will cost you around $8 a day, considering $0.30/kWh.
This means that if you render a lot, a current-get Mac mini 6-core (which is only around $1300) with the 6-core i7 CPU using half the power will pay for itself after a year of just rendering, even if you use it for nothing else except rendering on it instead of the Mac Pro.
However, Since Cheetah 3D renders in software (on the CPU), this doesn't matter either way.
You can use the multimode geek bench Mac list as a rule of thumb on how fast a given Mac will render in Cheetah 3D. (the higher, the faster the CPUs are and the more samples/pixels it can render per second):
https://browser.geekbench.com/mac-benchmarks
The Mac Pro 5,1 is indeed a good value for this (the 3.4 ghz CPU is not on the list because it didn't originally ship with those CPUs from Apple, but it geek benches around 6300 in geek bench 5).
It does, however, use a LOT of power. (300W+) when doing that, so rendering all day will cost you around $8 a day, considering $0.30/kWh.
This means that if you render a lot, a current-get Mac mini 6-core (which is only around $1300) with the 6-core i7 CPU using half the power will pay for itself after a year of just rendering, even if you use it for nothing else except rendering on it instead of the Mac Pro.