Attention: Metal, Big Sur and Apple Silicon

I didn’t cherry pick an entry level HP workstation for comparison; the Swiss HP store doesn’t let me configure a Z8. I got the Z8 to $61,000 (with “discounts”) in the US store without even getting to storage options. The CPUs cost $13,000 each.

Your arguments just don’t hold water. Apple’s price premium is almost non-existent; the legitimate complaint is the lack of options, e.g. a fast non-pro mac suitable for gaming and 3d work.
 

Attachments

  • B55D8041-6D5F-46A2-8156-826EC5CFC9E6.jpeg
    B55D8041-6D5F-46A2-8156-826EC5CFC9E6.jpeg
    155 KB · Views: 249
Well, no argument "holds water" (or air or whatever you prefer) if you discard at least half of it.

Fact 1: I pay 7340 for what you would pay 6000

Fact 2: RAM and SSDs are very expensive in the Apple Store (they may be as expensive or even more so in a HP store or at your local butcher). More than $ 900.00 for an SSD? Really?

Fact 3: an own build is far less expensive than Apple or HP or whatever brand you prefer.

Fact 4: there is this throw-away-mentality with Apple products. SSD wouldn't have to be smoldered in the minis, and there is no reason to make it difficult for 3rd party firms to repair something except money (as they do with the new iphones; background music: pink floyd).

Fact 5: "expensive" is somehow subjective. This stuff is definitively too expensive for me at the moment (maybe they get cheaper). You may find it a bargain or resonably priced, I don't (both of us are not alone with their view).

The entry level Mac Pro I can't reasonably justify especially in times as these. It's equipped with an 8 core xeon-w which is in benchmarks of course slower than a still midrange AMD 5950x, which I can justify in a build that costs less than half of the mac pro, actually less than a 3rd if I put in a bigger ssd, more ram etc.

Fact 6: That's the fun part: All in all we do agree that at least there is a possibility that in a year from now Apple will deliver the most bang for the buck, i.e. more computing power in the midrange computers than other have to offer in their high end products. And therefore Apple could be cheaper. I don't expect it, to be honest, but a possibility it is.

We do agree an much more, for example that MacOS is by far the better OS in almost every aspect than Windows (and Linux). It's even my experience that a Mac with roughly the same specs as a windows machine is reasonably faster. There is the privacy and the security. There is a lot of stuff that lets me prefer a Mac over a PC anytime.

But for me it's simple. I have to look at the price tag. Honestly, I'd like to have a 16 core Mac Pro with enough RAM etc., but some 11k for something that's already totally outdated in a year or two? No way. But even if it wasn't so, I'd still have to look very carefully at the price tag. It wouldn't be the most expensive pc I ever bought, but then I had not such alternatives as today.

And I expect that it will be the same 2 or 3 years from now, ARM computers from AMD and NVIDIA probably much cheaper then Apple's. But we'll have to wait and see. And no, that's no argument, it's just a prediction.

And don't get me wrong, please. I respect your view. I expect that you do the same with mine.
 
I bit the bullet and ordered an M1 Mac Mini 16gb RAM 256gb SSD. First real Mac bought in 11 years (been Hackintoshing last 6). Very excited to use with Cheetah (even under Rosetta) and Octane X. But I share the concern of others here in the disposable nature of these machines. For my use case 256gb drive ought to just be enough but it really disgusts me it is soldered to the mother board. Yet the price for this new Mac and new OS plus ability to use with Octane (which was the reason I moved away from Mac to PC to begin with) was just too alluring.
 
podperson said:
.... Mobile developers (one of the highest specced macs I’ve ever seen in the wild was being used by a Facebook developer to compile mobile apps).
Click to expand...
They are probably trying to open the iPhone simulator in Xcode or run tests (because we all know we need to spin up a full UI stack and simulator to run unit test that don't interact with the hardware, hell there is even this new fangled idea of a mock or a stub :) ). I find Xcode to be the worse IDE I have ever used (not withstanding the interface builder) and I have used the original Oracle JDevelop, and DOS based IDE's.

I find the debate around Apples pricing very interesting. I have never found the cost of the baseline iMacs, I can't comment on laptops/notebooks.
When I purchased my first iMac, there was no PC with a HD display available for what I paid for the iMac (£1500ish), most decent 17"/21" were over £400 (if I remember rightly) I end up with a 24" flag pane display :D. When "I" purchased my second and current iMac in about 2017 I looked around as I was concerned that perhaps the cost of the iMac was excessive, the only computer that has a 5K screen that was even comparable was the MS Surface, it was double the cost, it was also very tempting, but it runs Windows, and as a recent gig has taught me (again) I just find MacOS to be more productive.
What I do find concerning is the cost of upgrading from the baseline spec on the Apple store, now that does seem to be excessively over priced.

While I am concerned by a couple of aspects of the new M1 SoC, I think you makes your choice and you pays your money. The MacBook Air M1, seems like it would be capable of running a number of instances of IntelliJ (I usual have 4 or 5 open, so thats my bench mark), though its still a 13" screen, so I doubt I would ever feel comfortable coding on it.
The case for the Mac mini M1 over the Intel mini seems a harder sell from one comprising I have seen, but it will depend on your work load. I think it looks attractive as a server.
I feel that the old mantra of don't be an early adopter, wait for the patch release might apply, particularly with the Mac mini, some of the teardown are showing the case is about half full, that has potential I think :)

For my self I would say over the last decade the iMac has proven to be a very cost effective solution, with comparable or better initial costs to PC's. That said I am drawn in by MacOS and the displays I love the original metal keyboards, and I have even grown to appreciate the Magic Mouse, despite its rather flawed design.
 
I was hoping to jump to the present Cheetah 3D Mk7 (i'm still on 6.3 at the moment) But I think I will abbandon that thought and stay where I am. Sad news indeed!
 
@Encrypt About baseline 27" iMacs I still agree (even if it was better some 3 years ago), especially as the screen is excellent. But no way to use it as some kind of smart terminal anymore which was possible before 2015 (or 2014).

@ModellingGuy What sad news? It's just that at the moment Martin can't promise that everything really runs well on Big Sur and he's working hard on the transition to metal and the new silicon. If you're on an older Mac OS at least the current version runs very well on Catalina and many older versions of the OS (I myself used High Sierra til November and am now on Catalina). On an M1 you can use Cheetah (as many other apps) on rosetta. So it's really only a problem if you still have an older OS than Catalina and can't upgrade your computer anymore.
 
@Hasdrubal perhaps I should have said stock configuration not baseline. Not sure what you mean by "smart terminal", but never mind :).
These are the choices you make, and if the Mac isn't stacking up for you then as shocking as it sounds perhaps its time to move on, unfortunately your only choice is PC with Windows or Linux. It seems the rule of two is what capitalism is all about ;) Would love to be owning a Sparc station of some form, or an Acorn (originators of the ARM chip) RiscOS always seemed very good; they also had some nice machines and ideas.

All those years ago when I purchased my first iMac, the choice I was making, even before I choose the iMac over PC was that I didnt want something with endless expansion opportunities, I had noticed over the years of PC ownership, I only ever upgraded the RAM and storage. I only once added a new expansion card, a SCSI card.

Yes the iMac is far from perfect, all the ports being on the back where you can't see/reach them, and the hard drive is difficult/impossible to get at. This has only gotten worse over the years with the obsession with thinness; I do not look at my computer from the side.
On the other hand reviewers obsession with thin bezels and the iMacs chin what's that about? I can't say I notice either when I am using it, and they are useful for hanging sticky notes on :).

(Actually way way off topic, but anybody know of a way to connect a SCSI device to usb/thunderbolt?)
 
Hasdrubal said:
@Encrypt About baseline 27" iMacs I still agree (even if it was better some 3 years ago), especially as the screen is excellent. But no way to use it as some kind of smart terminal anymore which was possible before 2015 (or 2014).

@ModellingGuy What sad news? It's just that at the moment Martin can't promise that everything really runs well on Big Sur and he's working hard on the transition to metal and the new silicon. If you're on an older Mac OS at least the current version runs very well on Catalina and many older versions of the OS (I myself used High Sierra til November and am now on Catalina). On an M1 you can use Cheetah (as many other apps) on rosetta. So it's really only a problem if you still have an older OS than Catalina and can't upgrade your computer anymore.
Click to expand...
I should perhaps just mention that I own a Mac mini running Yosemite and a MacBook Pro running Sierra 10.12.6....I notice that on Martins download page for Chettah 3D 7.4.2 that the system requirements are between 10.8 and 10.15! Am I right in thinking that Cheetah 7.4.2 will run on these?
 
@ModellingGuy Then that's sad news for you, indeed, concerning the newer versions. If Martin writes 10.8 to 10.15, that's tested, and it should work as expected.

@Encrypt
I just used your terminology for the basic imacs they offer, no fancy upgrades or so. So for everything that doesn't need too much raw computing power an imac was a good choice up to now (with the new ARM around the corner, I wouldn't recommend to buy one just now). As for you, it's the monitor that makes it competitive for me. This was even a bigger advantage some 4 or 5 years back when not many 5k monitors for pc where available and needed two graphic cards to use it. Now even a cheap graphic card has a resolution of 5k or above.

Smart terminal: Probably the wrong word because that would be slightly different then what was possible up to the 2014 model iMacs. You could use one as a monitor for another mac (not a pc, though) via thunderbolt and some synching software built in the OS (because it's still a full fledged computer I called it a smart terminal. Kind of). That would be a great use for older iMacs. Of course you can use any Computer as a remote control for another, be that MacOS, Windows or Linux with apps like Teamviewer or Remote Desktop (the latter one just to control a windows pc from another or from a Mac). It's ok for support or to start some process, but it's seen as too laggy for real work (like modeling).

As stated in another thread I'm actually forced to use a pc for more demanding work (especially rendering), while I want to keep a Mac for all the rest (sadly it never was possible to use an iMac as monitor for a pc which actually would be great. You could use some software for remote control through the network but that's to slow for a lot of stuff like modeling or so). I ordered an AMD 5950x already weeks ago.
 
Hasdrubal said:
I just used your terminology for the basic imacs they offer, no fancy upgrades or so.
Click to expand...
(y) I wasn't sure what I had used :)

When there were no or very few 5K monitors around it sort of makes sense for Apple to prevent that kinda of sharing, but it sure feels like "cutting your nose off to spite your face". I wonder if it possible to use the iMac screen with a Mac mini, that would be nice. Especially given there is still life in the 24" iMac screen, hmmmm something to look into for the future :)

@ModellingGuy I am not sure about Yosemite, but the latest Cheetah will run on 10.12, it appears to me that Martin tries his best to keep Cheetah running on the broadest set of versions possible. You can always download the demo version and try for yourself :D
 
Back here for the first time in a long time. I am not a heavy Cheetah 3D user but I have always upgraded and will again. Cheetah 3D is among a very short list of Mac-assed software (John Gruber term): outstanding Mac software that doesn't make any concession to cross-platform mediocrity.

With M1 Macs, the writing is on the wall. They have consistently amazed in terms of performance for a first entry at the low end. I am waiting for delivery on mine. Next generations (M2? M1X?) will likely blow our socks off.

So yes, I support this migration strategy.
 
Hi,
I finally have some updates from my coding cave. After endless hours of work Cheetah3D finally runs natively on Apples Silicon Macs. Cheetah3D is also a Metal app and all dependencies to OpenGL have been removed.
Because I received my MacBook Air M1 yesterday I can also share some performance numbers. It looks like Apple did a great job with Rosetta 2 since the speedup is relatively small compared to the PPC->x86 switch. I general I would says that a 20-30% speedup can be expected from the native version. Here are some rendering times of the Rosetta and Native versions of Cheetah3D on an MacBook Air M1:

Pig.jas:
Rosetta: 5.88 sec
Native: 4.75 sec

Gecko.jas:
Rosetta: 2.99 sec
Native: 2.48 sec

WhiskyGlass.jas:
Rosetta: 37.24 sec
Native: 29.52 sec

But there is still quite some work to be done. Especially Metal and the Big Sur changes are causing me headaches. Nevertheless it's great to see Cheetah3D running natively on the new M1 MacBooks.:)

Bye
Martin
 
Martin said:
Hi,
I finally have some updates from my coding cave. After endless hours of work Cheetah3D finally runs natively on Apples Silicon Macs. Cheetah3D is also a Metal app and all dependencies to OpenGL have been removed.
Because I received my MacBook Air M1 yesterday I can also share some performance numbers. It looks like Apple did a great job with Rosetta 2 since the speedup is relatively small compared to the PPC->x86 switch. I general I would says that a 20-30% speedup can be expected from the native version. Here are some rendering times of the Rosetta and Native versions of Cheetah3D on an MacBook Air M1:

Pig.jas:
Rosetta: 5.88 sec
Native: 4.75 sec

Gecko.jas:
Rosetta: 2.99 sec
Native: 2.48 sec

WhiskyGlass.jas:
Rosetta: 37.24 sec
Native: 29.52 sec

But there is still quite some work to be done. Especially Metal and the Big Sur changes are causing me headaches. Nevertheless it's great to see Cheetah3D running natively on the new M1 MacBooks.:)

Bye
Martin
Click to expand...
Great job Martin, thanks!

ps: not only the macbooks but also mac mini! ;)
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top