Mac Pro rendering speeds
- Thread starter Paul P
- Start date
Swizl
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Sometimes it can depend on the software and how well they utilize the multi-cores or not. So sometimes the higher MHz helps and sometimes the multi-cores help. I'm pretty sure Martin says that C3d can use all the cores.
You can look here to see some benchmarks.
https://browser.geekbench.com/macs/250
I bought a used 2012 dual 4-core (8-core) and updated the stock Xeon chips in it to dual 6-core (12-core) 3.46ghz X5690's. Which are the top Xeon chips you can put in these. I bought them off of Ebay for $200 total. I rendered a 16 second movie in under an hour last week. I also put an Nvidia GTX 1080 FE in the tower, but the GPU will not have much impact on 3d renders done with C3d. On my old 2011 iMac, it would have taken hours to render that same animation. I haven't tested the same scene on my new 2015 5k iMac at work, but I should, just to test out the speed difference.
I can tell that the souped up Mac Pro I have at home now is for sure faster than any other Mac I've owned. I can run Cinebench later and post the score.
The problem with the pre 2010 models is that the firmware isn't easily updatable to run the newer Mac OS's. At least not without hacking them. The 2010 models are nearly identical to the 2012 models. Personally, I'd go for any of the 2010+ models with the dual CPU trays and then update the CPU. The earlier models are harder because the chips need to be de-lidded. The newer models (5,1) don't need to be de-lidded. So it's a lot easier to upgrade them.
Edit:
Any reason you aren't looking at the 4,1 model?
You can look here to see some benchmarks.
https://browser.geekbench.com/macs/250
I bought a used 2012 dual 4-core (8-core) and updated the stock Xeon chips in it to dual 6-core (12-core) 3.46ghz X5690's. Which are the top Xeon chips you can put in these. I bought them off of Ebay for $200 total. I rendered a 16 second movie in under an hour last week. I also put an Nvidia GTX 1080 FE in the tower, but the GPU will not have much impact on 3d renders done with C3d. On my old 2011 iMac, it would have taken hours to render that same animation. I haven't tested the same scene on my new 2015 5k iMac at work, but I should, just to test out the speed difference.
I can tell that the souped up Mac Pro I have at home now is for sure faster than any other Mac I've owned. I can run Cinebench later and post the score.
The problem with the pre 2010 models is that the firmware isn't easily updatable to run the newer Mac OS's. At least not without hacking them. The 2010 models are nearly identical to the 2012 models. Personally, I'd go for any of the 2010+ models with the dual CPU trays and then update the CPU. The earlier models are harder because the chips need to be de-lidded. The newer models (5,1) don't need to be de-lidded. So it's a lot easier to upgrade them.
Edit:
Any reason you aren't looking at the 4,1 model?
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Hi Swizl. Thanks for that great reply. The 3.1 model I refer to is my current computer, and the other two are ones that are currently on eBay.
When I was a younger man, I used to take great joy in pulling old Macs apart, and getting them up and running again, or modding them with various bits and pieces. But I have no passion or interest in such things now. So your advice re the 2010+ models is very timely.
Thanks
Swizl
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Ah ok. I guess the 3,1 you already have is the 8-core you listed, or were you thinking about upgrading the tray? I got the 5,1 off ebay for around $650, which included shipping. Although you being in Australia, I'm not sure how many are over there. It was that plus the $200 for the chip upgrade. It literally took me all of about 30 minutes to swap the CPU's out.
Not that you need this for CPU rendering, but you could put a newer non-mac GPU put in it, but you won't see a boot screen. I ended up getting the GTX flashed with a Mac ROM from MacVidCards as I boot multiple OS's. It was a little expensive, but I offset the cost with freelance jobs that made it worth paying the few hundred extra.
Maybe someone on here with a stock 5,1 can do a C3d pig scene render test with Falcon and let us know what the benchmark is? I'll run one on my rig when I'm at home tonight. Although my numbers will be faster than any stock 5,1 model.
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Hi Swizl. The 5.1's are more expensive over here. The market is a lot smaller, so there aren't as many available, but they certainly show up often enough. You just need to be more patient.
There are folks over here selling mac-flashed nvidia gpu cards, which is a project for another time.
The 3.1 I refer to above is exactly my current computer.
Thanks
Swizl
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Yeah, it's definitely a tough choice to make. My i7 2011 27" iMac at home was a really great computer, but it could take me 8 hours to render a 30 second animation. I also started doing some freelance design from home last year, and the loss of time when rendering large images, or 3d scenes was costing me time (and therefore money). So, business-wise, it made it an easier decisions to spend the money. I was on the fence about getting a Windows box and either running Windows (not my best choice, plus I'd have to pay for a lot of software licenses again, and also NO C3d!). Or I thought about doing a Hackintosh, but my wife didn't like the idea of me running the side business on something that might not be fully reliable as a work machine.
You're in a little trickier situation, since the jump from a stock 3,1 to a 5,1 may not net you as much gain comparatively.
I thought about waiting for the newer Mac Pro that's coming out, but without a real timeline or even any info on what it will have hardware-wise, I had to do something sooner rather than later.
You're in a little trickier situation, since the jump from a stock 3,1 to a 5,1 may not net you as much gain comparatively.
I thought about waiting for the newer Mac Pro that's coming out, but without a real timeline or even any info on what it will have hardware-wise, I had to do something sooner rather than later.
Swizl, it's never an easy decision knowing when to upgrade, what to upgrade to, what to include / exclude etc.
The Mactracker app shows the following Geekbench scores (using GB 4) :
- 2008 Mac Pro 3.1, 8 core 3 GHz - 8380
- 2012 Mac Pro 5.1, 2X 3.06 GHz - 17374
The 3.46 Ghz processors would be faster than that. I'd be pretty happy with that type of performance leap.
The Mactracker app shows the following Geekbench scores (using GB 4) :
- 2008 Mac Pro 3.1, 8 core 3 GHz - 8380
- 2012 Mac Pro 5.1, 2X 3.06 GHz - 17374
The 3.46 Ghz processors would be faster than that. I'd be pretty happy with that type of performance leap.
Swizl
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Wow! Yeah, seeing that score, that's at least double the performance. So could feasibly cut render times in half.
I put an SSD in mine too, so the boot time is pretty fast. I got a smaller 500gb one and then a 4tb disk drive for storage. And then a couple of other smaller drives I had laying around to put into the other two bays for Windows and Linux installs.
The 2012 models still holds up really well. I would say my upgraded one probably isn't too far off from the performance of the 6,1 models and it didn't cost me $3k – $5k either. The biggest downsides may be no Thunderbolt and no M2 SSD booting. But other than that, it works great.
Mine cut through that animation render like butter. I was actually shocked and had that giddy feeling when I saw the timeline progress. It was like the time when I jumped from dial-up to broadband internet.
On my Mac Pro 3.1, 2008, 8 core 3GHz
Stock C3d v7.1.1 Pig Scene with No Changed Settings:
Cheetah Render = .58 seconds
Falcon Render = 8.39 seconds
Cinebench 15
OpenGL = 37.22 fps
CPU Score = 637 cb
Sorry, I don't have Geekbench
Rene66
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This is a great thread - I have a couple older Macs - an iMac and Macbook Pro that are both dual Quadcore i7s with 16GB. I am excited to consider this project of getting an older Mac Pro and doing some hardware upgrades JUST for getting my Cheetah renders faster. I've been contemplating something like Element 3D for some upcoming work because I'm looking for a quality yet fast solution. I LOVE Falcon and prefer it when I can afford the render time. Upgrading the hardware as stated above could allow me to choose Falcon more often than less - which would be awesome - thanks for all these details guys :icon_thumbup::icon_thumbup::icon_thumbup:
You're welcome Renee - but to be fair, I think Swizl has done most of the heavy lifting.
Martin
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Huch, that's not bad at all. That makes it faster than my Mac Pro 6.1 12-Core. But I just have the poor mans 12 core Xeon (E5 2695 v2 @ 2.4 GHz) which I bought for 300€ on ebay. Apples prices for the 12 core are just shameless.
Stock C3d v7.2b4 Pig Scene with No Changed Settings:
Cheetah Render = .34 seconds
Falcon Render = 3.43 seconds
So upgrading a Mac Pro 5.1 is a good choice.
But if you look at 3D workstations on the Windows side like:
http://www.velocitymicro.com/promagix-hd360a-epyc-workstation-pc.php
https://cadnetwork.de/en/products-en/workstations/workstation-w60
things get really depressing. Apple has absolutely nothing to offer at such performance levels.:frown:
6700 Cinebench points ist just amazing.:shock: Apple is just competitive if you compare the price.:wink:
Bye
Martin
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Swizl
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You’re all welcome for any help I can give! I’ve gotten plenty of help here for other things too. It’s one of the reasons I like this forum so much.
I was needing something to speed up my work, but I wasn’t willing to pay such a large amount for the barely upgradable and now outdated 6,1 model. I like to tinker with hardware anyway. The chip upgrade in the 5,1 is really easy. The 4,1 is slightly harder from what I’ve seen, but mainly because of the heat sink and needing delidded CPU’s. I didn’t mention that my tower has 32gb of ram, but I don’t think that has much effect on rendering speed. There are a lot of articles and videos on upgrading the different “cheese grater” Mac pros. There is also some info on flashing the ROM on 4,1 towers.
I bought and upgraded this in hopes of waiting for Apple to come back with something impressive in the new Mac Pro they say they are working on.
I have the two original delidded Xeon CPU’s that I pulled from my machine if anyone wants them. They are each 4-core 2.4ghz (I think). I can’t remember the model number, but I can look at them later.
Thanks for chiming in Martin. I’ve never run any benchmarks before. So it is interesting to hear some input on the subject. Those two machines look impressive.
I was needing something to speed up my work, but I wasn’t willing to pay such a large amount for the barely upgradable and now outdated 6,1 model. I like to tinker with hardware anyway. The chip upgrade in the 5,1 is really easy. The 4,1 is slightly harder from what I’ve seen, but mainly because of the heat sink and needing delidded CPU’s. I didn’t mention that my tower has 32gb of ram, but I don’t think that has much effect on rendering speed. There are a lot of articles and videos on upgrading the different “cheese grater” Mac pros. There is also some info on flashing the ROM on 4,1 towers.
I bought and upgraded this in hopes of waiting for Apple to come back with something impressive in the new Mac Pro they say they are working on.
I have the two original delidded Xeon CPU’s that I pulled from my machine if anyone wants them. They are each 4-core 2.4ghz (I think). I can’t remember the model number, but I can look at them later.
Thanks for chiming in Martin. I’ve never run any benchmarks before. So it is interesting to hear some input on the subject. Those two machines look impressive.
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