|
Post by ragan on Oct 1, 2019 10:44:33 GMT -6
Lots of interesting ideas here. I hadn’t considered a separate machine for VIs.
|
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on Oct 1, 2019 10:54:44 GMT -6
I'm running a Trashcan w 64GB dram. Stuffing the RAM is good for VIs, since you won't have to go to the drives as much (more of the instruments will load into DRAM). But I wouldn't count on using any internal drive for the VIs. I've got an external Tbolt enclosure with SSDs set up as RAID0 for additional speed. That works out pretty well.
The most recent Mini might be a really good choice at max spec. The only complaint I've heard is that the fans will really wail if you're driving it hard for sustained periods. I don't know if your particular blend of VIs will drive that issue. And of course you can freeze the tracks if need be. The Trashcan might also be a good possibility if you can find a good used one. I suspect that quite a few will be available after the new cheese grater has been out for a few months. Just to calibrate you, I recently did an Atmos mix on my Trashcan. I ran something along the lines of 30-40 VIs (all Spitfire library stuff), another dozen Stereo disk tracks and several surround reverbs. This was in realtime, all while running the Atmos soft renderer (about 80 objects), on that one machine. There's an additional plus for the Trashcan in that I suspect it will be supported longer for new O/S updates.
|
|
kcatthedog
Temp
Super Helpful Dude
Posts: 14,969
Member is Online
|
Post by kcatthedog on Oct 1, 2019 11:03:30 GMT -6
Old towers are not really good for Thunderbolt, although it can be done.
|
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on Oct 1, 2019 11:42:52 GMT -6
Old towers are not really good for Thunderbolt, although it can be done. You're talking about the old Cheesegraters, aren't you. The Trashcan has 6 TB2 ports.
|
|
|
Post by mrholmes on Oct 1, 2019 11:49:36 GMT -6
Great deal is an old 4.1 tower which you can CPU upgrade and flash to 5.1 up to 12 Core. I bought h whole thing refurbished form a dealer with 1 year warranty for 1200 Euro.
Not to mention that my old mac pro 1.1 still runs under El Captian and still is a powerful machine with 2 x 2,66 Quad Core.
I did exactly that a couple of years ago with my main cheese grater that had the OS go bad last week. I'll be doing the same with my spare in the coming weeks. All new SSD's, Mojave, latest PT for both, that generation of Mac was amongst the best they ever made IMO.
Forgot to mention that Tim is going crazy with his price tag politics. I know a few people here in the biz. Poor and rich ones and all say the same. No, thank you I won't pay 10 K for a computer.
|
|
kcatthedog
Temp
Super Helpful Dude
Posts: 14,969
Member is Online
|
Post by kcatthedog on Oct 1, 2019 12:41:27 GMT -6
Yes,Michael.
|
|
|
Post by ragan on Oct 1, 2019 12:54:01 GMT -6
I'm running a Trashcan w 64GB dram. Stuffing the RAM is good for VIs, since you won't have to go to the drives as much (more of the instruments will load into DRAM). But I wouldn't count on using any internal drive for the VIs. I've got an external Tbolt enclosure with SSDs set up as RAID0 for additional speed. That works out pretty well. The most recent Mini might be a really good choice at max spec. The only complaint I've heard is that the fans will really wail if you're driving it hard for sustained periods. I don't know if your particular blend of VIs will drive that issue. And of course you can freeze the tracks if need be. The Trashcan might also be a good possibility if you can find a good used one. I suspect that quite a few will be available after the new cheese grater has been out for a few months. Just to calibrate you, I recently did an Atmos mix on my Trashcan. I ran something along the lines of 30-40 VIs (all Spitfire library stuff), another dozen Stereo disk tracks and several surround reverbs. This was in realtime, all while running the Atmos soft renderer (about 80 objects), on that one machine. There's an additional plus for the Trashcan in that I suspect it will be supported longer for new O/S updates. This is a really interesting option (the Trashcan). Spec'ing stuff on OWC it looks like I could get one helluva machine for less than the cost of a max'd MBP (~$3k). I'd need a monitor(s) with the Trashcan but I'd be doing the same thing if I were to make a MBP my central machine. What processor is in your Trashcan? I want highest single core speed for DAW performance, yeah? Anyone here ever bought a refurb from OWC?
|
|
|
Post by indiehouse on Oct 1, 2019 12:54:23 GMT -6
How do you setup a separate mac to run VI's? How does that work?
|
|
|
Post by ragan on Oct 1, 2019 13:08:08 GMT -6
Also, to the group at large, what's the skinny on the performance of a given processor from several generations ago vs a similarly spec'd processor of a later/current generation?
I actually just took a Microprocessor Design class but it was further down the tree than current i7 (or whatever) chips. I haven't followed all the various bickerings over how the last few generations bench. But I think my 9-year old 3.4 GHz i7 could be expected to bench significantly lower than a current similarly clocked chip, right? I kept track of it for a couple generations after I got this machine and there appeared to be performance gains in successive i7 chips. So there's more to it than simply instructions/sec. Right? Heat, throttling, etc?
Someone enlighten me if you've got the time/motivation.
|
|
|
Post by Blackdawg on Oct 1, 2019 13:50:45 GMT -6
Honestly the best chips right now are the AMD Ryzens. They are kicking Intel's ass right now.
|
|
|
Post by mulmany on Oct 1, 2019 14:26:09 GMT -6
Also, to the group at large, what's the skinny on the performance of a given processor from several generations ago vs a similarly spec'd processor of a later/current generation? I actually just took a Microprocessor Design class but it was further down the tree than current i7 (or whatever) chips. I haven't followed all the various bickerings over how the last few generations bench. But I think my 9-year old 3.4 GHz i7 could be expected to bench significantly lower than a current similarly clocked chip, right? I kept track of it for a couple generations after I got this machine and there appeared to be performance gains in successive i7 chips. So there's more to it than simply instructions/sec. Right? Heat, throttling, etc? Someone enlighten me if you've got the time/motivation. I jumped to a trashcan from a 2014 maxed i7 mini. Performance is not an issue now. Got it for $500 less then the new mini I was looking at. The fans are quiet and never spool up. Edit: double checked my specs- 3.5ghz 6-core with 64gigs RAM and 256g SSD.
|
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on Oct 1, 2019 14:44:08 GMT -6
This is a really interesting option (the Trashcan). Spec'ing stuff on OWC it looks like I could get one helluva machine for less than the cost of a max'd MBP (~$3k). I'd need a monitor(s) with the Trashcan but I'd be doing the same thing if I were to make a MBP my central machine. What processor is in your Trashcan? I want highest single core speed for DAW performance, yeah? Anyone here ever bought a refurb from OWC? Mine is a 3 GHz 8-core. It's really a balance between clock speed and core count. Higher core count generally means a slightly lower clock speed. Every single DAW I know (and I had to test my software on a lot of DAWs) will take advantage of more cores. So the slightly lower clock speed is easily offset by the number of cores doing the work. There are a few types of applications that do best with higher single core speeds, but they're not really in the audio world. There's even a 12-core Trashcan with a slightly lower top speed that many people use. Because my machine was also a development machine, I did need a little higher clock speed for a few apps. And remember that the Xeons have hyperthreading which will add about 30% to your overall speed (that's what I measured). Some people have said they have trouble with hyperthreading, but the last DAW that gave me any problem with it was PT10. It's on all the time on my machine. I've never bought a refurb from OWC, but I've bought a lot of memory from them. My experience has always been positive.
|
|
|
Post by ragan on Oct 1, 2019 14:51:20 GMT -6
This is a really interesting option (the Trashcan). Spec'ing stuff on OWC it looks like I could get one helluva machine for less than the cost of a max'd MBP (~$3k). I'd need a monitor(s) with the Trashcan but I'd be doing the same thing if I were to make a MBP my central machine. What processor is in your Trashcan? I want highest single core speed for DAW performance, yeah? Anyone here ever bought a refurb from OWC? Mine is a 3 GHz 8-core. It's really a balance between clock speed and core count. Higher core count generally means a slightly lower clock speed. Every single DAW I know (and I had to test my software on a lot of DAWs) will take advantage of more cores. So the slightly lower clock speed is easily offset by the number of cores doing the work. There are a few types of applications that do best with higher single core speeds, but they're not really in the audio world. There's even a 12-core Trashcan with a slightly lower top speed that many people use. Because my machine was also a development machine, I did need a little higher clock speed for a few apps. And remember that the Xeons have hyperthreading which will add about 30% to your overall speed (that's what I measured). Some people have said they have trouble with hyperthreading, but the last DAW that gave me any problem with it was PT10. It's on all the time on my machine. I've never bought a refurb from OWC, but I've bought a lot of memory from them. My experience has always been positive. Great insights. Thanks Michael. Hazard any guess as to when Apple will cut the trash can off from updates? I’m really interested in this option. I’ve bought lots of things from OWC too and those guys are great.
|
|
|
Post by Blackdawg on Oct 1, 2019 14:55:33 GMT -6
The one thing about Trashcans is the graphics card.
Its a highly custom card to fit into the can. They have been known to go bad. This is NOT a big issue if you never mix to video. But on mine it was. I missed the recall window by a week or so too sadly.
Anyways, just a heads up. Shouldn't be as big of an issue for most but worth noting.
Id guess the Trashcans will have support and take new OS for a while. But not much past 2023-4 would be my guess. TB4 is right around the corner so TB2 is going to be super old by computing standards and the connector is already dead basically.
Sometimes I wish tech didn't move so fast.
|
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on Oct 1, 2019 15:50:05 GMT -6
Its a highly custom card to fit into the can. They have been known to go bad. This is NOT a big issue if you never mix to video. But on mine it was. I missed the recall window by a week or so too sadly. Anyways, just a heads up. Shouldn't be as big of an issue for most but worth noting. Id guess the Trashcans will have support and take new OS for a while. But not much past 2023-4 would be my guess. TB4 is right around the corner so TB2 is going to be super old by computing standards and the connector is already dead basically. Sometimes I wish tech didn't move so fast. Hadn't heard about the graphics card problem. That must have been fun! Your guess about a 23-24 cutoff might be accurate, but it could go a little longer. I've also got a 2012 Mini, and it looks like it will be good through 2020. I do understand your lament about tech moving fast. But someday we'll look back on 2019 and marvel about how slow it went then!
|
|
|
Post by Tbone81 on Oct 1, 2019 16:13:40 GMT -6
Macofalltrades.com is a great place for used macs. I’ve purchased probably 4 computers from them and it was always a great experience.
|
|
|
Post by stratboy on Oct 1, 2019 17:12:36 GMT -6
Macofalltrades.com is a great place for used macs. I’ve purchased probably 4 computers from them and it was always a great experience. I’ve bought refurbished macs from macofalltrades and micro center many times. Always a good experience. I’ve bought memory and drives from owc. Same.
|
|
|
Post by sirthought on Oct 1, 2019 17:28:47 GMT -6
I think the Mini and iMac are likely the best/affordable option that is safe for a new purchase. Single core speed is still likely more important than RAM, even running V.I.s If you are looking at a cheese grater or trashcan, you can look to software from Dosdude1 to help run the new OS on an old machine. dosdude1.com/mojave/The cheese graters can be found on Ebay fully set up by vendors and you can often call them and specify what you want to do and they'll get the components for you. Pretty affordable option, honestly, but not for people that don't want to worry about future proofing.
|
|
|
Post by drbill on Oct 1, 2019 18:49:30 GMT -6
you can run Mojave on a cheese grater by : upgrading firmware to 5,1, putting in a new video card. MAYbe putting in a new motherboard (not expensive) depending on what revision your hardware is.... I have a PT / Mac expert guy do this for me, and it's not that expensive.
|
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on Oct 1, 2019 19:44:27 GMT -6
I think the Mini and iMac are likely the best/affordable option that is safe for a new purchase. Single core speed is still likely more important than RAM, even running V.I.s If you are looking at a cheese grater or trashcan, you can look to software from Dosdude1 to help run the new OS on an old machine. dosdude1.com/mojave/Let me respectfully disagree with you there. Many DAWs will actually set up preload disk buffers that take advantage of extra RAM. What you don't want to have to do is have disk access as a choke point when several tracks are trying to pull data off a disk at the same time. VIs also do something similar. They'll load as much as they can up front and may not need to go out to disk (or SSD) except for very long unlooped notes. CPU speed won't help a bit with a media bottleneck. Of course, lots of RAM and a fast CPU are better than just one of the two. And you shouldn't need any hacks to keep a Trashcan on current O/S for several years. Just how many years, we don't know.
|
|
|
Post by Blackdawg on Oct 1, 2019 19:47:09 GMT -6
you can run Mojave on a cheese grater by : upgrading firmware to 5,1, putting in a new video card. MAYbe putting in a new motherboard (not expensive) depending on what revision your hardware is.... I have a PT / Mac expert guy do this for me, and it's not that expensive. You can do it on any cheese grater now. I'm going to do Mojave on my 3,1 machine.
|
|
|
Post by longscale on Oct 1, 2019 21:03:52 GMT -6
I run a 3.5 GHz 6-core trashcan with PT HD Native TB and I could not be more pleased. I upgraded the RAM to 64GB and the flash is going to get a bump soon as well. I absolutely *hate* fan noise. This format provides me with quiet and is plenty capable of running what I toss at it.
I do not have direct experience with the new mini's or the MBPs. I did run a few generations ago mini for my PT rig (not the HD Native at that time however). It was a i7 quad-core machine. Nice box - but would get loud (fan) when it was running PT. I did run this PT HD Native TB rig with a MBP too (a late 2013 Retina 15-inch). That was a nice rig and you could have the fan stay quiet for some PT activity, but load up the plugins and you would hear the fan loud. Typically the fan ran - and did so enough to push me to buy the trashcan.
I decided to take the plunge with the trashcan over a year ago and I'm still quite happy with it. I added external SSD storage via TB (a Blackmagic MultiDock, 4 SSD slots in a 19" rack format, NO FAN). This is a nice machine for software development too; so that is an added bonus.
|
|
|
Post by cyrano on Oct 2, 2019 15:30:56 GMT -6
Apple had better pull things together if they want to keep the pro audio market. The pro audio market is like 0.001% for Apple. Do you think they really care? Even thinner keyboards. AR. More iphones. Ipad OS. That's what we're getting. Oh, and a super expensive new Mac Pro. 1000$ for a screen stand with magnets. Yeay!
|
|
|
Post by drbill on Oct 2, 2019 16:06:49 GMT -6
Apple had better pull things together if they want to keep the pro audio market. The pro audio market is like 0.001% for Apple. Do you think they really care? Even thinner keyboards. AR. More iphones. Ipad OS. That's what we're getting. Oh, and a super expensive new Mac Pro. 1000$ for a screen stand with magnets. Yeay! No, I don't think they really care. But maybe someone up there does....you never know. Hoping against hope and all....
|
|
|
Post by mike on Oct 12, 2019 17:57:37 GMT -6
So looking at the benchmarks for past and present mac models, what's more important for running a PT DAW session with 2 external drives, 1 for audio and 1 for VI's,...... is a single core benchmark or multi-core benchmark performance more important when comparing mac's for this use ?
|
|