New "Mac Studio" from Apple

[BScout]

Originally Posted by TimNielsen

If anyone has some other tests or something let me know.

Cool vid.

Notice you are running the internal sound card. What's the end game audio interface you are going to run with this? Have you tried it running that interface?

Also, any chance you can run one surround track with something intense like Cinematic Pro Surround reverb (I think that one scales to 7.1.2) filling all the insert slots? And then duplicating that track until it crashes? Reason for one track is because it forces all that to run in one thread since PT can't schedule it to other threads for a serial process. Probably make it an aux so you can feed it signal from some other audio track (even with white noise) to make the plugin(s) work.

And, oh yeah, have the fans audibly kicked in when stressing the system like this (including your buffer test)?

[TimNielsen]

Ok In fact his turns out not to be that impressive as I thought as two friends on a 5.1 and hackentosh version can actually also play at 32 buffer with zero issues and no errors and actually lower CPU usage. So I guess in fact the Rosetta performance of PT pretty much does suck. 😊

[Carl Lie]

Originally Posted by TimNielsen

Ok In fact his turns out not to be that impressive as I thought as two friends on a 5.1 and hackentosh version can actually also play at 32 buffer with zero issues and no errors and actually lower CPU usage. So I guess in fact the Rosetta performance of PT pretty much does suck. ��

Maybe performance enhancements come with soft synths and samplers or other ways than audio tracks (like loading times as mentioned). I saw a video with a Mac Studio where the presenter felt they were using much less power than Apple used in their comp charts for video performance. Hence why it's not totally kicking ass in that dept as described by Tim Cook.

I'm wondering if in order to make the next Mac Pro look super powerful these macs may be under powered. Or could simply be that certain plugs cause issues. Who knows...

C

[James67]

Originally Posted by TimNielsen

Ok In fact his turns out not to be that impressive as I thought as two friends on a 5.1 and hackentosh version can actually also play at 32 buffer with zero issues and no errors and actually lower CPU usage. So I guess in fact the Rosetta performance of PT pretty much does suck. 😊

Tim, would you mind to run an offline bounce of that Netflix session for about one minute and report the factor in brackets? I'd like to know that number in order to compare it to my Mac Pro 7,1. Thanks!

[TimNielsen]

I think I've come to this conclusion:

IF your machine is going to be primarily a ProTools machine, this is not a worthy upgrade.

Some tests we all did yesterday, three systems. My Mac Studio Ultra, a Mac 5.1 2.6gHz machine, and a Mackintosh in PC hardware, all running the Netflix session. ALL of them played it fine at buffer 32, no errors or stops. All very smooth playback. And actually the Mac Studio faired the WORST for CPU usage, with it up in 80-90% on the meter (and my CPU meters in iStat would actually more or less confirm this). The Mac 5.1 CPU was around 80% and the Mackintosh more like 700-75%.

So all played it, all played it fine, but the Mac Studio was struggling MORE than the much older and cheaper machines.

This is clearly a limitation of non-native code running under emulation on Rosetta 2. Someday when Avid codes this, it will change.

But like me, I use this machine on various things, video work etc. So the improvement over my 5.1 is immense, even it for now ProTools doesn't drastically improve.

[Eric Lambert]

Thanks for the thorough feedback, Tim!

Rosetta does seem to be creating more additional work than what is gained by the faster/newer machine, at least for ProTools.

As you mentioned, this will continue to improve over time as reliance upon Rosetta wanes.

I do wonder how others are getting along with more common sessions. The Netflix test is a solid sample of sessions similar to itself, but it's not real world for most people for most sessions. I also wonder what will happen when these machines are pushed to what we believe are their limits? Will they just continue to operate, with CPU metering which suggests capping, whereas older machines will actually choke and stutter?

[Darryl Ramm]

But we don't buy computers to watch the Pro Tools CPU meters, which are clearly not always reflecting reality. What matters is can you run the session you want with stability, without CPU errors, with the plugins you want, and maybe the offline bounce speeds you want etc.

Focusing on what CPU meters are doing is likely the wrong angle to judge if these are good purchases now or not. If somebody has a struggling Mac and has been waiting for something new to move to this might well be it, even with Rosetta 2 and current lack of native Apple Silicon support. If you don't need to move now then don't but for folks on the edge the question is this a worthwhile upgrade now... and these Studio systems with a decent amount of memory for many users now look like they give an option.

(I don't have a Mac Studio and dont' need it now, I did test stuff on an early Apple silicon MBP).

[ramonetl]

Originally Posted by TimNielsen

I just got my Ultra on Friday, 128 gigs of ram, 2TB storage and 48 graphics cores. I'll share my initial thoughts.

Where did you manage to get a non base setup from so quick? everything around me says many weeks for extra disk etc.

[kings79]

Originally Posted by Darryl Ramm

But we don't buy computers to watch the Pro Tools CPU meters, which are clearly not always reflecting reality. What matters is can you run the session you want with stability, without CPU errors, with the plugins you want, and maybe the offline bounce speeds you want etc.

Focusing on what CPU meters are doing is likely the wrong angle to judge if these are good purchases now or not. If somebody has a struggling Mac and has been waiting for something new to move to this might well be it, even with Rosetta 2 and current lack of native Apple Silicon support. If you don't need to move now then don't but for folks on the edge the question is this a worthwhile upgrade now... and these Studio systems with a decent amount of memory for many users now look like they give an option.

(I don't have a Mac Studio and dont' need it now, I did test stuff on an early Apple silicon MBP).

EXACTLY!

Well said.

[caseystone]

That Sol Levante session won't play on my Trashcan at 32 buffer (will play at 64 though). And with video off even better, naturally.


I liked your previous answer better Tim! Argh... Apple Silicon Pro Tools now now now please!