New Mac - M1 vs Mac Pro 2019

[Brandonx1]

Originally Posted by dominicperry

There's about 10 threads already on this subject, but as I have a Mac Pro 7.1 16-core and a 16" MBP M1 Max, I'll write it again.

The CPU processing power of the two platforms is about the same. I'd say the 16-core Xeon just edges it, but who knows how good (or bad) a native version of PT might be. The Xeon feels more solid, but again, that may have more to do with Monterey than the processor or machine.

PT doesn't run well on Monterey (which is compulsory for the M1 Max).
PT runs just fine on a Mac Pro 7.1 with Catalina 10.15.7

Lots of things are flaky on the M1 Max.
Most stuff works well on the Mac Pro 7.1

If you want to carry something around easily, you need a laptop. If you don't, sticking with the Mac Pro 7.1 is a good idea.

If you use Logic and only native plugs, you can probably get away with an M1 Max. If you want to use PT, or you have any non-Apple Silicon native plugs, you are going to have to wait. It might be a month, it's probably nearer a year.
Under Monterey - Eucon doesn't work, Avid complete bundle doesn't work, looks like Kontakt doesn't work. iLok needs to be native before PT can go native.

I paid £8000 for my Mac Pro a year ago. It's now worth about £4000, if I can sell it at all.

The Xeon uses no less than 90watts of power and hits 150-200w under load with no problem. The M1 Max (with internal screen closed and with a large external screen) uses 6 watts idle , 9 watts in normal use and 35-40w under heavy stress testing. So, running costs are way lower if you leave your machine on.

If I was making money making records, I'd stick to the 7.1
As a hobbyist, the laptop is far more convenient.

Dominic

I dont understand why 1/2 the people who have the m1 max say its as fast as a 16 pro and the other 1/2 say its about as fast as a 12 core 2012 mac pro. Which is it and why are the reports different?

[Darryl Ramm]

Originally Posted by Brandonx1

I dont understand why 1/2 the people who have the m1 max say its as fast as a 16 pro and the other 1/2 say its about as fast as a 12 core 2012 mac pro. Which is it and why are the reports different?

Why is there *any* surprise at this?

Users are doing very different things, with very different plugins etc. and who knows what actual performance metric is important to them. Time to open a session? Time to to bounce disk? How many plugins they can have instantiated? How small a buffer size they can track at? That's all comparing apples, oranges, petunias, and elephant seals.

This is a complex system, it is a complete fallacy that you have a simple figure of merit and can rank all systems according to that.

Focus on finding somebody doing what is important to you, or test yourself, beg borrow or steal, or buy a system (with chance to return/upgrade) if you have to.