Mac vs PC Build. Unobtainium???
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- Опубліковано 16 вер 2020
- Can you build a PC meeting these requirements? It's never just about CPU speed... I'm well aware of what's out there. However, there are other often-overlooked factors that make this machine desirable for specific professional situations, as it elegantly solves many integration problems and lowers the complexity of the computer element, overall. This is by no means belittling PCs.. and no, this machine is not "an absolute" to do audio and music work on a Mac.
If I had a business I'd also pay $30K for never worrying about stability.
stability on macOS Catalina is huge problem
@@MorgonautHackintosh Always depends on the additional software though. My clients Pro Tools HDX system has been up 105 days. and even then, this reset because I installed some additional memory and had to shut down. It was up and on since February prior to that! :O
Morgonaut no problems here and we run these machines hard.
@@scoremix8556 that's what I said. You have it silent because Apple set to keep the fans silent = not to spin them up harder! which results to overheating CPU even you don't know about it. So if you care about your cpu and set your fans to spin up faster, then you will definately hear it very noticably
Morgonaut the fans in the Mac Pro are designed to make less noise. Basically the fan blades and the ring around them are a unit that spin together and that generates less noise even when “spinning up”.
For everyone who thinks that Linus tech tips could help with this, In Linus’s video about this exact Mac Pro, Linus mentions Neil as the exact customer Apple created this product for, and that there isn’t any other solution that is reasonable and reliable.
Linus knows next to nothing about Pro audio work though. There are many A list composers who work on a Windows based PC for whom the price of a Mac Pro would be a drop in the ocean compared to the rest of their studio.
@@texyrexy Many of the windows-based A-listers also run multiple massive PC workstations that cost the same or more - because they can (and have their own support staff to 'deal with it'). I mentioned somewhere else on here that I'm a mere mortal and wanted something to run the whole shebang without maintaining multiple systems - drastically simplify. Talk to any solo composer/business owner using multiple machines and no-one loves it. It's a huge pain in the ass (I used to run 3). Also - A-list composers make up probably 1% of the working composers out there and the money to do whatever they need to do, so it's not the best real-world indicator of how to setup as the resources available are like a grand canyon in divide. Like many, I'm nowhere near A-list - yet the insane deadlines, political drama and pressure to get 'er done while still doing a great job are par (except with a lot less budget),
Costs - there are many thing things that cost as much or more than the computer. You start getting into quality microphones, outboard gear etc, it adds up. re: Tech. Sometimes you need to throw money at a problem to make it go away, because if it ends up saving you ie: 8 hours a week, that's more time writing, or seeing family or sleeping. That's worth paying a premium sometimes :)
I'm not sure where I'm going with the meandering ramble, Actually, I'm just procrastinating as I'm still at work right now as it's Friday, late and everything is due Monday, as usual. Ughh. :)
@@NeilParfittMusic I'd say the multiple slaves/master set-up is definitely on the way out though, more are switching to single machines now its becoming possible to have so much power. Some of these builds are becoming so expensive though that leasing is a better option.
Hopefully we'll see more workstation builders making some AMD epyc systems as well. 64 cores and at a fraction of the cost of any Intel system with anywhere near the core count. Pair that with someone like HP doing next day on site support and we'll be all set.
TexRex totally .. buuuuuut... with more juice available, the more coders take advantage of it and eventually all these machines will be ‘too slow’.
The endless cycle 😭
@@NeilParfittMusic very true, it'll likely continue until AI composers wipe us all out, argh the machines always win.
With 8 PCIe slots, it's essentially impossible. There's no such board in ATX or E-ATX formfactor. That's definitely one of the advantages of the Mac Pro in this case. It's the same thing for live audio stuff I have - sure, you can often use other equipment that essentially does the same job, for cheaper - but once you need a few specific, very uncommon features, you're screwed, and you gotta pay. All that other stuff, TBH, is doable in a hackintosh. You could go ahead and start bifurcationg some PICE slots (there are C621 mainboards with enough lanes), but then you're at some weird hacky solution where you need a custom case to fit your weird slots, have some ugly extension cables running around, etc.
That's the main point here I think: You maaaybe can do it. Life will find a way. But if you're a professional in Audio, you don't wanna become a professional in doing stupid hacks to your build, just so you can save 2k-3k - it's uneconomical at that point.
you're on the money. This thing is off the shelf and works with no fuss. Otherwise, it's some piecemeal weirdo thing with no guarantees. Also, as you're probably aware, not all PCIe backplane expansions are created equal, and many of these cards need extremely low latency for communication with all the real-time audio stuff so using cheap enclosures arent an option.. and they're noisy.
check a supermicro server board. i gonna go do some research....
@TOP STRESSER ok..show me.. price it... and don't forget #5, #6 and #7
Okay, let's look at server boards: Prepare for requiring at least 2 CPUs to make them boot, have utterly broken ACPI with MacOS, fan-controllers that are designed for cooling, not quiet operations, and then still, you might have the correct amount of slots, but not the spacing that was additionally required. I do see a few of the X11 boards, that could work, maybe, but with the hackintosh requirement you're gonna have a bad time, or again, spend lots of time on your own building ACPI tables, modifying dsdts. I really wanna be on your side. I do hate Apples pricing policy and think that 90% of macbook users would be better of with a fricking chromebook or similar, and Developers telling me that their macbooks are so much better just make laugh, but: In this case, the Mac Pro is actually a good choice, and worth the money. The requirements are just pretty difficult.
@@voutzify Why do think developers says macbooks are so much better? We like UNIX environments (At least java developer, not windows developer anyway), so it's either macbook pros or dell XPS with linux or somewhere along those lines. And if you use iPhone mbp are a no brainer, easier too. It's cliché but its true, it's all about the eco system.
Let's spend 15k to buy 400 raspberry PI's and network them together for the ultimate DAW!
That's the 2022 Mac Pro.
Also note that pro audio software doesn't get along with AMD hackintoshs.
This right here. I'm not a MacOS user, but wanted to try installing it on my Zen2 machine, just for shits and giggles. First application I tried out was reaper, because apparently MacOS is super duper amazing for Audio stuff, or so I heard. Does not start. Because Reaper of course is compiled with intel CPU features in mind, and some instruction sets that can be very useful in audio processing. My AMD CPU does not have those instructiion sets, so I needed to find some weird outdated clang build of reaper that takes this into account. Now, I can imagine that you have all these issues with tons of the plugins as well. You would have to hunt down tons and tons of special builds. Do you REALLY want to spend your time on such stupid shit?
Also: Ryzen CPUs are frickin great for crunching numbers, but they suck hard at low-latency tasks, like audio. My i5-2520m in my x220 laptop from 2011 can achieve smaller buffer sizes than my Zen2 CPU without dropouts. Of course, as soon as you start adding cpu-intensive VSTs, it starts to fall behind, but you can just see that for this specific usecase the Intel CPUs still have an edge.
Ergo: AMD is pretty much out of the question for such a build.
never mind that hackintosh is not 100% emm stable XD
the time needed to set it up
cant update
more time spent fixing it
keeping backups before any update in case you need to downgrade
odd quirks
shame id guess thredriper or epic is the only real viable option if you relay did want to go hack this high end, X299 maxes out at 18core
also thunderbolt on AMD is no fun
@@liaminwales Well configured hackintosh is as stable as any real Mac! My 3970x Threadripper and i9 hackintosh builds never crashed on me
@@MorgonautHackintosh it's not just about crashing it's also updates both for OS and apps.
the joy apps like adobe ones is updates are not always an option so stability is more problematic when your forced to update things.
plus AMD hacks still have some problems depending on OSX version needed.
audio has been mentioned as a problem on AMD but that's something i know less about.
@@liaminwales I can run any app I want and I update my systems when I want. No problems. All is about correct configuration. I made lot of videos about it already
Neil thank you for your videos. Really really informative. Hope the rest of the year works out well for you. cheers
thanks! :) You as wel!
I absolutely want to see what comes out of this challenge.
Oh yeah a hackintosh for a profesional environment... that's a great solution "oh no, the machine accidentally updated and now wont boot... Guess I'll spend the next 4 hours fixing it instead of actually working then!" Just remember, people "trolling" about buying a mac and not a pc are children who simply use the computer to play games and not make actual money with. When a computer becomes a tool for doing actual work, it hardly matters how much you paid for it. I'm a software developer... I used to get along with a hackintosh just fine for my personal projects but when I started to take actual freelance work I just bought a real mac. It paid for itself in no time and I saved myself the hassle of dealing with a hacked system. I still use my hackintosh for my personal stuff but I wouldn't depend on it to do actual work. I enjoy it as a project to play around with, I enjoy the insane performance I get out of it, but I wouldn't recommend this for people that need to do actual work... I'd never buy an apple machine for myself though... But for doing work? who cares, it's just a tool.
I feel similarly. If I ever achieve my dream of launching my tech startup, main development will, by necessity, be on Linux. I’d probably buy a Red Hat subscription because I want to just work on what is pertinent to my use case, not be futzing about with the OS.
This is pure golden content.
brilliant Neil!
I wasn’t one of the ignorant trollers but I did want to talk about the flip side of a high end “consumer grade” pc and it’s limitations. For starters, let’s build a hypothetical PC to rival Neils Mac; Choosing the 32 core 3.7ghz to 4.5ghz boost; the 3970x AMD threadripper CPU is a seriously powerful and fast CPU, contending and utterly decimating Neils’ 28 core Xeon processor in every possible way. To pair it we can use the Aorus Designare motherboard with the new generation of pcie 4.0 ensuring future proofing and compatibility to higher end components. The aorus designare TRX40 motherboard has exceptional power and layout design, four PCIe slots and too many SATA connections to list. It comes with an accelerator card that plugs into one 16x PCIe slot adding additional storage expansion and it also includes a titan ridge for Thunderbolt 3 compatibility which plugs into one 8x PCIe. Moving on we’ll populate the motherboard with 256gb 3200mhz of QVL ram for best practice and then pop in one of those new nvidia 3090 graphic cards that gets released next month. Next up, we’ll casually toss in a 1600 watt platinum EVGA PSU, just because. And eight 2TB PCIe 4.0 NVMe SSDs cards by gigabyte with those shiny gold copper platings. To top it all off, well add some of those nice brown and yellow Noctua fans that look like my underwear after I see the bill for this build and a few other random odds and ends to make it a complete build ( case, fans, etc..) And there we have it, all in all this PC would be right up there costing almost the same as a high end Mac Pro making it look absolutely dumb when it comes to raw paperweight benchmarks.
So Now let’s talk about some real world and respective scenarios to the audio industry. One major deal breaking flaw for this computer is that when using a couple high end audio interfaces cards like the UA Apollo x16; (interfacing all your audio hardware to work inside pro tools on the windows platform) You can’t even use 96khz currently ! And thats severely career limiting in the audio industry, especially if you do mastering or film. Secondly, I see a major deal breaker in the fact that there’s only a maximum of 4 PCIe slots. for any available motherboard other than the Mac Pros’. Sure the PC stuff might be better and faster and cheaper and even look way cooler in a aquarium style case with colourful liquid cooling, but what happens when you’re using audio based accelerator cards that need to be plugged into PCIe slots ? I mean, right off the batt you’re screwed. You ain’t connecting any of your audio gear through it, thus making it a $20,000 glorified UA-cam machine to make angry and ignorant comments to Mac users about how much better and faster and cheaper PCs are for audio when they never actually worked in the industry.
When it comes down to it, all the internet trolls seem to have ignorant insight and stupid comments simply because they don’t comprehend what tools are actually needed to run an audio outfit that uses real hardware gear. You need industriousness from a computer, you need reliability, compatibility and extreme expandability and although our $20,000 AMD high end PC build makes the Mac Pro seem out dated, it’s a no brainer why the Mac Pro exist and why users who use it make money with it and can justify its cost regardless if it’s more expensive.
Thanks for chiming in with such a detailed response. It’s excellent and on point!
Does audio production need that graphics card, though? Genuine question :)
A spontaneus thought here would still be that I'd like to hear about some brave audio producers pioneering the "PC-switch" anyway and ask the makers of such add-on cards to "figure it out" and get back to you with PC-friendly solutions. Because in all honesty Apple hasn't been the kindest to the Pro industry overall and could end up neglecting it again.
Not at all knocking anyones choice of Mac Pro here! It clearly makes sense for the here and now. I'm just worried about the vendor lock-in.
On the color grading side I have neglected Xeons, ECC memory and Quadros because none of that matters for my use case. I want speed and regular enthusiast hardware provides plenty of that for mighty cost savings :)
@@Wokiis The GPU can literally be anything that can run 3 displays at 4K/60hz smoothly - beyond that, Audio apps don't need any CUDA or any GPU snazzy rendering fanciness that gaming and video editing benefit from. All the screens you see in the background are from one GPU.
@@NeilParfittMusic His response is pure bullshit. M.2 are PCIe lanes. Have you heard of riser cards/cables haven't you? If not educate yourself by clicking the links below. That being said BMD has M.2 video capture and playback devices. Keep in mind a lot of computer cases have additional PCIe slots for vertical mounting.
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@@TechTVusa No it's not a bulshit! But your recomendation are big mess. But this even is not the point. Can you take Neil's chalange or not? ;)
Aside from the good point this video makes… we need more of your cat!
Love it! Thank you
Challenge accepted: get a Mac Pro! 😂
macos drift wallpaper, a man of taste I see
Touché
One more thing... they should leave their phone numbers so you can call them when things go south. Required**
The difficult part isn't building a PC faster than Neils Mac Pro. The difficult part is getting Mac Os to run on it well enough for a pro user.
I believe the most difficult part is to build a PC that runs as silent as the Mac Pro at full load
Motherboard: AsRock Rack ROMED8-2T - $641.99
One Stop Systems Expansion Backplane, 5 PCIe x16 slots (457) - $1695.00
One Stop Systems PCIe x16 Gen 3 Host to Target Kit (3811) - $1695.00
CPU: AMD EPYC Rome 7502P 32-Core 2.5 GHz - $3205
RAM: Kingston Premier Series 64GB 288-Pin DDR4 SDRAM ECC Registered DDR4 2933 (x6) - $1799.94
CPU Heatsink: Noctua NH-U14S TR4-SP3 - $99.90
SSD: WD Blue 3D NAND 1TB Internal SSD - $104.99
GPU: Radeon Pro WX 7100 - $460.99
PSU: be quiet! Dark Power Pro 12 1200W (x2) $798
Case 1: SUPERMICRO CSE-825TQ-R720UB Black 2U Rackmount - $477.99
Case 2: iStarUSA D-300-FS Black Aluminum / Steel 3U Rackmount - $148.99
Total: $11126.80
This obviously has a lot of issues- the basic idea is that you have the expansion backplane in the 2U rack, and the main system in the 3U rack. Pretty ugly.. and why would the expansion backplane even have any drivers that work on a hackintosh? No way it could pass #7. But hopefully this is somewhat "reasonable": 10 free PCIe slots! It could probably be optimized for costs, but so far, it's a vaguely serious attempt.
here we go - you're the first to plot this out! GREAT!!!
So -
-we need to change that SSD to a PCIe NVME
-the fans will need to be flipped on the cases to silent, which may cause an airflow problem on the 2U
-is there any added switching latency with the expansion backplane electronics? Some audio cards are problematic with stuff like that
-AMD and Hackintosh are still somewhat sketchy
-are we going to run into bandwidth problems on the backplane card if many of the cards are 4x? (2 of my cards are 16x, 3 are 1x and 3 are 4x)
I'm assuming this is USD?
So I'll bump this up to 12k for mystery extras,, add 13% tax and were at $13560... taking me to around $17850 CAD.
The Mac Pro with 3yr Applecare came to $18000.90 CAD tax in. Ram was extra - that was $2866 CAD.. so a yucky $20866 Total. Curious about those ram prices. Very low!
So.. assuming it somehow worked (I think we both share out doubts here)... is this worth saving $2865 when it's the centre of running a business and leaned on for everything vs. a single off-the-shelf product thing that does what it does, exactly the way it should out of the box?
Hrrrmmmmmm....
(I'm not asking you - it's more of a rhetorical question)
I really appreciate you putting the time into speccing something out! Thank you!
@@NeilParfittMusic This actually took a couple of attempts- the PCIe slot thing didn't seem like a giant deal, until it became apparent that the most amount of slots you can get is 7- but even then there are a lot of issues with getting full x16 bandwidth on enough of those slots... I had to read a lot of fine print on several different motherboard specifications.. it made me realize how impressive apple's offering is here.
This is in USD, and the SSD is an NVME- www.newegg.com/western-digital-blue-1tb/p/N82E16820250092?Description=1TB%20M.2%20SSD&cm_re=1TB_M.2%20SSD-_-20-250-092-_-Product&quicklink=true
The switching latency is potential problem- it's just not accounted for here- and as for the bandwidth, since you're essentially trying to squeeze up to 4 audio cards onto one PCIe gen 3 connection.... it's probably not a great idea if you can get bandwidth limited, I don't know how big of a deal that is for audio cards. There is a PCIe Gen 4 backplane that would probably add an extra $2000 onto this build- eliminating the cost savings we get from going PC here! But, we could also probably save about $1000 being more selective with the parts- I didn't really take a huge amount of time optimizing for the cost- so there is something to be saved here.
I suppose if you had even more expansion needs you could do this- but at that point, why not just buy the same expansion setup for a mac pro? Assuming that the OSS backplanes have a driver for MacOS- just buy a simple 2U case and a backplane setup like what we have here to fit your extra cards...
Oh right, and here's the RAM: www.newegg.com/kingston-64gb-288-pin-ddr4-sdram/p/N82E16820242521?Description=Kingston%20Premier%20Series%2064GB%20288-Pin%20DDR4%20SDRAM%20ECC%20Registered%20DDR4%202933&cm_re=Kingston_Premier%20Series%2064GB%20288-Pin%20DDR4%20SDRAM%20ECC%20Registered%20DDR4%202933-_-20-242-521-_-Product&quicklink=true
@@NeilParfittMusic -AMD and Hackintosh are still somewhat sketchy - not with open core install. Important part is to check for official hardware support (or kexts availability), right bios settings and its easy work. I have installed in the past vanilla hackintoshes with much more effort. With open core things are smooth.
i think its gonna be a tough one.
Why do you need 4x16? HDX cards?
When you have ecosystem built around Mac, it's quite impossible to build PC equivalent with the exact specs of your ecosystem. Same goes the other way around. In this scenario one can build system to support this HW and be cheaper, but it needs few compromises that do not affect performance noticeably, but aren't exactly the same thing either.
Here's the ideal system for my own dream home studio I've been plotting out over the past few months while procrastinating other work. Obviously, it doesn't fit everything you listed out. Mac pro is great for your studio- requiring 8 pcie slots, hackintosh, stuff like that. All prices listed here are USD.
Motherboard- GIGABYTE TRX40 DESIGNARE - $700
This motherboard has 4 pcie4 slots, supports Ryzen Threadripper, AND has an add-in card for thunderbolt 3. That's important for the rest of the build. There are TWO thunderbolt 3 ports on this, so if you have one free after connecting the audio interface, like I would, then
CPU- AMD Ryzen Threadripper 3970x - $1800
This thing's a beast, obviously 32 CPU cores, (if you wanted 64 you could go to the 3990x but it's a lot more expensive ew)
GPU- NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090 - $1500
Also a beast. It's not out, but it replaces last year's beast the TITAN RTX. Early reviews of the 3080, which did just come out, and it seems to be very good for productive workflows. The founder's edition is also really small, which is great.
RAM- 256 gig Corsair Vengeance LPX - ~$1000
This is the max RAM the motherboard allows. Doesn't quite meet the requirements, but it's fairly close.
Storage - Sabrent Rocket 4tb - $750
This is more storage than you needed, and I would get the 4tb to store everything. The motherboard also has FOUR m.2 slots in case you wanted a ridiculous amount of storage onboard the PC. Which I might want. A 1TB version of these is only $150
Case- Be Quiet Dark Base 900 - $269
I don't know the dimensions of this. It's probably too big. But it's quiet!!!!! I'm guessing it would be at LEAST manageable. It's big, which I would want for airflow and cooling, but there are smaller ones.
Leaving some extra space in the budget for stuff like fans, custom cables, whatever, my calculations put this at roughly $6500 USD. I think this build is fairly equivalent to a mid-spec mac pro, for just 500 dollars over base Mac Pro price. Seems worth it for me. Obviously, your needs are so specific, Mac Pro is likely necessary. But this one's at least pretty good, I think.
With Thunderbolt 3, you could use I external PCI enclosures, freeing up a slot from the requirements
however.......
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Why use the Thunderbolt to PCIe enclosures if there are off the shelf Thunderbolt 3 products that will work? I know Neil uses some OS X exclusive software but could Cakewalk or Audition offer more external options? That I do not know. I do know I would rather use external A/V gear over internal A/V gear for a multitude of reasons.
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Logic is outputting up to 192ch of audio over to pro tools, real-time, using the pcie cards
@@NeilParfittMusic I don't doubt that but Avid does make Thunderbolt 3 I/O devices. What would a 64 core AMD CPU with 256 GB of RAM be capable of? Would real-time internal PCIe cards be needed? Both Intel and AMD are dedicated to producing inexpensive high core count CPUs.
Well the Mac Pro 2019 is there for a reason. the only way you could make something similar would be with a epyc cpu and a serverboard but then noise comes and it's a nightmare to make server boards run hackingtosh. Neil is the type of costumer this machine is build for. Even tho Apple doesn't for some reason market it for the Audio market where it would be perfect. I am a Windows user but i can see why this machine is on the market for the type of costumers like Neil.
Hey Neill thanks for all your great videos on the topic of professional music production on Apple hardware!I have one question for you and my fellow followers and viewers:
Do you guys think the MacPro and iMac Pro will also receive ARM based Apple CPUs? What will happen to the music professionals etc that use them?
My thought is eventually - but i don't think Apple is going to come out of nowhere with an ARM chip on-par with intel or AMD workstation-class CPU. If that was the case, they would have released the Mac Pro with that 'surprise'.
Neil Parfitt I hope it won't affect support for the MacPro
Where can I send a quote to?
Are expension cards ok for this? Them although I'm not the ultimate hardware maniac I'm pretty sure you'll get many answers
Answering my own question here.
Hmmmm... I wonder how many will move the line by not taking 1 or so bulletpoints not into consideration by recommending another option that they see fit.
amd 3995x pro. Any question?
Also what about dual 10gibabig Ethernet that’s almost necessary for anyone working with NAS servers and of multiple users or both.
IIRC, one of your PCIE slots is being taken by a M.2 drive adapter. Is there a certain number of M.2 slots on the motherboard that you would be willing to sacrifice in exchange for 1 less PCIE slot?*
*in this whole hypothetical situation where you're willing to run your business on a Hackintosh, which I 100% agree with you for not wanting to do, even if you do get a build that meets all your other requirements
Can you release the bakugan background musics ???
All those specs just to work for Mcdonalds?
it's a supersized order!
@@NeilParfittMusic Like a Big Mac?
@@xylophone1128 well, actually Super Size is discontinued.. so.. it's.. UNOBTAINIUM!!! :)
now I am sooo curious about it!
I do not believe it could happen in a hackintosh, even running everything perfectly with ryzen… haha
Interesting.
I'm retired and out of it but I'm going to enjoy seeing the results. But I think you should specify why you need 8 PCIe slots because it may be possible to condense some of your PCIe cards. For example - if memory serves - you have two or three of one particular card, and maybe now there's one card which will do the job of all of them, in which case you don't need so many slots. And then there's PCIe v4 vs v3 and down the rabbit hole we go.
But as I remember saying in one of your earlier videos, the computer is just a tool for your job, and all the tech is secondary.
With 8 TB M.2 cards we can get rid of one of your add-in cards.
@@QuentinStephens how's that? I'm using a 6 M.2 carrier card - drives serving different purposes.
for now there are no other cards that do what I need any better (or at all), Pro Tools HDX is flowing 192ch i/o across 3 cards (you can't do this with any other 3rd party native cards as Pcripples this cripples it 32 channels). My MADI card is also 192ch i/o and the other is 64. They're the best cards available for the task at hand, for the time being anyway.
@@NeilParfittMusic But you can condense them all into one card. Maybe two. And if you have an Epyc system, you can have a different type of PCI Express drive, U.2. These have a 2.5" form factor, like SATA SSDs, but connect directly to the PCI Express bus using the same 4 channels that a NVME drive does. Epyc CPUs have 128 PCI Express lanes, more than sufficient to cope.
Quentin Stephens condense what onto one ssd - the multiple SSD’s? I don’t want to do that. Client drives, virtual instrument samples all have their own islands
I not sure about Mac support but a supermarket gpu server would be where I start.
Samething like a SuperServer 4029GP-TRT2
Up to 10 hours, 28 core CPU’s 2 off them 6tb off ram max configuration.
My last job had one as a video rendering Farm there server was spec at 20k us for what I say enter level performance.
Good luck with that
Its not cheaper but its not min either: dual threadrippers, i dont know the full name but its a ds/ob (dual system over one board) 8 x16 all double spaced, (no rear io) 512gb ddr4 3200, and a front drive expander (io) for about $7500 the only downside is i think its a 7u and idk any good graphics cards for your application. We have one at work and it does run hackintosh stable.
Hey Neil, did you know your channel is listed as ‘for children’?
I was trying to turn on notifications and can’t because of this.
I’m still running a 5.1 with the old HD cards so all this info you’ve been putting out is invaluable, thank you!
really? Huh weird looking into that now.. which is weird as everytime i post a vid and it asks if it's for kids, i say no.
so I took a look and everything is listed in my admin as 'not for kids' including the entire channel.
Hmm, weird. I’m still getting the ‘content made for children - learn more’ pop up at the bottom of my phone screen. Can anyone else confirm this or is it just me? Could be just on iPhone, I’ll try on a computer when I’m next behind one.
@@epodcam I was able to turn on notifications on both my computer, and the iOS app
Tom Barber good, thanks. Hopefully it’s just an error on my device.
Maybe a challenge for Wendle from LV1T
I think it is probably obtainable if you stick to the same CPU and chipset. PCIe slot bifurcation and risers should get you the space you need and water cooling is very quiet. But it doesn't matter if it is possible or not. Spending $15K on sort-of equivalent hardware and ending up with an untested/unqualified machine with no warranty is insane.
Lol. I wonder if LTT could do this?
Definitely hope they see this video and do the build, maybe even a meet up!
@@MfcoolProductions I'd love to see them try! Someone make it happen! :)
That’s certainly above my spec I got for £4K. But I personally don’t need or do what Neil does. I’ll be watching, definitely reckon LTT can do it lol.
their mac pro killer hackintosh comes really close but it hasn't enought pcie slots i think, they sould try using a 9 pcie slots mobo and a casa cable of handleing the task
Exactly what I thought. Can someone tweet this to them? xD
Let's be real, even if it was possible, would you really feel comfortable doing professional work on something that's "hacked" together like that? I mean sure, if you were running server software, or even Windows of some form, maybe. But making Mac OS run on it seems...sketchy when it's what brings in the money.
you win the challenge :)
@@NeilParfittMusic I'll have my people call your people for prize collection ;)
:D
A well done hackintosh could be surpsingly stable, but you don't have any support and you'd better have all the knowlage you can your you can't choose the right parts to optimize your system or solving issues with it, so for pros i always reccomend going with an original mac, but for enthusiasts with time to put into it, the hackintosh is an interresting route, and also despite the name there are very little hacks involved, most of the stuff is about emulation of various mac stuff
The question you need to ask yourself is whether or not the hours you spend maintaining such a system WHEN it fails is worth the time you could have spent billing clients
I like your channel but is the Mac Pro all you’re going to talk about? I feel like you have many more interesting topics about music/tech you could cover that we’d all be interested in.
Of course not, these are just follow ups to the saga :)
Further to my earlier comment, can I suggest that you re-issue the challenge in a slightly higher-level form? For instance, instead of saying you need 8 slots, say you need sufficient slots to support X, Y, and Z where X, Y, and Z are what your add-in cards do rather than listing the add-in cards themselves.
This might be possible with a custom build using a supermicro barebones system as a starting point, but it wouldn't be easy. Certainly none of the off the shelf offerings from Dell, Lenovo or HP can do this. Getting the RAM and CPU options is easy, even the rackmount isn't a problem. It's the number of expansion slots combined with 10GigE AND it all being silent that is the hard part. Even if you could get something from Supermicro or Tyan it's more data centre centric in it's design so it probably won't be silent. It will be interesting to see what people come up with but I don't think there is a realistic option.
closest you can get is ASUS WS X299 SAGE/10G with 7 PCIe slots (can be distanced using riser cards/cables, but limited total amount of lanes), which has dual 10Gbit ethernet, USB-C, hackintosh compatible, can be equipped with 8x32GB (=256GB) ram sticks, i9-10980XE (36 threads at 3GHz, boosting to 4.6GHz)
You can actually get a 28 core 3175X and Gigabyte Aorus Extreme
You might want to list which PCIe cards you have in there and what software you use. I'll bet that some of them could be replaced by external thunderbolt interfaces. 8 PCIe ports can be done with SSI EEB motherboards but this will restrict you to server country. And of course MacOS support outside an actual Mac is always dicey. I'd also like to question what you need that much memory for. I work in IT myself and I have seen systems that actually need TB's of memory, I've also seen giant servers sitting idle...
If you go back and watch Neil's earlier videos, you'll see that multiple external Thunderbolt enclosures is one of the key things he was happy to leave behind when moving to the new Mac Pro.
@@andynormancx True but if you are running out of PCIe slots because of audio cards: Motu, Focusrite, Presonus ,etc make some really nice external interfaces. If you hook them up with Thunderbolt you won't have any latency increase over a PCIe card. Is he running multiple Protools HDX cards or even more exotic stuff? If those are the "multiple thunderbolt enclosures" you are referring to, you can get a external PCIe expander box. Then you'd just have one giant second enclosure for all of them. Check out www.onestopsystems.com/ or www.cyclone.com/ They can cram up to 16 PCie cards in one enclosure. On the host side you just need one PCIe 16x card for the connection to the enclosure. (they even make PCIe Gen4 now, just don't ask how much it costs)
VTOLfreak maybe go and watch his earlier videos with the detail...
VTOLfreak I’ve come from using external thunderbolt enclosures along with magma pcie backplanes prior to that. Big. Noisy. All the things I didn’t want anymore :)
Tbh, #7 is in doubt even if you get all the other specs.
I would like to say a supermicro board running epyc would work. Even getting an AMD threadripper build running is a pain even with opencore. That and the 64 thread limit in mac OS makes the 3990x a waste unless disabling SMT. Though when it works it's monstrous, just not stable for MacOS production. It does certainly make sense for your use case though to run the new Pro.
But i'm just the guy who likes messing with hackintosh as a hobby on AMD CPUs. I had a fantastic Mojave hack running on a 3900X with a pair of radeon VIIs. then I updated to catalina and it all went to hell. I dread Big Sur.
You should have added also #9: No RGB allowed. Doh!
i guess the only difficult part to get is a mb with 8 pcie , and dual 10g
that one's awesome, though you could have been a little more kind and allow other OS.
but i don't run another OS. My primary work App is MacOS only.
Neil Parfitt I understood that, however, i guess theoretically your work *could* ask be done using windows software. So that would make the task a little easier (and more generic, or course. Nobody will ever use any hackintosh in a professional environment, so any othee solution is D.O.A.
@@svenstormann certainly could, but there are far too many compatibility issues across many clients and workflow pipelines for it to be beneficial
@@svenstormann There are some facilities that use Hackintoshes professionally but they have engineering crews who back the rigs up. People "could" use DAWs other than ProTools but no one will because experience and time is worth too much money. Most of us have our 10,000 hours in PT already and it's neither logical or reasonable to put another 10,000 hours into a different DAW. Ditto Logic.
I know a lot about computer hardware, know all the parts, like how some guys know every car part. And I really can't think of any system available either from an OEM or built by hand that could meet all of your specifications. The 8 PCIe slot requirement alone cuts out 99% of motherboards. Supermicro do sell some 4U rack mountable servers with dual 28 Core XEON's as options with up-to 2TB of Memory (and EPYC equivalents with 32 or 64 cores) that feature 8 PCIe slots all double-width.
But these lack other things you desire like built-in USB-C (would need to be an add-in card). They likely won't run macOS Catalina without a lot of work (and frankly who wants to do that in a production setting?). Plus they're noisy and costly.
I think the Mac Pro really suits what you do, I wouldn't suggest you use anything else. But for someone that doesn't need macOS, doesn't need 384GB of RAM (256GB is enough for them) doesn't need 8 PCIe slots (7 will do them) then a Threadripper based system with 32 or 64 cores would probably be better and would cost significantly less than a Mac Pro.
exactly, and i think you understand my overall poin and where I'm coming from.. it's not cut and dry easy to match up these requirements that hobbyists claim is cheap, easy peasy
Well said, these requirements aren't what you need to work as a composer, they are just what Neil thinks he needs, which is fair enough but it's definitely possible to work outside of the requirements.
Need to get the crew over at @LinusTechTips to help with this challenge.
ua-cam.com/video/610kM2elp40/v-deo.html
Dell Precision T7920 with rack kit hat 7 PCIe. Could you list your cards? Maybe we can make it fit ;)
Pretty sure the hackintosh requirement kills it, but it's an interesting thought experiment.
He said he needs a machine with 8 PCIe slots and at least 4 of which need to be 16x. That completely rules out the precision that you mentioned right there. The precision only has 3 16x PCIe slots unless you get a second cpu and even then, it’s not enough slots overall.
@@liquidmark5081 It has 4 x16 slots. Admittedly only with 2 CPUs. But I don't see that as a problem. And one of his cards is a SSD-carrier, which you don't need if the machine has m.2 slots.
Tim Heitkamp ok, I didn’t know that one of his cards was for storage but I did mention that you need a second cpu to get more x16 PCIe slots.
The tech-savvy-creative with the inff.. during these weird times, am I ok to say "infectiously positive" personality?
but not COVID infectious ;)
What if I just put a logic skin on reaper and run windows...
Great idea....😂
What are the 8 slots used for, specifically?
All his audio i/o cards, plus the video card.
@@aegonthedragon7303 Yes, I know. Just wondering which specific ones and whether any of them could be via USB/Thunderbolt instead.
Charles Krueger professing aside, the whole point of buying this system was to consolidate all my outside thunderbolt chaos into a single box.
@@NeilParfittMusic Gotcha. But I think a useful exercise to learn the cost of that consolidation and whether there is a useful alternative. Not trying to convince you specifically, but to help myself and others understand what the issues are. Wild guess is that the cost is ~USD15K, but maybe I'm too optimistic.
Charles Krueger you’re pretty close. It was a hair more.
I went into what this was eliminating on my first unboxing vid where I put all the stuff on my kitchen table.
It collapsed 2 computers down to one, including all the external mess supporting outside thunderbolt enclosures for all the various cards. So significantly less footprint, wires, heat, power usage, eliminated bandwidth issues, no noise, more throughput with ssds, higher res monitor support.
I think it's possible, but who in their right mind would daily drive a hackintosh? At best this describes the machine you'd be using were you not a Logic user.
A silly challenge: you want a monster pc which runs mac OS. If the solution could be PC based the entire method of working should be based on that. This is like asking for a boat to drive as good as a car.
I agree there are several flaws in the premise. I will have a video response soon.
His challenge is a response to all the tech-bros insisting he could have built a PC to do what he needed. He needs macOS - so their suggestions better include macOS, otherwise they're pointless.
Including Mac OS is not a valid parameter. This ends the challenge. It should be a PC or even more than one, that can perform all the tasks, even with different software. Holding on to either Mac or Windows for the operating system is counterproductive.
Geoff Vane He issued the challenger specifically because people keep telling him he could have got a PC to do his work. He has a legacy of Logic projects he needs to be able to access, so running macOS isn’t optional.
It wasn’t a general challenge, it was a specific one around HIS needs, not anyone else’s.
He’s making a point, that his needs weren’t generalised, they were specific.
I know you require Mac only software like Logic but I think including the Hackintosh requirement kinda breaks this. I've personally never tried it but based on everything I've read I feel like I would switch away from Logic if I was doing music work as a job and not buying a Mac rather than going the Hackintosh route on a professional (and inevitably expensive) workstation. I know it's not uncommon to not be running the latest version of MacOS in the audio world due to compatibility issues so maybe staying on Catalina and not updating if things break isn't a real problem for you but I'd want a little more guaranteed future OS stability if I was dropping anywhere near this amount of cash, especially if it goes anywhere near client work.
also, consider that I work on Episodic television spanning many seasons (years), I have to be able to 'go back' to my previous sessions, open them like no time has passed for various music tweak situations. This is all in Logic X for me (and many collaborators) I work with. So, that's why running Hackintosh is on the list. This theoretically has to be a PC drop-in replacement for my specific use case, which is what people have been nagging me over all along. ("just switch to PC - it's cheap and simple").
But, as you peel back the onions, nothing is as easy as it appears to be :)
@@NeilParfittMusic Yeah for sure, didn't even consider previous sessions but that makes total sense. I guess there's an argument to be made for keeping one of your previous trashcan Macs as a legacy system for accessing previous project files while switching over to a different DAW combo on Windows but that doesn't really hold up once people realize that Logic is pretty great software and the cost is worth it considering that you make money with the machine. :P
Does the Hackintosh requirement really break this? That is, could you build a system that meets Neil's requirements but ran Windows 10?
Fergus Hammond yes, because the apps I use for work are macOS only
@@dingoboy I'm not sure if it does or doesn't, I think the main thing people are learning from Neil's videos is that yes, there's actually a reason people buy Apple hardware, shocker. The only reason I suggested it is that I know Hackintosh systems have specific compatibility requirements and I still think that as a "challenge" it could be too hard / impossible (which is the point the video of course) :P
Let me guess: Just read #7 to begin with because no one will go past that one.
I think you're right about that one. It seems I read or saw something about Catalina not running on a hackintosh at all. Maybe there's some clever way to subvert that now, but stability is always going to be a worry.
@@deanledfordministries2316 I actually think LTT managed to install Catalina with some trickery involved. But as you say stability was not tested and there were things not working properly.
And then there's the thing with not being able to upgrade the system when necessary.
You should reach out to Linus for this. He has mentioned your videos in the pass.
Do it Neil!!
ua-cam.com/video/610kM2elp40/v-deo.html linus already made a mac pro
thats why im here ltt
The hackintosh requirements will kill virtually all options. Its just not ok IMO to run a hackintosh for work reasons. I am not into this scene in any way but it just sounds wrong to do such a bridal thing to earn money. Especially AMD systems are not in some kind of database, especially not server boards. But server boards should work better because they are not in some for feature compromised (i.e. virtualization stuff).
You want a motherboard like the Gigabyte MZ32-AR0, with an PCIe bifrucation card like the QIP4X-PCIE16XB01. This should allow for all the required PCIe slots, PLUS one for a USB-C Card (Try to find server boards with that one...)
AFAIK you could repurpose some other connectors on that board to serve as PCIe, but I am not sure how good that will work.
Cases that are 4U, EATX, and leave space for a water cooling solution for your CPU are available, also you want to take care that you can put in the PCIe riser solution of your choice. I like the idea to use two of the slots for Disk drives (idk what to call those).
You could ask e.g. LevelOneTech, they really know what they do with custom workstation builds.
Edit: amd-osx.com/faq/ says all motherboards should work and recommend Gigabyte, that's why I chose the Gigabyte board.
Can we have Linus Tech Tips participating in this challenge?? 😊
no you can not, him or his team can do that, you cant vouch for him
Well personally I would not recommend hackintosh for professional work. You don’t want your mac to stop your work with each software update bring in some fixes and compatibility issues. If it’s a second computer you can try making a cheaper PowerFull silent Pc just to get used to both the worlds and for fun times testing different things. (Not to mention you can game in your free time). I think it will also be a good exercise as new situations bring new ideas and the more you are used to different situations the more you can work efficiently when actually faced with something like that. Just something I found essential in medical field hopefully applies to music. On the software side aside from logic pro you can get good software on pc too like Ableton, Cubase, Nuendo, Pro Tools, Reaper, Bitwig Studio and Digital Performer but it’s still just putting money into a hobby and it’s still significant so whatever suits you in the end.
I've been a graphic designer working for 25 years now. When I started working, Macs were the only option for us too. Now is for audio pros (and some video pros). I'm against Apple for how it treated its professional userbase, I work also in 3D and Macs are the worst option without NVIDIA cards. Computers are tools, you had only one option actually=buy this. I use your 1st video when you bought it to explain to fanboys of Apple the type of pro that needs this machine. Not burn money to impress clients and peers. I usually custom build workstations, if I had the extra money (it costs x2.5) I would choose a boxxtech or an Armari, but through the years for me, it's working better to custom build and change the complete system every 2-3 years with an initial investment of 3-4K each time. I would love though to see Linus and especially Anthony to tackle this...
Hang on, what about Pagemaker on a windows 3.11 machine? Or even earlier than that.
There's was an option, not just a very pleasant one.
Babis Schoinas You’re still stuck with Windows anyway you cut it. Apple is generators ahead in this industry. It’s just the way it is. Someday this will change, but not any time soon. Like the other guy alluded to, it took a decade for desktop publishing to run well on any other platform than a Mac. And Linux, (and Android), I’ll be surprised if those platforms ever reach 30% support from developers that macOS gets. There was a time when Apple almost lost the music market (because there was still more money in the desktop and video markets), but Windows just couldn’t make deep enough inroads by the time Jobs came back.
@@TheSteveSteele windows 10 is very stable nowadays believe me. They manage tight memory situations better than MacOs but you need to be a bit tech-savvy for keep it and optimize it, so for some is not a option and I understand. I m working both OS and now windows is better. There are many problems popping up with updates in MacOs both on the core and the installed applications forcing you to update only when you are 100% sure that all installed apps are working as they should be.
@@cornerliston I had exactly that on another machine (and 3B2 on Dos... 😂) But they where no match for Quark on the Mac.
@@babisschoinas Yeah Quark had what 90 % of the market share those days? Still miss the kerning tables you could manually adjust...
Somebody call Linus!
You should have added : plays 3000 tracks fully loaded with plugins without dropping a single bit. As sveral people have tried with Ryzentoshes that suck apeballs for audio. Tha fact that it perfoms so smooth for audio should be top of your list.
Try:
Motherboard: ASUS Pro WS C621-64L SAGE/10G
(*7x PCIe-x16, 2x 10GbE, 1x USB-C 3.2 G2) - $836.22
GPU: RX 5500 XT MECH 4G OC (*Quiet Mode + 3x DP 1.4 + 1x HDMI 2.0b) - $199.99
CPU: Intel Xeon W-3275 - 28-Core @ 3.5GHz - $5,016.31
CPU cooler: Noctua NH-U14S 140mm (very quiet + good air) - $63.75
RAM: 12x Kingston 32GB 2933MHz - $2039.88
SSD: Samsung 970 Evo Plus 1TB - $399
PSU: be quiet! Dark Power Pro 12 1200W - $798
Case: iStarUSA D-300-FS Black Aluminum / Steel 3U Rackmount - $148.99
Additional fans:
3x Noctua NF-A8 FLX 80mm (very quiet + good air)
1x Noctua NF-A6x25 FLX 60mm (very quiet + good air)
*Price: $9,502.14*
*7x PCI-e x16:
All of them are x16-lanes.
*Quiet Mode: Fans are off if lower than 60C
DP 1.4 can handle 4K@60 at 10-Bit
HDMI 2.0b can handle 4K@60 at 8-Bit
*What do you use 8x PCI-e lanes for?*
I need 8 pcie slots because I have 8 pcie cards.
@@NeilParfittMusic Can't you use one of the motherboard I/O as a video output, or do you need a video card? I believe the processor comes with onboard-graphics, I may be wrong.
Gecko can the onboard drive 3 x 4k60hz displays?
@@GeckoClever It doesn't have an iGPU. Usually only mainstream CPUs have iGPUs
@@Pasi123 Saw that. I still wonder what all of the PCI-e slots are used. What needs so many PCI-e lanes for audio equipment? I've only seen people use 30 lanes, but that was connected to multiple boards (single computer) due to it was a rendering server..
TBH #7 is enough of a compelling reason not to build a PC, if your flow is based on Mac OS, you better get a machine thats guaranteed compatible. You can pretty much spec out a cheaper PC to do the job, but not to do the job the way you do it, and in the end thats whats matter, the way you work best is the way it must go, as long as it makes business sense, there is no reason to spend time and effort on anything that is not the business goal, being making music, or art, or software or whatever.
ps. #1 is confusing to me, are you using the 4 pci slots at 16x? because the xeon you have probably dont have that many pci lanes, 64 on the one you have I think. You'll get even lower on a PC, ryzen can get you 24. You would be able to use an Epyc cpu with 128pci lanes tho.
I came here because Linus from Linus Tech Tips showed Neil as the customer who needs a MacPro. A hackintosh will NEVER be reliable enough to replace a Mac. Ever. The cost (or loss of income) if the macOS stops working or some card or whatever is just not worth it
I`m so glad I don't do audio lol
This thing solved specific infrastructure challenge for my specific use case. This is by no means the bare minimum to work in audio. Not even close. Hell, I can do plenty of my work on my laptop. It's just when you get into some nitty-gritty specifics for even more specific jobs I do the odd time, which is why I went this way vs. say an iMac Pro
People that have not work in pro audio or video don't (in fact is really hard to) understand that while not a trivial expense the 25 k mac is far from the most expensive thing in the rack.
While technically possible, this is definitely a fools errand and a racked Mac pro is a better option. I think the more challenging aspect is the physical space required for pcie cards. I would consider using a mining rackmount case like this: www.amazon.com/Rosewill-Rackmount-Solution-Building-Ethereum/dp/B074F4CXJX
This case also would work for a custom watercooling loop with a 360mm radiator which is probably a little on the low side for radiator space based on the components but the gpu would likely not be stressed based on your workload.
This motherboard would probably be a reasonable hackintosh choice as others have used the chipset for hackintosh's and the 10gbe Lan uses the same controller as the real Mac pro.
www.newegg.com/p/N82E16813183686?item=9SIA4S8A168321
Additionally, this board has four m.2 slots that could be easily converted pcie x4 slots for more cards in the front of the case where the graphics cards located for mining rigs.
I prefer the Asus Dominus Extreme www.amazon.com/dp/B07NQD5X5T/ref=cm_sw_em_r_mt_dp_XGjzFbVT57TR0
It's interesting until the "Hackintosh" requirement.
Was interesting until the "Hackintosh" requirement. Seems pretty disingenuous and is a setup to fail.
If you want MacOS for professional reasons, then buy a real Mac.
This is my overall point, for people telling me “Easy.. just use a hackintosh”. It’s not as easy a solution as it appears to be.
@@NeilParfittMusic For critical applications, Hackintosh is too much of a gamble. But for everything else, it's actually fine. The only problem is the time you need to set it up and you also have to make sure you have compatible parts.
For non professional use, for people who have more time than money, a Hackintosh may be worth it. But for people with more money than time, then just buy a Mac.
You might be able to build a pc with those requirements, but it will be noisier and a pain to maintain.
I don't think you can build something all of those requirements
I think the closest you will get is with a SUPERMICRO MBD-X11SPA-TF-O
It has 7 PCI-Express x16 slots, 4 M.2 connectors a front USB-C header, dual LAN (but only only one of them 10G, the other 2.5G) and up to 3TB ram.
Alternatively ASUS Pro WS C621-64L SAGE has Dual 10G Lan but it only has 5 PCI 16x slots and 1 M.2 connector
For the processor a W-3275 or a W-3275M (which is what the Mac Pro has) if you need more than 1TB ram.
SUPERMICRO MBD-X11SPA-TF-O $604.00
Intel Xeon W-3275 $7,661.60
4xSilicon Power 1TB NVMe PCIe $379.96
384GB (6x 64GB) Crucial 288-Pin DDR4 SDRAM ECC Registered DDR4 2933 $2,278.2
iStarUSA D-407PL Black Steel 4U $137.99 (couldn't find any rack cases with USB-C) Rosewill also has some decent rackmount cases
SAPPHIRE PULSE Radeon RX 5700 XT $399.99
Seasonic PRIME 1300W 80+ Gold Power Supply $339.99
Logitech MX Keys Advanced Wireless Illuminated Keyboard $89.99
Logitech MX Master 3 Advanced Wireless Mouse $109.99
$12,009.82 USD
Mac Pro
2.5GHz 28‑core Intel Xeon W processor, Turbo Boost up to 4.4GHz
384GB (6x64GB) of DDR4 ECC memory
Radeon Pro W5500X with 8GB of GDDR6 memory
4TB SSD storage
Rack mounting rails (ships in separate box
Magic Mouse 2
Magic Keyboard with Numeric Keypad - US English
Accessory Kit
$21,099.00 USD
No Idea if it can be hackintoshed. Big investment though to try it for it to only run Windows.
$9,098.18 difference. Is it worth it? If it works maybe. If it doesn't then probably not..
Is your ram pricing via the Apple store? My machine was about 21k Canadian including 13% tax and 3rd party 384gb memory (15.9k USD total).
Great breakdown, nevertheless.
@@NeilParfittMusicYes it was using Apple tax™ prices - $6000. On newegg i see you can get the same amount of ram for roughly $2000. So sounds about right. It makes the difference smaller. Considering all the other differences: no thunderbolt, single wide PCIe slots requiring riser cards/cables and no dual 10G lan without losing 3 PCIe slots and 3 M.2 connectors. At some point one is bound to think what the heck I'll just buy the Mac Pro.
Everybody knows that real pros need 2 Nvidia 2080Ti and a water cooled PC with RGB... /s
What are you doing in audio that needs that much ram?
TV and Filmscore work: tons of Virtual instruments, sessions in surround, all jiving together.
@@NeilParfittMusic I do video production and need tons more. But get my audio from an audio guy or team.
@@meatbyproducts the amount of data being pushed around in hi-res, uncompressed video is insane!
@@NeilParfittMusic oh I know. I have been murdering computers for years.
You should ask Linus from LTT to do this!!!
He already tried doing a faster Hackintosh. Went a bit so so. But he got his views and was happy anyway.
ua-cam.com/video/610kM2elp40/v-deo.html
I have a few questions about your requirements that I list later, and I may have a hardware solution for you after those questions are answered but before that let me say:
Neil, you are one of the few people who actually *WORK* on the machine with a very specific requirement that these machines were made for. It's less about Apple vs. PC. It's about hardware. Most people just want to bash Apple and are just regular consumers/prosumers who are not in the need for a specific and wide-requirement setup like you are, and the others who TRULY work on the stuff. The reason why the new Macpro is so darn expensive is because Apple is likely losing money on the Macpro lineup. And they will even more in the future because they will HAVE to let the MacPro run with future OS updates even though they bring their Apple Silicon ARM based chips. And they will have to let that support run for longer than they want. I doubt they will make a "bring back your old MacPro, get money off your new Apple Silicon Macpro!" thing. And I further doubt they will even deliver an ARM based Macpro...
In the end, who cares about the operating system if these are pure work machines that run only the dedicated work-software and nothing else? This is why I would love to have bootloaders for these types of programs. A cut down, baseline DAW-OS for example. I also will openly say that I WAS loving Mac back in the days. I grew up on a Performa 450 on System 7.1 and 7.5 and that blew everything out of the water that PC had, has and even surpasses current MacOS as well. I stopped caring about Apple before they became a social-status company, about the time when WindowsXP Sp3 was available. At that point, it was a stable and mature enough operating system where I could move on from Windows 2000.
*About my questions / qualms:*
Quietness out of the box does not equal performance. It's the main reason why Macs are often underperforming because they rather have their chips run hot and are subject to degredation (the hotter you run, the sooner you have to replace thermal paste to avoid heattraps that damage the silicon). You don't even need to watercool a machine to be very quiet. Personally, I would love to have my computer in an entirely different ROOM but that is sadly a no go. I don't want to hear, see or smell my machine. But I am in the minority and digress. Continuing:
How specific is the 28 core requirement? What do you need more of? More cores at same clockspeed or more clockspeed at same cores? Since you work with Avid products, how much of overhead do you really need on your PC since their hardware has to take the brunt of the performance force anyway? (I will not even try to argue to move away from ProTools because it's still not an option in the wide-range industry, as much as I wished it would be. The reality is that there is no other hardware based competitor yet, as Blackmagic Fairlight consoles are pathetic).
Also, how does that compare price wise? Should we take the Apple prices for the components or is that your "base model with manual upgrade" ?
So if we bring a board that has more than 8 PCIe slots (or via a different solution) we can a) get you a two-slot GPU and b) more room for addin cards like USB-C and so on.
The reason why a beefier GPU and thus the room for it in the future might be very relevant is increased parallelization work that can be outsourced to the GPU as that can be applied to Audio work. Not everything in Audio is serial. Other companies already use OpenCL / OpenAL via boards that are chock full with GPUs for other use than graphics. If Avid however is "smart" enough to understand that choice, remains to be seen.
Is your MacOS Catalina just a requirement because you prefer working on MacOS or because some of your hardware doesn't run with windows? See my comment above. There are ways to essentially "un-stupify and un-bullcrap" Windows 10. MacOS is NOT as free of failure as it was in the past. The Google Chrome updater that bricked Macpros when Avid software was present is a testament to that (and the biggest botnet in the world that up until recently ran on Macs). I personally loathe Win10 with a passion and will milk 7 as long as I can. As I recently found the ways to make Win 10 behave, I might actually install it on a separate drive and give it a look, disconnected from the internet.
In the end, I'm not one of those trolls who just visit all youtubers who enjoy their Apple to bash around nonsensically to feel better. You have a genuine use case for your machine that completely validates the purchase of a Macpro, especially since you are smart about the upgrading. All I want to know is more about the specific reasons for the requirements. I've build some crazy workhorse PCs back in the days and took long talks with the clients to understand why they need the stuff they ask for :)
But again, to reiterate, you Neil are one of the few people in youtubeland that are *THE REAL TARGET AUDIENCE* for the Macpro :) It's still possible to make a PC version of it though, but only because it's possible doesn't mean it should be done.
Khunvyel I don’t think that you completely understand. The main sequencer here is Logic Pro (MACOS only) ProTools is essentially doing background multitrack recording and video playback.
@@slammandrews3408 With three (at least) dedicated AVID cards it doesn't look like Protools is an afterthought on his system.
Oh right: #10: Must be possible to upgrade the system without sending the hackintosh to a “hackintosh specialist” trying to solve this over a 6 month period.
Wow lots of comments.
Not sure if this has been mentioned. Can’t see it. I think a Dell PowerEdge R940 would almost do it. It’s not got native USB C or native 3 outputs for video BUT you should have PCIe space to achieve that with 13 slots. Not tried to Hackintosh one - you cos I don’t have a spare 10k about just now.
Great videos, even for server nerds.
www.dell.com/en-us/work/shop/povw/poweredge-r940
hey genius! i got another challenge for you:
build reliable mac with 5 years warranty, with: on site, next business day support & service. no money limit. =)
well with that limitless money, I'd buy an island and never work again.
@@NeilParfittMusic nice... but unfortunately that makes you fail the challenge...
unlimited money, just buy a 2nd of the same exact machine and keep it as a cold-spare!
I do see your point though, and that is something that Apple has been lacking with their business/enterprise support(or lack there-of)
There is no alternative!!!
Maybe for cheaper , buying base model and swapping the cpu and ram by yourself which would be much cheaper
Yeah audio is the last niche apple can still grab, and film students lol
We use mac's in our TV station that runs 24/7 for years and never fail. Some 2010 Mac Pros running until today whyle PC's have changed three times from year 2012. i don't know what is better, but i see this from really heavy using that PC's cannot hold such working hours as good as Apple products...
LOL! The Hackintosh guys are like, "Oh good, he didn't say he needs Thunderbolt to work correctly." Do you follow Peter Paul Chato? He shares his struggles and triumphs on Hackintosh (for real work...). I admire the culture's "can-do" attitude, but...I think a Hackintosh is like having a pet...it takes an enormous amount of time and energy....which is great, if your computer is your only hobby.
yep! I like that dude.
I already have my cat, and if you';ve seen my loudness video.. she's already a handful!
@@NeilParfittMusic Your cat is pretty cool. It was kind of a bummer that you didn't get a precise SPL measurement of his meow, though...
@@fredygump5578 she's sooo wiggly!
Only a crazy person would use a hackinsotsh when they have mission critical deadlines. If you could use Windows, then there might be a compelling alternative. Honestly, the MacPro isn't over-priced. If you go the AMD route, it will be very difficult to keep it cool and quiet in a rack-mount chassis. If you could go back to the old days of using multiple computers, then maybe 2 or 3 inexpensive PCs could give you a lot more CPU for half the cost of a MacPro. But honestly- between cost or Pro|Tools, all those RME cards, and the fast storage you have, the cost of the computer is only a small percentage. I say the answer is NO.
It all starts with Threadripper pro... which until that’s available is the only option. The 3975wx is 32 cores, 128 pcie 4 lanes and 8 channel ram. 512gb of 3200 or 3600mhz. But it’s not available yet...
This sounds like data center hardware, but that stuff is loud as heck.
Hey have you checked snazzy labs vids and Linus tech tips vids? They’ve all made Mac pro killers...
SHOULD'VE GONE WITH THREADRIPPER! LOL!
If you don't get this joke, you aren't a worthy Neil Parfitt fan.
Never mind the joke, Threadripper isn't an option because it can't support so much RAM.
@@QuentinStephens Wow lol
@@QuentinStephens Threadripper Pro will support enough RAM but it isn't available yet
ok here's the one person that really need a mac pro, next challenge: show me another one
Literally thousands of professionals doing similar jobs worldwide.
@@thsithks hope they just do their work and don't mass produce videos about a computer to justify their purchase
@@fullalbums5675 lol - I don't need youtube to justify my purchase. I do enjoy sharing information though :)
@@NeilParfittMusic Speaking as someone who works at a "major Hollywood studio" that hasn't yet bought any of the new MacPros your videos have been very helpful to our engineering team in figuring out some of the pitfalls prior to moving forward. Catalina is still a problem for our particular workflow but it won't be for long.
John Milo Train I wish Mojave had been an option for this thing. Catalina was really the true wrench in the wheel, especially with AVID. Otherwise, flipping the hardware around was relatively painless.
Neil 1........ Trolls......0🤣🤣🤣
Not a troll, i see why u bought that mac pro (so would i in your position)
But basically building the identical computer and hackingtoshing would certainly be cheaper.
Depending on thunderbolt needs you can even go amd as they work on hackingtoshes too.
ua-cam.com/video/KtAcUhl8hKo/v-deo.html&ab_channel=Morgonaut
something like this, but in a rack mounted case with no rgb
you would also gain some extra m2 slots for hdds which would be sweet seeing as most x299 have multiple m2 (that are not locked by apple)
Then again i would still go for the mac pro if i had the income to support it.