V-ray 3.0 for Maya?

[raymarcher]

2 x 6GB = 2 x 6GB

[everythinghasfresnel]

The problem here is not Mac or not Mac, it's the lack of OpenCL driver supports by main hardware vendors. It's a shame to have to buy Nvidia hardware and use CUDA just because the only open specifications that is supposed to do the same than CUDA are not well provided by vendors.

I really wish that Apple would include a comparable Nvidia option, but I doubt it with that stupid proprietary GPU form factor. That's probably the worst part about the machine right there. It means there will be even less GPU options on the Mac platform moving forward.

The 12 gb ram its not 12 gb that u can use. A 12 gb scene will NOT fit in to that rig. You are limited per memory per GPU so if GPU has 6gb that is the maxmim ram size and scene you can use.

The mac bin will cost at least £3K I cant imagine intell will sell their cpu for less than 2k for xeon 12 core. Current one cost 1.4k a decent version. So extra 4 cores will set you back extra 400£ or so. Unless apple will have some insane discount from intel.

I assumed that the dual GPUs would be running in tandem in something like SLI mode (Crossfire on AMD). I haven't read anything that indicates for certain one way or the other, but it sure seems like dual 6GB GPUs would be useless if not working in tandem.

Autodesk has nothing to do with GPU rendering
Apple has nothing to do with GPU rendering - maybe a little from OSx side
Its down to ATI and Chaos + other developers who make their render engines for gpu.

Didn't say they had anything to do with GPU rendering, but Apple does control the OpenGL and OpenCL versions implemented in OS X. I know they caught a lot of flack for falling behind the latest versions which probably hurts development for these other companies considerably. I'm not an expert in this stuff by any stretch.

On a side note... I cant imagine using external components for mac bin.. How am I going to hock up 4 tb of HDD, 2x phi/ IO cards etc etc. Cant fit in my head. I think Apple shot them self in foot with this mac.

Apple also shot themselves in the foot with the iPod, the iPhone, the iPad, the iMac and the Retina Mac Book Pro too, didn't they? How many more feet do you suppose they have left? Aren't they almost bankrupt?

It's great that you've made up your mind that the Mac Pro isn't for you, but we still don't have enough information on our end. We store all our data on a server, so we don't need 4tb of internal drive space. Most people are at least working off of NAS systems anyways, and the Thunderbolt RAID controllers are pretty attractive to video editors. Personally, I think it's unwise to write off a machine that's not even on the market yet.

[Dariusz Makowski (Dadal)]

Heya

You have some good points...

Regarding GPU it will render using both of the cards... but you will only have 6gb of ram available for your scene. Speed add up- storage dont.

I remember that they did say they will push the openCL so maybe it will work on macs!

Regarding products range from apple... well yea public customers love it. But they are not as popular around my circles where thinking is: "get the best hardware for job". As far as I know their epic 4k dual display output can work only with their own displays and is very limited to/from apple by apple. Dont get me wrong. I like the brand and I did bought their iphone years ago. But as my needs grow for flexibility and need to customize etc etc. Their products are way too much out of the box... Its like buying gaming console to program games. U wont do that - even tho u could. U buy PC to program games on console... Regarding NAS and storage...well you can either burn 2-3k on NAS server or 2-3k on SSD/PCIE SSD and get 4x faster data transfer than from NAS... I know retouches need a lot of HDD speed so many people in the office where I used to work in had 1+ TB + SSD to work on...

[everythinghasfresnel]

Regarding GPU it will render using both of the cards... but you will only have 6gb of ram available for your scene. Speed add up- storage dont.

Care to speculate what benefit having dual 6GB GPUs would have for 3D applications other than for GPU rendering? I did some googling and confirmed what you said about the GPUs not 'adding up' to 12GB. Some people were mentioning loading the same video game into the RAM of both cards, and then alternate frames to effectively double the frame rate. Could we expect similar performance increases with viewports? How are other applications utilizing multiple GPUs? I'm just trying to wrap my head around the advantage of having dual GPUs if GPU rendering is about the only advantage. Thanks for the perspective!

[Dariusz Makowski (Dadal)]

Heya

Uhhh dual GPU.. unless maya or 3ds max is utilizing it this way then the only benefit you get is 3d rendering... Maybe nitrous could do it. But as far as I know u get 0. U only get 2x faster renders.

Thanks, bye.

[ivaylo.ivanov]

everythinghasfresnel, Blender's Cycles example apparently didn't tell you anything . Well, the point is, that Blender is an open source project. So every person on the planet can go and look that code, including the AMD's guys, and try to make it work on AMD hardware. Well, is it working? No... So, yes, it matters where is the fault, and what you must do to continue your work. People will not stop using Blender, just because Cycles do not work on AMD hardware. They will buy the proper hardware that will do the job if they want to use that feature.

I don't blame AMD for their difficulties with OpenCL. People must realize that NVIDIA is the pioneer in this, they are putting more efforts there, they are leaders in this. AMD do more game oriented hardware. Their video cards will go into the next generation consoles. So it kind of tells you what their priorities are. It up to YOU to choose the proper tool for your job. The problem is if you don't know, or if you don't want to choose for yourself, but let others choose for you. There is a solution only to the first problem...

[Adbk]

Actually there is an extremely simple solution. Buy one of each

[ivaylo.ivanov]

Yes, this is a variant - get machines that have proper OpenCL/CUDA support and run them in DR. However it's a little strange to use a system with 2 high end GPUs and render on another machines . AMD will fix their issues at some point, but waiting them while you have work to do... OpenCL/CUDA are just like the video drivers. And like any game depends on the quality of these drivers, it's the same with GPU accelerated software. You want these drivers to be good, you also want to be able to install the latest drivers directly from NVIDIA/ATI. If your brand or OS restrict you in that regard, it's a big pain...

[hellobard]

if you're on nightlies, you'll be getting most of the features right away anyway, so it's not much of a wait ;D