Given how much Apple is focused on 4K video editing as a usage model for the new Mac Pro, I went out and filmed a bunch of samples in 4K and created a couple of benchmarks to stress the new Mac Pro.
The Mac Pro completes the rendering work in less than half of the time of the rMBP.įor my next two tests I'm going to be looking at Final Cut Pro 10.1 performance. The improvement in performance, particularly with the 12-core configuration, is astounding. There's a clear benefit to opting for even the compact Mac Pro over any of Apple's other Macs. Here we have an example where Haswell's IPC improvements don't do a whole lot, which is music to the ears of those considering buying a Mac Pro now vs. The extra logical core per physical core definitely increases architectural utilization/efficiency in this well-threaded test. If you're wondering why the 27-inch iMac doesn't do so hot here, it's because I'm testing the 4 core/4 thread Core i5 version while the rMBPs all have Hyper Threading enabled and are thus 4 core/8 thread configs. Under OS X, this is still a CPU test - the GPUs remain idle and out of the picture here. I received a reader request to try running the Cycles benchmark in Blender (an open source 3D renderer), so I'll start with that:
I grabbed the 2012 15-inch rMBP, the entry level and upgraded 2013 15-inch rMBPs as well as the new 27-inch Haswell iMac for comparison. With the legacy Mac Pro comparison out of the way, I wanted to put the Mac Pro's performance in perspective relative to other high-end, modern Macs. Putting Mac Pro Performance in Perspective: Professional Apps