i got my new macbook yesterday, after 5 weeks of waiting…
Because i could not find any info here on the performance i wanted to share some stuff…
-In full projects, its about 30% faster than my 5950x (which is a very fast CPU), maybe more…
This is under Rosetta 2, so if/when go native is will be faster i think…some plugins i use a lot were not Apple Silicon native so i couldnt test that with actual work.
-However, rendering time are longer with same projects. About 20% slower.
-And the thing i was really worried about: absolutly no noise. dead quiet, like no fan at all…
Even during a maxed out project (sorry i use a lot stuff) in a pretty hot studio and the bounce in same studio the fans did not turn on at all, or at least i could not hear it.
-i had some issues with saving presets, this was kind of solved, i did the installation inc all my data, presets, settings and everything tweaked in 1,5 days.
So there ya go! If you have any test or benchmarks you want me to run ,please let me know!!!
ah my specs is the fastest CPU and GPU, 4TB and 64GB mem
it was wierd to take the laptop from the studio, and finish the bounces for the record company while cooking in the kitchen haha
and like i said, these are maxed out projects for the 5950x, so pretty heavy!
i have a family, so this was something i really wanted, to get out of the studio a bit more
the new macs seem to be really good for creators. If I were in the market for a new computer I would be very tempted to go Mac for the first time in my life
yes i came from PC in the 90s, then switched to mac in 2008 because of mobility/touring.
then in 2017 i went back to PC because macbook were simply too slow
then in 2019 i bought that i9 intel macbook, thinking it was “the solution”, how wrong was I and how hard did i get f’ed by Apple. That was a 5000 euro paperpress…
After i used the macbook i9 for like 6 months, i build a quick and cheap 5950x PC, just to finish my projects. Serious, that pc was under 1000 euros!!! And its still super fast…
Then Apple came out with the M1, it made me cry, sad, angry and very drunk.
So i saved, saved, saved, worked, worked, worked…and got the M2 just now pfffff
Anyone want to buy a maxed out Apple Macbook Pro i9? Its an amazing paper press!!!
My advice is, really, look at it from a business perspective and your goal/needs…
If you produce professionally, and you have to travel a lot (like me) than yeah get it.
If you are a producer, any kind or level, and you are in the studio all the time, its not really worth it since it will give you a lot of problems switching. This will break your creativity and workflow very bad, and for what? Its much, much better to just make amazing music. Maybe get some stuff for your studio like fastest intel, acoustic panels etc, better monitor speakers, rme interface and new plugins for the same money.
Yep, I don’t need a new computer atm, but one of those Mac Minis Pro could be tempting. Just the connectivity is stupid, who needs four thunderbolt ports? Completely useless. I have several devices, none of them have thunderbolt, most of them are USB2 or USB3, and for those there are nearly not enough ports on them, so you’d need to spent further money for expensive thunderbolt hubs.
Thunderbolt 4 is super expensive too, just like the mid to upper mac’s. but super fast and reliable, and very positive to see it is compatible with usb4. It makes much more sense to me what Apple is doing for the future than those stationary pc’s pushing out 1000w in a huge box, you are gonna sit in that room too and work. I have no big need to be portable just yet, I use a medium spec’ed laptop from Asus which works just fine for recordings vocals etc. IF the computer world keeps spinning further the way it is now I see myself on my next computer purchase sitting in front of a powerful and silent laptop with a very speedy dock/hub with lots of removable and portable parts
and the USB C/TB ports connections are so weak, they are not ment to connect real equipment… only to make the laptop thin. Al my controllers and equipment has big chunky USB A for a reaon…lets say you DJ with a laptop on stage, or worse, in a bar, and you have to lift your laptop because some other dj needs a cable or you are just in the way for the next DJ…very easy to disconnect and poof!!! total silence!!!
this is actually a good deal, they start pretty low compared to big laptops (who the hell can work with 1 or 2TB? My Komplete alone is around 400GB full install)
Yeah, I used to work with Macs sometime ago when PCs weren’t up to speed, but nowadays, no point really. the price of purchasing new parts, maintenance, etc, way too expensive…
Thanks so much for this info. There really aren’t a lot of people out there posting about their experience after switching so this is great. I am on a 9900K and need to upgrade. I have been thinking about moving to a Macbook as well. I too am worried about my presets and other stuff, but the benefit of not having to sit in my studio while waiting for a client to get back to me with notes is a pretty big incentive to try and move to a portable setup.
I was wondering if you might be able to try out Dom Sigalis’s benchmark at some point. Not a huge fan of benchmarks but I can’t really think of another way to gauge it against different Windows systems.
I ran the test twice. The first run was with 64 samples - and the result was exactly the same: 113 tracks. I doubt that there will be much difference because all tracks are using ASIO guard and not the realtime path. This is also visible in the performance meter: The ASIO guard bar is filled to the max … and the realtime bar is nearly visible.
But I can run the test with 256 samples tomorrow again.
Hi Guys, Im new to the forum… I just invested on a MacMini M2 - 2TB SDD and 32GB Unified Memory . I am coming off of an intel i7 iMAc 2009 that could no longer run anything… Cubase 11.60 was the last update and all my Native Instruments Machine, Komplete Kontrol was barely keeping up… I am just setting up Cubase on the new M2 and so far it’s looking great. WRT storage expansion… I purchased an ACASIS SSD enclosure ~ $130.00 USD and installed a WDBlack 2TB SN770 that’s running at the writes ~ 2260 mbp/s speed… the reads at over 2700 mbp/s … all connected via one of the 4 usb-c ports on the Mini… $110.00 USD. So for $240 altogether its a much cheaper solution for all my libraries… it’s the way to go.
Thanks so much for doing this stanft. I just did the test on my machine for comparison.
9900K
Audio Device: MOTU 828es
Buffer Set to 32 Samples, Asio Guard “Normal”
Cubase 12.0.52 Windows 10
63 “Duplicate me” tracks play perfectly and dropouts start at 64. I tested at 32, 64, and 1024 and it didn’t seem to make any difference. This kind of makes sense with ASIO GUARD and the fact that it is throwing everything into a large buffer except when a track is record enabled (and none were).
I just ran a test on my new system and got to 136 duplicate me! tracks to play clean and track 137 finally pegged things over.
Cubase 12.0.60 with ASIO Guard on Normal (34.830 ms)
Hardare specs:
RME Digiface USB (buffer size didn’t make a difference because of ASIO Guard)
AMD Ryzen 9 7900x (while using the internal GPU)
64GB of DDR5 RAM at 6000Mhz and CL32 (dual channel: 2x32GB)
ASUS Prime X670E-PRO WIFI motherboard
I’m not overclocking so the 12 CPU cores (using 24 threads) operated at between 5.1 and 5.2 GHz, which is not quite max rated turbo/boost (5.6 GHz), but well above base (4.7 GHz) so it would seem to get a bit temperature throttled at that point.
So it sounds like that M2 Max is indeed a beast to get that much performance out of that small form factor with much more limited cooling than my mid-tower desktop system. On the other hand, it also costs quite a bit more.
Definitely. The MacBook Pro is anything but an affordable machine. I would only invest this amount of money if mobility is a key issue. If not, even Apple has some other options that cost you less for the same amount of power.
I’m coming from the 2019 MacBook Pro with Intel I9. And for me, the most impressive change is the efficiency of the Apple Silicon chips. While the 2019 MBP had enough power to get my projects done, the omnipresent fan noise (and those fans can get loud) was the biggest downside.
This is where the new Apple chips are a total relief: On my standard projects I have yet to hear any fan noise. And this is not because the fans are running so low - the fans are not running at all! This is insane coming from the x86 ecosystem.
A decent windows laptop costs quite a bit too, I went from a 2012 Macbook Pro to a more ‘affordable’ MSI laptop start of 2020, it cost me around £950 (Reduced from £1400).
Then end of last year it became unusable, battery unreliable, noisy fans, keys faded, touchpad lagging. So I thought, sod it, and got rid - brought a new 16" Macbook Pro - cost ~£2k, and I know from other Mac’s that it will give me 7-10 years use if I so wanted to use it that long. (My 2012 is still useable, as kids use it for homework and study).
With the MBP the battery life out the box is better, haven’t got to adjust CPU/GPU settings to a good balance of noise and performance, Core audio can multi-client across Cubase and other apps/browsers, the touchpad is slick and intuitive, solid build, great screen, incredible speakers.
I have no doubt that if I shelled out near £2k on a windows laptop I’d have a much better experience. But I’d have no confidence in spending that on a windows laptop, a decent laptop for audio is not as affordable as everyone thinks - there’s always hidden gotchas such as DPC latency, electromagnetic interference, lack of standardised support etc.
If anyone would like to compare to your findings, what track did you initially duplicate? An audio track? What was the sample rate and bit depth of the project and interface?
