Stick to Mac OS or future proof and head over to Windows Workstation

[Cameron]

Hi,

I am spending an increasing amount of my work time working in 3D My main discipline is actually Fashion design but I use fashion design software in Clo 3D/Marvellous Designer on a daily basis. as a business we are transitioning over to work on more traditional non fashion 3D software also in Blender and Maya.

I desperately need to upgrade my hardware. (Currently working on MacBook Pro 2015. 2.2GHz Quad-core Intel Core i7. 16 GB 1600 MHz DDR3. Intel Iris Pro 1536 MB.) which as you can see really does not match my needs any longer.

The issue I'm facing is I have always been a Mac user and the idea of moving over to a new OS terrifies me. so I was planning on upgrading to the new MacBook Pro with the M1 Max Chip -upgrading to the 64GB unified memory and 2TB SSD Storage. What I don't want to do is buy something that is redundant in a couple years as things move forward after I've spend over £4k (I'm based in the UK).

I need something that is probably middle of the road in terms of Rendering and Viewport speed as the fabrics am rendering seem to be quite processor heavy (although I might just feel that way because of my current system is so outdated for this kind of work).

So my question is:

A) Should I stick to my current OS for ease of workflow speed and buy the MacBook Pro M1 Max?

or

B) Should I head over to a home build workstation, use my current laptop for any work required while travelling and then the new PC for the 3D design and rendering, knowing I can replace elements as and when I need rather than the whole computer?

(and if B what what you recommend?)

Sorry for the long message.

Thanks
Cameron

 

[Jerry James]

Should I head over to a home build workstation, use my current laptop for any work required while travelling and then the new PC for the 3D design and rendering, knowing I can replace elements as and when I need rather than the whole computer?

This would be the ideal choice. But the learning curve of a new OS can be a bit tough when you're starting with it, so might affect work for a couple weeks or so until you get the hang of it. That said, it'll be much faster for your work (long-term) so I'd recommend this route if at all possible.

The M1 Max chips are amazing, but when handling any workload that the SoC doesn't have hardware acceleration for, a PC is faster by a good enough margin. Blender and Maya, as well as popular render engines currently fall into the latter category. Here's Redshift -