It’s time for me to upgrade from my Intel mac to an M chip. I’m deciding on which version of the M3 chip to get, and the number of cores a the big cost factor. I know Rhino 8 natively runs on Apple Silicon with support for Metal. But does performance actually scale with the number of CPU/GPU cores? That is, “pig it out” as my dad says, and get an M3 Max? or keep it modest and roll with a base M3? I’ve tried to do my due diligence before posting this by doing many hours of research on the forums here, and on the internet in general. Your advice is appreciated.
Modeling and Rendering are not comparable in core usage, typically many modeling operations are single threaded or very limited in multiple thread use compared to rendering.
If your work is primarily modeling, then increase in CPU speed is a better indicator of performance improvement in your work. If you primarily render, then adtitional cores are more beneficial than a CPU speed increase.
If you want modeling AND rendering to be faster, then you need to Max out # cores and CPU speed.
Of course, that is the most costly option.
Great points, thank you. I do mostly modeling work in Grasshopper, mostly with meshes at the moment, and then baking to Rhino to export for 3d printing or further development.