my partner wants to start her own business soon and she uses GH a lot for her work. At the moment she is using a Windows PC. Previously she had an M1Pro MacBook and was running Rhino7 and GH. She experienced performance issues and I also looked into that and it seemed that GH was only running on a single core. Generally my partner prefers the user experience of the Mac a lot and we wonder if it makes sense in her use case.
So now finally my question(s): Does it make sense to buy a MacBook again to work with GH in a productive environment? Did they improve the performance and how is the support? What do you think and what are your experiences?
My heart wants to recommend the Mac but my brain indicates Windows makes more sense
Looking forward to your answers. Thank you so much for your input!
Greetings, Tim
McNeel sells a Mac Version of Rhino, so you can assume that its well tested and works.
Still I would always claim that you are on the safe-side using Windows. Rhino is mainly developed under Windows, almost all plugins are developed under Windows and the majority of Rhino users use Windows. Depending on what she will do, clients might also work with Windows. That makes it less likely to run into a OS related problem. Forget about the performance issues, and only think about stability and interoperability. Technically you should be able to use Rhino Mac the same way, and for the vast majority of use-case you can easily switch the OS. But overall I would guess its a bigger risk to go for Mac.
Other than that Grasshopper/Rhino is running on a single core for the majority of tasks and there where issues reported with drawing performance within Grasshopper. Most Mac laptops have a strong CPU but a bad GPU. It is better to look at GPU performance and buy the best for the money you can spend. Another advantage of Windows would be that its cheaper to buy a system with a decent GPU. Overall its my personal point of view.
nope, from what i understood is that windows guys got almost as much trash to eat as the mac users this time so that it not a good recommendation.
also
that is true for both versions, i am not aware that the windows version has more components running multicore, which are not so many in total… but i am also leaning a bit over with my limited knowledge here.
From which configuration would you consider a mac to have a decent gpu? M3 Pro or does it have to be M3 Max?
And a somewhat related question to your remark on windows machines. What would you consider a good GPU choice atm (being future proof for at least 2 years)?
I am asking so I am able to compare the prices. Thanks a lot for your detailed answer before it is vey much appreciated!
Well this is not so easy to answer. I mean I‘m one of the early Grasshopper users, and 14 years ago you could basically run anything, even rendering, and produce something of value. Therefore if you would be a student i would tell you don‘t worry to much and simply buy an affordable entry level gaming laptop.
For a professional I would definitely argue against a laptop at all and highly advice to either buy a desktop PC or at least a mobile working station. I think the absolutely lowest GPU would be a Nvidia RTX4070 or RTX4060TI. I don‘t know if Apple currently offers something in that range or a setup with a Nvidia GPU’s .But you could compare cards on benchmarking sites. Note that there might be a difference if the card is a mobile version or not.
For CPU rather invest in a chip with high single core performance. Apples M series chips are quite good in this segment.
But you cant compensate producing garbage by buying the most expensive hardware. Especially in Grasshopper you can highly impact performance with knowledge. So also spend some money on books and invest in products to maintain your health. I also consider fan noise as a relevant factor for mobile devices. Again, this is my opinion and Im not an expert regarding hardware.
We didn’t got for a Mac because the most expensive M3 Max, cost 4800€ and gives half the GPU performance of RTX 4070 laptops while it is double the price.
Thanks again everybody for their input, I recommended this Maschine for my GF (also because we found it on sale for a decent price)
Research summary: High end’ish category - Amazing display, trackpad, good cooling, great built quality, relatively compact, Problem: poor battery life
Good alternatives
Mid range: Asus ROG Zephyrus M16 GU604 (great performance, Problems: heavy, average build quality, not so great trackpad)
High end’ish: SAMSUNG Galaxy Book3 Ultra 16 (slim, light, great build quality, Problem: thermal throttling can occur)
High end’ish: Asus ProArt Studiobook 16 (good build quality, good performance, Problems: 2-3h battery life, gets hot charging, big, heavy)
Ideal high end model would be Razer Blade 16 (2024) it comes with OLED display and I would chose the RTX 4080/90 version but that costs about 2000€ more
so that it not a good recommendation.