(door creaking)
(lock cracking)
(gate creaking)
(bag rustling)
(suspenseful music)
(bag rustling)
(metal tinging)
(suspenseful music intensifying)
(bag rustling)
(bag crashing)
(alarm bells ringing)
(suspenseful music)
(grunting)
- Hey sir, they found it.
You better get over here now.
(alarm bells ringing)
Oh.
Oh nevermind.
Yeah, no sorry, false alarm,
yeah I thought they were gonna take the fast one.
Yeah, you have a good night.
Phew.
This is the PC Pro.
$32000 worth of PC hardware so fast
it'll knock your socks right out of your sandals.
Let's take a look inside at the beautiful power supply
provided by our sponsor Seasonic
who makes great power supplies for everything
from entry level gaming rigs
to servers, to monsters like this.
(upbeat music)
The 2019 Mac Pro is a thing of beauty
and there's no denying that it's powerful.
Ours here is equipped with 28 processing cores,
768 gigabytes of memory.
It's got an AMD Radeon Vega Pro Duo.
A graphics card so exclusive you can only get it
in this machine.
And it's got one small problem,
Mac's aren't known for their bang for the buck.
So then, even if I had a lot of bucks,
33000 of them to be precise here,
would I be better off with one of these or one of these?
With the PC Pro, our goal was to create a machine
that beats the Mac Pro in every conceivable way
starting with the case.
This InWin Tou 2.0 is one of only 300 units in existence.
And it's one of the few PC cases
that I think is truly striking enough
to take on the Mac Pro.
The outside is covered
in five millimeter thick tempered glass
that has been vacuum sputter coated
to create an incredible one way way mirror
that only shows off your hardware
when internal lighting is applied.
The process is a little deeper than we have time for now,
but it's super freaking cool.
So watch this video from Applied Science later on.
All of that tempered glass is held in place
by an aluminum frame that was welded by hand
giving it the distinctive geometric look that it has.
Now, hearing words like welded by hand
and vacuum sputter coating, and one of 300,
you'd probably guess that this is worth a pretty penny
and at $2000, you'd be correct.
So for that price, how good is it to build in?
- [Alex] Not good, very bad.
- All right, so hardware access then,
Mac Pro one, PC Pro zero.
Now, Alex, I can't help,
but notice that we've got two monitors hooked up
to the PC Pro
and only one to the Mac.
- [Alex] Yeah, the second one there
is just for the post sequence.
So you know that it's actually doing something
after you hit the power button.
- Of course it is.
I feel like I know how this is gonna work out,
but let's do our power on boot time test.
Okay, fine, I'll press that button.
- [Alex] Just give it a second.
Yes. - Okay, What did you do?
- I Just held it for longer.
- The good news is that you've got remote access over IPMI.
So if you're not in the same building,
you can still remote into it over the network
and update the bios or restart it or whatever.
The bad news is it outputs to VGA first
and then display port later.
All right.
Boot time is admittedly not a strong point
for the PC Pro here.
So Mac Pro two, PC Pro zero.
Admittedly, this isn't going very well for us so far there.
- [Alex] It'll get there.
- Now one of the toughest decisions for this build
was actually the CPU.
Threadripper was very tempting because
of its excellent single core performance,
overclocking capabilities,
and official support for Windows 10.
The deal breaker for us
was its maximum memory capacity of 256 gigs.
Now for most applications,
256 gigs of RAM is a lot,
but the Mac Pro here can be kitted out
with up to one and a half terabytes of memory.
And we couldn't allow ourselves to get beaten like that.
That's why we chose, against AMD's wishes, the EPYC 7502P,
a 32-core server processor with support
for up to two terabytes of RAM.
Now it adds $3847 and 18 cents to the total
of our machine here.
But as far as we can tell
it's lack of support for windows 10
is just a validation bottleneck over at AMD.
And I'm quite confident
that it will beat the 28-core Mac Pro
in multi-threaded tests,
even if it falls somewhat behind in single-threaded tests.
Besides, I mean, I think it's fair to assume
that anyone buying a 28 or a 32-core processor
is mostly concerned with multi-threading anyway, right?
The main problem with choosing a server processor
is that you're usually stuck with a server motherboard.
In our case, the TYAN Mainboard S8030GM2NE.
Now to be clear, we really like it.
And there's even another version of it
that has dual onboard 10 gigabit network cards.
But the thing is we aren't exactly using it
in its intended application.
So certain things like fast boot times,
robust IO and fancy black PCBs have been sacrificed
for things like reliability,
high quality PCI Express Gen four capable traces
and heaps and heaps of storage options.
Let's go ahead and open it up.
That is a thick boy of a panel.
Dang!
Man, there is something positively delightful
about seeing 64 threads in Task Manager
and check this out,
1020 gigabytes of memory.
However, keeping a terabyte of RAM cooled
is a no laughing matter.
These 128 gig modules that we're using from SK Hynix
run freaking hot.
So we're actually using something that I haven't seen
since the Skulltrail days,
these active coolers running over top
of our duel four dim banks of memory modules here.
And I had a small heart attack
when I saw that this one was resting
on the back of our graphics card,
but actually it's okay, good job, Alex.
You covered it in electrical tape,
which is definitely an appropriate solution
for a $30000 machine.
- Do you wannna hear why we really need those coolers?
Let's just turn these off for a second.
- There's an alarm that goes off at 95 degrees.
It's mad we gotta plug the RAM coolers back in!
All right, that's better.
We're down to about 50 degrees now.
Now that alarm might seem obnoxious,
but all the monitoring on this motherboard
is part of what allows it
to run 24-7 in a server type environment.
Besides we've got to protect these modules
because they're over $1200 each
for a total of $9792 of memory alone in our system.
Pivoting to our least expensive component.
If we were to 100% push everything in this system,
we'd be drawing close to 1300 Watts.
Now, normally we throw
a Seasonic Prime Platinum 1300W Power Supply and rigs,
just because we can.
It'll run most gaming machines
without even turning on the fan.
Here, we actually need the entire 108 amps
on the 12 volt rail and 1320 Watts of continuous power.
Now in real world operation,
you almost never actually run every component
of a system at a hundred percent.
So we're not expecting to see more
than about a thousand Watts of power usage at a time,
partly because of how the GPU's are configured.
More on that later.
But it is considered best practice
to over spec your power supply a little
because they do degrade a little over time.
Also upgrades happen and a failure, especially in this case,
can destroy a lot of expensive hardware.
So this unit has a 12 year warranty
and only took a $270 bite out of our budget,
which sounds totally reasonable in this context.
Back to expensive stuff now.
This right here is a Quadro RTX 8000,
NVIDIA's top GPU with a staggering 48 gigabytes of VRAM
and a price tag of $5500.
Just a single one of these should be able to put
a Vega Pro Duo in its place.
So naturally we got two,
but there's more to it than that.
Joining the two together is a NV-Link Bridge,
which is basically
a 100 gigabyte per second data superhighway
that allows the two cards to not just communicate
with each other,
but actually share memory,
giving digital artists, data scientists, and engineers
96 gigabytes of effective VRAM in a single workstation.
That is, it'll give them that if their boss will sign off
on the expense report.
So we've got two Quadro's and an NV-Link Bridge,
which means that NV-Link should just be working, right?
You might think that by looking at NVIDIA's literature,
the only problem is that this guide contains
almost zero useful information.
Run a command to check if it's working, you say.
How and where do I run this command?
Fortunately for us,
the guys over at Puget Systems put together a guide
for how to get NV-Link going,
which they created through trial and error
without any documentation from NVIDIA.
First problem, when enabling NV-Link con Quadros,
the display output actually gets disabled.
So we needed another GPU of the same generation or newer.
In our case, this RTX Titan here
is gonna act as our display output.
Then we have to do some command prompt stuff
to enable NV link on the GPU's.
And after a reboot,
we can run the NV-Link tester
that Puget Systems actually made
to ensure that it's all working
and check the bandwidth between the cards.
Huge, thanks to those guys for putting all of that together.
I have no clue how NVIDIA expects their customers
to figure these things out otherwise.
In a nutshell,
everything I just said means that this RTX Titan here
is just a really pretty golden display output,
bringing our total spend on graphics up to $13499.
Ridiculous.
Fortunately,
the RTX Titan is also the fastest gaming GPU on the market.
So naturally for our first test,
we're gonna see just how well these two computers,
that are completely not designed for gaming,
fair against each other in gaming.
Ready for the drag race?
- [Alex] Yeah. - All right.
Run benchmark three, two, one, go.
They're both running Windows by the way,
just so you guys know.
That's a lot more FPS.
- [Alex] Yup.
- Oh, I'm sorry.
Yeah, it's a lot more.
And you can talk all day about how this is gaming
and it's not for gaming or whatever,
but more GPU power is more GPU power.
That would be clearly beneficial.
Oh nice.
That was a pretty one sided fight.
But a W's a W, so it's two-one for the Mac Pro.
Let's go for the Mac Pros main draw though,
content creation.
To test this to its fullest,
our video editor, Mark, who is admittedly a Mac a guy
put together a benchmark for us
in Premiere and Final Cut Pro to really test
if the better optimized Mac Pro,
which does by the way,
have the accelerator card in it,
or the much more powerful PC Pro is able to take the win.
So we've got a multi-platform audio, visual render kit
or "markbench" as we're calling it.
So we weren't kidding
when we said that the IO on this thing is terrible.
It's got two USB3 ports,
a management network interface,
that's not like a network port you can actually use,
VGA, serial and then two gigabit network ports.
And then it could also have two more 10 gig network ports,
lots of networking.
What is that now, three-one for the Mac Pro?
Wait, so I see there's a USB card right here.
Is there a reason we didn't install this in the bottom slot?
- Yeah, we bought pretty cheap ones
and they were causing stability issues.
- Markbench also known as benchmark.
I love myself.
So here it is the Afterburner Card
versus two RTX 8000's worth of GPU muscle.
Three, two, one...go.
- Keep in mind that this is a multiple AK clips animated
with effects attached to them.
- Oh, so you did the same project
in both pieces of software.
I thought we were just doing a simple end code,
but we're not.
Oh, this is way more interesting then.
So we're using 100% CPU right now.
- [Mark] This is using 90% GPU.
- Ah, these puppies are up at 80 degrees.
It is using them.
- [Alex] Perfect, it's done. - Are you done?
Oh yeah, oh yeah, done.
- [Mark] I'm at 45%.
- [Alex] That's the thrashed.
- Oh dang!
I was not expecting that result.
- [Mark] I wasn't either the scripts were-
- Oh, this is the first time you've seen it.
- [Mark] Yeah, that's the first time I've seen it.
- Oh, that's hilarious, okay.
- [Mark] the script's written as if the Mac wins markbench.
- Oh, okay.
The problem with a lot of videos about the Mac Pro though,
is that people that make videos about the Mac Pro
are mostly, well video creation professionals.
In real life, video editors who might observe
that the Mac Pro is so much faster,
make up only a small portion of the people
that need massive computing power for their work.
Engineers and scientists,
financial analysts, medical professionals,
and many others require this kind of power.
So for them,
how is the performance between these two machines
going to differ?
We're gonna find the biggest differences in applications
that support NVIDIA's CUDA GPU compute exclusively,
and will not be able to take advantage of the AMD GPUs
found in the Mac Pro.
For instance, SOLIDWORKs Visualize only supports CUDA.
So on the Mac Pro it took several times as long
as it did on the PC Pro.
Meaning our score is now even.
- To look at some other workloads,
we're leaning on the spec workstation benchmark.
In many of the CPU tests
that are either single core dependent
or shorter burstier or multi-core workloads,
the Mac Pro comes out ahead.
So 7-Zip, Blender, Python compiling and simulations
that are just out of necessity, single core,
like stress analysis,
because it can't be paralyzed.
That netts the Mac Pro 11 points.
The only thing though,
is that the Mac Pro only won these CPU benchmarks
by a little bit,
whereas in anything that required GPU muscle,
the PC Pro absolutely wrecked house.
Sometimes doubling the Mac Pro
giving it a total of 13 points.
Whoo, whoo, whoo, whoo, whoo, whoo, whoo, whoo!
Sort of, I mean, here's the thing guys,
cheerleading any kind of inanimate object is silly
and making the right decision is always gonna come down
to your particular workload and budget.
So let's get back to practicality.
As cool as the PC Pro is
I don't think anybody should buy this.
I mean, we did find a way to spend $32000 on a PC,
but this configuration isn't going to excel at any one task
like a machine that was built with more focus would.
Like say we wanted the fastest rendering machine possible.
We would sacrifice a bunch of the RAM
and spend that money on additional GPU muscle.
It may be we do need loads of RAM
for big financial calculations.
Well, in that case, we could ditch some GPU
and get a server board that doubles
our maximum memory capacity to four terabytes.
Probably the most egregious waste of money
is of course the case,
which is a hundred percent form over function
and is 10 times the cost of a less flashy
and more pragmatic one.
But in fairness to us,
we were trying to compete with Apple here.
When in Rome, right?
And besides at the end of the day,
we achieved exactly what we set out to do.
Look at this thing.
The PC Pro is a nod to access.
And in that it excels absolutely.
Where Mac Pro destroys your wallet
while making massive performance compromises
because Mr. Cook and Mr. Wong,
can't sort out their differences,
the PC Pro evaporates your bank account
while being the most OP system around.
And yeah, it doesn't excel at one single task
and definitely has its own problems.
But I think it's pretty epic, pun intended.
And I want to thank Seasonic for sponsoring this video
and you for watching it.
If you guys are looking for another fun over the top
Mac themed PC video,
maybe check out our Hack Pro series.
By the time this is out,
we should be done filming the finale
and you're gonna be able to binge watch
the entire thing very soon.