What are the most impactful specs when it comes to Shapr3D? If I wanted to have the best possible performance with the most complex files? Do max out GPU, CPU, RAM? Does core count make a significant difference over clock speed?
Runs great on my M2 iPad Pro. Have started to notice some performance degradation on larger files on my M1 Mac mini.
Hi,
There is no easy answer. Each hardware component acts at different parts of the app.
Generally, it depends mostly on the RAM how big the model can get without starting to use virtual memory, which is slower. It can cause crashes on iPad, or general slowdown on mac / Windows.
For modelling operations, the CPU is the important part, it decides how long an operation takes. It also gets more important as the complexity grows. We can utilise a lot of cores, but not for every scenario. Finally, the Parasolid kernel is the limit, and it uses a single core / thread is most cases.
GPU plays a part in rendering, especially Visualization.
At the end of the day, it’s hard to tell, what’s the best hardware for your use case. It will mostly depend on the complexity of the models you create. The M2 chip is generally around 15% faster than an M1, so your experience isn’t too bad, I would likely not upgrade to the M2, unless you actually move up to the Pro or Max line. Ultra doesn’t make much sense for now for Shapr3D only usage. If M3 will have a similar speed up, it will likely worth the upgrade, since you can get 30%+ performance compared to the M1 mini.
So I just looked and clock speed of the base M1 to the top of the line M2 Ultra is within 1Ghz. So i’m assuming on a single core level that won’t make a huge difference.
I’m not a major visualization user. Where I mostly come into issues is applying complex/highly detailed sketches to large complex models.
Generally speaking, I don’t have many compute heavy app’s outside of Shapr3D. With that being said would something like an Mac Studio M2 Pro/Max with an upgrade in RAM be more valuable or would waiting on the regular M3 Mac Mini (keeping your performance increase assumption in mind) with more RAM be a better option? I am in no rush to upgrade. Just trying to figure out which would be more impactful.
Increasing RAM is probably the best upgrade you can do for performance. I always increase the RAM above the minimum when I buy a new MacBook Pro every few years. My current M2 MBP has 32GB of RAM and it handles Shapr3D and Fusion 360 (which is more resource intensive) quite nicely.
If only M based Mac’s had upgradable RAM. I had 32GB on my Intel MacBook. Would have got it again if when the M1 Mac Mini came out it was an option.
Oh well. It sounds like for me waiting for an M3 Mac Mini 32GB+ of RAM is probably the way to go over the additional core count on something like a M2 Pro Mac Studio
That’s what I would likely do too in your position.
I just recently switched from the M1 Mac Mini to an M2 Max MBP, and the difference was huge, but I also use other resource intense tools, so it still made sense.
And I agree, not upgradeable RAM is the biggest pain point for the M series, though I understand why they do it (and it’s not only for business, though selling +8GB ram for 200$ probably doesn’t hurt there either).
Thanks @Laci_K
I appreciate your insight