Build times - 15" MacBook Pro vs 5K iMac vs Mac Pro

Hi all,

I'm wondering if anyone can provide any guidance on how different Macs compare when building Unity projects for WebGL and iOS (the two most time consuming targets). I've been using a Mid 2012 15" MacBook Pro with a quad core 2.6GHz Intel Core i7 with 16GB of RAM and a NVIDIA GeForce GT 650M graphics card with 1024 MB of video memory. It's time to get a new Mac. I've been leaning towards the 5K iMac with a quad core, 4GHz Intel Core i7, 32G of RAM and a AMD Radeon R9 M395X graphics card with 4GB of video memory.

What I don't know is how Unity build times are affected by CPU clock speed vs number of cores vs graphics card, etc., so I don't know if this is a good call or if I would benefit by bumping up to a Mac Pro with more cores.

Any insight you can provide would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks!

 

If you're going to do serious developing you really won't want to get a Mac. For a lot cheaper you'll be able to get a more powerful Windows machine, or even custom build one like me. For about $850 I built a PC with an Intel i7-4790, Nvidia 960 4GB GPU, 8GB RAM, 1TB 5400RPM HDD & 240GB SSD.

That iMac you're looking at ads up to $3400. Is it really worth it? Considering you can't even put an SSD (which will really speed up build times), to me it looks like a waste. Let's compare to this: https://www.amazon.com/CPU-Solutions-Chipset-Gaming-Windows10/dp/B01I5T7NN4/ref=sr_1_2?s=pc&ie=UTF8&qid=1470970552&sr=1-2&keywords=PC&refinements=p_n_feature_five_browse-bin:13580788011|13580787011,p_36:-300000,p_n_feature_seven_browse-bin:3012497011

It has a 6 core CPU, DDR4 RAM, a much more powerful Nvidia GTX 1080 GPU (state-of-the-art right now) and 500GB SSD and 2TB HDD. The only disadvantage is that it is a PC case + monitor, so it will take a bit more room and you'll have to buy a monitor too.However, this is much cheaper and much more powerful than an iMac or Mac Pro.

A 5K monitor is really not something that you need. I'm using a cheap $200 24 inch Asus 1080P monitor and never had any problems with resolution. Unless you're really into Photoshop or movies, you probably won't need anything over 4K.

 

Thanks for your input, but I do many other things with my Mac than just Unity builds and based on all of my workflows, I am WAY more productive on a Mac than on a PC.

 

It's just a waste of money in my opinion. A Windows PC does things a Mac can only dream of, especially in hardware and software choice. After all, it is your choice, but in my opinion it is money flushed down the drain.

 

I can appreciate your opinion, but you're not answering the question I asked. I didn't ask for your opinion on the better platform. I asked whether Unity build times benefit much from more cores on a Mac so I could make my decision

You're entitled to your opinion, but you did not answer the question. In addition, I am building Unity games for iOS. Can Windows do that?

 

Well, you could use your MacBook pro to build on iOS. It still had good specs. You could keep your files on the cloud (OneDrive and Dropbox have good integration), then build with the MacBook for when you need an iOS build.

I got so carried away I forgot about the question, so sorry!! Trust me, I wasn't trying to avoid it.

When building a project I noticed that the CPU is what takes the most load in the task manager (about 15%). So I'd go for the best CPU possible. Looking at the Mac Pro, it seems the best you can get with Apple in terms of CPU is a 12 core (pretty monster CPU) BUT that's putting you in for 7 grand ($7000). You're probably not into that. That's why I recommended the other PC because for 1/2 the price you get so much better performance with the SSD, DDR4 RAM and Nvidia 1080 GPU.

After all, as I said, it is 100% your choice. I've borrowed both a MacBook Air and a MacBook Pro but I was very disappointed. For the amount of money Apple products cost, they could definitely have more powerful components inside. Johnathan Ive sure did a nice job, but at the end of the day I care what's inside the case, not how pretty the case is itself.

Hey, I'm not 100% against apple. OSX does have some features that are pretty cool and I wish would come into Windows. My favorite was keeping everything open after restarting, I can't believe Microsoft hasn't thought of that yet as on a Mac you'll pretty much never have to close windows. Also I really liked OSX's Disk Manager over Windows's XP-style Disk Management utility. However Finder and the Dock are absolute disasters. The Finder is so lacking compared to the File Explorer, and the Dock is the most annoying piece of crap I've ever used.

However Windows has always been more customizable and has always had a much larger selection of hardware and software, and that's the main reason I use it. If you feel that spending $5000 on something that will perform worse than a PC that costs $2700 is the best for you then go for it!