Mac Pro and Logic Pro X performance...

I'm running Logic 10.2.4 on a Mac Pro and I wanna see how much it can handle before breaking up, CPU overlaod...

Refer to the screenshot. Why is onely one thread taking all the load and the other ones are barely moving??

Mac Pro specs are :

Try deselecting the Stereo Out.

Create a new audio track and select it instead. You can set its input to none too.

Let me try it.

In the meantime, would you say the upcoming Macbook Pro's 2.9GHz quad core intel core i7 processor turbo boost up to 3.8GHz is a better option than the 2.7GHz 12-core with 30MB of L3 cache currently in my Mac Pro?

Although I can't reply to this sort of thing authoritatively, intuitively I would think that "12 cores" is better than "4 cores" despite a slight difference in clock speed.  As long as the amount of RAM is equivalent (and generous ...).

I-f there's enough available RAM to actually let all 12 cores "do their thing," they actually are able to "compute, simultaneously."  And, Logic will detect those cores and assign threads to them.

Nevertheless ... "judicious use of 'BIP = bounce in place' is actually not such a bad thing."  Although "a monster machine with impressive credentials" can of course do a monstrous amount of work "in real time," it really only takes a few moments off off-line processing to substitute a BIP audio-track for that portion of the "monstrous computing load."  Logic was obviously designed to make that a very easy thing to do, and there's a reason for that . . . 

Let me try it.

 

In the meantime, would you say the upcoming Macbook Pro's 2.9GHz quad core intel core i7 processor turbo boost up to 3.8GHz is a better option than the 2.7GHz 12-core with 30MB of L3 cache currently in my Mac Pro?

It depends on the application.

The i7 smokes the Mac Pro in single core performance. This can be quite significant if your primary goal is to record Software Instruments with the lowest amount of latency.

Another thing to keep in mind is that the 12 core Xeon processor in the Mac Pro is the slowest performing single core (even restricted multi-core) of all Mac Pros (It's has significantly slower turbo boost).

The 12 core Mac Pro is however much better when the application/task is perfectly optimised for multi core. i.e. Rendering a video clip or transcoding is much faster on a 12 core than on an 8 core.

Seconding Eric, as is illustrated on your above picture and is implicit in Eric's 1st answer, there are situations where Logic does not (or even possibly cannot) split signal treatment across several cores, for instance where you have a track implying CPU intensive tasks that is selected, in which case the whole bunch of these tasks is processed within the same thread, therefore the same core (thus the suggestion to create a dummy track with "no output" to be used as selected track).

That's why shere single core performance is important for any software monitoring (of a track with CPU intensive plugins) or live playing/recording of CPU-intensive instruments (since in both cases you need that track to be selected), and will be even more emphasized if you set small buffer sizes for low latency purposes.

So basically what you guys are saying is, I was completely misguided into buying the 12 core instead of the i7?

Just to clarify what I need mostly is 100+ tracks of Kontakt running orchestral libraries and yes plenty of plugins for creative processing.

 Given your goal, and the fact that your Kontack tracks are played in parallel no matter what, it means that their own workload should be spread fairly evenly across the 12 cores, and in that case 12 is better if you mean to have 100+ of them. What may affect that is whether the plenty of plugins are used fairly evenly on your tracks. If very unevently, then single core performance would matter a bit. A more-or-less complex signal flow (tracks feeding busses feeding other busses, for instance) may also affect this.

Bottom line, in your situation with a massive use of a huge number of instruments, in most cases you should be better off with the highest number of cores.

As regards RAM, more is always better when a lot of parallel virtual samplers (as is your case) are involved, although I think that 64GB is possible largely more than what you truly use. It might be interesting to check RAM use in the Activity Monitor utility when you open a massive project of yours, to see what your true use is. 

I bought the 6 core 2015 mac pro and put in 64 gig memory.. Occasionally I get  half of memory used..  I run up to 130 tracks..  (about 60 of them Kontakt or other virtual instruments..  Invariably as i get towards 40 or so virtual tracks Logic starts getting weird.. and takes  a while for audio core to completely boot up.. At that point I have to raise the buffer size,

I like to keep song in live MIDI format for as long as possible, to make adjustments etc..  I then make channel strips and instrument presets, and name channel strip in midi region.  I then turn the most CPU intensive instruments to audio, and reset channel strip to keep going..  

The price increase for 12 cores is monumental.. and don't forget you're gonna have to switch over to Thunderbolt,,  I  bought two Thunderbay 4 RAID systems..  This mac pro design is 3 years old (I tried to hold off, but 2008 mac pro  completely died)..  I'm not sure if I would buy a 12 core now.  Don't know when they will update MacPro..  And audio is  pretty cpu lightweight compared to video..  

It's hard to figure out.  I posed the question last year and got 3 answers with the set-up I had..  Other people including Apple salesmen told me everything from a Laptop, to 12 cores was exactly what I needed..  More ram is an important factor..  

If on some of your projects you use half of the Mac Pro's 64GB available RAM, then it's a showstopper if you consider moving to the new MBP since, as you originally pointed out, it only has only 16GB. These projects won't properly load on your MBP unless you convert some of your virtual instruments to plain audio tracks first. It's not a matter of CPU, it's because you must be using huuuuge sample libraries in your VIs (Kontakt or otherwise). I must admit I'm surprise you use so much RAM, but if that's a fact, so be it.

It's true that the MPro design is quite old now, but all in all for the time being you're probably better off sticking to it given your workflow as you describe it above.  

It's true that the MPro design is quite old now, but all in all for the time being you're probably better off sticking to it given your workflow as you describe it above.  

I agree. Stick with the Mac Pro. I don't think 4-cores and 16 gigs of ram will replace it.