Apple Metal GPU: A Game-Changer for Mac Users

As a long-time user of Apple devices, I've always been drawn to their ease of use and seamless integration across various apps. For 99% of my daily tasks, I rely on my trusty Mac, and now with Blender's addition of Metal support, it just got even better.

Let's face it – having a separate PC for using Blender would be excessive and unnecessary. The real advantage of this update lies in making Blender more useful to existing Mac users. No need to worry about buying a new computer, motherboard, CPU, RAM, or storage – the Apple ecosystem has got you covered.

Even if the Nvidia 3090 is faster, what's the point? It's still a significant investment, and the entire Mac Studio M1 Max costs a mere $2,200 for the full CPU and GPU. Yes, it may not be as fast as a $2,500 3090 GPU, but that doesn't mean it's inferior.

For creative professionals like UX designers, graphics designers, or video editors, Blender is an indispensable tool. Whether you need to create 3D animations for packaging labels or UI design, or render accurate motion graphics for FCP projects, Metal support on Apple Silicon takes the cake.

Of course, not everyone needs a computer dedicated solely to Blender. For most people, the majority of the population (99%!), using Blender on Apple Silicon is all about convenience and flexibility. You can use it if you already have a Mac or have other reasons to be a part of the ecosystem.

To test the waters, I ran render benchmarks for all the Splash Screen files listed on the Blender Demo Files page, using my 14-inch MacBook Pro with an M1 Max (10c CPU, 32c GPU, 64GB) running macOS Monterey 12.2.1 and Blender 3.1.

Here are my results:

* OS: macOS Monterey 12.2.1

* Render time:

+ ġ2.3 Won't render properly in Cycles

+ ġ2.2 Won't render properly in Cycles

I set the Scene Render Settings to Cycles, Supported, and GPU Compute for each file, using a fresh download from the Blender site. I also made sure that Metal was selected as the render device under Cycles Render Devices in Blender's preferences.

After upgrading to Monterey 12.3 and rebooting twice, I ran the same test again to ensure consistency. And, yes, I know that selecting 'Experimental' would have given different results, but I wanted to maintain consistency across files.

In conclusion, Apple Metal GPU support is a major win for Mac users who want to take their creative work to the next level with Blender. With its seamless integration and ease of use, it's no wonder that this update has sent waves of excitement through the Blender community.

Apple metal gpu