Rise of Tomb Raider:
iMac Pro versus Mac Pro
April 13th, 2018, by rob-ART morgan, mad scientist
Feral Interactive released Rise of Tomb Raider yesterday. As their latest Metal based game, we jumped at the chance to test on our iMac Pro and two Mac Pros.
GRAPH LEGEND
cMP 12c 1080Ti - 2010 Mac Pro 3.33GHz 12-Core Xeon X5680 CPU, 96GB of 1333MHz DDR3 ECC SDRAM, NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1080 Ti connected to a Dell 5K display with dual DP cables
iMP 8c > eGPU VegaF - 2017 iMac Pro 3.2GHz 8-Core Xeon W-2140B CPU, 32GB of 2666MHz DDR4 ECC SDRAM, Sonnet eGFX Breakaway Box connected to Thunderbolt 3 port with AMD Radeon Vega Frontier (16G) GPU installed and connected to the Dell 5K display with dual DP cables
iMP 8c Pro Vega 64 - 2017 iMac Pro 3.2GHz 8-Core Xeon W-2140B CPU, 32GB of 2666MHz DDR4 ECC SDRAM, AMD Radeon Pro Vega 64 (16GB) GPU
nMP 8c > eGPU VegaF - 2013 Mac Pro 3.0GHz 8-Core Xeon E5-1680 v2 CPU, 64GB of 1866MHz of DDR3 ECC SDRAM, AKiTiO Node Pro connected to Thunderbolt 2 port with AMD Radeon Vega Frontier (16G) GPU installed and connected to the Dell 5K display with dual DP cables
nMP 8c D700 - 2013 Mac Pro 3.0GHz 8-Core Xeon E5-1680 v2 CPU, 64GB of 1866MHz of DDR3 ECC SDRAM, dual AMD FirePro D700s (6GB each) GPUs (ONLY ONE used by Rise of Tomb Raider); display was the LG UltraFine 5K connected to a Thunderbolt 2 port
The graphs below compare the Overall score from the built-in Rise of Tomb Raider Benchmark. In each case, we used High Preset with VSYNC OFF. All Macs were running macOS 10.13.4.
Test at 1920x1080 Fullscreen. (HIGHER Frames Per Second = FASTER)
Test at 2560x1440 Fullscreen. (HIGHER Frames Per Second = FASTER)
Test at 3840x2160 Fullscreen. (HIGHER Frames Per Second = FASTER)
WHAT DID WE LEARN?
The iMac Pro with the optional factory Radeon Pro Vega 64 was fastest running the benchmark at 1920x1080, but the 2010 Mac Pro with the GTX 1080 Ti edged it out at 2560x1440 and dominated at 3840x2160.
We were especially encouraged by how much the eGPU with the AMD Radeon Vega Frontier GPU enhanced the Rise of Tomb Raider performance when connected to the 2013 Mac Pro "Turbo Tube." It produced a 82% to 355% gain over the internal FirePro 700.
BTW, the eGPU boxes are not officially supported on the 2013 Mac Pro running macOS 10.13.4, but, with the help of the PurgeWrangler script in the Software section of egpu.io, we were able to get it working anyway.
The Rise of Tomb Raider built-in benchmark consists of three phases: Mountain Peak, Syria, and Geothermal Valley. Mountain Peak appears to be CPU only. However, the GPU reported a 40 to 60% load in the Syria and Geothermal phases.
The AMD Radeon Vega Frontier is not listed on the Apple eGPU Support page but it worked fine for us in both the Sonnet eGFX Breakaway (475W GPU Max Power) and the AKiTiO Node Pro (400W GPU Max Power). The Vega Frontier specs are similar to the Radeon Vega 64 desktop GPU except it has twice the VRAM (16G) -- matching the VRAM of our iMac Pro's Pro Vega 64.
NOTE: Though we tested using eGPUs, they are not officially supported in any Feral games at the moment. However, Feral are currently testing certain models of eGPU housing in combination with various cards, and once they are in a position to announce official support, they will do so via normal channels. (See system requirements for Rise of Tomb Raider).
Rise of Tomb Raider is a welcome addition to the Metal based family of games.
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