Hello, I have been using SketchUp on MacBook for some time and works well for me, but right now I would like to move to rendering my interior designs by myself. I am aware that it will take some time but will it be ok to render interior design with Vray on Mac? I would buy a new work station for that - right now I am considering iMac M4 10 CPU 10 GPU 24GB RAM - will it suffice?
I would like to stick with macOS, but I am kinda nervous if it is the right way.
Thx in advance
yes. the more RAM the better off course, but yes.
if you can afford the extra 200 to get to 32 it’s even better.
On this forum, not a lot of people are on M4 machines, and of those, not many also make Vray renderings.
I know @colin has such a machine, did you play with the Ray as well?
You should also go check the Vray forums (on their website), see if they have feedback on the M4.
talking price, you can get Vray separately on their website. Or you can get the studio version of sketchup.
It is advertised as windows only, but in fact, it’s only the case for scan essential and revit importer. the Vray part of studio also works on mac, and studio is a bit cheaper than pro + vray. (not a lot, but still)
only limitation is that Studio only allows you to use Vray with sketchup. If you get a separate licence, you can use it with other 3d softwares.
I didn’t wait for M4 and decided to get M2 Max Studio and use VRay and SketchUp. I am very happy with the setup.
Note that the M4 machines will come with Sequoia. This may or may not be a problem, but Sequoia is not officially supported by SKP 2024, although I imagine 2025 will be supported.
I do not do my final renders on my local machine (although the machine it is perfectly capable of the work, as I do all my test renders locally) - I send all client finals to ChaosCloud.
For V-ray there is a significant difference between the M4 and the M4 PRO/MAX - it’s around a 40% improvement for traditional CPU rendering there.
Benchmarks are here. This is basically a measure of how many rays of light it can calculate in 1 minute. Bigger = better
The latest version of V-Ray for Mac can also tap into the GPU part of the M4 processor too and use that for extra help - the M4 Pro has a significantly faster GPU also.
Basically, get a Pro or Max model, those could be as much as 2.5x faster than the regular M4 when it comes to rendering.
Here is a full list of benchmarks across all of the Apple ARM chips
Apple M - V-Ray 6 Benchmark
So you can see whether getting an older model works out more efficient for you
My work Mac is now an M4 MacBook Pro, and I also have an M4 Mac mini. They are fast, but I haven’t yet tried VRay.
So if I am reading this right - the change from M2 MacBook Air to iMac M4 won’t be that much?
well according to the data Adam linked, the M4 is 50% more powerful than the M2.
it’s not nothing.
plus, how many M2 cores, how many M4, how much RAM ? this matters too 
Well the M2 is with 8 core and 8 GB RAM, M4 would be 10 core and 24 GB RAM
The question is - is this upgrade worth it?
yes.
2 cores, sure, that makes a difference.
3 times the RAM that’s something. 8gb is not enough these days anyway. it’s AT LEAST 16gb, but really, minimum 24 if you want to render stuff.
I wouldn’t buy a machine in 2015 with only 8GB of shared memory, let alone 2024.
The Operating system will use half of that immediately and you can use the rest up with a SketchUp model and a few browser tabs open.
If you are rendering in v-ray you’ll need more again.
8GB is not enough
What @Elmtec-Adam wrote is especially important with Apple silicon because it is physically impossible to increase the memory with an M chip. Only someone doing extremely light use could get by with just 8GB.
