A Flood of Fawning Reviews For Apple's Latest 501
Posted
by
timothy
from the nifty-design dept.
from the nifty-design dept.
Like many other review sites, it seems that MacWorld can hardly find enough good things to say about the new Mac Pro, even while conceding it's probably not right for many users. 9to5 Mac has assembled a lot of the early reviews, including The Verge's, which has one of the coolest shots of its nifty design, which stacks up well against the old Pro's nifty design. The reviews mostly boil down to this: If you're in a field where you already make use of a high-end Mac for tasks like video editing, the newest one lives up to its hype.
Will it blend? (Score:5, Funny)
But the question we all want to know the answer to is: will it blend?
Re: (Score:2)
No but I'm sure I could use it to keep my sailboat anchored out in the bay.
Re:Will it blend? (Score:5, Informative)
Re: Will it blend? (Score:5, Funny)
Color me surprised
Would you like RGB, CMYK, or Lab with that?
Re: Will it blend? (Score:4, Insightful)
Maya and Flame are not as well. So this gives Blender a HUGE advantage over those Multi thousand dollar packages.
Re: (Score:3)
You have been able to do that for years. The problem isn't the equipment. It's the skill set of the people involved.
Mac Pro icon for OS X (Score:4, Informative)
How can I replace my OS X trashcan icon with a small Mac Pro?
http://jonathanhirz.com/macprotrash-icon/ [jonathanhirz.com]
It's pretty neat (Score:4, Insightful)
I read the review on the Mac CAD site a few days ago. They go into the GPU performance, and it looks like if you need the GPU offerings they are bundling, it's not a horrible deal. One supposes if you're into something specific like Mac CAD, then your CAD software will be updated to take advantage of that specific hardware, because it's a closed ecosystem. If you're an architect invested in a Mac workflow, then dropping $2-3K per year on your main desktop doesn't sound horrible.
As a no-longer-an-Apple-guy, I might be interested in seeing a standards develop for commodity parts that used the tower cooling design. My big old LianLi Al case certainly takes up too much desk space. Then again, I should stick it in a closet and use a KVM extender, shouldn't I?
Re: (Score:3)
Are you really that uninformed about it? The thing is silent compared to anything else out there with even 1/2 it's processing and video power.
Re:legs (Score:4)
It's obvious that you are grossly ignorant about Macs.
If the reviews are fully accurate (no reason to believe otherwise), the only thing quieter than the new Mac Pro would be the original Mac Cube (which had no cooling fans at all, so you only heard something if you held your ear reaally close to it...)
Hell, even my old dual 2004-era G5 PowerMac (with, no shit, NINE Fans!) was quieter than most PC-style desktops. You only heard it if you really shoved the CPU cycles (e.g. rendering a highly complex 1080p-sized Bryce scene in a very hot room at full-rez w/ all options cranked to '11' would do it), or if you opened both outer and inner cases while it was running.
Re: (Score:3)
I like my Coolermaster HAF X.
Since it's the biggest thing in the room, at Christmas, I just hang lights and ornaments on it. Last year, when I came downstairs on Christmas morning, Santa Claus was sitting there, playing Far Cry 3, drunk as a skunk. He wanted me to drive him downtown to cop some coke, but no way am I going to that neighborhood with a fat SOB in a red suit and a big sack of presents.
I made him some coffee and eggs and put him in a cab. I never knew if he got home OK because there's no cell
Advancing in what direction? (Score:4, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I do video editing and while I don't current need a new workstation, I see no problem with it. Neither me, nor my colleagues keep anything internal. All work goes on external or networked drives.
Re:Advancing in what direction? (Score:4, Insightful)
Why are you shooting holes in his imaginary use cases? Don't you know Apple has to sell a computer for every category out there?! If not, Apple is doomed! DOOMED I TELL YOU!!!!
Re: (Score:3)
Show me a Mac that supports Crossfire or SLI.
2 Video cards does not mean SLI, especially on Macs.
Re:Advancing in what direction? (Score:4, Insightful)
I think you hit the nail on the head. It would be nice to have had the canister Mac Pro be sold as a workstation, and the old tower with the ability to use expansion cards be made into a case that could function as a tower, or rack ears attached and put in that way.
Heck, Compaq was able to do this with some of their Deskpros in the mid-1990s (IIRC), and Sun had kits for this for various Ultra models... I don't see why Apple couldn't offer this, so they have at least some presence in a server room without a major hassle.
This cylinder looks cool, but for someone with FPGA boards [1], being limited to the relatively few PCIe lanes that Thunderbolt exposes to the breakout box will be a hurdle compared to just sticking the card into the case and going from there.
[1]: Not for BitCoin mining, although when not in use, that has come to mind.
Re:Advancing in what direction? (Score:5, Interesting)
People aren't buying the old one. Apple's customers don't want the size.
So, Apple's typical customer cares more about aesthetic than usefulness?
10 years ago that would have been a solid burn (because it wasn't really true); today, when I take into consideration the people I know who tend to buy Apple products*, I'd say it's a far more true statement than ever before.
* Other than the handful of graphic designers and musicians, myself included.
Re:Advancing in what direction? (Score:4, Interesting)
-- So, Apple's typical customer cares more about aesthetic than usefulness?
I'd say yes and I'm an Apple customer. The iPhone makes huge sacrifices for weight and thin. The rMBP makes huge sacrifices for weight and thin. the iMac. Yes, absolutely. aesthetics are a big part of what Apple sells.
Re:Advancing in what direction? (Score:5, Insightful)
But "weight and thin" on a phone or laptop are not aesthetics, they are FEATURES. Good features that most people want.
Weight and thin, on the other hand, are not particularly useful features on a workstation. There, on the other hand, they are mostly aesthetics...
Re: (Score:3)
Well then:
We know people didn't want the old one. The old one had lots of utility but:
a) The price was high
b) The case was ugly
OTOH in the used market you could get some fantastic deals. Which indicates that either:
i) The case was ugly was the big problem
ii) They just didn't need the power at all. There simply is no high end workstation market anymore. A good quality desktop is good enough for almost everyone.
I don't see any other alternative. What Apple is offering is a unit with terrific aesthetic
Re: (Score:3)
Yeah, and don't discount the fact that many who use high end workstations are designers, video editors, and/or just basic web developers (with no real need for them anyway!) working at companies with just plain too much money to spend. And as far as aesthetics - go into a well-funded startup office these days, and it's absurd where that VC money is really going...
I have a maxed out nearly new Macbook Pro for work that I use for development (has Win7, Win8 and Fedora 18 on it, etc). When the company decide
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Well most of the people using the Old Mac Pro were using external storage anyway...
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For everyone except the professionals there really is no need for a tower anymore. I see more and more people using laptops instead of desktop peecee's. It's a niche market nowadays.
Re:Advancing in what direction? (Score:5, Insightful)
For everyone except the professionals there really is no need for a tower anymore. I see more and more people using laptops instead of desktop peecee's. It's a niche market nowadays.
Well sure, but in my experience most of the people who want the tower want it for the expandability factor.
Otherwise, why bother paying a premium for what is essentially a laptop, except you can't take it anywhere?
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Hard to find a laptop with that kind of punch.
The base model, quad-core Mac Pro starts at $3,000.
If you can't "find a laptop with that kind of punch" for 3 grand or less, you're not looking very hard.
Smaller is more useful (Score:3)
So, Apple's typical customer cares more about aesthetic than usefulness?
Smaller in just about any area of computing, IS more useful.
I had a Mac Pro at one point, and the only thing I ever really put into the case was more hard drives. But external cases are really better for that anyway because they are easier to get to, as long as you don't lose any speed accessing external storage - which you do not with thunderbolt (or heck even with USB 3.0 if you are talking spinning media).
The new Mac Pro is more use
You really can't understand the desire for small? (Score:3)
So, you really think a netbook is inherently more useful than, say, a 16" Alienware powerhouse?
That is a bad comparison because it misses the point of WHEN smaller is better. Smaller is better if you have enough (or more) compute power in the smaller item to do the same job as the larger one.
I had a Mac Pro myself; it was a beast. It was hard to move around if I needed to, and harder to get to hard drives to add or replace. For what most people do with workstations these days, smaller is more useful - b
Re:Advancing in what direction? (Score:4, Interesting)
The used MacPros were an insanely good deal relative to comparable PC workstations or current iMacs. And frankly not a bad deal relative to PCs. So no, that's not true. They didn't run the latest OSX, but they would run Windows or Linux just fine if you didn't want to be stuck.
Re:Advancing in what direction? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Advancing in what direction? (Score:4, Insightful)
Couple things to note. What are you comparing this to? An average Dell/HP PC or a proper "workstation" from these companies like the HP Z820? Because if you are comparing a regular desktop, you're not comparing Apples to Apples here (pardon the pun). Chances are if you aren't looking at the Z820
In the industries these machines are used in and targeted towards have moved to external storage arrays/SANS/NAS. What the internal hard drive(s) have doesn't matter so long as it's enough to install their main programs on. Even the smaller shops I know doing video production have at least a 20TB array, most are around 50TB these days.
When you start comparing the MacPro's against machines like the Z820 the MacPro's pricing is competitive. I believe the Z820 with a single 3GB Nvidia Quadro card is around $4k.
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One thing that isn't brought up enough when discussing external expansion is external power supplies. So much for compact size.
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My 2006 core2 duo idled at 160W. Im not sure that its terribly impressive that theyre doing 167 in 2012, or that 44W is that impressive given the power features of most new video cards and Intel CPUs. Basically nothing in a modern SSD-based tower uses any significant electricity when idling.
Re:Advancing in what direction? (Score:4, Funny)
Oh shoot. I'll definitely not be getting the new Mac Pro then. I was hoping my next computer would justify putting a rack in my living room, right next to the Cray I bought on ebay.
Re: (Score:3)
Why are you trying to rackmount them? What person tries to use graphics workstations as servers?
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6 ThunderBolt 2 sockets
that are working off of up to 3 over all TB channels each one with it's own UP TO pci-e 2.0 X4 link.
so you thing that repleting a lot of slots with a system that maxes out about 12 pci-e 2.0 lanes is good? But at the max one device can only use X4 pci-e max and at the same time tie up the full channel that it is on.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
But... but... if I needed it, my Mac daddy would tell me and market it to me cause they totally want me to have the best experience ever.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
There's actually a third-party rack in the works for these. Think of something like a wine rack, but designed to hold these instead.
Re: (Score:3)
I miss the Xserves too, but Apple just wasn't selling enough of them to justify the engineering time required to stay in that line of business.
-jcr
Re:Advancing in what direction? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3)
Too bad ... the fact that lots of media people use Apple gear is what got them the billions of dollars of free marketing for the iToys. There's more than a few of them fed up, it seems, and the fawning over Apple seems to have stopped. Many seem quite fed up with the change in direction.
Re:Advancing in what direction? (Score:4, Interesting)
Apple is making their classic mistake again, but this time they are probably going to overstep too far to be saved.
You keep on telling yourself that. The general PC market has been shrinking year over year recently, precisely two manufacturers have been resisting the trend: Lenovo & Apple, but your basement analysis will turn that around and bring back the glory days of the beige boxes. Much as with the MBA, Apple is just ahead of the curve and the people too set in their ways to see it are criticizing what they do not understand.
Re: (Score:3)
Expansion slots are more necessary now than 6 years ago? Lol, you're deluded. What exactly (besides storage) did you need a slot for 6 years ago that is not present in the Mac Pro? The only thing I am aware of is video input & that has been announced as an external thunderbolt/usb3 connected box.
There is no longer the need to have a vacuum cleaner sized device (with the equivalent noise level) for slots that are no longer needed nor wanted.
Remember this moment. In 6 years look at your computer. It will
Totally False (Score:3)
Apple's mantra is to make one really easy way to do things they think people want to do and at first, that does draw people in, but as they start to get comfortable and try to push the boundaries, they realize they can't.
That is 100% wrong, and a complete misunderstanding of what Apple does - even in fact why Apple products are popular.
Apple optimizes for the easy case, yes. But to make something REALLY easy requires a ton of complexity underneath, which they expose to those interested or technically incl
Re: (Score:3)
There are a few things to consider.
Every year, Apple sells more and more iPhones.
Everyone else is counting Android activation, which includes those TV sticks, tablets that don't do anything, and so on.
Smartphones include high end smartphones, mid end smart phones, and low ends, which are just used as feature phones.
Feature phones are not worth crap to the user (in terms of smartphone features - obviously they function OK as a *CELL PHONE*), or the manufacturer. Only cell phone companies like them.
You could
Re:Advancing in what direction? (Score:5, Interesting)
Rackable? It's a workstation not a server.
Internal expansion is the dirty past. Let it go. It's about as relevant electric drill attachments for sawing and sanding.
Yeah. Rackable. A lot of these types of machines are used by mobile production crews. With the 2010 MacPro you had to saw the handles off the case to get it to fit some sort of portable form factor (mobile racks). With this one, it's a step in the wrong direction. Sure, the BASE UNIT is quite hand-portable. But you then have to deal with all the peripheral devices that used to be able to mount inside a normal case.
Previously, you could simply drop your portable rack, pop the ends off, plug in power, a monitor and maybe network and go.
Now, you have to either hand-carry or unpack multiple devices just to get the same functionality.
Total memory is the significant metric, not the number of slots it fits into. And that's 12/16 GB vs 6/12GB for the older versions.
Sockets? The old Mac Pro didn't have any ThunderBolt sockets. This one has 6 ThunderBolt 2 sockets (supporting up to 36 devices).
It also has 4 USB 3 sockets (vs 5 USB 2 sockets on the old model.) Which presumably is the straw you're clutching.
Your complaints are without merit.
I think the term you're looking at is "desktop clutter". Being able to hook up umpty-jillion EXTERNAL devices is not a decent tradeoff for someone trying to get a nice, single-case solution.
I simply don't understand why Apple has such a hard on for their systems looking like an octopus.
Re: (Score:3)
I don't get it. The only thing this thing is missing, compared to the old Mac Pro, is expandable internal storage. *ONE* extra thunderbolt wire is going to add that much to the clutter?
You still needed power, monitor and USB cables with the old Mac Pros, so it's not like those cables weren't used.
One more extra external drive cable, if you don't use NAS/SAN is going to clutter up your desktop that much?
Seriously?
Re: (Score:3)
No, you have one cable running from the Mac Pro to your rack with storage and monitor (thunderbolt)... the mouse and keyboard are of course wireless.
The Mac Pro means fewer, or at worst the same number of cables as you had before (because anyone serious was using external storage anyway). Only with a lot less weight and bulk to cart around.
Re:Advancing in what direction? (Score:5, Insightful)
Because it's not a piece of art. It's a tool.
If you read the Verge article it talks about Apple having talked with people and horror stories of people sawing the handles off their old Mac Pros so they could fit into a rackmount.
This is kind of important for crews with large amounts of equipment, as hand-carrying every...individual...component...is about the stupidest possible way to do it. Being able to rack a complete solution just makes more sense. You drop the case where it needs to go, plug it into power and a monitor and go.
With the new version, you pull out your "case O' stuff", unpack the Mac. Unpack the first peripheral, unpack the second peripheral, unpack the third peripheral...and so on. Y'know, DUMB.
Apple may have listened. But they apparently didn't hear a damn thing.
Re:Advancing in what direction? (Score:5, Insightful)
Customers telling Apple what they want is not Apple's business model.
Re:Advancing in what direction? (Score:4, Informative)
We can assume you don't do any pro video work (In the field or in the studio). In the new one you pull out your case, plug the single thunderbolt cable into the back and call it a day.. Several companies already make portable racks preconfigured with the thunderbolt cable and everything.
Re:Advancing in what direction? (Score:4, Informative)
That is talking about the OLD times when you could not get a laptop that could do field editing. Today you would be a fool to try and carry that with you for a field shot that needed editing, every crew I see uses laptops. I have not seen what the Verge article talks about in over 5 years now. You can carry your entire editing suite + storage + backup drives all in a backpack.
This is 2013 absolutely nobody drags a huge rack of gear on location anymore for field editing.
Re:Advancing in what direction? (Score:5, Insightful)
With upwards of 32GB sitting on one DIMM these days, ever think there might not be a need for 16 fucking DIMM slots anymore? Just a thought.
This makes the dangerous assumption that the memory needs of applications will remain the same going into the future. In three or four years when applications make use of more memory, you will be buying a new Macintosh. Oh, I see how that works.
Re: (Score:3)
Me.
External 4xSATA drive enclosure, with an eSATA connection. Mac pros have no eSATA port. So I used a PCI-e eSATA adaptor.
The solution on the new macs would be to use a thunderbolt enclosure. Which works, but is also hugely more expensive. By an order of magnitude.
Re: (Score:3)
You may enjoy reading a comparison here:
http://slashdot.org/submission/3217733/high-end-mac-pro-is-40-cheaper-than-what-you-can-build-it-for [slashdot.org]
Re: (Score:3)
Video editing... (Score:4, Insightful)
The whole superiority of Apple might have been true many years ago, but now it's just nonsense. You can get a Windows machine with the same hardware specs for half the price with the same software (unless you insist on using Final Cut).
Video editing in particular is a poor example, as it doesn't have critical latency requirements - and pretty much all recent benchmarks show that Windows does a little better across the board.
Audio is a better example, because on an unmodified Windows install, live audio WILL have worse latency and WILL have a very high chance of dropouts when compared to Apple. A tweaked Windows install will be on par.
I am no MS shill - I just believe in using the right tool for the job, and fanboys by definition don't believe in facts.
Re: Video editing... (Score:2, Informative)
Re: Video editing... (Score:5, Informative)
I've just specced out a Dell, and the Dell is $1016 more expensive. Add to that, the Mac Pro only consumes 450w versus the Dell's 1500w, which in turn will save $1040/year in power.
While the others will probably come down in price in a few weeks to months, at this moment Apple does have the edge on price.
Now, when you compare to build-it-yourself, you are absolutely correct that Apple is more expensive, but so is everyone else too.
I can believe the pricing (though I had a hard time finding a Dell with equivalent specs - can you post the configuration here?), but I'm having a hard time believing that a Dell with equivalent hardware specs to the Mac Pro uses 3 times more power, since the underlying hardware is, well, equivalent.
Also that pricing is misleading (Score:4, Informative)
Apple fans love to demand an "equal for equal" spec for comparisons, but that's silly. Party of the reason Macs often cost so much is you have to get a ton of shit you don't need. Ya, dual video cards cost a lot. Guess what? Next to nobody needs them. If you don't, they are wasted money. In a Dell, you just don't order one. With Apple? You get what you get and fuck you otherwise.
So they often lose out on pricing bigtime when you compare actual task needs. Like let's say I need a system with a fast CPU and reasonable bit of RAM. I want to run some Cadence (ok you can't do that on a Mac, but whatever). A fast quad core and 32-64GB of RAM. The Mac Pro is good there. However video needs are minimal, integrated graphics is fine, as is a $50 GPU. Oh, well there I'm screwed. While the dual GPUs won't hurt, they won't buy me anything either. So I'm paying for them and can't make use of them.
That is a problem, if money matters at least. You want to spend it on the useful things, and save it on the shit you don't need.
Re: Video editing... (Score:5, Informative)
If you want to talk about power supplies... You are confusing the maximum available spec with the normal power draw of the system. I have an 800W power supply in my reasonably overpowered Wintel gaming box. It draws ~160W during normal use, up to 300W while gaming. Most people will be fine with a 450W power supply unless they add a whole bunch of extra hardware, especially hard drives. The other benefit you usually see with a higher-wattage power supply is that it's typically built with better power filtering and more efficient components, so you would save money with a more efficient power supply even though it is rated for higher maximum available power. It's not totally intuitive. The more you know!
$1040/year in power? (Score:5, Funny)
Re: Video editing... (Score:5, Informative)
The Dell consumes 1500W, or it has a 1500W power supply? Those are not the same thing.
Re: Video editing... (Score:5, Insightful)
Add to that, the Mac Pro only consumes 450w versus the Dell's 1500w,
Neither computer even draws anywhere close to 450w in normal operation, probably closer to 150w at idle, and maybe a little higher when working. You have amusingly confused a lower quality PSU to a much higher quality one, and in true Apple fashion picked which ever one goes in the Macintosh as better. The Apple has lower peak power needs because it has no internal expansion space, so instead you will be bleeding power from the various wall warts and power dongles that come with external accessories.
Re: (Score:3)
Re: Video editing... (Score:4, Insightful)
Having a 450w PSU vs 1500w PSU doesn't mean that your computer will actually consume that much electricity.
That said if you're insistent on buying the Apple is rather proves the point that intelligence is really not a required attribute of the buyers of that system.
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THe claims about Mac's supposedly superior power consumption are hillarious. Ive seen like 3 or 4 people post here about how awesome the new Mac Pro's 44W power usage metric are.
NEWS FLASH: All Haswell-based platforms are going to have incredible power consumption:
http://www.anandtech.com/show/7003/the-haswell-review-intel-core-i74770k-i54560k-tested/2 [anandtech.com]
Re: Video editing... (Score:5, Funny)
I just submitted a link earlier today - the Appleinsider guys spec'ed out a build it yourself computer with the same specs as the high end $10k Mac Pro and it ended up costing them $14,300. That, and your $1k/year in power savings, is quite a bit of TCO savings, for someone who can use that kind of a system.
http://slashdot.org/submission/3217733/high-end-mac-pro-is-40-cheaper-than-what-you-can-build-it-for [slashdot.org]
Re: Video editing... (Score:3, Informative)
Equivalent video cards alone cost $1400 or so, so you most definitely cannot build an equivalent pc or half the price. Perhaps you could wind up cheaper, but not nearly by as much as you suggest.
Re: (Score:3)
Audio is a better example, because on an unmodified Windows install, live audio WILL have worse latency and WILL have a very high chance of dropouts when compared to Apple. A tweaked Windows install will be on par.
My experience tells me otherwise: Regardless of how much I tinkered with it, Neither XP or 7 could deliver acceptable latency with either the Rocksmith 1/4" TS cable, nor my Korg K49.
the 2008 model Macbook I was given, however, syncs both up perfectly; albeit not at the same time, but I'm pretty convinced that's either a software issue (Garageband seems to play better with multiple USB input devices than Logic), or just good ol' fashioned user incompetence.
Re: (Score:3)
" You can get a Windows machine with the same hardware specs for half the price "
no you cant. Show me a build of the mac pro with Two of the equivalent video cards for HALF PRICE. Because if you do you will make a lot of people really happy.
Re:Video editing... (Score:4, Insightful)
You are confusing tools for professionals with overpriced doo-dads intended to fool other people into believing that you are wealthy.
Re:Video editing... (Score:5, Insightful)
[quote]
You are confusing tools for professionals with overpriced doo-dads intended to fool other people into believing that you are wealthy.
[/quote]
Annual cost of a dog: $695 (http://xkcd.com/980/)
Cost of an iPhone: $699
A daily pack of cigarettes per year: $3,050
Cost of a Mac Pro: $2,999
Ergo, Apple products do not make you look wealthy.
Re: (Score:3)
No.
Sorry, but no. Harbor Freight shit is nowhere near SnapOn.
You obviously do not use tools to make your living, or you wouldn't utter such nonsense.
Unless you're being facetious... maybe? :)
Not a great value, in my opinion (Score:5, Informative)
- Only a single CPU, despite using the more expensive line of dual-CPU capable Xeon E5 processors (so you are paying for the added circuitry to handle dual procs without the corresponding benefit).
- Dual video cards, despite this not being a gaming system. Granted, some media editing applications can utilize multiple GPUs for computing - like Adobe Premiere Pro CC - but many cannot, and even ones that can don't necessarily get a doubling of performance from the second card.
- Only room inside for a single drive, so any serious storage has to be external (adding wires and cluttering up things, rather than saving space like this small form factor seems to be designed for).
- 64GB of RAM maximum, despite the CPU's ability to handle more.
- Upgrades overpriced... and this is coming from someone who works at a custom system builder, and we sometimes get dinged by folks for charging more than Newegg. Obviously things like labor, support, warranty, etc have to be factored into the parts costs, but Apple charges more than any other company I've seen for that 'value add' (this is not new news, though - just a continuation of what they have always done).
I've already had customers of mine asking for price and performance comparisons, and the good news? We always come out on top! I love PCs :)
Re:Not a great value, in my opinion (Score:5, Informative)
This is a bit of a bummer, but I think they nonetheless went with the Xeons over the desktop-class Intel processors because of the support for ECC RAM.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
They could have gone with the cheaper Xeons. Not all the Xeons are dual-socket.
Re:Not a great value, in my opinion (Score:5, Insightful)
You know, if you don't put your computer in a miniature trashcan, you can install a more efficient cooling system.
Re:Not a great value, in my opinion (Score:4, Interesting)
Adobe Premier doesn't use the second video card. It barely uses the first one. It pegs the CPU.
Apparently Final Cut X (whatever that is) is the only video editing software that features optimizations that make use of all this hardware. It's apparently wicked fast, but people hate Final Cut X. Apparently, Final Cut 7 was great, but X blows, despite running like a champ on this system.
My head did almost asplode when I saw the price tag, though. I guess the barebones model isn't that overpriced at $3k, but the configurations they mention weighing in around $10k sound like hilariously bad deals.
Re:Not a great value, in my opinion (Score:4, Insightful)
Final Cut Pro X changed the game significantly which upset all the entrenched pros. The changes take relearning and people do not like that unless they were really upset with their previous workflow (like everybody was before FCP, even Avid which was great but it cost way too much!) People liked their FCP 7 workflow.
The main reason pros were upset with Final Cut Pro is they removed all the hardware and high end features from the software. Your expensive camera gear was rendered useless because FCPX was file based and didn't care about film or magnetic tapes which all the pros had much more money invested in. The Mac and FCP is cheap compared to all the other gear.
Pros who make $$ think little of blowing $10k on a new workstation. Apple ALWAYS has high end configurations for people who just want the maxed out system and money is not an issue...
As for the base models, Apple has always had static pricing and rarely lowers price points during the life of the model. When they introduce something it usually has a fair market price with the PC world, on rare occasions it is better. I've spec'd out PCs with the same stuff and they can come out to be more-- usually because Apple has some unusual option that costs a bundle to replicate. I can't buy workstation cards like those for the prices apple is getting them at. I have a workstation card NOW and even though it is 6 years old it beats the stock GPUs that come with many new consumer machines.
When I was in the tv industry, we would retask or just resell the mac -- macs have crazy resale value! You don't need to upgrade anything, just buy new and ebay the old model-- it'll cost you less, if you value your time-- I've had times where it only cost $250 to upgrade to the newer mac. Also, the benefits of going from a $1500 GPU to the next $1500 every year are not usually worth it... (but selling the old card it likely going to cost you as much as if you just did the whole mac at the same time.)
GPU cards for OpenCL (Score:4, Interesting)
Dual video cards, despite this not being a gaming system. Granted, some media editing applications can utilize multiple GPUs for computing - like Adobe Premiere Pro CC - but many cannot
On the other hand if there are a lot of professional systems that have a ton of power available to those that program in OpenCL, might not we see a new class of accelerated applications?
If nothing else it will probably get Blender to support OpenCL.
Apple has historically tried to promote a more advanced standard to make possible applications that are not written yet, but can be with new technologies.
And while currently not everything uses OpenCL, now there is powerful motivation to do so. But Photoshop, Aperture and Final Cut all make use of this hardware so there's lots of people that will benefit.
The video cards are really dumb (Score:5, Insightful)
Since they aren't upgradable. The thing is video cards get obsolete quicker than the rest of a system. This looks like it may be starting to change, but so far, they are the component that benefits from the most frequent updates. You want to buy less video card more often for optimal performance. This is true for gaming, 3D visualization, CUDA, whatever.
Well here you've two high end cards, which would imply high end tasks... and no way to replace them when the time comes. That is not a good situation. I mean I suppose you can replace the whole system, but that is rather wasteful. It is also predicated on a new replacement being available and Apple has shown a lack of interest in keeping the Mac Pro line up to date.
To me, this looks more like a shiny toy that people want to show off. "Oh look, I have the most powerful system EVAR! It is amazing!" rather than any consideration of usefulness for a workset, which is what a workstation should be.
Also what the people who are playing the price comparison minuta game miss is that yes, it isn't a bad price provided you need precisely what it is providing, but as the parent pointed out that is rare. The idea with an expensive workstation should be you get the components you need, not the ones you don't. Two GPUs might be great for videogames, they are useless for 3D EM simulation. Conversely 64GB is more than you can use for any game, but is entry level for 3D EM work, you could use 256GB or more for many simulations.
When you are spending multi-thousands on a workstation, it really should be custom to order. The money should go where it is useful to your application set. Trying to have an "everything and the kitchen sink" approach and then saying everyone should meet that is silly.
Sheer ridiculous stupidity... (Score:5, Informative)
...coming from someone with a 2012 Mac Pro dual hex core.
I know it's been said before, but for God's sake people - paying Apple's RIDICULOUS prices for SSD, RAM, processors, is just insane.
I like OSX, and Apple's laptops are sometimes the best choice, but as a desktop or dev box? Last choice by a wide margin. I only had to buy one for very specific (unhappy about it) reason and hopefully will never need to buy one again.
Just an example of the obscene pricing from Apple, 24GB of RAM from Apple was going to cost me almost $2000 at the time. TWO THOUSAND DOLLARS. I bought better RAM, ending up with 26GB, with better performance and all the same trimmings (ECC et cetera), and it cost me $400.
I wonder if their SSDs are made out of solid gold as well... Oh, and good luck with upgrading your graphics card in a year.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: Sheer ridiculous stupidity... (Score:2, Informative)
32GB is $400.
64GB is $1200.
Re:Sheer ridiculous stupidity... (Score:5, Informative)
Try again... Go price a PCI connected SSD that can do 1200MB/sec. There are several available from Intel, FusionIO, and others. You will find that they are more expensive than what apple is offering. A 1TB Intel is around $3500
Re: (Score:3)
Actually, it's worse than I thought. An 800GB intel is $4575.
http://www.serversdirect.com/components/drives?PageSize=10&CurrentPage=1&f=d009c317-95b0-4676-9937-fbe4692b623f+bde97a67-549f-4493-aa82-c2512f98619c [serversdirect.com]|6e112ca4-0f29-4068-82df-54be3f465864+6cf1a74d-d93b-4765-b5cb-9e4e2c2c8cf6|9b473e27-c1d5-42f3-b1ea-553fd08ee8e5+559396bd-4999-4f6f-8f25-c1bc348fd49f|060c2fbe-a817-491e-a78f-e50acef28521+8451ff7a-4982-445a-8ad7-ad4f609de97b|
I wish Apple would stop wasting time... (Score:5, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3)
Quite possibly the dumbest thing I've ever heard. Do 17" laptops still exist?
Yup, my wife has a 17" Dell from maybe 2-3 years ago.
I find the full keyboard w/ 10-key awful damn handy.
$3k (Score:2)
$3k for a quad core, 3.7GHz processor, 12G of RAM, a decent SSD and other gubbins.
I know that raw specs aren't everything (noise, is important), but hells bells that is not a lot of bang for the buck. Amazon says an i7 3.2GHz 16GB mac mini costs $1200. So, the Pro has substantially better graphics. But even so. This seems to be aimed at the niche of people who need a portable desktop. Which makes sense since Apple don't make a luggable, but it looks like they're still missing a workstation.
From other vendor
Re:$3k (Score:5, Insightful)
You need to look a lot closer at the specs...
CPU upgrade priceing a big ripoff (Score:2)
talking about $800+ over the cost of buying the chip on it's own and that is not counting the cost of the build in base cpu.
Memory seem to be not that bad but the base is only 3 of 4 channels.
at that price why no mouse / keyboard? (Score:2)
Come on apple do you really to save the $50 (high end estimate) on an 3K+ system?
Expensive Garbage Can ? (Score:2)
Personally I don't like anything about it except for the dual-gpu support. I love the old Mac Pro / PowerMac G5 chassis series. Because I'm always like "fuck it, I've got room" when it comes to desktops and their largitude. I h
Re: (Score:3)
If you know about hard drive failure rates, the new design is an even better idea - putting large hard drives in external cases where it's easier to swap them out.
The internal storage is all very fast SSD, and doesn't really have the same level of failure rate as a spinning disk.
Apple's NeXT Mac Pro.... (Score:2)
You will like it! We're Apple! (Score:2)
I mean, we're Apple!
MacWorld weren't that positive (Score:5, Insightful)
Looks gimmicky, seems massively over-priced. I'm sure there's a market for it...
Re: (Score:3)
No you couldn't have. Why did you feel the need to lie on /. What a reason to throw away your personal integrity. Go ahead and link your parts list. Make sure to only use new parts and not used CPUs and RAM like so many like to link.
Re:3.5GHz quad core for $3000? Way overpriced. (Score:5, Informative)
You can get two D700's for $225? Please tell me where. the closest card I can find to that is a W9000 and the best price for 1 I have seen is $1300.
Re: (Score:3)
I'm writing this on a 3.2GHz 4-core Intel i5-4570 CPU, with an Nvidia GeForce GT 640. Running Linux.
Phew. For a second there I thought you were gonna talk about how long it's taking you to copy that 17-MB file.