Slashdot Mirror

Ummm... I have no idea what you consider equivalent of a "unix workstation" but most VFX facilities are nearly exclusively linux and they just buy commodity workstations from companies like:

Boxx http://www.boxxtech.com/
HP http://www8.hp.com/us/en/campa...
Dell http://www.dell.com/us/busines...

etc..

Firstly, it's cool and all that you built your own boxes... that's a great way to go if you can (ie you have the time and expertise to support the group when things go wrong) but it isn't really relevant to the discussion about the price of OEM workstations (that come with warranties and support, etc). Your group might not need that stuff, but for people that do, building it yourself isn't an option. Not to dog on you or anything... just that different groups have different needs.

Ok... with that out of the way... I'm _not_ off base on the price.

Go here:

http://boxxtech.com/products/3DBOXX/8550.asp?prodid=8550

Click "Configure a Boxx System"... put in your email.

Select the "WS DUAL XEON X5650 2.66GHz, 12MB cache, 1333 MHz, 6.4 GT/s QPI (Six-Core) " processor (because that's what the starting Dual-core Mac Pro has in it).

Click Update Total: $6,659.00

Now go here: http://store.apple.com/us/configure/Z0M4?

Select 12GB of RAM. Total: $5,449.00

Now. There are some inequities (graphics cards aren't the same, better HD in the Boxx workstation, etc).... but it's pretty clear that Apple isn't "Overpriced".

Why do we have to keep discussing this every single damn time Mac Pros are brought up???

If you don't want to assemble your own workstations and you really do need WORKSTATION class components... a Mac Pro is a great workstation and falls in line with all the other high-end workstations on the market in terms of price.

I run a scientific computing group at a national laboratory... we have over 30 people developing massively parallel, multiphysics, simulation tools.... all with Mac Pro workstations and Mac laptops.

Macs are UNIX workstations with a good GUI and they don't break every time you do an OS update (like the one Ubuntu box we keep just for testing did just this morning).

We can do all of our development in a great environment and still be able to throw our code out on our supercomputers when the problems get large.

You sir, are wrong.

And for everyone saying Mac Pros are expensive... they are not. They are priced similarly to their competition (which is, gasp!, other workstations!) like these: http://www.boxxtech.com/products/3DBOXX/8920.asp?prodid=8920

This is several years older then that and seems to be more advanced considering it was designed before the core and core 2 chips came out. http://boxxtech.com/Products/APEXX/apexx8_overview.asp Why didn't it get all the hype that is going for this Cray?

Anybody seen the Apexx product over at www.boxtech.com
http://www.boxxtech.com/Products/APEXX/apexx8_over view.asp

who would want 8 cores when you could have 16?

Based on comments AMD reportedly made at Digital Life last week, this is a quad-core capable system but will only use two sockets. Though it sounds like it'll launch initially with only dual-core dual-socket configurations, once AMD's quad-core CPUs arrive they will plug directly into the existing boards with just a BIOS upgrade (just as AMD did when it enabled single-core to dual-core in its previosu generation systems). That would give a 4x4 system eight total cores, which is still a tad shy of what you're asking for above.

However, AMD's Opteron can do four or even eight socket dual-core right now in a single desktop system (e.g. check out the BOXX APEXX at http://www.boxxtech.com/Products/APEXX/apexx_serie s.asp). But 4x4 seems to be aimed at enthusiasts, who are less likely to pay the added cost for the Registered ECC memory the Opteron uses (or take the latency hit it entails) but who still want the ability to run workstation-like applications or a whole slew of less intensive ones simultaneously.

Intel on the other hand seems to be sticking to single-socket options but seems to be a bit ahead of AMD in getting to their version of "quad core" (i.e. Kentsfield, which is actually a dual-die dual-core package like they did with the initial Pentium-branded dual-core products).

And though technology change always seems to outdate systems before their "time", the G5 Quad debuted less than a year ago (last October, around the time Intel also announced their first dual-ore Xeons) while AMD dropped their first dual-dual offerings six months earlier, in April 2005.

Bah that thing is total wimp. This thing holds dual dual cards and 16cores.

http://www.boxxtech.com/products/apexx8.asp

We already are. Distributed single-frame rendering across a network is here today in many different renderers. The returns seem to diminish around 10 CPUs or so with current tech due to network/job management overhead, but if I could get an 8-core or 16-core machine today (at a reasonable price), I would.

... drool over Boxx's APEXX 8 machine. It's 8 dual core AMDs with up to 128 gigs of ram. Got one at the office. We can't wait to try our app on it. :)

It would be good if some Linux hardware vendors would pick this up and get this out into the real world. I would much rather buy hardware with Linux installed in the BIOS.

IRUSH

BOXX nodes

At the time of Apple's G5 announcement (3 months before they even started shipping) Boxx had already been shipping dual Opteron machines for about a month.

Newisys for those, as well.
I think you can also get them from Boxxtech, servers from IBM, etc.
So yeah, you can get fully equipped systems with Optys in them.

So, the BOXX system is a "personal computer". It's $2200. And it has 64 bit Opterons.

As you say, workstation/personal computer mostly boils down to semantics, but I think a distinction can still be made. A workstation has some additional horsepower than an ordinary desktop would not - whether its multiple processors or i/o, it has some kind of specilization that sets it apart. While they might have similar specs, the difference between BOXX and Apple is that Apple is making the G5 to be a high end personal computer while BOXX is making systems to be used as graphical workstations or as rendering nodes.

One last thing seperating workstations from PC's is price - and a dual Opteron from BOXX with the same features as a G5 will cost you over $1,000 more.

Give me a break...

How about giving you a clue instead?

Ok, that clears it all up, since he is an asshole, then the Opteron machines that 'various' small manufacturers have released no longer exist. Poof, magic of an asshole reviewer can do miracles. Geesh.

Go read Charlie's commentary on Apple's announcement of the G5. To sum it up: you could order an Opteron from some small no-name manufacturer at the time of the announcement, and Apple didn't use the bestest best PC SPEC numbers obtained with a highly optimized compilers for the comparisons, therefore Jobs is a sniviling, slimy liar. He also grumples about how Apple was being a PR whore, and that AMD has "considerably more credibility than Apple", ignoring the fact that AMD markets its chips with some made up number, rather than how man megahertz it has. So yes, Charlie White is still an asshole.

BTW, considering market share, wouldn't Apple be considered a 'small manufacturer'? Hmm...

What an ignorant thing to say. Rather than comparing Apple's marketshare against ALL pc manufacturers COMBINED, why not compare Apple to Dell or HP? Not to mention the fact that they're one of the few companies that hasn't lost scads of money since the bubble burst. Saying Apple is a 'small manufacturer' would be like saying Honda has a small marketshare compared to Ford, GM, Daimler-Chrysler, Toyota, etc etc combined.

Get over it, the G5 is not, and will not be the first 64bit Desktop Computer.

They never said desktop computer, they said personal computer. If you check out the BOXX website, all their systems are built and marketed as either workstations or as rendering nodes. So unless BOXX starts selling to the consumer market by August or Dell throws some Opterons in their Dimension series, Apple will have a perfectly legit claim to have the first 64 bit personal computer.

WindowsXP for Itanium (Both a real 64bit OS, and a real 64bit processor) have been available for over a year now, in fact I think WindowsXP 64, is approaching its two year release date.

In no way could the Itaniums currently be considered for personal computers. But hey, if you want to buy an Itanium for a lot more money that will perform far more slowly than a P4 or an Athlon, be my guest. And I wonder why it would take Microsoft so long to release a 64 bit version of XP, considering they had NT running on Alphas, PowerPC's and I think Sparcs as well.

Apple is SO innovative (with marketing maybe)....

I don't see where the sarcasm applies, since Apple has innovated far more than Linux and Microsoft combined. The only company that could compete with Apple for the title of Most Innovated Computer Company, Ever would be IBM.

Read it again: "The G5 is impressive enough without cooking up any numbers or twisting any words." The jackass doesn't provide any justification other than the (now discredited) editorial that was linked from Slashdot earlier. Further, he bitches about Apple calling these personal computers rather than workstations, then makes hay out of the fact that the G5 wont be the first personal computer, because BOXX Technologies is shipping a dual Opteron. Except if you look at their site, they make high end systems for video editing, hardly "personal computers". They even call it a workstation.

There's good reporting in journalism, and then there's just being an asshole. Can you understand the difference?

ummm....for $2355 I can get a dual-opteron from Boxxtech. So fastest, no, first, no.

why not get a "heavyweight" gfx card like the new Nvidia Quadro FX 1/2000 card. It will provide you with the necessary throuput to handle some serious 3D work, movie editing and give you a year or so of obsolescency protection.

Or better yet get one of these babies!

If it's just standard NTSC video, like what comes out of a Mini DV camera, then a $2000 PowerBook G4 will be able to work with it easily. Apple (and many FinalCutPro users sites) will be happy to tell you stories of directors doing rough cuts of projects on the 'flight home' from the shoot.

Now, if it's HDTV were talking about, that's a whole different ballgame. The really exciting HDTV format, 1080p/30 has a data rate of something like 121.5MB/sec, compared to 3.7MB/sec for MiniDV/NTSC. Working with this kind of video requires massive, fast SCSI hard drives configured in a RAID array, a huge monitor to see the output in full-rez (at least 1920x1080) and lots of horsepower if you want to work with video that has been compressed down for broadcast.

Then again, while such workstations can be had for around $10,000 (check out Boxx Technology), HD1080 has a look that rivals 35mm film at a fraction of the cost. Think about it, 1 minute of recan (i.e. the stuff big studios don't use and sell to independent film dealers) 35mm stock costs around $36, and processing can run up to 3x the cost of the original film stock. So basically, you can own an HD editing system for the same cost as about an hour of 35mm film. Not really that bad a deal when you consider that both the new Star Wars films were shot in HD...