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Apple Ships 8-Core MacPro
ivan1024 writes "The Apple website is announcing the availability of an 8-core Mac Pro. The machine will ship with two 3.0 GHz Quad-Core Intel Xeon 5300 processors. Older models with the Dual-Core chips remain available. Base model with two 3.0 GHz Quad-Core Xeon processors start at $3997, (albeit with unacceptably minimal RAM or HD space; fully spec'd with dual 30" monitors and tons o' RAM/HD still over $10K... bummer)"
Not trolling, as this does sound awesome, but in reality how many applications out there really take advantage of these nifty multi-processor computers?
While I do think this machine is awesome, and would love to have one... I am just wondering what applications out there would take full advantage of having 8 cores and 2 processors in the machine? I am sure NASA or some physics departments at some random university could, but what else? Anyone have any examples of what such a powerful computer could be used for business wise? I'm sure it would cut down the application issues I deal with on older mal-formed code I work on everyday to try to enhance... lol.
-- Josh
"Whoopie! Man, that may have been a small one for Neil, but that's a long one for me!" - Pete Conrad
I was really hoping there would be price drops on the quad core configurations. Or at least upgraded video cards.
As a longtime mac user, I must admit that it feels inordinately good to say that.;-)
Lawrence Person (lawrencepersonh@gmailh.com (remove all "h"s to mail)
http://www.lawrenceperson.com/
While most Mac folks would think it anathema to do it, I've always had no probs with getting a Mac w/ only the CPU strength I want, then buffing out the hardware specs everywhere else once I got it home - saves tons of cash that way.
Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
SO were is the link to the "I want to buy it right now"page... so that hords of slashdoter would run and start ........... ahh never mind let me get back to saving for a used p2 :p
Never buy anything from Apple that you can't install yourself. For the Mac Pro, Apple charges $700 for 4GB (4x1GB) of RAM. You can get the same amount of RAM from DealRam for $500. The same goes for hard drives. Apple charges you $329 for a 500GB SATA drive, which you can get from NewEgg for around $200. Granted, these aren't covered by your warranty, but they often have a manufacturer's warranty
I've often though the lack of user serviceable parts in the Mac Mini was designed to sell more RAM at Apple's hugely inflated prices.
I'm in the hole of the broadband donut.
Since Apple have now fixed Boot Camp so that you can run Vista, this new hardware will help with the Vista performance problems.
Solitaire and mindsweeper. Maybe some surfing the internet, and checking your email. Oh, and spreadsheets!
Okay, seriously now, how well does the Mac video editing software take advantage of the potential of this system? I was considering building a dual-quad core pc in about a year...for video editing...but I fear that the software packages just won't take advantage of the hardware. I this changing? I don't see the average consumer being smart enough to lobby for multi-threaded software....?
Nope.
That would make sense, maybe design, sound engineering, even coding is a lot easier when you have two screens. Anything you'd need an uber system for (whilst insisting it looks cool).
...but they hardly own it. For one, they're still missing a killer 3D app. Yes, Maya is on the Mac - but you'll be hard-pressed to find many companies using Maya on said Mac. Nevermind that it's not an Apple app (unlike Shake (by acquisition), FCP, Logic Pro (by acquisition) etc.) If Autodesk hadn't grabbed it up, I would have expected Apple to do so.
Similarly, for editing/post, there's a ton of flint/flame/inferno/etc./etc. out there which are nowhere near Apple.
And that's completely ignoring everything hardware that you'll find in a typical broadcast facility. Avid, Thomson/Grass Valley, et al would have a chuckle at your post. So would Apple, for that matter - Apple isn't interested in replacing them at all... they're more on the software side and helping to sell Apple hardware.
A while back some folks (Ars Technica, I think) swapped the dualies in the Mac Pro for these new quad cores and found out that it could not only see all the cores, but also utilize them. (Though they could never get it to peg the processors, even while playing 8 high-def videos on it.)
Mac OS X automatically sees and uses as many cores or processors that it has available. Final Cut Pro, the de facto video editing app for professionals these days, can see and use all these cores.
Now if you want to do that on the Windows side, I won't be of much assistance.
I'm in the hole of the broadband donut.
I'm rather disappointed in this. There were rumors that they'd put a top-of-the-line ATI video card with Crossfire in the 8-core machines (http://www.appleinsider.com/article.php?id=2492).
Yes it's a workstation. Yes, it's not meant for games. But putting those cards in it would give Apple a significant salvo to fire into the boutique camp. I know a number of gamers who would buy them (outside the video card the machine is awesome).
8-core? Nice. But Apple, enough is enough: put a premium video card in these things. Coupling a 7300GT with a Mac Pro (the basic configuration) should be classified as a low-level travesty.
7300 is pretty low end stuff.
How about updated NVIDIA 8800 class video cards?
Last time I bought a Mac, in the 1980s, they charged me $175 for the extended keyboard. Do they still do that?
technical writing / development
look:
http://www.sharbor.com/products/TYNN5450004.html
There are already several people running Windows, Linux, and BSD on a dual quad-core setup. They just don't have to pay a premium for specialty molded plastic. Or spend $299 on 2 sticks of 512MB DDR2. Or $329 for an unnamed brand of 500GB SATA 3GB/s drive.
-Nathan
Please stop stalking me, bro.
bootcamp on the mac pro running vista is limited to 32bit only and suffers from ACPI issues...
I don't see the average consumer being smart enough to lobby for multi-threaded software....?
I don't see the average programmer experienced enough to write multi-threaded software...
that would be some sort of freak of nature. I wouldn't eat it.
I have excellent Karma and I am not afraid to Troll it.
"640K RAM should be enough for anyone"
"32-bit should be enough for anyone"
"4GB limit on hard drives? Who is going to use a whole 4GB?"
"Besides Photoshop, what software is ever going to use BOTH processors?"
If nothing else, it would be a great machine to finally be able to run Vista!
Imagine a Beowulf cluster of those things...
SpyDock: Scientific Python in a Docker container
probably best to install gentoo on it and compile everything yourself
Yup, the machine manufacturers are completely culpable in this!
Sure, I will get modded down by Apple zealots.
I can't understand why someone would buy an Apple for anything other than a normal home desktop. I just interviewed with a small growing company. Every single desktop they had were Apple. It didn't matter what it was doing, they were all Apple. Considering they could have had *just as good* for cheaper that did the same thing (and more depending on what you needed it to do) I think it was a very dumb and wasteful thing to do; especially for a small company. The only thing I saw that was from Apple that was a VERY good choice was their XServer RAID that was running not OS X, but OpenFiler (openfiler.org) project. They were using for off site replication from their NetApps which IMHO is absolutely brilliant.
BTW, Apple's XServer RAID is a rebranded LSI Logic RAID. Very cheap compared to other options and slapping OpenFiler on top of it is a very powerful and cheap setup. I recommend it to anyone looking for mass storage on the cheap side.
Just out of curiosity, does the fact that just going to the Apple website make me tingle a little make me a fanboi?
Ignore anything I said above, I actually agree with everything you believe - mod accordingly.
The de facto video editing app for professionals these days is Adobe Premiere. In fact, since Adobe Creative Suite 3 has support for universal binaries, the latest iteration of Premiere will be again be available on OSX.
Slow Down, Cowboy! It's been 60 minutes since you last successfully posted a comment.
No sign of 8-core machines in the UK Apple Store. Just a glitch or are we going to have to wait a bit longer over here? Lets hope Apple doesn't make us wait as long for their 8-core machine as Sony did for theirs (the PS3).
A pizza of radius z and thickness a has a volume of pi z z a
That's from the Website. Up to 16 GB of ECC that's not bad ;)
:-/
Not that easy to find when you built your PCs yourself
I'd like to see Apple offer an upgrade from a 4- to an 8-processor machine too. I'm not taxing my quad at the moment, but it'd be nice to have official acknowledgment of this upgrade path. (Yeah, we could DIY, but a lot of people would feel better modding a high-end machine in an official way.)
Even with Apple 30" displays being $1800 ($1600 higher ed) new (Dell's is cheaper now too- didn't used to be), I doubt I'd add a second one- my desk isn't big enough! I highly recommend the 30" though. It's even nicer than you'd think.
ab
They want almost $380 just for 1GB RAM for your average IBM or HP blade server. In this realm, parts and upgrades have little to do with cheapo desktop components or pricing.
Audio/Video mastering, analog to digital conversion, large format image processing.
But seriously, unless you're gonna keep all 8 cores cooking a lot, or you do a lot of seriously high-end video work or something else where speed above all else matters, they'll be a waste. And they cost $1500 more than the standard (2.66 GHz) model. So, for $4,000, you can get a 3 GHz 8-way Mac Pro. Or, for $4,400, you could get two 2 GHz 4-way Mac Pros. Most people could probably get more done with two good machines than one great one for (roughly) the same money.
Dear Slashdot: next time you want to mess with the site, add a rich-text editor for comments.
"Wow, that's just amazing," He said, looking up from the, from 16 core, 65G RAM Linux box he's working on today. "An OS that, in at least one area, isn't artificially crippled for marketing reasons."
Now somebody who has serious hardware is going to chime in...
PS: I do like OS X. It's quite a nice client.
Ok, now it's officially "wicked fast"* .
* Points to who remembers the turd this was originally applied to.
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
You've got $3,600 in displays alone - that's more than 1/3 of the price. Also, Apple is notorious for overpricing hard drives and memory. Buy the fastest CPUs and get everything else from someone else, including the displays (get'em from Dell), and you'll save 20%+.
No sig for you. YOU GET NO SIG!
and on one physical CPU. And it's cheaper than an Apple.
http://www.sun.com/servers/coolthreads/t1000/
Why is this even news?
Because everyone knew they were coming eventually.
Now, a single-socket, dual-core Mac Pro (or similar), *that* would be news.
I don't any more, but I ran a 32 node SP2 under AIX 4.3 as a personal machine for a while (it was in, ahem, testing mode, for a month before the unwashed masses were allowed onboard). I'm sure your Linux system would make a nice staging ground to test programs before they were sent to run for real. :~) Having been the herder for that beast, I'm more appreciative of the joys of smaller machines at times. At least they don't come with a boa-constrictor for a power-cord that has to be hard-wired into the bus-box.
Quite seriously, who makes your box? Sun, SGI, Cray, or home-built?
the more accurate the calculations became, the more the concepts tended to vanish into thin air. R. S. Mulliken
Note that RAM and drives purchased from Apple are covered by their extended 3-year warranty. (And I always buy this... it's worth the peace-of-mind.)
ron lussier / lenscraft / fine art giclee prints/ sausalito / ca
really? Please provide an example of something "just as good for cheaper that did the same thing".
I like microcars
Come on, it took GOD a whole week to make just this puny little planet and you complain that it takes several days to make a whole Galaxy!
In my days, we had to ... oh never mind.
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
Mods, do not punish people for your difference of opinion. Mod down sparingly. Read the guidlines before modding, every time you get mod points.
If you mod me down, I shall become more powerful than you could possibly imagine.
But I think I see Apple's desire to sell an operational machine - it'd be hard to support a machine if it is untestable in the store - in other words, there are a lot of idiots out there who can still manage to screw up RAM and HDD purchasing and installation, and when the do screw up, they're likely to blame anyone else other than themselves.
Then again, my needs aren't really impacted by the "unacceptably minimal" 250 GB single disk and 1 GB of RAM - my world is CPU bound - loads of RAM and disk do not solve my problems where I work.
...with a 40 MHz 68030! I'm typing this missive on mine right now!
ron lussier / lenscraft / fine art giclee prints/ sausalito / ca
Speaking from personal experience, Gentoo on an IBM pSeries 570 is no slouch.
"emerge samba"? Don't blink. It took 12 seconds.
Alienware has had this option for at least a couple weeks in its Workstations....
Other than it being on a Mac and not a PC, how is this news?
cha-ching. money baby... money
Well it takes advantage.
:-(
Macs have been shipping with dual CPUs since 1999. Nearly every piece of Mac software is multi-threaded in some way. And it would be pretty crappy coding practice to assume 2 CPUs when making an application "thread hot," because typically you'll just spawn as many threads as you need and let the OS deal with it.
So I would expect many applications would use mulitple cores. The OS itself can also leverage mutiple CPUs... and given that it's typical that 75-200 applications are running at once, more CPUs will be better.
This isn't like Windows where 99% of all desktop machines had a single CPU until last year. Nearly all games were written single-threaded until this past year... I know because in 2000 I bought a dual 733 MHz PIII machine, and it was slower for games than a single 800 MHz P3. And it cost me a LOT more
Funny and insightful, unfortunately, no karma for you. In today's common programming languages, you're definitely right. For multi-threaded software to really take off, there need to be popular programming languages that make it idiot proof.
Oh No
that means that another uninformed Mac guy will fill up my ear with OH mac is faster than PC Oh mac is so much smoother.
Yeah sure two quad core with 4 gigs of ram or more, that is not due to the O.S. but the hardware behind it.
Uninformed assumption pisses me off.
But I'm fine with my tingling...
There exists no way of exchanging information without making judgments. --Bene Gesserit Axiom
Um... So why is it important that apple releases an 8-core machine when other companies such as dell have had them for a while now? Just a bit confused as to why this is so important
Apple RAM has actually gotten a little bit better too. If you go to Crucial and price out the ECC stuff you need it's not that much cheaper. I haven't done the complete system build yet, but from what I can tell the quad core 3ghz procs are super expensive even when buying OEM from pricewatch. I wonder if someone sat down and did the DIY quad core xeon with ECC ram, etc... how much cheaper it would be compared to what Apple is offering atm.
:)
HDs OTOH, Apple still needs to get with the program
Imagine a Beowulf cluster ... ahh, never mind.
Absurdity: A statement or belief manifestly inconsistent with one's own opinion. -- Ambrose Bierce
refurb. Saved a ton. Bought it for video editing for a small business and a local ministry.
Toward the end of the year, if its still too slow, i can always throw down on some of the quad core chips. They're around $1200 right now on Newegg.
But so far, its not the processors that are slowing me down - its the hard drives and the 2 gigs of ram.
If you're buying the 8 core box, and you're NOT buying a SATA raid w/card to go with it, you're pissing in the wind... because you'll NEVER keep the processors busy enough..
encoding h.264 right now is taxing the 3 drive array inside my box, not the computing bits.
I'm sure that with the release of Final Cut Suite 6 - we'll hopefully get some 3D graphics - finally - and maybe we'll even get shake with the Uber package if we're lucky.
THEN we'll see.
but right now, i have literally thrown dozens of needlessly complex stuff at Motion 2, and i can't get the CPUs to bog down.
guns kill people like spoons make Rosie O'Donnell fat.
Maybe a certain company has a new release of its video software coming out that takes better advantage of the 8 core machine.
Virtual Intruments and Effect Processors use tons of CPU.
I am a software developer that likes Linux and the Macintosh, but am stuck mostly in the Windows world for my development. Now I develop in Java so getting "my" code to run on these platforms is no problem, but getting the code that I need to run working on any of these platforms except Windows is a pain. (Netbeans, Postgresql, Dreamweaver etc) I also do play an occasional game on my PC but I find that more and more of my gaming time is on my PS3.
So when I saw that Apple went to Intel and could run Windows I thought that this was the machine for me. I can use the dual boot function for games and emulation software for development. I would want a ton of RAM, and a good video card for the occasional PC must have game. Then I saw the video card(s) that they offered. They don't suck, but for an expensive machine they are not at all what I would want. I decided to wait until they did a 'refresh' of the system in hopes that they would finally offer a more "standard" RAM and hopefully a 8k Nvidia card. (This mac uses weird slow RAM that is very expensive and the newer Nividia card is the only one that does DX10).
I thought it "might" be possible to upgrade the video card myself, but found out you can't do that. It makes little to no sense to me that Apple chose to not use the same freaking graphics cards as a standard PC. So I have put away over 3k for this new machine and was waiting for this new mac to be released.
Today was the day I was going to order my new Macintosh!!! Unfortunately this day came and it will be the day that I now go to NewEgg and spec out my new machine.
I would have been nice to see how Java development would have been on a Macintosh, but the good news is that my new 64bit Ubuntu + Microsoft Vista box will rock.
I wish Apple well and hope that in 3 to 5 years when I buy another machine they will get my money.
Apple, you almost had a Windows/Linux user switched, but your RAM and Video card selection lost you one.
The more I learn about science, the more my faith in God increases.
I said it before and I'll say it again: the one safe way to do multi-threaded programming is forking and IPC.
Imagine a single Beowulf machine of this!
Yes, Maya is on the Mac - but you'll be hard-pressed to find many companies using Maya on said Mac.
w ww.macworld.co.uk/news/index.cfm%3FNewsID%3D14619+ macworld+maya+mac+sales+autodesk&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd= 1&gl=us
http://72.14.209.104/search?q=cache:pfgF8E0i5C8J:
20% of Maya sales are the Mac version, according to Autodesk. (Google cache since Macworld UK is apparently down.)
The coolest voice ever.
That's just... wrong. If you have a 570 lying around to run gentoo on, you should at least be typing, "emerge written_language", or "emerge photosynthesis". Oh wait, sorry, that's a 590 I'm thinking about.
the more accurate the calculations became, the more the concepts tended to vanish into thin air. R. S. Mulliken
Never buy anything from Apple that you can't install yourself.
I think you meant "Never buy anything from Apple that you can install yourself".
However, do be sure you to check part specs; random Yum-Cha RAM often won't meet the tight tolerances required for Macs, and may outright fail to boot. I ended up with some perfectly good PC-133 for my Windows machines when first learning this. I'll agree with you about buying the hard drives elsewhere, and add that while the warranty from Apple or whoever covers the drive, it doesn't cover the data; for every hard drive I put in, I get another to back the data up to it. (Yes, I am paranoid. I also haven't lost more than three hours of data since 2002, despite 16 different hard drive crashes and three careless "I didn't really want to delete that!!!" users on the mix of Windows and Mac computers I take care of.)
//Information does not want to be free; it wants to breed.
I like my warrenty intact.
Apple is no different then any other hardware manufacturer.
Cars: It cost more to have the Dealer put in a high performance chip.
PC: it cost more to get Dell to put in RAM and Video cards.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
I just ordered my Mac Pro two days ago (two dual-core Xeons) :(
Seriously, does it run Linux? Or maybe FreeBSD?
Is Safari bundled with OS X? I want Netscape pre-installed on my Mac, without Safari present at all.
here in Europe is the end of the workday, so allow me to relax by unleashing my pedantry and let me tell you that was the brilliant Anand the performer of the stunt you are mentioning. cheers
Indeed, I just verified. Dell Precision 690 gives the ability to add a second quad core processor.
The IIfx wasn't a turd.
It was hella-fast when it first came out (and much faster than the LC-line machines that later had the same processor speed as its bus ran at the same speed as the CPU, unlike the LCs).
They've had quad-core Xeons (aka clovertowns), but not at 3 Ghz. As far as I can tell Apple is the first to offer 3 Ghz Clovertown chips in their machines.
All is Number -Pythagoras.
It's the story of my roommate's company. It's a small company related to NASA and NOAA. One of their employee's notebook got infected with some kind of spyware, and a hacker did something bad at NASA via that computer. Several days later, FBI came, interviewed every body in that company and other people like janitors, and confiscated several computers. Then the boss decided that they would be Mac and Linux only. And because the IT guy doesn't want to install Linux on brand new computers, they essentially only buy Macs since then.
There is a spark in every single flame bait point.
Heck, a 590 might even be able to handle `emerge KDE` or `emerge openoffice`!
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
Previous version of OS X were absolutely HORRIBLE at threading. Does Apple plan to fix this problem? If not, why would anyone bother with an 8 core Mac when the operating system can't really handle the extra cores, or do people plan to buy these and run Windows or Linux on them?
Which one?
There is a spark in every single flame bait point.
As always you can get a similarly configured Dell for much less.
Funny you say that, because when I bought a MacPro two months ago the indentical configuration from Dell was AU$600 more expensive.
Blank until
Ridiculous! This is what Apple should have been providing from day one. I can't believe they are trying to charge a premium for twice the bitrate ^H^H^H^H^H^H^ number of cores.
I want, very badly, to change over to Apple. The problem is price. Like in the article, some systems are spec'd out with low resources (of course you'll buy more).
;-)
I suspect this keeps many people from making the switch.
Even in Universities (like mine) that purchase a lot of Apple wares, we don't get much of a discount. They don't believe in bennies like that.
Apple: Listen up!
If not, then the video card deficiencies are still very much a big deal -- I know that if I could afford one of these, I'd sure as heck want to stuff dual 8800s into it!
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
20" down from $699 to $599
23" down from $999 to $899
30" down from $1,999 to $1,799
If anyone from Apple is listening, I'm sitting here looking at the Apple UK web site and seeing no 8-cores and a $3,060.39 price tag (at today's exchange rate) on the 30" Cinema display. I guess you don't want my order today?
A pizza of radius z and thickness a has a volume of pi z z a
Holy crap, how's that apple tax treating you now? $4500 for the base config with 8-core? I'll stick to the Dells, thanks.
The only real concern is the RAM and Graphics:
since the MacPro uses those expensive FB-DIMMS with custom super-strength heatsinks. At least Crucial et. al. do suitable RAM now, a bit cheaper than Apple, but not so cheap that you'd want to chuck the 1GB supplied. The latter is a pain if you're shooting for 8-16GB and/or worry about the complicated bits of advice about balancing RAM between channels.
Apart from that, go buy cheap(er) standad SATA drives and monitors.
The graphics card range seems sensible for "pro" use but a bit sucky for games purposes - but since that generally means "windows games" I can see why Apple isn't falling over itself to support this. Anyway, the ball is in Nvidia/ATI's courts to produce more EFI-compatible cards.
I agree, though, there is a hole in Apple's range the shape of a mini-tower with a single CPU socket (i.e. up to quad core) a couple of PCIExpress slots and space for an extra hard drive or two.
In a survey of 100 programmers, 111111 thought that duck-typing was a good idea.
no you are wrong, they've had dual quad core systems for quite some time . I visit their page regularly since I buy dell's regularly.
It would be sweet to have this 8 core processor, but whats the point if you are bottle-necked by video cards that right now wont be able to keep up with these?
BINGO!
Seriously, though, you didn't hear about it, you read it. My point is reading is active and hearing may be passive. So you sought out this article and read it. If you are so tired of "hearing" about Apple products, then why are you reading the article?!? They are all clearly marked. Move on, don't be Flamebait.
Rendering in Luxology's modo will peg all 8 cores (or 4, or whatever you have). I, for one, am grateful for more cores as the apps I use (modo in particular - XCode too) can and do use them all. If anyone wants to see all cores pegged, go grab the (unrestricted) modo eval version from Luxology's site and try yourself. Incidently, I notice that modo is also the top app on Apple's performance page for the new machines.
Is there a marketing firm that funds Mac astroturfing on sites like Slashdot and Digg ? I'm hard pressed to chalk up the worship of Apple products and the almost violent wielding of moderation points under the "sincere" column.
I still have an Mac IIfx. It even boots still.
And at the time, it was truly a wicked fast machine.
fully spec'd with dual 30" monitors and tons o' RAM/HD still over $10K... bummer
what did ya expect from Apple, really? Commodore 64 prices?
Those are the kinds of application that should be taking advantage of the hardware, it's true. Whether the software implementations are actually written to do so, and to do it well, is a different question entirely.
The unfortunate reality is that a lot of serious maths software today really doesn't take advantage of parallel processing at all, and even the software that does run multiple jobs concurrently typically does so relatively inefficiently in terms of both overheads and even distribution of work across processing units.
Getting this right is a hard problem, and it's going to take a lot more than hardware support to do it. I'm betting we won't see the benefits, other than in a few higher-end applications for things like graphics and CAD, for several years, and possibly not until some more serious parallel programming techniques and even languages have entered the mainstream.
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
I agree about the Mini being crippled by its graphics processor. Otherwise, I don't think it's a bad little machine. I bought one to play with it when it first came out, and it was adequate for your basic web surfing, emailing, and Microsoft Office type tasks. It ran Quicken and/or Quickbooks without a big problem, and ran the little games from companies like Popcap just fine. The main purpose for it was really just to offer an entry-level Mac that let Windows users buy it as a second computer to experience OS X. It also serves a niche market of hobbyists who want them to install in their cars, as home media center boxes, and so on.
I think the iMac also serves its marketplace pretty well. There seems to be a lot of resistance to purchasing one, simply because people have a mindset that an "all in one" computer + display is an outdated concept. Truthfully though, the iMac is *ideal* for many home and small office users, because lack of space is a big problem for them. It eliminates the extra clutter of another power cord, a VGA display cable, and audio cable to go to a display's built-in speakers. And the often cited lack of "expandability"? I used to think that way too, until I realized (when I bought my first PowerMac G4 tower), there's practically nothing you need to put in an expansion card slot on a Mac anyway. You *could* add something like additional USB or firewire ports with a card, but why not just do that with a hub instead? As LANs get more common in households, the worries about packing a system full of hard drive space disappear too. (The future is all about network storage. Even Microsoft has a stand-alone "home server" appliance coming out later this year that will do this for people in a nearly "plug and play" way.)
I don't think Apple will re-release "The Cube" because the Mac Mini was probably the future of that product line. I would like to see some sort of Mac Mini-Tower though. I'm thinking it would be a small version of a Mac Pro with, perhaps, a Core 2 Duo CPU powering it, and would use the same graphics cards as a Mac Pro.
I don't see the average consumer being smart enough to lobby for multi-threaded software...
I don't see the average programmer experienced enough to write multi-threaded software...
I don't see why this isn't modded (Score:5, Insightful).
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
The key is 3 Ghz. Try to find a Dell with two Intel quad core chips running at 3 Ghz. You won't find it. The fastest they offer (as of this morning) is the E3555, which runs at 2.66 Ghz.
Intel doesn't even mention that such a chip is available yet - presumably it will be called the E3565.
All is Number -Pythagoras.
That should read 'E5355' as the fastest one at Dell, ant 'E5365' as the probably part number for the 3 Ghz clovertown.
All is Number -Pythagoras.
The key is 3 Ghz. Try to find a Dell with two Intel quad core chips running at 3 Ghz. ahh you are indeed correct.
I left South Park off my previous list - Maya on Mac - for those of you who can't figure out what a machine like this is good for
http://www.apple.com/pro/profiles/southpark/
"Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but not their own facts." ~The Honorable Daniel Patrick Moynihan
An 8-core 2.67 GHz model from Dell runs $4907 with no monitor. For roughly the same price, you can get a Mac Pro with 8-cores at 3.0 GHz, 4 GB of FB-DIMM RAM (4x as much as on the Dell), 500 GB SATA disk (2x as much as on the Dell), and a pair of 7300GT graphics cards.
A deep unwavering belief is a sure sign you're missing something...
This isn't exactly on-topic but if you're interested in this story and read Slashdot you may be the person I'm looking for below...
If you primarily use a Macintosh, work in an "information professional" capacity (this could be in a university library, a research environment, or the like), and have more than 1-2 Macs at your site, I could use your help. I work for a company whose name I can't disclose. Our development and QA staff are trying to get a feel for the Mac hardware, OS releases, office suites, and web browsers in use because our products are available for the Mac and interact with those things. I've got an unofficial survey online to help us figure out where to focus development and QA efforts to satisfy the market's needs best. Since I'm limited to a total of 100 responses, please help by only responding to the survey if your description matches what I'm asking for above. (You're welcome to forward the link to anyone who meets that description that you know at another site, but please include this message with it so I can - hopefully - only get appropriately targeted responses.)
If you could take a few seconds and complete the survey below it would be much appreciated:
http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.asp?u=451973622478
Thanks in advance for your help.
My biggest gripe with Mac is the cost. I could make a PC for half the cost and the same system specs.
"To be is to do." --Socrates
"To do is to be." -- Aristotle
"Do-Be-Do-Be-Do..." --Sinatra
not only that, they are still at the outdated comparing of Mac vs PC. A Mac is a PC!!!!!
1st of all that's absurd. Do you use dual 30 inch monitors now? Do you figure the cost of dual 30" monitors in to all your reviews or pricing considerations of hardware. Clearly you started out with an opinion and stretched to support it.
I wouldn't buy a computer that wasn't a Mac. If you disagree, cool - buy whatever you want. I also wouldn't buy Apple displays. They are gorgeous, but really not worth the difference compared to other nice monitors available. I have dual 21 inch samsung monitors which are very nice. You'd need a larger field of vision than the human visual system is capable of at average monitor distances to enjoy twin 30" monitors anyway, but if you really want them use the dual 30" monitors that you surely already have - you did price them for your current system, right?
In fact, why settle for 2? In the future, why not bitch about the price of Macs by comparing their price with 3 or 4 monitors?
Seriously, the monitors are really overpriced. But compare the hardware to similar workstations (and use 3rd party pricing for memory and hard drives as someone else mentioned), and you'll find Macs much more competitively priced than you suggest.
I use a dual 2 ghz Mac, with 2gb ram, and 240 gb storage, and the aforementioned dual 21" monitors - I paid just over 2k for this setup, and run OSX.
In addition, I don't even think you can build yourself for less. The 2.66 GHz costs $2,400 for two chips (3.0 not on the street yet, probably around $3K). Add $350 for a power supply, probably around $400 for a mobo, and you're already around $3,750. Can you build the rest for $250?
Feh. Don't play pissing contest, I have a 160 core 4.1 TB SMP system at my disposal. Big deal. The point is that this system is (reasonably) affordable to small businesses if not individuals. It's a desktop system in a normal sized reasonably attractive case, that doesn't sound like a jet engine when it powers on.
Lots of people have big boxes, but this is something powerful for apps like video editing and large scale photo editing that need a lot of horse power, but preferably not in a machine room.
I don't need a million points of light, just two points of multi-mode fiber and a 10 Gig-E router.
I still have a IIfx too... it's used as a small bedside desk, though. ;)
I said it before and I'll say it again: the one safe way to do multi-threaded programming is forking and IPC.
Why would it be so? Because different processes have different address spaces? Besides that there ain't much differences between threads and processes right!?. Using IPC doesn't magically solve synchronization issues. If seems to me that you do your IPC like a bozo you'll have one process working and the other spending 99% of its time waiting, just like you'd have using threads.
This is an honest question, I'd like to have more infos.
The bottom line is, this week Apple is getting some great media attention due to new features / products (Google Desktop and new powerful workstation). Meanwhile, Microsoft has gotten bad press (bad Vista review and ANI security flaw). Apple continues to gain mindshare among influential consumers and professionals. I have already referred a couple co-workers to check out Apple.com for their laptops when they asked me for advice on new purchases for themselves and family. Monopolies are counteracted by converting one customer at a time to the competition.
I can throw as many stones as I wish; my house is made of transparent aluminum.
The Mac hardware is a "PC", but the OS is far from a normal "PC" (aka Windows). That's what you're paying for. Running OS X on 3rd party hardware isn't a viable option yet (definitely not very reliable or supported whatsoever for many functions). It's not really the old cliche of "Mac vs PC". It's "Mac vs Windows (or linux)".
Good thing then, that the Mini has a 1.8 GHz Core Duo and supports a 23" HD display, because it would suck trying to do those demanding tasks on anything less. I mean, I remember trying to do word processing and email on my 386/33 with 14" VGA, and it was really, um, ... actually, it was just fine. Never mind. I'd hate to have to deal with your email, I guess.
I'm interested in drawn cell animation. Currently I haven't found anything decent to use. I.e., I'm using Canvas + TheGimp + iMovie + Audacity. It sort of works for up to a minute or so, but that's really pushing things.
I've looked at FinalCut, but nothing I could see indicated that it would work with anything but video, which I don't have. I've got either drawn cells, or cut paper. If drawn, it might have been drawn on a computer, or it might have been scanned in. If cut paper, I might have manipulated it with theGimp or with Canvas after scanning it in. (Frequently I like to remove noise...but for cut paper it's important that the shadows not be distrubed. That changes the entire feel.)
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
Why you want Apple RAM... or at least certified RAM:
If you insist on third-party RAM, then at least get it in writing that if you have issues that the third party will replace it until you don't have problems, or take it back if they can't get you RAM that performs in spec. (someone else in this article already posted about how they ended up with some nice RAM for one of their PC boxes when it turned out it was out of spec. enough that it wouldn't work in their Mac).
Most third party RAM that fails qualification does so because it's technically out of manufacturer spec.. For many platforms that doesn't tend to matter much, but for Macintosh machines, this typically means problems like drawing current beyond the power budget on wake-from-sleep (and causing the system to be unstable) or being unable to step-up up from a stepped-down clock rate in the necessary time window when the rest of the system is stepping-up, etc. - things that cause the contents of the memory to end up unreliable, or cause the memory bus to be clocked down, and the system run slower.
Unsurprisingly, IBM Power architecture systems tend to have the same issues, given the way multiple simultaneous in-flight transactions are allowed on the memory bus, after the lines and latches have been timed out by the system. When you tune a system that closely, then the electrical characteristics of the components start to matter more and more.
I can't tell you how many customer reported "kernel bugs" I've personally tracked down to actually being faulty third party RAM.
Short of building in a hardware memory tester, which would be prohibitively expensive (including over/under clocking and under/over voltage/current testing, slow refresh cycles, etc.), there's no way to tell if a memory problem exists, short of running into a problem, and throwing the sticks into a real hardware memory tester (it's an NP incomplete problem if you are running test software in the RAM being tested, since it can malfunction and give you a false "no problem" result).
Certified memory is memory that has been thrown into a hardware memory tester, and certified to be in spec. before it's sold to the consumer.
Other peripherals and add-ons are much less sensitive to close-to-spec/out-of-spec problems, compared to RAM. Feel free to take chances with them long before you take chances with third party RAM.
-- Terry
As far as nodes... so far the biggest cluster I've had root on was 768 dual processor Xeons. That was alright. The density these days, though... makes you feel old, sometimes. And yes, I sympathize with respect to the beast herding :)
I disagree. That eliminates one class of errors (concurrent access/modification of shared data) but doesn't address deadlocks or livelocks, and it's at the expense of significantly reducing potential performance.
What you're really getting at is the CSP (communicating sequential process) model of concurrent programming, in which the "processes" don't share data but instead pass it to one another through communications channels. Use of heavyweight processes and kernel-provided IPC mechanisms is one way of implementing CSP, but its far from the only way, and it's certainly not the most efficient way.
In many cases, it's much better to use multiple threads within a single process and apply a little discipline to avoid sharing data. Instead, set up queues that work like IPC interfaces. If you want to be really careful, have sender and receiver copy the data into and out of the queue, rather than just passing a pointer through the queue. Of course, the queue implementation needs to be done properly, with the necessary locking, but you only need to implement that once. In practice, you don't even have to implement it once, because there are well-tested libraries available for every major programming language.
CSP is a good idea. Doing it by forking and IPC isn't a bad idea, but neither is it necessarily the only or the best way.
Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
It's still gouging, but not as bad as you think. In order to keep the Mac Pro from sounding like a Jumbo Jet, Apple made its own standard for heat sinks on DDR2 667 RAM. If you get DDR2 667 with normal heat sinks, it won't be able to lose heat fast enough under normal conditions, and will have errors. This isn't FUD, I'd been planning to get a Mac Pro for weeks (just ordered one, too; dual core 3 Ghz) and studied up on the RAM. Any RAM not using the better heat sinks has been tending to cause problems in Mac Pros. If you google it, you will find plenty of accounts of RAM not up to the standard Apple set failing in Mac Pros. However, you can (as I am doing) get 3rd party RAM with adequate heat sinks for reasonably decent prices. Just look around for "Mac Pro RAM" and you'll eventually find stuff that's been tried and tested, but isn't expensive. I found a place I can get 4 GB for less than $500, so I'm happy.
Getting the right RAM 3rd party is a smarter buy than getting it from Apple, but make sure you get the right RAM!
Again, from what I've seen, _be very careful_ getting RAM for the Mac Pro. Make sure it's been thoroughly tested first and had no problems before getting any given brand, and without the proper heat sinks, it seems like you're going to get slowdowns of the RAM and dramatic increases in the use of fans in the Mac Pro. (From what I've seen, though, it's more likely to have errors than just do that, unfortunately.)
Then again, you could probably get away with standard heat sinks if you know how to tweak the fans to run fast enough to keep them from going wonky.
By reading this you acknowledge that you have read it.
What the hell have two overpriced 30" apple monitors got to do with the price of a "fully specced" system? And what kind of idiot buys RAM or hard drives from Apple at their prices?
That's the most useless price figure ever.
My blog: http://www.seebs.net/log/ --- My iPhone/iPad app: http://www.seebs.net/seebsfrac/
Not really the point. The point is not, can you match an exact mac configuration at the same price. That's completely unimportant and proves nothing. The question is, if you are getting a machine for a job, do you actually need to spend what the mac costs. Or can you do better buying something different and cheaper? In this case, its not can you buy 8 core 3Ghz identically equipped cheaper. Its after you have figured out you are just as well off with something with 4 slightly slower cores, what does that cost from Apple? Same exact thing with a mini. Never mind what it costs to duplicate it. If you want a lowish end desktop with on board graphics, what does a decent one cost? A lot less than a mini. Generally, the way to find out if a mac is reasonable value is to do it in reverse. Figure out what spec you need, then see what it costs you from different suppliers. Apple is almost always more expensive, often much more, because it has fewer models and fewer price points, so you are always trading up and buying more or different than you need. Often, as with the mini, the extra has to do with form factor and not performance. Something similar happens with other consumer goods. If you want a car with specific designer label upholstery, you may well find that you cannot get an identical spec one cheaper than from one particular supplier. It doesn't mean it is good value for you. If you start out looking for a quiet comfortable sedan, you'll probably get just as functional or a more functional vehicle elsewhere for a lot less. The Apple theologians always do it starting from the Mac partly because they are disingenuous and know the above as well as anyone. But its partly because they never seriously consider buying anything but a Mac, so the Mac product line is their standard of comparison. However, for the rest of us, it is not.
Deficiencies of memtestosx...
It only tests memory under conditions that will only allow it to find real problems with bits in the memory. These include cross-talk related problems from adjacent memory cells, actual stuck bits, paired bits, and so on.
It does NOT test the memory for undervoltaging (which you have to test by actually dropping the voltage to the RAM), nor does it test for delayed DRAM referesh (which you could theoretically do on a PC, if you had a PCI card, and it forced an excessive bus-on time).
In short, software testing is not very good for transient failure testing, and it's not a good thing to include in an OS, rather than as a standalone diagnostic program, due to it being unable to test things that are wired down by the OS (unless your OS can relocate physical pages out of the way to allow you to test them, as well, then running a memory tester under the OS itself means that you don't test any of the memory that's wired down to the OS or to the test tool, if that memory's also wired).
Unfortunately, the most common memory failures in Macs occur during voltage stepping, speed stepping, or when other devices cause the machine to exceed its available power budget.
In other words, problems happen when RAM is run right to the edge of (but not over) its specifications.
You can't do most of that on purpose with normal machines, and not any of it, if it's not standallone.
Software memory checking is OK for gross problems - those problems that usually are not transient - but since most memory you buy has passed that sort of testing before it was sold to you, you are unlikely to ever receive RAM with permanent problems, unless you fail to observe proper precautions when handling or installing it.
So go ahead and use memtestosx; you may in fact find a problem... you're just exceedingly unlikely to find any of the problems that typically differentiate Apple-certified vs. non Apple-certified RAM.
-- Terry
When I bought my Mac Mini, the highest-end CPU option was a 1.42Ghz G4 processor. Not exactly "cutting edge performance" or anything. The Core Duo in current models is a big improvement, but also brings a higher price-tag with it.
And I'd say "Good thing the Mini supports Apple's 23" HD display, because other 21"+ LCD panels featuring rotation capabilities *really* suck on a Mac Mini when you rotate it to landscape mode. The built-in video was so slow dealing with a rotated display, even scrolling down on a web page in Safari had noticeable lag!"
DV and Digibeta are NO WHERE NEAR the same thing. To suggest otherwise is to reveal that you do not work with the two formats extensively. Yes many productions are moving to DV. But only because it is cheaper. The image quality, particuluarly on anything that will be extensively processed is far greater on DigiBeta than DV. Try pulling a decent key with DV! At 270mbit/second versus 25mbits per second, Digibeta contains far more image information and detail and can handle far more secondary processing than DV. Additionally the color space on Digibeta is 4:2:2 versus 4:1:1 on DV. Digitbeta can be 10bit verus 8bit maximum for DV. (sunsets, car grills, anything with a gradient will look visibly worse on 8bit DV than either 8bit or 10bit Digibeta.) Don't get me wrong, DV is great, I've shot plenty of stuff with it. I even like HDV which a lot of people scoff at, but to say DV is qualitatively close to Digibeta is laughable. The same film footage transfered to DV and Digibeta and then played back on match monitor simultaniously would be like watching VHS on one monitor and a DVD on the other. The reason for the move to FCP (which I've used since 1.0) is cost, cost, cost. In the 5e9 channel universe, production budgets have been cut, cut, cut. (audience isn't expanding, but channels are == less money to go around). This is the reason for the acceptance of DV as a production format by broadcasters, not because it's comparable to Digibeta!!! It is orders of magnitude cheaper to cut on FCP versus avid.
Filmo The Klown
... for a non-Apple piece of hardware with almost the EXACT same specs (minus maybe wireless, EFI, and motherboard) about 1/3 the price.
Umm, no thanks, like any good geek, I'll build my own (and yes, I can build my own laptop) In fact, I can just find the SPS numbers for HP parts, order direct at wholesale, and wham! Apple clone in a better-looking shell with a 3-year parts warranty WITHOUT HAVING TO PAY FOR APPLECARE TO DO THE EXACT SAME WARRANTY WORK!
I've worked as a contractor for Apple, HP, Dell, and IBM. It's all x86 now, and get this, all the non-Apple manufacturers can get you Appleish-Spec hardware at 1/3 the cost. Sorry, Apple, no deals from me.
~a humble build-it-yourself geek
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
Just joined this site to follow this thread (admittedly haven't read all the forum rules). If it isn't against the rules, could you please share your source for "tried and true" 3rd party ram for these new macs? Thanks
Well duh.
Isn't it obvious? If you'd rather spec out and then build the computer yourself, then the Mac Pro, rather, any Mac, is not for you.
Not everyone has the time, buddy.
Unless you go cheapass, warranties on memory and hard drives will be at least as long as Apple's extended care.
Man, in november I bought a 2.66 GHZ Quad core mac pro w/ 4 GB of RAM, and had bragging rights ever since among everyone I knew for my sweet machine. Now the 8 core version comes out. Not that anyone I know will have one, but crap, I hope they have some sort of upgrade processors us current mac pro owners can buy, I can't afford to buy a top end machine again so soon. Since the chips this beast uses aren't even part of Intel's standard offering, the only place I would be able to buy them is from Apple.
sigh... is this really just a sign that apple is going to be EOL'ing these and re-releasing new displays???
> It's still gouging,
No, it's really not.
I really resent it when people say Apple is gouging for add-on RAM because ALL MAJOR PC MAKERS charge more for add-on RAM than do vendors who specifically sell RAM. It is not gouging to sell something at the same price as competitors. Also Apple has been as good as anyone in building machines with easy access RAM doors so the user can get in there to add RAM. If they have made it easy enough to add RAM to most systems that a high school student can do it and combine that with online shopping it is hard to see what's stopping people from purchasing RAM in precisely the way that suits their needs.
I'm sure Apple would love to just put the maximum RAM in every box but that is not how the industry works either because you would no longer have a $599 machine and the user will not get it that the Gateway has 256 MB and the Mac has 2 GB. If you don't like how this shit works, do not blame Apple, simply start your own maverick PC company and change the rules. Apple is alone against the Windows hardware cartel and they are doing enough progressive shit as it is.
8 will do for now.
Ah, changed my mind. I callled Apple and asked if I was stuck or what. They said I was within the 14 day evaluation period, and let me RMA the machine. I am really happy about this as in the long run, I will get more done with the 8-core machine. I think Apple was grand about it.
That's true, it was only a "turd" in the sense that I didn't have one. :)
I did later buy a IIci, which was almost the same thing, but in a smaller form factor.
I remember when the Power PC came out -- and suddenly the fastest 68000-based Mac was the emulation mode of the Power PC chip, so enormous was the RISC-based upgrade.
One IIfx reviewer did say, however, that "It's not wicked fast until I say it's wicked fast!"
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.