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A Flood of Fawning Reviews For Apple's Latest
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.
But the question we all want to know the answer to is: will it blend?
This is not the funny you're looking for.
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?
Hey guys, have you ever wanted to buy a workstation with half as many sockets and half as many DIMM slots as the prior generation? What if I remove all the capacity for internal expansion cards so that you can enjoy buying external cardcages? Still not sold? I've come up with the least rackable shape in the history of computing, you'll love it!
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.
- 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 :)
William George
...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.
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their are better (i.e. more powerful) systems for the same or less money for video and animation rendering. I don't really know who this is for. It cost the same or more then professional high grade systems and is less powerful. It it's performance is more then would ever be used by high end games.
No, I'm not a hater I just see any good business case for having one.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
...and produce a new 17"+ MacBook Pro with Retina display quality
Donte Alistair Anderson Roberts - hi son!
Karma: Chameleon
$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 vendors, can get a dual socket Opteron workstation. Sure not as fast per core as a xeon, but 32 AMD 3.2 cores *totally* whump 4 3.7GHz opteron cores. Also, the AMD processors come with quad rather than triple channel memory. Being Opteron, it's also upgradable to 0.5TB of RAM.
IOW, this seems like a seriously weedy workstation.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
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.
Come on apple do you really to save the $50 (high end estimate) on an 3K+ system?
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 have a sweet hackintosh in a PowerMac G5 chassis that I custom-built and it's not as pretty inside but it can trounce several Mac Pro models in benchmarks while I paid less than half the price for it. And BTW when I say custom, I mean that Dremels and JB-weld were involved. It's fully ATX-motherboard-compliant now. I have room for 4 video cards and about 8 hard drives. I have 16GB quad-channel DDR3. It is a great case design for airflow and therefore overclockers.
Apple dropped the ball, when it comes to expandability, and that's what I liked about the Mac Pro design. Sad face.
....Will look like a certain well-known Black Cube, and come with a Magneto-Optical drive.
If telephones are outlawed, then only outlaws will have telephones.
I mean, we're Apple!
So what if they have a better price/performance ratio? The Mac Pro is *round*. Round! You could lay it on it side, push it with your foot, and it wouldn't stop until it hit the far wall. How fucking cool is that? Let's see any of you fanbois try that with a PC. Heh... good luck.
Build in storage is weak only 1 port 256GB base and the said thing is it's looks like there was a plan for 2 storage ports? that hit some kind of IO / pci-e lane limit? Can't do raid over the pci-e flash?
He was quite explicit - if he had the money, he'd rather spend it on something else.
Looks gimmicky, seems massively over-priced. I'm sure there's a market for it...
Also FatPhil on SoylentNews, id 863
and the non pro video cards are just about the same.
Now what does the mac pro booted to windows show them as?
I can't believe magazine Mac World would give a positive review to a Mac.
I'd expect them to be promoting a similarly specced Ubuntu based machine.
^...
"If any question why we died, Tell them because our fathers lied."
and what happens when TB becomes firewire 2.0?
The people that buy it will be people who do jobs that need this sort of power, and which pays enough for this to be a good option. These are creative professionals, and so are certainly not lacking in sense. Though they won't be lacking in money either.
Are you generating power by throwing money into a furnace to fuel a steam engine?
I was given $3000 to spend on a desktop Mac, I'd be hard-pressed to pick the entry-level Mac Pro instead of a 27-inch iMac with 3.5GHz quad-core Intel Core i7 processor, 32GB of RAM, a 3TB Fusion Drive, and an Nvidia GeForce GTX 780M GPU.
Unimpressive specs for the price. I'm writing this on a 3.2GHz 4-core Intel i5-4570 CPU, with an Nvidia GeForce GT 640. Running Linux. Cost under $1000. I could have ordered a machine with the components Apple is installing for a few hundred more. The CPU upgrade would cost $116 and the GPU upgrade about $225. The GTX 780M isn't even NVidia's top-of-the-line GPU; that's a mobile (for laptops) part, three or four steps down from the top of the line.
As regards professional music, it's Pro Tools all the way. Which is both Mac and PC.
And Adobe Premiere is both Mac or PC.
So your software arguments do nothing to eliminate the Mac Pro.
Advantages of the Mac Pro, which you cannot get on PC, is the possibility to use Final Cut and Motion, and the ability to use legal and non-hacked OSX.
How can I replace my OS X trashcan icon with a small Mac Pro?
http://jonathanhirz.com/macprotrash-icon/
This space for rent.
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.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
WTF are you talking about. The new Mac Pro has no cooling problems. You seem to live in some alternate reality. They were talking about a Linai case overheating.
Personally, I don't like OS X but if you want a fully functioning workstation which runs Apple's OS and you don't want to deal with the hassle of building an unsupported Hackintosh setup, then maybe an Apple computer is the most appropriate solution.
Besides, from what I've read from other posters and sources, it sounds like you can't actually build a superior machine (or even one with the same specs) unless you spend more money than the Apple model.
Certainly, looking at some their other products, there is no evidence to support your theory that it's a tax on the ignorant considering my Sony Z1 cost more than my iPhone 5 did.
Backup not found: (A)bort (R)etry (P)anic
I wonder how you will all deal with the cognitive dissonance when this too, is a hit in sales?
You keep claiming Apple gear is "expensive". That word, I do not think it means what you think it means.
I certainly won't take YOUR word for that.
I've personally seen what the Apple approach to design leads to. Proper operating temperatures seem to be a distant afterthought. Effective cooling is heresy.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
You probably waste more time than these people do money. The funny thing is that they're getting on with their lives and you're still trying to feel like you're somehow better than them. Personally, the more successful people I know pay a bit more but don't get caught up in endlessly trying to defend their positions. Take it for what it's worth.
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.
If you'd bothered to do some research, you would know the new Mac Pro vents heat out of the top. So unless you plan on laying your legs over the top of it, you should be fine.
Are agnostics skeptical of unicorns too?
A single cpu makes this consumer NOT PRO !!!!!
What...? This machine uses the latest Xeons. The most expensive version is using a 12 core chip. There are no i7s involved.
How does it suck when the Thunderbolt to Firewire adapter works perfectly.
You know, if you don't put your computer in a miniature trashcan, you can install a more efficient cooling system.
Kind go amusing that you don't understand the most impressive aspect of the Mac Pro redesign, with a common thermal core that is in fact more efficient at bleeding heat than stuffing all of your parts in a box shaped like an oven and with nearly the same ventilation possibilities...
You know what else is round? A Jet Engine. They seem to manage heat OK.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
You mean like how it must've sucked for anyone in 1999 when Apple dropped the SCSI port from the Power Mac G3 Blue and White?
They DO ship a Thunderbolt to Firewire dongle if you need firewire(Which chains very nicely together, btw; much nicer than SCSI ever did).
Non impediti ratione cogitationus.
Or Apple's mistaken focus on OpenCL over CUDA.
So I'm curious why you think Apple tying themselves to a single video card maker (nVidia owns CUDA) vs. a standard (OpenCL) that works with any video card from any maker (including nVdia, and also Intel integrated graphics) is better?
I mean, this is Slashdot so I thought we were for standards. But I guess you prefer to tie yourself to a single hardware vendor. Good luck with that.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
I would personally have liked to see a 17" update.
But I finally gave in and bought the most recent 15" retina. It's fine, if you enable scaling mode to use all of the pixels on the screen directly it has the same resolution as the 17" did. You just increase font sizes a little bit.
It's also quite a bit lighter and has better battery life.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
And when you use a good pair of noise-cancelling headphones while you concentrate on your work, so you don't hear all the noise, you'll be fine.
All the reviews so far mention that the new Mac Pro is about as loud as a Mac Mini, i.e. unless you are in a completely silent room, you will not hear it.
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.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
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 useful to the people that still need workstations and cannot be served by consumer PC's.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
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 - because we are often re-configuring (or moving) workspaces, we are working in smaller areas. Or we are working at home (as people do these days much more often) and may need to change areas we work in.
I also just recently went from a 17" laptop to a 15" laptop. The larger screen was nice but the new one has the same resolution, and is more powerful and also has improved battery life and much, much faster internal storage and external ports. So that is in fact far better. Smaller means it's easier to carry in more bags and also lighter.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
The comment was modded up, and then, after about two hours, modded down. This happens so consistently with criticism of Apple products that it's probably orchestrated. Is there a crawler somewhere looking for criticism of Apple?
I noticed that all the top posts highlight the issue of price versus performance.
Wouldn't a fairer comparison include the form factor of the computer as well? It is arguably possible to build a better computer than the next person, with extra ports, compute power, etc. when size is no limitation.
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
Well, I blame you for not being more specific when you said "... in just about any area of computing, IS more useful."
I think mine is a good comparison, since, "in just about any area of computing," the Alienware beats the pants off a netbook.
An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
Besides, from what I've read from other posters and sources, it sounds like you can't actually build a superior machine (or even one with the same specs) unless you spend more money than the Apple model.
You are doing it the wrong way.
Try building an Apple desktop computer with the same specs as a high end ($1500) custom PC.
You can choose between a Mac mini with a 2.6 GHz CPU, intel graphics, 16GB RAM, 256GB SSD and 1TB external hard drive (because there is not enough room inside the box) for $1600
or
Get about the fastest core i7 PC with 32GB RAM, a high end video card, 512GB SSD and two 3TB hard drives in RAID and save money.
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.
Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
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 inclined.
Even iOS, the supposedly closed system, Apple does nothing to stop jailbreaking - they even hire jailbreakers. They now that having a contingent of highly technical users that want to work without boundaries is a good thing, so Apple does nothing to stop them - and unlike many other companies Apple stuff is written in such a way that it's easy for technical people to make great use of it once you are "inside the system" as it were.
Who got tens of millions of advanced UNIX systems in people's homes? It wasn't Linux. It was Apple.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
We are all used to referring to Mac Pros as towers. I have heard people refer to the newest creation as a tube, but this sounds rather grim. Suggestions? How about Ziti? Rigatoni?
can take the same cpu's that new 2013 one has
You don't need a Mac for AV work. Most stuff is cross platform, particularly the heavy hitting stuff. All the Avid stuff (Media Composer/Pro Tools) is either, Cubase is either, Studio One is either, Digital Performer is either, all the Adobe software is either, etc, etc. It is pretty much just the Apple products that are Mac only I the pro A/V arena.
I personally Use Cakewalk Sonar, which is PC only, and there have been a steady trickle of Mac people on the forums that are either wavering, or going PC for pro audio. Some are doing bootcamp and running Sonar, some are buying PCs because they find the cost to just be too much on an advantage.
They days of media being an "Apple thing" are long past. There's a lot of inertia in that area, after all if you've a setup and it works why change, but there isn't a technical hurdle. Unless you use FCP or Logic, you can most likely keep your exact same workflow, programs, plugins and all, and switch to Windows.
Also you are straight fucked if you have dedicated hardware that isn't USB/FW/thunderbolt. Have a Nitris DX? So sorry, nowhere to hook that up in the new Mac. Also no thunderbolt option (PCIe only for now) so you can't even rebuy it if you wanted to drop another $5000.
If all Apple keeps targeting are the people who want aesthetics, that may happen. After all, if you are doing music and a $1500 PC would meet your needs as well as a $3000 Mac, despite being less powerful, then maybe you decide that extra money would better go to some nice samples or the like.
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.
then slots will go away.
Right now thunderbolt is at best pci-e X4 at least it has 3 buses so you can at least give stuff it's own bus.
It may well be redundant. The servers we use a lot of in our datacenter have "1500 watts" of power supply, divided in to two 750 watt units. They could be upgraded to 1100 watt units, 2200 watts total, if we needed. However, if you do actual load testing on the system, you find peak draw with the configuration we have to be about 600 watts, well under the limit (remember 750 is output, not input, and there's some loss in conversion). So what's the deal?
Reliability. The power is fully redundant. Even if heavily loaded, if one PSU fails the system will not need to throttle. It has WAY more PSU than it needs for that reason. That's also why the 1100s are available. We are running dual 8 core CPUs and 256GB of RAM. If we stepped up to something heavier hitting, 2 12s and 768GB for example, we'd have a peak load over what 1 PSU could handle and need to upgrade or lose full redundancy.
However that doesn't mean it is power hungry if it doesn't need to be. It'll draw around 120ish watts at idle, mostly due to the RAID array since that is magnetic and doesn't get spun down.
Of course I'd think most of this would be known to the kid of person who buys an enterprise workstation or server. That the Mac fans who like the pro don't tells me something.
This is the thing all Mac fans seem to miss: Apple often throws in expensive shit that people don't need, and would rather not pay for. You discover that with SSDs, they are pretty much all "fast enough" for most tasks, meaning they are not a significant bottleneck, if one at all. You can see this upgrading a SATA 2 SSD to SATA 3. You get twice the bandwidth, and benchmarks bear that out, but you notice no operational difference. It was already fast enough for what it is tasked with.
Even high end stuff in nearly all cases. Like streaming audio samples. SSDs are the best shit EVAR as far as those of us that play with audio samplers (NI Kontakt and the like ) are concerned. What you find is that all limits go away with regards to the drive. Want to stream 2000 voices at once? No problem, even "slow" SSDs are fast enough for that no problems.
So the "givashit" quotient on these hyper-fast SSDs is pretty low. If I was running a heavy hitting database maybe. Of course one wouldn't do that on a Mac Pro. For AV work? Nope, regular SSDs are fast enough and space is more of an issue than speed. You can do uncompressed 4:4:4 HD video on any SSD no problem. However you need 13GB/minute to hold it. So 1200MB/sec doesn't matter 225MB/sec is all you need and a SATA-2 SSD could do that. What you need is space for cheap. A comparatively slow 1TB SSD is more use than a lightning fast 250GB one.
Say, RAID-6? That's what you do for drive failures. The problem with drive failure isn't replacing the drive, but the data and the downtime.
With most workstations, this is easy, you can get a RAID controller, usually integrated on the board (Dell's PERC 710s are great) and you can knock in a bunch of drives and go. High performance, high resilience. No such luck on this new Pro.
Another option would be a good external system. Maybe a heavy hitting iSCSI or FC array. That's where you go for really high end, lots of storage, reliability, etc. Ahh well you are kinda screwed there too. No cards to add FC to the pro, and OS-X has no iSCSI initiator, which is shocking for a modern OS, Windows got it in 2003 and Linux in 2005.
Also you might want to look in to SSD failure rates. They aren't particularly high, but they aren't particularly low either. Oh, and they are workload dependent as well. I loves me some SSDs, but don't think they are rocks on which you can build your house.
Here's the thing Hatebois seem to miss: zombie Steve is not holding a gun to your head forcing you to buy his products. I have no need for a truck with 18,000 lbs towing capacity - does that mean that F450's are overpriced crap and anyone who buys one is an effete snob chasing fashion?
If you don't need a monotower with PCI flash storage, then.....buy whatever it is that does what you want at the price you are willing to pay. Shocking concept I know, but feel free to try it sometime.
Six times Thunderbolt. You can buy a 32TB Thunderbolt RAID drive off the shelf; six of them are 192TB.
For specialty needs involving an extremely tiny minority... What, pray tell us, other than gpus (already present in Mac pros) and storage (better served via thunderbolt enclosures) needs better then PCI x4 speeds that is needed by a significant population of potential Mac Pro buyers?
Democracy is a sheep and two wolves deciding what to have for lunch. Freedom is a well armed sheep contesting the issue
This doesn't seem to have been linked already:
Photo showing the 2012 Mac Pro vs. the 2013 Mac Pro - both with the same amount of additional hardware.
storage (better served via thunderbolt???)) the old mac pro raid card was X4 and other raid card can be X8 or higher.
video in / other pro cards RED ROCKET cards I think are pci-e X8 so one can max out the TB bus.
fiber channel cards I think they are X4 - X8 so one can max out the TB bus.
Thunderbolt DAS units are used by anyone serious about storage.
Red Rocket is planning on a TB box and externalized PCI boxes over Thunderbolt are already being used by many until they deliver it.
Fiber Channel? Oh yeah, Everybody needs Fiberchannel... You're grasping at straws.
Democracy is a sheep and two wolves deciding what to have for lunch. Freedom is a well armed sheep contesting the issue
I was being facetious, if that wasn't obvious. I was merely pointing out that "blaming" Adobe for supporting CUDA is no less subjective than "blaming" Apple for supporting OpenCL.
Also, it's worth pointing out that Apple didn't tie themselves to a standard so much as they created a new standard for everyone else to tie themselves to. It's not like OpenCL was an existing standard that Apple embraced.
Obligatory.
Chuuch. Preach. Tabernacle.
They likely won't go away even then. We've been down this road before prior to the advent of internal expansion. Anyone else remember when computers were a small stand alone box and all the accessories were plugged in to it. Used to be your disk drive, your hard drive, pretty much everything was plugged in to it.
We moved away from that because having components inside meant that you didn't have to carry a bunch of different expansion devices with you for you computer. The industry favored internal modules over external quite strongly. Now, yes, there were technical limitations that required moving stuff close to the bus and largely accessories have been lagging on making full use of the bus speeds available now, but the closer you can get to the CPU, the faster you can make stuff operate and that is going to always be the case. No external port will ever match the speed you can get internally simply because of the distance the signals have to travel and the limited number of lanes available in a decently sized cable with reasonable power consumption.
Expansion slots may even become less common in a typical end user computer, but for a workstation, expandability and adaptability has ALWAYS been the name of the game and for expandability, internal, simple usage has always been favored over slower, modular, external options with a hard to service core.
AJ Henderson
I was being facetious, if that wasn't obvious.
Thanks for the clarification.
Also, it's worth pointing out that Apple didn't tie themselves to a standard so much as they created a new standard for everyone else to tie themselves to
In what way is everyone else "tying" themselves with this standard? It works across hardware platforms, and is controlled by a standards body run by a number of companies (not just Apple).
"tying" implies they are bound, but using the OpenCL standard means they are free to run on any GPU.
It's true Apple created it but that's because nothing else like it really existed at the time (apart from CUDA of course).
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
I certainly won't take YOUR word for that.
So your alternative is to make up your own reality.
Of course news about a fake are Fake News.
Instead of encouraging Nvidia to open up CUDA and other hardware vendors to support it, Apple opted to create a new standard, OpenCL. Of course, there's no technical reason [that I can see] why CUDA support couldn't be extended to non-Nvidia hardware, much like OpenCL support has been added to a variety of GPU hardware. That would've resulted in a world with one standard for GPGPU instead of the two we see today. Nvidia could've passed CUDA off to Khronos to alleviate any conflicts of interest. Also, I'd like to point out that OpenCL support was not always quite so universal, and targeting the OpenCL standard did not mean free choice of "any GPU".
It's true Apple created it but that's because nothing else like it really existed at the time (apart from CUDA of course).
That's my point. CUDA did exist. Apple could have used CUDA and worked to promote CUDA as the standard for all GPGPU. They didn't, for what I'm sure were perfectly valid reasons. But they could have, and that's why I'm saying it's not reasonable to blame Adobe over Apple.
Chuuch. Preach. Tabernacle.
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
Well, I blame you for not being more specific when you said "... in just about any area of computing, IS more useful."
I think mine is a good comparison, since, "in just about any area of computing," the Alienware beats the pants off a netbook.
More specific? Like "My Alienware would be so much better if it were an inch thicker"?
Of course news about a fake are Fake News.
Who rattled your kennel? I don't remember inviting you to the conversation.
Anyway... if you don't know off the top of your head how one of those big Alienware powerhouse laptops is more useful than a tiny, underpowered netbook, you'd be better off comparing them on NewEgg than talking to me.
'Cuz I'm probably just gonna make fun of you.
An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
Who rattled your kennel? I don't remember inviting you to the conversation.
Aww poor baby. I didn't know I needed your approval to show just how THICK you are. Feel free to just assume that you are THICK whatever you say from now on. It's a given.
Of course news about a fake are Fake News.
Who rattled your kennel? I don't remember inviting you to the conversation.
Aww poor baby. I didn't know I needed your approval to show just how THICK you are.
Troll much?
Because you suck at it, FYI.
Feel free to just assume that you are THICK whatever you say from now on. It's a given.
Ha! Man, do I love it when someone who can't even write a coherent sentence tries to insult my intellect; tragic irony really cracks me up.
An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
Given that Apple limits the duration of the Applecare support, I divide the price by the number of years it is supportable then ask myself if the machine is worth so much per month. My experience with my previous Mac Pro was a disappointment because a limitation on the boot ROM keeps me from being able to load a 64-bit kernel. My five thousand dollar Mac Pro is stuck back on Snow Leopard for the rest of it's life. I have a certain degree of remorse about this, which would be even more extreme if the price tag was over ten thousand dollars. I don't think I will be able to enjoy one of these, although my inner child yearns for one. I can't afford a Mercedes or a BMW either. My Mac Pro is the workstation of my dreams in a generic fashion though. 16GB of ram, 8-cores of 3.0GHz Xeon is still a kick ass development machine for GNU g++.
Seriously? -1 overrated on an unmoderated comment?
Guys, the moderation system is not a tool to be used when you disagree with someone. We talked about this.
What specifically about the parent comment is worthy of an overrated mod? Quotes and discussion please.
MacBook Pro != Mac Pro (or PowerMac for that matter).
Incidentally, my own MacBook Pro (July 2013) is extremely quiet, unless I kick LuxRender on (which will stress any damned laptop in existence.)
Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
Not only will you get something of comparable (if not better) quality, they're actually designed to be maintained. For the Thinkpads, you finally get to have IPS again after seeing it depart for about 6 years(last model being the 4:3 T60p). For Dell, you're likely to luck out on larger displays and swappable video cards. In both cases, the machines are designed with a higher degree of maintenance friendliness (favoring the Thinkpads though) and greater part availability.
That, and you usually can make them run OS X if you really wanted to.
Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.