What is a Mac Pro?

CHMK said:

Sorry, but can anyone tell me what a macpro really is used for?? is it just like a huge block of tech goodness that u can connect to a display monitor like a thunderbolt?
cos i know i mac is a monitor with the tech goodness built inside.

so are mac minis and mac pros just connected to any old monitor? havent really been able to find the answer.

and if so, can u actually connect a mac pro to say a macbook pro or an iMac? just really confused. i know its a workstation whatever that is so if someone could tell me in simple terms id be grateful. thanks!

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A Mac Pro is a desktop computer, in the same way that the Mac mini is a desktop computer. Both are used with an external display, mouse, keyboard, etc. The iMac is a desktop computer with the display built-in. The Mac mini and iMac don't have as much expansion capability as the Mac Pro, as their design isn't as "open" for adding internal drives and other components.

mac pro is more like a PC tower physically. There tends to be more configuration options. They can plug into older and newer monitors depending on adapters that you want and they are to a point user upgradable. In the Mac land they tend to not be common for most users and they are over the top for some.

A mac mini is the a smaller version. Generally not user upgradable, even though they can be if you have some knowledge. They are also headless, whcih means you need to add your own monitor. Again newer or older monitor depending on adapter. The mini is a great way for someone that already has a monitor and keyboard and mouse that wants to make a switch to a mac and doesnt want the full expense of an iMac.

It is a very old, very expensive but very cool computer.

CHMK said:

is it just like a huge block of tech goodness that u can connect to a display monitor like a thunderbolt?

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Actually the Mac Pro is quite outdated. I believe it is the only Mac that doesn't have Thunderbolt. It also doesn't have USB 3.0, it is two generations behind when it comes to the CPU and GPU, and its SATA connections are outdated.

Don't get me wrong, I love the Mac Pro. However, it is seriously outdated at this point. The number of scenarios where it makes sense to buy one is greatly diminished for most people.

The Mac Pro is the workstation of the mac computer line up.

It is in desperate need of a processor upgrade but it is what most video, photographic and 3D professionals would use if they work on a mac.

It can hold the most ram have the most processor cores and is the most expandable mac for both hard drives and GPU.

Thats the mac pro in a nut shell.

its the relic of a forgotten time... in the long long ago...

Remember the good old days
<iframe width="420" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/lb7EhYy-2RE" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

When the Power Mac G4 became the first personal computer to cross the threshold of one billion floating-point operations per second, it entered the rarefied realm of supercomputing--and got the attention of the U.S. government, which regards supercomputers as strategic technology--in effect, making the Power Mac G4 a weapon that shouldn't fall into the wrong hands

Read more: http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,2053869,00.html#ixzz2CjWIIWjg

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Mac pro may not have the latest data ports and protocols. But it does come with dual 6 core configurations. Even with it's older slower data connects and ram speed is still faster than any iMac or MBP.
Dual CPU's with 4 ram channels total means it essentially has twice the width of its data buss "mouth".
That and you can pummel it with rendering for hours and it wont overheat as badly as a MBP or iMac would.

It's the most powerful Mac you can buy (technically it is even though it hasn't been updated in almost 2 years).

Hell, with multithreaded applications my 2009 Mac Pro still faster than my latest 15" MacBook Pro.

CHMK said:

Thanks everyone for the answers. So theoretically if I got an adaptor I could use it with an apple monitor?

Also what happens if you connect it to a MacBook Pro or IMac? Does it provide your MacBook Pro or iMac with its specs as well as ur IMac or MacBook Pro?

Thanks!

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? What in the world are you asking?

CHMK said:

Thanks everyone for the answers. So theoretically if I got an adaptor I could use it with an apple monitor?

Also what happens if you connect it to a MacBook Pro or IMac? Does it provide your MacBook Pro or iMac with its specs as well as ur IMac or MacBook Pro?

Thanks!

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Why would you do this?

Good luck hooking up the Mac Pro to one of the newer Apple monitors, as it lacks Thunderbolt. Hope you're not holding out for USB 3.0 either. Also, I'm not certain about screen sharing capabilities, but I'm fairly certain you won't be able to connect the Mac Pro to either an iMac or a MacBook Pro. Also...why would you want to if you already have a display? The Mac Pro is essentially the same thing as a PC tower. It requires a monitor, keyboard and mouse to be used as a desktop machine.

GGJstudios said:

A Mac Pro is a desktop computer

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No, it is not. It is a FLOOR computer. I never see them on desks as it is humongous.

ActionableMango said:

Actually the Mac Pro is quite outdated. I believe it is the only Mac that doesn't have Thunderbolt. It also doesn't have USB 3.0, it is two generations behind when it comes to the CPU and GPU, and its SATA connections are outdated.

Don't get me wrong, I love the Mac Pro. However, it is seriously outdated at this point. The number of scenarios where it makes sense to buy one is greatly diminished for most people.

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Yep.
The Mac "Pro" kinda makes fun of its own name.
If only the iMac would have the best grfx cards, there is absolutely no reason for a Mac Pro.

I now own a Mac Pro '08 with Radeon 5870. I have this Mac almost 5 years now (!!!) and there still is no good reason to replace it.
The newest iMac 27" CTO with GeForce GTX 680MX is the Mac Pro killer now, though.

Wouldn't surprise me to find out that the expected Mac Pro '13 just is a maxxed out iMac with Thunderbolt RAID solution...

A Mac Pro is an endangered species.

CHMK said:

Does it provide your MacBook Pro or iMac with its specs as well as ur IMac or MacBook Pro?

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Yes. It works best with more than one macbook and imacs though.

mac1984user said:

Good luck hooking up the Mac Pro to one of the newer Apple monitors, as it lacks Thunderbolt. Hope you're not holding out for USB 3.0 either. Also, I'm not certain about screen sharing capabilities, but I'm fairly certain you won't be able to connect the Mac Pro to either an iMac or a MacBook Pro. Also...why would you want to if you already have a display? The Mac Pro is essentially the same thing as a PC tower. It requires a monitor, keyboard and mouse to be used as a desktop machine.

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Apple still sells the LED Cinema Display, which is Displayport.
As far as running a Mac Pro headless, I do this all day long at work, but it's kind of silly to do if you don't have 6 or 7 computers.

ActionableMango said:

Actually the Mac Pro is quite outdated. I believe it is the only Mac that doesn't have Thunderbolt. It also doesn't have USB 3.0, it is two generations behind when it comes to the CPU and GPU, and its SATA connections are outdated.

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The cpus are technically a generation behind. Ivy Bridge is not out for that socket type. You'd be looking at Sandy Bridge E until next year.

thekev said:

The cpus are technically a generation behind. Ivy Bridge is not out for that socket type. You'd be looking at Sandy Bridge E until next year.

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You are technically right, I can't argue with that.

But as a different point of view, how many MP owners even need a Xeon vs the non-Xeon version? Maybe some scientific or medical researchers need that ECC ram support, but most MP owners seem to be either enthusiasts or in the media industry. Since most don't really need or want Xeon/ECC, we're really two generations behind what we'd like to have. I suspect most would rather have a more up to date processor and less expensive RAM.

Of course I know there are exceptions, which is why I say "most".

The Mac Pro

.

As little as most people recognize the fact......

The Mac Pro falls squarely into the "UNIX Workstation" category.

Plain and simple. I've worked on nearly every flavor of UNIX workstation ever made and the mac pro is my favorite UNIX Workstation.

It has two outstanding features that bring it to the top of the category.

1. No one else has ever made such a beautifully engineered case.

2. No one else has ever made such a beautifully refined GUI on top of a UNIX core.

.

To the OP of this thread

The very nature of why you ask what a Mac Pro is gives me more than enough reasons to state that you don't need one.

Sorry for being a little negative here, but it is kind of ambiguous.

ActionableMango said:

You are technically right, I can't argue with that.

But as a different point of view, how many MP owners even need a Xeon vs the non-Xeon version? Maybe some scientific or medical researchers need that ECC ram support, but most MP owners seem to be either enthusiasts or in the media industry. Since most don't really need or want Xeon/ECC, we're really two generations behind what we'd like to have. I suspect most would rather have a more up to date processor and less expensive RAM.

Of course I know there are exceptions, which is why I say "most".

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We're back to the portion of users that would be better served by the elusive headless imac. People have argued that cause for years.At this point if they're making a workstation, I hope they pay attention to GPGPU support and internal storage. If I have those two things and it's specced at least somewhat reasonably for the asking price, I will buy one. CUDA computation and the rest of that isn't completely there yet. It's just that's the kind of thing I'm hoping to see. CUDA and OpenCL have been making their way into tons of software that I use, and there's still a significant gap between the gpus available for Windows and those within OSX based machines.

This is amazing how any thread in this part of a forum might be turned into... well, you know.