Apple Planning 'Something Really Different' for New Mac Pro

wizard said:

You do realize that no matter what you do the architecture of computers will change dramatically over the next few years.

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Yes, I should hope so. I still need something that acts as a bridge to the hardware investments I have made (on an enterprise level) and is capable of working with software on a 3 year horizon.

wizard said:

I realize this is an issue but you have to remember where the industry is going here. Heterogeneous computing i coming to a platform near you soon. For discrete GPU's this could lead to dramatically different architectures.

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It seems that Apple has embraced the AMD variety in this new Form Factor, but that isn't necessarily going to work with everyones tool sets. Do these even have CUDA technology?

wizard said:

I suspect it will have a slot but it isn't likely to be a high power slot. many industries will not leave PCI-Expres anytime soon. As such it is important legacy support.

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No slot... so the question begs... is TB2 going to have issue supporting the higher end 3rd party graphics cards, considering the conversion that has to happen at the processor?

Also why would Apple integrate PCIe-3 into the new machine, but only for flash storage? Industry is pressing in the direction of Fusion-IO boards for speed and caching... isn't at best TB2 going to dumb that down?

wizard said:

I can't imagine that they would cripple TB on a machine highly reliant upon it like that. Of course Apple does a lot of things I can't imagine but I would expect several PCI-Express lanes dedicated to TB I/O. In fact lanes dedicated to TB would likely be the cause of fewer lanes available to PCI-Express inside the machine.

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4 lanes. not bad. but TB2 is just a bi-directional upgrade to TB1.

wizard said:

I'd prefer half rack myself. This allows for two in the place of one or side by side mounting with instrumentation.

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No rack mount. Cooling design in the new FF is interesting. Personally I don't care what i looks like or how heavy it is, it's the IO options that matter to me.

wizard said:

Yeah yeah yeah. No matter what you do the PC market will change dramatically over the next few years. If nothing else the smaller and faster parts will require shrinking of the machine in order to maintain those speeds. Apple really needs to build a platform that looks towards the future. This rev of the Pro might not get us there but it will start us down the path.

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Dont' discount brand loyalty in this industry. You are right, change is important, I'm not sure this puts us on the right path.

milo said:

What current SSD can do over 600, and would be limited by SATA III? Multiple SSD obviously can be faster, but a raid can be built with drives on separate SATA busses.

At some point SSD will be faster than III can handle but the next generation of SATA is being worked on now and may be out before the end of this year.




So what advantage is there to i7? If the equivalent xeons are the same price and have advantages but no disadvantages, why would anyone use i7 instead of xeon?

Plus if xeon and related components are no more expensive, that means that not only is the base MP ridiculously overpriced, it's ridiculously overpriced for no real reason.

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Well, one thing did right with the can shaped Mac Pro is put (non-SATA) PCIe SSDs in the thing. Having made that decision, I guess they did not want space taken up by (or the cost of having) a SATA III controller on the motherboard. Thunderbolt 2 is alright, but there is a need for TB 2 devices, although 1 devices will work in the meantime.

ladeer said:

do you feel silly now?

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Small black bucket with lots of boxes vs normal tower ... hmmm let me think.

So is this case black or silver?

toke lahti said:

As a pro, maybe you should go to a real computer shop to check out how good monitors look. Start by asking 10-bit colors. And after getting those, tell your clients that you are more interested about what's in the picture than how nice is the monitor...

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Eh, 10-bit isn't needed for us since we deliver to broadcast, it's overkill. They are some very nice 10 bit, as well as 4K monitors out there right now, most are better than the imac monitor as well, but they are very costly. The monitors I've seen that are comparable are like $500 bucks more more, which again, is overkill. My complaint about other monitors looking bad next to it was more of a side note than a real complaint though.

It's just that it happened to me, had a cheap 27 inch 1080P monitor hooked up to my mac pro, replaced old mac pro with a 27 inch imac, and suddenly my old 1080 monitor looks like crap next to the imac monitor.

Bahamut Eos said:

Eh, 10-bit isn't needed for us since we deliver to broadcast, it's overkill. They are some very nice 10 bit, as well as 4K monitors out there right now, most are better than the imac monitor as well, but they are very costly. The monitors I've seen that are comparable are like $500 bucks more more, which again, is overkill. My complaint about other monitors looking bad next to it was more of a side note than a real complaint though.

It's just that it happened to me, had a cheap 27 inch 1080P monitor hooked up to my mac pro, replaced old mac pro with a 27 inch imac, and suddenly my old 1080 monitor looks like crap next to the imac monitor.

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Ezio ColorEdge CG276 $2200 ish

When folks talk 10bit they're generally wanting display like this

Bahamut Eos said:

Eh, 10-bit isn't needed for us since we deliver to broadcast, it's overkill.

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If you want longer shelf life for your content, you should master it one grade better than what's delivered today.
10-bit colors usually meant that display is high quality and pretty well factory calibrated (which is good for you, if you don't profile/calibrate them by yourselves), even if your os ("most advanced os") does not support 10-bit colors.

Bahamut Eos said:

It's just that it happened to me, had a cheap 27 inch 1080P monitor hooked up to my mac pro, replaced old mac pro with a 27 inch imac, and suddenly my old 1080 monitor looks like crap next to the imac monitor.

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Maybe somebody should take an interest about color management at your workplace?

octatonic said:

I've been saying for months that I reckon they will take the cube idea and reboot it.
It makes a lot more sense now than when the original cube came out.

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And...... I was right.
Sort of.

Not really.

toke lahti said:

If you want longer shelf life for your content, you should master it one grade better than what's delivered today.
10-bit colors usually meant that display is high quality and pretty well factory calibrated (which is good for you, if you don't profile/calibrate them by yourselves), even if your os ("most advanced os") does not support 10-bit colors.

Maybe somebody should take an interest about color management at your workplace?

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We always master in at least 10-bit colorspace. And color management of monitors is a must if you don't want angry clients at your door.