Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
Anyone else just going to buy and plug in monitors and not worry?
- Thread starter Sean Dempsey
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
unRAID is not a traditional raid either. The means by which both platforms write and manage data may differ. In functionality and usage, however, they are not dissimilar.
We are starting to stray off-topic here.
Yeah, I think I'll get whatever the lowest priced one is and just use it. If I were actually involved in editing 4K video I suppose I'd get the beefiest one. And of course this assumes there will be different configurations to choose from. I'll also probably wait 4 to 6 months after release before purchasing tho. Just to make sure the thing doesn't explode or something.
But yeah, there are a bunch of people apparently willing to gnash their teeth and pull their hair over the new design. I maintain that almost all of that is because of two reasons. One being that there's not enough information available yet so they're only seeing a partial picture and the other is that they lack certain mental facilities such as logical problem solving. A ridiculous example of the later being the inability to imagine the various ways in which external storage can be attached. Some folks are just dim - I guess that has always been true and will continue to be.
And of course "almost all" indeed implies that there will be a few venders and end-users disenfranchised by the new design. But it's far less than what is being professed by the wingnuts here and in the blogs. Mainly it will be vendors who specialize in VAR style GPU sales and users who... umm, errr, uhh, well actually I can't think of any.
The new MacPro actually covers all of the bases needed within the currently established paradigm and I can't think of any exceptions.
- People who want more CPU cores?
In the past such folks have HAD TO have multiple machines or buy non-Apple products. Nothing has changed.
- People who want Game level GPUs?
Mac has always been a very poor platform for games! Apple isn't in the business of promoting Windows. And everything game works better and faster on a native Wintel box - always has. Nothing has changed.
- People who want more than two GPU cards?
That's not really been doable since fast GPUs have hit which require the AUX power. The new MacPro gives us 6 (or 7?) displays anyway and 3 of them can be has high as 4K in resolution. There is also technology which allows USB3.0 to run 1080 displays so that's another 6 displays. That's 12 total displays - OMG, how many do people want?
- People using fast external RAID storage?
There's many options here:- The option of using a PCIe expansion box which is fast enough to support the full speed of a 4-SSD RAID0 (plenty!),
- TB2 direct attachment of RAID (0,1,5,10) enclosures of the same speed (plenty),
- TB2 direct attachment of simple drive enclosures (also RAIDable in 0,1, and 10),
- One or more USB3.0 RAID (0,1,10) or single drive attachments,
- Using a $25 USB3.0 --> eSATA interface adapter,
- and probably several things I'm forgetting too.
- People using unusual PCIe cards?
Some scientific and engineering cards do exist but they should be fine in a PCIe expansion box such as Apple mentioned themselves in the WWDC announcement.
Now, this is different than the good folks here who are investigating and analyzing what configuring the new MP6,1 will entail, what they will have to sell off, and what they will have to purchase extra in order to construct a system that meets their individual needs - just as anyone would with any new system. Depending of the price of the new MP6,1 of course, I don't think there will be any of those people who come to the conclusion that what they wanna do isn't possible using the new Mac. Everything seems to be covered from what I can see. Only the form factor and how it looks on the desktop has change - and even that, not by much for most users.
I mean take me for instance. I have 5 external drive enclosures, an audio interface, a (piano) keyboard slash control surface, a surround amplifier, 6 speakers, two APC UPS's, two LCD monitors, one USB hub, One Ethernet hub, one fiber optic router, and then an array of HIDs such as a mouse, KB, steering wheel, space-ball, and so on. So my system is comprised of a total of over 24 peripherals already plus of course the MP itself. Even people who only have half that many... WTF difference does one or two more-or-less make - especially when the main unit is about 1/8 the size of the previous MP models. Seriously, this is the only thing actually different so if that's what they're complaining about then I say the same to them: Wingnuts!
No wingnuts were harmed in the making of this post.
Last edited:
With the BeyondRAID used in the Drobo the data spans across all disks. With UnRAID the data only resides on a single drive. That makes that speed of the BeyondRAID functionally much faster than the UnRAID.
UnRAID also uses a unique user share concept that is not possible with BeyondRAID/Drobo which makes the functionality and usage very dissimilar.
But you are right we are starting to stray off-topic here.
Count me in as well. I won't buy day one, though, since I'd like to see some serious testing with this design before. Granted, they'd have crunshed that beast quite a lot in their basement, but wouldn't be the first time either with some starting hick-ups. Quite confident though, also because I don't want to wait till Rev B.
I'd call myself an prosumer, although I think that's an horrible desciption, since that what I'm doing can be considered part of my profession although I do it mostly because I want to, no because I'm depending on it. So I occasionally want / need to do some rendering and PS editing, so I'd really appreciate Apple offering an 8-core (10-core?) option. 12c will be most likely out of the question price-wise for me. I'm using mostly Maxwell, which isn't CUDA based so that should be fine (with my little understanding).
I'd call myself an prosumer, although I think that's an horrible desciption, since that what I'm doing can be considered part of my profession although I do it mostly because I want to, no because I'm depending on it. So I occasionally want / need to do some rendering and PS editing, so I'd really appreciate Apple offering an 8-core (10-core?) option. 12c will be most likely out of the question price-wise for me. I'm using mostly Maxwell, which isn't CUDA based so that should be fine (with my little understanding).
Yep. I'll be replacing my 2009 Mac Pro pretty much immediately after release.
This new Mac Pro is everything I have ever needed.
1. It will be faster than my top-model 2009 8-Core 2.93GHz model.
2. It will have more/faster RAM than my 32GB 1066MHz RAM currently.
3. Rather ironically, it will have FASTER storage than my current machine's RAID 0 SSD's on a PCI-E SATA III Card.
4. It will have better graphics than my GeForce 660Ti 2GB.
5. It will take up less space than my current machine.
6. It will offer considerably faster external connectivity
7. It will allow me to connect Thunderbolt displays
Things worth considering:
1. I don't have a need for the optical drive
2. I don't really need any internal drives. (DAS RAID here)
3. I do mostly graphics, design, development, and audio work.
In such a small package, it blows away my 09 HUGE machine. I spent $1600 AUD on adding a PCI-E Sonnet Tempo SSD Pro card and 2 x 512GB Samsung SSD 840 Pro drives in RAID 0 to achieve ~1GB a sec transfers. The new Mac Pro comes with that as a standard.
I am wondering, however, if there's architecturally much difference between a single socket and dual socket system? With dual sockets, are there any other benefits other than more cores and RAM? Does it also provide more bandwidth/throughput? Or is it still all the same BUS speed etc as a single socket machine?
But, in response to the OP - yep, I'll be buying this immediately and hooking up my 2 x 24" LED displays - and thankfully I can also ditch my active D-DVI > MDP converter box! I know it's not the case for everyone, but this machine simplifies and untangles my setup!
EDIT - worth adding. I guess I'm a 'professional'. I own a respected design studio and am the lead designed and developer. I spend most of my time in Photoshop doing designs, or Espresso doing coding. I also have a part time DJing career, and do quite a bit of mixing and music production when I can. So this machine will get used for a wide variety of tasks where I do tend to require more power than an average user. Probably puts me somewhere in the prosumer range, but not quite the workstation range? (I do SOME 3D now and then).
Scott
This new Mac Pro is everything I have ever needed.
1. It will be faster than my top-model 2009 8-Core 2.93GHz model.
2. It will have more/faster RAM than my 32GB 1066MHz RAM currently.
3. Rather ironically, it will have FASTER storage than my current machine's RAID 0 SSD's on a PCI-E SATA III Card.
4. It will have better graphics than my GeForce 660Ti 2GB.
5. It will take up less space than my current machine.
6. It will offer considerably faster external connectivity
7. It will allow me to connect Thunderbolt displays
Things worth considering:
1. I don't have a need for the optical drive
2. I don't really need any internal drives. (DAS RAID here)
3. I do mostly graphics, design, development, and audio work.
In such a small package, it blows away my 09 HUGE machine. I spent $1600 AUD on adding a PCI-E Sonnet Tempo SSD Pro card and 2 x 512GB Samsung SSD 840 Pro drives in RAID 0 to achieve ~1GB a sec transfers. The new Mac Pro comes with that as a standard.
I am wondering, however, if there's architecturally much difference between a single socket and dual socket system? With dual sockets, are there any other benefits other than more cores and RAM? Does it also provide more bandwidth/throughput? Or is it still all the same BUS speed etc as a single socket machine?
But, in response to the OP - yep, I'll be buying this immediately and hooking up my 2 x 24" LED displays - and thankfully I can also ditch my active D-DVI > MDP converter box! I know it's not the case for everyone, but this machine simplifies and untangles my setup!
EDIT - worth adding. I guess I'm a 'professional'. I own a respected design studio and am the lead designed and developer. I spend most of my time in Photoshop doing designs, or Espresso doing coding. I also have a part time DJing career, and do quite a bit of mixing and music production when I can. So this machine will get used for a wide variety of tasks where I do tend to require more power than an average user. Probably puts me somewhere in the prosumer range, but not quite the workstation range? (I do SOME 3D now and then).
Scott
Last edited:
The existing MP has support for Two PCIe cards of just about any type (as long as they're NVidia; plus many AMDs). It even supports the brand new GTX780--as long as you provide external power, which is a minor design flaw in the Mac Pro which is easily fixed.
You didn't have to eat what Apple shoved down your throat with the "previous" mac pro. With this one, you're forced to buy 2 fireGL cards regardless of if you'd like to have a cheaper configuration better suited for your needs. By the way, even the W9000 FireGL card (the best AMD has) at $3400 retail only does as well as a 7970 in terms of gaming, which is totally left in the dust by GTX780 at $650. If you use OpenCL/rendering a lot, good for you, the rest of us need a computer too though.
And I ask the question: what if you do audio?
Last edited:
People always want more cores. I don't, but I don't require a workstation-level motherboard for my purposes, either, nor do I pay workstation prices. If I did, perhaps I'd expect dual processor capability. Apple is going to enter the Xeon workstation arena without dual processors at least as an option. Maybe the MP wont be priced as such, but I expect that it will, and it'll be a joke.
Hopefully the new Ivy bridge has a 12 core model and not a 6 actual + 6 virtual. I think most users aren't bothered by this, but it will deter some from purchasing the machine.
Some people would prefer to pay the rather small sum to get a gaming GPU and then boot into Windows for games. This as opposed to paying for dual fireGL cards which are ridiculously expensive. The w9000 are $3,300 each and are only as good as a 7970 ($370) for games.
Apple has taken options away from us to put the computer in a ridiculous form-factor that nobody asked for.
If, by some miracle, they manage to price the new MP with dual w9000 for < $4,000, I will be impressed. However, I'm guessing that if they even offer a model like that, it's going to be > $7,000.
Internal 6gbps SATA would have been identical in speed for a fraction of the overhead cost (pop in another drive, no need for an external enclosure).
As far as your options list, SAS over 8x PCIe is better than thunderbolt, and costs the same (you pay for the controller, less for the enclosure).
http://www.barefeats.com/tbolt01.html
Thunderbolt RAID 0 with 6Gb/s SSDs appears to run into a bottleneck when you compare it to the SAS RAID 0 with the same 6Gb/s SSDs. I guess the 1000+MB/s theoretical bandwidth is... theoretical.-Barefeats
Unusual like my $150 eSATA card that runs my 10 hard drive array I built for less than $300?
Is it unusual to not want to pay $1000 for a thunderbolt array?
I like your posts, dude, but this design is going to cost users hundreds if not thousands of dollars to get the same capabilities as a $2500 PC.
By the way, how's that headphone jack working out for you? How many hundreds of dollars will it take to get surround sound on your $3,000+ computer?
And at least you didn't mention putting another GPU in a Thunderbolt --> PCIe adapter; that has to be one of the most absurd arguments I've heard.
Last edited:
Before I plug in monitors I will have to mortgage my home for adapter dongles and external chassis'. Then I can plug in and enjoy. And plug...and plug...and...where's that picture of the Dell cables mess next to the iMac? It will probably OK in the end but will take time and money to retrofit all peripherals to work. And then hope this is not another 'cube'. Eradicated 1-2 years from release. Cause hey, screw me, right?
That image is comparing an iMac to a Desktop. The Mac Pro has nothing to do with that so there is no full circle.
Apart from now, the Mac Pro has way more cords than the PC desktop (provided you have any TB/USB devices, like an optical drive, hard drives, PCIe chassis).
The Mac Pro is a workstation class computer and is not in the same class as a PC desktop. It is not uncommon for workstation class computers to have external audio/video devices and DAS. Apple realized this and designed the new Mac Pro accordingly.
My iPad has fewer cables than the new Mac Pro.
Similar comparison.
I'm not sure Apple made the iTube that way thinking "well, most pros have external crap, therefore let's make a box with nothing included and no room for internal expansion!"
Where did you find the final specs of the new Mac Pro? You know, those specs Apple still hasn't made public. Or in other words: there is no certainty the Mac Pro uses that W9000 nor is there any certainty that it will solely use that W9000. All we know is that whatever got demoed looks like to be housing that W9000. Let's not forget that anything we are doing now is pure speculation. It may very well be that Apple continuous to sell different types of Mac Pros as they are doing now. Meaning, you can get lower power graphics and thus a cheaper Mac Pro (same applies to the CPU). We'll have to wait till they finally release it.
Nominated for post of the week!
Hehe..
True that. Almost everything I said is predicated on price. And since we don't actually know the price yet it kinda has the potential to render everything I said as being rather stupid.
Ya, that's the conclusion I came to as well. For me one who profiles similar to a rounded hobbyist, I look at 6-cores as being the sweet spot. But as a working artist I would totally want 12 or more. Yes, even 24 cores would be gleefully received.
What, over three grand per card? I didn't know that. Without actually looking I just assumed they (the cards Apple showed in the sample MP6,1) were like $800 to $1k somewhere. If indeed the MP6,1 is over $8k that will indeed be a complete joke. I suppose some guy with 15 sports cars, butlers and maids, and an 80,000 square foot home might consider it but no one sane.
That bit of information fuels my certainty in GPU options. Surely in this case Apple either got those cards for less than one quarter of the retail price or they will make ready a set of cards more along the $100 to $200 range as an option.
Not nobody. In fact it's a popular complaint. I can't begin to count the number of times I read something similar to: "I'm getting two MacMinis because the MacPro is too big" or "I wanted the MP but opted for an iMac cuz the MP is just too big, bla bla bla" and so many variants thereof.
Yeah, in today's market that wouldn't fly. Configured base prices need to start within the $3k range and if market share is to be gained as a goal, then much closer to $2k (or even under $2k maybe) is a critical factor IMO. Even the people at the ridiculously priced BoXX know this:
3DBOXX 4025: $2988 Xeon E3 3.7 GHz
3DBOXX 4050: $2699 Intel i7 3.5 GHz
3DBOXX 4050X: $3166 Intel i7 4.5 GHz
3DBOXX 4920: $3653 Intel i7 3.5 GHz
3DBOXX 4925: $3719 Xeon 3.6GHz CPU
etc.
3DBOXX 4050: $2699 Intel i7 3.5 GHz
3DBOXX 4050X: $3166 Intel i7 4.5 GHz
3DBOXX 4920: $3653 Intel i7 3.5 GHz
3DBOXX 4925: $3719 Xeon 3.6GHz CPU
etc.
What? No. Or explain how tooling, assembly, and parts for controller, backplane, cage & sliders, cables and etc. somehow beat the price of what we see in the MP at he TB2 speeds - about 2 gigabytes per second.
Again, no. TB2 should be capable of speeds approaching 2GB/s - that's faster than the SAS shown in that graph. And again much cheaper ta'boot.
Additionally this is probably another case of barefeats blowing chunks which isn't unusual for them. I myself get 650 to 700MB/s using 4-drive RAID0 on the normal SATA II bus using ROTATIONAL media. Many people have reported getting near 1.2GB/s with two SSD drives either on a PCIe card or by using a RAID controller which upgrades the internal SATA bays from SATA II to SATA III. So that's a rather felonious graph there.
You should still be able to assemble a kick-ass RAID with 8 or so drives for well under or around $300 (not including drives). You're just looking at initial prices is all. Remember that TB is real new. SATA has been around for how long? USB3.0 is just slightly older than TB and it's already very affordable now. But even 5 months ago it wasn't. A half a year back a simple 4-port hub was $200 or more. Now they're under $50. And very soon they will be available for $25 or less. TB and TB2 will likely be the same deal. Right now a PCIe TB single slot expansion is like $300. In 6 to 8 months it'll be $75 or so. And when is the MacPro going to release? Yup, in 6 to 8 months probably. And I'll personally be waiting another 6 to 8 months on top of that before I order one. By then prices will be normalized - if indeed we haven't blown ourselves off the planet by then.
Let's hope they price the MP6,1 aggressively!
Audio? How about $19 to start?
GPU over TB2... Yeah, I don't understand enough about it to speak on it. It appears that if one is just using compute cores than even TB is fine for 1 or 2 Tesla type cards (maybe more) and TB2 could probably handle 4 to 6 with no slow-down at all. This was shown in the posted benchmarks from Tomshardware.com... But until Macs inherit this ability and some users assemble such systems using them on-the-job, we won't know for sure how well it all works. I think for sure using such a setup for displaying graphics is kinda silly tho.
Last edited:
The W6000 is only $330 IIRC, I'm sure they'll have a few different options.
How about having this computer for those people, and everyone else can use a tower ?
I was talking about SATA drives being run through TB. There's very little difference in speed between most decent motherboard SATA controllers and TB sata controllers, they both max out.
SATA will be around for many years, especially for platter drives (which will also be around for a while).
I'll wait to see the benchmarks
I'm not saying TB is slower than anything (except PCIe), I'm saying that while useful, it's not a replacement for PCIe yet.
It'll be a while before thunderbolt SATA controllers become cheap. It'd be nice to be able to use an on-board setup in the meantime.
I'm merely asking for the option, I don't mean to say we shouldn't use thunderbolt. Clearly thunderbolt is awesome technology, the market just hasn't matured to that point. PLUS for platter drives it's annoying and wasteful to have a separate box to put all your hard drives in, if you can avoid it. Having 6 bays in the pro would reduce the need for external storage for many users, which would save hundreds of dollars.
It says right there that there are small parts included with that model that could be choking hazards to small children. Are you crazy? That's why I bought the tower in the first place--out of fear of choking on a Mac Mini!@
Clearly USB Audio has come a long way since last I looked. I stand corrected, this is a viable and inexpensive solution to the fact that this $2500+ computer has basically no audio capabilities... still though, a $130 ASUS mobo even has a realtek card with 8 channel audio these days
... Plus this is yet another in along series of boxes on your desk which should've been on the motherboard/in the case.That's my whole point: I'll accept TB and TB2 are great, but they're not a replacement for PCIe. There is a huge reason to put the parts in the SAME CASE as the CPU, and that need can exist with the need to have the ability to put them outside the case as well.
Ah, well what cards were they using in the MP6,1 demo at WWDC?
$300 sounds better!
How about having this computer for those people, and everyone else can use a tower ?
Yeah, just get a big shoebox and stick your MP6,1 with all the little boxes you might want in that. Then you can call it a tower.
I was talking about SATA drives being run through TB. There's very little difference in speed between most decent motherboard SATA controllers and TB sata controllers, they both max out.
SATA will be around for many years, especially for platter drives (which will also be around for a while).
I'll wait to see the benchmarks
That's what I was talking about too - SATA III over TB. The benchmarks are already available:
And that's TB1 on a Mac Laptop.
So I guess TB2 will be faster.
That depends what PCIe device you happen to be talking about.
Hehehe, Hahahha... That's a new one - I haven't heard that before:
I chose a MacPro so my infant or I wouldn't accidentally swallow it.
Cute!
Last edited:
It wouldn't need to. I can totally see a future product which has 3 TB2 connectors and a USB3 or two connectors on one end of a single cable running to a single expansion box (maybe shaped like the new MP) where inside is found two PCIe expansion ports, 4, 6, or 8 drive expansion bays, optical audio ports, a card reader, a few HDMI ports, and some other stuff - all in one case.