What Future Updates will make you switch to the Mac Pro

[ybz90]

As I look at the Mac Pro, it is clearly a very niche product. For me, nothing will entice me to make the switch. The price is just too high for my needs, as I have a GPU cluster to handle all my programming and computational needs. That said, I think for the Pro's target market, the future update that will get them to switch/upgrade is simply the existence of a future update at all... everyone is starved for the Mac Pro to finally get the revisions that have been delayed for months (years?).

[KaraH]

Originally Posted by ybz90

As I look at the Mac Pro, it is clearly a very niche product. For me, nothing will entice me to make the switch. The price is just too high for my needs, as I have a GPU cluster to handle all my programming and computational needs. That said, I think for the Pro's target market, the future update that will get them to switch/upgrade is simply the existence of a future update at all... everyone is starved for the Mac Pro to finally get the revisions that have been delayed for months (years?).

I do not think it is a niche product at all. I talk as someone who currently has an older iMac on my desk. You did not say what is your current mac but I will guess an iMac since a mini would be a toy to you if you are using that much power for work-type stuff.

Interestingly, assume costs for the next generation of the pro are not all that different from what they are now. A 2013 base-mid pro would be faster (at least it is guessed) than a high-level 2012 iMac and the cost is really not much higher. There are a lot of advantages, expandability being the main one, but I will focus on cost.

No question the initial investment is more, even if not as bad as it looks. Look at it the same way you would in comparing a mac to a PC though, TCO. A few years from now I want, say, a new graphics card. With the iMac I have to buy an entirely new system. With the pro I just buy that new card. The same for the SSD or whatever. The same for when a component fails.

Even the CPU can be upgraded for a cost. I was looking at OWC's site last night and found one. Not cheap but less expensive than an iMac.

The reasons for upgrading the pro itself in the future are fewer and further between. Maybe when a newer and faster interface comes out. When and if I want to upgrade many of the components for it I already will own (like the monitor) so that makes the new machine cost less. As a side benefit - less ewaste.

There is also the bit that there are rumors the pro will be made in the US in the future. Not TCO related but that gets into a whole other list of reasons why it is a good idea.

[nilk]

I'm pretty much in agreement here...

Originally Posted by KaraH

An option, yes, but OSX seems determined to force it on you if it sees both an SSD and a HDD. We all know fusion is just a temporary patch until SSDs get better and cheaper.

I was not aware that OS X forces you to use Fusion Drive, or that it is even a supported option on anything but the current iMac or Mac Mini (I know you can unofficially use it on other systems). Or do you mean if you buy an iMac or Mac Mini with the "Fusion Drive" option there is not a way (or not an easy, supported way) to use the SSD and HDD separately?

Maybe, but as a programmer I am a bit leery of another layer between me and my data. It just strikes me as yet another point of failure.

I'm also a programmer, and I understand it's a risk, especially with new software such as this. And considering Apple's track record with software RAID (it had issues in Lion, otherwise I would be using software RAID 0 for my video editing scratch disk), Fusion Drive is likely to have problems. So you are right, this is another point of failure, and a potential risk, but I'd still like the option of trying this, even though it isn't my ideal solution.

I understand why you wouldn't want to use it, and it certainly shouldn't be something forced upon us. I think if they provide a SSD + HDD option, you should be able to use them without Fusion Drive, especially in a Mac Pro, but also in other systems.

In addition to the normal timemachine I plan on semi-regular clones of my full system. Maybe not the best backup strategy but certainly better than I have used before. Even so, a backup is like insurance ... you hope you never need it (and if you do it is to recover a deleted file).

I use Time Machine, and also do multiple full clones of all of my drives, rotating the clones off-site (off-site is very important in the case of theft or fire/flood/etc damage). I've had drive failures and recovered via Time Machine, and even done migrations using Time Machine. So I think I could manage the risk of something like Fusion Drive. But you are right in wanting to minimizing the potential for needing the backup. But different people have different tolerance for how much risk they are willing to take on.

I wish that they also supported using a SSD as purely a read/write cache. This wouldn't be as space efficient, but it would be less complex and much safer. I believe there is at least one 3rd party software solution for OS X, but I wouldn't have as much confidence in a 3rd party software solution when doing OS X updates, etc.

All that said, an SSD is potentially the best investment you can make in a computer component. Instead of buying the next Mac Pro, I may instead just buy the largest SSD that fits my budget (hopefully big enough to be able to squeeze my system drive into and not use Fusion Drive) and install it in my aging Mac Pro 2,1 (that is limping along with unsupported upgrades/hacks) so that I can get a few more years out of it before it needs replacement. I'll be able to use that SSD with future machines, too. Even if I get something like a rMBP instead of a Mac Pro, I can always put the SSD in an external enclosure.

[KaraH]

Originally Posted by nilk

I'm pretty much in agreement here...

BTW, I am not the "obvious" mac pro user. When I get home an iMac will fit most of my needs (well, some not ideally but workable). Looking at TCO convinced me though and things like expandability and a full-sized graphics card are bonuses.

Originally Posted by nilk

I was not aware that OS X forces you to use Fusion Drive, or that it is even a supported option on anything but the current iMac or Mac Mini (I know you can unofficially use it on other systems). Or do you mean if you buy an iMac or Mac Mini with the "Fusion Drive" option there is not a way (or not an easy, supported way) to use the SSD and HDD separately?

While you can do it with other macs I think it is only officially supported on the iMac. However with that the lion installer will recreate the fusion drive if ran from the recovery partition (rather than from an installer image). I would be shocked if Apple changed that policy for the 2013 MP but I am going to guess there are more people that use it that would want more discrete control over the SDD and HDD than exist amongst iMac users.

Originally Posted by nilk

I'm also a programmer, and I understand it's a risk, especially with new software such as this. And considering Apple's track record with software RAID (it had issues in Lion, otherwise I would be using software RAID 0 for my video editing scratch disk), Fusion Drive is likely to have problems. So you are right, this is another point of failure, and a potential risk, but I'd still like the option of trying this, even though it isn't my ideal solution.

An option for those who want it, yes. I just do not want an OS installer deciding it knows best for everyone.

Originally Posted by nilk

I use Time Machine, and also do multiple full clones of all of my drives, rotating the clones off-site (off-site is very important in the case of theft or fire/flood/etc damage). I've had drive failures and recovered via Time Machine, and even done migrations using Time Machine. So I think I could manage the risk of something like Fusion Drive. But you are right in wanting to minimizing the potential for needing the backup. But different people have different tolerance for how much risk they are willing to take on.

I can tolerate risk with my data as nothing on it is important to my work. Sure it would be a major pain and involve loss of stuff I wanted to keep but no more than, oh, if my filing cabinet caught fire.

Before TM I did not have a backup strategy at all. With my iMac I started using TM (and set up my spouse's machine the same way). With the pro I will do TM and rotating full clones. I will not store them too far away though, maybe bury them in my closet or something, as my concern is if my system got stolen or such.

Originally Posted by nilk

All that said, an SSD is potentially the best investment you can make in a computer component. Instead of buying the next Mac Pro, I may instead just buy the largest SSD that fits my budget (hopefully big enough to be able to squeeze my system drive into and not use Fusion Drive) and install it in my aging Mac Pro 2,1 (that is limping along with unsupported upgrades/hacks) so that I can get a few more years out of it before it needs replacement. I'll be able to use that SSD with future machines, too. Even if I get something like a rMBP instead of a Mac Pro, I can always put the SSD in an external enclosure.

You might want to google the Viper SSD that is coming out soon. It was designed with the hope of using it with the 2013 MP. It looks like SSDs are still an emerging technology but they have come a long way in a few years .... they have me salivating over what to expect in the future.

That one is from OWC. While they have not announced a price tag yet their other SSDs are in the 1$/GB range.

[ybz90]

Originally Posted by KaraH

I do not think it is a niche product at all. I talk as someone who currently has an older iMac on my desk. You did not say what is your current mac but I will guess an iMac since a mini would be a toy to you if you are using that much power for work-type stuff.

Interestingly, assume costs for the next generation of the pro are not all that different from what they are now. A 2013 base-mid pro would be faster (at least it is guessed) than a high-level 2012 iMac and the cost is really not much higher. There are a lot of advantages, expandability being the main one, but I will focus on cost.

No question the initial investment is more, even if not as bad as it looks. Look at it the same way you would in comparing a mac to a PC though, TCO. A few years from now I want, say, a new graphics card. With the iMac I have to buy an entirely new system. With the pro I just buy that new card. The same for the SSD or whatever. The same for when a component fails.

Even the CPU can be upgraded for a cost. I was looking at OWC's site last night and found one. Not cheap but less expensive than an iMac.

The reasons for upgrading the pro itself in the future are fewer and further between. Maybe when a newer and faster interface comes out. When and if I want to upgrade many of the components for it I already will own (like the monitor) so that makes the new machine cost less. As a side benefit - less ewaste.

There is also the bit that there are rumors the pro will be made in the US in the future. Not TCO related but that gets into a whole other list of reasons why it is a good idea.

Actually, no, it may sound surprisingly, but I use a SB 11" MacBook Air as my main system and am waiting for the Haswell Mini's to get a quad-core. Like I said, I have a 12 GPU rig I built for my current needs as a computational biologist, and for my purposes, that runs circles around any Mac Pro current or likely to be released in the near future. Of course, that's only because my work requires extremely parallel processing, so in all fairness, I suppose my comparison isn't entirely accurate. When I say niche, I don't mean that the market is unimportant, but rather it is a sliver of the total market. The Mac Pro is aimed entirely at professionals (and some enthusiasts).

For some people who do need the particular strengths of the Mac Pro, then it's really one of the only viable options. Like I said, I speak only for me personally, and for me, it's too expensive. The depreciation of the parts is too high for me to justify something that is more powerful than I need as far as the CPU goes (and is simultaneously way too lacking in the GPU department).

[nilk]

Originally Posted by KaraH

BTW, I am not the "obvious" mac pro user. When I get home an iMac will fit most of my needs (well, some not ideally but workable). Looking at TCO convinced me though and things like expandability and a full-sized graphics card are bonuses.

I bought a Mac Pro in part with upgradability in mind, for sure. And in practice, it's been great; I have a machine that is nearly 6 years old and it still meets my needs quite well. My current uses are music production, video editing, photo management, and software development; so they are at least mildly resource intensive.

But just note that Apple has the tendency for dropping support for hardware, and that's been my biggest disappointment with the Mac Pro (even though it hasn't really mattered in practice). I have a good number of unsupported upgrades/hacks for my 2007 Mac Pro 2,1:

• ATI Radeon 5770 graphics card (official Mac version) - unsupported by Apple in the 2007 Mac Pro, but it works
• CPU upgrade - not officially supported, was more difficult to perform than a regular PC CPU upgrade, but it works great. These were CPUs that the Mac Pro never sold with BTW.
• Mountain Lion - Doesn't support the 2006-2007 Mac Pro 1,1 or 2,1 because of 32-bit EFI, but I used a hack involving Chameleon bootloader and it works well enough other than not being reliably put the machine to sleep

Now I'm hoping that this was a unique case because the 1,1 and 2,1 started with 32-bit EFI, and we won't have such a transition in the future. So the issues with what graphics card work (and are officially supported) will be less of an issue. And hopefully Apple won't have an excuse to drop OS X support on a machine that is still powerful enough. Note that they probably could have done a firmware upgrade to make it 64-bit EFI, or done some bootloader magic to emulate 64-bit EFI like Chameleon does for me.

As for CPUs: CPU upgrades are not officially supported by Apple; they expect you to stick with whatever you buy the machine with. In practice we can do what we want our machines, but that doesn't mean that Apple leaves things open enough that you can upgrade to a future CPU without hacks. There have been cases where the firmware was the only difference between Mac Pro revisions, and the firmware was the only thing keeping an older Mac Pro from using newer CPUs. People have come up with hacks to upgrade the firmware, but Apple definitely did not step up to provide such a thing, because they don't officially support CPU upgrades at all. Examples: 2010 Mac Pro is the same as 2009 except for firmware (and you can hack a 2009 to a 2010 to get later CPU support), same thing with the 2006 1,1 and 2007 2,1 I think.

So my point is: Yes, the Mac Pro is the most upgradable Mac you can buy from Apple. But the limitations on how far you can upgrade it with official support from Apple have historically dropped off fairly early in it's lifecycle, especially compared to what you might experience with typical PC hardware. And maybe it was unique to the 2006-2007 1,1 and 2,1, but Apple is not opposed to dropping OS X support for these machines before the hardware becomes irrelevant.

Now with the help of the community, with individuals who were willing to try out things to see what works, and to produce hacks to get things working, I have been able to upgrade my machine. The question is, is this going to continue to be the case? I don't think Apple is going to officially support more upgradability in the future Mac Pro, if history is any indicator. Hopefully the community (and the possibilities of the hardware itself) will be able to continue making up for this. The upgradability of a future Mac Pro has a certain uncertainty to it. That's the main thing that makes me unable to commit to buying a future Mac Pro (I might as well buy a MBP if the Mac Pro is not as upgradable as I'd like). Maybe once it's released we may find out more details that may sway me in a particular direction.

[KaraH]

Originally Posted by ybz90

The Mac Pro is aimed entirely at professionals (and some enthusiasts).

For some people who do need the particular strengths of the Mac Pro, then it's really one of the only viable options. Like I said, I speak only for me personally, and for me, it's too expensive. The depreciation of the parts is too high for me to justify something that is more powerful than I need as far as the CPU goes (and is simultaneously way too lacking in the GPU department).

Ironically, the GPU was the first thing that made me take a serious look at the pro. I use Second Life quite a bit so essentially need a gamer's box (but also a good workhorse for compiling). It is well-known there that an iMac is a poor cousin in SL, the GPU is the laptop version rather than a full-sized card. The TCO is what sold me (no pun intended) but the graphics card is definitely what made me look at the 2013 pro as an option.

Originally Posted by nilk

I bought a Mac Pro in part with upgradability in mind, for sure. And in practice, it's been great; I have a machine that is nearly 6 years old and it still meets my needs quite well. My current uses are music production, video editing, photo management, and software development; so they are at least mildly resource intensive.

But just note that Apple has the tendency for dropping support for hardware, and that's been my biggest disappointment with the Mac Pro (even though it hasn't really mattered in practice).

True, although I would guess my monitor, probably the most expensive single component after the CPU, will work with the next machine. Whether Apple goes with TB or not in the next pro whatever they use there will be too much stuff out there for them to drop the connector in 5 years or so.

If you think Apple is bad some software companies are worse. I had some specialty apps that relied on my old eMac/10.3 for a few years I had bought an intel mac and companies were dropping PPC support left and right.

Of course it depends on your needs as my dad still has a 1st generation G4 in his summer house. Ever try to find a good external when your only connection option is USB 1.1? [No, I did not tell him his internal filled up because I had a bigger drive in my iPod, but it was REALLY tempting.]

[ybz90]

Originally Posted by KaraH

Ironically, the GPU was the first thing that made me take a serious look at the pro. I use Second Life quite a bit so essentially need a gamer's box (but also a good workhorse for compiling). It is well-known there that an iMac is a poor cousin in SL, the GPU is the laptop version rather than a full-sized card. The TCO is what sold me (no pun intended) but the graphics card is definitely what made me look at the 2013 pro as an option.

Yeah, like I said, my usage is somewhat specialized. I don't need the powerful CPUs in the Mac Pro, but I do need GPUs (12x GTX 680), and something like a quad-core Mini, which is pretty powerful as is, would meet my regular computing needs. I expect that the next Mac Pro revision will throw out some serious boosts to CPU power on the order of 50%-100% improvement though for those waiting. I don't buy into the whole, modular form factor theory.

[KaraH]

Originally Posted by ybz90

Yeah, like I said, my usage is somewhat specialized. I don't need the powerful CPUs in the Mac Pro, but I do need GPUs (12x GTX 680), and something like a quad-core Mini, which is pretty powerful as is, would meet my regular computing needs. I expect that the next Mac Pro revision will throw out some serious boosts to CPU power on the order of 50%-100% improvement though for those waiting. I don't buy into the whole, modular form factor theory.

The mini was appealing but the specs were a bit too low for my taste. Not to mention the GPU was still the laptop version. Now if all those shortcomings could be overcome by hooking up 2 of them maybe ....

[Acorn]

Im hoping for options that are not xeon. I want the upgrade ability of the mac pro but i dont really need xeon. I am waiting to see what they do. I may build a windows box instead I havent decided. I dont care how pretty it is since its going under the desk anyway.

[tshrimp]

Will be come a Mac Pro owner when I become a millionaire

Until then My Mini and Macbook will have to do.

[deconstruct60]

Originally Posted by KaraH

Ironically, the GPU was the first thing that made me take a serious look at the pro. I use Second Life quite a bit so essentially need a gamer's box (but also a good workhorse for compiling).

Second Life doesn't have high GPU requirements.

http://secondlife.com/support/system...ts/?lang=en-US

the 'Recommended' GPU for a Mac is a AMD 4870. That is a 5 year old GPU. It is roughly on par with the 2012 iMac's GPUs. The designations of "integrated" vs "discrete" and "laptop" vs "desktop" are largely mute over timespans of 3-4 years.

AMD 4870
12 Pixels (GP/s)
30 Texture (GT/s)
115.2 Bandwidth (GB/s)
GDDR5
256 Bus width
1200 GFLOPS (single precision)


G650M
13.4 Pixels (GP/s)
26.7 Texture (GT/s)
64 Bandwidth (GB/s)
GDDR5
128 Bus width (note if was 256 bandwidth would be ~128 )
~600 GFLOPS ( single precision )


There is no huge in performance between these two and the iMac has 3 more GPU options with even greater performance.


There are even some Haswell 4500HD graphics configs that are coming within a year in this same ballpark:

http://www.anandtech.com/show/6600/i...eforce-gt-650m


Games like Second Life are actually much more indicative of why the track that Apple is on toward a higher bias of laptop GPUs actually works. The broadest gaming market doesn't require bleeding edge GPUs.

[deconstruct60]

Originally Posted by nilk

So my point is: Yes, the Mac Pro is the most upgradable Mac you can buy from Apple. But the limitations on how far you can upgrade it with official support from Apple have historically dropped off fairly early in it's lifecycle,

That depends upon who is defining the lifecycle. As Apple defines it:

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1752

For the average Mac it is about 6 years. Characterizing the Mac Pro 1,1 and 2,1 are not being in the final stages of the lifecycle is deeply disconnected from that lifecycle time-frame.

I doubt the highly abnormally long replacement cycle for the 2010 version is going to get a greatly extended "get of jail free" card any more so than the G5 PowerMacs got with the PPC -> x86 transition.

especially compared to what you might experience with typical PC hardware.

Not really. Go try to get hardware support for a 6 year old video card from the vendor. Or a 7 year old CPU from Intel.

And maybe it was unique to the 2006-2007 1,1 and 2,1, but Apple is not opposed to dropping OS X support for these machines before the hardware becomes irrelevant.

The support lifecycle for Lion will end after the Mac Pro 1,1 and 2,1. Porting software (or creating bug fixes for) hardware that is about to be obsolete doesn't make alot of sense. Especially when people aren't paying for it.

You are muddling support with some sort of commitment to future configurations. Support is of what you have/bought.

You are generally not going to get firm commitments to future hardware components past a year or two in the PC realm. Changes like socket/chipset support changes happen every 2-3 years. Transitions like PCI -> PCI-e or PCI-e v2 -> v3 happen on somewhat longer cycles but do happen.

The fundamentally flawed notion that "more modular boxes with slots" make the box imperious to obsolescence is largely oversold. There is some marginal negation but to a large extent time spans of greater than 5 years leave the hardware pretty far behind the state of the art. For those whose workloads are capped they can prove a safe harbor, but any workloads coupled to the overall technological environments' improvements will surface.

Apple's certification matrix is small. They may only go back a year for a new

The upgradability of a future Mac Pro has a certain uncertainty to it. That's the main thing that makes me unable to commit to buying a future Mac Pro (I might as well buy a MBP if the Mac Pro is not as upgradable as I'd like). Maybe once it's released we may find out more details that may sway me in a particular direction.

It isn't really a question of upgradability but who assumes the risk. The Mac Pro can be tweaked. If the tweak goes bad you're on the hook for a possibility bricked/broken system. The issue is that folks want to push risk onto Apple without paying. Apple doesn't want the additional risk to eat into their margins. So there is a stand-off. Until one side is willing to significantly give the current status quo will likely continue.

[ekwipt]

Originally Posted by ybz90

Yeah, like I said, my usage is somewhat specialized. I don't need the powerful CPUs in the Mac Pro, but I do need GPUs (12x GTX 680), and something like a quad-core Mini, which is pretty powerful as is, would meet my regular computing needs. I expect that the next Mac Pro revision will throw out some serious boosts to CPU power on the order of 50%-100% improvement though for those waiting. I don't buy into the whole, modular form factor theory.

Same here, I'd be all over a Mac mini pro with better graphics options.

I've got a 2008 Macpro, I'm waiting until the end of the year for a new Macpro product, will weigh up the options.... And probably buy a new iMac

[KaraH]

Originally Posted by deconstruct60

Second Life doesn't have high GPU requirements.

That is not what people observe in second life when they use two machines that, by the specs, only significantly differ in the GPU and the operating system. The 'recommended specifications' are a bit low.

With second life and other software the recommended specs slowly creep up over time. A GPU that is ok now is not guaranteed to be so later. My machine was GREAT with SL when I first bought it but now, well.

When I buy a new machine I fully expect it to last 5 years so max out things I will not be able to change (or change easily) later. Not because I need it then but because I will in 5 years and not have a way of changing my mind. A good example is the graphics card in an iMac.

As I said, 5 years. My current mac is a late 2007 iMac and I was planning to replace it with the 2012 iMac. That machine is a slap in the face though: it puts form over function (and I was already right at my comfort zone edge for how the hardware could be altered). With what is hoped for the 2013 pro I should be comfortable for awhile .... upgrading GPUs and such for years as needed rather than buying a new machine.

Maybe a computer that is literally glued together is for most people. I am not most people though. I come from the Apple ][ days where if something is not working right you lifted the lid to give things a once-over.

[nilk]

Originally Posted by deconstruct60

That depends upon who is defining the lifecycle. As Apple defines it:

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1752

For the average Mac it is about 6 years. Characterizing the Mac Pro 1,1 and 2,1 are not being in the final stages of the lifecycle is deeply disconnected from that lifecycle time-frame.

Maybe so, but the Mac Pro is not your average Mac. The hardware is still quite powerful, such that its hard to consider it obsolete. My early-2008 MacBook Pro isn't nearly as powerful and yet it still has OS X Mountain Lion support and struggles to run it. An 8-core Mac Pro 2,1 still outperforms some current Macs (granted, this is low-end machines like the MacBook Air), but it doesn't have OS X Mountain Lion support.

I understand the arguments as to why Apple does what it does. I expected someone to chime in with these arguments, and probably should have put in enough wording to put the point across that it may be reasonable for Apple to do what they do considering their position. I am mainly just making a statement of their behavior actually is and my disappointment (which may have not been justified, but it informs my future purchase decisions nonetheless).

My point was to dispel the illusion that the Mac Pro is like a PC in it's upgradability. Apple doesn't support upgrades for the CPU and you shouldn't buy a Mac Pro with expectation that you will be able to upgrade the CPU. PC motherboard vendors will release firmware updates to support newer CPUs; Apple will not.

Mac graphics cards upgrades support have ended fairly early (for the 2,1 at least), at least compared to PC video cards. PC video cards tend to support older hardware, but with PC video cards the 3rd party vendors are directly in control of this.

Linux, Windows, BSD, etc do not have this problem where the operating system no longer supports hardware that is still relevant and powerful. I'm not necessarily making a judgement call on Apple for not matching that, they may be completely justified, but this is simply a difference that exists.

Coming from PC hardware (my first Mac was a G4 Mac Mini, and I was mainly a Linux user at the time I got the Mac Pro), I expected more upgradability and a longer life for the Mac Pro, because it was basically just PC hardware. Maybe if I had paid more attention to the Power Mac line I wouldn't have expected as much. These days, all my computers are Macs and I'm not switching back, but I must admit that everyone saying that Macs are not as upgradable as PCs are right. No one should be under the illusion that the Mac Pro is the exception to this; it is not.

As I said, fortunately the community has stepped in and provided a path for those who are willing to assume to risk of unsupported upgrades. But there is no guarantee they may be able to in the future. I'm at least glad that Apple hasn't done anything specifically to stop unsupported upgrades, and hope that stays the case.