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mess3mess

macrumors newbie
Jun 7, 2013
20
0
I'm not sure why you're so confused, chassis have existed for years and people use them all the time for things like running Pro Tools cards hooked up to laptops.

yes and for a 1 lane PCIe card they are fine -- but that's not the same as a 16 lane PCIe card… especially for v3
 
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sseaton1971

macrumors 6502
Feb 9, 2012
431
11
The difference is the Mac Pro really does look like a trash can whereas Safari was never really very snappy to being with, IMO and it certainly wasn't getting snappier 99% of the time people posted that crap, which they've been doing for YEARS and YEARS (whereas this thread is only a few weeks old).

I actually think it looks better without the cover. It looks more like a reactor or something without the top being covered. Perhaps they should have used a clear cover?

Well, then, by all means, please beat a dead horse! :rolleyes:

I agree that the new Mac Pro looks good without the cover, and I am sure someone will create a clear cover that will replace the black one.
 

Grade

macrumors regular
Apr 13, 2007
188
69
Actually when I saw it, made sense to ditch the big tower to go something a lot smaller, with double the speed of its predecessor.

It is showing a lot potential, let's see what the price tag will be.
 

dan542

macrumors newbie
Jun 18, 2013
14
0
Prague, Czech Republic
This is a great design, which will be accompanied with a great price tag.

But the average consumer does not need Xeon's and dual workstation class GPU's. Way too many "developers" are going to buy this but people making iOS apps do not need a 12 core Xeon CPU to do the trick.

I am tired of Apple missing a market segment to build a "high-performing" consumer level desktop WITHOUT an integrated display. A lot of people think they are "pro" but they are deluded by Apple's marketing and the lack of a upper-middle tier desktop option. Apple just wants to funnel developers into an expensive desktop product.

Apple needs to come out with the "Mac", period. Not iMac, not Mac Mini, not Mac Pro, but a consumer level "high-end" desktop. And I don't want a laptop with "near" desktop performance.

Make a grey version of this using desktop Haswell CPU's, and the option to have one or two GPU's.

Fine, it will steal market away from the "pro" consumers, but it will INCREASE market presence overall. Now that services like Steam are no longer bound to PC gaming Apple is just ignoring the importance of not offering a desktop in this class without the Mini or "i" monikers.

Why not? It just makes sense. Do it now!

I absolutely agree. I also think that Apple could win over some hackintosh builders/users that way. Something with a GTX 660 Ti combined with an i5-3750K for the cheaper model and a GTX 670 or 680 along with an i7-3770K for the more expensive one would certainly look appealing to many people. The price must not be set too high though as many of the potential customers can build a hackintosh... ;)
 

skerfoot

macrumors member
Feb 28, 2010
85
0
So how do you actually use this thing?

I'm looking at the purchase of a major computational workhorse in the near future. I've been holding off for a while, hoping that the new pro would be announced and that I could plug it in easily to the Mac heavy environment that I have going already. Now that it has been introduced, with all of its "inovation", I'm not exactly sure how it's supposed to work for my intended purpose.

I need something that can run software that reconstructs 3D movies from image stacks, constructs objects within the movies and tracks them over time (Bitplane, for those interested in that sort of thing). In a past life, I ran this with great success on a suped up Mac pro. From what I've read, the new version should run the software nicely (I assume better than the old pro), but there definitely wont be enough internal storage, which means that I'm relying on external TB2 drives, which no-one currently makes. Any upgrades to memory, video card (will I need this) etc will similarly depend on TB2 external versions, which don't exist.

Am I reading this right? To be actually functional, I'm going to have to wait additional months for third parties to start building the externals. I was really hoping that this was going to be something I could rack mount and connect some OWC drives to, but they don't seem to be in a rush to jump onto TB any time soon. I can't wait too much longer, so I may have to switch to a PC for this.
 

milo

macrumors 604
Sep 23, 2003
6,891
522
there definitely wont be enough internal storage, which means that I'm relying on external TB2 drives, which no-one currently makes.

What sort of storage are you using now? If you need SSD speeds, TB1 should be fast enough for the fastest external single drives. If you're just using hard drives, USB3 is fast enough (and fast enough for some SSD). You'll only run into issues with drive speeds if you are running something like a fast raid or the really fast SSD on a PCIe card.

Any upgrades to memory, video card (will I need this) etc will similarly depend on TB2 external versions, which don't exist.

For memory, it has four slots (up to 128 gigs, very expensive but 64 isn't too pricey these days). If you need more than these two GPU, you might be out of luck. What video cards are you running now?

Aside from peripherals, you're going to have to wait a few months anyway since these machines aren't released yet, neither are the xeons or TB2 interfaces it uses.
 

mess3mess

macrumors newbie
Jun 7, 2013
20
0
I'm looking at the purchase of a major computational workhorse in the near future. I've been holding off for a while, hoping that the new pro would be announced and that I could plug it in easily to the Mac heavy environment that I have going already. Now that it has been introduced, with all of its "inovation", I'm not exactly sure how it's supposed to work for my intended purpose.

For this I just have to say AMEN!!!
 

skerfoot

macrumors member
Feb 28, 2010
85
0
Thanks for the replies. I'm slow coming back to this.

I didn't notice that the memory slots were accessible, though it would have been really dumb if they weren't. 64G would probably work. I'm quite sure that the new Pro will be very capable of running the software, and as the old Mac pro video card worked, surely this will too. My frustration is with the relativel lack of good peripherals to plug into it. You're right, TB1 or USB3 would both be fast enough, although (I don't think) that the USB can be daisy chained, limiting the number of things that clan be pugged into it (better not use a USB keyboard and mouse - this would horrify the apple designers). There are just so few TB external drives out there right now that are reasonable in price. I already have multiple rack-mounted drives, and the strange shape of this new Computation Tube won't exactly make it easy to incorporate. Until TB drives and other peripherals become more accessible, I'm not sure that it's a viable option. The pro market is willing to pay big dollars, but we expect some bang for the buck. This will be very fast, but the cost required to buy things to plug into it to make it functional will push it out of the window of viability, I think.
 

HurryKayne

macrumors 6502a
Jun 9, 2010
982
13
What about an "Aggregate bandwidth external device"?
I mean could an external box be driven by 2-4 TB ports together to
shrink the bottleneck?And in terms of Raw power
a dual FIRE PRO 9000 (?) System such as this Mac how well
it performs in terms of 3dMark benchmarks ?
Thank you so much.
 

TMay

macrumors 68000
Dec 24, 2001
1,520
1
Carson City, NV
If you're wondering why there are two GPUs in the Mac Tube Pro, the answer is it's a required design constraint. The constraint follows a sequence of design decisions.

Apple wanted to eliminate internal PCIe slots, and use Thunderbolt instead. They didn't want to have special data-only Thunderbolt ports, so all Thunderbolt ports need to support displays. Without PCIe slots, 4 Thunderbolt ports would be too few, so 6 was chosen as the minimum.

The resulting architecture is a single Xeon CPU and two FirePro GPUs. The FirePro GPUs support what AMD calls eyefinity, which simply means it can route the display channels to different connectors as needed, and support multiple displays simultaneously.

The Mac Tube Pro has 7 (including the HDMI port) possible display connections. According to Apple, three support dual-link equivalent (over 1920x1200 pixel) displays. This puts a floor on which FirePro GPUs can be used.

The PCIe architecture therefore is like this:
1 Xeon CPU
32 PCIe lanes to the two GPUs
24 PCIe lanes to intel Falcon Ridge controllers, which join 6 displayport channels from the two GPUs, out to the 6 Thunderbolt ports
4? PCIe lanes to the internal SSD slots
1 PCIE lane for internal platform controller

I would note that the AMD FirePro W's support graphics and OpenCL simultaneously, which is something that the Nvidia Kseries doesn't, and now that Adobe has announced that it will be part of the OpenCL group, that will be a big deal to a great many users.

Perhaps 4K, OpenCL and TB 2 will be the ticket to this new Mac Pro's wide adoption and new TB products from 3rd parties. Definitely would work for me.
 

AidenShaw

macrumors P6
Feb 8, 2003
18,667
4,676
The Peninsula
If you're wondering why there are two GPUs in the Mac Tube Pro, the answer is it's a required design constraint. The constraint follows a sequence of design decisions.

Apple wanted to eliminate internal PCIe slots, and use Thunderbolt instead. They didn't want to have special data-only Thunderbolt ports, so all Thunderbolt ports need to support displays. Without PCIe slots, 4 Thunderbolt ports would be too few, so 6 was chosen as the minimum.

Apple could still make a single GPU version with fewer T-Bolt ports, for a much more attractive price.
 

Duncan C

macrumors 6502a
Jan 21, 2008
853
0
Northern Virginia
Workstation GPUs are usually not that good for gaming. Best to get some external Titans if you're wanting to game.

But wait, there is no graphics card on this machine! The GPUs are built-in, and not changeable.

That is my major complaint with it. Sure, the specs sound impressive, but I don't like closed desktop machines. I want drive bays and a swappable graphics card. I don't care that much about the size of the box. If I wanted a closed system I'd buy a MBP or an iMac. I buy Mac pros precisely because I want the ability to add to it, upgrade it, etc.
 

AidenShaw

macrumors P6
Feb 8, 2003
18,667
4,676
The Peninsula
But wait, there is no graphics card on this machine! The GPUs are built-in, and not changeable.

That is my major complaint with it. Sure, the specs sound impressive, but I don't like closed desktop machines. I want drive bays and a swappable graphics card. I don't care that much about the size of the box. If I wanted a closed system I'd buy a MBP or an iMac. I buy Mac pros precisely because I want the ability to add to it, upgrade it, etc.

Apple doesn't care about your type. You lose.
 

voigtstr

macrumors member
Jan 31, 2008
88
1
Hobart, Tasmania, Australia
I idiotically want one to run a bunch of minecraft servers...
I know this is probably not the best tool for the job.
If I won the lottery I would use a second one as daily machine, on which I would bootcamp for some windows gaming. (I know this probably not the best tool for that job either) :)

I wonder how many watts an hour this thing will use?

My 2010 mac mini server is at 80% running two minecraft servers (one heavily modded). I reckon I could server a whole bunch of different flavour Minecraft servers with the new Pro.
 
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