Pixar switches from Sun to Intel

Hmm.. Maybe we should be worried. 970 Steve.. remember that? Don't tell us you couldn't wait 12 more months and switched Pixar over to rack mount 970 Xserves. Hopefully somebody can dig up some more information.

However, don't forget that LoopRumors had a fake Photo. While their story may have have been (somewhat) true, the photo was still of a big Apple logo (that was obviously photoshoped on). Apple has nothing to do with this announcement, other than sharing the same CEO.

Think about the money involved here. If you had to buy a couple hundred machines for a render farm and wanted to get the most for you millions what would you choose? Especially if getting things done faster, say 100 days instead of 200 was the issue involved?

Its unfortunate that the Intel chips are better than what Apple has, but its a fact. And in this case if they're still trying to render for Nemo or another movie and need to get it done fast, Intel might be the cheapest and fastest solution.

Maybe not next year, but that would be another movie and another couple million for a new render farm.

Just speculation here, based on common sense.

D

Mmmmm.... I do not know.

I do not see a Mac render farm that big in the near future or even a year from now.

Apple is way to behind, Macs are not even better platform to do 3D animations tha PC's yet, imagine a render farm for that.

Remember that professional 3D animators uses their PC's just for that and their are custom build, I do not consider Macs that flexible yet and they cost a lot more for the same end.

Fake fake fake

From a poweruser photoshop expert, take my word, the pic was a huge fake. Really. Anyone in graphic design, used to work in photoshop sees this and knows it could have been done so much cleaner. That's even more incredible.

leaving mac for intel at work

along these lines I have finally decided to bring my mac home from work. At work I will now use company provided compaq en & 17in monitor. I added an extra video card so Win2k now uses two displays.
My dual1G G4 comes home and may get sold on ebay. why?
1. Win2k on a fast PIII is significantly more responsive and quicker in *most* (not all) tasks - the UI surely is. (for example I'm wriitng this on my Dell laptop win2k833MzPII and it's generally snappier and has a higher resolution display than my pb, the wirteless lucnet card works in more places in my hose than my airport card..)
Some things, like burning a cdrom while trying to do anything else on the PC is a sick joke. But I don't do it all that often at work(most CDs I burn at home on the mac.). I use office, WebSphere Studio Developer, Rational Rose and Notes most at work. These perform better on the PC.
Connecting to shared servers, accessing other PCs, etc. is easier and faster on the PC. Not worth running VPC on the mac (tried it too slow for production daily work).
2. I do 3d anim at home on the mac - but would agree with prev. posts - I suspect that 3DStudio pro on a P3 will out perform my Mac - but not sure.
I love my mac laptop (PB667) and it's fine and I'll upgrade to whateve ris avail when the lease runs out in Nov. and by then it could be my only mac and that's why I may sell the G4 - plus I could use the $ so it may go - but love having it...so for now It's a luxury...

I think the Mac graphics vastly superior to the PC (don;t even mention XP to me ugh) and the interface is better - but in an all pc world, given that I am as comfortable on a mac as a pc I find the PC a better choice. While I can *make* the mac work there it's a stuggle.

my 2 cents...

Originally posted by mymemory
Apple is way to behind, Macs are not even better platform to do 3D animations tha PC's yet, imagine a render farm for that.

Remember that professional 3D animators uses their PC's just for that and their are custom build, I do not consider Macs that flexible yet and they cost a lot more for the same end.

Click to expand...

The rumors I have heard is that Pixar is not moving to PC based upon the Pentium 4 or AMD lines but it moving to workstations and servers based upon the Itanium. The Itanium has the highest SPECfp marks of any mass produced CPU and not far off in the SPECint marks from the Pentium 4 (the current top in SPECint).

I would imagine that most of Pixar's software is developed in house which means they could modify it to better take advantage of the Itanium VLIW processor.

I see nothing wrong with moving to Intel. I guses when it came down to Itanium vs. Power 4, the Itanium was a better choice. It's not like Pixar has much to do with Apple when it really comes down to it.

Originally posted by springscansing
I see nothing wrong with moving to Intel. I guses when it came down to Itanium vs. Power 4, the Itanium was a better choice. It's not like Pixar has much to do with Apple when it really comes down to it.

Click to expand...

Execpt all of us mac people would start complaining.

Bah this doesn't mean apple ---> intel this means that steve as head of Pixar thinks it is a better choice, which I do not.

anyone think that this could mean a intel compatible X

Story may be true but picture is definitely FAKE.

I do visual effects for movies. I spend all day, every day, making fake things look real.


That photo was fake. I could list a million reasons. But the top two:

The Apple logo was a photo a Titanium Laptop.

The size of the screen happened to be the size of the center circle on the test pattern. That type of test patter has been around since the dawn of TV . The fact that that screen was the exact size of the test pattern on the real screen is too much.

Finally, why would two screens be square and dangling from wires with thick edges and the apple one was round and flush mount into the backdrop so well it has absolutely no edge at all?

Darwin?

Pixar is an independant company and should do whatever makes the best business sense for them (and if that's switching to Intel, so much the better) Would you rather they wait to do their rendering on a G5 or "Finding Nemo" come out this year?

I'm oversimplifying, but the point is valid.

That said, now that they are on Intel they'll be able to run Darwin, which isn't available on Sun right?

Originally posted by Eddie B:

Post Edited By Moderator: Please no personal attacks. Previous members have been banned for offenses such as this. Respect your fellow community members.

Click to expand...

What kind of response is that? If you disagree with someone, fine, but leave the insults at school.

Just because Pixar is using 1024 Intel chips running Linix doesn't mean that Intel is coming to the Macintosh line of computers. Think it through - what chips give you the biggest rendering bang for the buck? Obviously its not a Motorola, I'm sure we can all agree on that.

They're not running windows on these machines. Shessh!

D

Originally posted by dukestreet
Just because Pixar is using 1024 Intel chips running Linix doesn't mean that Intel is coming to the Macintosh line of computers. Think it through - what chips give you the biggest rendering bang for the buck? Obviously its not a Motorola, I'm sure we can all agree on that.

They're not running windows on these machines. Shessh!

D

Click to expand...

You would think that maybe this decision would wake Steve and Apple up that in order for them to be competative in this industry they need to come up with some powerhouse solutions and QUICK

Itanium: RTFA!

Jeez, would you guys even RTFA!

It isn't based on the 64 bit Itanium. From the C|Net article:

In all, the blade system contains 1,024 Intel 2.8GHz Xeon processors, and it runs the open-source Linux operating system.

Click to expand...

Big Deal

This is not a big deal at all.
Oh No...Look at what Steve is doing!!
Really..........

pixar, should use x-servers!

come on Steve show off the x-serve's power! or not

Re: Itanium: RTFA!

Originally posted by MacCoaster
Jeez, would you guys even RTFA!

It isn't based on the 64 bit Itanium. From the C|Net article:

quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
In all, the blade system contains 1,024 Intel 2.8GHz Xeon processors, and it runs the open-source Linux operating system.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Click to expand...

Wow. 1,024 processors in 8 servers... that's 128 2.8 Xeons per server! Now that's multi-processor capable. Crap.

What would it take to make the Mac OS run on intel? Even if it became possible for the Mac OS to run on other machines (which we know Steve Jobs doesn't like from the way he killed the mid-90s apple clones like Power Computing), wouldn't Apple's integration / execution of the systems be different enough? Perhaps they could do their own mother boards with better I/O for example?

Originally posted by pnz999
pixar, should use x-servers!

come on Steve show off the x-serve's power! or not

Click to expand...

Yeah right! And spend a sh*tload of bucks trying to port RenderMan to the PowerPC architecture with AltiVec and MultiProcessor support as well?
They would eventually spend twice as much or even more that way....

Some people just don't get it.......

Re: Re: Itanium: RTFA!

Originally posted by law guy


Wow. 1,024 processors in 8 servers... that's 128 2.8 Xeons per server! Now that's multi-processor capable. Crap.

What would it take to make the Mac OS run on intel? Even if it became possible for the Mac OS to run on other machines (which we know Steve Jobs doesn't like from the way he killed the mid-90s apple clones like Power Computing), wouldn't Apple's integration / execution of the systems be different enough? Perhaps they could do their own mother boards with better I/O for example?

Click to expand...

I don't think the mac os will ever come out on any hardware apple doesn't control. Because apple prides itself on seamless hardware/software integration and the only way to achieve that is by controlling what hardware your system runs on. Besides I don't think Apple is ready to compete directly with microsoft at this time

PS I don't think it would take much to make the os run on intel

Re: Re: Itanium: RTFA!

Originally posted by law guy
Wow. 1,024 processors in 8 servers... that's 128 2.8 Xeons per server! Now that's multi-processor capable. Crap.

What would it take to make the Mac OS run on intel? Even if it became possible for the Mac OS to run on other machines (which we know Steve Jobs doesn't like from the way he killed the mid-90s apple clones like Power Computing), wouldn't Apple's integration / execution of the systems be different enough? Perhaps they could do their own mother boards with better I/O for example?

Click to expand...

Where did you get the number 8? I didn't see anything about that.

This is also the reason why I laugh at Steve Jobs' attempt to market the G4 as a supercomputer: TOP 500 Supercomputers.