Mac Pro Reviews Find Impressive Hardware, But Few Software Titles Take Advantage

[macs4nw]

From what I have heard from a friend of mine who is heavily invested in CGI (working on hollywood blockbusters) this is not quite the machine many pro users have waited for. They asked for a smaller machine that is massively faster and what they got was a massively smaller machine that is just a bit faster.

As a pro User i dont know if I would really consider this a great buy. Expandability is rather limited (what if I want to change a Gpu? )

But personally - I would totally love having one. It is just a very sexy machine.
that price though.

It's true speed capabilities are hard to judge right now. Let's wait till all the pro software is optimized. I believe third party (OWC, and the like) graphics will come given time, although it is hard to imagine how many pros would want to invest in that, given the astounding capabilities of those dual D700s.

Agreed about wanting one on my desk as well, lol.

 

[solamar]

Exacly!

This is gonna seem like a really dumb question, but why don't you all turn it around so the ports are within easy reach?

Exactly Renzatic! Who says what part IS the front? It's not like there is anything to do at the 'Front' No CD Drive, No nothing! ROFL!

Why not have the port side point to the right or left of your desk for open access from right or left size?

can I say, 'DUH?'

 

[tech4all]

Wow. Just realized what a pain it would be to have everything connected with cables in the back, then wanting to plug another drive or USB in. Not only is it an inconvenience, but ugly.

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It's like having a supercar in traffic and then hitting the autobahn. Smart purchase? Yep.

More driving a supercar in traffic in the U.S. and taking a boat with your car to Germany. Slow and gonna take a while, but eventually you'll be able to use it to it's full potential.

 

[RoelJuun]

Even though I somewhat like the looks of the computer, I still don't get it why they haven't kept the old design, just updated with current gen cpu's, TB2, TWO cpu sockets etc etc. Option for AMD AND nVidia gpu's.

Everyone would've been happy… And it would be much faster than the current version.

 

[Renzatic]

And the cables already plugged in do what? When you spin it? You'll have to horse around several of them, including a power cord.

So let's see now . . . right hand on the cylinder, left hand gathering together all the cables so they don't pull out (because none of them have any form of positive locking) . . . lucky that they're all the same length, otherwise the shortest one would stop the spin . . . .

I've wondering about this since the intro, way back when. I've yet to see anybody explain how to handle the snakes back there.

Am I missing something?

Instead of spinning it, I should've said position it at an angle that's most convenient for you. There's nothing stopping you from positioning the ports at a slight angle away from you, keeping both access to them, and the power button within each reach. It's not the prettiest solution, but it is the most workable.

Granted, the best solution would've been to put the USB/TB ports in the front underneath the power button, and the power, HDMI, and other not quite mission critical jacks in the back, but...yeah...:jazz hands: Jony Ives.

 

[tkatz]

Actually Premiere Pro does support multiple GPU's. But it seems to have limited support for GPU's using OpenCL. But I see that changing fairly quickly and have stated heavy support for this in the future.

From Adobe's blog:

Finally, please note that Premiere Pro CC has support for multiple GPU configurations on export (only one is used during playback) so having more than one GPU will speed up your output times. This means that – you guessed it – Premiere Pro will utilize the dual-GPUs in the new Mac Pro when exporting to an output file.

So in theory playback may not be as smooth as FCPX's, but export should be much improved over a mac with a single card.

 

[WaxedJacket]

Such is the way with new tech. App developers will have to catch up to take full advantage of the horse power.

 

[Rogifan]

So one of the Verge negatives is that it's "very expensive". Very expensive compared to what exactly? I didn't see anywhere in their review where they built something similar for cheaper.

 

[wiz329]

From what I have heard from a friend of mine who is heavily invested in CGI (working on hollywood blockbusters) this is not quite the machine many pro users have waited for. They asked for a smaller machine that is massively faster and what they got was a massively smaller machine that is just a bit faster.

Tell him to talk to Intel and AMD.

 

[Wiesenlooser]

Even though I somewhat like the looks of the computer, I still don't get it why they haven't kept the old design, just updated with current gen cpu's, TB2, TWO cpu sockets etc etc. Option for AMD AND nVidia gpu's.

Everyone would've been happy… And it would be much faster than the current version.

Thats basically what it comes down to. You could have shrunken / modernized the old Mac pro design and keep its expandability. Or maybe wait another 2 generations until thunderbolt 4 basically has the bandwiths to support external GPUs in its full glory?

 

[WaxedJacket]

Even though I somewhat like the looks of the computer, I still don't get it why they haven't kept the old design, just updated with current gen cpu's, TB2, TWO cpu sockets etc etc. Option for AMD AND nVidia gpu's.

Everyone would've been happy… And it would be much faster than the current version.

Everyone would say "same old" and "boring"

this new design is inspiring and it shows apple leading the way.

 

[Rogifan]

Everyone would say "same old" and "boring"

this new design is inspiring and it shows apple leading the way.

And people would have complained that they waited 4 years for the same old design that is getting long in the tooth.

 

[musser]

Video Review

What an incredibly useful, elegant, intelligent, clever, inventive, well-shot video review!

 

[OldSchoolMacGuy]

They expect the software titles to be optimized for it before the developers can even get their hands on one for testing?

 

[Piggie]

Question.........

Normally a 3rd party company pumps money into optimizing software for a specific market when they know doing so will generate a LOT of sales.

PC's, Normal Macs (just about these days)

Which companies are going to spend lots of time and money to sell the volumes to the, realistically tiny by comparison to PC and iMac MacPro market ?

Apple will, as it's their baby.

Are we really expecting all software companies to spend a mass of time and money for this sector ?

 

[Rocketman]

They asked for a smaller machine that is massively faster and what they got was a massively smaller machine that is just a bit faster.

Except this one has the bandwidth to support grid and clustering over TB2. So for a true pro where the cost of the Mac is trivial, 4x Macs delivers their wish right now.

 

[farmkittie]

Cookies, Flour, Sugar, Coffee, and Tea

Case Mod Idea: Use your old Mac Pro case to house the external drives, capture boxes and all your external peripherals!

Or you can wait for peripheral manufacturers to start aping the New Mac Pro design and you'll have multiple black cylinders covering your desk.

We'll have a canister set then if they're different sizes. I have some old canisters from Target c. 1998 that are made of metal, bright product (red) red, with clear glass windows in the front bordered by metal. Resemble Mac Pro a fair bit but they have lids.

 

[td2243]

Wow. This was really eye opening. I plan on using Premiere and I certainly can't afford an 8-core machine and 64GB ram right now. This video may have deterred me more than made me want one. What a letdown.

I'm seriously rethinking a refurb iMac for about $1200 less. If I'm not editing 4K video, will I be disappointed with an iMac instead of the MP?

I love how he noted that their video team does not use FCPX. I can't stand it either. I'm still editing on 7, which I'm guessing won't take advantage of the new MP any more than Premiere.

 

[paulrbeers]

From what I have heard from a friend of mine who is heavily invested in CGI (working on hollywood blockbusters) this is not quite the machine many pro users have waited for. They asked for a smaller machine that is massively faster and what they got was a massively smaller machine that is just a bit faster.

As a pro User i dont know if I would really consider this a great buy. Expandability is rather limited (what if I want to change a Gpu? )

But personally - I would totally love having one. It is just a very sexy machine.
that price though.

Maybe "your friend" can point us to Workstations made by large OEM's that use anything better than a 12 core Ivy Bridge? That's all that HP and Dell offer..... Remember Apple only is only competing with those guys. Anything else are boutique companies selling to studios and what not.

 

[CShort]

OSX Server offering

At first I was pretty upset before I learned that this server grade machine was for a particular niche.
Just to confirm though, is this the *only* server offering from Apple, i.e. server grade CPU and EEC memory?

Personally I want a server and not a graphics workstation and this cost...

 

[Mike MA]

The software criticism doesn't seem too fair. It's a pro computer. It makes sense that only professional software is made to take advantage of the pro features.

As you said. In reality it's a software criticism and not a Mac Pro one, isn't it?

 

[Michael73]

Port access made easier

OK, I get the issue with turning the unit around with cords already plugged in the back and I get the "horse travel" issue with having the unit oriented frontwise and cables wrapping around back. So here's a solution…

What about keeping a USB and/or TB cable plugged in all the time as a pigtail in back and wrapping it around to the front? That's probably what I'll do…

Here's another idea…since TB supports daisy chaining, any of you that have RAID boxes from Pegasus or Drobo could utilize the second TB port on those units depending on where they're situated to connect another piece of hardware.

 

[abhibeckert]

How does Premiere run on it compared to a Windows based pc using the same processors, RAM and top of the line video card setup?

You can't get a PC with the same setup, there are too many custom components, including the GPU which is, according to Apple, much faster than the CPU and Premier should be using it. Apparently Premier uses the GPU now, just not very well. Presumably a future version will fix that.

AMD's GPU lineup for PCs includes ones that are a lot slower than in the mac pro, or a lot faster (and insanely expensive), but they don't offer anything the same.

You could of course install Windows on a Mac Pro... but the GPU drivers are probably not good enough for a fair comparison.

 

[scottrichardson]

I swear, I think my '08 Mac Pro has figured out that its replacement has been ordered. It feels slower somehow, just in the last week.

I always had a conspiracy theory that Apple could beam out a silent OSX upgrade to old machines, that would make them chew additional CPU cycles to make them feel appreciably slower, prompting you to want a new machine. I swear it happens every time a new model comes out!

 

[lesferdinand]

As you said. In reality it's a software criticism and not a Mac Pro one, isn't it?

I guess besides attracting page views, these reviews try to give people an impression of whether or not the new Mac Pro is worth the investment. If the hardware is solid, but there is no software to take advantage of it, it's still not really a good buy. It's similar to buying a console at the start of its generation. You primarily buy potential and there's always the risk of it never living up to that.

But there is no doubt that, with the slowing down of the speed increases in Intel's CPU's, this is where computing in general will be headed. It may just be that the nMP is one or two generations ahead of its time.