12 Core Mac Pro for Aerospace Engineering Student

[goMac]

If you don't know what FEA is, then you aren't familiar at all in the field. FEA is Finite Element Analysis. These programs include Abaqus/ProMechanica, etc. They are expensive and not OSX programs. Once again, we have to assume he has a license for these programs.

No, I'm not an aerospace engineer. I do, however, do a lot of mathematical modeling. It's been mentioned elsewhere in this thread that while Matlab does not do multicore out of the box, it can be extended to do so.

You're also making a lot of assumptions, such as that the OP will not have personal licenses for any of this software. I know people with legal, personal licenses to Matlab who aren't even students in hard engineering (like biology fields.)

He's working in a field that deals with multicore friendly math. Did you ask how long he plans to keep the machine? Did you ask if he's planning on a masters?

If the money is there, and he can get the machine, why on earth would he not do it? It's a machine that could carry him throughout all his academics.

I really don't get it. His parents are buying the machine. It's a gift.

 

[dukebound85]

No, I'm not an aerospace engineer. I do, however, do a lot of mathematical modeling. It's been mentioned elsewhere in this thread that while Matlab does not do multicore out of the box, it can be extended to do so.

You're also making a lot of assumptions, such as that the OP will not have personal licenses for any of this software. I know people with legal, personal licenses to Matlab who aren't even students in hard engineering (like biology fields.)

He's working in a field that deals with multicore friendly math. Did you ask how long he plans to keep the machine? Did you ask if he's planning on a masters?

If the money is there, and he can get the machine, why on earth would he not do it? It's a machine that could carry him throughout all his academics.

I really don't get it. His parents are buying the machine. It's a gift.

For some programs, like Matlab you can get student licenses but they are still a few hundred bucks a piece.

Personally, I would rather get a mbp, and pocket the rest of the money and save it for other college activities...

But hey, if I was offered it, I would take it too. But I am just saying it is far far far far from being close to "needing" it for school. Maybe we agree on this lol

 

[Schismz]

what will he be doing that will use 12 cores? MATLAB? no. CAD? no. FEA? not in undergrad. he won't be using COMSOL or something until 3rd year, and it certainly won't be for anything demanding..

having rich parents is not an excuse to be irresponsible. and let's not forget the engineering attrition rate, and there's no guarantee he'll even go to grad school or go to an engineering grad program.

Dude, seriously?

His parents are buying him a computer for school, he's not building a bomb or investing his education fund in crack. What do you care? Calling someone who wants to get a Mac Pro "irresponsible" is a little over-the-top nutty. He's not murdering baby seals by running them over with a gold-plated Hummer. His parents are buying him a computer.

As somebody pointed out, the way parents' generally work is the same as government budgets. If you don't spend $7K on a computer and buy one for $2.5K instead, it's not like your parents will present you with whatever cash is left over, to go blow on something else... It also tends to mean if you don't spend the "money for new computer for school" budget RIGHT NOW, it's not like it's gonna magically be there a year later, when you can buy more CPU power for the same price.

Just randomly flipping through some of your posts, your advice is almost universally steering people away from purchasing Mac Pros. To paraphrase, "buy an iMac," "that's overkill!" "Get a mac mini instead!"

Granted, all these people are ostensibly asking for advice on what to purchase, so go for it. On the other hand, if nobody buys Mac Pros, then pretty soon there won't be any left for anybody to purchase, including people who do need them.

What possible difference does it make in your life, if somebody who can scrape by with a Mac Mini, buys a 12-core Mac Pro instead? It's a computer, it's not life and death. If you actually pay for it with your own money and find yourself being broke, you can always use it to render video during the winter months and it'll increase the ambient temperature in whatever room it's in by 20 degrees. It's NOT just a computer, I think people overlook the fact that it's a highly-effective portable space heater too!

To the OP: tell your dad that if the computer has dual CPUs, in needs at least one monitor for each CPU, so he should get you the 12-core with dual 27" ACDs or it won't work, you'll never graduate, you'll wind up dropping out of school and moving back into his basement and emptying out the fridge and running up his AMEX bill for another 200 years.

If you can afford to buy a Mac Pro (or somebody is gonna buy it for you), and you want one... then GET ONE. Somebody needs to keep buying them, or pretty soon, they will no longer exist. 10 people actually, ya know, buying a Mac Pro, sends a far more important and positive message to Apple, then 10,000 people writing heartfelt diatribes how they shouldn't discontinue machines that not enough people (including the letter writer's) are purchasing.

Get a Mac Pro! Get one for each hand!

 

[theSeb]

The 3.33 hex core with dual 27" displays seems like the best option here.

 

[easy-mac]

OP, I'll be honest with you. Coming from someone who does large scale computational simulations including finite element and shock physics simulations on a daily basis a 12 core machine will be overkill. If you are doing any serious computations you will likely get an account on a large computing cluster (either at your school or offsite), which is much more convenient and powerful than any MacPro available today. For instance, I have an account on a DoD Cray XE6 with 20,160 computational cores and 30 Gb/node. There is no way I could run some of the simulations I run on that machine on a MacPro or any other workstation. If you get into the simulations world you will undoubtably need more computing power than any workstation can provide.

Don't get me wrong, the more powerful your machine the better and it would be nice to be able to run some jobs locally without having to fight through queues, but for your case, unless there is some compelling need you're not telling us about, you would be much better off with the 8-core and dual 27" displays. It's your (well your parent's) money so do with it as you please, but in my personal opinion get the displays with the 8core. You won't regret it

 

[lemonade-maker]

So much - to quote one poster - irresponsible advice here. My advice is:
1) Always get the most powerful computer your budget allows.
2) There is no such thing as "overkill" with computers.

Today's overkill is tomorrow's junk. Get the most you can and enjoy it.

 

[toxic]

So much - to quote one poster - irresponsible advice here. My advice is:
1) Always get the most powerful computer your budget allows.
2) There is no such thing as "overkill" with computers.

Today's overkill is tomorrow's junk. Get the most you can and enjoy it.

at the same time, it pays off to be reasonable about your overkill. a six-core is already overkill, but it'll be faster in nearly everything he'll actually be doing compared to a 12.

 

[RLesko]

To sum up this entire thread...

Do you need 12 cores? Or even 6? No.

Do you want 12 cores? Yes. Are you going to ignore all other advice that suggest you buy a lesser machine? Yes.

Just get the dual monitors as that will have a greater impact than a single monitor and 100 cores.

 

[Redneck1089]

Isn't it true that while most applications do not utilize most cores you can still run other applications using the remaining cores without a slow down?

More cores allows more things to be done at anyone time, doesn't it?

If so, there's an advantage if you're running multiple applications.

By working in parallel, multiple CPU cores can greatly accelerate multiple tasks, or portions pieces of the same task. This is called task threading or simply threading or threaded execution.

 

[brentsg]

Isn't it true that while most applications do not utilize most cores you can still run other applications using the remaining cores without a slow down?

More cores allows more things to be done at anyone time, doesn't it?

If so, there's an advantage if you're running multiple applications.

12 cores is sooo beyond diminishing returns for this that it's not funny.

I'm encoding a video, running 2 VMs for work, and playing a game and my 6 core is as smooth as silk.

 

[Bwa]

My 2c as someone with a ridiculous workstation:

1. When I was in college, I had over $25,000 of computer equipment, but none of it was top of the line--the stuff I bought new was bottom of the top, everything else I salvaged, bought used, or bummed off others. As a programmer, having a lot of hardware was important. If you're serious about what you do, you should have the best tools that you can get your hands on. Are you serious about what you do?

2. Some folks say you can go to a computer lab--great, but that's a drag if you want to work all night especially if you go somewhere with crappy weather . It can be a social opportunity though. As others mentioned, any special projects intended for a supercomputer aren't going to be happening on your local box, no matter what you buy.

3. More displays is more important than cores in my book. Since the calendar says November, I assume you know your dorm/living situation will have room for multiple displays.

If your two options are 8-core + 2 displays or 12-core + 1 display, I'd go with the 8-core with the assumption you have enough desk space. It will be a tremendous speed boost over your current laptop.

 

[Neodym]

It's NOT just a computer, I think people overlook the fact that it's a highly-effective portable space heater too!

Made my day...!

 

[wallysb01]

Dude, seriously?

His parents are buying him a computer for school, he's not building a bomb or investing his education fund in crack. What do you care? Calling someone who wants to get a Mac Pro "irresponsible" is a little over-the-top nutty. He's not murdering baby seals by running them over with a gold-plated Hummer. His parents are buying him a computer.

Only he's hear asking for opinions and people are giving him those opinions. He should be concerned about his parents money. In a lot of ways your parents money is your money too. Either it will be support for you later in college/grad school, or helping when you have children when you're not ready for it, setting up college funds for your children, or paying for their own retirement and medical bills that you might have to if they out live their savings. Unless money is absolutely no object to his parents, there isn't a good reason for him to waste it just because they say you can. The guy's dad might think his son could really use the best computer money can buy, but if he were reading these opinions and learned that is probably not true, his dad might change his mind.

So in my mind this absolutely comes down to responsibility. The responsible thing is not to waste your parents money on something you don't need. If his parents are loaded with millions of dollars, that's one thing, but I think its safe to assume his parents aren't multi-millionars, and are more likely simply upper-middle class. Times are tough even for that group of people. Especially as medical costs continue to balloon and people keep living longer and longer.

As somebody pointed out, the way parents' generally work is the same as government budgets. If you don't spend $7K on a computer and buy one for $2.5K instead, it's not like your parents will present you with whatever cash is left over, to go blow on something else... It also tends to mean if you don't spend the "money for new computer for school" budget RIGHT NOW, it's not like it's gonna magically be there a year later, when you can buy more CPU power for the same price.

And why do we want children, even adult children, behaving like the government, or government contractors, with our tax dollars? You do read the news, right?

Just randomly flipping through some of your posts, your advice is almost universally steering people away from purchasing Mac Pros. To paraphrase, "buy an iMac," "that's overkill!" "Get a mac mini instead!"

Seems to be few people are actually suggesting something other than a Mac Pro, but rather the SP Mac Pro. A reasonably well equipped 12 core is going to cost something like $6500-8000 dollars by the time you pay tax, buy a monitor, get RAM and multiple hard drives. You can roughly cut that in half with the SP versions and not give up much, if anything, in terms of performance for the tasks we're talking about here. If you wait for the SB-E refresh and get a SP, that would be even better (heck, go crazy and get the 8-core). The SP version will work great for smaller home tasks, and if he really gets into it, he'll need to ssh into a cluster anyway.

In my lab I have a DP Mac Pro with 96 GB of RAM. Its great for that one big task that needs all that RAM (currently my cluster is capped at 64 GB of RAM per node), or for the 8 smaller tasks that each take up 8 GB of RAM and I don't want to bother with data transfer or queues. However, I often have to run 100's of jobs that each need 16 cores or singular jobs that need 100's or cores. It would take me a month to get through that on my individual workstation, if I could even do it, but its done in a couple of days on the cluster.

This is why most people here are telling him buy the SP version or even WAIT. The SP Mac Pro will do almost everything the DP version will do, and what it won't do, he should be able to send to a cluster or a lab computer. Then waiting has two advantages, he'll know the real computational needs of his research better, and be me confident they will continue into the longer term future. Plus, the Mac Pro is getting close to a refresh anyway. And with that refresh the top SP will probably out preform the bottom DP or even mid DP available today.

 

[colonelradec]

I will wait tlii they relase a new one (if they)
I thought about the things which u said.....And I decided to buy a SP Mac Pro w/ 2 Cinema Displays...I researched a little bit , ask a friend of mine who is studying computer enginneering and he said "It looks like shooting birds with a cannon"......Thanks for ur recommendations...Have a good,long,wealthy life....See u later...

 

[lixuelai]

snip

So basically your idea is to buy a very expensive thing that you don't need just to donate money to Apple lol. Maybe the OP is wealthy enough to do that. However for some reason I think if he was indeed that free with money he would have just bought the Mac Pro already instead of asking what is best for himself.

 

[wallysb01]

I will wait tlii they relase a new one (if they)
I thought about the things which u said.....And I decided to buy a SP Mac Pro w/ 2 Cinema Displays...I researched a little bit , ask a friend of mine who is studying computer enginneering and he said "It looks like shooting birds with a cannon"......Thanks for ur recommendations...Have a good,long,wealthy life....See u later...

Its good you talked to your friend. I like his quote there. For what you've said here, it appears to me you're making the right choice (that will always come with the caveat that only you will know your exact situation, but hopefully you apply the advice given here to that situation).

And remember, while your parents probably aren't just going to give you the cash difference between the SP you do get and the DP you might have, it will mean they will have more cash to help you in the future. It might not be a computer, but it might be a car, a down payment for a house, or a college fund for your kids.

All cash spent has some opportunity cost, even if it appears free to you.

 

[Neodym]

All cash spent has some opportunity cost, even if it appears free to you.

q.f.t.!

 

[brentsg]

I will wait tlii they relase a new one (if they)
I thought about the things which u said.....And I decided to buy a SP Mac Pro w/ 2 Cinema Displays...I researched a little bit , ask a friend of mine who is studying computer enginneering and he said "It looks like shooting birds with a cannon"......Thanks for ur recommendations...Have a good,long,wealthy life....See u later...

That's a good decision. The only caveat is to make sure that you have enough space for 2 27" displays. I know that few (if any) of my college living quarters did.

 

[colonelradec]

That's a good decision. The only caveat is to make sure that you have enough space for 2 27" displays. I know that few (if any) of my college living quarters did.

I have my own house.So,space is not a problem for me

 

[JavaTheHut]

Dude, seriously?

His parents are buying him a computer for school, he's not building a bomb or investing his education fund in crack. What do you care? Calling someone who wants to get a Mac Pro "irresponsible" is a little over-the-top nutty. He's not murdering baby seals by running them over with a gold-plated Hummer. His parents are buying him a computer.

As somebody pointed out, the way parents' generally work is the same as government budgets. If you don't spend $7K on a computer and buy one for $2.5K instead, it's not like your parents will present you with whatever cash is left over, to go blow on something else... It also tends to mean if you don't spend the "money for new computer for school" budget RIGHT NOW, it's not like it's gonna magically be there a year later, when you can buy more CPU power for the same price.

Just randomly flipping through some of your posts, your advice is almost universally steering people away from purchasing Mac Pros. To paraphrase, "buy an iMac," "that's overkill!" "Get a mac mini instead!"

Granted, all these people are ostensibly asking for advice on what to purchase, so go for it. On the other hand, if nobody buys Mac Pros, then pretty soon there won't be any left for anybody to purchase, including people who do need them.

What possible difference does it make in your life, if somebody who can scrape by with a Mac Mini, buys a 12-core Mac Pro instead? It's a computer, it's not life and death. If you actually pay for it with your own money and find yourself being broke, you can always use it to render video during the winter months and it'll increase the ambient temperature in whatever room it's in by 20 degrees. It's NOT just a computer, I think people overlook the fact that it's a highly-effective portable space heater too!

To the OP: tell your dad that if the computer has dual CPUs, in needs at least one monitor for each CPU, so he should get you the 12-core with dual 27" ACDs or it won't work, you'll never graduate, you'll wind up dropping out of school and moving back into his basement and emptying out the fridge and running up his AMEX bill for another 200 years.

If you can afford to buy a Mac Pro (or somebody is gonna buy it for you), and you want one... then GET ONE. Somebody needs to keep buying them, or pretty soon, they will no longer exist. 10 people actually, ya know, buying a Mac Pro, sends a far more important and positive message to Apple, then 10,000 people writing heartfelt diatribes how they shouldn't discontinue machines that not enough people (including the letter writer's) are purchasing.

Get a Mac Pro! Get one for each hand!

OMFG I expectorated my coffee through my nose lol that really made my day!

 

[FluJunkie]

really? there is no way aerospace engineering needs a personal 12 core pc

don't you have labs to utilize for heavy lifting?

As someone who also has easy access to computational tools to do the heavy lifting, having your own machine that can still manage in a pinch to do short-deadline stuff, or proof of concepts is nice.

 

[Inconsequential]

As someone who also has easy access to computational tools to do the heavy lifting, having your own machine that can still manage in a pinch to do short-deadline stuff, or proof of concepts is nice.

Still, I've done 3.5 years of a Engineering Degree and absolutely nothing that I was required to do for my course pushed anything more than one or two cores.

My video and photographic work stresses my MP more than my coursework does...