6-Core Version of Apple's New Mac Pro Appears in Benchmarks

[thekev]

Impressive, but too fast for my needs

I don't know that the x86 performance is that impressive. The cpu gains are minor, and the relative price points are higher.

I get scoffed at for being "just a software developer", not a "real pro". The creatives really don't understand how bogged down a real enterprise development environment gets.

I could definitely see the case for a software developer. What often gets silly is that people on here convince themselves that the extra .2 ghz on their macbook pro is going to greatly extend its longevity when many of them do not tax it most of the time. The other thing that bugs me is misinterpretation of benchmarks. OpenCL speeds this up by x%, yet isn't used in anything else in the entire application. People often become too hung up on that one spec, regardless of their actual usage patterns.

Processors just aren't getting much faster and that's the path we are on for transistor based CPUs.

The future is parallel, and I think that's one of the reasons Apple went for dual GPUs instead of dual Xeons to fill the precious little space in the Mac Pro enclosure. They're betting on a GPGPU future for high performance computing.

Maybe somewhere in the next few generations they'll find a way to cram another Xeon in anyway.

Well Haswell E supposedly drops 4 core configurations, so your base model would go to 6 and the 6 would be replaced with an 8, assuming the line survives. What annoys me is that they haven't brought OpenCL libraries to iOS. Much of the underlying hardware should support it, and it would likely help bring more demanding apps to the iPad. Graphics software is a big one due to its parallel nature. Most of those applications would have much more OpenCL functionality if they were being written today.

You've hit on a lot of the points I've made justifying a Mac Pro purchase for someone who just wants a really high end Mac and isn't necessarily a "pro".

If you want:

1. A desktop machine
2. To use OS X, but don't want to deal with the hassle of a Hackintosh
3. One of the fastest CPUs available
4. A headless setup, because you already have a monitor investment and don't want a system with an integrated monitor
5. Want discrete graphics performance

What choice do you have? iMac is out, MBP is out, mini is out.

You pay definitely pay a price premium, but not an unjustifiable one if this is really what you want.

I'd never suggest a hackintosh if the person intended to use it for work. The potential to break something on an update is there. They're typically obscure things. One that comes to mind is that running disk warrior normally can cause problems on a hackintosh, although I haven't used it in a while. I've never personally built one.

I don't see much in these Mac Pro forums about what sort of monitors folks plan on hooking up to this new coffee machine. Without a newer refresh on the Apple monitors, what sort of displays are out there without a glossy screen for pros to do retouching?

Something like this. On a lower budget NEC has caught up quite a bit. The PA271Ws are a bargain at their current price levels. I've seen them as low as $950. A spectraview kit is around $400. There's a 27" version of the Eizo as well, but it costs a fortune. If you regularly use a graphics tablet, I've found the largest tablets are fairly comfortable with a 24" screen. Once the mapping ratio gets too crazy and your cursor zooms due to a small hand twitch, it's difficult to obtain adequate precision. I would pair it with one of the wider epsons and an EFI RIP, because GMG is Windows only.

 

[LordVic]

that's baloney.. i think your post should of ended after you said "i don't know many professionals".
pros upgrade on an as needed basis (need more storage? buy another hard drive..etc).. otherwise, they're generally running their computers into the ground in the same configuration as they bought them then replacing the whole system after 5-7 years..
you're talking about hobbyists and/or things you read on forums such as macrumors

lol, you're cute

sorry my "professional" friends don't have the same functions in their day to day life that your professional friends do. Cause you know, ALL professionals in the world are media producers obviously!



The buddies that I do have that are using their workstation grade computers on a day in and day out basis from everything from graphics, programming and the like generally buy a "core" system, and replace parts as new revisions come out on a peacemeal basis.

For example, they bought the old mac Pro's, and as new graphics cards came out that provided significant boost to their performance came out, They upgraded. Sometimes it was months, Sometimes years, depending on the technologies.

The problem is, As of right now at least, This sort of upgrade system component path is unavailable in the new mac pro. The new Pro is an Appliance computer. Effectively a Mac Mini on steroids with professional grade hardware. The problem becomes that internally, The hardware is now proprietary and requires Apple only components in order to have any internal upgrade path.

From storage, GPU's and CPU. You have been limited to virtually no upgrade path, except for what Apple allows for. In the standards Computing areas, with new components released Monthly, you always have constant upgrade options, but now, with the new mac pro, You only have upgrade options that Apple comes out with, And generally Apple is slow for refreshes compared to the PC industry.

Does this Appliance computing work for some people? Absolutely!. Does it work for everyone? no. The old Mac Pro's were big and bulky, I'll give anyone that, But they were Standard computing parts. you could replace the CPU's. You could throw in any standard hard drive / SSD, and you could replace the GPU's with more up to date ones. This is gone now. Anyone who wants a "workstation" professional product, who is of the group that wants upgrade paths for components will not find the new Pro for them.

so the question still comes down. If the Mac pro performs nearly identically as competing standards based workstations from PC manufacturers. Cost is not considerably different. Then it comes down to, is industrial design of the tower and OSx worth locking yourself into set hardware for the long term?

the only answer is... individual results will vary. IMHO, Apple risks losing more users this way than gaining. For $3,000 starting price, expecting people to "throw away" their old Pro every year just to get the latest greatest on refresh is asking a lot.

 

[flat five]

The problem is, As of right now at least, This sort of upgrade system component path is unavailable in the new mac pro. The new Pro is an Appliance computer. Effectively a Mac Mini on steroids with professional grade hardware. The problem becomes that internally, The hardware is now proprietary and requires Apple only components in order to have any internal upgrade path.

i get what you're saying.. i'm not arguing about that.. the problem i see in what you're saying and what i am arguing about is that the old mac pros (and virtually every single personal computer out there) are ALSO what you call an appliance computer.. i have a 7 year old 1,1... the operating system is already 2 versions out of date (tops out at 10.7).. there's not much in the realm of CPU/GPU/RAM/TB etc i can do to it in order to bring it up to date.. the computer was out of date after only 5 years and it's not designed in a way to extend it's life any longer.. the new mac will at least give me that same lifespan so your argument has no legs (to me at least).. the new mac and old mac are at least equal in regards to upgradability/life span at this point and for all i know, the new one will actually be able to stay in service longer than the box tower.

 

[LordVic]

i get what you're saying.. i'm not arguing about that.. the problem i see in what you're saying and what i am arguing about is that the old mac pros (and virtually every single personal computer out there) are ALSO what you call an appliance computer.. i have a 7 year old 1,1... the operating system is already 2 versions out of date (tops out at 10.7).. there's not much in the realm of CPU/GPU/RAM/TB etc i can do to it in order to bring it up to date.. the computer was out of date after only 5 years and it's not designed in a way to extend it's life any longer.. the new mac will at least give me that same lifespan so your argument has no legs (to me at least).. the new mac and old mac are at least equal in regards to upgradability/life span at this point and for all i know, the new one will actually be able to stay in service longer than the box tower.

yeah. at some point in all computing life, you hit a point where you have to determine if it's worthwhile to continue updating your current hardware or "toss it" and do a full system replace.

for someone like yourself, who can buy, and doesn't upgrade the internal components regulary, the new Mac pro is a very suitable solution.

For someone like myself (I am NOT a pro, i Admit), but my typical computing usage, this device is not for me. Which is a shame. I use many different devices,and after getting my first Mac Air in 2011, was looking to replace my desktop when i hit the point i could no longer justify upgrading it. I hit that point now. If the Mac pro was the old case style, with upgradable internals, that i could maintain my slwo upgrade crawl, I would have 100% considered it. I LIKE what OSx has and would have no problem going Mac for my desktop rig.

Granted as I said, i'm not a professional. Most of my work is done on Databases administration and building high data reports.

if we got a new pro in a chassis like the old one, it would work fine for me. But the new Pro doesn't work for me at all.

My desktop space at home is extremely limited and my computer goes on the floor behind the desk. I do not have the space for external chassis laying around for the hard drives. GPU performance is completely irrelevant to me as many database systems are CPU and IO bound and will never leverage workstation level graphics cores. having the ability to replace the CPU with one of more cores as they're released, or even multi CPU's would have been a better options.

maybe I"m just bitter, but the new Pro has completely eliminated Apple from being my next workstation computer.

i'm not jumping on the bandwagon of "apple premium" cause I don't think the $3k starting price is that unreasonable for the hardware provided. Its just that the hardware provided in the new Pro isn't what I need, and can't be made to do what I need easily.

Because of that, I went and bought my new computer parts already and will stick with the "PC" marketplace... though, I did buy parts that SHOULD be hackintosh compatible and will give that a shot instead

 

[flat five]

yeah. at some point in all computing life, you hit a point where you have to determine if it's worthwhile to continue updating your current hardware or "toss it" and do a full system replace.

to me, it is worthwhile to update my computer instead of replacing it entirely.. the problem is, i can't.. that upgrade path isn't available.

the problem isn't with apple.. the problem is with the entire electronics industry as everything is disposable (and further tracing of the problem ultimately leads to the monetary system in general).. the manufacturers need people to repeat buy in order to stay in business.

while i'm not ok with that, i really have no choice at this point other than accept it if i'm going to use the technology.. i just wish the manufacturers would make the components more readily&easily recyclable.. i'd be able to swallow the disposable mindset more easily if when i throw away a computer, it gets melted/reformed into an updated version instead of tossing it into a landfill then mining fresh materials for the replacement.. either way, i'm going to be grossly overcharged as a consumer but at least the resources themselves wouldn't be wasted so much.

 

[LordVic]

to me, it is worthwhile to update my computer instead of replacing it entirely.. the problem is, i can't.. that upgrade path isn't available.

the problem isn't with apple.. the problem is with the entire electronics industry as everything is disposable (and further tracing of the problem ultimately leads to the monetary system in general).. the manufacturers need people to repeat buy in order to stay in business.

while i'm not ok with that, i really have no choice at this point other than accept it if i'm going to use the technology.. i just wish the manufacturers would make the components more readily&easily recyclable.. i'd be able to swallow the disposable mindset more easily if when i throw away a computer, it gets melted/reformed into an updated version instead of tossing it into a landfill then mining fresh materials for the replacement.. either way, i'm going to be grossly overcharged as a consumer but at least the resources themselves wouldn't be wasted so much.

I completely with you on that. The consumerism growth paradigm requires that we just throw out the old and replace it all.

Apple is not the only one who further pushes this. They're just very VERY prominent with it. This Mac Pro just goes to further push the boundaries even further.

You can sort of forgive computer companies for doing the "appliance" computing for mobile. We're talking micro sized parts taht really aren't easily accessible to replace and upgrade, requiring hardwiring things together to maintain extremely small and light sizes.

But in the case of a Mac Pro... is that where we really need to go for desktop computing? is there some necessary NEED here to move from standards cases to these All in one, throw out and replace machien for Professional grade devices?

I don't like where this is going overall, and not just because of the proprietary nature of the technology, But because consumerism has a direct negative impact upon the environment and humans ecological footprint.

Don't get me wrong, I'm guilty too of wanting something brand new cause it's shiny rather than need.

I just dont think this mac pro is the right solution. it only further limits the usefulness of the device, making it more niche than it was before, while also pushign the envelope further on consumerism replacement culture.

For apple and the shareholder, that is probably what they want. With Apples common life cycle of their other proprietary devices of 2-3 years before support is limited or gone, That means, while the new Pro's will likely last significantly longer, They will do something software/hardware wise that will almost require you buying a whole new Mac pro in 2-3 years rather than upgrades. I dont really like it, and while this Mac Pro might sell well, at some point users get fed up with forking out $3+ grand every 2 years when it's not technically a requirement

 

[wildmac]

i get what you're saying.. i'm not arguing about that.. the problem i see in what you're saying and what i am arguing about is that the old mac pros (and virtually every single personal computer out there) are ALSO what you call an appliance computer.. i have a 7 year old 1,1... the operating system is already 2 versions out of date (tops out at 10.7).. there's not much in the realm of CPU/GPU/RAM/TB etc i can do to it in order to bring it up to date.. the computer was out of date after only 5 years and it's not designed in a way to extend it's life any longer.. the new mac will at least give me that same lifespan so your argument has no legs (to me at least).. the new mac and old mac are at least equal in regards to upgradability/life span at this point and for all i know, the new one will actually be able to stay in service longer than the box tower.

<same boat>

The key issue still is the GPUs.. the storage we can addon, but if the GPUs aren't user upgradeable, that effectively gives the MacPro a lifespan of 3-4 years instead of 6-7 like yours and mine.

Actually, same applies for the SSD. If that can't be upgraded, is a 512GB SSD going to be sufficient in 3-4 years?

Really in a bind. I don't want to deal with Windows (which would force me to a Adobe CC subscription), nor do I want to sweat over kernel updates breaking a Hackintosh.. so that leaves an iMac or a MacPro.

If the SSD and GPUs in the MacPro are non-user upgradeable, iMac vs MacPro becomes a toss-up.

----------

For apple and the shareholder, that is probably what they want. With Apples common life cycle of their other proprietary devices of 2-3 years before support is limited or gone, That means, while the new Pro's will likely last significantly longer, They will do something software/hardware wise that will almost require you buying a whole new Mac pro in 2-3 years rather than upgrades. I dont really like it, and while this Mac Pro might sell well, at some point users get fed up with forking out $3+ grand every 2 years when it's not technically a requirement

Yeah, and at the same time there are a ton of us sitting on 5-8 year old MacPros that can't upgrade to the current OS, and are really lagging behind in performance.

 

[milo]

you could replace the CPU's.

What makes you think you can't in the new mac pro?

that effectively gives the MacPro a lifespan of 3-4 years

True for those who need faster GPU but some users don't need that.

Actually, same applies for the SSD. If that can't be upgraded...

SSD is listed as user serviceable. The main thing that can't be upgraded is GPU and there has even been some speculation that that could happen as well.

 

[wildmac]

And meanwhile, the refurb systems are selling out for stupid prices... this is the only one listed online right now..

 

[LordVic]

What makes you think you can't in the new mac pro?

I have not seen evidence to point to this ability, or not having this ability.

however,

I am going on a logical assumption that Apple will likely follow their current trend of removing user accessible upgradable components in favour of design and form.
Most of their current, newer products do not pose this sort of upgradability. Therfore, until we have confirmation otherwise, I am going to assume that the GPU's and CPU's are not user upgradable.

The only parts we know right now that are going to be user replaceable are the RAM and SSD.

 

[deconstruct60]

Yes, the high end 2010 iMac had a GeForce 320M card.

There two 320M products. One was a descrete GPU ( GT 320M ) and another was integrate graphics (just plain 320M )

Easy for Apple to offer a discrete GPU as an option if they wanted to.

Actually not. Even when Apple did offerent a dGPU in the Mini the amount of VRAM was relatively crippled.

There is marginally enough space for a dGPU and even less so for horizontally mounted VRAM. I suppose if Apple nuked one of the HDD bays/slots for a much smaller M.2 format "stick" SSD there would be room but folks are going to grumble about that.

The space savings and efficiency get with the eDRAM weaved into the CPU+GPU package is going to be extremely hard to pass up during the early design phases.

Whether they want to is another debate... maybe not even a debate.
http://apple-history.com/mac_mini_mid_10

Yeah.... a link to a mini with integrated graphics.... just like vast majority of the designs delivered.

 

[Beta Particle]

I don't see much in these Mac Pro forums about what sort of monitors folks plan on hooking up to this new coffee machine. Without a newer refresh on the Apple monitors, what sort of displays are out there without a glossy screen for pros to do retouching?

For professional work, I would be buying the best Eizo monitor I can afford. There's really nothing else comparable. (unless you're doing video work and looking at broadcast monitors that cost 10x as much)
Below that, I would be looking at NEC monitors, or considering one of the 4K displays on the market right now. (they have a lot of resolution, but are not pro-grade graphics monitors)
Apple's displays are really only consumer-grade, and not professional monitors. I wouldn't call it pro-grade, but the new iMac does have a really nice display - a step up from their previous displays.

As for the discussions on speed, as a commercial photographer, a typical day is about 64 GB of files that need crunching into web proof pages. Right now with my 1st gen Intel Mac Pro (no, I don't upgrade my gear very often) I am chewing on these files for hours at a time... I can only take a lunch break once a day really... so this new speed will be greatly appreciated and needed.

The problem is that Adobe's suite of applications can still really only take advantage of four cores. Adding more can actually slow them down in some cases, so the quad-core consumer grade CPUs are often going to be faster for this sort of work. (as they're a generation ahead and an individual core is faster)

If you're using Apple or other software for your photo workflow, I'd consider switching, as that will be slowing you down a lot. Unless you do pixel editing on your images, Lightroom is enough for most photography-related tasks, and the workflow is a lot better for photographers than Photoshop.

Currently though, I think you will only get 10-bit color from Photoshop running on Windows.
I've read that Mavericks is supposed to finally add 10-bit color support to OS X, but the software (Photoshop etc.) doesn't support it yet.
Please correct me if I'm wrong there - I haven't had the opportunity to test a true 10-bit display on OS X for a while now.

I don't know, a business of course wouldn't build a hackintosh, but someone who takes their work home might. Nowadays there are companies that build motherboards that run OS X out of the box; no need to customize any drivers or modify the installer in any way.

I suppose it's possible; I try to keep my work and home life as separate as possible though.

One of my friends thinks his couple-year-old hackintosh is going to be considerably faster. He says there is nothing really all that special about the hardware being used. It's going to be fast compared to the current Mac Pro, but not to non-Mac hardware currently available.

It's possible that it will be faster than the quad core model.

I have an i5 2500K which is quite heavily overclocked, and it looks like I'd gain about 5% at most from upgrading to a Haswell chip.
Intel's CPUs have been getting faster at their stock speeds, but their focus on energy efficiency (which is a good thing) has resulted in far less room to overclock, so Sandy Bridge/Ivy Bridge/Haswell all perform roughly the same - at least if you're using air cooling - because you can push the older chips further.

The stock GPUs in the Mac Pro are certainly nothing to write home about. A high-end gaming card from a couple of years ago will easily match them.

Then there is the whole problem of, faster for what? Without OpenCL versions of many of the pro apps, they might end up being orders of magnitude slower than a hackintosh with good nVidia cards.

This is very true. Apple seems to be really pushing for OpenCL performance here, but there's very few applications which take advantage of OpenCL right now. As with a lot of Apple "innovations" it's designed for a future that doesn't yet exist. By the time we get there (if we do) the current Mac Pro is not the machine you will want for it.

Yep... so you either:
Get an iMac with a questionable lifespan
Build a Hackintosh that is one kernel update away from doom,
or buy the MacPro which might lock you into outdated GPUs quite soon.
---
So here's a question.. which of these will be faster for Lightroom/Photoshop?
a) hackintosh with 4-core i7 and a GTX 680 or 780
b) base MacPro

The "hackintosh" would be faster - especially if you buy a K-series CPU and overclock it.

But if you're only running Photoshop/Lightroom, you can run Windows on it and have a stable system without the worry of the "hackintosh".

They're trying to make the "professional computer" into a throw away computer. I dont know many professionals who treat their PC as an appliance, that is to be tossed when a new model is released. They are very particular about components and constantly, almost ridiculously upgrade their hardware internals to keep as up to date as possible.
...
In light of this, Plus the actual concerns i've read constantly from other Mac Pro threads about forcing everything external, lack up upgradability, Forced to use proprietary hardware and parts, its almost more worth it to go Windows based PC for workstations and just skip the new Mac Pro completely.

The problem is that Thunderbolt is not quite there yet. When you get to the point that you can run a pro-grade GPU in an external box - or multiple GPUs - now the designs of the Mac Pro starts to make sense. You have the same upgradability as a real workstation, but it's potentially even easier now.

And the same thing happens once Thunderbolt moves from Copper to Fiber connections. Now you can have a bank of GPUs located somewhere else in the building and the Mac Pro is the only thing on your desk.

I will say, this recent discussion of the Mac Pro/Thunderbolt does have me questioning the $2000 audio interface I recently purchased. I'm completely happy with its performance, but USB has some limitations with regard to latency which Thunderbolt probably would not. When you're set up for minimal latency via USB, it can be quite sensitive to CPU load.
And USB is limited to ~5m connections, but a fiber Thunderbolt cable could be 100m long.
But maybe it will be five years before anything serious really starts to take advantage of that.

Here's something else to consider though; when we get to the point that Thunderbolt has low enough latency and high enough bandwidth that external high-end GPUs become a reality; what's to stop someone just buying a quad-core MacBook Pro and docking it when they need to get work done?

Sure, it won't have the CPU performance of a 12-core Xeon, but Apple seems to be less focused on CPU performance with the new Mac Pro as it is.

 

[milo]

I am going on a logical assumption that Apple will likely follow their current trend of removing user accessible upgradable components

I don't believe any mac has ever had what Apple considered to be upgradable CPU, so that's not something they are "removing". And from the pictures, doesn't it look like the CPU is socketed instead of soldered on the motherboard? It sure seems like swapping the CPU isn't supported by Apple but people will be able to do it anyway, same as MP has been for a while.

 

[LordVic]

The problem is that Thunderbolt is not quite there yet. When you get to the point that you can run a pro-grade GPU in an external box - or multiple GPUs - now the designs of the Mac Pro starts to make sense. You have the same upgradability as a real workstation, but it's potentially even easier now.

i AGREE. i bought 6the MBA because of Thunderbolt potential.

Unfortunately it has gone virtually untouched.

I had to do some research why were aren't seeing GPU breakout boxes using thunderbolt, Even in a rudimentary low powered way. Even lower end GPU's from NVID / AMD outperformed the HD3000 series, and even the 4000 series from intel in the packages.

But what I found pissed me off. Because Thunderbolt is licensed technology, Intel ultimately controls the development licensing for any devices that use Thunderbolt technology.

Intel has purposefully told developers that Licensing thunderbolt for use of external GPU's is out fo the question. They will NOT license it. When you wish to develop and apply to intel, the forms outright say not applicable for GPU thunderbolt development.

The only reason for this... intel does not want competition for their intergrated Graphics.

I think this has been one of the reasons we're seeing very very limitted adoption of the Thunderbolt technology. for the most part, USB3 has suitable bandwith for most peoples uses, especially for addition of one or two external hard drives.

 

[thekev]

I don't believe any mac has ever had what Apple considered to be upgradable GPU, so that's not something they are "removing". And from the pictures, doesn't it look like the CPU is socketed instead of soldered on the motherboard? It sure seems like swapping the CPU isn't supported by Apple but people will be able to do it anyway, same as MP has been for a while.

*cough cough* I'm being a bit silly with that, and they are only officially supported on those 2 models. It's important to note that it would technically be an upgrade only on a 2009. On a 2010 adding a second 5770 is another possibility. they offer a kit for that too. Second example is the quadro 4000. It wasn't offered as a cto option, but it was offered as an upgrade kit through the Apple Store aside from a couple other retailers.

 

[wildmac]

The "hackintosh" would be faster - especially if you buy a K-series CPU and overclock it.

But if you're only running Photoshop/Lightroom, you can run Windows on it and have a stable system without the worry of the "hackintosh".

Which would require a Adobe CC commitment.

Sigh...

probably comes down to the user upgradeability of the MacPro.

 

[milo]

*cough cough*

Sorry, I made a typo. My whole response was intended to be about upgradable CPU, obviously they have always had swappable GPU in the machines with video cards in slots.

 

[Chupa Chupa]

Yeah.... a link to a mini with integrated graphics.... just like vast majority of the designs delivered.

My apologies for misremembering which model had a discrete offering. Here: http://apple-history.com/mac_mini_mid_11

 

[thekev]

Sorry, I made a typo. My whole response was intended to be about upgradable CPU, obviously they have always had swappable GPU in the machines with video cards in slots.

Ahh I figured it could have been either. I mean the modularity doesn't have to mean they support end user upgrades. In that case they directly supported them. The cpus will be swappable, as they're socketed. Some are also quite expensive, so it's unlikely that Apple would go out of their way to seal them in. but I don't think the 12 core variants will represent a really sensible upgrade purchase for some time. If Sandy Bridge EP works, which it should, you might find a viable 4 or 6 core Ivy ---> 8 core Sandy earlier. Cheaper 12 core Ivy units may take some time. I haven't seen intel price shift the most expensive units over time, which would mean waiting until server hardware starts to hit retirement. I think server hardware retains a 5 year amortization period with some variation in distribution depending on how it's written down and whether they're under the Section 179 limit. I'm sure I'm making an error somewhere, but my point was to indicate that it will probably be some time. Haswell E would also take a new socket or at least an incompatible specification, although it supposedly drops 4 core Xeons with 6 becoming the new baseline.

 

[Irishman]

These are leaks, not numbers put out by Apple.

How can you tell?

 

[twietee]

As with a lot of Apple "innovations" it's designed for a future that doesn't yet exist. By the time we get there (if we do) the current Mac Pro is not the machine you will want for it.

This sums it up really nicely.

GPU development is changing really fast compared to CPUs so in three years they will be heavily outdated. 384Bit interface doesn't sound too fancy with 6GB already.

 

[MattDSLR]

can we compare them to anything?

 

[groovyd]

future upgrades

what if apple releases upgrade components for the MacPro in the future such as better GPUs or CPU boards etc?

 

[brdeveloper]

Impressive, but too expensive for my needs.


(Dear Apple, please add a discrete GPU option back to the Mini lineup. Thanks.)

A high-end rMBP inside a Mini case would suit my needs. Apple should allow Thunderbolt crossover connectivity, so we could make home clusters with Minis. A stack of 3 or 4 Minis would be an interesting and scalable alternative to Mac Pro for large render work. This solution would lack ECC memory, though, but would perform like a 16-core, 750M x4 GPU when high latency is not an issue (i.e. rendering, big video exports, compressing/decompressing large files, etc).

 

[friedmud]

2% is nothing. Nobody is going to notice that, and nobody is going to fund that.

I wasn't claiming that it was only going to give me a 2% boost... but rather that at a minimum a 2% performance gain would pay for itself. I'm actually expecting something like ~30% performance gain over my current Mac Pro for my work loads...