A Closer Look at Processor Options and Performance for Apple's New Mac Pro

[wiz329]

Because as so many people have pointed out, parallel processing of the GPU is way way faster then the CPU. All apps could make use of the GPU not just graphics and in fact the GPU should just be renamed to processing engine or something.

And it's not about showing off. It's the future. It's throughput is going to be incredible. The Speedy Ram and insane SSD are perfect for pros.

And of course it a specific machine! It's for creating content! You've not said what it is you need a pro machine for. You said in another post you are off to windows? So I am guessing it's not FCPX?

Nope.

Not all apps will in fact make use of dual GPUs. There are some apps that would actually benefit more from dual CPU. So ... I agree, why wouldn't they offer it?

And ... speedy RAM? You know RAM speed doesn't make much of a difference performance wise, right? It's mostly marketing.

 

[mrwheet]

Here's a guy who tried to spec out a PC with equivalent components. Result? Not much savings. And he had to make a few concessions because several things just aren't available on the PC side yet (like TB2)

http://dylanreeve.com/computers/2013/building-the-mac-pro.html

Yes, exactly. I think people are just accustomed to bitching about Apple stuff for being overpriced. A couple of years ago I built a new Hackintosh, with specs similar to the Mac Pro of the time, thinking I could save a bunch of money. I did save a little, partly because I already had a case, but it wasn't anywhere near as dramatic as you'd expect…

 

[ChrisA]

Meh.... The hackint0sh is sounding more and more appealing every day. Better performance, upgradability, and expandability.

I doubt you can built a PC with same specs for $3K.

What dose a pair of AMD FirePro cards cast? About $650 each. Then you need some PCIe based Flash RAM, What does a bare quad core xeon chip cost? About $300 and then you'd need a main board with thunderbolt 2 ports and some ECC RAM. A silent cases and power supply

You can't do it for for $3K

And then you have to wonder if the retail FirePro cards will work for OpenCL. I think MOST of the speed we will get from they MacPro will be from the GPUs. The CPU cores will run the user interface, the OS and the I/O system but the heavy processing for things that take the most time, lie transcoding media will be GPU driven.

The way Open CL works is it looks at what card you have. It it does not find one it likes it uses the CPU. You'd likely build your $4,500 mackintosh only to find the OpenCL decides to use the CPU for everything.

 

[wiz329]

Why couldn't you build a Xeon workstation?

Lack of kexts.

 

[11thIndian]

so the entry level mac pro is about as powerful as one from 3.5 years ago? terrible results...not to mention that you can probably get a 2010 Mac Pro on ebay for way less than what the 2013 mac pro will be, plus have better expendability and a respectable looking machine as part of your workstation.

Did you even read the results?

The entry level 4-core MacPro gets a Single-core Performance score better than ANY previous MacPro (and the highest of of all the new models as well).

In Multi-core performance, the entry 4-core machine is equivalent to the previous generation 6-core model, and nearly TWICE as fast as the entry-level 4-core 2010 version.

 

[wiz329]

Wouldn't a thunderbolt RAID setup be faster?

Not necessarily.

TB is slower than PCIe.

So if you hooked up enough flash memory on the end of either interface, PCIe will win. But that's at ridiculously fast speeds that no one here needs.

 

[prowlmedia]

so the entry level mac pro is about as powerful as one from 3.5 years ago? terrible results...not to mention that you can probably get a 2010 Mac Pro on ebay for way less than what the 2013 mac pro will be, plus have better expendability and a respectable looking machine as part of your workstation.

Er... No it's twice the speed of the 2010 4-core. It's fantastic results. What are expecting from the CPU?! It's only as good as intel makes it.

The SSD and Ram will be way way faster and the throughput is magnitudes faster.

You cannot compare in the same way. The overall speed will be much better.

I am using an 2008 2.8 8-core which seems perfectly fast to use even now, but scores 5741 and I am going get a maxed out 12 core hitting 30,000! Let alone the insane GPU and memory. My AE renders are going to be incredible now you can use open CL rendering.

 

[Plutonius]

Yes, exactly. I think people are just accustomed to bitching about Apple stuff for being overpriced.

I'm not sure why ? Businesses allocate capital spending to purchase the Mac Pros and indirectly pass the cost onto their clients.

 

[prowlmedia]

Not necessarily.

TB is slower than PCIe.

So if you hooked up enough flash memory on the end of either interface, PCIe will win. But that's at ridiculously fast speeds that no one here needs.

Well it's slower than PCIe 3... and you can channel bond Thunderbolt to get faster throughput.

And I need the speed. working with 4K videos in Nuke and AE.

 

[righteye]

My Mac Pro 6 core with PCIe SSD delivers a much better score than the figures presented,slower than the new version but not enough to get in a lather about. Real world testing such as Diglloyd will do will be the proof of the the gains made by the new version for the photographer at least.

 

[macchiato2009]

the entry-level model only comes with 12 Gb of RAM

does it mean we have to upgrade to 16 in order to benefit from quad channel ?

 

[iLilana]

What bugs me is

Why is the entry level a quad core with only 256 GB hard drive??? I was hoping since the reduced materials and lack of screen the price would come down to a reasonable level.. and I was prepared for these price points but with a better entry level. Maybe start with a 6 core with 512gb. As it is I may just delay my Mac Pro purchase. Possible just replacing my macbook air with a maxed out macbook pro

 

[wiz329]

Well it's slower than PCIe 3... and you can channel bond Thunderbolt to get faster throughput.

And I need the speed. working with 4K videos in Nuke and AE.

It all depends on how many lanes you have allocated.

Past 1.5 GB/s, does it really speed things up for you that much? Wouldn't there be other bottlenecks in your system at that point?

 

[Rocketman]

The mid-2010 12 core model has the traditional expandability some users need so may be a very low cost sidecar to a newer MacPro which offers compute power vastly faster after considering OpenCL driven GPU's, PCIe based flash, and massively wide memory bus.

It just needs a TB or Infinniband connection . . . .

 

[gugy]

I have a OWC 1TB Mercury Accelsior PCIe SSD http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/SSD/PCIe/OWC/Mercury_Accelsior/RAIDand I get 700-800MB/s speeds. There is nothing faster in the market now and it makes the 2010 Mac Pro faster on every level… The best $1500 I've ever spent. I am hoping OWC will release updated versions of the Accelsior to add to the new Mac Pro.

My MP is just like yours and I am highly considering get the Accelsior card and add more RAM to it. I think that would put me in a sweet spot.
I would love to buy the nMP 12 core but that is going to start at $6k plus all the upgrades. Pretty penny. I think makes more financial sense to hold off for awhile.

 

[Asclepio]

Maybe for a personal machine.

But, as a Hackintosh owner, I can tell you its definitely not worth the headache unless it's a hobby-machine for you.

It's fun to get everything together, and build it. But when you just can't get the installer to boot no matter what, or bluetooth just randomly doesn't work sometimes ... it can be infuriating.

are you talking about my iMac?

 

[milo]

Anyone know if the four USB3 ports are discrete busses or sharing the same one?

 

[kwikdeth]

Maybe for a personal machine.

But, as a Hackintosh owner, I can tell you its definitely not worth the headache unless it's a hobby-machine for you.

It's fun to get everything together, and build it. But when you just can't get the installer to boot no matter what, or bluetooth just randomly doesn't work sometimes ... it can be infuriating.

Also, a Hackintosh has NEVER been a replacement for the Mac Pro. If you need that type of power (ECC memory, Xeon processors, dual socket), (1) a hack job won't cut it, the time isn't worth it, and (2) there aren't really many (ANY) stable dual socket builds anyways.

A hackintosh is more of a replacement for a headless iMac, into which you can put as many cards and drives as you want.

oh really? my stable, smooth dual xeon setup has been up currently for 262 days with no issue. its all in the components you select. pick the right stuff and you can be running OSX on a hack in less than an hour (not counting build time). Im using a dual E5620 with 24gb ECC Registered RAM on a supermicro X8DAi motherboard with evga 660ti graphics. solid as a rock. the whole "its not reliable" argument is always thrown about and its about as transparent as glass. if you know what you're doing with your computer, its stable as it needs to be. you know what the other Hackintosh "fringe" benefit is? i can use PCI cards! and they work perfectly fine! i bought a TC Electronic Powercore DSP card off ebay for $30 and it hasnt caused a crash once. (mind you, that card is installed in another hackintosh)

personally i think the price points and specs on these machines is highly dissapointing for the performance gained. 3k for a machine that's on the same par as a prior-gen six core? sure, its in a fancy new case, but how can you expect working pros to make such sacrifice for so little?

money says apple drops the entry level price to 2499 within six months.

and i will be *very* interested to see what the hackintosh community does with dual-E5 setups.

 

[bbeagle]

the whole "its not reliable" argument is always thrown about and its about as transparent as glass. if you know what you're doing with your computer, its stable as it needs to be./QUOTE]

Right. IF you know what you're doing.

Most people who build Hackintoshes, it's more about saving money (because they can't afford a mac), and learning how to build a computer.

Some people have the experience and understanding, most don't. Just buying the parts and finding a way to fit them together doesn't an expert make.

 

[11thIndian]

Why is the entry level a quad core with only 256 GB hard drive??? I was hoping since the reduced materials and lack of screen the price would come down to a reasonable level.. and I was prepared for these price points but with a better entry level. Maybe start with a 6 core with 512gb. As it is I may just delay my Mac Pro purchase. Possible just replacing my macbook air with a maxed out macbook pro

This seems to really freak people out, but in this machine config the only thing you should have on this drive is the OS and your Applications. Even high end apps aren't that physically large.

A 256GB drive would be quite sufficient for someone who has a very targeted work suite. I use FCPX, Motion, Adobe CC, and several other apps across the gamut of A/V design and editing. I'll be ordering a 512GB drive. But I can imagine MANY users with less of an app footprint than me.

 

[Eccleziast]

8-core $4999 and 12-core $5999

 

[kwikdeth]

the whole "its not reliable" argument is always thrown about and its about as transparent as glass. if you know what you're doing with your computer, its stable as it needs to be.

Right. IF you know what you're doing.

Most people who build Hackintoshes, it's more about saving money (because they can't afford a mac), and learning how to build a computer.

Some people have the experience and understanding, most don't. Just buying the parts and finding a way to fit them together doesn't an expert make.

i think you're the first person ive seen on here who gets it

 

[Xerotech]

I believe Apple is taking the wrong approach to a professional computer. In a business environment the most you care about is performance. If they could pick between size and performance, performance would win almost every time. Sure, it looks nice as a little trash can, but who doesn't have extra room in a professional developing environment for something as big as the old Mac Pro?

I would've loved to see Apple produce something roughly the same size, even bigger, but with much greater performance and features. Portability is nice for laptops, iPads, etc, portable goods! This is a professional grade computer and needs to be future proof, allowing owners to swap out old parts and keep their computer updated.

@All the people comparing Mac Pro to PC wise specs. Apple has the tendency to have high profit margins. You can almost guarantee you can build a PC more powerful for the same or less price. PC workstations are part swap-able and no one pays MSRP for parts. Ever hear of NewEgg? Apple focuses mostly on software. Sure, you can build a Hackintosh, but it will never be the same as a real OSX environment. You'd be greatly limited and there would be no point in even having the computer. The higher price you pay is for the ability to use a clean, smooth operating system. PCs have always out-spec'd Macs.

 

[luciddreamz13]

I'm actually quite disappointed at the over-the-year performance increase. And for audio-engineers the dual graphics will sit there doing nothing.

That's where the OpenCL comes in:
"OpenCL can be used to give an application access to a graphics processing unit for non-graphical computing"

 

[scyon]

Like many times in the past Apple is pointing to the future here. Single core processing gains are not happening nearly as fast as they did in the past and GPUs are able to perform certain tasks much, much, much faster than CPUs.

Once Apple makes the hardware the software will come, and then eventually everyone else will be making similar workstations with multiple GPUs.