Wait help me with this - i have a 1,1 with upgraded cpu's and a ssd that scores 9463. Entry level nMP scores 13,333. Only 1/3rd faster, am I reading this right? Hopefully the production machine will have a better score.
Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
A Closer Look at Processor Options and Performance for Apple's New Mac Pro
- Thread starter MacRumors
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
Wait help me with this - i have a 1,1 with upgraded cpu's and a ssd that scores 9463. Entry level nMP scores 13,333. Only 1/3rd faster, am I reading this right? Hopefully the production machine will have a better score.
I *TOTALLY* agree with this post.
Last year I built a hackintosh laptop. I had researched EXTENSIVELY on the forums so all the main components (GPU, board, etc) were compatible with Mac OS. And, after like a full week installing, updating and hacking drivers, firmwares, etc I got it 99% operational.
The problem is that there were always little glitches like, for example, the computer wouldnt wake upon closing the lid, or the screen dim down/up buttons wouldn't work, or the WIFI signal would freeze for a few seconds every now and then, etc.
So, hackintosh... as a hobby machine? sure. As a machine you rely on for work? no way.
The 12 core processor option cost $2614.00 and supports up to 768 GB of ram. 
http://ark.intel.com/products/75283/
http://ark.intel.com/products/75283/
That's before Apple adds its profit margin ( ~ 30%) . For a Mac Pro that is probably closer to a $3,398 part. Minus $294 or $583 if upgrading one of the two standard configs ( 4 and 6 core ones respectively ) so $3,104 or $2,816. So it will probably be higher than $2600.
So essentially, it is approxmiately the price of another whole Mac Pro : $2999.
and supports up to 768 GB of ram.
Only with dual E5 2600 CPU packages and multiple DIMMs ranks that are present in other systems ( as noted in the Intel docs that is dependent upon DIMM properties and configuration). OS X only supports up to 128GB ( four 32 GB DIMMs when they get to market ). Macs with four 64GB DIMMs (and OS X support for 256GB ) are probably several iterations into the future.
The E5 2695 is the odd duck if look at the rest of the CPU options. All of them a E5 1600 series ( 1620 , 1650 , 1680 ). The future fundamental Mac Pro infrastructure is going to be designed around their memory constraints, not the ones of the 2600 series. The 1620v2 tops out at 256GB :
http://ark.intel.com/products/75779/Intel-Xeon-Processor-E5-1620-v2-10M-Cache-3_70-GHz
Similar issue though of Mac Pro not having multiple DIMM ranks so 126GB likely being the more contextually correct "max".
Remember when Apple switched to TB and staked their future on it? It took YEARS for just a few manufacturers to produce TB products. The TB peripheral market was seen as small and risky by most manufacturers and it showed big time. In hindsight "ThunderBolt" should have been renamed "Glacier" to reflect not data speed, but how fast it would take to actually be a useful technology to the average Mac user. For many, TB STILL boils down to just being a wasted port.
Its not small and risky for the Professional peripheral market it serves. Don't confuse Thunderbolt with USB. USB is the cheaper consumer version made for the average user. Even Intel said it was never made to replace USB.
$2614.00 + 30% = $3398,2
(but he said ~30%, so it should be looked over
But of course!
Don't patronise me doc.
If audio engineer doesn't know how to *organise* and *optimise* their **** that's their problem. I asked you specifically what exactly for do you need such a powerful computer in audio, and I'm still waiting for an answer in this thread.
Because all I can see is unfound gibberish about "ow ow this isn't good for audio"
a Office secretary sitting on Gaming System saying I can work in Microsoft office on my 5yr old core 2 duo ..
Audio work isn't that complex/heavy as 3d animation & graphics ..
Exactly. "we need moar powah because we don't know how to optimise our performance and we use 10 instances of eq because we only work with presets"
What! RAM speed doesn't make much difference!
Sorry that is complete rubbish. It may not make much difference on a low end system. but when you are shoving 4K footage around or Millions of polys It's everything.
the most CPU's and Core you have in a x64 chip they greater the overhead and the benefit only goes up slightly - inverse exponential.
What software are you taking about that could not be programmed to take advantage of GPUs number crunching. I agree lots have not, but that doesn't mean it's not possible and given that OpenCL is built into OSX core code there is zero reason to not do it.
----------
I am working on a project at the moment in Nuke that has about 200 channels and technically 9 layers of 4K footage. Scrubbing is nigh on impossible. but I've seen a tech demo at an closed industry event that had that almost down. playing real time.
With USB 3 and Thunderbolt how do you figure? The days of $300,000 setups with Firewire or PCI-to-Serial breakout boxes are more or less over... as much as the SSL 9000G console is a half million dollar dinosaur replaced entirely by the software automation of DAW's and much more portable Mackie boards for all but a few studios that really require 72 channel hard consoles... for which, again, there's no reason that a Mac Pro couldn't handle the ProTools or Logic setup. That is, unless either of them stop running on OS X, which isn't a hardware issue..... more of a forced-obsolescence-sucks issue.
If you are talking about 3d rendering, watch this space. I know that for example Autodesk are working on Porting the entire render engine to GPU. Maxon are too.
After effects, premiere and media encoder with the cc.1 release a few days ago have integrated OpenCL in the render engine. not just the viewport. A render that took 45 mins on friday, took 8 mins on Monday!
If you are talking about old Skool, CPU alone is not the way to go for compute heavy apps, which are video, 3d and compositing apps.
I am trying to think of an app that CANNOT be written to have it's math cycles run out to the GPU.
Also even if that's still what you need. You certainly don't need a 36 core machine sitting under your desk. It's incredibly inefficient, would consume loads of power ( would keep your room warm I suppose ) You'd be much better with a few blades in the garage or wherever rendering stuff, leaving your machine free to actually do work.
Much better is kind of subjective. If you look at benchmarks for the 6-core for example, Geekbench reports it to be 31% faster (why 32-bit!) than the 6-core from 3.5 years ago! In 64-bit my 2010 6-core gets 15,500 so it'll be interesting to see what these get when run 64-bit.
Many would argue that a 31% increase is a disappointing (nay pathetic) advancement in CPU performance for an equivalent model over that length of time, especially when they're charging $4,000 for it (which correct me if I'm wrong is roughly the same price as a 6-core model from 3.5 years ago)?
Yes I know it has two Pro video cards, and yes maybe if apps could use all their power then these Macs might be much more powerful than Geekbench reports, but the fact is not many apps do use OpenCL, while highly parallelised GPU processing is really only suited to certain types of work anyway. Plus, while 7 TeraFLOPS sounds great, you'll only get that on on the top end 12-core model. We're yet to see how the lesser cards stack up?
Since Apple has moved to a single-socket design, you'll see dual-socket Xeon workstations that smash these new Pros for roughly the same price soon enough. So if you're the kind of professional that doesn't need graphics you're going to struggle to see the value against a PC workstation with equivalent or better CPU and memory.
Don't get me wrong, I would love an 8-core, but it's priced way out of my budget to consider upgrading from a six-core 2010 Pro just yet. It would've been good if they could price the 8-core at the 6 and the 6 at the 4 but I understand a lot of R&D went into it and it sure looks good. I appreciate quiet computers too!
These were always going to be priced for zealous early adopters. Hopefully the first revision will see the value improve and the prices come down to Earth a little.
i think you're pretty far off. i built an i7 hackintosh to replace my 2012 mac pro and for half the price my hackintosh BLOWS AWAY the performance of the mac pro. and I've been using my machine for about 16 months and havent had ANY issues what so ever in over a year. if you build the machine properly, it can and will be just as reliable as any mac. and certainly cheaper. PS: i do use my machine for a living. I'm a photographer and needed the power for editing 36MP files that sometimes are over 1.5GB per file in photoshop (multilayer PSDs). thats great that the new mac prop cost a **** ton of money because of a fancy case and a graphics card that support 4 monitors that almost no one has yet... but i just dont care about that... and most users don't.
Thanks for pointing that out, although I'm aware of that. But since I work with Maxwell, this doesn't help me much. The thing is: not too long ago the MacPro was a machine very capable of very different user scenarios - now it's not anymore - maybe in 3-5 years again but I doubt that, also the whole TB dependency will be a serious drawback for lots of people as well.
And I actually don't need 36cores personally, but I surely don't want to pay a premium for videocards I eventually can benefit from in some years..a time they're already outdated and most likely difficult to upgrade too given Apple's history regarding that. But of course I'll wait till these machines are actually tested and reviewed in December (i.e. 450Watts question et al)..if I could update the 4core Ivy-E with a 10-12core Ivy-E later, who knows...could be a game changer too!
It's just a pity that with almost every Apple product I'm looking at recently there is some kind of serious trade-off leaving me unsatisfied to say the least - not a good sign when you're even paying a premium for those. And it just happens that I even kinda like the new Windows as well.
At least I do love my 4s and Air.
I just want to point this out for everyone and I think it nails the problem so many people are having with the new iteration of the MPro.
There's nothing wrong with the power here. It's an upgrade. People expecting the moon from performance standpoint, or for Apple to magically put out more performance than the parts can provide are insane.
however, many of us viewed the old pros' as a viable PC alternative that is officially supported hardware by Apple allowing a more PC like hardware experience (upgradability and options). That is gone now.
This has made the Mac Pro a very Niche product aimed at only a small group of professionals. Professionals don't just include Movie makers. It ranges from Audio professionals, Photographers, programmers, Developers, Databases, Engineers... the list goes on for people who want some serious computational power.
However this new Pro is so limited in scope fo what you can get, it makes absolutely no sense for people who can't leverage this design to get. I consider myself a "professional". I do database admin tasks and writing reports using databases. CPU power, especially in the form of Multi-Threads does me a lot more than any GPU. Heck, I would be perfectly content working on intel graphics.
But because of this new design, i've basically been told "sorry, you're not a professional, You dont NEED this!"
And they're right. I dont! I am better served with going elsewhere with my money.
Not to mention the space constraints I have that mentioned prior. You might say "but the new Pro is smaller!" until you start adding drives. In my current machine I have 3 SSDs, adn 2 large format HDD's. They exist inside my case. The entire case is tucked behind my desk and is more often than not used as a foot rest. I don't have desktop space for a computer on there. my desk barely fits more than the 2 monitors, key and mouse and a dinner plate! There's no room to add the Pro AND whatever Thunderbolt drive bay I would also need to purchase to continue using my drives.
Is the six-core non-xeon (i7) variant out yet, or is that coming down the pipe?
Intel usually releases an enthusiast variant that allows overclocking. That six core would be a wonderful balance between single thread performance and multi-core rendering power in my next Windows build.
My last overclocked processor (4 core i7 2600k) managed to jump from 3.4 Ghz to 4.2 Ghz under simple air cooling at the press of a button. It's been a fantastic value.
Intel usually releases an enthusiast variant that allows overclocking. That six core would be a wonderful balance between single thread performance and multi-core rendering power in my next Windows build.
My last overclocked processor (4 core i7 2600k) managed to jump from 3.4 Ghz to 4.2 Ghz under simple air cooling at the press of a button. It's been a fantastic value.
You don't seem to have the foggiest clue how audio production works. You can do some sort of mix on any sort of computer, but that totally ignores number of tracks, number of plugins on each track, and running huge sample libraries. Right now things like big orchestral sample libraries are some of the most taxing audio applications, with thousands of samples loaded, multiple mic positions, and sometimes tens of gigs of sample data loaded in memory at once plus more streamed from SSD. Some sample libraries recommend SSD at this point. And many composers are using multiple computers linked together because single machines often aren't powerful enough.
I'm able to do quite a bit on my 2009 MP with 40 gigs of ram, but I still do run into limitations that would be eased with more CPU power and faster IO.
What those rigs did was entirely different from how GPU work. DSP chips completely different from GPU hardware.
There are computers shipping that can have OSX installed, and the hackintosh community has plenty of info about those machines. But HP or Dell would get sued by apple if they made public statements promoting that fact or pointing people to hackintosh resources. And even if they weren't sued, if they endorsed it themselves they'd be facing support issues from any user who tried to install and had a problem. Not worth the headache to them even without lawsuits.
You couldn't be more wrong. High end music production is very common on mac pro. If anything performance can be more critical than some things like 3D since it has to be real time as opposed to rendering the output.
Does autodesk make a renderer anymore? I think they bought turtle render, but if you're thinking of the mainrenderer in Max and Maya, it's Mental Ray (I think it is for softimage, too). And if that's the case, Autodesk isn't making it. Mental Ray already has Iray, and it does get faster with more GPUs (!), so the dual Mac Pro GPU would be awesome except for the fact that iRay uses Cuda.
http://jeffpatton.net/2011/10/iray-and-gpu-faq/
Even then, though, you are limited to the ram on your video cards. For complex scenes CPU bound rendering is a reality for the present and much of the foreseeable future. That includes much high end fluid work, heavy medical visualization, and large animation productions using Xrefs and such.
I'm an ex-Maya user, current C4d user, and that's the first I've heard of this. Got any more info? Feed me with info and I will devour it, like a hungry puppy.
ARGH! Trying to update CC on my mac and the CC updater gave me an error and bombed out. I can't see it! Can't wait to see AE gets a much needed leap in speed.
GPU rendering is amazing for some scenes. Every artist I talk to loves GPU rendering like Octane for the scenes that can fit within it, but again - Octane (big in the C4d world) is Cuda only.
Until video cards start pushing WAY past the 6GB barrier, it's going to limit the usefulness of GPU rendering to a subset of project types and file sizes.
I can't wait for the future to get here, but the Mac Pro seems stuck between the present reality and an unclear future that can't get here fast enough.
Pardon me, but I prefer to decide what I "need" in a system.
At this point it's pretty obvious that you have no idea what you are talking about.
So.... Heretical question Best for Boot Camp gaming?
I have a 2009 top of the line 27" i7 BTO iMac... It meets all my needs except one: The video card is only 512M, and won't run the latest PC games. I use bootcamp for games, and also for 3D cad and Renders. While not fast on renders, it works fine for cad. I'm about due for a hardware refresh, so primarily for gaming under bootcamp, do I choose another top end iMac or get the new pro? If I get the pro, will it use both cards in SLI type config?
Cheers...
I have a 2009 top of the line 27" i7 BTO iMac... It meets all my needs except one: The video card is only 512M, and won't run the latest PC games. I use bootcamp for games, and also for 3D cad and Renders. While not fast on renders, it works fine for cad. I'm about due for a hardware refresh, so primarily for gaming under bootcamp, do I choose another top end iMac or get the new pro? If I get the pro, will it use both cards in SLI type config?
Cheers...
I'm an ex-Maya user, current C4d user, and that's the first I've heard of this. Got any more info? Feed me with info and I will devour it, like a hungry puppy.
C4D/Vray user here. Again I'm hearing similar stuff from the vray4c4d devs that IF the nMP was cuda/nvidia it'd be a no-brainer. Chaos Group already has Vray RT (real time) that runs on GPUs, both cuda and OpenCL engines, but they say:
"The OpenCL engine should be able to run on any OpenCL-compatible hardware. However, as of the time of this writing (April 28th, 2012), only the nVidia implementation of OpenCL is sufficiently advanced to run it properly."
As a few have pointed out you're paying a lot upfront for tech that can't currenly be accessed. I need CPU power - and it NOT just for final rendering as some people seem to misunderstand. General process work in 3D involves a lot of as-you-go test rendering (or physical simulation, such as realflow). Its the single biggest contributor to time overhead, not final rendering, at least for high-res still work.
If Maxon port their renderer to nMP GPUs it won't benefit me much as I use Vray 95% of the time.
On one hand, I am happy that they are using the E5-16xx for the low-end machines. These are excellent processors for the money. On the other hand, the 1620-based base version should have been able to come at less than $3K. That is disappointing.
Is there an article somewhere that shows how the "D300" and "D700" correspond to more well-known GPU part numbers?
what about x-Plane
I'm seriously considering the 12 core option driving 3-5 monitors (27") in order to run x-Plane ...which I've read will use as many cores as are available. Hopefully the 2 GPUs will allow me to connect 5 displays and turn on ALL the high res setting. I know that many sim users are switching over to PCs ...but I won't give up the MacOS. Hell, I'd rather go back to CP/M than go over to the dark side..!!
I'm seriously considering the 12 core option driving 3-5 monitors (27") in order to run x-Plane ...which I've read will use as many cores as are available. Hopefully the 2 GPUs will allow me to connect 5 displays and turn on ALL the high res setting. I know that many sim users are switching over to PCs ...but I won't give up the MacOS. Hell, I'd rather go back to CP/M than go over to the dark side..!!
