Anandtech's Mac Pro Review Is Out!

[shaunp]

Gaming

I know gaming isn't the intended purpose of the Mac Pro, but two things struck me in the gaming tests. Firstly games had to be run in Windows to use both graphics cards. Secondly the performance of 2 D700's is around the same of a single GTX 780 TI.

Even if you do accept that you need to run games in Windows not OS X, if you want to game on a Mac at 1440p with the highest settings, you will need a workstation that costs over £3k (base spec with D700's), more likely over £5k if you want a decent spec in the rest of the system. I'm not going to say a £300 PC can do it because that's nonsense, but there is NOTHING in Apple's product range other than the Mac Pro that can do this. The Mini doesn't have dedicated graphics. All of the iMac gaming tests I've seen turn the resolution down to 1920 x 1080 to get acceptable performance but boast about gaming at 'full HD'.

 

[Hellhammer]

Any chance of reaching out to Anandtech to update their review?

Email or Twitter.

 

[beaker7]

Not a terrible article per se, but more of a Mac Pro historical record than a thorough review.

No major surprises really. Nice FCPx machine. Works great as long as you don't push it too hard.

 

[flat five]

Not a terrible article per se, but more of a Mac Pro historical record than a thorough review.

No major surprises really. Nice FCPx machine. Works great as long as you don't push it too hard.

aww.. don't worry.. i'm sure you guys will get a negative review soon enough that you can jump all over.

 

[wheelhot]

Email or Twitter.

Tweeted

 

[Rogifan]

aww.. don't worry.. i'm sure you guys will get a negative review soon enough that you can jump all over.

Ars Technica hasn't reviewed it yet.

 

[beaker7]

aww.. don't worry.. i'm sure you guys will get a negative review soon enough that you can jump all over.

?

I'm not looking for anything. Anand's comments were about what I was expecting.

On the plus side, he noted that the machine is a nice form factor if space is a concern and performs well in tasks specifically optimized for it. It offers good but not great overall performance.

On the negative side it throttles under heavy load, does not offer leading edge GPU or CPU performance, has flaky at best 4K support, and does not offer ECC GPU memory.

So whether its a 'good' or 'bad' review is entirely dependent on what is important to your work. Great for some use cases, terrible for others.

The only surprise was that this review was a bit less thorough than what Anand usually provides. Looking forward to some actual professional application benchmarks but i surmise they won't be too surprising. The only unknown really is if Apple is actually going to write workstation-quality GPU drivers for it. That would really enhance the value proposition.

 

[flat five]

?

I'm not looking for anything. The only surprise was that this review was a bit less thorough than what Anand usually provides.

i put the smiley at the end.. i thought those mean i can say anything with no repercussions..
just ribbing is all.. srry.

 

[wildmac]

Grr... basically, this review says skip the nMP if you are running Adobe apps, except of course, he didn't test current versions..

Really hope that Barefeats gets some hardware to test soon.

 

[Spinland]

On the negative side it throttles under heavy load

I believe the actual experiment was described thus:

I have to stress that I haven’t been able to get this to happen in any normal workload, only what’s effectively a power virus for the GPUs and something quite unrealistic for the CPUs. Either way it shows us the upper limit of what the thermal core can do.

I personally do not see how this can be construed as a negative, given it was a load the computer will probably never see in actual use, and I would imagine there isn't a computer made that wouldn't eventually start to throttle if you push it ridiculously hard.

 

[iBug2]

On the negative side it throttles under heavy load, does not offer leading edge GPU or CPU performance, has flaky at best 4K support, and does not offer ECC GPU memory.

It does not throttle under heavy load. It throttles under a power virus. That's not heavy load, that's unexpected load. Have you actually read the review? He said that he couldn't get throttling under any regular process loads.

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I personally do not see how this can be construed as a negative, given it was a load the computer will probably never see in actual use, and I would imagine there isn't a computer made that wouldn't eventually start to throttle if you push it ridiculously hard.

Exactly. Power viruses are, well, power viruses. Every computer will eventually throttle since you are throwing at it a load it isn't designed to take.

 

[theSeb]

?



On the negative side it throttles under heavy load, does not offer leading edge GPU or CPU performance, has flaky at best 4K support, and does not offer ECC GPU memory.

I think you should read the article again. By the way, what are you doing that makes ECC GPU so important? I am sure that this isn't the first time you have mentioned it.

 

[beaker7]

I personally do not see how this can be construed as a negative, given it was a load the computer will probably never see in actual use

As i said, if you do not foresee the throttling being an issue in your usage, then no, for you, it is not a negative.

 

[Spinland]

As i said, if you do not foresee the throttling being an issue in your usage, then no, for you, it is not a negative.

Fair enough. Please don't take this as a challenge to your opinion, it is of course by definition correct for you, but do you foresee being able to throttle one of these things in regular use? What work do you do?

 

[wildmac]

Considering his misleading test of Adobe apps, I wonder what else in the review is bogus?

 

[iSee]

plus prime 95 and furmark causing the CPU to throttle down from 3.7 to 2.1ghz...

I am happy to see crossfire enabled in Windows. Very solid performance if you aren't pushing it hard for a couple hours.

You should read the review.
He could only get it to throttle using what he calls a "power virus", not any kind of real workflow. You would be able to game all day with no throttling.

 

[iSee]

Considering his misleading test of Adobe apps, I wonder what else in the review is bogus?

He clearly states what's being tested. It's not "misleading" if he didn't happen to test the specific version of the specific app you want to use.

The Adobe app tests are mentioned on the page that compares the nMP to the consumer Macs. He obviously used the older version of that Adobe app because that's the one he had numbers on for a wide range of systems.

(Not to mention that he *does* give a number for Photoshop CS6. An impressive one, too, though obviously it can't be compared directly to the CS5 numbers.)

 

[Spinland]

(Not to mention that he *does* give a number for Photoshop CS6. An impressive one, too, though obviously it can't be compared directly to the CS5 numbers.)

Yeah, I was happy to see that. As I said earlier, I will resist migrating to CC for as long as I possibly can, so any love I can get for CS6 is welcome.

 

[wildmac]

He clearly states what's being tested. It's not "misleading" if he didn't happen to test the specific version of the specific app you want to use.

The Adobe app tests are mentioned on the page that compares the nMP to the consumer Macs. He obviously used the older version of that Adobe app because that's the one he had numbers on for a wide range of systems.

(Not to mention that he *does* give a number for Photoshop CS6. An impressive one, too, though obviously it can't be compared directly to the CS5 numbers.)

I still call it misleading, because then he makes general assertions based on the tests of old software versions.

And yes, he provides the CS6 number, but then we don't have an iMac benchmark for that version, so that number, while better, is still meaningless for comparison for current hardware.

And also the fact that he was comparing a 12-core, which likely is not going to be the best at the Adobe apps (other than perhaps Premiere).

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Yeah, I was happy to see that. As I said earlier, I will resist migrating to CC for as long as I possibly can, so any love I can get for CS6 is welcome.

Same here.. (stuck on CS 5.5 myself, but using current LR, which is where I need the power more).

 

[AppleDroid]

I appreciate sites like Anandtech doing these reviews, I just wish they used modern versions of apps. Running benchmarks on CS5/LR3 doesn't do me any good as I'm on CC/LR5. I know, it's all about me.

 

[wildmac]

I appreciate sites like Anandtech doing these reviews, I just wish they used modern versions of apps. Running benchmarks on CS5/LR3 doesn't do me any good as I'm on CC/LR5. I know, it's all about me.

Especially LR.. a lot of folks are resisting CC, but most folks are upgrading LR.

 

[flat five]

you photoshop users should really give pixelmator a try.. it's basically the deal of the century and well tuned for the nmp.

http://www.pixelmator.com

New Image Editing Engine.
Powered by your OS X.
Fast and fluid image editing relies on an image editing engine. So we took an extra step to build a truly modern and innovative image editing engine that takes advantage of the full power of OS X technologies like Core Image, OpenCL, OpenGL, and Grand Central Dispatch, giving you the speed you need to keep pace with your creativity.

Increased Performance.
Up to twice as fast.
With the new Pixelmator’s image editing engine built to harness the power of OS X Mavericks, just about any image edit you do in Pixelmator is noticeably faster — up to twice as fast compared to previous versions of Pixelmator on OS X Mountain Lion. So when applying effects and creating complex compositions, you can enjoy instant responsiveness.

Pixelmator is a real powerhouse of OS X technologies like Core Image, OpenCL, OpenGL, 64-bit architecture and Grand Central Dispatch, which combined together deliver state-of-the-art performance and responsiveness, incredible speed, and super smooth image rendering.

etcetc..

i switched to it around a year and a half ago and although it was slightly weird at first compared to photoshop, i adjusted quickly and now fully prefer it over photoshop.. dunno- it's at least worthy of consideration.

 

[wildmac]

you photoshop users should really give pixelmator a try.. it's basically the deal of the century and well tuned for the nmp.

http://www.pixelmator.com

etcetc..

i switched to it around a year and a half ago and although it was slightly weird at first compared to photoshop, i adjusted quickly and now fully prefer it over photoshop.. dunno- it's at least worthy of consideration.

Given the OpenCl test at http://barefeats.com/tube03.html, the nMP is a no-brainer if your apps are indeed optimized for OpenCL.

 

[Spinland]

you photoshop users should really give pixelmator a try.. it's basically the deal of the century and well tuned for the nmp.

http://www.pixelmator.com

Interesting, thanks for the tip. In my case I actually mostly use the Photoshop Extended 3D stuff for painting textures directly onto 3D model files, as well as quick and dirty video rendering, but this is certainly worth looking at when I get some play time.

 

[Rock Hound]

Great work From Anand as usual. One concern ...



This I absolutely do not want to hear. If this happens with my computer I will return it to the store in the 30 day window. I'm buying the computer partially because of its noise performance, a problem like this would be completely unacceptable.

My stock 6-core does not appear to have this problem. I use USB audio anyway - the startup chime is the only time the built-in speaker is used. So far I have had no audio glitches whatsoever, and I am able to drive my old FW audio interface through Tbolt without any issues.

I have driven all cores for hours on end, and the nMP is without question the quietest computer I have ever owned. It is much quieter under load than the i7 mini powering my home theater or the i7 iMac on my desk at the university.