Apple Offers Developers a Closer Look at the New Mac Pro

[adww12321]

I know 3 different people who own a 2010-style Mac Pro at their homes, and we've got a dozen around the office.

Every single one of them is already a rat's nest of cables - Ethernet, monitor, external hard drives, scanners, tablets, keyboards, synths, video editing gizmos - you name it, they've got it plugged in.

So adding one more cable to the mix, to lead from the Mac Pro to a Thunderbolt box, is a total non-issue. Nobody could tell the difference.

This!

I'm one of those Mac Pro owners. What does everyone think comes out of the back of the machine once you fill those PCI slots? Cables, and lots of them.

I've got a digital mixer sitting next to it on my desk, dozens of TRS cables running everywhere, studio monitors, etc, etc, etc... it is a damn rats nest, and the mac is just a small part of the mess. I don't think I'm atypical.

If anything, i hope this stirs development in thunderbolt enclosures so we can get some better choices in the market that don't cost a fortune.

For pro users like me, the main source of anxiety is coming down completely to thunderbolt 2 -- we don't know enough to accurately gauge its performance in the real-world yet. The specs look OK, but who really knows.

I suspect if Apple has made this move, they believe that Thunderbolt 2 is more than ready to handle whatever pro users are going to throw at it.

 

[gugy]

I for one am very excite about this MacPro.
The external expandability sounds logical. I for one just use one video card and my remaining slots are free, on the other hand I have several hard drives, all bays full on my MacPro and few external ones.
It makes more sense to have a smaller footprint computer and you just expand it externally as you wish and need.
Each professional has different needs, so it makes sense Apple to let the use expand based on their needs than try to create a machine that will never satisfy all.

Now I just want a new Apple Cinema display at 4k!!!!!

 

[porres]

What is the damn problem with this machine?

So you can't tweak inside the now old-school/fashioned tower design. Big deal...

Is there any other real drawback issue?

Ain't it a bitch when you have to change... huh? That's the only issue I see. Fear of change. Well, stay in the past. Stick to your old now dead tower. Go for a damn PC... who cares?

I remember people whining about no CD-Drive in the macbook air and crap like that.

Well, just note that for every sorry person there are others who are just incredibly excited for this. And I'm not delusional. I can have a great deal of power and still take this guy to the road, because it's finally portable!!!

All I need is one thunderbolt por por a PIC Express card adapter for my audio card, and other ones to plug external drives. But if you need to plug 36 devices or more, just rearrange them in your studio. And when you sell and buy a new one, it'll be as simple as getting the cables out and in again. What's the big deal? Sad you'll have to rearrange stuff?

Well, I welcome the future... really glad and excited

 

[kunia]

No different than the previous Mac Pro. What's your point?



You bought your Mac Pro for CPU updates that aren't even officially supported by Apple? You are not Apple's target market for this product, so you should not even be criticizing. If you changed your CPUs, you've already violated and nullified your warranty. You also are doing things 95% of Mac Pro owners would never do. You admit that you can't even use updated GPUs in your old Mac Pro, yet somehow the incredible GPU power in the new Mac Pro does nothing for you.

It does make people wonder how you define "innovation". It would appear that in your world, innovation is continuing the status quo but only in a way that satisfies you. That is, perhaps, the antithesis of innovation.

People didn't want innovation (and I hardly call the new iTrash innovation). They wanted an updated Mac Pro not a cylinder with all the components soldered on. Sorry to burst your bubble, but from what I've seen over the past years on the forums people didn't exactly want an xenon version of a mac mini or macbook air.
MP, as it was, worked. Pros, semi-pros, power users liked it. You had a choice to customize it as fit. Apple not giving us any GPU options...well, that's another story

 

[kingtj]

Storage really is my question about this, too ....

So far, I like most of what I see with thew new Mac Pro. The fact that all the upgrades are external wouldn't seem like a big deal to me, if it wasn't for this question of drive capacity.

Does anyone know what the largest size PCIe type SSD drive is, that's available? (Or scheduled to be available by this Fall?) I'm guessing even 1TB might be pushing it. I could see the "standard configuration" here being a 512GB or optionally a 750GB flash storage maximum. When spinning SATA drives are as big as 4TB each, that sounds pretty wimpy for a high-end workstation.

As far as I'm concerned, arguments about "The Cloud" are largely irrelevant for a "Pro" class workstation like this, because I assume this would be used quite a bit for CREATING content. You usually do the creation locally, and THEN upload it digitally when it's finished.

Even pro photographers I know who never even shoot any video are complaining about their massive storage requirements for the high resolution pictures they take. Cloud solutions either don't provide enough drive space, or charge so much money to do so, it's cheaper to store it yourself on local drives. Has to be multiple times worse for people shooting video.

Maybe the real trend here is for everyone to start using network attached storage devices, which I can see to some extent. But frankly, the technology needs to mature some more before it's as user-friendly as Mac users expect. I have the latest version of FreeNAS running right now, and I have all sorts of headaches when it comes to it keeping permissions correctly on files and folders copied over to it. (It claims to integrate with Windows Active Directory -- but I could never get the service to start without errors when I tried it.) You can configure iSCSI with one to make shared virtual internal hard drives -- but that's difficult too. Some OS's have limits like 2TB on the size of iSCSI containers they support. Others don't. You often need extra iSCSI connector software on the workstation to make use of it and sometimes that's buggy. Lots of advanced settings have to be configured just right. It's just FAR from plug and play.

I agree in many ways. But the one thing I don't like about the new Mac Pro is the lack of internal storage. Yes you can have tons of external storage (Just like the last Mac Pro) but because Apple is hellbent on iCloud (Big Brother anyone?) they give you jack for internal storage. I should be able to install at the very least 6-8 TB of internal storage in this new Mac Pro. How much internal storage is this thing gonna have? Just enough for the OS and a handful of Apps?

When Apple introduced the first iMac one of the big focus points was clearing away cable clutter on and around your desk. Even the now previous gen Mac Pro relieved much cable cluttered due to the high amount of internal expandability. How much internal expandability can we do in the new Mac Pro? Doesn't seem like much besides more Ram. Everything else is external. Yes I realize it's a desktop and you're not going to take it everywhere. Even so the lack of internal expandability is disappointing.

The new Mac Pro is amazing in many ways and a great feat of engineering no doubt. But the internal storage issue is the one gripe I can find so far.

Yes I did view the Mac Pro webpage and watched the keynote.

 

[porres]

PCIe 3.0 doubt

Well, you can't plug any real card inside it, right?

So what does the PCIe 3.0 count for?

It's bandwidth is insane, like 40 GB/s, against 2.5 GB/s (20 Gb/s) for thunderbolt. But how can you benefit from it? if you're only plugging stuff through the thunderbolt bottle neck?

It looks like the only drawback for me. Not that I'd ever need more than the 20 Gb/s transfer rate for now.

By the way, next generation would seem to already include DDR4. That's a nice spec update I'm already waiting for. Cheers

 

[nikto70]

It looks like the only drawback for me. Not that I'd ever need more than the 20 Gb/s transfer rate for now.

If I'm not mistaken, the high end video/film editors will be hampered by this limitation when they need to edit on external drives, no? I highly doubt the one internal PCI drive will be enough.

 

[digibdallas]

4K is not future

Hey buddy, 4K is nothing and I need a lot more. For example as a "professional" I've been creating 10K-30K animations for as long as I can remember. I used 14 Mac Pro Towers to produce all of the stadium tour videos and animation for the Black Eyed Peas tours including Super Bowl 45.

http://youtu.be/LU88Jli1apo

I need a lot more than a desktop per say. I need rack-able, leave the lid open, fully swappable, customizable on the fly Mac based machines. I need equally massive graphic card hardware as well.

4K is a walk in the park on a breezy summers morning compared to what we do where I'm at. I'm not alone. You should talk to the folks in scientific research.

has just announced a machine that ends the requirement for upgrades. Stop making the same argument for towers that are not needed.

Graphics cards: 3 4k monitors worth of power. That means that your new machine can now drastically support the NEXT generation of video that isn't even standard yet.

Home processing power just maxed out people. The only reason you'd get a better graphics system is if something beyond 4k was invented and standardized. That isn't going to happen for a long long time. By then, you'll be buying a quantum computer anyway.

Professional setups are all different. Making everything external via thunderbolt is logical. Don't whine about costs. Pro level stuff costs money, that's just a reality. It's still insanely cheaper than avid.

 

[Anuba]

I was hoping for a 'Cube 2' myself and I'm thrilled that it's what happened. I just hope they're releasing new displays with it. It was kind of silly when the Cinema 30" was the pro display and it was thick enough to hold two sandwiched iMacs. So please slim down the 27", and/or better yet, give it a 30" 4K big brother.

 

[76ShovelHead]

Okay now its official.

Apple is BACK !!!

 

[robbyx]

The have 150 Billion in the bank by taking 30% cut of other peoples work and selling a $200 phone for $600... Take away the iOS device sales and apple would still be back where it was in early 2000s.

They have NO IDEA on desktop hardware.. its functional, if all you do is surf the net.. The PRO was the only exception, until now. I don't want EXTERNAL upgrades, i don't want the rats nest of ugly wires, the slew of PSUs needed to power all the external devices and the expensive of having to get a contractor in to add a bank of socket to my wall to accommodate those PSUs because i don't want a load of extensions all over the show.

Then go buy a PC already! You won't be missed. The loss of your business to Apple won't even amount to a rounding error.

They take a cut just like ANY other store does. You obviously know nothing about how retail works. Distributor buys product from manufacturer, marks it up and sells it to a store who marks it up and sells it to a consumer. 30% is actually a pretty small cut compared to the old way of doing things. I used to run an indie record label. Our distributors bought our CDs for $5-6. Stores bought them for $8-9. Sold to the consumer for $12-15.

So, what, Apple should build out all of the infrastructure, process payments, take care of distribution and updates, etc. and make nothing for the trouble? Sheesh. And you're a total fool if you think the iPhone is a $200 device. How much money do you think is spent on engineering, R&D, training, support, etc? All of that costs money.

I'm reserving judgement on the new Mac Pro until I see one in person, but I really like the concept. I'm a "pro" (no, not one of the whiny, self-richeous, "the world revolves around me" video editors on this thread) and I'm pretty excited about this new direction. This was just a sneak peak. We don't have all the details yet. For all we know, Apple is working on a companion expansion chassis for the new Pro.

This new take on the Pro will also appeal to a wider audience than just video editors and sound engineers. There are other "professionals" out there after all. People need to stop freaking out and let Apple release the thing, then decide if it's right for them.

 

[chedda]

I can't wait to see the benchmarks and see how it compares to my 2.93 x 12. I use my current machine for 3d modelling and rendering. I use maxwell render that currently only uses the CPU. I guess having the 2 big cards won't really benefit rendering only viewport manipulation. I wish they had a dual or even quad processer option. This spec is overkill as a render node in its current configuration. I like the design but I expect I'll wait for the next version as it always makes sense.

 

[joepunk]

I'm looking forward to the R2-D2 skin/stand where the external HD storage is located in R2's legs.

But, this black round Mac Pro doesn't match my old oak roll top writing desk.

 

[jnpy!$4g3cwk]

I was hoping for a 'Cube 2' myself and I'm thrilled that it's what happened. I just hope they're releasing new displays with it. It was kind of silly when the Cinema 30" was the pro display and it was thick enough to hold two sandwiched iMacs. So please slim down the 27", and/or better yet, give it a 30" 4K big brother.

A 30" 4K non-glossy big brother, please.

I think I get where Apple is going with this. Integrate the GPU, and, it solves the problem of how to handle Thunderbolt+DisplayPort. But, it begs for a high-end rackable companion. Xserve, please.

 

[crosseyedbum]

If you think about it....chilling towers are the best way to cool a CPU. Apple decided to design literally around this concept. It makes sense, and in my opinion, it looks fantastic! My only remaining question, where is the speaker?

 

[gugy]

So please slim down the 27", and/or better yet, give it a 30" 4K big brother.

Amem brother!

----------

A 30" 4K non-glossy big brother, please.

Yep, I think we will see some of these displays coming at the same time Apple releases the MacPro. That's the perfect opportunity to introduce them and sell together with the new computer as a bundle.
The only thing I hope but not holding my breath is the non-glossy aspect.
That would be nice but Apple seem in love with those damn reflective displays.

 

[OldTimey]

Hey buddy, 4K is nothing and I need a lot more. For example as a "professional" I've been creating 10K-30K animations for as long as I can remember. I used 14 Mac Pro Towers to produce all of the stadium tour videos and animation for the Black Eyed Peas tours including Super Bowl 45.

http://youtu.be/LU88Jli1apo

I need a lot more than a desktop per say. I need rack-able, leave the lid open, fully swappable, customizable on the fly Mac based machines. I need equally massive graphic card hardware as well.

4K is a walk in the park on a breezy summers morning compared to what we do where I'm at. I'm not alone. You should talk to the folks in scientific research.

You are a tru power user! The VAST majority of us power mac users don't need this I'm happy to have a quieter, smaller, more powerful mac.

Perhaps a rackmounted power mac will surface for you "big boys."

Or you can keep using the old mac pros, as your animations at 30K for the superbowl seemed to work just fine (although I didn't really notice them at the time of the show?)

Too bad I can't say the same for the Black Eyed Peas' music ;p

Not even a 5-dimensional 100K animation could distract me from Fergie's horrible and pitchy "croon" ;p

 

[bigpoppamac31]

Something I also thought of. I mentioned earlier regarding the external storage issue. At the time I was thinking cable clutter but only thinking of FW, USB or TB cables. I didn't take into account all the power cables and bricks that would be cluttering things up also. Unless people use laptop sized bus powered external drives they would have all those power cables to deal with as well. Also power bars to plug in many things. In my view Apple didn't think that part through at all.

 

[toke lahti]

P.S. It's funny to see all the "hate" on here, if they had kept the original design of current model, everyone would be upset at a lack of innovation. Oh well My guess, is this could be the new form factor for computers if the cylinder form-factor works well in terms of power/speed and cooling.

I know this is impossible for Apple's mindset, but what if they have offered classicMP, an upgraded version of previous model AND this new tubular version?

Anyway, next tubularMP might have its diameter grown a bit, so there would be room for 4 PCB's (2xCPU + 2xGPU) and how about putting a handle on the top?

 

[nateco]

Drobos are a disaster.. as well as many NAS. Gimme a Gtech RAID any day over those.

Regarding the iMac, it fails on one thing, the GPU. Provide an option with a MUCH better GPU, and a lot of the current MacPro users would be happy with it.

Sure...choose your gtech raid....point being, you have the choice that suits your needs.

Local storage for a 1 man pro....get a local TB drive...probably available as a add i stand from a 3rd party...that is if you need more than what's built in or don't use something on a network....it's the users choice what they want to use for storage.

I just find it crazy that people are complaining that they don't have to deal with a one size fits all storage solution.

And another thing...cd drive, really? I've never even put optical discs in my Mac. If you need that, buy an external burner, they're cheap enough....or share the drive in your other macs or something.

 

[xSinghx]

I'm sorry, but what components inside a previous generation Mac Pro are upgradeable? The CPUs are not upgradeable, the video cards are not upgradeable...So what are you yacking on about?

https://www.macrumors.com/2013/04/0...tx-680-mac-edition-graphics-card-for-mac-pro/

https://www.macrumors.com/2013/03/1...d-7950-mac-edition-graphics-card-for-mac-pro/

 

[splashnader]

Looks like a prototype Sony came up with a while back

Sony had a prototype very similar to this concept by Apple, with the whole thermal cooling inside. Looks good to me. Very interested and can't wait for the fall.

 

[Cloudsurfer]

I hope Apple will go the extra mile and make a prosumer version of this, with a Core i7 Extreme and a single graphics card. That would really be a sweet spot for me

 

[relimw]

This GPU isn't going to be upgraded for a while since the monitors it drives isn't a price point for the masses to use. NONE of the existing video cards that you can buy at Micro Center, Fry's or even Best Buys can support a 4K monitor and for that matter, none of these retailers sell a 4K monitor or TV.

I don't see the need to be worried about upgrading a GPU at this point. Had this been another incremental upgrade then I would absolutely agree with you on demanding to know what the upgrade path is for video cards.

But really, support for 3 simultaneous 4K monitors straight out of the box and you want to DOA it for an apparent lack of upgrade because you'll need a more powerful video card in the future? Do you forsee an 8K monitor? Are there video games that can generate 3D graphics at 4K right now?

You use a video card for driving monitors?! What a novel idea! I thought you were suppose to use them to compute! Silly me! Oh well, guess I'll have to try that out.... /sarcasm

 

[cube]

I know this is impossible for Apple's mindset, but what if they have offered classicMP, an upgraded version of previous model AND this new tubular version?

Anyway, next tubularMP might have its diameter grown a bit, so there would be room for 4 PCB's (2xCPU + 2xGPU) and how about putting a handle on the top?

Yes, like Power Mac + Power Mac Cube, it should be Mac Pro + Mac Pro Tube.

Although with the Tube being Xeon instead of i7 and FirePro instead of Radeon, it wants to fail on price again.

That is the advantage of AMD FX. You don't need Opteron for ECC.