Apple Offers Developers a Closer Look at the New Mac Pro

[Woyzeck]

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

I don't see where the Mac Pro is "pro" while the other products are "prosumer" or "consumer". To each their own.

I was a software developer once and I guess I could develop my stuff on a 2013 MBA without problems. Even more on the MBP. A Mini would be more than enough for that (in fact my current i7 2012 Mini never had more than 50% CPU utilization).
The Mac Pro is just a powerhorse for those that need a (higher) multicore CPU and super-performing GPU/storage. So it's for CAD, 3D design, animation, cutting and such stuff. But this doesn't make the other products less "pro", it just means that their buyers don't need that much performance.

I'd really like to have the new Pro, but I could not justify the expense, given that it would idle most of the time ;-)

 

[yoak]

I have a desk full of terra bytes of storage and was hoping for lots of internal storage in the new Mac Pro.
When it didn't happen, I have to say I'm intrigued by this new direction. The more I think about it the more sense it makes. With the 3rd gen of Thunderbolt it will make perfect sense.
The only thing I will miss is putting a Red Rocket card in there, as the next version will be bottlenecked by being in an external chassis.
I seems Resolve 10 and CC and of course Fcpx will run frat with the new cards from AMD.
If not, I can go back to the PC we just built that has room for 13 hard drives and 4 cards ( already a gtx Titan in there).

As another poster said, I have a bunch of cables already running out of my Mac Pro

 

[ctone]

Revolutionary design!

Well, in the end Apple killed off the Mac Pro. This should be called the iMac Pro.

Mac Mini Maxi perhaps?

 

[relimw]

I dread the day, Apple decides, I don't need a keyboard, just a touch screen.

Sorta like Windows 8?

 

[Blu Reel]

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

So you're complaint really is about the lack of PCI slots.

 

[fortysomegeek]

This is what I don't get.
Lots of people complaining about lack of internal storage options.

I shuffle quite a few terabytes a day. 3TB worth of data from 7200 rpm drive to another internal SATA drive takes about 12 hours. There are weekends where I move 9-15 TB of files. It takes a loooong time.
They are handicapped by slow rotating platter speed of the HDD.

When I went to external SSDs and Thunderbolt, my time copying and shuttling files dropped considerably. 30 Gigabytes of data. 30GB takes 1 minute 30 seconds from my internal SSD of my macbook to an external SSD via Thunderbolt. This is using SATA6 "legacy" controllers. Now imagine PCIe SSD to 1GB/sec Thunderbolt RAIDS that actually exist and ship today (Pegasus).

1.25GB/sec. That is smoking fast.

So the whole argument of internal drive bays. They take up more power, generate more heat, and copying them off your workstation to even a 10Gbe SAN is slow. When you work off fast external storage, you unplug and give your office mate the external drive and you are done.
Storage requirement is also getting bigger and not smaller. I have 40TB and I burn about 2TB a month on drives. Drive docks, external enclosures make it much more feasible to move and archive data. I treat 2,3,4TB drives like consumable.

So people who want a 3 bay drive in a Mac Pro? What are they going to do with that? 1 drive is for OS. 2 drive, what you're gonna stripe two 4TB drives which is scary in itself or pack a bunch of 2&3TB drives in an enclosure that is RAID 5 fault tolerant. I take the parity tolerance of RAID any day of the week.

Putting a bunch of drives internally. That is not very pro to me. Most pros work with small system drives (256GB and smaller). A full CS suite and FCPX build takes up less than 40GB of storage.

If something fails, move your project onto another machine quickly. Smaller system drives also makes it easier for imaging, cloning, provisioning builds. And pretty much everything works off the network or SAN.

Thunderbolt is the future. I can't imagine editing a 4K video off platter drives in an internal drive bay when more elegant, faster, more mobile solution exists. a feature 4K film will take up 50TB (Girl with Dragon Tatoo case study). NO matter how you slice it, you wont get a 50TB internal storage system. You will be eventually using external I/O regardless.

 

[Blu Reel]

I was speaking of people who are impressed by the aesthetics, but don't necessarily need a 16 core machine and don't necessarily give a crap about Thunderbolt. It would be very easy to put a high end PC grade processor in a tube.

Aside from that, I don't think it would be very hard to clone what they've done at all, if there is any incentive to do it for a server-grade architecture, with perhaps a bigger, more noisy fan. Much harder to clone the iphone than the trash can, and it didn't take long.

Speaking of the aesthetics, size would be part of that and that's what I'm saying. There will be no clone of the same size. Current tech will only result in large clones. There is no money in PC clones anymore like there is in smartphones.

 

[snowmen]

Thunderbolt is backed by Intel; it isn't going away.
-mark

Oh yeah? Backed by Intel? Where's RAMBUS now?

 

[Zwhaler]

How do you put 400-500 TB of storage into the now old MacPro? Because _that's_ real storage.

I know, just speaking for video editors like myself that could get by on 32TB internally and the rest external. I don't realistically expect a Mac tower to have 24 internals bays

 

[3282868]

I doubt you know how old I am, but doesn't it feel stupid that you are probably much more immature in psyche than your actual age? since you went straight to personal attacks? Classy

Back to business, yes I just downloaded a 10 G file the other day at work from a coworker who took some video and vehicle data acquisition stuff. Over our 100 mpbs ethernet. Took about 2-5 min I think? Dunno, I went for coffee.

How long does it take you to burn a 50 GB BR, physically send it, and have it physically received again?

I think you need to read through the thread as you've been personally going after anyone who has the slightest criticism for the new Mac Pro. You have no idea what you are speaking about regarding actual film editing and client demands, and again, if someone disagrees, you resort to immature personal insults and question their profession, as above. My asking your age was not immature, it was a valid question based on your behaviour. You're acting like a child and you've now made my ignore list.

 

[GermanyChris]

I know, just speaking for video editors like myself that could get by on 32TB internally and the rest external. I don't realistically expect a Mac tower to have 24 internals bays

that would be 8 bay's and I do expect them to be able to fit 8 bays internally...

 

[fortysomegeek]

I know, just speaking for video editors like myself that could get by on 32TB internally and the rest external. I don't realistically expect a Mac tower to have 24 internals bays

32TB internally. You want a mac with 9 drive bays (1 for OS). No motherboard suppports more than 6 SATA connections.

32TB means you are striping them with no safeguard.E.G. no parity. One drive fails, you whole system goes.

 

[3282868]

No, you just come off as an ass, and your reply just reinforces it.

Just ignore him and the other guy he's teaming up Arfdog who I had to block, they're trolling and it's trifling

 

[the8thark]

01. It's a cable the entire industry supports, adoption takes time, just like USB.
02. It is a new tool, in a shiny case.
03. Expandability is 'unlimited' once it's moved outside the 'box'.
04. Cable clutter possible, but manageable. Show me an old Pro w/o tons of connected items.
05. Don't need places for HDs, SSDs are now it. HDs now too slow.
06. More than 500MB/s? You need 10+ disc RAID array (ie external w/TB).
07. Video cards? Hello, 2 WS level GPUs built-in, better than anything for old Pro.
08. You can add RAM. There are 4 slots. Realistically, will you ever add more than 128GB?
09. They're killing you? Nothing you can use? Really?
10. To paraphrase Steve, you wanted a "faster horse & buggy", instead they built a car.
11. Changing things we've all come to know, love and "need" is what Apple does. Try PC land, they don't.
12. It's not just for the sake of change, it's to advance the state of the art.
13. Yes, FCP-X was a ****-up, and they've worked to fix that. Nobody's perfect.
14. It's meant to go on a table, not under it.
15. Rats nest of cables? See reply point #4. TB daisy chains - take advantage of that.
16. Yes, HDs, PCIe cards & Blu-ray drives, etc will have to live outside the box. See reply point #3.
17. FW drives, cameras, etc? You plug these in now, yes? So what's different?
18. Legacy? TB to FW adapters exist. So do TB docks. Lots of options.
19. No it's not rackable. Was the old Pro? No. 3rd party? Yes. Any bets for new 3rd party mounts?
20. TB to Fibre Channel adapters already exist. Yes, they're pricey, so is anything w/FC.
21. Apple does listen to suggestions, but see reply point #10.
22. Final cut does work. See reply point #13.
23. HS kids can use regular monitors just fine (DP, HDMI, DVI). They'll be on Mac minis anyway.
24. Not a disaster. Think Different. It is Pro - Xeon, WS GPUs, ECC, TB, 2xGig-E, etc.
25. Too bad you're depressed. You need to reevaluate cause you're not seeing the possibilities.

Very well said. I think once people use the new MP they'll love it.

 

[GermanyChris]

32TB internally. You want a mac with 9 drive bays (1 for OS). No motherboard suppports more than 6 SATA connections.

32TB means you are striping them with no safeguard.E.G. no parity. One drive fails, you whole system goes.

On the Intel controller, most use an ASM 1061 controller for the rest and those are just dandy and bootable in OSX.

 

[inhrntlyunstabl]

Everyone's a critic...

Well said.

This is not a "working man's machine".

It's the new "poser-mac". It's a rich man's desktop accent piece that they can brag about. It's meant to be displayed on top of a shiny desk without work piled on it.

It's also the only reason for lightning bolts existence.

My guess $2999.99 for the starter piece of ***t model and $3999.99 for a nicely equipped model. But get your credit card out for all the external hard drives you'll have to plug into this "beautiful piece of artwork".

I'll wait and buy a top end mac pro.

Seems like most people commenting have never seen a RAID storage bay device. If you're truly a pro, then you know of these. Otherwise you have this image of a bunch of Best Buy purchased external drives daisy-chained with 6-foot cords everywhere.

And I'd be willing to bet more than one vendor will develop a bay device to mirror or match the look, just like several do today with the all aluminum external drives, enclosures, and bays.

Sounds like on paper they have doubled the performance while preventing some upgrades (for now) and putting storage external. So you're complaining that now you won't have a pretty single aluminum box for everything.

Everyone knows Mac buyers buy for esthetics and brand. They do make PC towers with significant expansion capabilities that also run Adobe - have at it. But if you're lured by esthetics and brand, equally or more than function, you're going to buy this. Because if you care about having a pretty single shining aluminum tower, you care about esthetics. This will catch on and you'll be buying one.

 

[nikto70]

This is what I don't get.
Lots of people complaining about lack of internal storage options.

I shuffle quite a few terabytes a day. 3TB worth of data from 7200 rpm drive to another internal SATA drive takes about 12 hours. There are weekends where I move 9-15 TB of files. It takes a loooong time.
They are handicapped by slow rotating platter speed of the HDD.

When I went to external SSDs and Thunderbolt, my time copying and shuttling files dropped considerably. 30 Gigabytes of data. 30GB takes 1 minute 30 seconds from my internal SSD of my macbook to an external SSD via Thunderbolt. This is using SATA6 "legacy" controllers. Now imagine PCIe SSD to 1GB/sec Thunderbolt RAIDS that actually exist and ship today (Pegasus).

1.25GB/sec. That is smoking fast.

Yeah, for the average user, but is it smoking fast for high end video people trying to render to external drives? Correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think this new Mac Pro can do native PCI externally.

 

[Eidorian]

32TB internally. You want a mac with 9 drive bays (1 for OS). No motherboard suppports more than 6 SATA connections.

32TB means you are striping them with no safeguard.E.G. no parity. One drive fails, you whole system goes.

http://www.techpowerup.com/184988/asrock-shows-off-z87-extreme11-ac-build-with-22-ssds.html

I kid, a little.

 

[3282868]

You're fooling yourself if you think you, the so-called "professional" made Apple. Apple was/is made by the kabillion igadgets they sell every year. Saved them and made them what they are today. Nothing more, nothing less. Now quit your freaking crying, you sound like a 2-year old.

I've been using Apple displays and systems since the 90's, when the company was near bankrupt. Mostly photographers, designers, etc were loyal all the way through 2007 when iDevices/iOS were released. Apple then became Apple, Inc., and slowly power systems took a back seat to iPhones then iPads in 2010. Their tower (along w/ the iMac was the best selling Mac at ~$1499 during the G4/5 PowerPC days) went unchanged for three years while their CCFL LCD's that many professionals used for quality and IPS panels (my 2 23" CCFL LCD's lasted ~8 years) were slowly phased out for 1 display based on the panel used in their larger iMac. Tried Dell and EIZO displays after much research, but each had defects. I purchased 2 24" LED LCD's and for 2 ½ years had panels and power supplies replaced, even new displays. These are the same panels used for their then 24" iMac's, notorious for banding, uneven color, dead pixels, overheating. Apple just replaced both w/ 2 new 27" LED LCD's, reimbursed AppleCare and gave me free AppleCare, which is amazing!

However, Apple did cater to professionals long before iOS. We supported Apple long before iPhone fashionista's, college students with MacBook's or the Joe-sumer Windows switcher with iMac's. Professionals such as Annie Leibovitz used PowerMac's/Mac Pro's and dozens of 30" CCFL LCD's, yet left when Apple began pulling away from her market (she did a few HP commercials a bit ago). It's great Apple has made billions in such a short time from almost nothing, but it's cost them a good deal of money in the pro market. My friend is a film editor and a designer for the Final Cut Pro X team, and informed me that Apple wants to bring back the pro market as it may be small, but they invest tens or hundreds of thousands per business on hardware and software upgrades.

 

[oalabaster]

A New MacPro - But look at what are we giving up!

I love the present MacPro, but for its lack of Thunderbolt and USB 3.0 slots, and outdated processors. The current MacPro tower is the best designed case in the world by far.

However, the new futuristic design lacks optical drives, that there may be very much less internal storage than the present MacPro, and that 3rd party upgrades may be very limited or virtually impossible.

Having a small tower that depends upon lots of connected Thunderbolt peripherals is definitely NOT an advance over the present 'compact' integrated design.

Unless the greater CPU power is absolutely essential to one's work, this new design suddenly makes the current MacPro look more appealing than ever. It seems one has to learn to live with USB 2.0 and the lack of Thunderbolt on the current models for a while longer.

 

[chirpie]

It seems one has to learn to live with USB 2.0 and the lack of Thunderbolt on the current models for a while longer.

I gotta ask, if internal is the way to go because thunderbolt is not enviable on the newer model, then why do you even want it in your current computer?

 

[the8thark]

What happened to secrecy????

It's a mistake to reveal this product so early before its release.

Not really. There's very few lost sales. The EU people can't buy a Mac Pro now. And everyone else was holding off for an update. So let people know now so they can start saving or get their business budgets to accommodate them is a good idea.

 

[inhrntlyunstabl]

Pros Make Their Own Solutions Today

So yes, Apple did cater to professionals long before iOS and targeted the consumer market.

I first started in IT selling Macs and PCs back around the Windows 3 release. Apple had dozens of varieties then. I started my year-long sales career selling 1-2 Macs a day and making a living. Often these were to publishing houses needing big monitors, Tektronix printers, etc. By the end of my year long sales career I was barely making ends meet by selling a truckload of the same in one day. The margins collapsed. They've probably recovered some. But if I had to sell computers again, I'd go for volume. Same as any company today - appeal to the masses. Same as Apple is doing now.

Time for professionals to use the common tools from the primary vendors and get the "pro" add-ons elsewhere. Where there's a need, someone usually fills it. I think many on this thread just need to look... many commenters are describing in detail their workflow and equipment and certainly a combination of these could work for most cases. Those that complain otherwise haven't looked or refuse to. IMHO.

 

[3282868]

I don't understand what you're complaining about. If you use a Mac currently then you are already burning Blu-ray from an external drive. Just use that same drive.

No, the Mac Pro has had two internal SATA ODD bays for a long time, even before the switch to Intel in 2006, the PowerMac G5 has had 2 ODD bays. The logic board has support for 6 SATA II connections. I have an LG Blu-Ray burner in one, and a 256GB OWC Mercury EXTREME Pro 6G in the other for my boot volume. As well, OS X has supported Blu-Ray movie playback with third party apps, I use MacGo's "Blu-Ray Player", and need to burn BD's for clients as HD video requires it (otherwise they'd be DL'ing ~50 GB's per disc, and most projects use 2-6 BD's depending). I also use Lightscribe labeling on client projects, a sharp and easy method.

I can't believe you got three votes for a comment that is completely inaccurate. It makes me wonder who these people are in this thread that are insulting professionals with misinformation and personal attacks and why they are here claiming to be superior in knowledge. Unreal. If you don't agree with someone, either do so respectfully, educate yourself on the facts before attacking others, or simply not at all. There's no need for this when most of you don't know what you are talking about.

 

[hleewell]

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

I would maim, kill, pillage for that! Lol!
Apple has demonstrated that it has the best LCD displays on their smartphones, tablets and MacBook Pros. It is time for their Statement Product: a 32" 4K display. Asus & Sharp showed off theirs already

Sharp IGZO display for Medical Industry