wiz329, addressing all your replies to my comments in one...
Easy there tiger. I'm not a fan of the new design. There's no need to be so upset that I don't like it. You can have your opinion, and I can have mine. I'm not stopping you from liking it.
Well first let me say thanks for some reasonable responses below to my comments. I apologize somewhat for my brash tone, but I've read every comment in this thread now, and there's just a lot of ignorant whining here from a lot of people who don't even want to try to understand. At least now we're having an intelligent conversation...
For the record, I don't mind you (or anyone else) having an opinion. What's bothering me is that in one breath people are saying they want Apple to update the Mac Pro so it can move into the future, but then as soon as Apple does, then the same people are complaining that it's not like the old one.
My point is, Apple has, numerous times in the past, changed the way we work, generally for the better, by making radical changes to their hardware line ups, like this. Dropping the floppy drive in favor of optical and other tech. Replacing ADB, serial and parallel ports with USB. Replacing SCSI with FW. Replacing a physical keyboard on smartphones (a la the blackberries of 2006) with a flexible software keyboard (iPhone, of course). And any number of other examples. In every case, a lot of people kicked up a fuss about how all their old stuff wouldn't work any more, but we all survived, and the world is now a better place because of those changes. Why can't those people see the pattern and embrace the future instead of so reluctantly being dragged kicking and screaming into it....? Or alternatively, if they really aren't ready for the future, then they can by all means hold on to their old tech until they are. Does their old MP's with FW etc. etc. stop working because Apple's released a new one? No. So why all the fuss?
All that said, that's a general rant about the general whining that's going on. There are some valid points you've made that I'll comment on.
I will however, take issue with a couple of the points you've raised. First, I believe you are vastly overestimating the cost of including internal drive bays. It does not drastically increase the cooling necessary, or require additional heat sinks. Those are primarily for the CPU and GPU. The only additional costs of including them are the extra case size. Take a look at case prices, they're not going to break the bank, even for nice ones with good build quality.
Additionally, the vast majority of pros will use more than the included flash storage. So if the odds are that it's going to be used anyways the vast majority of the time, why treat it as such an optional feature? I'd much prefer to have everything included in the same box than have to trail cords all over. On a side note, this also decreases efficiency. You'll have to power it separately using a separate power supply. So ... how exactly is including internal drive sleds limiting?
Secondly, including an optical drive doesn't really increase the cost by that much to you. But hey, since its largely an outdated standard, I'll concede that its omission in the new Mac Pro is not terribly important.
Yes, you're right. To be honest, the "cost" I was referring to wasn't all just financial. Here's what I'm really trying to say:
I hate having such a big and heavy box mostly full of empty space, just to get the raw processing performance that I want.
Even more to the point is this: Why is two optical drives, four hard drives and whatever combination of PCI slots that Apple has in the current MP, the "right" combination. What if I want five or more drives, or a specific RAID configuration that the Apple RAID card doesn't support - each of which are configurations I've happened to need at some points in time, and so I had to buy an external enclosure ANYWAY. My footprint REALLY sucked then.
That's not to say it's all about me. My point here is, a large percentage of MP users have been still buying external gear anyway, because the particular combination of slots and holes that Apple put in the existing MP hasn't been right for them. ie. Yes, the current (silver cheese grater) MP case is just right for some people, but I'd argue that's really a small percentage - and perhaps it's that small percentage that are kicking up a fuss in this forum - but for the rest of us we either don't need or want all that extra space, or when we do need extra stuff we need more than what the enclosure can hold, and so we're buying external gear anyway.
I like the new form factor because it gives us OPTIONS. It's a much more flexible arrangement, to cater - perfectly - to a much higher percentage of users. To me that's a step forward for most of us, without particularly being a step backward for the few people for whom the current case does happen to be just the right combination of slots, holes, etc. Those people can still build a configuration that's perfect for them.
The only thing *those* people are losing is having it all in one box. But is that such a huge price to pay so that the rest of us don't have to have a box that isn't right for us? Are we really making such a fuss about the box?
I would argue that there's now a market for third party companies to design and deliver a wide array of third party enclosures that the new MP can integrate into. This solves their problem, as well as my problem, because now there's a chance someone will make an enclosure that has just the 5 hard drive bays i want, or whatever else, without all the other stuff I don't want, and my new black MP can slide into it, and I get one box with JUST what I want and nothing else. And someone will make one with just what you want and nothing else. And so on.
The point is, there are now MUCH MORE OPTIONS than before, and to me that's a good thing overall, even if it's a little inconvenient for the few for whom the old one just happened to be just right.
Can you not imagine a scenario in which both legacy and current hardware would both be valuable? First, I'm not sure what you're referring to as "legacy hardware", aside from an optical drive (which, blu ray isn't exactly legacy yet anyways). PCIe is not legacy hardware. And just because certain standards are still used that you might refer to as "legacy" doesn't mean a professional doesn't want the newest processors and up to date graphics cards. Take, for example, a video professional who does a significant amount of video editing, and gives the work to clients (or perhaps samples), on blu ray discs. He could, without a doubt, use the latest and greatest processors for rendering work (hence the need to upgrade). However, having the "legacy" technology is still a must, as blu ray is still used for many HD projects, rather than having to purchase a hard drive, when the customer requires a physical copy.
As far as I can tell, the ONLY thing the new MP is missing that can't be added is the high speed PCI (which you've mentioned in another comment) and I'll concede that that is a big omission. To be honest, until reading all this I didn't realise PCI was as fast as people are saying it is. Between them, TB2 and USB3 crap all over FW, SATA and everything else that's in the old MP - while still being backwards compatible with all of it (eg TB to FW adapter) - with the exception of, it would seem, PCI.
To this I'll (admittedly potentially ignorantly) say: How many people are actually using that kind of bandwidth for anything other than GPU for gaming? If we can accept that gamers are not Apple's market, then is there really any kind of storage or other use for the high speed PCI that does actually use anywhere near all its bandwidth? I believe you've discussed that below, so I'll come back to this there.
I'll also suggest that maybe Apple's got something up their sleeves to address the PCI omission, or if they didn't before they might consider it now.
If not, then I'll concede that so far, when applying any sensible kind of logic, the PCI issue is the only complaint I've read in this entire thread that holds any value, for the vast majority of the MP's target market. Everything else is catered to as far as I can tell. Other than that (and the separate discussion, below, of just how powerful the new MP is with only 12 cores etc) have I missed anything?
I am glad you find the new Mac Pro suitable for your needs. However, you can't exactly connect ANYTHING to it, via Thunderbolt. For many applications (external storage for example), the 20Gb/s it provides should be more than enough. However, a 8x slot provides nearly 4x the bandwidth, and the x16 slot provides even more. External GPUs will suffer severe penalties, especially for compute work. Why would you want an exernal GPU you ask? Well, probably if your workflow uses CUDA, and you need nVidia GPUs.
Right. Agreed. And as noted above, if that's the case, then we have one large, legitimate omission in the new MP.
Additionally, once you start adding all these boxes together, the footprint starts to increase.
Suppose, you already own a Mac Pro with 4 internal drives (plus a SSD boot drive in the second optical drive slot, a blu ray drive, a 128 GB of memory (8 x 16 GB), and an OWC Accelsior (basically a PCIe SSD). Well, you could put the blu ray in an external enclosure, as well as the 4 x 3.5" drives. And you'll probably have to find an external PCIe enclosure to put your Accelsior in. ... See my point, now I've got at least 3 extra boxes, each requiring their own power supply on my desk, with 6 extra cords. Suddenly, it doesn't seem like such a reduction in footprint afterall. Additionally, I've now had to buy ~$1,000 of "adaptors" to make it all work.
I think I covered this above. If you're adding LOTS of boxes to the new MP then you were probably adding more boxes to the old MP for gear that couldn't be contained internally anyway. Otherwise, what are you really adding? One or two USB optical drives, a four bay HDD enclosure, and possibly some sort of TB to PCI chassis? I'd argue that those three things added to the new MP will still create a smaller footprint than the current one with all that inside, and again that's ONLY if that particular combination is the right combination for you. Anything else and you're adding boxes to the old MP anyway, right?
(Oh, and, you'll only have 4 memory slots in your new Mac Pro, so its actually a down grade in that respect.)
Maybe I'm missing something, but why is the number of slots important? Surely what matters is the total amount of RAM? First up, how many people ACTUALLY max out the RAM in their 8 slot MP's? What is the maximum anyway? 8 slots x 16GB = 128GB, right? But isn't the total RAM limited by the cores anyway? It's my understanding that the 12 core MBP can only address 96GB of RAM anyway. Is that not right? So 4 x 32GB modules (these do exist, right?) in the new MP will also exceed that same limit, assuming the new MP has the 12 cores they're saying it will. I'm no expert on this stuff, so please feel free to correct me if I'm missing something. But if what I've said here is reasonable, then that's surely not a downgrade after all, right?
This is my main problem with the new Mac Pro. Sure, its a great machine, and a fantastic piece of engineering. But they just made it smaller than it needed to be. For example, it is now only available in a single socket configuration, presumably due to size limitations. That means you are now limited to 4 memory slots, and 12 cores (exactly what we had before). If Apple hadn't been so obsessively concerned with reducing the footprint, they could have included a dual socket option for those that would benefit from it. And if most folks are going to use internal storage anyways, why externalize it?
If all you want it a fast, powerful machine with not much internal storage, and you don't need more than 12 cores, this machine is great for you! But maybe Apple should have made 2 offerings then. A Mac Mini Pro (or something like that), and a more capable platform for those that would benefit from it.
No compromises performance at any cost? So only having 12 cores available, and 4 slots of RAM is no compromises? As opposed to other workstations (and what the Mac Pro used to offer) that offer dual socket configurations with up to what will be 24 cores/48 threads and 8 slots/128GB RAM? Sure sounds like a compromise to me.
Not to say your problem on this note is invalid, but ultimately this just comes down to the question of how power much is in it, and how much power the target market wants to actually pay for. To this I say:
1. I suspect Apple didn't decide on the footprint and then try to figure out what would fit in it. I'd say they decided what was going to go in it (for better or worse) as well as the general design principle (central thermal core, etc) and then built the enclosure accordingly. So if this is a valid issue, then it's not "Why'd they make it so small?" rather it's "Why'd they choose the particular configuration options they've chosen?"
2. Let's ask the question: If Apple did make a 24 core MP, it'll cost a lot more obviously... How many will they actually sell? I'm only speculating, but my point is, up to 12 cores and up to 96GB of RAM is going to be adequate for a LOT of (almost all?) users, and the majority will buy the lower end models (with 6 or 8 or whatever cores) anyway, right? Perhaps there just isn't a big enough market for Apple to justify the more powerful options yet. Not that I'm trying to justify their decisions and defent them with the Kool Aid "Apple can do no wrong" argument, but in all reality, they probably know their market better than we do. How limited really is the vast majority of their target market by 12 cores and 96GB of RAM?
To put that another way, I do happen to hate that there are certain markets that Apple doesn't cater to. Gaming is one of them. Perhaps the kind of pros that need more than 12 cores and 96GB of RAM is one of them (although on another note, can't those users simply cluster two or more of these babies together - I'm no expert on that stuff, so please forgive, and perhaps correct, my ignorance if that's a stupid comment)? If you, or I want to complain about the fact that Apple doesn't cater to a certain market then that's a reasonable complaint perhaps. But that's not what this conversation, or this thread, is (or should be) about.
3. All that said, I'm speculating, but if history is anything to go by, I suspect these limitations aren't really hard limitations anyway, and that there may well be more configuration options coming. The PowerMac G4, the PowerMac G5 and the Mac Pro to date, have all undergone some rearrangement of the internals at different times to add to their performance etc. within the same case. I'd be really surprised if other configurations aren't either released on day 1, or added over time.
As you say, the future for some may indeed be this new Mac Pro, for those who don't mind connecting all their essentials with boxes and cords, or for those who don't need them in the first place. However, for those who need more than 4 slots of RAM, dual socket configurations, and the convenience of internal storage (or rack mounting capabilities), the future for them just might be HP or Dell workstations. In fact I suspect many of them have already switched before this announcement to Avid or Adobe.
Actually, I'll also give you the rack mounting complaint, but again I think that just comes down to for whatever reason Apple decided to get out of that market when they discontinued the XServe, and I'm sure they have good business reasons for doing so. Let's face it, the market for enterprise macs has never been particularly successful. Perhaps it's just something they're not good at. As much as I hate Microsoft and Windows, frankly Apple's server software has a lot of holes anyway compared to Microsoft's offerings when it comes to the true enterprise market. It's just a market Apple's never really been able to get into correctly, and they're probably making a sensible decision to get out of it. Who knows?
It's great to push technology forward. However, buying 16TB worth of SSD storage is not cost effect at this point, especially if its mostly for storage that you don't necessarily access frequently. Innovation is great, but don't imply that everyone just needs to get over it and drop $15k on solid state storage when mechanical hard drives will do just fine for a fraction of the cost at current prices.
I missed something. 16TB of SSD storage? How/where does that come into all this?
You seem much too keen on telling people what they're "supposed" to do and buy and think. Easy.
Not exactly. I'm actually trying to counter all the people telling everyone else on this forum how we're supposed to do and think the old ways, instead of being a little more open minded and embracing the future - a future which seems to me to be much more flexible and powerful than the legacies we are (or will ultimately, if we give the future half a chance) leave behind, for the better.
Or to put it another way, as i've said before, if we all held on to the past as vehemently as some people on this forum want to, then we'd still be using floppy drives, etc.
Even if you want all storage to go external, TB just doesn't match the speeds of PCIe though. Here's a post from someone on reduser:
"Well... So much for being able to have large external fast I/O... I know my dated two generations old PCI-E 2.0 x8 raid controller gives me about 2000 MB/sec reads and 1100 MB/sec writes on a 84 TB raid6 volume (30x3TB drives). Newer controllers are closer to around 3000 megabytes/sec read and write. No way you will ever get anything near to that on thunderbolt."
Agreed above: PCI omission = bad, if that's in fact what eventually winds up happening. Let's hope Apple catch on and fix that omission before final release.
