Every artist at our studio is sitting with a Cintiq and a MacPro. Animators, designers, board artists, compers, editors (ok compers and editors use dual monitors, not Cintiqs). Including the L.A. studio and N.Y. studio that's over 300 MacPros. Many purchased over the last year or so. Our entire pipeline/lifeline is OS X & QT. If they discontinued the MacPro and we had to run Windows, it would decimate the studio.
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Apple 'Questioning' the Future of its Mac Pro Line?
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The end is nigh for machines such as these. Towers are relics in the age of tablet, mobile and the cloud.
It lasted 2-3 years which is OK, but definitely got passed on the supercomputer autobahn after that time. When Apple signaled they were going Intel though they probably didn't spend extended time on the "De-nile" river about the need for a new option. (Rosetta isn't an option for a supercomputer. )
Mac don't have any good node interconnect options. (e.g., Infiniband is commonly used and is non-existent on any Mac. ). Take a look at the top500 grouped by connection.
http://top500.org/stats/list/37/connfam
Infiniband and Custom/Proprietary swamp the performance of the other options. Back when Ethernet and perhaps some Myrnet were the main players using mac pros made some sense.
Likewise way too much money was poured into MPI solutions on Linux and not on Mac OS X ones.
Another thought. If Apple is getting this gun happy killing products, and if the new MBP becomes very Air like, then where is exactly the competition for Windows? They are not making a diverse lineup to try to grab 20% maybe a shade more marketshare, and how many times do you read here "Competition is a good thing" Quite a lot. Apple has the only shot at eating some share from MS, but its like they refuse to want to do it.
Apple trying to gain market is good for PC's in general, if they get content with the 5-8% whatever it is worldwide share, then I think thats a serious problem.
Apple trying to gain market is good for PC's in general, if they get content with the 5-8% whatever it is worldwide share, then I think thats a serious problem.
It seems as if they are only concerned about your Average Joe consumer. They appear to be moving away from the pro and enthusiast market. It's all about money, nothing else. It is 1984. Apple is what it once abhorred.
swingerofbirch
macrumors 68040
This is a dumb rumor. Anyone who needs a Mac Pro knows they are not going anywhere. iOS would be boring as **** with no photos, graphics, games, music or movies, wouldn't it?
I don't think Apple is axing the Mac Pro line.
I think they plan on adding a new entry level option.
I think they plan on adding a new entry level option.
As a past and present owner, I'll be sad to see it go. But I sure as hell won't miss the graphics card options.
Makes sense with the ipads and such. I wonder how many average Joe's will still want to drop 1k on laptops and all in ones. I see their success as short term, and if Woz actually said the following to Steve Jobs as was portrayed in the silicon valley movie, O how true I think it will become.
"I'm tired of being your brake as you speed into the wall." Not verbatim, close enough.
It seems the hierarchy there has been trained right into Jobs thinking. I doubt they think for themselves, probably a lot of WWSD around there.
PS: Interesting to see a bigger mini proto on here, but that wouldnt work with large GFX cards. It would look nice though of course.
"I'm tired of being your brake as you speed into the wall." Not verbatim, close enough.
It seems the hierarchy there has been trained right into Jobs thinking. I doubt they think for themselves, probably a lot of WWSD around there.
PS: Interesting to see a bigger mini proto on here, but that wouldnt work with large GFX cards. It would look nice though of course.
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Just a friendly heads up.
When I innocently entered the same "+1" (as you have) indicating my approval. I was accused of being a troll by the mods.
After using that expression in many other forums without problems. I was taken aback. I've since learned that when reading the rules I overlooked this technicality.
Cheers
You have no clue what you are talking about and obviously have no experience in the movie industry. We are NOT moving to cheaper solutions because the level of compute power we require actually goes up and up so we are spending more for higher and higher-end systems. There is always a demand for more and better with computer graphics.
You can NOT cut 4K on a G5, G5s even struggled with HD, although Media 100 was a little better than FCP with multi-stream HD because it had a processing board which offloaded the CPU. Films are 2K for the most part by the way. Offline editing was always done at proxy resolution. It has only been very recently with products like the 2006 Mac Pro that people even worked at HD for features and really only RED footage with a RED Rocket is cut at higher res (Most still use HD proxies too). Arri outputs a HD ProRes Quicktime with it's RAW footage for editorial. Conform is done on Smoke, Scratch, or Davinci, all with require a Mac Pro with a Professional GPU such as the Quadro 4000.
So unless you work in my industry, which I can tell you don't, don't try and tell me what we use and how we do it or what studios use what systems or how they render. I will be more than glad if you are in LA to take you on a tour of our studio and show you what we use and how we do it.
You can NOT cut 4K on a G5, G5s even struggled with HD, although Media 100 was a little better than FCP with multi-stream HD because it had a processing board which offloaded the CPU. Films are 2K for the most part by the way. Offline editing was always done at proxy resolution. It has only been very recently with products like the 2006 Mac Pro that people even worked at HD for features and really only RED footage with a RED Rocket is cut at higher res (Most still use HD proxies too). Arri outputs a HD ProRes Quicktime with it's RAW footage for editorial. Conform is done on Smoke, Scratch, or Davinci, all with require a Mac Pro with a Professional GPU such as the Quadro 4000.
So unless you work in my industry, which I can tell you don't, don't try and tell me what we use and how we do it or what studios use what systems or how they render. I will be more than glad if you are in LA to take you on a tour of our studio and show you what we use and how we do it.
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+1 for the 8-core Xeon Mac Mini.
+1 for the 8-core Xeon Mac Mini.
Yeah Im trying to picture the ideal solution that would still allow a full length graphics card in there. You could slot one in vertically from underneath and have the monitor ports accessible from the bottom (with space to access).
You could replace the 4 HDD bays with 4 SSD bays that would be far less space required.
Surely Apple could put together GPUs that take up less length? Make them sit on a riser card or something?
I was planning on my next Mac Pro purchase having 4 x SSDs in RAID 0 anyway.. so the volume saved by only having 4 x SSDs would be heaps. It's the GPU and cooling that would take up the most space.
They would need to find a way to keep the dual socket XEONs cool enough in the small enclosure - but somehow I think Jony Ive and his team could pull it off.
Told YA
Yes, I'm that guy, the one that runs around screaming I told ya so, after a good flaming on being so "negative" about how important the PRO market is to Apple.
But hey, I'm sure it'll be fine, I'll get all my Apple fan boys together link all of our iPhones, iPads and Apple TVs up in parallel and start the first A5 based consumer level render farm.
I'm sure there's an app for that.
Yes, I'm that guy, the one that runs around screaming I told ya so, after a good flaming on being so "negative" about how important the PRO market is to Apple.
But hey, I'm sure it'll be fine, I'll get all my Apple fan boys together link all of our iPhones, iPads and Apple TVs up in parallel and start the first A5 based consumer level render farm.
I'm sure there's an app for that.
Steve would kill it in a heartbeat.
NOT TRUE !!
Steve would kill off the Mac Pro in a heart beat, literally.
He would tell you that one can explore all the expansion possible,
as soon as the industry caught up with the latest technology,
and made all viable peripherals hang from a thunderbolt port of an iMac.
....Next
NOT TRUE !!
Steve would kill off the Mac Pro in a heart beat, literally.
He would tell you that one can explore all the expansion possible,
as soon as the industry caught up with the latest technology,
and made all viable peripherals hang from a thunderbolt port of an iMac.
....Next
Sounds like somebody needs a wake up call. When you're dealing in After effects and a 30sec animation is looking at a 5-10 hour render on a 12 core macine with 32 gigs of RAM, how do you think that sounds on an iMac where it would be more like 20-30 hours? There is a place for the most powerful computing system out there. If you don't have the most powerful computers, then you won't be first to get Adobe upgrades. The pros on windows will. You won't be the first to get the games. You won't be the first to get the 3D apps and the Audio apps.
I work in the video production industry. for every MacPro workstation there's 20-50 iMacs out there that solely exist because these people deal with Mac pros and need to be compatible at home or as support or various reasons. If the pro line, then the pro apps dry up, then so will the trickle down of technology and users.
But the writing is on the wall. And if I have to cross grade my adobe suite, then I'm sure not going to be using a Mac at home, because I'd also have to have a PC at home. It's a mess. So if I'm going PC and dealing its workarounds and hang ups then I might as well learn android while I'm at it and save some cash.
Without the Mac Pro, Apple isn't taken seriously as a computer company. It may not be a huge profit item, but they need it.
I'm talking about high end content creation mostly. Say I'd want to make assets for an iOS Unreal Engine 3 project. I'd be running Modo, Zbrush, Photoshop, all of which eat up a ton of ram and processing power. While you could do all that on a Macbook Pro, it wouldn't be most optimal place for it. To get the most out of your workflow with the least amount of fuss, you'd want at least a high end consumer i7 setup with a high end graphics card (and by high end, I mean a Quadro and its ilk), or a workstation like a Mac Pro.
Basically, the more powerful the iPad gets, the more power you'll need to make high end content for it. Even considering that the iMacs and MBPs will scale in power exponentially, there's only so much you can get out of their compact, small form factor in comparison to a proper high end tower.
Where's Steve Jobs when you need him?
Clearly Apple doesn't care about Pros anymore, especially after the release of "iMovie Pro." Seem to make more money from consumers. What a joke.
Clearly Apple doesn't care about Pros anymore, especially after the release of "iMovie Pro." Seem to make more money from consumers. What a joke.
Let me provide a little insight into all of this as a professional 3D artist. First, those saying things like "tower are relics", "you can do it all on an iMac if they change some features", "who needs that much power?", etc. simply do not understand and sound like they have very little computer knowledge at all. Second, I hope like others they do not discontinue it due to my work, if they do then I will be forced to move on to Windows 7/8 fully.
As I said above, I wanted to post some insight about the segment that a Mac Pro sells to and what most use them for. For me, it is a MUST to have at least 1 or more Mac Pro computers with the most high-end features you can get. The reason is because I am a 3D artist and use programs that cost several thousand dollars each, such as Maya, Vue, C4D, etc. These programs cost as much or sometimes a LOT more than many will ever spend on their computers alone. For people like me, I am NOT and never will be a "typical" computer user/consumer. I must have at least 16-24GB of memory, a full 64bit OS and at least 2 CPUs with 8-12 cores at minimum.
Programs like that mentioned above will take advantage of just about all you can throw at them. It means not only can I render scenes faster, but I can also be more creative in my art for building a scene. With faster processors, more cores, more memory, etc. I can put say 8 very high-resolution models in a scene that are really eat a lot of power, whereas if I was limited to an iMac maxed out it would be about 3-4 models at best. Also, things would take much longer to render and produce from start to finish. That means both time and money.
Not only is a Mac Pro essential for me, but Apple has really dropped the ball and I wish they would decide one way or the other to either FULLY support it or give it up. One area that matters a lot is the fact I need nVidia cards in them for their "CUDA" cores since some high-end software take better advantage of those compared to AMD Radeon. Not only is one Mac Pro used in my workflow, but I have two others running as part of my "render farm" that is used for distributed network rendering nodes. Typically, I work from the most current high-end Mac Pro I have, then farm the jobs to the others on the network render farm. If the scene is complex or very detailed, I use all 3 of them together.
Now, try telling this to Apple. While many still complain about the Mac Pro costing $4,000+, I call this cheap. A lot will never use anywhere close to the type of power I need or features, but for those of us out there that do, it will be the end of our Apple computer purchases and be forced to Windows where we can build systems anyway we want them. So the question becomes, are there enough of us left that spends $6-10K per computer for Apple to keep the Mac Pro line going? So far it seems like the answer to that has already been given due to the serious lack of updates the Mac Pro line has seen on a timely basis. All I am pointing out is that while people like myself are not anywhere close to the "normal" computer buyer that Apple loves, there is still a market there. But it is long pass time Apple decides if it wants in or out so we will know where to go for our future needs.
As I said above, I wanted to post some insight about the segment that a Mac Pro sells to and what most use them for. For me, it is a MUST to have at least 1 or more Mac Pro computers with the most high-end features you can get. The reason is because I am a 3D artist and use programs that cost several thousand dollars each, such as Maya, Vue, C4D, etc. These programs cost as much or sometimes a LOT more than many will ever spend on their computers alone. For people like me, I am NOT and never will be a "typical" computer user/consumer. I must have at least 16-24GB of memory, a full 64bit OS and at least 2 CPUs with 8-12 cores at minimum.
Programs like that mentioned above will take advantage of just about all you can throw at them. It means not only can I render scenes faster, but I can also be more creative in my art for building a scene. With faster processors, more cores, more memory, etc. I can put say 8 very high-resolution models in a scene that are really eat a lot of power, whereas if I was limited to an iMac maxed out it would be about 3-4 models at best. Also, things would take much longer to render and produce from start to finish. That means both time and money.
Not only is a Mac Pro essential for me, but Apple has really dropped the ball and I wish they would decide one way or the other to either FULLY support it or give it up. One area that matters a lot is the fact I need nVidia cards in them for their "CUDA" cores since some high-end software take better advantage of those compared to AMD Radeon. Not only is one Mac Pro used in my workflow, but I have two others running as part of my "render farm" that is used for distributed network rendering nodes. Typically, I work from the most current high-end Mac Pro I have, then farm the jobs to the others on the network render farm. If the scene is complex or very detailed, I use all 3 of them together.
Now, try telling this to Apple. While many still complain about the Mac Pro costing $4,000+, I call this cheap. A lot will never use anywhere close to the type of power I need or features, but for those of us out there that do, it will be the end of our Apple computer purchases and be forced to Windows where we can build systems anyway we want them. So the question becomes, are there enough of us left that spends $6-10K per computer for Apple to keep the Mac Pro line going? So far it seems like the answer to that has already been given due to the serious lack of updates the Mac Pro line has seen on a timely basis. All I am pointing out is that while people like myself are not anywhere close to the "normal" computer buyer that Apple loves, there is still a market there. But it is long pass time Apple decides if it wants in or out so we will know where to go for our future needs.