Replacing a 2013 Mac Pro (dustbin).
Cool, almost silent.
The installation was not completely smooth -- it seems to take iCloud a bit of time to sync.
Formatting an external 8Tb USB-C SSD with APFS took several goes. Not clear why there were failures the first couple of times around.
USB sound (FujitsuTen M-1) is randomly silenced when playing Youtube videos and copying from one USB-C to another USB-C. Reboot needed.
HDMI output OK, but Youtube defaults to 360 / 480 for no apparent reason.
Apple Tracker pad seems a bit laggy, compare with the rock solid performance of the trashcan.
Some fiddling will be required to adapt to Thunderbolt 2 era peripherals (screen, Qnap, etc).
The basic takeaway is that, if our Mac works, there may be little reason to upgrade it unless you are a pro, where time is money, and you have enough work to make the marginal differences in processing time valuable.
It seems pretty obvious from the built-in silicon that video processing is the identifiable activity (and perhaps some sort of AI) for which these new Macs are optimised. Oddly, it seems hard to find a workload for which the Ultra is worthwhile.
Cool, almost silent.
The installation was not completely smooth -- it seems to take iCloud a bit of time to sync.
Formatting an external 8Tb USB-C SSD with APFS took several goes. Not clear why there were failures the first couple of times around.
USB sound (FujitsuTen M-1) is randomly silenced when playing Youtube videos and copying from one USB-C to another USB-C. Reboot needed.
HDMI output OK, but Youtube defaults to 360 / 480 for no apparent reason.
Apple Tracker pad seems a bit laggy, compare with the rock solid performance of the trashcan.
Some fiddling will be required to adapt to Thunderbolt 2 era peripherals (screen, Qnap, etc).
The basic takeaway is that, if our Mac works, there may be little reason to upgrade it unless you are a pro, where time is money, and you have enough work to make the marginal differences in processing time valuable.
It seems pretty obvious from the built-in silicon that video processing is the identifiable activity (and perhaps some sort of AI) for which these new Macs are optimised. Oddly, it seems hard to find a workload for which the Ultra is worthwhile.