Not even close. The second sign was Apple moving to Intel. The first was the Red Sox winning the World Series.
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Entry-Level Mac Pro Offers Comparable Pricing Versus OEM PCs, DIY Systems More Affordable
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Not even close. The second sign was Apple moving to Intel. The first was the Red Sox winning the World Series.
Ok, so it takes two raided SSD's to get the equivalent of one in the 2013 Mac Pro. That tells you of how good the Apple PCIe SSD's they are currently using.
How is a 3.7GHz Ivy Bridge 4-core i7 CPU faster than a 4-core 3.7GHz Ivy Bridge 4-core Xeon? I'm really interested to know how a 3.4Ghz 6-core is faster than a 3.5GHz 6-core on the same architecture too.
Apparently not that much, they are the same technology, specifications and price on a good few models.
http://ark.intel.com/compare/77781,75779,77780,75780
Mac Pro is definitely in line with workstation pricing (even cheaper than some premium brands like Boxx and HP). But it definitely can't beat the cost of DIY, even on the high end. That FutureLooks article was total nonsense. No one building a PC (even for high end work) would put in two of those FirePro cards which make up the majority of the cost in their "test". Two GTX Titans would run circles around those ATI cards and come in at a fraction of the price.
Quite right, most other workstations come with 3 years out of the box (not to mention on-site, NBD) compared to 1 year from Apple with 90 days on the phone.
You'd have to increase that margin more than $800. As you'd have to factor in the value of the screen. So you'd have to add at least another $650 for a comparable IPS 2560x1440 27" display from a reputable manufacturer.
Anand has been sucking up to Apple lately big time. No wonder he received a review MP unit from Apple unlike, say, Arstechnica which published somewhat critical pre-review of MP a few months back. One major difference between HP and Apple workstations is the graphic cards. While HP has real Fire Pro cards (ECC memory and pro drivers) MP has none of it. Then HP workstation comes with 3 year on site support. How much would it cost to get such support from Apple? Then there is a fact that HP has better PSU and internal expandability. This comes at a price.
wonder compared to decked out iMac 27"
I would love to see a performance comparison on geek bench between a base Mac Pro and top of the line/deckout out iMac 27".
I would love to see a performance comparison on geek bench between a base Mac Pro and top of the line/deckout out iMac 27".
It's always the little things. I'm sure you know you find that a lot with notebooks. Some PC brand will market its 15.4" Intel-based notebook with 500GB of storage and 4GB of RAM for $x.
What isn't on the front of the box is the resolution difference between that display and even the non-Retina MBP display, the difference between a Core i3 or i5 and a Celeron, the 5600 or so rpm on the hard disk and the slower speed on the RAM.
As someone else said, you can build (or get) a PC for less than a Mac. But you usually can't save much money if any when the components are stacked up evenly. Add in the lack of virus/security software for almost everybody and the new free OS updates and office suite, and Apple keeps looking better. You have to pay for quality, but it's good stuff.
You are right. But you are overlooking it's main (though artificial benefit): 40 PCIe lanes coming off the CPU.
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Read the review.
You and me both dude.
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Depending on the core count, no?
Due to increase in IPC in Haswell vs. IB, a 4-core i7 would likely outperform a 4-core Xeon.
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Sucking up to Apple? All you people who comment like this (especially on Anand's site) are really starting to get on my nerves. I'm all about be objective, and I can't stand when people blindly defend everything Apple does ... but all you people do is complain how Anand is so biased toward Apple ... without giving a flipping reason why.
Give me FACTS and EXAMPLES of what he's said that is unfair or untrue, and then I'll listen to you. Until then, stop whining.
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It is also a more expensive platform than LGA1150 (as is the Xeon platform). Both are considered IB-E.
I wonder how can they affirm that any real world workload can't cause throttling. In the scientific community these machines will probably run at heavy workload for hours and even days. When they say real world they're probably referring to videographers and photographers who usually keep the CPU busy for a few seconds or minutes by task.
Did you read the article in full?
Also, I can't say that I know much about the computing needs of the scientific community, but if you have to run calculations that will take days, you're probably better off using something other than a Mac Pro.
If its an E5 or E7. An E3, like the current Haswell Xeons have the typical 24 lane setup.
An E3 wouldn't do though for the Mac Pro. Too many attachments.
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In sequential speed yes - the benchmark generally least relevant as such speeds will pretty much only be attained during copy operations. The CPU/GPUs won't be able to keep up with anything else.
The real benchmark lies in its random I/O performance. This is what make SSDs 'feel' fast. Here the results are not so convincing. The Mac Pro pulls out a 95mb/s read, but earlier benchmarks by Anand have shown the Samsung 840 Pro to beat it with 102mb/s random read.
Not only that, other PCI-E drives such as the Revodrive R4, or Intel 910 - absolutely annihilates it. In the same benchmark, the 910 does 592mb/s or 373mb/s depending on capacity and the R4 356mb/s. Thats 6x respectively 4x faster in a benchmark far more important.
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I didn't read it yet... however, I'm really excited with the potential of the nMP for scientific work. Of course a cluster solution like Apache Hadoop is probably recommended for better scalability but a good all in one workstation seems a compelling alternative too since you can adapt your algorithms for running on gpu. I see recent comparisons claiming that sometimes a big cluster performs slower than a standalone system relying on gpu processing. Sadly, the nMP GPU RAM isn't ECC so it seems that the HP workstation is a better option for this task ...
That is not true.
People and business's who buy these level of workstations will not buy a Mac because its a Mac, they'll buy whatever best suits there needs. Sometimes its the mac, sometimes it isn't.
Look, guys, I understand that you want to cover your opinions in full detail, but could you at least make some effort to be more concise?
exactly
"Pricing out an option with an Ivy Bridge E Core i7 PC with 12GB of RAM, two FirePro W7000 GPUs, and a fast SATA SSD came to $2730, a good bit less than the approximately $3499 a similar lower-end Mac Pro would cost from Apple."
i7, not the more expensive Xeon, and SATA SSD, not the more expensive (?) PCIe SSD. Why didn't they compare it to a home-built PC that's actually the SAME?
The Mac Pro is pricey, but I'm really surprised it isn't more expensive. Still, what's the point of a Xeon CPU? Seems like you get way less bang for your buck, and they aren't even taking advantage of dual sockets.
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Just wondering, are those independent USB ports or an internal hub? A lot of the PC cases I've seen have had some ridiculous number of USB and SATA ports, not that 14 USB ports is too many for some people (I think I have 14 in use right now).
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The guy you're replying to is a troll. He's also a frequent commenter. Apple releases an iPhone, and he hates it. Apple releases a Mac, and he hates it. I don't think he even owns an Apple product, or if he does, he seriously regrets it.
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Not everyone needs OS X or likes it. Though I'd say that most home users who don't like any version of it just have something against Apple. Every time I use Windows, it feels like I'm in the 90s again except on a slower computer. And all the Linux-based OSs turned to crap a year ago it seems. Pro users usually have much better reasons.
i7, not the more expensive Xeon, and SATA SSD, not the more expensive (?) PCIe SSD. Why didn't they compare it to a home-built PC that's actually the SAME?
The Mac Pro is pricey, but I'm really surprised it isn't more expensive. Still, what's the point of a Xeon CPU? Seems like you get way less bang for your buck, and they aren't even taking advantage of dual sockets.
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My gaming PC is based on the LGA2011 socket/X79 platform, and it's got 8 x USB 3.0 and 2 x USB 2.0 on the back, 2 of each on the front.
I'd rather have all of those than Thunderbolt ports, but I don't have any pro peripherals, of course!
Just wondering, are those independent USB ports or an internal hub? A lot of the PC cases I've seen have had some ridiculous number of USB and SATA ports, not that 14 USB ports is too many for some people (I think I have 14 in use right now).
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The guy you're replying to is a troll. He's also a frequent commenter. Apple releases an iPhone, and he hates it. Apple releases a Mac, and he hates it. I don't think he even owns an Apple product, or if he does, he seriously regrets it.
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Not everyone needs OS X or likes it. Though I'd say that most home users who don't like any version of it just have something against Apple. Every time I use Windows, it feels like I'm in the 90s again except on a slower computer. And all the Linux-based OSs turned to crap a year ago it seems. Pro users usually have much better reasons.
I need to read the Anand piece I guess, I find it hard to believe he reached the conclusion described in this story. It would be unusual for Anand to say a Xeon E5 and an I7 are the same thing.