Any next day on-site support? How are the acoustics? Does it have Energy Star/EPEAT certification?
Not comparable, you have to spec the Quadros. Main thing is Nvidia locks out some features on the gaming cards, like limiting video encoding, GPUDirect RDMA, and compute modes which allow for kernel runtimes > 5 seconds, and unified memory addressing. And technically, it's illegal to use a Geforce in a datacenter.
The RTX 2080 has cooling issues with adjacent slots if they're the standard twin fan design, the Quadros all use rear exit blowers, which are necessary for high-density low-noise systems. The Quadro RTX 4000 (2070 equivalent) is also single-slot, allowing for higher density.
We have servers with Xeons that are basically 8 netbook cores because the problems they run offload nearly completely to the GPU. No point in wasting money and power.
When you deal with real professional computing, you tune your systems to the problems. We're not amateurs that show off blinking LEDs in a window case and synthetic benchmark numbers.
Ok. I'm gonna chime in here cause there is a lot of bs being flung around here.
The new Mac pro has the potential to be a beast. But yes, the pricing is beyond ridiculous. When fully specced it begins to cost enough to start considering a mainframe, which is appropriate for a data center. The current MacPro form factor is made to sit beside or under a desk. It is basically something to be purchased not because you need it but because you want to show it off.
To everyone who is claiming to know what they are talking about please list the specific work you do, projects you have personally been involved with and what your role was.
So I'll begin. I am a partner (CTO/CRO) at a business strategy / technology consulting firm. We work with nearly every industry and I personally have worked with the film industry for about 15 years directly. I do not perform rendering work but I (and those who work for me) do have the expertise to advise on appropriate configurations for various workloads.
The new MacPro is NOT a piece of hardware we would recommend. First of all, while Metal has addressed some of the MASSIVE shortfalls that MacOS has had for decades with respect to multi-GPU workloads. (eg. the OS had no native support for multi-GPU and anything accessing the second GPU needed low level coding / custom APIs to make use of them)
Apple did invest some effort to enhance apps like Final Cut to support such GPU configurations but it ultimately has suffered tremendously from the UI and workflow change since version X was released. So most of the industry has abandoned Final Cut in favor of Adobe Premiere for video editing.
For rendering..... Well... There just isn't anything that runs on MacOS that is even worth mentioning.
For CAD work and Video editing the MacPro is fine but woefully priced out of reach.
Also, real machine learning and AI based video analysis / rendering tools run on various private and public cloud based clusters that use thin web layers like Hadoop to manage the cluster and distribute the workload.
I personally have not seen any of these support AMD GPUs. That is not to say they should not and will never but as of today they do not.
Also the Quadro GPUs are tuned to 3D rendering and yes the new RTX based systems are far superior for raytracing which is essential to modern rendering for photorealistic results.
Nvidia also now has Tesla GPUs that are tuned to Machine Learning and similar applications. They are absolutely the way to go for video analysis tasks.
These are the GPUs you can cram into a system running up to 8 in tandem (for example on a specific HP DL380 configuration). They run on passive cooling and basically sip power so they don't need tremendous amounts of wattage to do their jobs.
Lastly there are the Nvidia GRID offerings which are massive clusters of GPUs (think of this like the industrial version of SLI/multi-GPU configurations. Major rendering studios may invest in these and others may lease access to these clusters in cloud providers like AWS.
My firm has specced and facilitated the design, build and implementation of such systems spanning all three scenarios for entertainment, engineering, higher-ed, scientific (physics) analysis and medical (A/I) image processing.
The new MacPro IS not currently a recommended system. And it likely won't be.
Apple does have what seems to be a rack mountable chassis that will be released at some point in the future and that may be a different story entirely.
So all this arguing about hypotheticals is bs and you guys could benefit greatly from discussing facts and realities.
Now on a personal note, I want one of these nearly 60K setups just because it would be fun to brag and show it off. I'd probably never touch even 1 percent of it's capabilities but hey Apple has never been known for offering cutting edge computing solutions except in the area of their ARM based mobile CPUs.
Time will tell what happens. But if Apple have real intent to service these targeted industries then they need to seriously consider pricing alternatives.
I would recommend abstaining from a direct purchase and leasing a system to test and evaluate for 2-3 years.
