GermanyChris
macrumors 601
bu it doesn't..
In a hackintosh I can upgrade processors and video whenever it plases me and choose whichever processor and video card I please.
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If The Mac Pro is Dead - What next?
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bu it doesn't..
In a hackintosh I can upgrade processors and video whenever it plases me and choose whichever processor and video card I please.
Same is true of my Mac Pro. In fact, mine isn't running the stock video card.
It might be a valid point against something like the iMac, but then we're back to the i7 which I've already talked about.
GermanyChris
macrumors 601
-hh
macrumors 68030
Oh?
Q1: if you were to go choose an AMD CPU today, it would run under OS X?
If not, then your claim isn't quite as impressive as it sounds: there's some constraints present .. and I'll bet that we can go check out those GPU threads to find out just how constrained the choices are for that component too.
And
Q2: if you were to go upgrade to any CPU/GPU today, the time that it took you to swap out that hardware and verify that it is running properly is literally zero hours, zero minutes and zero seconds?
If not, there is a cost which isn't going to vary significantly between the two sets of hardware (which was the point that goMac was making).
Note: yes, there is an alternative to the 0:00:00 time requirement, namely you can claim that the time investment doesn't matter because you consider the value of your time to be zero.
So if that's going to be your argument, I offer you the opportunity to convince the cynics: stop by my house to perform some menial labor that I'd normally DIY or pay someone to do for me. Fortunately for you, most of the yardwork is currently done, so you have the choice of this week's chores, which includes washing/waxing my german cars (3 of them) or to power-wash and treat the exterior of the house. Of course, if you really wanted to demonstrate how little your time is worth to you, you are free to do both.
BTW, while I do make this offer somewhat humorously, this is serious from the aspect that this work needs to get done, and finding a volunteer who will do it for me for free certainly beats paying someone or even DIY'ing it...and the same exact principle applies to the maintenance of all of my computers too. If its raining outside, you can work inside...dust buildup elimination, backups maintenance, software revision checking, OS updates, hardware maintenance tests, screen colorspace calibrations, printer consumables, etc, etc, etc. Feel free while you're doing this to survey if there's any meaningful difference in touch labor expenses between different machines running the same OS.
-hh
GermanyChris
macrumors 601
Yes, there are many AMD hackintoshes out there..just check Geekbench
Yes I put a new 550ti in today and it 0 hrs.
Is my time valuable? sure is it a precious and you believe your's is? Obviously not. Do I enjoy the time I spend playing aroud? Yes
Any other points you'd like to make?
Since your time is so important that you can't spend any researching but you can comment in a mac forum here is the first page of latest geek bench for hackintosh.
Hackintosh
Section Description Score Geekbench Score
Geekbench 2.3.0 Tryout for Mac OS X x86 (32-bit)
Integer Processor integer performance 4403 4875
Floating Point Processor floating point performance 6991
Memory Memory performance 3030
Stream Memory bandwidth performance 2819
Result Information
Upload Date April 16 2012 09:25 AM
Views 2
System Information
Hackintosh
Operating System Mac OS X 10.6.8 (Build 10K549)
Model Hackintosh
Processor AMD Athlon II X4 620 @ 2600 1 processor, 4 cores
Processor ID AuthenticAMD Family 16 Model 5 Stepping 2
L1 Instruction Cache 64 KB x 4
L1 Data Cache 64 KB x 4
L2 Cache 512 KB x 4
L3 Cache 0 KB
Motherboard Apple Inc. Mac-F42C88C8 x.x
BIOS Apple Inc. MP31.88Z.006C.B05.0802291410
Memory 4096 1600 MHz DDR3
Integer Performance
Integer 4403
Blowfish
single-core scalar 1858
81.6 MB/sec
Blowfish
multi-core scalar 7293
299 MB/sec
Text Compress
single-core scalar 1825
5.84 MB/sec
Text Compress
multi-core scalar 6392
21.0 MB/sec
Text Decompress
single-core scalar 1867
7.67 MB/sec
Text Decompress
multi-core scalar 7054
28.1 MB/sec
Image Compress
single-core scalar 1658
13.7 Mpixels/sec
Image Compress
multi-core scalar 5968
50.2 Mpixels/sec
Image Decompress
single-core scalar 1302
21.9 Mpixels/sec
Image Decompress
multi-core scalar 4512
73.6 Mpixels/sec
Lua
single-core scalar 2792
1.08 Mnodes/sec
Lua
multi-core scalar 10323
3.97 Mnodes/sec
Floating Point Performance
Floating Point 6991
Mandelbrot
single-core scalar 2178
1.45 Gflops
Mandelbrot
multi-core scalar 8218
5.38 Gflops
Dot Product
single-core scalar 2698
1.30 Gflops
Dot Product
multi-core scalar 10362
4.72 Gflops
Dot Product
single-core vector 2355
2.82 Gflops
Dot Product
multi-core vector 10099
10.5 Gflops
LU Decomposition
single-core scalar 607
541 Mflops
LU Decomposition
multi-core scalar 1548
1.36 Gflops
Primality Test
single-core scalar 2612
390 Mflops
Primality Test
multi-core scalar 7612
1.41 Gflops
Sharpen Image
single-core scalar 4644
10.8 Mpixels/sec
Sharpen Image
multi-core scalar 16618
38.3 Mpixels/sec
Blur Image
single-core scalar 6051
4.79 Mpixels/sec
Blur Image
multi-core scalar 22274
17.5 Mpixels/sec
Memory Performance
Memory 3030
Read Sequential
single-core scalar 3456
4.23 GB/sec
Write Sequential
single-core scalar 3080
2.11 GB/sec
Stdlib Allocate
single-core scalar 2395
8.94 Mallocs/sec
Stdlib Write
single-core scalar 3113
6.44 GB/sec
Stdlib Copy
single-core scalar 3107
3.20 GB/sec
Stream Performance
Stream 2819
Stream Copy
single-core scalar 2873
3.93 GB/sec
Stream Copy
single-core vector 3620
4.69 GB/sec
Stream Scale
single-core scalar 3180
4.13 GB/sec
Stream Scale
single-core vector 3491
4.71 GB/sec
Stream Add
single-core scalar 1266
1.91 GB/sec
Stream Add
single-core vector 3813
5.30 GB/sec
Stream Triad
single-core scalar 1394
1.93 GB/sec
Stream Triad
single-core vector 2916
5.46 GB/sec
-hh
macrumors 68030
Thanks; I didn't know that. Frankly, I find it somewhat surprising.
On the contrary: I used to do DIYs myself, but after 50+ of them, I decided that it was a highly unfun chore, not unlike mowing the lawn. All you're really doing is displaying a common fallacy that's found in these DIY comparisons, namely that the time is considered to be "Free" because the task is considered to be "Fun" (or entertainment).
That's fine for some individuals, but it is not a universal truth that is generalizable to all individuals and their interests.
I'm busy tormorrow (funeral, unfortunately), but just PM me for what time you're going to be able to stop by to do this "Free" stuff on my machines. Afterall, if it is so much "fun" for you, then doing it for free for a stranger can't be a chore, unless it reveals the logical fallacy.
While you're at it, I also remembered that I have an analog control system that needs attention ... and golly, isn't troubleshotting an analog system the very definition of "Fun" for every technologist out there? 🙄
-hh
xgman
macrumors 603
Hackintosh may work for some, but even for me, who used to be an avid custom pc builder and overclocker with a new system every 6 months, it simply isn't going to be an option anymore. Even if it was, you still have to count on Apple to support the drivers of the latest hardware which, if they cancel the MP, future chipsets are always going to be in question. Maybe Apple will release a MP this year maybe not, but I assume they will still have some product that can be beefed up enough to be tolerable as long as OSX is a must, which in my case it is for now. I don't ever see Apple licensing OSX out to PC's or even spinning off the Pro line of hardware. I do very much expect to see less and less desktop over the next few years from Apple regardless. I get the impression that just because people enjoy the ipad, that Apple somehow thinks that it should be powerful enough to do whatever, but as nice as the ipad is, it's like going back to 1997 as far as power, memory, capacity, etc. for production work or power users. Apple want us to think otherwise though. I don't get it, and I'm really starting to resent the direction Apple is taking, or more so, their overall attitude in general.
GermanyChris
macrumors 601
I do do it for fun for other people too, but alas you might need to drive one of your three "impressive" German cars to the one of the many temp agencies and find someone to do it for you. Because after all your time is far to precious to be spent building something, tis much better spent arguing with a guy on the internet about somthing you'll not need or use.
But who's generalizing this to all individuals other than you? You mean not everyone will enjoy building a computer and doing a hack install of the operating system? SHOCKER!
But for those who do enjoy it, it isn't a fallacy to consider the time spent as "free". Many of the things we do for fun actually COST YOU MONEY. What's the average per hour rate you spend money on say a vacation to Hawaii? Its not too hard to drop $5000 in a week. That's you paying the good residents of Hawaii, as well as the airliners and hotels, an average of $30/hour. Many other things will cost you similar rates, like going to ball game and buying a few beers and brat, etc. So in the scheme of things, having "fun" for "free", while building a machine you'd actually spend more on if bought it from Apple, or HP, or Dell, is a darn good deal for those who enjoy it. If its torture for you, DON'T DO IT. You're certainly entitled to your opinion and what you do with your time/money is of no concern to me, but quite frankly it makes no sense what so ever to attempt to tell others what they believe their time is worth.
-hh
macrumors 68030
Including Graphics cards ... a common thread topic in the Mac Pro subforum.
This is why I was surprised when GermanyChris said that there's some Hackintoshes running on AMD ... apparently, I neglected to explicitly state the obvious, which comes down to the old difference between what is possible vs what is practical: the list of options becomes far smaller when the requirements include that a system be as convenient as an OEM Mac: a reinstall merely requires an OEM OS X Install disk and no 3rd Party patches or similar hassles.
In the meantime, given his currently humor-impaired and condescending tone, I don't think he's going to upgrade my Mac ... nor wash my cars. 😉
I hope so too -- especially if the solution is a MP - - but I also recognize that there's been an effective narrowing of the Mac Pro market potential, because of other reasonably viable alternatives.
For example, today's iMac is as powerful as an older Single CPU Mac Pro, so for users whose need for a Mac Pro was more centric to its storage needs can be addressed with a Promise Thunderbolt array on an i7 iMac. Of course, this isn't really any cheaper of a solution ... its mostly just a different set of discrete components being used for that workstation.
Similarly, for high end crunching, various render farm alternatives pop up. It shouldn't be too great of a stretch to suspect that Apple might have a software suite in development that would make this alternative direction a lot easier to employ...particularly if it sells time on an iCloud service.
I also see the decline in desktop, but I think it is more that we've become in part a victim of the success of technology, in conjunction with a lack of new populist "Killer Apps" that are alligned with horsepower.
As such, we see that today's laptops are the 80% Solution (or higher) for the mainstream and as such, they see little reason to need a desktop...in manner of speaking, that missing "Killer App" that people have been searching for for the past five years is mobile, and the consumer is shifting his purchasing habits: over half of all Windows PC sales are laptops and IIRC, the number's something like 70%+ laptops at Apple...and the iPhone and & iPad are the next evolution in this trend, which Steve Jobs sought to label as "Post PC".
Finally, from this Post-PC perspective, with a shift thus occurring, and with the 80% Solution for computing power in place, the product lines of PCs will be under natural pressure to streamline themselves down to fewer hardware solutions. And since at Apple there's less 'commodity' profit margins pressure to provide a bag of different price point products such as is seen at Dell, HP, etc, I'd expect this streamlining trend to occur earlier, not later.
The world has changed: DIY as a relatively common & mainstream applicable activity is dead. Just simply look at what percentage of contemporary hardware sales today are laptops, and if that's not convincing enough, then also factor in just how rarely any PC is opened up anymore.
Fortunately, I've not told them what their time is worth: I've merely illustrated how they may have allowed themselves to be susceptible to a bias which could be influencing their individual opinions.
-hh
Its nice you think that, and taken by itself you might be right, but its also irrelevant to the point at hand.
No, you did tell him what his time was worth. You specifically said: "All you're really doing is displaying a common fallacy that's found in these DIY comparisons, namely that the time is considered to be "Free" because the task is considered to be "Fun" (or entertainment). "
You didn't go as far to put a dollar value on it, but you're arguing that it is not "free". Are you really making the nonsensical argument that telling someone that time is not free is not telling them how much their time is worth?
GermanyChris
macrumors 601
I'm not humor impaired, it just gets a bit old being told that someones time is entirely to valuable to do something, then debate the on the subject long enough to have built whats being discussed.
Why would you assume I don't value my time nor apply it's cost to whatever I'm doing? The even better question is why would you assume that someone is building the Hackintosh to save money? People build for many reasons Tutor for more performance, myself like I stated in the beginning for flexability and to say I can.
I'm always going to tinker with something, my 3,1 MP started life as a 1,1 in many respects you could call it a Hackintosh, virtually nothing is original.
We get that you don't tinker, and that your computer is in a production environment and you'd rather have the backing of Apple incase something goes wrong because after all time is money. I don't care if Apple is at my beck and call nor do I care for warranties there is little I can't fix even on my German cars.
Life is preferences and priorities, you have yours and I have mine in the end we're both happy.
Can't what?
Like I said, if you're comparing against an i7 iMac and you need a heavier GPU, Hackintosh could be a better way to go.
But this is the Mac Pro forum, and we're talking Mac Pros and Xeons here. For that, Hackintosh offers me no advantage besides price, which can be soaked up by the extra time required to deal with Hackintosh specific issues.
getz76
macrumors 6502a
(emphasis mine)
The point of Hackintosh on a workstation is not always about price.
Just as an example, some Pro Tools users were using Hackintosh so they could get access to PCI-X cards that were never supported by Intel Macs.
Throwing together a Hackintosh box is not rocket science. The argument over time here is interesting, because it really does not take that much time at all.
GermanyChris
macrumors 601
Can't upgrade the MP in what ever way you choose. You can only use CPU's that were offered for the MP. You're limited by the number on the board. Graphics are if you like to have a life the only thing that really is limited on both.
Read my comment above, my MP started as a 1,1 and ended a 3,1 but I know how much you can play with a MP.
Isn't this true of a Hackintosh as well? I can't upgrade a Core 2 Duo Hackintosh to an i7 Hackintosh without gutting the machine. Same as how I can't upgrade my Core 2 Duo Mac Pro to an i7/Nehelem. Exact same rules apply to both.
I mean, I used to have a Hackintosh (Core Duo) and it couldn't take a Core 2 Duo upgrade.
You can replace anything you want in it. It doesn't sound like you're very familiar with the upgradability of a Mac Pro.
GermanyChris
macrumors 601
OK, I don't know anything about the upgradability of the MP..
ATX MOBO is not particularly hard to replace, especially compared to the MP logic board I know nothing about. Thats how you upgrade a CD to C2D..
-hh
macrumors 68030
(DIY'ing)
What's been overlooked by these distractions is the original point made by GoMac. That point was that there's not a significantly different time investment on a specific DIY upgrade on a Hack versus on a Mac. As such, this is element is not a meaningful differentiator.
(Time/Cost of DIY upgrades)
Not quite. The 'worth' was the contingency option if he chose to claim that his time investment wasn't zero. He instead chose zero:
Ahem:
It is not like this is the first time that this topic has ever been raised. The typical points that form this debate are old, tired, and quite predictable.
No, they prove it on their own, every time this debate comes up.
As I said, the typical points that form this debate are old, tired, and quite predictable.
-hh
What's been overlooked by these distractions is the original point made by GoMac. That point was that there's not a significantly different time investment on a specific DIY upgrade on a Hack versus on a Mac. As such, this is element is not a meaningful differentiator.
(Time/Cost of DIY upgrades)
Not quite. The 'worth' was the contingency option if he chose to claim that his time investment wasn't zero. He instead chose zero:
"Yes I put a new 550ti in today and it 0 hrs."
Ahem:
"I do do it for fun..."
It is not like this is the first time that this topic has ever been raised. The typical points that form this debate are old, tired, and quite predictable.
No, they prove it on their own, every time this debate comes up.
As I said, the typical points that form this debate are old, tired, and quite predictable.
-hh
Right, hence my "gut the machine" comment. You can replace the mobo and the RAM and the CPU, but with a Xeon that is so prohibitively expensive that you might as well buy a new machine anyway. (Which is where I got to with my Hackintosh.)
If I'm going to drop $2.5k on upgrades to get the to the next generation CPU, I might as well sell the machine and buy a brand new one. At that point, unless the new CPU is a real solid upgrade, I might as well even stay at the same generation of CPUs and just get a faster one in my Mac Pro.
And yes, in a Mac Pro the CPU sockets are fully accessible and you can upgrade them.
GermanyChris
macrumors 601
you are correct, but the upgrading is limited. And pulling an ATX MOBO is not the same as pulling a MP logic board.
HH, that's poor excuse for making a completely unreasonable argument. Also, the point was not just the time, the point was on the value of that time. You're just clipping up posts from all over the place to obfuscate the criticisms I had of your previous posts.
Lets get back on point, talk plaining and coherently, and we can continue. However, if this is your chosen method of discourse, sound byte by sound byte, I have no interest in talking to you further.
How is the upgrading limited? You can use any socket and chipset compatible Xeon, same as any Hackintosh.
You keep saying limited but you're not putting forward any solid examples here. The only real example so far is that you can gut the entire machine and change out the board.
Again, Hackintoshes have their strong points against iMacs. But against Mac Pros things start to get much weaker, especially against the dual processor models.
GermanyChris
macrumors 601
actually no..
If you want to change the processors in and LGA 771 MP 1,1 you have to use the 51xx for dual core, 54xx for quad but there was also a 53xx series and I believe one more .
with a hack, I could have used any of the LGA 771 processors..
I don't know what processors the '09 and '10 use/used, but I think there are 3 more versions of the xeon and I don't much care right now to research.
with a hack I can use any of the single or dual socket MOBO's e3, e5, 1155, 1156, 2011, 1366. and less easily any AMD. I stayed 1155 because of Ivy Bridge. My MOBO will be capable of PCI 3 with a flash (GA-P67A-D3-B3) and dual graphics cards and it's not particularly expensive. This is what I mean with flexibility.
The attraction for Hackintosh isn't for the iMac set, it the single processor MP set. I don't need a particularly fast processor but I do need internal storage and optical drives. My hack has 3 optical drives and 7 HDD all tool less. Because it's many generations newer and less powerful it uses less power than my MP and is MUCH quieter.
There is a place for a MacPro no doubt and I'll probably order one if it comes out, but to insist that a Hack is somehow inferior is not true.
thefredelement
macrumors 65816
I'm in this boat right now...
I have a self built PC, it was 2.4Ghz C2D on an Intel Mobo with 4GB of RAM, with a GTS 250 with 1GB of RAM. Being dated as it was I dropped in a quad core Xeon (socket compatible) at 2.83Ghz and 8GB of RAM.
After kicking around in Ubuntu & Mint for a while, (running windows in a VM), I wanted that 'nix feel but with native popular program compatibility, so I bought a copy of Lion and I've been off to the races, happy with the UI/UX for the most part. Extremely happy with the performance and platform compatibility.
Now I'm in between do I want to buy a new MP if they ever get announced/released or do I want to a build a workstation class equivalent (with a dual Xeon board, ECC memory, etc), in which case I may as well buy a MP.
Aside from the back and forth going in this thread, the one point of anxiety I have about my hack is OS upgradeability.
I think I may buy a "bare" MP, if a 2012 model ever gets announced and just pimp out the memory, video (if hopefully supported) and storage on my own.
This thread has not alleviated any of my confusion 😉
I have a self built PC, it was 2.4Ghz C2D on an Intel Mobo with 4GB of RAM, with a GTS 250 with 1GB of RAM. Being dated as it was I dropped in a quad core Xeon (socket compatible) at 2.83Ghz and 8GB of RAM.
After kicking around in Ubuntu & Mint for a while, (running windows in a VM), I wanted that 'nix feel but with native popular program compatibility, so I bought a copy of Lion and I've been off to the races, happy with the UI/UX for the most part. Extremely happy with the performance and platform compatibility.
Now I'm in between do I want to buy a new MP if they ever get announced/released or do I want to a build a workstation class equivalent (with a dual Xeon board, ECC memory, etc), in which case I may as well buy a MP.
Aside from the back and forth going in this thread, the one point of anxiety I have about my hack is OS upgradeability.
I think I may buy a "bare" MP, if a 2012 model ever gets announced and just pimp out the memory, video (if hopefully supported) and storage on my own.
This thread has not alleviated any of my confusion 😉
-hh
macrumors 68030
Its actually both time & value, as a (A * B) function.
Of course, when it is claimed that anything (eg, upgrades) take zero time (A=0) and that time-value is irrelevant because the task is universally considered to be 'fun' (B=0), then the discussion has been disingenuously sabotagued from the start.
My apologies if you didn't know that inline responses (such as this one) is a longstanding recommended practice as per RFC-1855.
But if you request it, I can try to shift to the posting style as recommended by Emily Postnews 😛
As best as I've been able to determine, your complaints have been:
- That I've been utterly disrespectful of niche applications by looking instead at generalized use cases;
- That I've been insensitive when exposing the logical fallacies of self-fulfilling statements;
- That I've condescendingly told "...others what they believe their time is worth.";
- That I've invoked tangents that you claim are irrelevant (at least to your agenda);
- That I've failed to be plain and coherent ...somehow!
Is this an accurate summary?
-hh