MP 7,1 Mac Pro 7,1 - hit or Miss?

[fuchsdh]

It's funny that a lot of people would kill for a G4 Cube now. You could plop a fan into it easily to solve its heat issues, and could upgrade the RAM, CPU, and GPU on the thing. It was an easier upgrade than the 2013 Mac Pro or almost any modern Mac.

 

[deconstruct60]

It's funny that a lot of people would kill for a G4 Cube now. You could plop a fan into it easily to solve its heat issues, and could upgrade the RAM, CPU, and GPU on the thing. It was an easier upgrade than the 2013 Mac Pro or almost any modern Mac.

apple did not support doing GPU upgrades on the Cube. Yes people did it anyway, but those updates are enabled but Apple using those dGPU chips and dropping the basic drivers into macOS. And also the era when GPU's were not the top TDP barnburners in a system. The bottom end of the desktop GPU market is a slow motion market these days. And if Apple didn't support the drivers it would be even slower.

Apple will cover the 680-6900 that are outside the range of their GPUs. But how likely are they going to cover 6500-6600 when they arrive ?

 

[flowrider]

^^^Probable not. The RX6700XT has been out for awhile and Apple drivers are not available. As you pointed out Big Navi drivers are out and work quite well. I'm running an RX6800 and it's quick and trouble free.

Lou

 

[H2SO4]

In simplest terms:

Those who can TRULY afford it whether personal or work budget will say it's a hit.

Those who like the Mac ecosystem, but can't financially support the purchase will say it's a miss.

Of course the underlying factors whether this will be a long-term hit is the future support and expandability.

There can be a lot of "why didn't they..." fill in the blanks (i.e. PCIe 4.0, AMD, etc). But the fact of the matter is whether the current specifications is a hit for your needs. If it wasn't and you still bought it - that's on you. If you bought it based on the specifications and it didn't perform the way it should then that's a miss.

In my case, I am aware of the specs and accepted it for what it is. I have no problem with it to date.

My issues are due to the software I'm using which is Adobe CC and a big miss in terms of their archaic software code.

And if Apple drops support in terms of expansion, peripherals and further updates to make this last longer - then that will be a miss.

So time will tell for me. Which is why I'm not sure.

No. Not at all.

Ex: If you have two ways of doing something and both methods are a bind, neither is a hit even though you may accomplish your task.

 

[H2SO4]

Can anybody here that has a 7.1 run this in Terminal pls, (it should work - it does on all the Macs I've run it on so far)?

sysctl -a | grep machdep.cpu.features

Just wondering about all available specs for this machine.

 

[Anti12]

Just wondering about all available specs for this machine.

machdep.cpu.features: FPU VME DE PSE TSC MSR PAE MCE CX8 APIC SEP MTRR PGE MCA CMOV PAT PSE36 CLFSH DS ACPI MMX FXSR SSE SSE2 SS HTT TM PBE SSE3 PCLMULQDQ DTES64 MON DSCPL VMX SMX EST TM2 SSSE3 FMA CX16 TPR PDCM SSE4.1 SSE4.2 x2APIC MOVBE POPCNT AES PCID XSAVE OSXSAVE SEGLIM64 TSCTMR AVX1.0 RDRAND F16C

 

[H2SO4]

machdep.cpu.features: FPU VME DE PSE TSC MSR PAE MCE CX8 APIC SEP MTRR PGE MCA CMOV PAT PSE36 CLFSH DS ACPI MMX FXSR SSE SSE2 SS HTT TM PBE SSE3 PCLMULQDQ DTES64 MON DSCPL VMX SMX EST TM2 SSSE3 FMA CX16 TPR PDCM SSE4.1 SSE4.2 x2APIC MOVBE POPCNT AES PCID XSAVE OSXSAVE SEGLIM64 TSCTMR AVX1.0 RDRAND F16C

Many thanks for that.
Whilst I don’t need one I do like Macs, (not so keen on the people that run the company), and I’m trying to justify it to myself.

 

[LeonPro]

No. Not at all.

Ex: If you have two ways of doing something and both methods are a bind, neither is a hit even though you may accomplish your task.

That's obviously going to be a subjective experience.

Ex: If I ever invested in a 5,1 (which I didn't) and had the finances to go to a 7,1 to do the same task. That would be a night and day performance. How would that be a bind unless you were talking about financial capacity to upgrade.

 

[H2SO4]

That's obviously going to be a subjective experience.

Ex: If I ever invested in a 5,1 (which I didn't) and had the finances to go to a 7,1 to do the same task. That would be a night and day performance. How would that be a bind unless you were talking about financial capacity to upgrade.

You are comparing with a 5,1. The post I replied to didn't mention that. Even then you're comparing a 10 year old, (now $1000), computer with a brand new one that is many times the cost. Objectively not exactly Apples to Apples.
A Mac isn't the only way to accomplish a job remember.
A bind also comes in many forms, financial being a good one of those.

 

[LeonPro]

You are comparing with a 5,1. The post I replied to didn't mention that. Even then you're comparing a 10 year old, (now $1000), computer with a brand new one that is many times the cost. Objectively not exactly Apples to Apples.
A Mac isn't the only way to accomplish a job remember.
A bind also comes in many forms, financial being a good one of those.

Exactly why I said it's subjective. You can compare performance and price with just about anything as long as it does that task you want it to perform. If you're happy with the result based on the previous option you had, then it's a win.

 

[Melbourne Park]

You are comparing with a 5,1. The post I replied to didn't mention that. Even then you're comparing a 10 year old, (now $1000), computer with a brand new one that is many times the cost. Objectively not exactly Apples to Apples.
A Mac isn't the only way to accomplish a job remember.
A bind also comes in many forms, financial being a good one of those.

The problem is that a 5,1 to a 7,1 - one is well used, while there aren't 7,1 used available it seems to me. What does that tell me? Either that Apple haven't sold many, or that they are doing the job. You can pass a bit of the hardware across too - like RAID drive cards & monitors. In real terms (time value of money), the 7,1 is cheaper than the 5,1 was ... but performance wise, a 7,1 is not as good value as it was, due to the proximity of things like a 10 core i9 iMac which is one third of somewhat similar spec 7,1 price. But a 7,1 will last over decade though - an iMac won't even if it spends half as much time trying. And doing it all somewhat slower at that.

IMO the way for heavy users to evaluate cost / performance, is to divide the expected useful life of the machine up ... or work out a rent model for the machine. Come to think of it ... imagine if we got our wive's to buy a work computer, and then we rented it from them ... they might like that, and we'd have a better way of comparing cost versus performance and bottleneck and downtime costs as well when making choices.

Hopefully apple will intro a cheaper expandable desktop ... doing so might keep some from jumping ship into the other world where tower prices are much cheaper, but less certain too.

 

[DFP1989]

For what it’s worth, a lot of the testing out there has questioned the value of the 10-core i9 in the 2020 iMac.

I have an 8-core model at the moment, and I’m heavy loads it almost immediately hits thermal limits and ramps the fans hard.

 

[macguru9999]

For what it’s worth, a lot of the testing out there has questioned the value of the 10-core i9 in the 2020 iMac.

I have an 8-core model at the moment, and I’m heavy loads it almost immediately hits thermal limits and ramps the fans hard.

There is a utility called 'turbo boost switcher' that I have installed on a couple of i9 laptops that sounded like bathroom extractor fans.... It may not be what you want to hear but if you can turn off the turbo boost you will probably have a much quieter machine. Defeats the purpose really but thats ok for office apps, etc. Or you could turn down the air con to -3degC 🙂

 

[DFP1989]

Haha will take a look. I couldn’t stand the amount of noise my i9 16-inch MBP made when under even moderate load, can’t wait to see what Apple has in store a few hours from now with presumably an Apple Silicon 16-inch.

 

[colinconn]

I really like mine and I hope Apple keeps supporting it like they have been.

 

[mBox]

My workhorse (day job) is kicking butt compared to the 2013s.
It sits beside an HP Z240 (Maya) so I get an idea of how it fares.
I didn't pay for it so maybe I don't count.
But does it do the job?
Hell ya!