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MP 7,1 My thoughts on the 7,1

kjohansen

kjohansen

macrumors regular
Original poster
Nov 19, 2008
101
53
Oregon
So far so good and very fast!

I'm not thrilled that it is limited in it's output, two USB 3.1 ports and two Thunderbolt 3 ports along with a poor audio output and of course the two Thunderbolt 3 ports on the top...

I ditched the Magic Mouse for a Logitech that is working good and I am not that impressed with the Magic Keyboard and it keeps losing connection if it cabled to the top of the machine.

I am not thrilled they want Siri, Find My Mac and other iPhone crap on a workstation. Tim Cook has clearly no idea what makes a good workstation..

Overall it should work great for me once I get all the foo foo stuff turned off and most of it is already
 
You wrote: So far so good and very fast!
Well that's a good start. 👍

You wrote: ...and I am not that impressed with the Magic Keyboard and it keeps losing connection if it cabled to the top of the machine.
That seems weird to connect the KB to the top of the MP7,1. No matter, how did it perform wirelessly ?

You wrote: Tim Cook has clearly no idea what makes a good workstation..
This is quite likely true.... but it is not him that designed the MP7,1. He has expert engineers employed for doing this. So if there's to be criticism surely it should be directed at the Apple hw/sw engineers rather than at TC.... and yes, the buck does stop with him.

You wrote: Overall it should work great for me once I get all the foo foo stuff turned off and most of it is already
'Tis true that one always has to tune, reconfigure, etc a new system to one's likeness. Bundled applications can be caste aside, made dormant and never used. For example, I always dump/trash GarageBand (typically holding some 2 GB of storage space) and all of its associated data as I have no use for it on my system.

I hope you continue to be impressed with your new MP7,1.

What is your MP7,1 configuration ?
 
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bxs said:
You wrote: So far so good and very fast!
Well that's a good start. 👍

You wrote: ...and I am not that impressed with the Magic Keyboard and it keeps losing connection if it cabled to the top of the machine.
That seems weird to connect the KB to the top of the MP7,1. No matter, how did it perform wirelessly ?

You wrote: Tim Cook has clearly no idea what makes a good workstation..
This is quite likely true.... but it is not him that designed the MP7,1. He has expert engineers employed for doing this. So if there's to be criticism surely it should be directed at the Apple hw/sw engineers rather than at TC.... and yes, the buck does stop with him.

You wrote: Overall it should work great for me once I get all the foo foo stuff turned off and most of it is already
'Tis true that one always has to tune, reconfigure, etc a new system to one's likeness. Bundled applications can be caste aside, made dormant and never used. For example, I always dump/trash GarageBand (typically holding some 2 GB of storage space) and all of its associated data as I have no use for it on my system.

I hope you continue to be impressed with your new MP7,1.

What is your MP7,1 configuration ?
Click to expand...


Base model with the Promise Pegasus J2i with two Seagate 6 TB drives, my Toshiba 8 TB drive died within a couple days with no data on it. I have yet to get anyone to replace it. First upgrade will be to take it to 64 GB of memory
 
kjohansen said:
Base model with the Promise Pegasus J2i with two Seagate 6 TB drives, my Toshiba 8 TB drive died within a couple days with no data on it. I have yet to get anyone to replace it. First upgrade will be to take it to 64 GB of memory
Click to expand...
That's a real bummer about the 8TB Toshiba HDD in the J2i. I have the same unit sitting on my shelf ready to be installed in my MP7,1 when is arrives early Feb 2020. I have also added a 16TB Seagate Exos to the J2i.

Promise is the responsible party for dealing with that failing 8TB Toshiba... keep at them for resolving this for yourself.
 
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There's only one version of MacOS. There's never going to be a "Pro" workstation version and a separate suzy homemaker version. We all get the suzy homemaker version and pick from it what we need
 
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Siri is fine. I use it to control the lighting in my office. Actually excited about having Hey Siri support for that.

Don't need it for much else. And I'd never use it around other people. But I wouldn't call it useless for pros. It's nice to be able to turn on a light without leaving what I'm working on and opening the Home app.

In the future it looks like Apple may also tie other automation workflows to Siri. But I have Homebridge set up on my network which gives me a fair amount of control of Siri and HomeKit already.
 
kjohansen said:
So far so good and very fast!

I'm not thrilled that it is limited in it's output, two USB 3.1 ports and two Thunderbolt 3 ports along with a poor audio output and of course the two Thunderbolt 3 ports on the top...

I ditched the Magic Mouse for a Logitech that is working good and I am not that impressed with the Magic Keyboard and it keeps losing connection if it cabled to the top of the machine.

I am not thrilled they want Siri, Find My Mac and other iPhone crap on a workstation. Tim Cook has clearly no idea what makes a good workstation..

Overall it should work great for me once I get all the foo foo stuff turned off and most of it is already
Click to expand...

If you ditch the mouse and keyboard, I'd consider buying them off you ;)
 
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Thrilled with mine so far. 24-core renders between three and six times faster than my old 12-core, and is great for CPU-bound processes like simulations and particles. Next step is to add 32GB RAM, and I think I'll grab the J2i, which will sort me for internal storage and Time Machine backup. Sure, there are more powerful PCs, but I love the Mac/macOS and so far this feels like a great upgrade to my ageing system.
 
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Korican100 said:
why do you say that it has poor audio output?
Click to expand...


The only sound is off the 3.5 jack on the PCiE card. It's just not the best out put, tried running into my Soundblaster on my PC which has studio monitor speakers connected to it. It sounded awful coming from the MP playing Pandora. I've listened my bluetooth ear buds and it is ok. Listened with a wired pair of Apple earbuds, it was ok but certainly not what I get off the Soundblaster on the PC playing something natively to the PC>..
 
Yea, apple spared the expense of audio output. Coming from the 6,1, i was shocked they did away with the TOSLINK.

So now they probably know anyone who needs quality out for audio is going to grab an audio interface over USB. I just picked up this for my audio needs
 
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Korican100 said:
Yea, apple spared the expense of audio output. Coming from the 6,1, i was shocked they did away with the TOSLINK.

So now they probably know anyone who needs quality out for audio is going to grab an audio interface over USB. I just picked up this for my audio needs
Click to expand...
I'm right behind you! Purchased an Apollo Twin.

www.miroc.co.jp

Universal AudioがオーディオインターフェイスApollo x4、Apollo Twin Xを発売！ | Rock oN Company | DTM DAW 音響機器

127dBのD/Aを誇り、業務用モデルにも遜色ないクォリティーをデスクトップで実現したApolloシリーズの新製品！
www.miroc.co.jp www.miroc.co.jp
 
OkiRun said:
I'm right behind you! Purchased an Apollo Twin.

www.miroc.co.jp

Universal AudioがオーディオインターフェイスApollo x4、Apollo Twin Xを発売！ | Rock oN Company | DTM DAW 音響機器

127dBのD/Aを誇り、業務用モデルにも遜色ないクォリティーをデスクトップで実現したApolloシリーズの新製品！
www.miroc.co.jp www.miroc.co.jp
Click to expand...
oooh nice. thats my ideal solution, but the budget has already been stretched too far lol. The motu i have seems good enough for my little audio needs, per the reviews.
 
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Korican100 said:
oooh nice. thats my ideal solution, but the budget has already been stretched too far lol. The motu i have seems good enough for my little audio needs, per the reviews.
Click to expand...

I have an Allen & Heath 16:2 mixer with a Lynx Aurora 16 Analog to Digital converter... But I still need to get the sound out of the Mac...
 
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skippermonkey said:
Thrilled with mine so far. 24-core renders between three and six times faster than my old 12-core, and is great for CPU-bound processes like simulations and particles. Next step is to add 32GB RAM, and I think I'll grab the J2i, which will sort me for internal storage and Time Machine backup. Sure, there are more powerful PCs, but I love the Mac/macOS and so far this feels like a great upgrade to my ageing system.
Click to expand...

Really good to hear. Are you rendering in C4D? Using Realflow and X-Particles for sims and particles?
 
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skippermonkey said:
Thrilled with mine so far. 24-core renders between three and six times faster than my old 12-core, and is great for CPU-bound processes like simulations and particles. Next step is to add 32GB RAM, and I think I'll grab the J2i, which will sort me for internal storage and Time Machine backup. Sure, there are more powerful PCs, but I love the Mac/macOS and so far this feels like a great upgrade to my ageing system.
Click to expand...

As asked above, I, too, would like to know what software you're using that's seeing these performance gains. My business is built around C4D (Arnold CPU renderer generally, Realflow and X-Particles occasionally), After Effects and Premiere Pro. I'm currently slogging on a Mid-2012 2 2.66 Ghz 6-Core Xeon Mac Pro.

I have a dual 12-core Xeon Windows workstation a client gifted us a few years ago but only use it occasionally for certain scenes. Most every animation I do gets sent to Pixel Plow.

Yes, a PC with Threadrippers would no doubt be much cheaper and faster than this new Mac Pro, but I really really dislike Windows. My productivity plummets in that environment.

I'd really like to spring for the 24-core Xeon, but that $4000 price jump is daunting. I'm trying to convince myself the 16-core would suffice.

Can you post a Cinebench R20 score for your system? Thanks!
 
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