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I am totally with you. I work as a composer and have no use or need whatsoever of that über-expensive gfx card.

I would have thought most people don't.
I've never really understood workstation gfx cards in all but the most niche usage scenarios (and these are way beyond the chip quantity and thermal envelope that you get from a little can like this). The driver certification that tries to justify the extra digit on a the price tag is moot on apple hardware and as it's not windows, it's hard for a manufacturer to gimp opengl performance without being too obvious.

They're using ati chips too. They're hemorrhaging money and with their latest two generations of consumer cards, haven't bothered to do the usual product differentiating gimpage. I don't understand why anyone that really needs ggpu performance would buy anything else - The only exception being some big-corporate policy calling for warrantied environment etc (and again, who buys apple for this?).
 
Nobody is going to take Geekbench as gospel (I would hope, anyway) but its still a great way to ROUGHLY measure processing speeds.
My takeaway from Geekbench scores is you could get 90% of the benefit of a brand new MacPro from getting one 1-2 models older, put in a SSD or hybrid drive and pay about half the money or so. For a hobbiest or less than full tilt power user, or a server, this is probably the best route.

For someone who needs the advanced graphics, likely for growing into OpenCL as much or more than traditional graphics needs, the new units are incomparable.

Rocketman
 
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I can agree that the price is significant for what you're getting, but for people who can utilise every core it's still going to be a big improvement.

However, if OpenCL adoption grows then the graphics cards are really going to show how forward thinking Apple are, as you will essentially have three, very powerful processors at your disposal.

In some ways the 12-core processor is almost a legacy option, as most apps that need that kind of computing power will most likely run better on the two GPUs, but of course we have to wait for that to happen, and it may not happen at all for this first generation of the new Mac Pro.

Still, I'm excited about this machine; before you really judge its performance we really need to some kind of OpenCL benchmarks that can show the total compute power of the entire machine. But to put it another way; Apple's "stupidity in the graphics card department" is only that if all you can use them for is graphics, but that's not all a GPU is anymore, it's a hugely parallel computation unit.

There is no doubt this the truth according to Apple and I, too, agree with this assessment. People who disagree or do not understand what is stated above (by haravikk) will not understand the nMP. This machine represents a disruptive technology, and once you understand what is possible using GPGPU your frame of reference will change.
 
Hold on though... are you really dismissing the needs of those who require a high end machine but not a high end GPU?

I think it is more about dismissing the expectation that Apple has to cater to the needs of every user segment.

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There is no doubt this the truth according to Apple and I, too, agree with this assessment. People who disagree or do not understand what is stated above (by haravikk) will not understand the nMP. This machine represents a disruptive technology, and once you understand what is possible using GPGPU your frame of reference will change.

I think if you chart the maximum CPU computing power available from Intel over the last five years and the maximum GPU computing power available from Nvidia and AMD, the GPU power will have risen noticeably faster than the CPU power.
 
That's my problem with it too. The results are essentially meaningless except as a relative measure between models.
What I'd like to see is a test built around free/open source Apps, something like Handbrake as far as video is concerned or the equivalents in photo/audio processing. Something like Barefeats does. This way a 'Pro' machine can be compared to a consumer unit as it's doing an identical tangible task.

A Geekbench score of 20000 tells me that a unit with a score of 25000 is likely to be faster but means nothing to me regarding the Apps I might use.

Some benchmarks do this I think. But the main point of this reply: Are you H2SO4 from StackOverflow? If so, you've probably helped me at least once.

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Yeah... why would a website called MacRumors want more than two articles on the newest MACINTOSH computer. How dumb, right?:rolleyes:

He might be complaining about the benchmark articles. It's not a big problem this time, but when the iPhone benchmarks come out, all the "haters" and "fanboys" come out for battle.
 
I am totally with you. I work as a composer and have no use or need whatsoever of that über-expensive gfx card.

Apple won't get my money this time, I will stick to my current 6-core Westmere.

Had they done a version with a standard no frills gfx card solution like my current Radeon which is more than enough for running Logic, and if that brought the price down by around $1000, I would think again and might buy into the new Mac Pro - even though I think it is stupid that I will then have to house DSP card(s) and storage externally. But the upcoming, seriously expensive solution with only marginal CPU performance boost, aimed at the gfx business? No thanks.

It's not just aimed at the GFX business, its a shot aimed at any software vendors who aren't moving their heavy computation to OpenCL. It doesn't work if they give everyone the chance to stay in their comfort zone and assume there'll be 24, 36 or 48 CPU cores in upcoming PC design. As with everything Apple, its pretty brutal and will upset many but I'm intrigued. Not for the 1st generation of the machine itself, but for what it means for software coming down the line.
 
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My takeaway from Geekbench scores is you could get 90% of the benefit of a brand new MacPro from getting one 12 models older, put in a SSD or hybrid drive and pay about half the money or so. For a hobbiest or less than full tilt power user, this is probably the best route.

For someone who needs the advanced graphics, likely for growing into OpenCL as much or more than traditional graphics needs, the new units are incomparable.

Rocketman

12 models older? do you really mean a G4 Powermac?

Now if you meant 12 months, you could get one of those, and make the upgrades, but by the time you are done, it will cost you nearly the same or more as the nMP.

Now if you wait 6 months, it might be a better option, but right now those 2012 MPs are going for $2500+
 
For the price of the 12 core, I would expect better results. But more important than the results is the lack of a swappable GPU. No point in having Firepro GPU for sound engineers or those who don't need it. A standard GPU like an AMD 280 would suffice and bring the cost down. I'd be all over the new Mac Pro if it weren't for Apple's continued stupidity in the graphics card department.

I bet Logic uses the GPU. Any process that process large media files would benefit from OpenCL. Bt you are right, video transcoding is the #1 application of this. For Logic users the 27" iMac is ideal. a12-core xeon is over kill for audio work. The $3,000 MP would be fine.

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.... the speed on this new MacBook Pro with thunderbolt 2 is more than adequate for what I use the apps for. My clients just wouldn't see any difference a few seconds make in rendering,...

Yes, the new Retina MBP is good. But wait until you start shooting 4K video. The new MP is designed for the few people who reapply do need the high end performance.

And even for 1080p format, the MBP does sometime take HOURS to transcode and SD card full of video.
 
The problem is that in a lot of cases the user won't notice a lot of difference in speed due to the fact that a lot of operations in programs are single threaded.
So the speed of an iMac is what people will get most of the times.

It's an ok machine but there are so many compromises and in the end all the negatives are starting to stack up.

But there isn't much that Apple can do in regard to single-threaded performance, computing power per (Intel) core simply hasn't increased very much in the last couple of years. And what do you do when you hit a wall, you try to go in a different direction. Which was for some time now more CPU cores, but very few applications can make efficient use of that. Thus, changing direction and increasing the graphics power seems to be the best way to increase performance significantly.
 
I think if you chart the maximum CPU computing power available from Intel over the last five years and the maximum GPU computing power available from Nvidia and AMD, the GPU power will have risen noticeably faster than the CPU power.

I think you forgot that it is Apple that decided to go with a cheap single CPU option for Mac Pro not Intel. I am not even sure that single CPU computers really qualify for Pro moniker.
 
Why buy a Mac Pro for anything? I'm sure we all most know someone who built a Windows PC with nearly twice the computing power of that new Mac Pro for half the cost. I love to hear those urban legend stories. :D

No matter what Apple does it will surely disappoint the masses who never feel they're getting the highest bang for the buck. It's a wonder that Apple has survived as long as it has by supposedly "cheating" the public with marketing tricks. :p
 
For the price of the 12 core, I would expect better results. But more important than the results is the lack of a swappable GPU. No point in having Firepro GPU for sound engineers or those who don't need it. A standard GPU like an AMD 280 would suffice and bring the cost down. I'd be all over the new Mac Pro if it weren't for Apple's continued stupidity in the graphics card department.

You another uninformed post.
With software manufacturers moving to OpenCL away from dedicated cards, how does an increase in CPU power improve software performance when it is the Firepro GUPs powering the software?
 
You another uninformed post.
With software manufacturers moving to OpenCL away from dedicated cards, how does an increase in CPU power improve software performance when it is the Firepro GUPs powering the software?

You make it seem as if all software everywhere takes advantage of the GPUs. You are wrong.
 
I think you forgot that it is Apple that decided to go with a cheap single CPU option for Mac Pro not Intel. I am not even sure that single CPU computers really qualify for Pro moniker.

You're right. Every other workstation out there has multiple CPUs. :rolleyes:
 
I think the simpler truth is that probably only 10% of Mac Pro owners actually installed PCIe cards. And of those half of them were for functionality like fibrechannel or USB3.0. Fast interconnects that Apple would argue TB replaced.
Now of course TB2 may be faster than fibrechannel, but it is not a networkable protocol like fiber. But I guess the folks using fiber NAS for video or motion graphics are a smaller market segment still.
I guess you can hook up a fiber card using a $1000 PCIE to TB box. But man that is a price to pay.

I just did a search for Thunderbolt Expansion Chassis and got almost a dozen hits less than $1000. Some were small of course, not a lot of slots but under $500. I am sure the variety will only grow.

Also the comments about cable messes and such just don't seem to take TB's chaining into mind. With TB displays with hubs in them for legacy gear, I can't see where there will anywhere the same amour of clutter there is now. If it is a problem, put those expansion chassis and peripherals in a closet somewhere or under the desk where they used to be.
 
I think you forgot that it is Apple that decided to go with a cheap single CPU option for Mac Pro not Intel. I am not even sure that single CPU computers really qualify for Pro moniker.

How many current Mac Pro owners use software that can saturate 12 cores let alone 16 or 24?
 
I would never be able to justify the price with such a modest performance increase. This is only going to sell to people that don't care about money.
 
For the price of the 12 core, I would expect better results. But more important than the results is the lack of a swappable GPU. No point in having Firepro GPU for sound engineers or those who don't need it. A standard GPU like an AMD 280 would suffice and bring the cost down. I'd be all over the new Mac Pro if it weren't for Apple's continued stupidity in the graphics card department.

Open CL uses graphics card power for computing tasks.
 
Open CL uses graphics card power for computing tasks.

You missed the word 'some' :)

We've had powerful GPUs in machines for years but you can't simply throw any old workload at one.
A GPU doesn't magically make a machine faster and unfortunately for the price justification crowd, apple have gone for amd - For the workloads I've tested, unlike nvidia they haven't gimped their consumer models for generations. For example, a 'cheap' 290 for example is an incredibly fast card, the hackintosh crowd (driver port dependent), the non-osx crowd and anyone that doesn't rely on an off the shelf apple system will be impossible to outperform - It's faster than nvidia's titan at ggpu work and 1/4 of the price.
 
I would never be able to justify the price with such a modest performance increase.

It may be only a modest performance increase over the last generation Mac Pro. But that one was a modest performance increase over the one before that. And the one before that. And so on... and so on.

All computers suffer from this. We're at the mercy of Intel here... processors only advance so much each year.

This is only going to sell to people that don't care about money.

Correction... this is only going to sell to people who care about MAKING money.

This is a workstation... not a home computer. It has a specific purpose.

Are you forgetting that the Mac Pro has always ranged in price from $2,500 to $10,000+ ?
 
QUESTION

If the Mac Pro holds two FirePro D300/D500/D700 cards... does that mean Apple FINALLY gave support for Crossfire in OS X??
 
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