New 12-Core Mac Pro Once Again Shows Up in Benchmarks

[Quu]

Yes, you can time your purchase if you're building it yourself. I'm not talking about that. I'm talking about trying to time your purchase of CPU's to fit Apple's roadmap. As I said earlier and as you also mentioned it's probably best to wait till the next MacPro release and stay away from the first one. Although are you sure Apple doesn't have the latest Motherboard revisions already? I'll wait to see what happens with this first release and when all the facts are in then i'll decide which way to go.

Oh for sure but I run OS X on my desktop as a Hackintosh. Apple has a nice build quality advantage on the laptops (Touchpad is nicer, case is nicer, thinner and lighter than competition, great battery life etc) but on the Desktop it doesn't matter what the system looks like.

So for me building a hackintosh was better. I dual boot Windows 8.1 and Mavericks on it with everything working perfectly.

I think a few other people have gone this route waiting for Apple to update the Mac Pro.

 

[milo]

Well if that's the case then some enterprising company should get in there and clean up and make 64bit and OpenCL audio plugins. But given the minuscule bandwidth of Audio compared to Video it probably doesn't matter? Surely any modern CPU can easily handles scores of layers of uncompressed audio?

Nope. I'm not sure why people seem to think that audio has light hardware needs but the opposite is the case. Audio can be very demanding in terms of CPU, ram, and throughput from disk. Actually working with recorded audio tracks isn't the most demanding, doing heavy sample playback is much more so.

At this point many audio plugins are 64 bit but developers generally say that OpenCL doesn't work well for audio. Maybe that's the case, maybe not but considering most computers built for audio don't have powerful GPU, I don't blame them for not spending the time to try to port to OpenCL. If apple wants to see audio apps using OpenCL they're going to have to jump start that themselves.

Does anyone know why the new Mac Pro is using old Ivy Bridge E5 Xeon processors and not the new E3 Haswells?

The ivy bridge E5 xeon are the newest from Intel, they started shipping in september and they are a generation or two behind the i7 and xeon E3. Apple probably isn't using the E3 because it only goes up to four cores, and it's a different socket than the E5.

 

[old-wiz]

Just waiting to see the new 12 core Xeon in a 15" MBA with retina screen, 32 gb RAM, 3 TB SSD, 18 hour battery life, dual LTE connections,...... Perhaps in late 2014?



(hmm...I feel funny...what was in my tea this morning?)

 

[brdeveloper]

I want to see OpenCL benchmarks. I don't know why audio processing isn't suited for GPUs... an audio track is basically a vector (or a stream, depending on the approach) of numbers. GPUs usually love dealing with vectors and streams, so I don't know what's the difficulty on making audio processing algorithms running on the graphics card.

----------

Just waiting to see the new 12 core Xeon in a 15" MBA with retina screen, 32 gb RAM, 3 TB SSD, 18 hour battery life, dual LTE connections,...... Perhaps in late 2014?



(hmm...I feel funny...what was in my tea this morning?)

A MBA supporting an external, Thunderbolt full-duplex GPU would be enough for a lot of pro users. But this won't happen soon since it would harm a good portion of Mac Pro sales.

 

[LordVic]

A MBA supporting an external, Thunderbolt full-duplex GPU would be enough for a lot of pro users. But this won't happen soon since it would harm a good portion of Mac Pro sales.

Not an Apple limitation at this point: Was hoping around the inclusion of Thunderbolt in the MBA back in 2011 we would see GPU breakout boxes. Was a very promising use for it.

Never came to fruition. At first I blamed Apple. Then I blamed 3rd party Manufacturers.

Now, I blame intel.

Did some research into Thunderbolt Licensing and development to see what would be required to do a GPU breakout box.

Intel outright refuses to license nor provide dev kits for using GPU's on Thunderbolt. Intel retains a firm grip on all licenses for Thunderbolt and a very Draconic control over who gets to develop devices for it and what type of devices. This has led to an almost glacial dvelopment of Thunderbolt 3rd party add ons as well. Making them extremely expensive and not viable options for the budget minded people

I can only assume this was done because intel did not want competition to their own GPU's

 

[VoR]

As these are only CPU based bench marks it is not surprising that the score is only marginally better than the previous models. The GPUs are what give these machines their power. Those are very high end GPUs and anything leveraging OpenCL will be extremely fast on these machines. An AMD 280 would give no where near the performance of the D700. Sound processing written in OpenCL would see a huge performance improvement. These machines are leading the field in this respect and it will doubtless be a while before software comes along that can truly leverage the GPU processing power in these.

It's hard to guestimate without real-world testing but like you said, the software is what makes it and we're not there yet for most usage scenarios. All the theory and marketing in the world means nothing - the cost comparisons are relevant to what you get, not what you should/might get.

Your example of an AMD 280(x) is a little strange. It might not have the workstation brand or the silly shelf price (It's less than 1/5 the cost), but it's still a 15% faster chip when running both real-world tests and code compared to the D500 for example...
You don't always get what you pay for (well, you're paying for a brand and iconic design in this instance?), especially when your vendor choice is hemorrhaging money compared to the competition, looking for business and isn't gimping their ggpu/opengl performance (like nvidia are).

My naive view is that a xeon has no place in a single socket machine - Imagine this machine with two (or a slashed price and an i7) and two r9 290x based gpus. Part decisions like these are the reason the windows/linux/hackintosh crowds can safely say they can build much faster machines at a much lower cost in a much more flexible case - It's an interesting design concept, but it seems to me to be a flagship marketing/design product infinitely more than my definition of a workstation.

 

[cube]

Mac Pro 5c

A severely overpriced consumer machine worse than the model it intends to replace.

 

[LordVic]

It's hard to guestimate without real-world testing but like you said, the software is what makes it and we're not there yet for most usage scenarios. All the theory and marketing in the world means nothing - the cost comparisons are relevant to what you get, not what you should/might get.

Your example of an AMD 280(x) is a little strange. It might not have the workstation brand or the silly shelf price (It's less than 1/5 the cost), but it's still a 15% faster chip when running both real-world tests and code compared to the D500 for example...
You don't always get what you pay for (well, you're paying for a brand and iconic design in this instance?), especially when your vendor choice is hemorrhaging money compared to the competition, looking for business and isn't gimping their ggpu/opengl performance (like nvidia are).

My naive view is that a xeon has no place in a single socket machine - Imagine this machine with two (or a slashed price and an i7) and two r9 290x based gpus. Part decisions like these are the reason the windows/linux/hackintosh crowds can safely say they can build much faster machines at a much lower cost in a much more flexible case - It's an interesting design concept, but it seems to me to be a flagship marketing/design product infinitely more than my definition of a workstation.

it would sell a lot more with consumer level hardware.

putting in the workstation level hardware only. a single xeon CPU and dual workstation graphics makes this product almost exclusively used by a very small Niche group and is not even close to being a machine that every pro / power user will want. Unless you have known use for workstation level graphics, this machine is a complete non starter.

if they made an option for at least swapping those GPU's out, you'd be able to hit so many more markets all at once. Apple has a huge gap in their product lineup. They have the "all in one" machines that are consumer throw aways that range from the low end (Mini, Macbook Air) to the mid range desktop iMac's and Macbook Pros'. But they do not have a standard run of the mill consumer desktop machine.

This is a very Niche product. a lot more focused product for far less people than the old Mac Pros

 

[milo]

A MBA supporting an external, Thunderbolt full-duplex GPU would be enough for a lot of pro users. But this won't happen soon since it would harm a good portion of Mac Pro sales.

I'd say the reason a twelve core xeon laptop won't happen is because it would have a one hour battery life and would probably literally burn through your pants.

I want to see OpenCL benchmarks. I don't know why audio processing isn't suited for GPUs... an audio track is basically a vector (or a stream, depending on the approach) of numbers.

From what I understand, GPUs get their power from being massively parallel and that's not well suited for processing audio. Maybe if you had thousands of tracks with fairly light processing requirements on each. Also, don't forget that as opposed to rendering, audio is generally handled realtime and it's crucial to keep latency as low as possible.

 

[Bxstrmn]

I think the Mac Pro is very well designed and engineered, I've had apple products for years now and was patiently waiting for this to come out since I bought my last Mac Pro in 2012, with that said i own or have owned over 15 macs, lots of iPhones, apple TVs etc, and not because I absolutely love apple, my loyalty is based on their products or lack of a really better option from a competitor. I won't switch to get an equal or slightly better product but with all that said i waited for the new Mac Pro and expected a little bump in price but I currently have 6 4tb hard drives in my Mac Pro and to make that move is really not worth it for me to get a new computer and one of those promise setups. I'm not sure of the reliability of thunderbolt either, I know I've had firewire and USB drives crash, but internal ones tend to be more reliable in my experience.

 

[lordofthereef]

Unless you are a computer engineer or super geek, specs and benchmarks often don't matter as much to users.

I don't disagree. But this is an enthusiast forum. We are sitting here looking at and discussing benchmarks. I would say that if there was a single user base that could learn something from benchmarks, it is THIS one.

It's not like these benchmarks are being slapped onto boxes or anything. Macrumors decided to post about it. We are talking about it. And the numbers are of value. We can get a decent idea how the new Mac Pros can perform compared to the old ones.

All I am saying. No more, no less.

 

[clibinarius]

So what you suggest is that Apple should charge exactly what they're paying for the parts? Designing this whole thing (not only in terms of its look but mostly in terms of what its internal structure is) and assembling it (also note it's not some squaky cheap plastic with thousands of screws) is a bonus?

Go back to kindergarden if that's your logic, and stop whining. OS X isn't a must? Get a Windows machine with i7, gamers card and a hybrid drive - what's the big deal?

I'm not suggesting that at all. What I'm saying is only someone with a ton of money to throw around.

The container the machine is in isn't going to be worth more than $100. Is OS X, a fancy container, and a new fan really worth the $1000 markup over what I can get from a local parts store? Here's a news flash: Apple pays less than my parts store, and the parts store still makes a profit.

Are you saying that all parts stores should charge as much of a markup as Apple does?

Go back to Kindergarten if that's your logic!

The point is, this is a radically overpriced device for what it is. It is a replacement for the iMac, not the Mac Pro. It looks like a replacement for an iMac, not a professional machine. And the benchmarks aren't too improved over the prior machine from what I can tell either. Yeah, it'll be fast. But seriously-

I could use Linux or Windows and be just as productive as OS X. I like OS X, but not nearly enough to justify the cost of this workstation. If you disagree, it means you have way too much money sitting around.

 

[lordofthereef]

Oh for sure but I run OS X on my desktop as a Hackintosh. Apple has a nice build quality advantage on the laptops (Touchpad is nicer, case is nicer, thinner and lighter than competition, great battery life etc) but on the Desktop it doesn't matter what the system looks like.

So for me building a hackintosh was better. I dual boot Windows 8.1 and Mavericks on it with everything working perfectly.

I think a few other people have gone this route waiting for Apple to update the Mac Pro.

The only trouble with this is that you are technically running pirated software. No, not judging you, or bashing you, or what have you. Rather, I am pointing out that using a hackintosh isn't wise for one's business. And I think it is fair to say that the majority of potential Mac Pro buyers are business users (yes, you will get enthusiasts buying these things, but they are few and far between).

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Er. Same place you get all your crap. Durp. Samsung for example are well known to operate paid commentors. So do all the other Eastern manufacturers. It's not seen as cheap and Tawdry. Just business. That said - The US seem to happily bash competitors in Ads and online. It's not really allowed in the UK to the same extent.

http://bit.ly/1k4ePvo


http://www.theverge.com/2013/10/24/5023658/samsung-fined-340000-for-posting-negative-htc-reviews

Wait, so because they were fined once (by the way I don't see anything relating to Apple boards in your clever "**************************" link, nor the other one), that means that THIS FORUM is filled with shills as you imply? The very search you posted found two credible hits, both of which were talking about the same incident (HTC). "Well known to operate paid customers" is quite a stretch there... Do they exist? I don't doubt it. Is this forum filled with shills? I doubt it... It's filled with fans who actually have an opinion. And that opinion is that yes, Apple CAN do wrong. And many feel they have with this product launch.

Here is what I see. I see people making valid arguments for why they are displeased with the configurations in which the Mac Pro is launching.

You basically tell them they are wrong, because the product hasn't launched yet (even though Apple's own website gives us all of the information we need). It seems to me you are grasping at straws here. You are unhappy with the things that are being said and are therefore labeling these people as shills. You aren't the first person I have seen this from here though. Can't win an argument? Can't get someone to see your way? Label them as a shill and move on!

I guess with all I have said I must be a shill as well. Mmmm yes. That Samsung money is putting food on my table as we speak!

 

[tallscot]

GPU not CPU

Seriously, why are they wasting our time with CPU-oriented benchmarks? It's the GPU, and this new Mac Pro has 2 GPUs and I want to see how fast it is with Apple's Final Cut Pro and Motion. I want to see how fast it is with CUDA software.

Stop wasting our time with multi-CPU benchmarks.

 

[spaz8]

E3 and i7 cap out at 4 cores (though i've heard about a 6 core) and 32 GB of ram That not good enough for a pro machine. People are already complaining about the nMP only having room for 64 GB of ram till 32 GB chips show up. I think the nMP line up should of started at 6 cores, and had a 10 core option

 

[Quu]

The only trouble with this is that you are technically running pirated software. No, not judging you, or bashing you, or what have you. Rather, I am pointing out that using a hackintosh isn't wise for one's business. And I think it is fair to say that the majority of potential Mac Pro buyers are business users (yes, you will get enthusiasts buying these things, but they are few and far between).

I don't see how it is piracy because I bought Snow Leopard, Lion and Mountain Lion direct from Apple, Mavericks was free and I got it too directly from Apple via the App Store.

I at no point pirated anything.

 

[VoR]

I don't see how it is piracy because I bought Snow Leopard, Lion and Mountain Lion direct from Apple, Mavericks was free and I got it too directly from Apple via the App Store.

I at no point pirated anything.

I don't think his post was dismissing your choice, it was more aimed at explaining the difference in potential customers. An enthusiast can get much better performance at the fraction of the price, a corporate customer doesn't have that luxury.

Seriously, why are they wasting our time with CPU-oriented benchmarks? It's the GPU, and this new Mac Pro has 2 GPUs and I want to see how fast it is with Apple's Final Cut Pro and Motion. I want to see how fast it is with CUDA software.

I can't shed light on FCP / motion, but even without a gpu it'll be the fastest mac you can buy off the shelf.

Going to struggle running cuda code on an ati card - Since they're using them, it's a shame they're so limited by tdp and power restrictions by the small case and aren't using faster, cheaper products from their consumer hawaii chips?

 

[prowlmedia]

The only trouble with this is that you are technically running pirated software. No, not judging you, or bashing you, or what have you.

Here is what I see. I see people making valid arguments for why they are displeased with the configurations in which the Mac Pro is launching.

You basically tell them they are wrong, because the product hasn't launched yet (even though Apple's own website gives us all of the information we need). It seems to me you are grasping at straws here. You are unhappy with the things that are being said and are therefore labeling these people as shills. You aren't the first person I have seen this from here though. Can't win an argument? Can't get someone to see your way? Label them as a shill and move on!

I guess with all I have said I must be a shill as well. Mmmm yes. That Samsung money is putting food on my table as we speak!

Er no I didn't label you a Shill - Was Agreeing with someone else - You don't get many on the Mac Pro comments, but plenty on the iPhone ones - Clearly you don't working in Marketing or are waiting your rose tinted specs.

And no. I absolutely understand that people are not happy about certain things. And that's fine. I am only pointing out workarounds and the way that lot of companies work anyway. Networked storage is way easier to manage etc.

I have zero interest in Hackintoshes purely as it's like have a Windows Machine you have to keep looking after.

And totally understand the people that won't like this the most are the single operators with one machine under their desk, and they have PCIe cards and 8tb of internal storage.

----------

Nope. I'm not sure why people seem to think that audio has light hardware needs but the opposite is the case. Audio can be very demanding in terms of CPU, ram, and throughput from disk. Actually working with recorded audio tracks isn't the most demanding, doing heavy sample playback is much more so.

At this point many audio plugins are 64 bit but developers generally say that OpenCL doesn't work well for audio. Maybe that's the case, maybe not but considering most computers built for audio don't have powerful GPU, I don't blame them for not spending the time to try to port to OpenCL. If apple wants to see audio apps using OpenCL they're going to have to jump start that themselves.

Thanks very informed comment. I am interested to see how the audio side plays out.

----------

Yes, for months. 16-core Workstations from 18 months ago will outperform this in CPU power too.

The market for DP Mac Pros was tiny though and sacrificed on the path to create a product that was interesting enough where it might increase sales volume to make it worth Apple's time producing workstations. I doubt they even accounted for 10% of Mac Pro units.

You are not wrong but they are also. $20k+ for a decent spec one.

 

[Quu]

I don't think his post was dismissing your choice, it was more aimed at explaining the difference in potential customers. An enthusiast can get much better performance at the fraction of the price, a corporate customer doesn't have that luxury.

Corporate customers aren't buying Mac Pro's. They moved on years ago to notebooks and other companies workstations. Apple lost that market already.

I'm not saying corporate customers went the hackintosh route I'm saying they went Windows because that is where the hardware they needed was. Dell, Lenovo, HP and so on ate up the market when Apple let their desktop system languish for practically three years.

I also think it really hurt Apple not putting out an iMac without the screen. Many corporate and businesses do not need a XEON or workstation class graphics but they also don't want to pay for a screen they don't need. The iMac is a beautiful piece of kit but it's not great in all situations, these customers just want a small box and the Mac Mini is too small and too underpowered while the Mac Pro is too overpowered and expensive. They don't have a mid-tower in the middle.

 

[linuxcooldude]

I'm not suggesting that at all. What I'm saying is only someone with a ton of money to throw around.

The container the machine is in isn't going to be worth more than $100. Is OS X, a fancy container, and a new fan really worth the $1000 markup over what I can get from a local parts store? Here's a news flash: Apple pays less than my parts store, and the parts store still makes a profit.

Are you saying that all parts stores should charge as much of a markup as Apple does?

Go back to Kindergarten if that's your logic!

The point is, this is a radically overpriced device for what it is. It is a replacement for the iMac, not the Mac Pro. It looks like a replacement for an iMac, not a professional machine. And the benchmarks aren't too improved over the prior machine from what I can tell either. Yeah, it'll be fast. But seriously-

I could use Linux or Windows and be just as productive as OS X. I like OS X, but not nearly enough to justify the cost of this workstation. If you disagree, it means you have way too much money sitting around.

Not sure where your getting your prices from. You need to price Workstation parts, not from your typical Emachine.

The custom heat sink that makes the bulk of the computer is probably extruded aluminum. Not something that is cheap from sheet metal and riveted together.

Apple pays less than my parts store, and the parts store still makes a profit.

Highly doubtful. Its unlikely you added two FirePro workstation cards...a PCIe 512GB SSD card, which is one of the fastest in the industry...Thunderbolt 2 which is not even available on the PC market yet.

And the benchmarks aren't too improved over the prior machine from what I can tell either.

Benchmarks don't give real world testing. Geekbench does not take into account the GPU and openCL performance.

 

[MacUser2525]

Benchmarks don't give real world testing. Geekbench does not take into account the GPU and openCL performance.

Most programs don't take that into account either they don't use them hell you lucky to get one to use all the damn cores in a machine. The test which stress CPU are just that a direct comparison of the work that can be performed by the CPUs in the machines being compared that is all they ever claim to be.

 

[linuxcooldude]

Most programs don't take that into account either they don't use them hell you lucky to get one to use all the damn cores in a machine. The test which stress CPU are just that a direct comparison of the work that can be performed by the CPUs in the machines being compared that is all they ever claim to be.

Thats because most programs don't need the core count or the GPU. But we are talking the Professional software that do take in account these factors. Thats how the Mac Pro is planning to use these dual FirePro cards for increased openCL performance.

 

[MacUser2525]

Thats because most programs don't need the core count or the GPU. But we are talking the Professional software that do take in account these factors. Thats how the Mac Pro is planning to use these dual FirePro cards for increased openCL performance.

Until those features actually hit the "real world" it is all smoke and mirrors, money for nothing and your chicks for free.

 

[linuxcooldude]

Until those features actually hit the "real world" it is all smoke and mirrors, money for nothing and your chicks for free.

And those features are already here. Over 100 professional software applications that use GPU acceleration. Some which can use multiple GPU's in a system. While many may not use openCL, but yes, real world applications do exist.

 

[lordofthereef]

Er no I didn't label you a Shill - Was Agreeing with someone else - You don't get many on the Mac Pro comments, but plenty on the iPhone ones - Clearly you don't working in Marketing or are waiting your rose tinted specs.

And no. I absolutely understand that people are not happy about certain things. And that's fine. I am only pointing out workarounds and the way that lot of companies work anyway. Networked storage is way easier to manage etc.

I have zero interest in Hackintoshes purely as it's like have a Windows Machine you have to keep looking after.

And totally understand the people that won't like this the most are the single operators with one machine under their desk, and they have PCIe cards and 8tb of internal storage..

Forgive me. You were mentioning shills on a MAC PRO thread. Silly of me to think you were actually referring to shills in this thread and not others. If that isn't what you were doing, why even mention it.

The argument that I must not work in marketing is laughable. I fully expect and understand that there are paid posters throughout the blogosphere and forums. What I do not accept is that it is this epidemic that so many claim it to be. I couldn't begin to count how many people on this forum have the "Disagree with me? Disagree with Apple. You are a shill! BEGONE!!!!" attitude. I will say that one thing all forums seem to have in common is blowing things way the heck out of proportion.

P.S. I wasn't implying you thought I was a shill or not. It was said tongue in cheek as I was "speaking negative" in a thread about an Apple product (and therefore I must be a shill).

----------

I don't see how it is piracy because I bought Snow Leopard, Lion and Mountain Lion direct from Apple, Mavericks was free and I got it too directly from Apple via the App Store.

I at no point pirated anything.

There are licenses under which you are allowed to operate that software. You are operating that software outside of those licenses. By definition, it is piracy. Should I find a way to run iOS 7 on an Android device, I couldn't do so legally even though I own an iPhone 5. Says so right in the software license. Sames goes for any and all versions of OSX.

If, morally, you feel ok using it, that's fine. Like I said, I am not judging you in the slightest. But what I am saying is that if you operate a business using this software in this means you could be subject to heavy fines, should Apple decide to pursue you. Will they? That probably depends on how successful a business you run. Point is, for most business professionals, it's simply not worth risk for the couple grand (which is a tax write-off anyway) that they can save.

Some excerpts:

APPLE INC.
SOFTWARE LICENSE AGREEMENT FOR MAC OS X For use on Apple-branded Systems

The Apple software (including Boot ROM code), any third party software, documentation, interfaces, content, fonts and any data accompanying this License whether preinstalled on Apple-branded hardware, on disk, in read only memory, on any other media or in any other form (collectively the “Apple Software”) are licensed, not sold, to you by Apple Inc. (“Apple”) for use only under the terms of this License. Apple and/or Apple’s licensors retain ownership of the Apple Software itself and reserve all rights not expressly granted to you.

Standard and Preinstalled Apple Software License. Subject to the terms and conditions of this License, unless you obtained the Apple Software from the Mac App Store or under a volume license, maintenance or other written agreement from Apple, you are granted a limited, non-exclusive license to install, use and run one (1) copy of the Apple Software on a single Apple-branded computer at any one time.

And probably the most important of all...

I. Other Use Restrictions. The grants set forth in this License do not permit you to, and you agree not to, install, use or run the Apple Software on any non-Apple-branded computer, or to enable others to do so.

https://www.apple.com/legal/sla/docs/macosx107.pdf


I could go on, but you get the point I think.