New Mac Pro: Simultaneous Real-Time 4K Effect Rendering, +900MB/s Read/Write

[roadbloc]

You weren't buying one regardless so just stop.

You don't know that. Actually, I was looking forward (and holding onto my money) for what Apple had to offer as a next gen Pro. Its a great machine but unfortunately not for me.

----------

are you a pro? you don't sound like one. you sound like a hobbyist. nothing wrong with that but this machine was not built for you.

What defines a Pro? I use my computers to make money (writing books, magazine articles and reviews). On my desktop computers, I like to be able to replace internal hardware with additional or newer hardware to expand the life of my machine. So am I a pro or a hobbyist? (Either way, it won't change my opinion.)

----------

Everything that you would ever need to expand is able to be expanded with a thunderbolt expansion chassis. It's how we audio professionals get past the limitations of the current mac pros.

External expansion not only costs more, but results in an absurd amount of clutter by the machine as the more you expand. I'd rather use the cheaper and tidier option thanks.

 

[Viking2]

Please

All trolls that write in this thread:

"I can build this machine for USD 700"
"Only 25 persons will buy this computer because it is not possible to replace CPU ond/or to Expensive"
"Only wedding photographers use FCP"
"A computer should not cost more then 999 USD because I can't afford anything else, and my parents will not give me the money"
And so on:

Please buzz off!

We the rest, who have ordered or are about to order, can stay and talk about Mac Pro or about life in general!

I am planning to buy 6 core 32GB/512 GB and then plan to have external SSD and HD drives for main storage. Using FCP/PS/Aperture/Timelapse rendering software and more.


Ps. I never change CPUs in my machines, after a few years I retire it, give it away, sell it etc and buy a new one because there are other things that have evolved or have been upgraded. My guess it is only about 0.5 percent that changes CPU. Much more add memory!

 

[crazy dave]

"Upgradeable" assumes the parts to upgrade it will be available. The old Mac Pro technically had an upgradeable CPU board, but Apple never offered any upgrades for them!

Yeah the GPU boards and SSD board are removable but so is the GPU of an iMac. Would you call the GPU of an iMac "upgradeable"? No, because you can't get the parts!

This thing is designed so you have to buy a new one to upgrade it! That's the WHOLE POINT.

People seem to be suggesting this is less upgradeable than the old Mac Pro, which doesn't seem to be the case. The GPUs are on daughter cards, they don't seem to be particularly difficult to get to and the CPUs are standard Xeons as far as I can tell (so actually might be easier to upgrade in that sense, the old Mac Pro CPUS were upgradeable, you just had to be careful or use OWC).

Apple has offered upgrade GPU paths for the previous Mac Pro machines ... why not this one?

People are saying in this thread that there is something physically blocking the ability to upgrade as though the CPU/GPUs are soldered/glued in. Which I've not actually seen any reason to believe.

I agree that Apple tends to offer less variety of parts, but they always have, including for the oMP. This seems no more designed for planned obsolescence than the oMP.

Is there something I'm missing? If so, please explain. (Because this is the internet, no, this is not sarcasm - I'm genuinely curious as to what I might be missing.)

 

[SirHaakon]

This is actually insane. Rather than spending 2k on a red rocket card you could just buy a new mac pro. As someone who works with raw 4k, this is VERY impressive.

Even more impressive when you consider the newest Red Rocket actually costs $6.7K.

http://www.red.com/store/products/red-rocket-x

 

[TMay]

You're mistaking consumer card versus workstation card - the expense for a workstation card is more in the drivers and less in the hardware.

Consumer cards balance speed vs. cost with an emphasis on graphics and games. Workstation cards balance robustness with speed with much of the cost going into drivers. The result is that workstation cards are often much more expensive for little, if any gain in raw power. However, the result of having more stable and powerful drivers give the workstation cards a huge edge in workstation tasks. Further tests reveal that workstation cards a better at gaming than consumer cards are at delivering on workstation tasks, but workstation cards are much, much, much more expensive.

-------

This seems to go with a lot of the discussion surrounding other features like the CPU which is especially puzzling since the Intel Xeon X5 processors are the latest workstation processors from Intel and will be what future workstations from HP, Dell, etc ... will be using as well. Again workstation CPUs are not directly comparable to consumer CPU variants. They have different requirements and different strengths. They emphasize different attributes and again workstation CPUs tend to be more costly for the power.

------

Finally, why are people saying nothing is upgradeable? especially to the point where people are actually, weirdly, defending the machine not being upgradeable? The only reason given on both accounts seems to be "because it's Apple". But the SSD and RAM are definitely upgradeable and everything about the CPU and GPU seems to suggest that they are upgradeable as well. Some of the review have mentioned that the GPUs are upgradeable.

However, we should probably wait for a teardown to see how upgradeable these systems really are and if Apple has made it excruciatingly difficult then that is a point against the system as a workstation - though not for everyone. However, at the moment I've not seen any evidence that they aren't upgradeable ... unless someone can point it out?

Seriously,

You are a professional. You purchase one of these in 2014 and write it off in 2014 against your revenue. The marginal difference in the tax of your income with and with out the Mac Pro is in effect your discount for the machine. The more income your generate, the higher the discount, the more beneficial the write off is. You might have an added cost of sales or use tax to throw in.

You then choose to keep the machine for another year and then sell it. That sale is considered revenue in the year of the sale. You get to keep that amount of sale less the marginal increase in tax for that income.

Your cost over that two years is the sales price plus applicable taxes, minus the marginal tax discount, minus the resale price, plus the marginal tax for the resale revenue that second year.

Lather, rinse and repeat.

You can kind of figure out what the resale price of a 2 year old Mac Pro is by comparing the original retail price with pricing on ebay. My assumption is that the new Mac Pro probably sees similar depreciation over the two years.

Of course, all of this applies equally to any other computer purchase, and a lease return, refurb, and resale on Lenovo's outlet is why I picked up a D20 rather on the cheap last year.

The point of all this, is that a professional might be able to generate more income by flipping on ebay at the end of two years, or even each year and purchasing new, or leasing rather than the expense of upgrades.

This is the paradigm that Apple sees useful for professionals; obviously not so much for non professionals that aren't developing the same income stream. Still, OWC will probably figure a way to do upgrades, albeit pricy for CPU and GPU's.

 

[crazy dave]

Seriously,

You are a professional. You purchase one of these in 2014 and write it off in 2014 against your revenue. The marginal difference in the tax of your income with and with out the Mac Pro is in effect your discount for the machine. The more income your generate, the higher the discount, the more beneficial the write off is. You might have an added cost of sales or use tax to throw in.

You then choose to keep the machine for another year and then sell it. That sale is considered revenue in the year of the sale. You get to keep that amount of sale less the marginal increase in tax for that income.

Your cost over that two years is the sales price plus applicable taxes, minus the marginal tax discount, minus the resale price, plus the marginal tax for the resale revenue that second year.

Lather, rinse and repeat.

You can kind of figure out what the resale price of a 2 year old Mac Pro is by comparing the original retail price with pricing on ebay. My assumption is that the new Mac Pro probably sees similar depreciation over the two years.

Of course, all of this applies equally to any other computer purchase, and a lease return, refurb, and resale on Lenovo's outlet is why I picked up a D20 rather on the cheap last year.

The point of all this, is that a professional might be able to generate more income by flipping on ebay at the end of two years, or even each year and purchasing new, or leasing rather than the expense of upgrades.

This is the paradigm that Apple sees useful for professionals; obviously not so much for non professionals that aren't developing the same income stream. Still, OWC will probably figure a way to do upgrades, albeit pricy for CPU and GPU's.

Fair point, I understand ... though not everyone has the same ownership paradigm, but I totally see where you are coming from (which is why I included the "not for everyone" in the previous post as for some not being able to upgrade is a big deal, for others it isn't at all).

But I think the point is moot since the machine does seem to be upgradeable ... so it seems like everyone can do what they prefer with their workstation - upgrade or resell.

 

[flat five]

Seriously,

You are a professional. You purchase one of these in 2014 and write it off in 2014 against your revenue. The marginal difference in the tax of your income with and with out the Mac Pro is in effect your discount for the machine. The more income your generate, the higher the discount, the more beneficial the write off is. You might have an added cost of sales or use tax to throw in.

You then choose to keep the machine for another year and then sell it. That sale is considered revenue in the year of the sale. You get to keep that amount of sale less the marginal increase in tax for that income.

Your cost over that two years is the sales price plus applicable taxes, minus the marginal tax discount, minus the resale price, plus the marginal tax for the resale revenue that second year.

Lather, rinse and repeat.

You can kind of figure out what the resale price of a 2 year old Mac Pro is by comparing the original retail price with pricing on ebay. My assumption is that the new Mac Pro probably sees similar depreciation over the two years.

Of course, all of this applies equally to any other computer purchase, and a lease return, refurb, and resale on Lenovo's outlet is why I picked up a D20 rather on the cheap last year.

The point of all this, is that a professional might be able to generate more income by flipping on ebay at the end of two years, or even each year and purchasing new, or leasing rather than the expense of upgrades.

This is the paradigm that Apple sees useful for professionals; obviously not so much for non professionals that aren't developing the same income stream. Still, OWC will probably figure a way to do upgrades, albeit pricy for CPU and GPU's.

for that whole plan to work out, the computers have to be upgradable.. most of the the tinkerers buy used/refurbs and replace the GPUs and sometimes the CPUs..
a three year old mac pro isn't going to be worth much on the used market if it's stuck at the original configuration.

 

[Miloh]

what defines a pro? I use my computers to make money (writing books, magazine articles and reviews). On my desktop computers, i like to be able to replace internal hardware with additional or newer hardware to expand the life of my machine. So am i a pro or a hobbyist? (either way, it won't change my opinion.)......



.....its a great machine but unfortunately not for me.

ding ding ding ding ding we have a winner!!

For all the numbskulls in this thread that spread misinformation and can't understand this (not you roadbloc, you know the answer):

First of all, the Mac Pro is not designed for you. Apple took a machine that was awful at being a jack of all trades and specialized it. Now its a screaming compute machine that is 1/8 the size of its contemporaries.

Not only that, but based on what you described as your professional work flow you don't even NEED the power this thing has, an iMac has plenty of horsepower for what you need. Apple doesn't give a **** that the machine doesn't satisfy the requirements of the hobbyists that bought them and didn't even utilize half of their power and only bought it because it was the only tower Mac in the lineup. A lot of tasks that used to require a beefy computer can now be served by a iMac or Macbook Pro, that is how much technology has progressed, everything is becoming more and more integrated, and what used to require a big, beefy computer can now be done on a run of the mill desktop.

So keep on crying for upgradeability because its falling on deaf ears not just with Apple, but all the other OEMs who are feeling the pinch and have to save money somewhere. Making a system upgradeable adds cost to the system, it also means more points of failure, contacts could be damaged during the upgrade, a user could put an incorrect part and cause the thing to short. Not only that, but the number of people that even upgrade is tiny. Its just cheaper to integrate everything, and saves them a lot of headache. The flip side is that if something breaks, you are at the mercy of their customer support, which is something all the PC OEMs are gonna have to step up on if they continue down the path of integration. Hobbyists are a minority, you no longer dictate how computing works like you used to back in the day. The masses want a box that just works, the pros want a box that just works and lets them do their job and not worry about the internals.


Second (and this is more for the idiotic posts i've been reading all over the thread and not you), its a ****ing workstation, this is NOT some really fast PC that you could build yourself for cheaper with parts from Newegg! That means that first and foremost it has to be reliable and last for years upon years. The thing has ECC RAM just for that reason, and those FirePros? They also have ECC memory, they may share the same architecture of the gaming GPUs, but the similarities end there. You pay thousands of dollars for these things because they have been validated and are designed to be as rock solid stable as possible. If you're a business whose lifeline depends on workstations like the Mac Pro, having a stupid fast product that works all the time without downtime trumps upgradeability six ways through Sunday.

Yeah, that sucks for the computer hobbyists, who wanted an xMac for years, well this isn't an xMac, deal with it. Unless your work involves compute intensive tasks like protein modeling, or compiling a massive program, or video/photo editing at high resolutions, this isn't for you (I hope Xcode will eventually utilize the GPU for compiling, ah but a pipe dream). Its time to consider new options, because whether you like it or not, integration will continue, and as we should all well know, Apple isn't shy about moving towards the future before everyone else and leaving the old stuff behind.

/rant

 

[Michael Scrip]

Of course, all of this applies equally to any other computer purchase, and a lease return, refurb, and resale on Lenovo's outlet is why I picked up a D20 rather on the cheap last year.

Thanks for mentioning refurbs... that's a great way to save money.

As for new machines... I just configured the newer Lenovo D30 workstation to see how it is priced against a Mac Pro.

A maxed-out 12-core Mac Pro with 64GB of RAM, 1TB SSD and the highest video cards is $9,600

I only got to the processor and RAM on the Lenovo... and it's already $12,000

That's with no video cards and no storage!!!

The same configuration but with the 6-core is $8,100 for the Lenovo and $6,600 for the Mac Pro. Again... that's with no video cards and storage on the Lenovo.

WTF is up with that?

 

[crazy dave]

for that whole plan to work out, the computers have to be upgradable.. most of the the tinkerers buy used/refurbs and replace the GPUs and sometimes the CPUs..
a three year old mac pro isn't going to be worth much on the used market if it's stuck at the original configuration.

Not necessarily, workstations tend to keep their resale value longer than consumer products just for the computer itself (and Mac consumer products tend to keep their resale value pretty well).

Also I think the point is moot since the machine looks upgradeable to me ... but I seem to be in the minority of that opinion ... as everyone else seems convinced otherwise.

 

[hpe]

You're mistaking consumer card versus workstation card - the expense for a workstation card is more in the drivers and less in the hardware.

Consumer cards balance speed vs. cost with an emphasis on graphics and games. Workstation cards balance robustness with speed with much of the cost going into drivers. The result is that workstation cards are often much more expensive for little, if any gain in raw power (in terms of number of cores). However, the result of having more stable and powerful drivers give the workstation cards a huge edge in workstation tasks. Further tests reveal that workstation cards a better at gaming than consumer cards are at delivering on workstation tasks, but workstation cards are much, much, much more expensive.

-------

This seems to go with a lot of the discussion surrounding other features like the CPU which is especially puzzling since the Intel Xeon X5 processors are the latest workstation processors from Intel and will be what future workstations from HP, Dell, etc ... will be using as well. Again workstation CPUs are not necessarily directly comparable to consumer CPU variants. They have different requirements and different strengths. They emphasize different attributes and again workstation CPUs tend to be more costly for the power.

------

Finally, why are people saying nothing is upgradeable? especially to the point where people are actually, weirdly, defending the machine not being upgradeable? The only reason given on both accounts seems to be "because it's Apple". But the SSD and RAM are definitely upgradeable and everything about the CPU and GPU seems to suggest that they are upgradeable as well. Some of the review have mentioned that the GPUs are upgradeable.

However, we should probably wait for a teardown to see how upgradeable these systems really are and if Apple has made it excruciatingly difficult then that is a point against the system as a workstation - though not for everyone. However, at the moment I've not seen any evidence that they aren't upgradeable ... unless someone can point it out?

actually not. I am trying to form an idea of the performance of the new MP and the graphics cards that are the options. Xeon vs i7, i get that you pay for ECC ram capabilities. That is a real feature even though it is higher valued by some than others (actually that applies to everything so...).

Again, the performance and/or feature difference is what I am curios about and posted to see if somebody else was more informed than myself.

And really, an 18 months old GPU cost 4-6 times more than a new one and the difference is supposed to be the drivers? Really? I might pay 5000 for a new Mac due to pro hardware. I might pay 1000 for a new graphics card. I might pay 2000 for some important software. Not paying 2000+ for a software driver for any kind of hardware. Let the software companies try to make money from software and let the hardware guys use it in the sales-pitch for their hardware (Free OS and other software from Apple comes to mind).

Don't accept that a hardware guy sell you 400$ worth of hardware for 3000$ just because he has stable drivers for his hardware. Not saying this is always the case. If there are feature differences, eg only pro cards can use this or that ram size and the GPU in itself gets much more expensive due to lower production quantities, lower fault tolerances. That I can understand and accept, feel free to make the analogy Xeon i7 if you want. 2600$ driver for 400$ card is crazy and only justifiable by the "because they can" argument. If by some magic the fancy driver actually made the card 4 times faster or whatever, I might change my mind.

Anyways, not one of the guys saying that I can build the equivalent machine for 1500$. There is a real difference in the CPU and ram department that justifies a price difference (how much of it depends on your use case and budget). There is a real difference between GeForce and Quadro and Tesla (nVidia ensured it by crippling the consumer cards). My interest and the reason I posted was that I'd like to know the difference between the AMD cards. Are there actual differences or not or are they only consisting of way over-priced drivers. And even so, how does the D500 and D700 stack up to the W9000 AND the R9 290X in performance as well as features?

 

[roadbloc]

ding ding ding ding ding we have a winner!!

First of all, no, its not designed for you. Apple took a machine that was awful at being a jack of all trades and specialized it. Now its a screaming compute machine that is 1/8 the size of its contemporaries.

Not only that, but based on what you described as your professional work flow you don't even NEED the power this thing has, an iMac has plenty of horsepower for what you need. Apple doesn't give a **** that the machine doesn't satisfy the requirements of the hobbyists that bought them and didn't even utilize half of their power and only bought it because it was the only tower Mac in the lineup. A lot of tasks that used to require a beefy computer can now be served by a iMac or Macbook Pro, that is how much technology has progressed, everything is becoming more and more integrated, and what used to require a beefy computer can now be done on a run of the mill desktop.

So keep on crying for upgradeability because its falling on deaf ears not just with Apple, but all the other OEMs who are feeling the pinch and have to save money somewhere. Making a system upgradeable adds cost to the system, it also means more points of failure, contacts could be damaged during the upgrade, a user could put an incorrect part and cause the thing to short. Not only that, but the number of people that even upgrade is tiny. Its just cheaper to integrate everything, and saves them a lot of headache. The flip side is that if something breaks, you are at the mercy of their customer support, which is something all the PC OEMs are gonna have to step up on if they continue down the path of integration. Hobbyists are a minority, you no longer dictate how computing works like you used to back in the day. The masses want a box that just ****ing works, the pros want a ****ing box that lets them do their job and not worry about the internals. That's not making them money.


Second (and this is more for the idiotic posts i've been reading all over the thread and not you), its a ****ing workstation, this is NOT some really fast PC that you could build yourself for cheaper with parts from Newegg! That means that first and foremost it has to be reliable and last for years upon years. The thing has ECC RAM just for that reason, and those FirePros? They also have ECC memory, they may share the same architecture of the gaming GPUs, but the similarities end there. You pay thousands of dollars for these things because they have been validated and are designed to be as rock solid stable as possible. If you're a business whose lifeline depends on workstations like the Mac Pro, having a stupid fast product that works all the time without downtime trumps upgradeability six ways through Sunday.

Yeah, that sucks for the computer hobbyists, who wanted an xMac for years, well this isn't an xMac, deal with it. Unless your work involves compute intensive tasks like protein modeling, or compiling a massive program, this isn't for you (I hope Xcode will eventually utilize the GPU for compiling, ah but a pipe dream). Its time to consider new options, because whether you like it or not, integration will continue, and as we should all well know, Apple isn't shy about moving towards future before everyone else and leaving the old stuff behind.

You're obviously taking this way more seriously than me. In all my posts I never said the Mac Pro was a bad machine. I actually admire it. You don't need to tell me Apple's strategy or target consumer base for this thing.

And as for the bolded bit, that may no longer be the case in the Mac world. But the PC world allows me to piece together my own hardware how I please.

I'm unsure what your overall point is here if I'm honest since I already know the new Mac Pro isn't for me. Its cool. I'll keep my old gen one it still works great.

 

[iBug2]

for that whole plan to work out, the computers have to be upgradable.. most of the the tinkerers buy used/refurbs and replace the GPUs and sometimes the CPUs..
a three year old mac pro isn't going to be worth much on the used market if it's stuck at the original configuration.

It will worth a lot. Not everyone needs the GPU power. Many people buy Mac Pro's and use them for 6 years without upgrading the GPU's.

 

[Miloh]

You're obviously taking this way more seriously than me. In all my posts I never said the Mac Pro was a bad machine. I actually admire it. You don't need to tell me Apple's strategy or target consumer base for this thing.

And as for the bolded bit, that may no longer be the case in the Mac world. But the PC world allows me to piece together my own hardware how I please.

I'm unsure what your overall point is here if I'm honest since I already know the new Mac Pro isn't for me. Its cool. I'll keep my old gen one it still works great.

Its more of a rant in general at all the misinformation throughout this thread and all over the forums, I just used your post as an example to make a point (through a probably needlessly long, and somewhat jumbled up post) that this machine is beyond what most people even need, and you gave the answer that they can't get through their thick skulls because all they see is the spec sheet and think that they can build something remotely similar for cheaper.

I apologize if I offended you, it was not my intention.

I edited it some more to make it clear that it was more a response to the thread in general than to you.

Now to actually reply to your post, you could indeed build your own workstation in the PC world, but then you give up the OEM support. Which incidentally is a huge sore spot with the Mac Pro, its severely lacking compared to similar offerings from the PC OEMs.

 

[crazy dave]

actually not. I am trying to form an idea of the performance of the new MP and the graphics cards that are the options. Xeon vs i7, i get that you pay for ECC ram capabilities. That is a real feature even though it is higher valued by some than others (actually that applies to everything so...).

Again, the performance and/or feature difference is what I am curios about and posted to see if somebody else was more informed than myself.

And really, an 18 months old GPU cost 4-6 times more than a new one and the difference is supposed to be the drivers? Really? I might pay 5000 for a new Mac due to pro hardware. I might pay 1000 for a new graphics card. I might pay 2000 for some important software. Not paying 2000+ for a software driver for any kind of hardware. Let the software companies try to make money from software and let the hardware guys use it in the sales-pitch for their hardware (Free OS and other software from Apple comes to mind).

Don't accept that a hardware guy sell you 400$ worth of hardware for 3000$ just because he has stable drivers for his hardware. Not saying this is always the case. If there are feature differences, eg only pro cards can use this or that ram size and the GPU in itself gets much more expensive due to lower production quantities, lower fault tolerances. That I can understand and accept, feel free to make the analogy Xeon i7 if you want. 2600$ driver for 400$ card is crazy and only justifiable by the "because they can" argument. If by some magic the fancy driver actually made the card 4 times faster or whatever, I might change my mind.

Anyways, not one of the guys saying that I can build the equivalent machine for 1500$. There is a real difference in the CPU and ram department that justifies a price difference (how much of it depends on your use case and budget). There is a real difference between GeForce and Quadro and Tesla (nVidia ensured it by crippling the consumer cards). My interest and the reason I posted was that I'd like to know the difference between the AMD cards. Are there actual differences or not or are they only consisting of way over-priced drivers. And even so, how does the D500 and D700 stack up to the W9000 AND the R9 290X in performance as well as features?

Sorry I didn't mean to lump you in with arguments or stances you weren't making. I was responding to your post about the GPU and then in the next sections talking about other arguments in the thread. The "---" was meant to delineate that and I apologize for not making it more clear because the answer to your question is an interesting one (the full depth of which goes into areas beyond my knowledge - so I can only give the overhead answer).

Yes it really is the drivers (for the most part) driving the cost, the FirePro has very similar architecture to the Radeons though I believe it also has ECC memory while the Radeon don't (not sure about the new ones?). But much of the cost is indeed the drivers and the robustness and features therein. (Drivers are actually quite intricate and tough to do really well) The Pro cards are validated, which means they are supposed to be incredibly robust and the drivers are incredibly stable/optimized giving them performance advantages. That's what you are paying for - essentially debugging, validation, optimization, and support in the drivers (and some differences in the hardware). For a lot of pro applications that saves a lot of time/money in comparison to the initial investment.

 

[vmachiel]

It's amazing. So much power in that small cylinder.

 

[heimo]

Only pros are now allowed to post in this thread. If you're not going to buy Mac Pro, you're not allowed to have an opinion on it. Just saying, too many amateurs posting and making noise. It's not Mac Amateur, it's Mac Pro. Nuff said!?!#!

 

[hpe]

Sorry I didn't mean to lump you in with arguments or stances you weren't making. I was responding to your post about the GPU and then in the next sections talking about other arguments in the thread. The "---" was meant to delineate that and I apologize for not making it more clear because the answer to your question is an interesting one (the full depth of which goes into areas beyond my knowledge - so I can only give the overhead answer).

Yes it really is the drivers (for the most part) driving the cost, the FirePro has very similar architecture to the Radeons though I believe it also has ECC memory while the Radeon don't (not sure about the new ones?). But much of the cost is indeed the drivers and the robustness and features therein. (Drivers are actually quite intricate and tough to do really well) The Pro cards are validated, which means they are supposed to be incredibly robust and the drivers are incredibly stable/optimized giving them performance advantages. That's what you are paying for - essentially debugging, validation, optimization, and support in the drivers (and some differences in the hardware). For a lot of pro applications that saves a lot of time/money in comparison to the initial investment.

Point taken, will not feel offended, promise

I would consider buying a new MP, but only after I put more OpenCL in to accelerate the application I'm building.

I hope someone soon makes the proper tests on the graphics side.

Cheers

 

[Freida]

No better than a machine costing $1,500-$8000 dollars less. Thats not even starting up the nvidea vs AMD for gaming debate.


And seriously people, lets not ********. This is a really powerful and innovative toy. Its not a "pro" machine intended to be purchased in bulk my major companies and institutions (well maybe universities).

Its great for a not so hardware savy graphics designer/artist.. an video editor, a consultant. Personal professional machine.

And the lack of nvidea support is just bad. Those amd cards are basically consumer radeons.

Another useless comment. Are you CUDA fan or what? Apple is pushing for OpenCL and when the software gets more and more support you will see more of these bad boys even in those companies that you are now claiming that they won't use them. Intel is slowing down whereas GPU power is still solid performance available for the computer and thats why OpenCL is the future for now.
Either get used to it and keep up or stay behind with your useless comments.
Btw, - when this spreads out even more, will you come back and apologise for the nonsense you were promoting?

----------

"In fact, editing 4K on the Mac Pro feels like editing HD on my current MacBook Pro - except I can see large numbers for the frame sizes where normally I’d expect to see the reassuringly familiar "1920x1080".

Professionals don't edit on laptops.

nonsense, when you are on the go and need to do some changes for client then you DO edit on MBP.

 

[iSayuSay]

Only pros are now allowed to post in this thread. If you're not going to buy Mac Pro, you're not allowed to have an opinion on it. Just saying, too many amateurs posting and making noise. It's not Mac Amateur, it's Mac Pro. Nuff said!?!#!

Uh oh .. Pros and their usual elitist, snob attitude

I don't even sure you know what [pros] means. Some pros earn their huge income from a mere iPad, or Macbook Air. Just because they don't use MacPro that makes them less pro. Sorry, but I didn't get the memo.

 

[crazy dave]

Point taken, will not feel offended, promise

I would consider buying a new MP, but only after I put more OpenCL in to accelerate the application I'm building.

I hope someone soon makes the proper tests on the graphics side.

Cheers

Ah you're one step ahead of me. I just finished learning CUDA (first time GPGPU programming) and now going to try to learn OpenCL as well. Do you have a recommendation for OpenCL tutorials to help get started?

 

[Freida]

read what 400 bucks did for a 2010 mac pro.

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/1122551/

this thread is one of the major reasons apple did a new design.

and there a a good thread on gpu upgrades.

You are missing the point here. Professionals working as freelancers from home do NOT want to spend time tinkering with their computer - they want to buy one and work! And in a company, there is IT department that might tinker if they need to but let me tell you one guarantee - IT department doesn't really upgrade parts -> they upgrade the machine. They may swap GPU or something that fails but they won't do these upgrades.

So your suggestion is aimed only for enthusiasts which have time or desire to "play" with their hardware and see what it can do. Neither of those are customers for the nMP as the customers that are the target won't be doing any of that as they will be busy making money with the machine.

 

[prowlmedia]

Keep playing with FCPX, but when you really need to edit something do it on a real editing software (Avid Media Composer anyone?)

Apple are trying to convince us that the Mac Pro is a Pro, although we all know it's just a Mac...

Media composer is a dinosaur. And horrible to work on! Smoke is the future and Fcpx for straight editing.

 

[crazy dave]

You are missing the point here. Professionals working as freelancers from home do NOT want to spend time tinkering with their computer - they want to buy one and work! And in a company, there is IT department that might tinker if they need to but let me tell you one guarantee - IT department doesn't really upgrade parts -> they upgrade the machine. They may swap GPU or something that fails but they won't do these upgrades.

So your suggestion is aimed only for enthusiasts which have time or desire to "play" with their hardware and see what it can do. Neither of those are customers for the nMP as the customers that are the target won't be doing any of that as they will be busy making money with the machine.

Well it depends, I work in academic institution. We don't use machines to make money but we do often need pro machines depending on the application/institution. I'm lucky that I have access to really nice, powerful clusters where I am, but I still may want one of these for work (or more specifically for my boss to get one) to develop GPU-accelerated programs for my field. I'll admit I probably wouldn't upgrade the machine, but my ownership paradigm is a little different from people using it to make money since it would be for publishing papers instead . Thus I can see other academics with more inclination to tinker trying to extend the life of the machine through upgrade rather than go the resell/buy route but this machine is still aimed at them.

 

[Freida]

What defines a Pro? I use my computers to make money (writing books, magazine articles and reviews). On my desktop computers, I like to be able to replace internal hardware with additional or newer hardware to expand the life of my machine. So am I a pro or a hobbyist? (Either way, it won't change my opinion.)

You are so misinformed that its actually painful!
If you make money with your computer by writing books, magazines etc. then a computer you bought 3 years ago will be as fast now as it was then. Writing text never gets intensive so why do you need to put newer hardware to "expand the life of your machine"? For you even mac mini is overkill so why are you here bashing mac pro when you clearly have no need or even understanding for it?