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

[mrxak]

Man I'd love to buy one of those to edit family videos on but I know that would be such a waste on powerful machine. I'd be embarrassed to use iMovie on it lol!

I wonder if the 6 core model is even overkill for a professional photographer...

A photographer will absolutely get good use out of a Mac Pro. Not as much as a videographer, but a lot of professionals are going hybrid photography, anyway, so what's the real difference? Batch processing and working with very large image files is still computationally intensive work, and any photographer dabbling in video will take full advantage of the new Mac Pro for that as well. The important thing to note is that Lightroom, Photoshop, etc. can make full use out of all the cores, and Adobe is supporting OpenCL more and more these days where they can. I'm sure with the new Mac Pro being such a beast at OpenCL, Adobe will be even more motivated to follow through on their promise of greater OpenCL support across the board.

----------

From what I'm given to understand several of my CS6 apps currently support OpenCL to some degree, and I'm hoping to see them do so on the nMP GPUs. I don't work in 4K (not yet) but I do a lot of 1080p rendering and post processing and I'm looking forward to seeing what kinds of speed boosts I get in apps like Premiere and After Effects.

Indeed. Adobe rather publicly some time ago announced they were going to make OpenCL support (across the board) a high priority. It does take time to really optimize for it, identifying where it's best utilized, but expect more and more OpenCL support from Adobe as time goes on. I think the Mac Pro is particularly motivating.

 

[ThisIsNotMe]

Most of the applications here have been doable on Windows since 2011...so Apple has caught up with 2012/13. Yawn.

If that was the case, why do you have high level individual from the industry (did you even watch the Pixar demo at WWDC?) come out and say how impressive this machine is compared to other machines on the market???

 

[promise7]

Just out of curiosity, if you could choose between the new smaller form factor Mac Pro or the previous desktop tower Mac Pro, both with the exact same specs, which would you choose?

 

[H2SO4]

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?

Great but you didn't answer the question, please do so to add more/some weight to your counter argument.

 

[iSee]

Think of it like this. It's really fast, and you won't be using half of what it offers. But if you get one, you won't have to upgrade for YEEEAARRRSS.

And unlike an iMac, if your screen goes bad, you don't have to buy another $2000+ computer. Just another $300 - $500 monitor.

Great points! I wholeheartedly agree, where's my credit card?

 

[Stephen123]

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.

Total nonsense. 1) it is completely upgradable; 2) Mac Pros have historically held their value exceptionally well.

 

[pgwalsh]

Well that cleared that up.

My original point being was that if you didn't want/need two GPU's for the work you wanted to do then you still have to pay for them. You also can't change them or swap them out. The NMP is just biased towards video editors and graphic designers, Apple seem to have forgotten about the audio guys (unless they somehow update Logic Pro X to take advantage of OpenCL, but I don't really see that happening)

I agree with you.

This is a friggin awesome machine for video editors, but doesn't necessarily fit the bill for other professionals and non professionals. I think almost everyone here would agree that this machine is focused on the video professional and perhaps, with OpenCL, the scientific community.

I believe there's a group of people that would like to see a tower with the latest Core i7's single or dual GPU's that come in under 3K. Some may desire dual cpu's (xeons), but not need to video processing power in the current Mac Pro's. Not everyone wants to run an iMac, mac mini or laptop for their audio plugins or video games etc etc etc. Call them ProSumer or whatever, but there is a need. I think a lot of these people lurk in the Hackintosh community because nothing Apple offers fits the bill.

 

[chaos86]

Upgradability

These questions/statements keep coming up:
- what would you want to upgrade?
- most people just replace the whole machine these days.

To which I reply, my workstation, a Mac Pro from Late 2008, still has ridiculously fast CPUs, but the stock GPU was terrible, and it only had SATA2. The machine is extremely fast, 5 years later, because we replaced the GPU, and added a new SATA card that connects to a new SSD. The machine will be a very usable workstation for at least another 2 or 3 years, and after that an intern will get it for a few more.

We have no idea where these new Mac Pro's will see their first speed bottlenecks because all 3 main components (CPU, GPU, storage) are insanely fast right by today's standards, but mark my words, in a few years, people will be yearning to upgrade something, and they probably won't be able to.

 

[Stephen123]

A photographer will absolutely get good use out of a Mac Pro. Not as much as a videographer, but a lot of professionals are going hybrid photography, anyway, so what's the real difference? Batch processing and working with very large image files is still computationally intensive work, and any photographer dabbling in video will take full advantage of the new Mac Pro for that as well. The important thing to note is that Lightroom, Photoshop, etc. can make full use out of all the cores, and Adobe is supporting OpenCL more and more these days where they can. I'm sure with the new Mac Pro being such a beast at OpenCL, Adobe will be even more motivated to follow through on their promise of greater OpenCL support across the board.

The 4 core machine is an exceptional machine for photographers. Higher CPU speed in exchange for having 8 threads instead of 12 is an advantage in Photoshop. And the Price for 1TB SSD, 64GB and 2xD700 is great as long as you buy the memory upgrade from someone other than Apple.

 

[HenryDJP]

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.

Uh huh, Uh huh, I see.

What defines a Pro? I use my computers to make money (writing books, magazine articles and reviews).

Exactly and that's a what a "Pro" or "You" needs the power of a Mac Pro for.

 

[Stephen123]

These questions/statements keep coming up:
- what would you want to upgrade?
- most people just replace the whole machine these days.

To which I reply, my workstation, a Mac Pro from Late 2008, still has ridiculously fast CPUs, but the stock GPU was terrible, and it only had SATA2. The machine is extremely fast, 5 years later, because we replaced the GPU, and added a new SATA card that connects to a new SSD. The machine will be a very usable workstation for at least another 2 or 3 years, and after that an intern will get it for a few more.

We have no idea where these new Mac Pro's will see their first speed bottlenecks because all 3 main components (CPU, GPU, storage) are insanely fast right by today's standards, but mark my words, in a few years, people will be yearning to upgrade something, and they probably won't be able to.

I don't understand why you would think they won't be able to upgrade. CPU and GPU are no less upgradable than on a 2008 Mac Pro and Thunderbolt 2 is more ahead of the curve now than the PCI bus in a Mac Pro was in 2008. Also the GPUs and SSD in the 2013 Mac Pro are both significantly ahead of the curve compared to what was in a 2008 Mac Pro in 2008.

 

[H2SO4]

Uh huh, Uh huh, I see.



Exactly and that's a what a "Pro" or "You" needs the power of a Mac Pro for.

So you haven't answered the 'What defines a pro' question either.

 

[wildmac]

Easy example: Civ 5.

How many others? It's just like the pro software discussion. I play Blizzard games besides using my rig for PS and LR. None of the Blizzard games are really GPU intensive.

 

[Piggie]

This can't be right can it?

From here:
http://www.macworld.com/article/208...-speedster-weve-been-waiting-for-finally.html



Unigine Heaven and Valley 1920-by-1080
Mac model Heaven 1920x1080 Valley 1920x1080
Mac Pro 8-Core/3.0GHz (Late 2013) 31.50 31.70
Mac Pro 6-Core/2.4GHz (Mid 2012) 10.35 13.21
Mac Pro quad-core/3.2GHz (Mid 2012) 10.16 13.20
27-inch iMac quad-core/3.5GHz CTO (Late 2013) 24.62 26.98
15-inch Retina MacBook Pro quad-core/2.3GHz
(Late 2013) 16.49 16.56

Results are frames per second. Higher results are better. Best result in bold. Reference models in italics.


Only 31.50 frames/sec on the Heaven Benchmark for the $6799 MacPro

But 24.62 frames/sec for an 27" iMac which is only running a "mobile" low power version of an Nvidea graphics chipset

Mac Pro tested was:
A Mac Pro provided by Apple that was customized to use an 8-core 3.0GHz Xeon E5 processor, 512GB of flash storage, 32GB of RAM, and dual AMD FirePro D700 graphics with 6GB of video memory for each card.


Am I reading this test right?


The last comment is kinda sad really.........

It should be no surprise that the new 8-core Mac Pro is the fastest Mac we’ve tested, but it was only 8 percent faster overall than our previous champ, a CTO 2013 27-inch iMac. That custom system has a speedy quad-core 3.5GHz Core i7 processor, a 3TB Fusion Drive, 8GB of RAM, and Nvidia GeForce GTX 780M graphics.

 

[Ploki]

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...

My experience with AMC as an audio guy? Please, use anything else than that bloated piece of junk. I passionately dislike Avid.

They're as dumb as Apple, buy ********s of companies and can't make their own products work well together.

 

[flat five]

Total nonsense. 1) it is completely upgradable; 2) Mac Pros have historically held their value exceptionally well.

that's what I said.

 

[tbrinkma]

You are assuming we all have an six year amortization on our equipment. I know professional VFX guys that expect to cover the cost of the new Mac Pro in less than a year based on increased deliverables of works for clients.

If that's the case, then they're *better* off than the hypothetical people on the 6-year plan described. They get a system that's more than adequate for the tasks at hand, and can budget for a replacement system when it has fallen to 'only' adequate for the tasks at hand.

 

[Kubal]

Disk write and read speeds are, I would say, normal. I have two Samsung Evo 1TB x 2 RAID 0, and write and read speeds are 960 MB/s and 1010 MB/s.

 

[osofast240sx]

Disk write and read speeds are, I would say, normal. I have two Samsung Evo 1TB x 2 RAID 0, and write and read speeds are 960 MB/s and 1010 MB/s.

Your point??

 

[lupinglade]

What I don't understand is how the nMP could lose on the 6GB file copy benchmark if it has this extremely fast PCIe SSD? At 900 MB/s R/W shouldn't it take about 15 seconds to copy the file?

Update: nevermind, its a 6GB folder not file, so I guess the CPU has a bit of a role in that.

 

[Kubal]

Your point??

My point is that such speeds were available more than a year ago.

 

[DJJAZZYJET]

I agree with you.

This is a friggin awesome machine for video editors, but doesn't necessarily fit the bill for other professionals and non professionals. I think almost everyone here would agree that this machine is focused on the video professional and perhaps, with OpenCL, the scientific community.

I believe there's a group of people that would like to see a tower with the latest Core i7's single or dual GPU's that come in under 3K. Some may desire dual cpu's (xeons), but not need to video processing power in the current Mac Pro's. Not everyone wants to run an iMac, mac mini or laptop for their audio plugins or video games etc etc etc. Call them ProSumer or whatever, but there is a need. I think a lot of these people lurk in the Hackintosh community because nothing Apple offers fits the bill.

Im one of those people, I have a hackintosh for audio production and gaming and I love it. Its crazy fast.

 

[linuxcooldude]

This can't be right can it?

From here:
http://www.macworld.com/article/208...-speedster-weve-been-waiting-for-finally.html



Unigine Heaven and Valley 1920-by-1080
Mac model Heaven 1920x1080 Valley 1920x1080
Mac Pro 8-Core/3.0GHz (Late 2013) 31.50 31.70
Mac Pro 6-Core/2.4GHz (Mid 2012) 10.35 13.21
Mac Pro quad-core/3.2GHz (Mid 2012) 10.16 13.20
27-inch iMac quad-core/3.5GHz CTO (Late 2013) 24.62 26.98
15-inch Retina MacBook Pro quad-core/2.3GHz
(Late 2013) 16.49 16.56

Results are frames per second. Higher results are better. Best result in bold. Reference models in italics.


Only 31.50 frames/sec on the Heaven Benchmark for the $6799 MacPro

But 24.62 frames/sec for an 27" iMac which is only running a "mobile" low power version of an Nvidea graphics chipset

Mac Pro tested was:
A Mac Pro provided by Apple that was customized to use an 8-core 3.0GHz Xeon E5 processor, 512GB of flash storage, 32GB of RAM, and dual AMD FirePro D700 graphics with 6GB of video memory for each card.


Am I reading this test right?


The last comment is kinda sad really.........

It should be no surprise that the new 8-core Mac Pro is the fastest Mac we’ve tested, but it was only 8 percent faster overall than our previous champ, a CTO 2013 27-inch iMac. That custom system has a speedy quad-core 3.5GHz Core i7 processor, a 3TB Fusion Drive, 8GB of RAM, and Nvidia GeForce GTX 780M graphics.

Unigine Heaven benchmark was designed to test gaming cards, not so much workstation graphics.

Workstation graphics, while they can play games, are focused on different set of computations then gaming cards do.

So basically, your benchmarking on how well a workstation card will play in games. Instead of how well it will work in the various programs designed for scientific, mathematics, 3D rendering and so on.

 

[pgwalsh]

Im one of those people, I have a hackintosh for audio production and gaming and I love it. Its crazy fast.

I can only imagine. While I built one, I never had the stability I wanted. Plugins like U-he Diva need a lot of CPU for full quality and multiple instances. As I'm only a hobbyist, I like to use the machine for other things as well, but my iMac doesn't cut it and find myself maxing out the cpu too easily.

 

[osofast240sx]

My point is that such speeds were available more than a year ago.

Apple has not made a claim that their speeds are light-years faster than the so-called competition. I've only seen them compare to their own products.