New Mac Pro thread (merged)

[goodcow]

6 Thunderbolt 2, NO FW800.

Why the hell is everyone angry about this? Just use a damn FW800 to Thunderbolt adapter. What's the big deal?

 

[theSeb]

Basically what other folks have said around the mac pro mini comments.

1. SDD is great for applications, but price prohibitive for 5-10 TB of video storage. These extra drives should go inside the computer not on the desk. Desk is for external backups and not primary storage

2. GPUs sounds fast now, but what wabout 5 years after you have bought the machine?

3. Where do the industry specific add-on cards go?

1. Not sure why you think so. You don't have to put your external drive arrays on your desk. Enterprises manage to survive with not having storage inside every computer.

2. You buy a new one. If you are a professional making money, then I don't see why you would be sitting there trying to upgrade the GPU, when you simply write off the asset and buy another one to reduce your profit and increase your income with a faster computer. It's a no brainer

3. I agree on this one. I think Apple expects us to use external PCIe boxes, but these are limited currently in compatibility and trying to manage all of those cables quickly becomes stupid and looks like a dog's breakfast.

 

[Mac Hammer Fan]

Pretty disappointing to see all the negative comments. THEY'RE UPDATING THE MAC PRO you guys should be excited, or at the very least, glad that this is happening.

Sure, you can be that negative guy, and want a square form, upgradable this and that - but you're an APPLE owner. I seriously have a hard time understanding how supposedly "professional" people, can be so narrow minded and hard to please. If you want upgradability, you should have gone over to PC years ago. Bitching about a seemingly grandiose upgrade, while we have had to hear you bitch for years about that there wasn't (probably) gonna be an upgrade at all, just makes you guys look super lame. Sorry to say.

They are downgrading it to a Mac Pro Mini. Where is the internal upgradeability and expandibility? Sorry. I keep my current Mac Pro, for sure.

 

[sam0329]

so can we upgrade video card in the future?

 

[ThisIsNotMe]

 

[Wardenski]

Ha...

So we flipped from "Cheese Grater" to "Garbage Can" !

I'm currently loving my Cheese Grater.....

Maybe the top opens up to reveal a blender.

 

[calaverasgrande]

well I like the new design direction from an aesthetic standpoint. The stainless steel look has kind of trickled down to even crapola you buy at your local Kmart.

I wonder if it comes in white?
I also wonder if they will sell a headless version with no graphics cards for folks that just want to set up a server, or several for render farms.
I certainly wouldn't want to pay for a video card that will only get used once while I enable screen sharing.

 

[0488568]

http://www.apple.com/mac-pro/

OH come on it's BRILLIANT. Think about the design for cooling. They will have high power chips etc, and need to cool it down. How better than a cylinder.
Steve Jobs is applauding in his grave.

Really? Where are you going to stick multiple (3-4) video cards? How about RAID setups? Only 4 memory slots? Really... How about Pcie stuff?

Welcome to the iMac pro....

 

[Anon Tobin]

Pretty disappointing to see all the negative comments. THEY'RE UPDATING THE MAC PRO you guys should be excited, or at the very least, glad that this is happening.

Sure, you can be that negative guy, and want a square form, upgradable this and that - but you're an APPLE owner. I seriously have a hard time understanding how supposedly "professional" people, can be so narrow minded and hard to please. If you want upgradability, you should have gone over to PC years ago. Bitching about a seemingly grandiose upgrade, while we have had to hear you bitch for years about that there wasn't (probably) gonna be an upgrade at all, just makes you guys look super lame. Sorry to say.

How are we supposed to feel?

They pretty much axed the Mac Pro by eliminating all the things that made it worth buying.

 

[Wardenski]

second image

I don't see the controls for the tractor beam generator?

 

[sam0329]

That does not looks like a normal PCI-e card to me.

 

[RoastingPig]

wait can apple offer two mac pro's? the silver with updated components and the other comebucket trashcan

 

[Outrigger]

Really? Where are you going to stick multiple (3-4) video cards?

So where do you stick 3-4 videos cards in the old pro?

 

[greenmeanie]

YES
By throwing the TrashCan in the TrashCan and buying a new TrashCan LOL.

And if it ever makes it into a School system I can see the kids now crumpling up paper and trying to make two points in the top of it.

so can we upgrade video card in the future?

 

[jinnyman]

That does not looks like a normal PCI-e card to me.

Even worse, those two vga boards are not the same. One has PCIe slot for SSD.

I'd bet no user upgradable.
In best case scenario, limited user upgradable using only proprietary Apple form factor card sets.

 

[greenmeanie]

Probably the only one they will sell too LOL.

SO my wait is OVER. Waiting since 2008 for this speed bump and here it is. For those naysayers, do you want your CROW ala-mode?
Ordering one the SECOND the store come back on line

 

[clamnectar]

I sort-of called it the other day.

Modular makes almost no sense.
1. the technology doesn't easily support it
2. it's basically the antithesis of apple's quasi-fascist design philosophy. simplicity, elegance, unity, and iconic/monolithic design do not jive with lego block/choose-your-own-adventure style computing
3. it doesn't even make business sense. they would rather you buy a whole new machine than swap a piece out here and there. obsolescence is profit.

https://forums.macrumors.com/posts/17361218/

The only modular-ish thing I can possibly envision is a "power brick" concept, where each machine is a non-expandable XEON+GPU+SSD+RAM in the tightest package possible for a price like $2200, and you can buy multiple and link them together with a new and/or improved distributed processing protocol to make a little supercomputer. It would give the amateurs a high-powered mac mini at a not-crazy price, the pros a really powerful data cruncher at twice that price, and researchers and institutions a scalable supercomputer.

Still sounds pretty un-apple, but you never know.

https://forums.macrumors.com/posts/17362529/


And you know what... it doesn't feel that great to be right. That said, one thing that looks great about this machine, which I didn't consider beforehand, is how quiet it must be. This thing is probably almost silent.

 

[spoonie1972]

i hope apple also has a PCIe expansion chassis that is a hell of a lot cheaper than Magma's stuff.

 

[Hitrate]

I don't know. It just seems a bit, hasty, to jump to all those negative conclusions. Let it come out, have a go at it, buy a few fw800 adapters, and make sure to get the full spec'ed out version - I'm pretty sure most people are gonna be thrilled by it's performance. But right now, it seems like it's time for the flood of haters, just because it's not continuing old trends, made of plastic or whatever else you people can find to diss.

How are we supposed to feel?

They pretty much axed the Mac Pro by eliminating all the things that made it worth buying.

 

[barmann]

Hmmm, perhaps a bungled you can buy 6 FW dongles reference. Not sure what would be 'forward' of FW800 to be backward compatible with. Yes there is a faster FW out there, but no I highly doubt Apple picked it up (or any other PC vendor) as opposed to just selling more TB dongles.

Apple's not like that ; Macs don't require dongles, 'it just works' .
Wait ...

As long as don't need power and it is a dongle it probably works.

Yup, power, there's the rub .
It's a rare issue, though , for just a few cameras and still backs, that don't use their own power sources when connected .

 

[Dr. Stealth]

Trash Can ????


And..... I don't think it looks like a Trash Can at all.....

 

[Anon Tobin]

I don't know. It just seems a bit, hasty, to jump to all those negative conclusions. Let it come out, have a go at it, buy a few fw800 adapters, and make sure to get the full spec'ed out version - I'm pretty sure most people are gonna be thrilled by it's performance. But right now, it seems like it's time for the flood of haters, just because it's not continuing old trends, made of plastic or whatever else you people can find to diss.

It has no PCI-e slots. That is a big deal breaker for a lot of people.

 

[clamnectar]

But right now, it seems like it's time for the flood of haters, just because it's not continuing old trends, made of plastic or whatever else you people can find to diss.

Plus, it's not even made of plastic. From apple.com/mac-pro/:

Refined impact extrusion technologies are more material-efficient and give the polished aluminum enclosure its incredible shape and finish.

 

[sn1p3r845]

After reading through the specs on Apple's site, two things are apparent.
1) Apple insists you use Thunderbolt.
2) Apple is trying very hard to discourage use of Adobe's video products.

I like the aluminum can and the single fan design. It looks like 4-channel RAM is upgradable, which is nice. I just have to figure out the cost / justification of moving from a mini-SAS RAID box to a Thunderbolt RAID box, and also an external CUDA GPU system, if that's even possible.

as you know, I'm quite literally in the same position as you. I just upgraded my 8 core to a GTX 680 as well.. hmm.

 

[ValSalva]

The SSD's look like blades that sit on the back of the graphics cards and are secured with a screw. I'll bet it/they are user upgradeable.