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New Mac Pro thread (merged)
- Thread starter Supermacguy
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DJenkins
macrumors 6502
Unfortunately I'm not that surprised by Apple's move here. Their entire manta is to cut down and simplify.
The resulting products are then dictated to the consumer as 'the new way', rather than listening to what people actually wanted in the first place.
Sometimes this works, sometimes it doesn't. Just listening to the common crowd could impede real innovative spark, but in this case there is no need for a smaller form factor machine at sacrifice of major functionality and performance.
What they have done is effectively sidestepped everyones requests for expandability and passed them onto 3rd party Thunderbolt vendors.
They created a platform where they cannot be held responsible for certain compatibility or features, because if it's not offered by Apple it's another hardware vendors fault/problem now. If it doesn't fly with the vendors or pros - or worse still, their hope for an expanding pro-sumer market, they can just kill it and say - "see that's why we hesitated to release a new one!".
In stead of trying to please everyone, they have gone the opposite direction and purposefully pleased no-one. Someone would have complained no matter what they released, but I don't think anyone would have complained that a more feature packed powerhouse wasn't 'small enough'.
I agree that the design and engineering in this machine is impressive. It's a cool idea. It's not however a professional workstation by any stretch of the imagination in this current environment.
By 'in this current environment' I mean Apple have designed something far ahead of its time. Someone can probably point out past examples where that have done this, but I'm going to give an extreme view of what I think Apple were thinking.
If cloud storage and cloud processing was more advanced, this machine would be great. People are complaining about needing cables running everywhere well I'm sure Apple would like you to have no cables at all in the future! Use the super fast PCIe SSD for you OS and apps only. Connect via wifi to your music and photo library either in the cloud or in a central home server in a closet somewhere. Connect via thunderbolt (adapters) to a fibre connection for heavy duty work.
Of course my assumptions are probably very flawed but you get the idea.
What is a massive failure is that TODAY you still need to compute inside the box, and their offering has absolutely no advantage what-soever over other competition.
Mac pro will have a 12 core processor wow, I already have that today, and later you will be able to get a PC with 2x 12 core CPUs.
Mac pro will have 2 x super fast GPUs wow, Tutor has already built a rig with 8x GTX Titans housed INTERNALLY.
Mac pro will have a super fast PCIe SSD wow, these have been available in PCs for years already. I bought a 240GB OCZ one for $200.
Yes you can buy countless thunderbolt enclosures and jam them with as many GPUs as you want however I think the Thunderbolt bandwidth would be a huge bottleneck on possible performance.
And to those saying you can fit more Apple units into a rack space for a render farm well you can fit 2x or even 4x the amount of processors onto a single PC motherboard without the cost of the extra GPUs, SSD, case etc.
What is a real embarrassment for Apple is that this machine will not even have the raw computing performance of what you can do with 3-4 year old technology already.
Unfortunately most people on here are tech-heads who see the value and difference in these performance specs, hence the fierce debate. Whereas A LOT of consumers and even pros are easily convinced that newer = better and will blindly buy into it.
It makes me feel a little better that my Hackintosh could still possibly come out on top of Apple's BEST offerings for another few years. And it was the first computer I ever built. By the time it will be beaten, it could be running on five or six year old tech! (With exception of course to current GPU upgrades but that's the advantage - I CAN upgrade easily.)
I do agree with previous statements that a big part of this move is to use the smaller size to cut down general production and also shipping costs. It's common for Apple to have stocks in very short supply after a new release. If you can fit 2x the amount of product in a shipping container, you can ease this problem somewhat.
Anyway enough of my rant, I was prepared to give Apple up to $10,000 of my money if they released a decent machine a year ago. They forced my hand and now I have learned to build my own machines so they will never see another dollar of mine again. After this release I will also be building a fleet of massively spec'd Hackintoshes for my workplace as we eventually transition over to Windows. That could be over $100,000 of revenue lost from just one person, and I'm sure I'm not alone!
The resulting products are then dictated to the consumer as 'the new way', rather than listening to what people actually wanted in the first place.
Sometimes this works, sometimes it doesn't. Just listening to the common crowd could impede real innovative spark, but in this case there is no need for a smaller form factor machine at sacrifice of major functionality and performance.
What they have done is effectively sidestepped everyones requests for expandability and passed them onto 3rd party Thunderbolt vendors.
They created a platform where they cannot be held responsible for certain compatibility or features, because if it's not offered by Apple it's another hardware vendors fault/problem now. If it doesn't fly with the vendors or pros - or worse still, their hope for an expanding pro-sumer market, they can just kill it and say - "see that's why we hesitated to release a new one!".
In stead of trying to please everyone, they have gone the opposite direction and purposefully pleased no-one. Someone would have complained no matter what they released, but I don't think anyone would have complained that a more feature packed powerhouse wasn't 'small enough'.
I agree that the design and engineering in this machine is impressive. It's a cool idea. It's not however a professional workstation by any stretch of the imagination in this current environment.
By 'in this current environment' I mean Apple have designed something far ahead of its time. Someone can probably point out past examples where that have done this, but I'm going to give an extreme view of what I think Apple were thinking.
If cloud storage and cloud processing was more advanced, this machine would be great. People are complaining about needing cables running everywhere well I'm sure Apple would like you to have no cables at all in the future! Use the super fast PCIe SSD for you OS and apps only. Connect via wifi to your music and photo library either in the cloud or in a central home server in a closet somewhere. Connect via thunderbolt (adapters) to a fibre connection for heavy duty work.
Of course my assumptions are probably very flawed but you get the idea.
What is a massive failure is that TODAY you still need to compute inside the box, and their offering has absolutely no advantage what-soever over other competition.
Mac pro will have a 12 core processor wow, I already have that today, and later you will be able to get a PC with 2x 12 core CPUs.
Mac pro will have 2 x super fast GPUs wow, Tutor has already built a rig with 8x GTX Titans housed INTERNALLY.
Mac pro will have a super fast PCIe SSD wow, these have been available in PCs for years already. I bought a 240GB OCZ one for $200.
Yes you can buy countless thunderbolt enclosures and jam them with as many GPUs as you want however I think the Thunderbolt bandwidth would be a huge bottleneck on possible performance.
And to those saying you can fit more Apple units into a rack space for a render farm well you can fit 2x or even 4x the amount of processors onto a single PC motherboard without the cost of the extra GPUs, SSD, case etc.
What is a real embarrassment for Apple is that this machine will not even have the raw computing performance of what you can do with 3-4 year old technology already.
Unfortunately most people on here are tech-heads who see the value and difference in these performance specs, hence the fierce debate. Whereas A LOT of consumers and even pros are easily convinced that newer = better and will blindly buy into it.
It makes me feel a little better that my Hackintosh could still possibly come out on top of Apple's BEST offerings for another few years. And it was the first computer I ever built. By the time it will be beaten, it could be running on five or six year old tech! (With exception of course to current GPU upgrades but that's the advantage - I CAN upgrade easily.)
I do agree with previous statements that a big part of this move is to use the smaller size to cut down general production and also shipping costs. It's common for Apple to have stocks in very short supply after a new release. If you can fit 2x the amount of product in a shipping container, you can ease this problem somewhat.
Anyway enough of my rant, I was prepared to give Apple up to $10,000 of my money if they released a decent machine a year ago. They forced my hand and now I have learned to build my own machines so they will never see another dollar of mine again. After this release I will also be building a fleet of massively spec'd Hackintoshes for my workplace as we eventually transition over to Windows. That could be over $100,000 of revenue lost from just one person, and I'm sure I'm not alone!
Wow, fleet of hackintoshe's? Let us know how that goes.
Yeah, apple could have done better with this. I liked the idea of a machine that was a little lighter, but not at the cost of a cpu (only one?) And the beloved open pci slots (pay more for a chassis with less bandwidth). Still not sure if I can escape the apple ecosystem (deathstar look is fitting). Sure there is an extra gpu, but i like computing power - don't trust the eyes, they can deceive you
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Btw Triangle shape would have been cool
they should have shaped it like the internals. Right now it looks like a toilet brush holder
they should have shaped it like the internals. Right now it looks like a toilet brush holder
xgman
macrumors 603
then clearly not meant for you or anyone else who is complaining about the design.
krye
macrumors 68000
I don't know what everyone's complaining about when it comes to external storage. People are making complaints that they're going to have a rats nest of cables, adapters, and power strips all over their desks. In reality, how many hard drives are you really going to use?
With the current Mac Pro, you could have 4. Are all 4 of your drive bays full?
All 4 of mine were full, but it's because I've upgraded over the years. Started with the stock 250, needed a 500, then a 750, then a 1TB. After a while I thought to myself, why don't I just ditch all these "little" drives and just get a 2TB drive? So I did. Now I have a bunch of empty drive bays. I don't need 4 hard drives. Not to mention, 3TBs are coming down in price. Do you really need more than 12TB of hdd space in a tower?
OK, so you want multiple drives for redundancy. Check. I picked up a FW Drobo and filled it with 2TB drives. So I have 1 external box. Just one! With 8TB of storage. 1 wire, 1 adapter. Done. I don't have a huge rats nest of cables.
If you're worried about external drives piling up over time, then you should start out right and get a multiple drive enclosure right off the bat. Future-proof your upgrades. And it doesn't have to be on your desk in your face. You can have it off to the side or whatever, as long as the cable reaches.
As far as the optical drive...you get a $20 USB one and keep it in a drawer. You pull it out once in a blue moon when you need to use it and put it back when you're done. Just like your scanner, or your <<insert random USB device you rarely use>>.
I don't think it's going to be a problem. I like having 1 drive for my OS/apps, and one for my data. Keeping my Home directory on another drive helped give me a little speed bump, but that probably wont be an issue with the new machine. I might get away with having everything on the internal drive, (as long as it's big enough, but unlikely) and use the Drobo as a backup.
So I'm OK with 1 drive internal to the new Mac Pro and having an external RAID.
I think people are mostly complaining because they won't be able to buy cheap $90 SATA drives on Amazon anymore. They'll actually have to cough up some money for a USB 3 or Thunderbolt enclosure.
With the current Mac Pro, you could have 4. Are all 4 of your drive bays full?
All 4 of mine were full, but it's because I've upgraded over the years. Started with the stock 250, needed a 500, then a 750, then a 1TB. After a while I thought to myself, why don't I just ditch all these "little" drives and just get a 2TB drive? So I did. Now I have a bunch of empty drive bays. I don't need 4 hard drives. Not to mention, 3TBs are coming down in price. Do you really need more than 12TB of hdd space in a tower?
OK, so you want multiple drives for redundancy. Check. I picked up a FW Drobo and filled it with 2TB drives. So I have 1 external box. Just one! With 8TB of storage. 1 wire, 1 adapter. Done. I don't have a huge rats nest of cables.
If you're worried about external drives piling up over time, then you should start out right and get a multiple drive enclosure right off the bat. Future-proof your upgrades. And it doesn't have to be on your desk in your face. You can have it off to the side or whatever, as long as the cable reaches.
As far as the optical drive...you get a $20 USB one and keep it in a drawer. You pull it out once in a blue moon when you need to use it and put it back when you're done. Just like your scanner, or your <<insert random USB device you rarely use>>.
I don't think it's going to be a problem. I like having 1 drive for my OS/apps, and one for my data. Keeping my Home directory on another drive helped give me a little speed bump, but that probably wont be an issue with the new machine. I might get away with having everything on the internal drive, (as long as it's big enough, but unlikely) and use the Drobo as a backup.
So I'm OK with 1 drive internal to the new Mac Pro and having an external RAID.
I think people are mostly complaining because they won't be able to buy cheap $90 SATA drives on Amazon anymore. They'll actually have to cough up some money for a USB 3 or Thunderbolt enclosure.
GermanyChris
macrumors 601
I'm up to 3 4TB and an SSD and 2 3TB sitting on a SATA card..Then I have the NAS external, then I have the archive drives..
krye
macrumors 68000
Is that just redundant overkill or do you really have that much "active" data? I burn stuff to blu rays for archival/backup. There's some stuff I'd like to keep, but it doesn't need to live fulltime on my hard drive. Like legacy software, old installers, and ISOs, etc. I must have a good 50 Gigs worth of old "nice to haves". I might need something one day, but it doesn't need to sit on my hdd.
If I make an iMovie project that has 10 Gigs worth of assets, I burn it to a blu ray once I've exported the finished movie. I might never need to go back and tweak it, but it's nice to know that I have it archived on a blu ray. Why have the source material sitting on a hard drive year after year if you're never ever going to go back and do anything with it?
OH, PS: Do you think we're getting a new keyboard and mouse to match the new black aluminum?
GermanyChris
macrumors 601
I have 4 computers plus my work computer backed up to it..I have every video of my daughter on it countless uncompressed blurays etc. etc. My Mac Pro hold my life that's why it's backed up and archived. The other two tend to be working drives configured how ever they need to be
Well currently the octopus is under the desk so I guess we need it to be visible.
DeepIn2U
macrumors G5
LOL ... man that is awesome! Love it!
So ... what is the official name that we're giving this new Mac Pro?
R2D2?
Am I correct that the only sound output will be a mini-RCA? I don't see any higher grade audio connections and while an external PCI-e sound card is doable, it adds to the cable clutter that everyone else is complaining about.
As I built my own desk to have my Mac Pro and peripherals below, if I decide to buy new, I could always put the Mac Pro on top as an homage to "Close Encounters of the Third Kind" and run cable below to all the necessary peripherals on my computer cart.
As an aside, I saw on article on Intel assisting other manufacturers with lowered processor costs to help them create inexpensive ultrabooks, with the article asserting that most of the cost goes to the processor. If that's the case, then I guess we can't expect much savings in the new Mac Pro that eliminates the aluminum case and the internal connections for storage and PCI-e cards. So rather than blame Apple for the cost, just remember Intel sets the prices for the processors.
As I built my own desk to have my Mac Pro and peripherals below, if I decide to buy new, I could always put the Mac Pro on top as an homage to "Close Encounters of the Third Kind" and run cable below to all the necessary peripherals on my computer cart.
As an aside, I saw on article on Intel assisting other manufacturers with lowered processor costs to help them create inexpensive ultrabooks, with the article asserting that most of the cost goes to the processor. If that's the case, then I guess we can't expect much savings in the new Mac Pro that eliminates the aluminum case and the internal connections for storage and PCI-e cards. So rather than blame Apple for the cost, just remember Intel sets the prices for the processors.
Nugget
macrumors 68020
It's probably safe to assume that it will be a hybrid analog/digital jack just like the laptops and TVs have. Does optical digital count as "higher grade" to you? Dropping the TOSLINK S/PDIF seems reasonable to me as long as the line out has optical in it, but perhaps there's some nuance I'm missing.
Nice dream having 10 gigs of assets... by the time I finish working on a movie, there's usually 8 TB of data kicking around.
BJonson
macrumors 6502a
I don't get the people advocating the use of external drives for the new mac pro. I am a windows programmer by day and a father of 3 by all day and night. I can't live without my mac pro and ALL of its storage bays. I currently have mine filled with a blu-ray drive, ssd, 3 x 3tb drives and a 2tb and I could still use more. I have tried to go with an imac or a mac mini but with all the problems external drives give me I can't see life without my mac pro. Why do I need all that data, lol.
- 880gb of music.
- 1200gb of movies. I record my redbox rentals every time. Have a nice library.
- 500gb of DSLR photos of my family etc.
- 900gb of HD movies of my family etc. It adds up.
- 250gb of virtual drives for parallels. I need all the OSes with different configs for programming.
Do I watch them all the time, no. Do I want to get to them immediatly if I need to? Yes. Think I want to fumble around through hundreds of blu-ray discs to find that one photo or movie? NO. Then with all that data, I need to back it up with time machine so double that requirement and add double to that so the backups don't fill up.
I mean really? Do any of you people even use your computers? I am getting ready to purchase 4 x 4tb drives to satisfy this need. Sorry not gonna get an external so I can hear the fan run all the time, have it use more power to run, take up space and be slow. No external drive on the market is without some pain in the rear problem whether it be a loud fan, failures or slow speeds. I'll keep it internal until I can't with apple anymore then I will stop using apple. Keep the mac pro for archives and pick up a Dell workstation and fill it up with drives to last me another 10yrs.
- 880gb of music.
- 1200gb of movies. I record my redbox rentals every time. Have a nice library.
- 500gb of DSLR photos of my family etc.
- 900gb of HD movies of my family etc. It adds up.
- 250gb of virtual drives for parallels. I need all the OSes with different configs for programming.
Do I watch them all the time, no. Do I want to get to them immediatly if I need to? Yes. Think I want to fumble around through hundreds of blu-ray discs to find that one photo or movie? NO. Then with all that data, I need to back it up with time machine so double that requirement and add double to that so the backups don't fill up.
I mean really? Do any of you people even use your computers? I am getting ready to purchase 4 x 4tb drives to satisfy this need. Sorry not gonna get an external so I can hear the fan run all the time, have it use more power to run, take up space and be slow. No external drive on the market is without some pain in the rear problem whether it be a loud fan, failures or slow speeds. I'll keep it internal until I can't with apple anymore then I will stop using apple. Keep the mac pro for archives and pick up a Dell workstation and fill it up with drives to last me another 10yrs.
drsox
macrumors 68000
IMO get a RAID NAS for all your non "real-time" data. Put it on the end of a CAT6 LAN with >100MBps access.
Very quiet, expandable, easy to mirror etc. I have 3 with 7+TB in total.
BJonson
macrumors 6502a
LOL. So add a lan, by an expensive RAID NAS, find a spot for it all in my little office and I'm good? Let me call the bank to re-mortgage.
GermanyChris
macrumors 601
Or could ya know buy a computer that lets you put silly things like hard drives in it I know it seems old school and all..
i have a similar set-up. Waiting to see what the specs and price actually are - if i move forward with Darth Mac going to the the current mp as a server. Just start it in target mode and get full use of the hd and optical dd
http://netkas.org/?p=1277
So Nvidia is still writing drivers for newer cards coming in future. Before that Netkas noticed Tesla drivers in 10.9.
The drivers don't exist in 10.8.3.
What is likely to need Tesla card in future?
So Nvidia is still writing drivers for newer cards coming in future. Before that Netkas noticed Tesla drivers in 10.9.
The drivers don't exist in 10.8.3.
What is likely to need Tesla card in future?
BJonson
macrumors 6502a
Might as well get the existing 12 core mac and move it all over. Not seeing the benefit of the Darth Mac. How much faster can it really be if they are both 12 core? Even the old mac pro can use the excelsior OWC card and achieve same or close SSD speeds. Hmm, I have a 3,1 2008 mac pro. Might just give in and get the latest (old) mac pro they have before they are gone or buy a used one. Hopefully the prices will drop when the Darth Mac is for sale, if there are any left. Got a feeling they are going to get snatched up rather quickly.
Go and see it working
First live demo of Vaders head in the link above!! It looks the nuts!
First live demo of Vaders head in the link above!! It looks the nuts!
