I think it's overpowered for the average person. The whole point I made this thread is too see what the "Pro Users" really do.
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So what exactly do you use your Mac Pro for?
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I think it's overpowered for the average person. The whole point I made this thread is too see what the "Pro Users" really do.
Solitaire via bootcamp!
j/k
I use mine for architectural design and visualization (autocad, rhino, 3ds max, maxwell render, c4d etc.).... most of the preliminary ends up getting done at school on my mbp, but my wife uses the mp for facebook gaming...... oh and i post on macrumors... that should count for a lot more
j/k
I use mine for architectural design and visualization (autocad, rhino, 3ds max, maxwell render, c4d etc.).... most of the preliminary ends up getting done at school on my mbp, but my wife uses the mp for facebook gaming......
oh and i post on macrumors... that should count for a lot more
OK, fair enough. That's an easy one to answer then.
Rendering. Particularly the 3D Graphics variety where rendering engines are truly multi threaded. If you're into that (I am) then you can never have enough cores, memory or speed. That will always be true until you hit the render button and your animation plays in real time which is still quite a way off.
astrophysics
I use my MacPro1,1 for astrophysical research, sometimes processing large-format images taken by professional observatories (e.g., HST, CFHT, SMA, Gemini, and Subaru), sometimes carrying out various kinds of simulations.
My MacPro is nearly idle for most of the time, when I use it to read (papers, news) and write (papers). But when I do use it for the above tasks, I hope it can get much faster. I am waiting for the next update of MacPro so I can replace the current one.
I use my MacPro1,1 for astrophysical research, sometimes processing large-format images taken by professional observatories (e.g., HST, CFHT, SMA, Gemini, and Subaru), sometimes carrying out various kinds of simulations.
My MacPro is nearly idle for most of the time, when I use it to read (papers, news) and write (papers). But when I do use it for the above tasks, I hope it can get much faster. I am waiting for the next update of MacPro so I can replace the current one.
Yeah that was the most common answer in this thread. How'd you get into that kind of stuff?
Rendering...
Rendering, rendering, rendering... lots of Photoshop, Quark, web design, learning new stuff such as Premiere, C4D, Maya, After Effects, but mostly 3D modelling with Strata CX6, and rendering, images and movies. My main client bought it for me about 2 years ago, and the only time it's not running flat out is when we have a power cut! They loved what I do for them, so thought it would be good for them (and me) if I had the best system I could get - which at the time it was. Still stupidly powerful though - I'm hard-pressed to really bring it to it's knees. Quiet too, which means I can have it running constantly without fan noise being a nuisance - some of those PeeCee things sound like they're generating a tornado! It's also meant that the quality of what I do has gone through the roof, as the rendering times are now tolerable, though as has been said, you can never have too much power. Consequently, my client likes me even more, and I got a raft of hard disks and a Wacom Intuos 4 tablet as a bonus! Plus I work from home, come and go as I please, get paid enough to live quite comfortably... life's good!
I actually feel guilty if I'm not using it to do something useful - all that lovely power going to waste, just seems wrong. I never run a screen saver, never play games on it (Use a Mac Pro for playing mere games? Like mowing the lawn with a Lamborghini Diablo!), and every morning, I've got something new to look at. I just love it! Did I mention rendering?
Rendering, rendering, rendering... lots of Photoshop, Quark, web design, learning new stuff such as Premiere, C4D, Maya, After Effects, but mostly 3D modelling with Strata CX6, and rendering, images and movies. My main client bought it for me about 2 years ago, and the only time it's not running flat out is when we have a power cut! They loved what I do for them, so thought it would be good for them (and me) if I had the best system I could get - which at the time it was. Still stupidly powerful though - I'm hard-pressed to really bring it to it's knees. Quiet too, which means I can have it running constantly without fan noise being a nuisance - some of those PeeCee things sound like they're generating a tornado! It's also meant that the quality of what I do has gone through the roof, as the rendering times are now tolerable, though as has been said, you can never have too much power. Consequently, my client likes me even more, and I got a raft of hard disks and a Wacom Intuos 4 tablet as a bonus! Plus I work from home, come and go as I please, get paid enough to live quite comfortably... life's good!
I actually feel guilty if I'm not using it to do something useful - all that lovely power going to waste, just seems wrong. I never run a screen saver, never play games on it (Use a Mac Pro for playing mere games? Like mowing the lawn with a Lamborghini Diablo!), and every morning, I've got something new to look at. I just love it! Did I mention rendering?
Of course a Mac Pro is overpowered for the average person. An average person does not need a workstation to run Office or to browse the web. And they typically don't buy Mac Pros.
Were you assuming the average Mac Pro owner doesn't actually need the power? There certainly must be some, but I doubt very many. Everyone I know with a MP works in video, graphics or heavy number crunching and definitely can use the speed and expansion options that (among Macs) only the MP can provide.
I suspect we're past the point where a big hulking tower of power is a status symbol. The MP is no sexy beast (see the thread about relative sexiness of MP vs. the new Mini). It's a workhorse.
No, I wasn't assuming that. I was just finding out what people do with all that power, and they have answered.
Mostly illustration (huge multi-layer .psd documents), but occasionally 2D animation and web design. Oh, and Starcraft 2!
Honestly I probably only need a mid-range tower (but that will never happen). I considered a top of the line iMac for a long time but there were too many downsides (stuck with a glossy screen and limited expandability).
Also, I seemed to get these 'straight line artifacts' when I was zoomed out drawing a curve with my Wacom tablet. It's tough to explain, but Adobe couldn't figure it out either. Maybe I'm just very OCD, but this Mac Pro fixed that problem!
Honestly I probably only need a mid-range tower (but that will never happen
). I considered a top of the line iMac for a long time but there were too many downsides (stuck with a glossy screen and limited expandability).Also, I seemed to get these 'straight line artifacts' when I was zoomed out drawing a curve with my Wacom tablet. It's tough to explain, but Adobe couldn't figure it out either. Maybe I'm just very OCD, but this Mac Pro fixed that problem!
Truth be told, I'm one of those guys who doesn't "need" a Mac Pro, but filling into its uses allows me to work faster/better. I like photography and graphic design, the Mac Pro likes to render... match made in heaven
I may not be a "pro" per-se, but the absence of income doesn't classify me as "undeserving." Amateurs can work with the very same complex projects, using just as much power.
The internetz is for pr0n!
Oh wait, wrong thread. =p
People generally use it to edit videos / process things / work / open hundreds of browser tabs / etc.
Oh wait, wrong thread. =p
People generally use it to edit videos / process things / work / open hundreds of browser tabs / etc.
My 09 Quad MP is like a big shoe that I'm hoping some day to fill. I would like to do more video and photo editing. I would like to do more DVD ripping (and hopefully Blu-ray someday). And install a useful PACS for radiology stuff. Having a dedicated graphics card is great for gaming. I'm just happy that this monster will keep me happy for a while (although the new imacs are very tempting!). 
Non Pro user here. Bought it for many reasons that make sense to me, doesn't bother me if people think I wasted my money.
I use my 2008 2.8 for the internets, mail, gaming, some aperture and video work (light, MBP would handle it, MP just does it 10x faster), rip DVDs, library for my apple tv. The expandability, ability to upgrade and sheer power is also why I have it. No worry about a new computer for 5 years at least.
I also had all the extra desktop components from my home built machine like a monitor, extra HD's, PCI-E cards, so I didn't want an imac. Plus I don't like all in ones as you really can't upgrade them.
Bought it for dirt cheap, 1800 when on end of life brand new from apple. It replaced a home built gaming system and two powermacs. Between selling the other computers this was replacing and selling a few more of the mac pros on EOL, it didn't even cost me 1000. Even fell into 10 more gigs of ram for dirt cheap.
Overkill for sure. But I like that I can be ripping a DVD, converting a library of DVD rips to apple TV format, working with aperture, and browse the internet without a hiccup.
I use my 2008 2.8 for the internets, mail, gaming, some aperture and video work (light, MBP would handle it, MP just does it 10x faster), rip DVDs, library for my apple tv. The expandability, ability to upgrade and sheer power is also why I have it. No worry about a new computer for 5 years at least.
I also had all the extra desktop components from my home built machine like a monitor, extra HD's, PCI-E cards, so I didn't want an imac. Plus I don't like all in ones as you really can't upgrade them.
Bought it for dirt cheap, 1800 when on end of life brand new from apple. It replaced a home built gaming system and two powermacs. Between selling the other computers this was replacing and selling a few more of the mac pros on EOL, it didn't even cost me 1000. Even fell into 10 more gigs of ram for dirt cheap.
Overkill for sure. But I like that I can be ripping a DVD, converting a library of DVD rips to apple TV format, working with aperture, and browse the internet without a hiccup.
If you mean why did I get into it, I guess I've always been fascinated by the idea that you can make something on screen that doesn't exist. These days, the quality of software rendering is photographic which is awesome.
If you mean how do you learn it, You can teach yourself with tutorials and help from folks on forums or you can go to college. I'm self taught.
Don't have a Mac Pro yet, am awaiting the release of the 2010 models. Looking forward to the increase in performance from my macbook pro though. As a photographer, most of its life will be spent in LR3 and Photoshop CS5, Adobe InDesign and also use it for generating DVD slideshows (amazing how long those sodding things take to export into 1080p x264 movies).
I could happily do all of that on a 2009 Mac Pro but I have an issue with paying full whack for a machine that is a year and a half old. Would piss me off royally if I paid that and 2 weeks later they released the 2010 machine for not much off the same price. I could also do most of it on the iMac but I don't want the built in screen and want the ability to whack a few more HDD's in there.
I could happily do all of that on a 2009 Mac Pro but I have an issue with paying full whack for a machine that is a year and a half old. Would piss me off royally if I paid that and 2 weeks later they released the 2010 machine for not much off the same price. I could also do most of it on the iMac but I don't want the built in screen and want the ability to whack a few more HDD's in there.
I had a MP08 8-core, 8gb ram, ssd, 3 drive stripe, 24" LCD, etc. Most intensive task it did was LR2 for raw photos, but mostly just going online which I can do with my 5yr old P4.
So I sold it and will get a 27" Core i5 iMac. Sure, I'll lose on absolute processing power, disk performance, etc, but for me, the 27" screen will more than offset the loss while netting some money in my pocket.
So I sold it and will get a 27" Core i5 iMac. Sure, I'll lose on absolute processing power, disk performance, etc, but for me, the 27" screen will more than offset the loss while netting some money in my pocket.
I've had my MacPro for 4 years now. Yes it's more power than I need, even now. I have an extensive DVD collection which I rip and store on my 4TB along with music, TV series, pictures and ebooks. I started with 500GB and added 1TB in the drives each year. It's time to rotate them out and put in new drives. I'm so happy the TB drives are now under $100. I previously had a iMac PPC that took forever to rip, even my Macbook Pro with 4GB memory takes its time next to my MacPro (currently using 8GB memory). It's just so fine to be able to add memory and additional HD. It is a bit heavy but I don't move it often.
I previously had a iMac PPC that took forever to rip, even my Macbook Pro with 4GB memory takes its time next to my MacPro (currently using 8GB memory). It's just so fine to be able to add memory and additional HD. It is a bit heavy but I don't move it often.Mainframe emulation
I use my MAC PRO Nehalem to emulate 2 IBM Mainframes running Z/OS 1.4 with DB2, IMS & CICS, both virtual machines are connected using a virtual channel attachment and each machine has 3 CPUs defined in Hercules (the emulator) and they share DASD definitions of 3390 disks that are stored in a RAID 0 defined in 4 TB disks, boot drive is a velociraptor, I usually connect up to 4 TSO users using TCP/IP ports to perform testing under those virtual machines.
Also run a Windows VM using VMWARE
I use my MAC PRO Nehalem to emulate 2 IBM Mainframes running Z/OS 1.4 with DB2, IMS & CICS, both virtual machines are connected using a virtual channel attachment and each machine has 3 CPUs defined in Hercules (the emulator) and they share DASD definitions of 3390 disks that are stored in a RAID 0 defined in 4 TB disks, boot drive is a velociraptor, I usually connect up to 4 TSO users using TCP/IP ports to perform testing under those virtual machines.
Also run a Windows VM using VMWARE
You should buy a used 3745 FEP with a Bus and tag to USB converter module and attach it to your mac, get some 3720 terminals Might as well go whole hog