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Teardown of New Mac Pro Reveals Surprising Amount of Accessibility, Circular Daughterboard
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LOL okay .. so now we're paying $2999 and getting a slightly cheaper and slower CPU than Haswell on the iMac?
Yes I have thought this through and I would love an xMac given Apple sells it.
But, as a matter of fact I accept the fact that it's just not Apple and it would never happen.
So again, why you have to yell and questioning at me again? I wasn't even talking to you in my last post. Do I not allowed to have my own opinion here? .. That is of course, a rhetorical question for you Mr. flat five.
compare the two.. (look at the memory specs for instance.. or # of pcie lanes)
the xeon doesn't have graphics so you're possibly losing that but you're gaining in other areas.. it's entirely arguable which is better because it depends on what exactly you need.
i dont know.. i really wish i could just get an imac/i7 and be done with it.. it's pretty damn great for 80% of my current needs..
but the other 20% is rendering or maxing cores so i have to pay a lot more for that type of processing.. (although i suspect we're getting really close to realtime rendering in which the nmp with d700s becomes a no-brainer choice over an imac for me)
if i read you correctly, your version of the xmax is one computer model which is configurable from, say, $600 - $10,000.. is that what your idea is?
a single macintosh which is highly configurable?
that idea won't work because the chassis alone which would be required to host the $10g version costs more than $600.. + different sockets required for different types of processing.. etc..
the advantages of this type of system over the current apple lineup is so small and the disadvantages are so big that i truly believe everybody loses.. apple as well as the users- from casual to pro..
since it's rhetorical then i suppose i don't have to answer..So again, why you have to yell and questioning at me again? I wasn't even talking to you in my last post. Do I not allowed to have my own opinion here? .. That is of course, a rhetorical question for you Mr. flat five.
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Performance. And the gap is less between the mini and base model and more between the quad i7 options and the six core. The top CPU mini is $899 and the six core MP is $3499. If Apple really considers a $3499 machine "midrange" they're a bit insane. There are definitely some pro users who can justify that price and take advantage of the hardware but for someone in the market for a true midrange machine it's overdesigned and overpriced.
As I've said over and over, the need for a midrange machine wouldn't be nearly as much if the mini used desktop parts and the mini or iMac (preferably both) went up to six core i7. The cost for the highest end quad i7 is $300, and going up to six core is only $300 more than that.
It also doesn't help matters that buying an iMac with the top speed and four ram slots instead of two requires shelling out for the bigger monitor as well.
I'll add one.
-macs are available in an overly limited number of options, such that if a certain level of performance is desired, the user is stuck paying for other expensive hardware that they may not need or be able to take advantage of
I don't mind paying a fair price for a machine that performs well. The problem is when the only option is to pay a lot more because Apple has thrown in extras (and chosen parts) that make the machine a lot more expensive but don't provide a given user any extra performance for all that money.
If I need a sedan, technically a giant moving van may get me to work and but that doesn't mean it suits my needs.
That's exactly what I did. Apple didn't make any computer that fit my needs so I built a hackintosh. I ended up with performance better than the quad core MP had at the time for half the price. I'd love to buy a mac next time around, I really would, but apple still has the giant gap in their product line.
But that ignores the cost of things like motherboard and ram. Either that or the base mac pro is just wildly overpriced for what it offers (I guess you're paying for "design"). The whole point is that Apple could build a headless machine with high end quad i7 for a hell of a lot less than $2999. They just choose not to.
Pointing out how cheap the CPU is in the $2999 machine doesn't exactly make the argument that that machine is fairly priced.
yeah, i definitely agree with that when looking at it from a cost perspective.. when looking at it from a performance perspective, this gap doesn't exist and you can get slight performance jumps from low end through top of the line.. there's no giant performance gap between a maxed imac and an entry mp..
and arguably, there's no giant performance gap between a top mini and quad mp. (until you consider openCL/display capabilities)..
when bring cost into the equation-- there are much more noticeable gaps.
right but that was used more to point out that it's pretty much impossible to build one mac which covers the entire spectrum of uses (one of the xmac ideas floating around).. you need that type of motherboard/socket/etc for a $5000 machine whereas you don't need it for a mac mini..
yeah, i'm sure they could.. but what does that do to the entire line up? it kills the chance for them to make a mac pro.. if they made a $2000 headless mac with a 6core i7 and high end graphics then there goes approx 70%(?) of macpro buyers.. and you've just killed the macpro- they couldn't afford to make it and suddenly their top offering becomes a blurred line between an 'xmac', an imac, and a macbook pro.
this isn't good for anybody except the people expecting to buy cheap medium powered macintoshes.. like it or not, i'm pretty sure apple is way better at producing a profitable spectrum of computers than anybody's "great idea in which everybody wins== apple makes more money, the users get better computers for cheaper, and everybody's needs are covered"... it's pretty clear to most people that apple are the best at making money which allows them to spend money producing things like the new mac pro.
there are other companies (most of them) who are selling the midrange computers in the way you describe but if apple tried to do it, they would get run out of business or certainly lose the design and build qualities etc that we're used to seeing.. i've said it before and i'll say it again-- if you want a 'midrange' macintosh then it comes in the form of used/refurb mac pros.. that's a huge market and it's evident in value a mac holds over time in comparison to other computer products..
if you want 'midrange' prices on high spec'd machines then you either do what most people do (buy last year's (or2) model) or buy from another company..
if you want osx, new products, and midrange pricing then you do what you've done.. hackintosh.
i don't know.. i really do feel there's a solution out there for everybody wishing to use mac.. the only one not available is a new&shiny pro grade computer for less than $2000.. people can sit around and complain/demand/etc this product to exist but if we do nothing other than look at the history of apple computers, we can see that it's not going to happen.. it's an exercise in futility to lock on to this new version of xmac and your energy would be better served if realizing you're hoping up the wrong tree.
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Not quite. An xMac, being a mid-range machine, would only take away potential customers from the entry level Mac Pro, which is already too expensive a machine for them to consider anyway. The people who need multi-core machines with workstation class GPUs would still buy one.
So you're saying when you pretend there's no gap in cost, there's no gap in cost.
That's good and well but we live in the real world where that gap actually exists.
Isn't that happening already to some degree with the "consumer" i7 machines that already perform as well or better than the base quad MP? In that case Apple doesn't seem to care if sales of $2200 iMacs decrease sales of $2999 mac pros.
Right now the main reasoning for Mac Pro is that a user wants more than four cores. Putting six in the consumer desktops would just shift that up to "more than six cores". And it would drop Mac Pro sales but as long as it boosted sales of the consumer machines that's still a win for Apple. Or apple could just figure out a way to make the quad and six core mac pros not quite so crazy expensive.
Just like every other machine isn't good for anybody except the people who actually want to buy it. I'd argue it would be good for Apple as well since it would make them more competitive and help them sell more computers. Right now people aren't stupid, it's not a secret that decent quad and even six core machines just don't need to cost $2999 or $3499. Even with Apple's generous profit margin.
Apple is good at making money, but that doesn't mean they never make bad decisions.
Nothing to back that up. Really, if they took the exact hardware in an iMac and repackaged it without a screen, that would do either of those two things? Or if they even put a six core i7 in the iMac or mini, which would make many of those wanting xMac happy.
That makes it obvious you haven't the foggiest clue what people actually are asking for.
In fact if you look at the history of Apple, there was a period of time when they were selling the base model of tower in the range of $1600-2000. Back then nobody was asking for the xMac because Apple was shipping it.
Who knows, once they've made back their design costs and component part costs start dropping, maybe Apple would actually start bringing the price of the base model back down again. But I'm not going to hold my breath.
I've seen this too. My wife (then girlfriend) had an iMac that was just outside of AppleCare and started acting kinda funny. Random shutdowns, and what not. We take it in, and they run a few tests. They think its the PSU, and point us to a new $2000 computer or a $1200 repair job. We look at the guy and say basically "why the hell would I spend $2000 on a computer if its going to break in 3 and half years and for $1200 I could by 3 PCs that all should last longer than 3.5 years" He had nothing left to say.
Its going to be the same with nMP. No longer will you walk into fry's to buy a PSU or GPU should you ever need one.
Or an AMD GPU. Or buy one direct from Apple or OWC. Youll be scrounging the spare parts bin on Ebay or replacing the whole machine via Apple. This isnt limited to Nvidia...but again comprehension issues.....
What do you do? Complain about someone complaining? How is that any better? At least when I send feedback to Apple it's to try and improve things. When you whine about me complaining all you do is try to tick me off or at least that is all you will accomplish by telling someone to go somewhere else and use some other products. It's not productive. It's not helpful. It's just rude. Just because you don't like my opinions that doesn't give you the right to behave in such a manner. Frankly, it's hypocritical. You want positivity? Say something positive. I want better Apple products.
So why do I buy Macs anyway? I happen to like OSX a LOT better than Windows and Linux. That doesn't mean I love my hardware choices. Unfortunately, the damn hardware is married to the software in a license-like manner so that leaves me few choices other than to build a Hackintosh replete with all its potential upgrade problems when updates to OSX come out. But this concept is foreign to you. It makes no sense. If I hate my Mac hardware choices I should go buy a Windows machine. Yeah....except it runs Windows. UGH. (spit). Yeah, that's just a tiny problem there. It'd be easier to get Apple to put out a better GPU option than to get Microsoft to make Windows NOT suck.
Oh I see I had been uploading the OS incrementally each year. You would need the Appstore so Lion at least I think.
You may be able to do this...
http://www.techrepublic.com/blog/apple-in-the-enterprise/how-to-create-a-bootable-usb-to-install-os-x-mavericks/
or
http://www.macworld.com/article/2056564/how-to-install-mavericks-over-leopard.html
if you must avoid the $20
http://store.apple.com/us/product/MC573Z/A/mac-os-x-106-snow-leopard
Aw! Cool man! Thanks!
i'm not pretending there's no gap in the cost between a mac mini and a mac pro (and i'm also not pretending there's no such thing as an iMac but...)
mac mini $1000
mac pro $3000
do you really think i don't notice a 2g difference in there? really?
the problem is this-- you keep talking about giant gaps in the lineup but you're not calling it for what it really is.. a cost complaint.
a giant gap in the line would be if apple sold an ipad and a mac pro and that's it.. then there's a performance gap but this gap doesn't actually exist.. the performance range is very well covered from basic needs to highend pro..
if you would just say what you're really saying --> "macs are expensive" then it would be a much easier conversation because i doubt very many people are going to disagree with you.. hiding that behind some sort of spec/performance issue isn't helping anything.. in fact, this is the only thing i'm arguing you about.. i'm saying the gap doesn't exist and you're saying it does.. i acknowledge (multiple times in the last page or two) that macs are expensive and there are price gaps in there but you keep trying to tell me there are price gaps.. (i.e.- youre telling me the same thing i'm already saying).. you see this, right?
yes it's happening.. that's what i keep trying to say.. not only do these gaps not exist-- there are overlaps throughout the lineup..
i bet i've asked this question a hundred times around here and nobody ever answers it..
what do you use your computer for- exactly?
because i'm sorry but i think most of you guys are full of it.. or that youre mainly spec nerds/geekbench players and i'm glad apple ignores you all or else they'd be making some pretty lame computers..
because here's the thing.. here's a few of my clients (i design/build skateparks)
so this ymcmb warehouse has a studio in there.. it's imacs and wayne personally carries a macbook.. (a lot of the released tracks are done at hit factory which uses mostly mac pros but i think $5000 computers are nothing when compared to the million dollar facilities which house them)
another rock star (that i actually put to work while he paid me
)same thing though.. imacs and macbooks in the home studio and macpros in the main studio..
here's a nice sized nyc agency that i do some work for from time to time and they're running all mac.. lots of macbooks and imacs and minis then creative is on mac pros.. (many are visible in this video but we had to move a lot of them out of the way for obvious reasons)
http://vimeo.com/30502845
i could keep going with this type of crap but i hope i don't have to in order to make the point I'm trying to make.. that being--> i see macs being used in nearly every one the the businesses i do business with (though somewhat ironic in that most of the companies which i have to communicate my actual working files with, the engineering firms, are on windows but even they are starting to incorporate mac since the appropriate software is coming on board)
many of these people i deal with have more money than they know what to do with yet they're mainly buying the midrange macs.. the imacs and macbooks because they're perfectly suitable for their needs..
they're putting out superbowl commercials and multi-platinum albums and giant times square ads and full scale event production etc..
all on these 'crippled' computers with crappy hardware etc..
it makes zero sense to me that these computers aren't meeting you all's needs.. please explain your needs and why these computers aren't able to fulfill them then further explain how an xwack is going to allow you to accomplish your goals..
i just don't think you can plea your case for an xmac to apple without this type of talk being the main reasoning.. spec talk is meaningless.. user experience & productivity are everything.. those are the main points which should matter to you.
so what do you use your computers for?
yeah.. i'm just stupid.
how about you go look instead.. look at the timeframe you're talking about (G5 era) and look up the history of xmac. report back on your findings
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yeah.. i'm just stupid
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hmm. i don't think i was trying to be positive back there.. just trying not to get banned from the forums by saying what i was really thinking.
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You aren't really impressed by Superbowl commercials, are you? Superbowl commercials are nothing special at all. They play on the same TVs in the same manner as the crap local commercials for sewing machine shops and tampons. The difference is paying for the talented team that makes a memorable message that happens to play during a time of peak viewership.
Telling others that their needs can be met with weak gear is just foolish. There is a clear and obvious gap in the Apple ecosystem between iMacs, Minis and Mac Pros, and that gap is easily seen by many people, even if you can't see it.
There's nothing wrong with the idea of a well-built headless Mac from Apple that combines an i7 with a desktop GPU. I wish Apple was brave enough to make such a device.
yes, i usually am.. (fwiw, the agency i linked to above hasn't made a superbowl commercial as far as i'm aware.. it's a different person i know who has.. on macs though is the point)
exactly.. usually impressive
is that what i did? all i did was ask what people use their computers for because nobody ever talks about that stuff here.. then showed a few examples of why i think needs are being met with the midrange computers.. if i'm wrong about what i see then i ask for an explanation.
it's always "imac graphics suk!!
"etc..so i ask "why does it suck"
then the answer is "because the display is 2560x1440"
etcetc..
??
those aren't acceptable type of answers because they don't explain anything..
so because i can't see it then nobody should explain it to me in terms of their real world usage?
because really, that's all i keep asking.. what are your needs and why doesn't a mini, imac, or macpro fulfill them? (to which nobody ever answers and instead starts harping on about specs)
(and yes, im well aware that people have needs beyond what's possible with apple's lineup.. but these people certainly aren't sitting around demanding apple make another midrange computer to fit their needs.. because xmac wouldn't work for them either.)
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That's nice. Neither is anyone else.
It is a cost complaint, but the cost is a result of over design and poor choice of parts for anyone looking for a midrange machine. The machine is overpriced because Apple forces users to pay for hardware they don't need if they need a certain level of performance.
It's like saying someone could buy a mack truck to drive to work and calling that a cost complaint. Part of the issue is cost, part is that some of the hardware is overkill and means wasted money for many users.
But that's not the problem. And some macs aren't that expensive. What I'm really saying is there is no mac that is a good fit for what I need. Having the option to waste money on hardware I don't need isn't the same as "macs are expensive". I'd love to pay apple's markup on a machine that is a better match for what I actually need.
I'm happy to answer it. I use it for high end music production, much of it using huge sample libraries (the most demanding being big orchestral mockups). What I need specifically in a mac is lots of CPU power, lots of ram, and a way to connect fast storage.
Anything beyond a single simple video card is wasted money for me.
Having to pay for an included monitor is wasted money for me.
Four cores and fewer than four ram slots are deal breakers for me.
Yeah, what a tragedy it would be if Apple made a computer that was a workhorse at a reasonable (even by apple standards) price.
Did I say those machines were crippled or have crappy hardware? They aren't bad machines, there are just users for whom they are a poor fit.
Right now I'm running on a 2009 eight core mac pro and I'm getting to the point where I need more CPU power. A new six core would probably be a decent boost for me, only available in the MP for $3500 (while a PC with the same performance costs half that, even a six core iMac or mini would be far less).
You think I just want to spend a bunch of money on specs for some sort of perverse bragging rights? I'm running older eight core MP right now and I'd like to upgrade from that. Honestly I was initially excited about the new MP but the more I look at the performance and what's available on the PC side it's getting more and more tempting to just buy a six core i7 PC and network it to offload processing. And I'll say it again, if Apple just put six core i7 in the mini and iMac and put four ram slots in all models I'd probably consider that good enough to cover the xmac gap.
I wouldn't use "stupid", probably more along the lines of missing what everyone else is actually saying or ignoring it.
Sure. G5 tower for $1499. If that's not a true midrange mac I don't know what is. Are you saying people were still asking for another "midrange" model below that, at the time?
http://www.apple.com/pr/library/200...Model-to-Power-Mac-G5-Line-at-Just-1-499.html
i know.. thats what i keep saying.
for one, they don't force you to buy anything.. for two, much of the cost of a mac (maybe 1/3?) is going towards design/build quality.. it's not only the cpu/gpu/ram/drive/etc..
if you want a cheap box which holds high spec'd parts then you can get those pretty readily.. most people go this route-- amiright?
no, it's not like saying that.. this is you doing that ipad->macpro only comparison.. apple doesn't only sell a mack truck.. they have coupes and sedans and pickup trucks etc. as well.
understandable.. you're not a target customer.. can you accept that?
sounds like you need a mac pro then.. from what i see, the acoustics alone in a high end studio cost far more than a mac pro so the cost shouldn't even phase you.. i mean, you're looking at at least $100large to outfit the studio.. what's $5000?
are there computers available which are a proper fit then? or is this xmac idea aimed at all computer companies instead of singling out apple? if it's aimed at apple alone then what's the obsession all about? it's pretty clear they try to make products which aren't the same as everybody else-- even if it only appears that way on the surface.. but asking them to make a computer which is the same as everybody else's products probably isn't going to fly over so well.
i linked to a 6core mac with one gpu in it for $1500 earlier in the thread.. isn't that what you're saying you need and isn't that a price which is acceptable to you?
or you want new&shiny for $1500, right? i'm pretty sure you're not going to get that from apple.. ever..
lol.. no. i hope not. (not that i necessarily care when people do that but it's not a very practical line of thought as far as im concerned)
i'm not ignoring it.. i know what you want.. if you're forced to buy from apple then it's called a mac pro.. and it's too expensive for you to swallow.. you'd have to pay a thousand extra dollars for things which you don't find valuable.
yes.. that's what i'm saying.
http://arstechnica.com/staff/2005/10/1676/
.
Well at least you're finally admitting that there are some users for whom Apple doesn't make a mac that's a good fit.
But I just can't get behind the idea that it's smart for anyone to throw away hundreds or thousands of dollars on hardware that won't get used.
Of course there are computers that are a proper fit from the hardware side. Lots of PC with quad and six core at great prices and lots of consumer choice. That's the whole reason I bought a hackintosh. But if I'm running Apple software I'd really like to buy a real mac but they just don't make one for me.
What obsession? I'm not sure what you're asking.
Yeah, I know. It's not a mac without some kind of wacky gimmick that drives the price up whether it's useful or not. Apple's spin of course is that their products are so unique but the truth is they need to do it to have an excuse for pricing so much higher than everyone else.
Used isn't sustainable. And that machine isn't really what I want either since the IO is so out of date (hey, if they had updated to SATA III and USB3 years ago when it went into all the other macs ). And being a used machine, even CPU performance lags behind the newer six cores that are about the same price as that used machine. Honestly, I'd say if you have to resort to telling someone to buy a used computer, that's an admission that there is a hole in their product line.
You still don't get it. The current MP is not what I need. The MP is the closest thing available to what I need, but that doesn't make it what I need. By your logic Apple might as well sell only the MP for desktops, after all it will do everything the cheaper models do, and as you seem to think, the only complaint would be "cost complaint".
And why isn't that a valid issue?
It's also because Apple is putting a significant mark-up on the CPU prices - over $1000 above Intel's price for the 12-core Xeon!
And even with a $10,000 max spec Mac Pro, depending on your workload, you could see better performance from a $1500 PC, since the Mac Pro lacks CUDA support, and the GPUs are not really suited for anything other than OpenCL. (they are the fastest GPUs officially supported by Apple though)
There is nothing between an iMac and a Mac Pro.
Even though it might look like Apple has everything covered:
~$1000 Mac Mini
~$2000 iMac
~$3000 Mac Pro
The iMac is not $2000 of high-performance components. It's maybe $1000 of components with a $1000 display built in, so the performance gap between an iMac and a Mac Pro is still huge.
If you need GPU performance, and not CPU performance beyond 4 cores, you're spending $4000 on a Mac Pro, when a $1500 PC would offer better performance. (which should translate to a ~$2000 "xMac")
The iMac's graphics are designed to be used in a notebook. If you do anything which is rendering 3D at 2560x1440 performance will be extremely poor.it's always "imac graphics suk!!
so i ask "why does it suck"
then the answer is "because the display is 2560x1440"
etcetc..
??
those aren't acceptable type of answers because they don't explain anything..
One of the main things people seem to want an xMac for is not professional use, but so that they can have a Mac which they can actually use for gaming.
For people that work from home, their Mac is not just a professional tool to get work done, it often serves as their main entertainment device as well.
An iMac might be sufficient for their computing needs as far as work is concerned, but inadequate for gaming.
The Mac Pro is a ridiculous price for anyone to pay just to play games on as a step-up from the iMac, and its performance is lacking when it comes to gaming anyway.
This might actually work out for Apple in the end, since CUDA is dying a slow death due to its proprietary nature. Yeah, it's fast, and yeah, it's good, but only if you're using Nvidia cards. With OpenCL, you're not tied to one specific type of anything.
It's gonna go the way of PhysX, I think. An awesome idea well implemented, but since it only worked with one manufacturers set of cards, it wasn't available to everyone, and it ended up being dropped by the wayside.
i know macs aren't a good fit for everybody and if you think that's my point then i'm mis_communicating somewhere.
the part you quoted me though has nothing to do with admitting there's not a good fit..
you said you're a high end music producer and my response was meant to imply i don't believe you or that you're not being honest about your usage which makes this a bs conversation.
because if you were doing high end music production, the cost of the pc is so small in comparison to the other tools/facilities needed that i can't grasp the worry over a thousand dollars.
to be honest, this isn't my problem.. i read you as saying you find osx valuable and that's why you want to use apple products.. that's understandable..
i also read you as saying apple hardware is too expensive so you use a hackintosh.. that's understandable too.
i also read you as saying you'd like to run osx on apple hardware.. again understandable..
and that you want apple to sell cheaper products.. again understandable..
thinking they're going to do it though-- it's more/less a waste of energy.. they're not a new company.. we see their history and based off that, we can make pretty decent assumptions about their future.. i personally think you're better off wishing for a faster mac mini because that's probably going to happen unless they kill the line..
personally, i don't think the aluminum unibody nor the thermal core are wacky gimmicks and instead i can highly appreciate the design/engineering of both.. to each his own though..
i don't know how many times i have to say this but yes, there are holes in the line.. cost holes.. pointing to a used/refurb as a viable option has nothing to do with specs and everything to do with cost.
most buyers (yes, smart buyers) get a little more than the currently need.. especially with computer technology..
if it were set up that the computer you buy today will only be used with the software available today and no updates will happen down the line then it would be a different story.. but you should at least be considering your software 2-3 years down the line for hardware purchases made today.. you'll save money in the long run by doing this. (i.e.- you'll end up buying less computers over the span of ,say, a decade)
it is a valid issue.. apple typically doesn't sell junk but you generally have to pay more for the chassis.. if solid engineering and the marriage of form&function isn't your thing then hey, how can i expect you to see those things as valuable.. i don't.
likewise, you shouldn't expect me to simply look at a list of specs and determine whether or not a computer holds value.
huh? are you talking about 3D rendering ala software such as vary, maxwell, etc?
because if you are, the only thing you would need to be concerned with as far as gpu/display size goes is that the gpu is capable of displaying a 2560x1440 .tif or png.. and i think my iphone gpu is decently equipped to do that.
if you're talking about gaming then i need to bow out of the conversation with you.. i quit playing video games in the street fighter / mortal combat days because i started feeling like a zombie after sitting in front of a tv for 14hrs a day for a week straight while producing nothing.. it's just not for me anymore but i do understand the addiction at least.. but i have approx zero knowledge on computer requirements for modern games.
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fwiw, cuda was never supported on osx.. there was never an apple computer you could plug in and start running cuda based apps straight out of the box.. comparing to flash, there was a point when macs supported it straight up but they dropped support.. cuda had even less of a chance with apple than flash.
[edit] or $%@!.. maybe flash was never officially supported by apple?.. i can't actually remember this detail that far back..
Well, most 3D packages leverage D3D/OGL for the preview windows, and of course having a ton of ram on the GPU helps when you're painting with high resolution textures. But weirdly enough, it doesn't take that powerful of a GPU to get smooth results out of them.
If you're just modelling, not rendering, an iMac, even with it's relatively weak 780m mobile GPU, would work perfectly.
Admittedly, I know next to nothing about CUDA on a Mac, but I do know Nvidia has drivers available for OSX that support it. So I'm guessing it's still around in some form there, just not in any "official" capacity.
You seem to be under the impression that anyone who wants to own a Mac must be at the top of their field earning hundreds of thousands of dollars, so the cost of a Mac Pro must be trivial to their work.
Just because someone is a photographer, does not mean they're making hundreds of thousands of dollars a year - perhaps they do stock photography which earns them enough to live on, but not so much that $5000 on a computer is not a purchase which has to be considered - especially if the software they use does not require that they use OS X, and they can build a PC that will handle their requirements for significantly lower costs.
Doing music production for a living does not necessarily mean that they're a top-tier music producer working for clients that are producing top 10 hits and making millions a year.
Congratulations if you're in a position where you can just spend $5000 on a new Mac Pro without even having to think about it.
Just because that's true for you, does not make it true for probably the majority of Mac owners.
You really don't seem to have a grasp on what people are asking for with the "xMac" and it sounds like you are not very technically minded, as you don't seem to understand the performance requirements many people have.
You seem to be in a position where you can just buy the fastest Mac available and assume that it will meet your performance requirements, without actually having to think about whether it will or not, or considering the price you have to pay for the level of performance that you get from it.
Please stop bringing up the Mac Mini. That's for people that want OS X and just use it for email or word processing on a large monitor instead of buying a notebook.
It's far too slow for anything which requires real CPU performance, and useless for anything that requires graphics performance.
The iMac is the closest thing Apple have to a "mid-range" machine - only it's bordering on low-end.
It has a mid-range CPU, offering the fastest Haswell quad-core CPUs - which is great.
But you're also forced to spend $1000 on a display that many of us don't want or need, and it only offers notebook graphics performance.
Many of us want a machine that costs ~$2000 where it's all spent on performance, and not a built-in display.
The Mac Pro is far beyond what most people wanting an "xMac" require - and in some areas it's actually lacking compared to what an xMac could offer.
The Mac Pro uses Xeons which are expensive, and a generation behind the consumer CPUs - so if you are only buying a 4 core machine, the Haswell iMac is faster. You need to step up to the 6-core Mac Pro to beat it (now you're at $4000) and it will only outperform it in tasks which can actually utilize more than 4 cores.
The Mac Pro offers dual GPUs, but many applications can only take advantage of one right now, they are AMD GPUs so you don't have access to CUDA (which is what most GPU compute applications are currently built for) dual GPUs offer less stable performance than a single high-end GPU, and the fastest GPUs offered are a generation out of date - behind both Nvidia and AMD's latest offerings.
An xMac with a single high-end GPU (an R9 290X or preferably a 780Ti for CUDA) would easily outperform the Mac Pro in most cases, at a much lower price.
When the CPU is hitting 95C and the GPUs are hitting 97C, I don't think it's very well engineered at all.
That thermal core sure looks nice though.
Not being built into the OS is not the same as not being supported.
I agree that OpenCL seems like a better idea since it's not vendor-specific. However, today's applications use CUDA.
Actually, PhysX is still being implemented in the latest games, and if anything it's likely to be more popular with the emphasis on physics with the PS4/Xbox One.
Not everyone has an addiction that causes them to play 14 hours a day.
I know a lot of people that work in the games industry, so playing games as a hobby is actually relevant to their work.
But many people enjoy spending an hour or so playing games rather than sitting back and passively consuming mindless television content for hours on end.
And again, it's not necessarily about buying a system for games, it's about buying one which is capable of good gaming performance.
But good job for once again latching onto a single point I made in my post and taking it to extremes, just because it's not something you have an interest in.
Really? I remember there was a big hooplah about games supporting it about a year ago, then...haven't heard much of anything about it since. I rarely ever even see the logo on newer games these days.
I know physics effects are still a big deal these days, and only getting bigger, but considering both the Xbox One/PS4 are using AMD processors and GPUs, they won't be using PhysX. I think what they're doing there is shunting them off to another processor core to handle, rather than using spare cycles on the GPU.
Seriously, you think I'm lying about what I do for a living? Really?
As a matter of fact, high end music production, particularly sample based stuff, can have very high CPU demands but not require spending dollar amounts that make a thousand or two something to be just ignored.
Over and over again you misread. Apple doesn't make a machine that fits my needs. So I use a hackintosh.
Nope. I want Apple to have more customer options so people can buy configurations that are closer to what I need.
I'm not sure if you are really misunderstanding the discussion or if it's just easier for you to respond if you pretend that everyone else is saying nothing but "cheapercheapercheaper".
Regardless, they've managed to come up with a way to take a quad core based computer and triple the price.
None more times. Now I've saved you some typing, you're welcome.
Absolutely. But there's a good chance that things like audio software may never benefit from GPU. And if it's going to take three years for new hardware to be put to good use, why not just wait until the software catches up and buy the hardware then when it's faster and cheaper?
My thing is not paying twice as much for no increase in performance. So no, paying a lot more money for zero improvement in how the machine performs isn't my thing.
Not specs but actual performance. Does that extra money buy me better performance running my apps? No. But somehow you still see "value" in that?
You have been very vocal in your defense of the MP, are you buying one? Are you running a Mac Pro now?