The New apple desktop!

[jo]

Hi,

What I like most about the new Mac Pro is that there is one. There has been some speculation that Apple might move away from the high end desktop which would be a shame. As to the machine itself, my main concern is what the expense will be, especially with two GPUs and Flash storage. I think expansion via Thunderbolt is reasonable, though I would rather have my HDs inside the machine than outside as separate enclosures are a bit of a pain. I have 4 HDs in my Mac Pro and several external drives. Overall though I think the new Mac Pro looks like a clever design and I'd be happy to have one. I think I'll be sticking with my current Mac Pro for a while yet though :-).

For me Badger is right that it's the OS that matters. Although I'm not a fan at all of some of the moves Apple has been making I still prefer OS X to Windows and I use both regularly. Windows 7 was the first version of Windows which doesn't annoy me constantly and which I didn't mind using, but Windows 8 seems like a great leap backwards. I've also been using Linux of various vintages lately, and none of those desktop environments have grabbed me. I've also been very happy with all the Apple hardware I've owned over the years.

BTW I dont expect we'll need to have new version just for OS X Mavericks. The changes for that sound pretty minor so far.

Regards,

Jo

[Oshyan]

No, there is not "more than they are letting you see", and there is going to be nothing whatsoever that's revolutionary about the performance. That is not how the industry works, it's not how Apple works. They *do not* invent revolutionary performance hardware, period; not for a long time, if ever. No, they are using mostly off-the-shelf hardware here, as always. Sure, the graphics cards may be custom layouts, but the chips on them are standard and available for a while elsewhere, and that's what determines performance (that and good video drivers which frankly the Mac platform has lagged on for a long time, unfortunately). Video RAM doesn't mean that much in many cases either. 6GB is nice to have, but it will cost you a pretty penny, and it probably will only matter in a few applications vs., say, 2-3GB which is far more common. Such 6GB graphics cards are already available anyway, and are probably similar to - if not better than - what you'll get in the new Mac Pro (but again they cost you, hehe) http://goo.gl/uEEqZ The CPUs are standard Haswell-based Xeons (new, but available in the PC space of course).

Do not make the mistake of thinking this thing is in any way special *performance wise*. Is it not, it never will be. Upon release I guarantee you that you will be able to get a Windows box with equal or better performance for equal or lower price. I recognize that A: said machine would not run OS X (easily), and that is a big factor for you and many others, and that's perfectly legitimate, and B: no other system will have the same design and theoretical efficiency in cooling, small size and low noise combination. All I'm saying is don't get over-excited about it from a performance standpoint: it is not special. Period. That is not something Apple has been able to legitimately claim since they switched to Intel architecture. If you like the design and the price is right for you, go for it, it's really your only option for a truly high performance Apple computer. Just don't be expecting something "special" from it in the performance department (unless your only basis for comparison is other Macs, in which case yes, it's the fastest Mac available ).

- Oshyan

[Tangled-Universe]

Yes Apple doesn't do anything related to hardware/performance and such.
The "only" thing they make is a user experience in a combination of design, functionality and ease of use.

I've read elsewhere that the single-socket, as seen on the mac pro website, will likely contain the newest Haswell 12-core Xeon, so no 2x6 core Xeon.
Furthermore some claimed that Apple used to have earlier access to CPU's before so that would mean that this new mac pro's 12-core Xeon will be available before the PC market has access to it.
Not of that much importance about the availability, but the idea of a 12-core Xeon is definitely interesting.

I'm really curious about the price. Can't be under $5k, or can it?

[TheBadger]

Jeez Oshyan, you really know how to kill a dream.

But ok, if everything you say is spot on I can except it. I like apple but I don't worship it. Doesn't really matter anyway. Im going to stick by and not buy from companies that obey orders to betray the confidence of their customers and piss on the constitution. Probably Ill end up like that lone occupy guy down the street, looking like a crazy person and living in a tent.

Hopefully we will get some truth and some closer soon, and I wont have to stick to it for too long.

But besides that. If it really is more than Im used to paying for a tower, I will switch to a PC. strictly and solely for money reasons. Ill hate it, but I'll do it.

Frankly though, I don't care if apple makes their components or not, and I never did. It may be nice if they did though. But I just want the fastest most long lasting stuff I can afford, and never or only very rarely have to deal with windows, preferably never. Linux isn't supported enough to be convenient for me.

[Tangled-Universe]

Reading the CGSociety thread about the Mac Pro which contains some quotes and insider info and of course heavy rumours...interesting nonetheless...

It seems that the GPU's have a different form-factor, especially produced for this Mac Pro.
Nvidia may produce GPU's for this form-factor as well.
So perhaps somewhere in 2014 you can assemble a Mac Pro with all kinds of GPU's.

That's going to be a lot more interesting of course with the increase of CUDA-based GPU apps over OpenCL, which still is a slow starter.

[Oshyan]

A Xeon E5 with 12 cores would indeed be something new, currently those top out at 8 cores (16 threads), while E7's are 10/20. Though of course not for long, if at all; Intel may introduce the 12 core to the mainstream market soon anyway (not that I'd be surprised if Apple had arranged some period of exclusivity).

The graphics cards certainly must be custom (form factor, if not GPU). It wouldn't shock me if nVidia made a card for it too, but anything would be better than the paltry selection for previous Mac Pros (it kind of made a joke of the "Pro" moniker; such workstations were never suited for really demanding 3D work because of this). The Fire GLs in the new Mac Pro are a big step up, fortunately, but I doubt we'll see "all kinds of GPUs".

- Oshyan

[Tangled-Universe]

A Xeon E5 with 12 cores would indeed be something new, currently those top out at 8 cores (16 threads), while E7's are 10/20. Though of course not for long, if at all; Intel may introduce the 12 core to the mainstream market soon anyway (not that I'd be surprised if Apple had arranged some period of exclusivity).

- Oshyan

Yes that's what people think Apple has arranged...a 2-3 month exclusivity to the first batch of 12-core Xeon's.

[Oshyan]

Ahh well, then for 2-3 months Badger could have the fastest single CPU system available. After that it'd probably be available for half the price.

- Oshyan

[cyphyr]

There was an FX house in London (can't remember the name) that had a couple of the latest Mac Pro's out front for their clients to look at (it's what they expected to see, after all Mac IS the graphics/FX brand ... supposedly), meanwhile round the back where the work was done were stacks of highly specked but pretty bog standard PC's.
I can't remember the last time a Mac out performed a PC bang for buck.
They do look soo damn sexy though and thats gota count for something ... no?

[Tangled-Universe]

Ahh well, then for 2-3 months Badger could have the fastest single CPU system available. After that it'd probably be available for half the price.

- Oshyan

Haha 


Definitely Richard. I can't remember Apple beating PC platform when you consider performance/buck.

What matters to their customers is the total experience of design, functionality and ease of use.
That total package seemingly justifies the prices they always handle, because how expensive we think it always has been, they are being sold pretty well. (although frankly I have the feeling that the silence around Mac Pro for quite a while was may be also because Apple was a bit in doubt, because of not so many sold 2010 Mac Pro's?)

[TheBadger]

Ahh well, then for 2-3 months Badger could have the fastest single CPU system available. After that it'd probably be available for half the price.

- Oshyan

Thank you still crying a little though. 

You are right T-U about how important the user experience is to the choice to buy or not. For me anyway. Its immensely important that the computer does not get in my way. And yes, they are VERY pretty! But as I indicated, at a certain point, need out ways the desire for comfort.

So we will see, If new PCs come out that are equal or better and they are half the price, than its a no brainer. But if I will only save a few minutes on a render per frame on a PC, and the mac is not "too much" more costly, than I would stick with a mac, happily.

You guys know a lot more than I do about computers, never thought otherwise. But you still have not proven the case that the new mac will be much more costly than any new release before (of a mac).  And I maintain that it will be less than expected. The pro is a legacy product. Apple is not continuing to make it because they think it will make apple a corporate giant Your own words say as much. ITs not a classic car, people do not simply buy it for looks... It does have to work for their needs. My needs have changed since becoming a member of this community. Before this, I had everything I needed in a mac. But now I do 3D. so thats the difference for me I guess.

[reck]

Are you able to pick what components you have in this thing? Most importantly can you get rid of the ATI and put in a decent Nvidia card? Is Cuda just a PC thing or can Macs make use of it as well? That's another reason to pick Nvidia over ATI as OpenCL is still a problem for some.

I really dread to think what this is going to cost. We buy PC desktops and iMacs at work. When you customise the PC's to match the internal specs of the iMacs (exact same CPU, hard drive size and RAM), the price of the iMacs are coming in hundreds of pounds more in some cases. It's getting really hard to justify spending all that extra money for the exact same components.

As the PC and Mac users have the same budget to replace their desktops we're seeing the PC users upgrading their systems in almost every area and getting a much more powerful system than the Mac guys for the same money.

[Tangled-Universe]

I can perfectly imagine that ATi offers Apple their customised FirePro's a lot cheaper than Nvidia, just because ATi wants to compete stronger.
I guess Nvidia just lets ATi have this little thing. These Mac Pro's won't go in millions.

Also it wouldn't surprise me that the 2nd version or revision of this model would have Nvidia cards eventually.
The criticism on this new Mac Pro for having OpenCL ATi's already started and given the market they're aiming for they're right.

[TheBadger]

I have found news articles in the mainstream on this now (non tech centric). And everything is contradictory. No one seems to know the real deal on anything, everyone in the news is sharing their opinions, but not a lot of hard facts.

I dont know what to think now. Its really hard to believe that apple is putting out a computer for 3D artists, that 3D artists are not going to use. REally hard to believe!

I cannot believe that they did not sit down with the software that people will be using and see how it runs on their new desktop. This is why I think its going to be better than you guys do. They must have tested it. Yes?

@Oshyan, you did make one (I think) miss statement. And that is your strong feeling that cards are not so important (or as important). On the contrary, for me, TG2 is the only powerful art soft I use that does not make heavy use of graphics cards.

Anyway, like I said. I don't know what to think now. I guess all the details of everything will be clear once the towers are out and people start testing them.

*
Oh, one more thing.
EVERYONE in what I have been hearing in the press is speculating at the price tag. And there seems to be no appetite at all for a over priced system (even among Mac loyalists (me too)). So I am really curious to see what apple does on this. Apparently they are going to make a new bigger Iphone and sell it under market value.

Someone buying for 3D is NOT the same as someone just buying an Iphone, you know what I mean. No one is in this market to go broke. And its a very small market I think.

Remember that microsoft took big hits on Xbox (intentionally) at first, to get a in on the market. And it worked.
So I just think its very interesting.
But who really knows.

[Oshyan]

What makes you think Mac Pros are made for 3D artists? Macs haven't been good for 3D for quite a while, partly due to the very poor selection of 3D graphics cards, but also due to poor software support, poor drivers, etc. It's not (necessarily) Apple's fault, but their Pro workstations are largely sold for one of 3 things - Video editing, Audio editing (they have products for both of these tasks, so it makes sense), and image editing/design (e.g. Adobe Creative Suite type stuff). They are *not* made for super fancy 3D, they really aren't.

I didn't say that graphics cards don't matter, what I said is that huge amounts of RAM don't matter. RAM is primarily useful for lots of high resolution textures, less so for large amounts of geometry, and several applications (e.g. Zbrush) don't even use 3D acceleration for their rendering anyway, so the RAM on the card doesn't matter in those cases. All I'm saying is going from 2GB to 6GB per card is nowhere near as useful as going from 200Mhz to 600Mhz in a graphics chip clock, for example. One is basically 3 times the performance (the chip clock speed), which will be beneficial across the board, the other is 3 times the memory but it's only beneficial *when you're using lots of memory* (which may be sometimes, maybe even a lot, but not all the time to be sure; so inherently the clock speed differences matter more). Does that make more sense?

Oh and as far as I know Apple has never taken a hit on their hardware, in fact they have the highest margins in the industry on hardware. So while I could see an iPhone being sold that way, I'm highly, highly doubtful of them doing that with the Mac Pro. What would be the point? Unlike the iPhone, where they gain a customer who will likely use their huge ecosystem of revenue generating services (iTunes, app store, etc.), a Mac Pro user probably won't recoup that value for them ever (if they're selling it below cost).

- Oshyan