MP 7,1 2019 Mac Pro Roll Call

[AndreeOnline]

Nope, and that's why the "auction house" metaphor as most people understand it doesn't really apply to eBay.

Interesting. I don't want to derail the thread, but it's interesting that eBay, having such a large portion (I guess?) of the auction market, has implemented a solution that sort of sucks for both seller and buyer.

In the example above where I buy the cards, I expected Regulus67 to at least get a push notification in the app, or even an email as you would get from Ricardo.ch, telling you that you have been out-bidden. You can then decide whether or not you want to participate further. I'm sure the seller would have wanted this too. The bid I actually placed was 3200 CHF, but of course, since the minimum step was 10 CHF I was put down for 2810 CHF.

I've always been opposed the the 'last second' offers and think auction platforms should implement solutions that let buyers meet at market value without stress. The auction format still applies with bids and countdown and all... oh, well.

You might think that as a "sneeky, light on your-feet-buyer" you can "game" the system and steal a win with a last second bid. But who says you don't want to be the seller the next time?

Ricardo works well, but got greedy with their fees. If they start charging 10-12% they better have a cap somewhere around $100 or so.

 

[AndreeOnline]

Glad you found some of these second hand and are working good. Based off of your Sig, I would highly recommend getting a lot more RAM; if you indeed only have 48 GB, then your VRAM pool is larger than your system RAM and this is not the ideal situation to be in. My jump from 32 to 240 was like a night and day difference in a lot of workflows. (Bought from OWC)

More or less in progress as we speek. 😊 I've also bought from OWC before and that worked well. Most likley going to 240 as well.... maaaaybe I'll settle for 144 as I haven't really had issues to tell you the truth, buy yeah.... it's coming.

 

[Regulus67]

I find it useful to learn that e-bay implemented the low step on your bid, and not the max bid 👍
We can be glad I didn't know that either, or I would have added a higher bid as a back-up plan. When e-bay offered that option.
After all, I am perfectly happy you won the bid. As I would have in any case been charged 25% in custom + fee.
And I do not need two Duo's But I had waited a long time for a W6800X (Duo) card to pop up
I do have 192 GB in mine

 

[frou]

You might think that as a "sneeky, light on your-feet-buyer" you can "game" the system and steal a win with a last second bid. But who says you don't want to be the seller the next time?

Indeed - That's why I don't allow bidding on my auctions and just decide on a fixed "Buy-it-Now" price. So rather than an auction house, eBay can pretty much be an online store.

As for why eBay have allowed a kinda stupid variant of auctions to remain for decades... I guess they are happy with their level of profit and are playing it safe with an "If it ain't broke don't fix it" attitude.

(I'll stop off-topic posting now)

 

[AndreeOnline]

I find it useful to learn that e-bay implemented the low step on your bid, and not the max bid 👍
We can be glad I didn't know that either, or I would have added a higher bid as a back-up plan. When e-bay offered that option.

😅

I think a single W6800X Duo is kind of nice for this Mac Pro. Still leaves a bit of space and air for something like my Sonnet Fusion fanless SSD-card higher up in the case.

I'll run with the current setup for a bit, and if issues remain long-term due to the slightly unusual setup (for instance Lightroom works but Photoshop freaks out—go figure) I can sell one of the cards without losing any money. Still love the performance in Resolve and Blender though....

And as a BTW: if anyone out there sits on a single entry-level card and would like to pick up two Pro Vega II, let me know.

 

[Zhi]

This comment makes me very happy.
I ordered a W6800X Duo today, from Amazon. $2600 if I convert the currency, (25% VAT included).
Weirdly, the W6800X has a higher price.

View attachment 2351012

Could you send us the website address? I didn't see the product on Amazon.

 

[H. Flower]

As long as I have some smart people in this thread, let me ask a question about switching to the Mac Studio, if rumors of the Mac Pros demise turn out not to be exaggerated.

The main thing thats always kept me from considering the Studio is my internal RAID nvme drives. I have an 8TB RAID 0 that produces 4.8 write speeds, and 6.1 read speeds. If I were to switch to the Studio, I understnad I could place the m2 drives in an OWC enclosure , and conncet via thunderbolt. From what Ive read, that would give me around 2.5 speed.

I understand Id see the difference in say, copying files from my RAID to inernal SSD. But what about during using programs like Premiere, After Effects, Da Vinci resolve, and Cinema 4d? Do you guys think I'd notice any slowdown? Or is an external thunderbolt RAID pretty much just as good for these applications?

Any thoughts are greatly appreciated!

 

[avro707]

Could you send us the website address? I didn't see the product on Amazon.

It is probably geo blocked.

 

[avkills]

As long as I have some smart people in this thread, let me ask a question about switching to the Mac Studio, if rumors of the Mac Pros demise turn out not to be exaggerated.

The main thing thats always kept me from considering the Studio is my internal RAID nvme drives. I have an 8TB RAID 0 that produces 4.8 write speeds, and 6.1 read speeds. If I were to switch to the Studio, I understnad I could place the m2 drives in an OWC enclosure , and conncet via thunderbolt. From what Ive read, that would give me around 2.5 speed.

I understand Id see the difference in say, copying files from my RAID to inernal SSD. But what about during using programs like Premiere, After Effects, Da Vinci resolve, and Cinema 4d? Do you guys think I'd notice any slowdown? Or is an external thunderbolt RAID pretty much just as good for these applications?

Any thoughts are greatly appreciated!

Drive speed and slow downs really depend on your workflow. If you are trying to playback lots of video clips at the same time, then your internal PCIe RAID is going to perform way better than any thunderbolt based RAID system.

Currently production systems are limited to Thunderbolt 4 speeds of 40Gbps (max theoretical limit). Once newer thunderbolt designs are released, then that speed will most certainly increase.

 

[ZombiePhysicist]

As long as I have some smart people in this thread, let me ask a question about switching to the Mac Studio, if rumors of the Mac Pros demise turn out not to be exaggerated.

The main thing thats always kept me from considering the Studio is my internal RAID nvme drives. I have an 8TB RAID 0 that produces 4.8 write speeds, and 6.1 read speeds. If I were to switch to the Studio, I understnad I could place the m2 drives in an OWC enclosure , and conncet via thunderbolt. From what Ive read, that would give me around 2.5 speed.

I understand Id see the difference in say, copying files from my RAID to inernal SSD. But what about during using programs like Premiere, After Effects, Da Vinci resolve, and Cinema 4d? Do you guys think I'd notice any slowdown? Or is an external thunderbolt RAID pretty much just as good for these applications?

Any thoughts are greatly appreciated!

I think a lot of this will change for the better with thunderbolt 5 which will do either 80/80 up down or 120/40 and allow a great bit more throughput. Not clear if apple will upgrade to thunderbolt 5 with the next update though. They just dont care much about their computer business, sadly.

 

[Regulus67]

Could you send us the website address? I didn't see the product on Amazon.

I sent you a PM

 

[H. Flower]

Drive speed and slow downs really depend on your workflow. If you are trying to playback lots of video clips at the same time, then your internal PCIe RAID is going to perform way better than any thunderbolt based RAID system.

Currently production systems are limited to Thunderbolt 4 speeds of 40Gbps (max theoretical limit). Once newer thunderbolt designs are released, then that speed will most certainly increase.

Makes sense.

I often do work with multiple streams of 4k, and I wonder if TB would create a bottleneck in real world application.

If they discontinue the Mac Pro tower, then I guess it's a moot point. As always, its frustrating that they never reveal their roadmap!

 

[H. Flower]

I think a lot of this will change for the better with thunderbolt 5 which will do either 80/80 up down or 120/40 and allow a great bit more throughput. Not clear if apple will upgrade to thunderbolt 5 with the next update though. They just dont care much about their computer business, sadly.

It seems like Apple hates PCIe (because its unelegant?) and wants to do everything through cables - so its good news if cables will eventually be able to have high throughput.

I just wish they'd communicate their plans!

 

[avkills]

I just wish they'd communicate their plans!

And there we have the root cause of almost everyone's disdain for Apple who works in the content creation/scientific community/other high-end computing fields. Lack of roadmaps.

Apple can keep all the secrets they want about iPads and iPhones and anything else, but for the love of God at least give us a hint of where the computing roadmap is going.

 

[mattspace]

It seems like Apple hates PCIe (because its unelegant?) and wants to do everything through cables - so its good news if cables will eventually be able to have high throughput.

Except that the rest of the world does things through PCIe, and everyone isn't going to put the brakes on development, or expanding the envelope for 5 years, while Apple's aesthetic choices play catchup.

Apple will just continue to fade from production environments.

I just wish they'd communicate their plans!

They kinda do with the products they release :/