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$2999 for entry model: what do you think?
- Thread starter badlydrawnboy
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You need to actually have something to replace those cards with, however. Odds are, that isn't happening because: a) it's a proprietary configuration and manufacturers/vendors hate designs that are already proprietary since they can't base their work off of a reference design like they typically do with GPUs, and b) the market for replacement cards is going to be exceedingly small even compared to the current Mac Pro lineup simply based on the machine having fewer estimated (though very much likely to be the case) users.
Put those two together and you're not going to be replacing those GPUs anytime soon with anything but an Apple Official replacement part. And depending on how it's connected (which we can't see here), the end user might void the warranty by doing so. It also doesn't help that one of the video cards houses the mPCIe connector for the SSD. That has to be on one of the replacement cards as well.
Explain it then .
Explain which performance hungry programs and which processes are mainly depending on GPU power .
I know there are a few, I'm using one of them, but I'm not an expert by any means .
So explain that, and you will finally have made a useful posting .
I've only used iMac so maybe I'm missing something. 256 GB of storage? That's nothing. How can you possibly do any video work with that little storage? But perhaps I'm missing something about the specs. Do you store things elsewhere? Or did Apple purposely put that little amount of storage on it so that every person buying a Mac Pro will have to pay extra for a minimum amount of decent storage? I'm trying to decide if I buy Mac Pro or get the new iMac upgraded.
IF the card burns out you don't think AppleCare/Warranty isn't going to replace the card ? Apple generally services the parts on the systems they sell.
Therefore, the part is replaceable. If all of the circuit boards had to be swapped out or the whole system swapped out to make a repair then it would not be replaceable.
Replaced with what I want is different from whether it is replaceable at all. The first is really about control not design or parts. The second has to do with the action of replacement.
This would have taken you 3 seconds to google, instead of posting rubbish. You insinuated in your post that
1. multithreading is best for powah!
2. Only a CPU is capable of multithreading (for powah)
3. Some other point about USB 3 that made no sense at all
Instead of me explaining, I'll let Nvidia do it.
http://www.nvidia.com/object/what-is-gpu-computing.html
Code:
GPU computing is the use of a GPU (graphics processing unit) together with a CPU to accelerate general-purpose scientific and engineering applications. Pioneered five years ago by NVIDIA, GPU computing has quickly become an industry standard, enjoyed by millions of users worldwide and adopted by virtually all computing vendors.
GPU computing offers unprecedented application performance by offloading compute-intensive portions of the application to the GPU, while the remainder of the code still runs on the CPU. From a user's perspective, applications simply run significantly faster.
CPU + GPU is a powerful combination because [b]CPUs consist of a few cores optimized for serial processing, while GPUs consist of thousands of smaller, more efficient cores designed for parallel performance[/b]. Serial portions of the code run on the CPU while parallel portions run on the GPU.Do you realise that your question does not really make sense? All "performance hungry programs" could take advantage of "GPU power". Some applications already use OpenCL and/or CUDA. The nMP supports OpenCL and there are plenty of applications that use it and many others could be updated by the developers to do the same thing.
I'm too lazy to search the forum whether I made a price prediction, or merely hinted at one. So anyway, 3k for Quad. I admit it's higher than I had hoped, and way higher than I had wished. Tim Cook is known as the wizard who, by dealing early and placing big bets, is able to arrange sourcing for a price way lower than the competition.
A few points (IMO) worth mentioning.
Face it: AMD could have thrown Apple the bargain of a lifetime on those cards, as there is no way in he** the manufacture of those cards would cannibalize AMD's GPU sales. In fact, for the nMP to start eating into the Windows workstation market, that is exactly what would have been needed...
Apple seems to have put a tremendous effort into a process to build those babies in large series, and that bet only pays off if they sell sufficient numbers. I expect the base model's price will come down by a few hundred within six months, more if sales are slow.
The "double workstation GPU" bet is most puzzling. For the bet to pay off, a number of things must happen, specifically that computation heavy 3rd party applications utilize OpenCL. Last time I checked, there weren't many. And for Apple which tries to control each component in it's ecosystem, this bet is ... weird.
Now if you take me: I do not really have any use for a nMP - I don't do Video, CAD, 3D or any stuff where I'd really need a nMP. If my MP would go pop, I'd get another one, maybe a 4,1 if I get one cheap...
On the other hand, If you'd ditch the second GPU, slice 500 off the price of the nMP, apple could attract my money.
Then again, if I was flushed, I'd might just get one for the heck of it...
RGDS,
A few points (IMO) worth mentioning.
Face it: AMD could have thrown Apple the bargain of a lifetime on those cards, as there is no way in he** the manufacture of those cards would cannibalize AMD's GPU sales. In fact, for the nMP to start eating into the Windows workstation market, that is exactly what would have been needed...
Apple seems to have put a tremendous effort into a process to build those babies in large series, and that bet only pays off if they sell sufficient numbers. I expect the base model's price will come down by a few hundred within six months, more if sales are slow.
The "double workstation GPU" bet is most puzzling. For the bet to pay off, a number of things must happen, specifically that computation heavy 3rd party applications utilize OpenCL. Last time I checked, there weren't many. And for Apple which tries to control each component in it's ecosystem, this bet is ... weird.
Now if you take me: I do not really have any use for a nMP - I don't do Video, CAD, 3D or any stuff where I'd really need a nMP. If my MP would go pop, I'd get another one, maybe a 4,1 if I get one cheap...
On the other hand, If you'd ditch the second GPU, slice 500 off the price of the nMP, apple could attract my money.
Then again, if I was flushed, I'd might just get one for the heck of it...
RGDS,
No such thing as "US sales tax".
Buy in a state with no sales tax and you will pay...wait for it......no sales tax.
Then go to Home Depot buy a small, cheap shop vac. Ditch the actual vac and chuck the Mac-Ina-Can in there with the hoses and accessories. Tell the customs guys that it's for cleaning up the garage. You could even plug it in and clean some carpets in Gatwick to prove it.
I wish people would actually double check their facts before posting inane nonsense, painful to read sometimes.....inane nonsense....
Yeah, I am glad that doing that flies with you, Captain Koolaid, but it does not fly with many other people. It's good to see that someone who is a "vendor" on this site has such an interesting view on legal issues.
Also, doing this would mean that you are buying it personally and not for a business, which I know I have already mentioned. Oh, and buying it as business means that I effectively would pay £2000 anyway, since I can claim the VAT, making your plan sound even more stupid than it actually is. Never mind the fact that the other £2000 just reduces my company tax.
At least we agree on the last sentence of your post.
Generally, workstation-class GPUs are actually fine gaming GPUs. They render a bit differently, and they have a lot of error-correction and they're made to be a bit more reliable in general. That's what you're paying more for, and you will pay more for a workstation card than a gaming card, for about the same gaming performance. They still have the same instruction sets that games require, and run pretty much the same, perhaps a little bit faster in some areas. The reason people don't use them to game with is simply because of the stuff they add that games don't take advantage of, but cost a lot more to get. Workstation cards just aren't cost efficient for gaming. Can you game with them, though? Some, absolutely. Others may be a bit underpowered. Workstation cards are generally based on gaming cards, but it really depends on which card. I'm sure we'll see some benchmarks at Anandtech and other sites next December or January, because even though this new Mac Pro is clearly aimed at the workstation crowd, there's going to be a lot of Mac gamers trying to figure out if they can play with their Mac Pro, too.
After reading all the comments there seem to be two groups who's opinions differ
- Those who will use the MP to run 3D modeling, video editing photoshop and the like. They are all for buying this and see $3K is a good enough deal.
- People who want to play games on the MP, they seem to think it is a waste.
Allow me to help you. If I go too slow or use too many big words, pop a flare and I will find you.
If the software is not designed to use GPU for calcuations (like for instance, my entire workflow - it is all designed to use the CPUs for rendering computations) it doesn't matter what the GPU is capable of. It won't use the GPU.
I understand exactly what he is talking about. Workflows can be CPU bound or GPU bound depending on the software.
I use my MacPro for 3d art, and my entire workflow is based on CPU rendering - and it isn't moving to GPU in the foreseeable future, at least to the program managers I have talked to. Christ, they have just now gone multi-core and 64-bit on the OSX platform.
High overhead? Where? The bandwidth is a fixed amount. There is nothing like USB's overhead here.
Is this even a new problem. The two x4 slots on the currennt Mac Pro are shared on a switch. The sky isn't falling for the substantial number of ProTools HDX cards installed in those.
Latency ( seconds, microsecond, ns , etc. ) and bandwidth (MB/s , GB/s , etc. ) are two different things. There is a reoccurring arm waving here that tries to tries to turn the later into the former.
Audio doesn't have anywhere near the bandwidth requirements video does. Can cobble together corner cases where just cranking up the number of tracks higher and higher till catch up to more limited video traffic but they are substantially different. The more crank up the tracks the smaller the corner case actually is.
The above article's benchmark isn't particularly indicative. They show a PCIe SSD. The Mac Pro already has one. Intel has already done demos with even better throughput than this device using early TB v2 foundation. No, you can't have a x8 PCIe SSD card in an external enclosure and not seem some blockage, but x4 PCIe SSD cards are going to be close to x3 with TB v2. If needed multiple throughput paths the Mac Pro has three different TB controls. Simply spread the bandwidth load around ( PCIe SSD on controller 1 , ProToolHDX on controller 2, etc. )
Notable quotes from the review are
" ... We also tested the Atto N12 10G-BaseT NIC inside the same enclosure ... the TurboBox enclosure is an excellent option for gaining additional connectivity. "
The write speeds were about the same inside/outside. There was a gap on read, but TB v2 addresses that. The salient missing piece here is "how fast is fast enough". Again can go into the "just add more RAW 4K streams" until hit limitations.
For the folks moving x1, x2, and most x4 cards (many x4 cards are more so "more than x2" than "maxed out at x4 for normal operation" ) out to external enclosures, Thunderbolt doesn't present the problems you are making it out to be.
I have 250GB SSD in my mac pro and use FCPX, the only things on the SSD are my OS, and Apps.
All my work is stored on much larger HDD's, and external storage.
I think Apple know people will use larger storage, but made the SSD small to encourage people to upgrade, and the form factor forces people to rely solely on external storage, such as USB3, and predominantly Thunderbolt. Which costs a bomb!
A decent and large thunderbolt raid enclosure costs almost as much as the Mac Pro in cases.
My 3TB single thunderbolt/USB3 Lacie Drive cost my €299 for 3TB. That adds up quickly, compared to a WD Red 4TB Drive that costs €181 for me.
I want to, and will do Both of those.
Who develops games, and doesn't test their work? Also for pleasure.
I also use FCPX, and that's apparently being built around the new Mac Pro.
Also false, those GPU's are also there for OpenGL, which AMD is not all that great that. They don't even meet the Kronos Group's conformance for OpenGL support.
There's also the fact that there's no NVIDIA option which will instantly drive away people that need CUDA.
Personally I'll buy what's best for the money, and I'd want at least a 6-core with top GPU's, and preferably an 8-core with those.
I'll add the ram myself to 64GB for work.
I'll wait for decent reviews, and benchmarks to see how these new GPU's stack up against what I can put in my 2010 Mac Pro.
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Businesses don't just shell out top dollar for an inferior product. The types of businesses we are talking about are going to generally want more cores for the same price point, and want CUDA. The nMP does not appeal to a company looking to buy 20+ workstations.
the nMP is build for OSX lovers. Basically its built specifically for half the people on this forum, and to look cool.
The nMP is basically this:
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Ah, I think you missed the humor.
You were rudely telling someone that posting without knowing facts really bugged you.
Then you went on to expound on the nonexistent "US sales tax" which made you guilty of what you were ranting about.
That's why I was able to recycle that last sentence of yours.
And BTW, I don't REALLY think you should vacuum rugs at Gatwick with the nMP. See, here in US (where we have NO national sales tax) we sometimes say or type funny things, just to be silly.
Especially when poking holes in pompous bombast.
Wow. That totally proves the point. You're just too smart for me.
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Your humour Kung fu is weak. If you do the figures, even without any taxes, then you will see how stupid the idea is to fly to the US from the UK to buy the Mac Pro. I am aware of the fact that some states in the US do not have sales tax. That does not change the fact that the idea does not make financial sense.
Wow, all that and you knew what he meant.
He meant you won't be able to go to Fry's and buy a replacement or better GPU and plop it in.
He meant that it is EXCEEDINGLY unlikely that Sapphire or EVGA or PNY is going to decide to offer an upgrade option on OWC.
He meant that tiny vendors like myself could never in a MILLION years come up with the cash to lay out a PCB and get it printed and assembled.
So, much like the iMacs with MXM GPUs, almost 99.99% will go the landfill with the same GPU they shipped with.
Are the GPUs in those iMacs replaceable? Yes. Does anyone offer upgrades? No. Where do you get replacement cards? Apple or Apple or used cards that were originally from....you guessed it, Apple. And those iMacs use a standard format card, just different rom file. The Mac Pro will have a completely oddball layout. Making it even less likely.
So, that is what he meant. It didn't require a pedantic disassembly of what the meaning of the word "is" is. You knew what he meant perfectly well, you just wanted to find a way to nit pick and disagree just for the sake of disagreeing.
Do you see that it doesn't move the conversation forward or help anyone? I got his point and it is correct.
It does make sense if you are already coming to the USA on business or vacation.... And for some country, like Brasil for instance, the cost difference make the plane ticket seem cheap in comparaison. Of course, how you're going to slip it into the country bypassing the custom and entry tax is quite another matter...
Are you really that blind? £1900 it is if you buy in one of those no tax states. Then you take it in and unless you are unlucky at Heathrow then the price for you is £1900. So yeah, if you are going to USA for holiday or something then this is very nice treatPlease consider the whole picture. $2999 is without the US sales tax
$2999 = £1854.90 . The real exchange rate that you will get at the bank will put it closer to £1900 without tax. Then you have to add the US sales tax and UK customs, unless you try to sneak it back in, which would only make sense if you're buying it from your personal funds.
£2400 with VAT is £2000 without VAT. So you're paying about £100 more. Wow. What a rip off!
The nonUS pricing is a rip-off and I don't think it's fair.
That's a pretty low bar don't you think.
Needless to say, it did prove the point. You do not appear to have any understanding of how a computer works wrt hardware & software.
You're right. I have wasted all my years studying computer science and have no understanding of it at all. Your argument was just so cohesive and compelling that I must concede. You have proven all of your points in spectacular fashion.
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Are you really that blind? £1900 it is if you buy in one of those no tax states. Then you take it in and unless you are unlucky at Heathrow then the price for you is £1900. So yeah, if you are going to USA for holiday or something then this is very nice treat
The nonUS pricing is a rip-off and I don't think it's fair.
And it is £2000 if I buy it through my company. Are you really this blind that this argument makes no financial sense? Cars are also more expensive in the UK. Think for a moment about it.