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KnightWRX

macrumors Pentium
Jan 28, 2009
15,046
4
Quebec, Canada
Anyway, with the last 2 iOS releases, it seems it's Apple that's out of steam. iOS 5 and 6's feature lists are basically "hey, look at us, we're catching up!" kinda things.
 

smoledman

macrumors 68000
Original poster
Oct 17, 2011
1,943
364
Anyway, with the last 2 iOS releases, it seems it's Apple that's out of steam. iOS 5 and 6's feature lists are basically "hey, look at us, we're catching up!" kinda things.

Yet iOS 6 is the best mobile OS on the market, par excellence.
 

Hellhammer

Moderator emeritus
Dec 10, 2008
22,164
582
Finland
Why do 90% of video pros use Macs?

Do you actually have some proof that shows that 90% of video pros use Macs?

Besides Mac Pros come with 6 or 12 cores.

So? Intel released 8-core CPUs months ago that would allow up to 16-core configurations. Everyone else is using them already.

Also you can always put in the highest end nVidia graphics.

Show us a GTX 690 inside a Mac Pro running OS X.

It's a tower workstation for a reason - open it up and expand!

If it was that easy. Not everything is compatible with everything.

Yet iOS 6 is the best mobile OS on the market, par excellence.

That is just your opinion, not a fact.
 

andymodem

macrumors 6502a
Nov 20, 2008
585
109
Baltimore, MD
You make me laugh. 2 years old, slow. No GPU Support....lolz. my workstation is a solid 3 to 4 times faster. Ill keep it :).


The Mac Pro as it stands now is not a good workstation for users who need very high performance. It doesn't even support SATA,3@ USB 3, no qaud or even dual GPU. Support

Link to Geekbench results with 3-4x the performance?
 

KnightWRX

macrumors Pentium
Jan 28, 2009
15,046
4
Quebec, Canada
Link to Geekbench results with 3-4x the performance?

You do understand Geekbench is a very limited benchmark right ? It only tests raw processor performance, not overall system performance. If you put the same 2 Xeon processors and run Geekbench on them, you get the same result. However, both machines might not be equivalent if one of them sports better I/O ports, more GPU cores, etc..

Geekbench doesn't test overall system performance on every day tasks.
 

G51989

macrumors 68030
Feb 25, 2012
2,530
10
NYC NY/Pittsburgh PA
Bear with me guys, power is out. On the Phone. 2.8 inch screen fail ;)


Link to Geekbench results with 3-4x the performance?

As KnightWRX said. Thats a CPU only test. Not system performance as a whole. A Mac Pro would still lose to my work system very badly.

Some of you may have seen me lusting after a build from this company, and a few weeks ago my new bad boy came in :D. HUGE bump from the old station. And its a custom build. Which I like. It suits my VERY well.

Here is the company that built it:

http://www.gamepc.com/shop/systemcategory.asp?category=workstation

Always wanted something from them at work. Now I have one. Apple doesn't make anything like the systems on that website.

Let me go through its basic specs.

Processors: Dual 8 Core Xenons, Overclocked from the builder to 4.1gzh. ( I forget which Xenon's they are exactly, I can look tomorrow if it really matters to anyone. And yes. This machine is liquid cooled. )

GPU: This machine has Quad Quadro 5000's. Neat eh? ( Our programs are SUPER picky about what they want to run on and what they don't want to run on )

Ram: 128gb, 1600mzh ECC.

Storage: 2 SSD Drives, 128gb each. 8 1TB Western Digital Hard drives

Basics right? ( Phone, to lazy to write them all down) No idea how much it costs. And I don't want to know.

Now, why the hell do I need this kind of power? I won't say what I do exactly, or who I work for. Or the programs that I use. Because I don't know how my employer would react to me ranting on about what I do and who I work for. In the small chance they'd ever find me on here. SO I'm leaving that out.

I will say it does involve simulations for all sorts of things. Mostly moving things, that are large. I'll say that much.

We recently upgraded to the new generation of programs. Which means we can produce a much better product for our customers. But our labs full of 2-3 year old workstations just couldn't cut it. Workstations like the one I listed have been a god send for us.

Why you might ask?

Well, the types of simulations we create and run ( sometimes thousands of times over ) put an incredible strain on everything, some of these programs will eat up those 16 cores no problem, burp and ask for more. You gotta remember, this isn't train simulator. This is the real deal; engineers count on the things we create and run to help them along as something is being designed/built.

So, the faster our systems are. The faster these simulations can be created, ran. Data collected. And ran again. And again. And again.

Could I do it on a Mac Pro? Assuming the programs I use don't complain about the 5000 series ( drivers might be a huge issue ).

Yes. But. I think it would probably take 3-4 times longer for it to do the same job than my workstation can. All those little things the Mac Pro lacks such as a good GPU, add up into TONS of lost performance.

Why does that matter?

Money. The age ole saying of time is money is 100% dead on.

So what if I'm on a Mac Pro and it takes another 15-20 minutes? I can just go take a crap or watch some youtube on the phone right? Wrong.

That 15-20 minutes extra is 15-20 minutes I'm being paid to sit there and stare at progress bars. Or watch the model itself in real time ( If I'm bored ), that's 15-20 minutes of me not being able to do more work.

That 15-20 minutes 3-4 times a day in my case adds up to about an hour or more of just sitting around. That's about 7-8 hours a week of me staring at a screen waiting for something to get completed.

8 hours a week of waiting. I work about 42 weeks a year on average.

336 hours lost on one person during one year because of a slow machine.

Oh yeah. 17 people work in the same Lab I do alone. Doing exactly what I do, building, and running simulations of whatever the customer wants ( I'll go ahead and say its normally pretty large objects and moving objects ).

336 Hours a week lost. 17 times over.

5,712 hours on AVERAGE lost in one department due to slow workstations.

So, most of us if you break it down into a 40 hour work week. Make about 45-50 dollars an hour. K?

Ready? Think its not a big deal?

That comes out to about 257,000 dollars of people being paid to sit around and stare at a screen. Per year, in a small department.

As an example of course.

I'm sure the same thing translates into any company that is using Mac Pro's for anything intensive. Lets say they are on 2010, or even worse 2008 machines. They NEED an upgrade, BADLY. If they got newer software for example, they are probably dying for an update.

They didn't get it. Which is why I can see a lot of them jumping to PC workstations.

Slow Machines like the Mac Pro can cost SOME people a lot of money. If we were forced to run Machine's with Mac Pro like specs. We would lose TONS of money in sit around time.

So, Apple should probably make a good workstation that isn't slow and 2 years old. Their most loyal customers depend on them for that. Slow workstations end up costing a ton of productively and a ton of money.

I do understand not everyone needs the raw data raping machines that we use. But for us, there is no such thing as to much memory, to much speed or to much storage. We take what we can get.

I'm sure some other people, maybe Mac users could REALLY use an update. And its costing them tons of money to NOT upgrade.

Sure, slight bump. But its not that much better than the 2010 Mac Pro. And that slight speed bump just isn't enough to make it a workstation thats competitive.

Am I a Mac user at work? No. But If I was I would be pissed as hell. And I understand why so many Mac users are pissed that Apple has been unable/unwilling to Provide them with a good workstation.

Thanks for dealing with phone posting! I had to separate most of the lines so I can see what the hell I'm typing.
 
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Stella

macrumors G3
Apr 21, 2003
8,883
6,477
Canada
Sorry but 3D maps isn't new either and neither is it Apple developed. Nokia used the same company for their 3D maps before Apple bought the company.

Apple are even limiting turn by turn to their latest phone when previous generations of phone are quite capable.

The industry has had plenty of new ideas. Apple just seem to create a song and dance to give the impression that everything is new and their own creation. Of course, Apple do create unique features.. but not everything of Apple's is 'new and unique'.

Personally, I don't see much innovation in iOS6. Mac Pro updates were a joke. Retina display Macbook Pro is great, but Apple are dependant on another company to create to create the retina display.
 
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KnightWRX

macrumors Pentium
Jan 28, 2009
15,046
4
Quebec, Canada
Retina display Macbook Pro is great, but Apple are dependant on another company to create to create the retina display.

The scaling method applied to select between 1440x900, 1650x1080 and 1920x1200 is quite innovative though. Whereas the industry has been switching the panel to another resolution, Apple is using real-time downscaling of a frame buffer, applying image scaling algorithms, to preserve the panel's native resolution which offering the heightened pixel count, something only now possible with the HiDPI panel and modes.

I still have to see it in person before saying if it comes out good or not, but the method itself is innovative.

iOS 5 and iOS 6 ? Not so innovative. Catching up to Android for 2 years straight after calling Google a "Copycat" in every media is quite hypocritical on Apple's part.
 

smoledman

macrumors 68000
Original poster
Oct 17, 2011
1,943
364
The scaling method applied to select between 1440x900, 1650x1080 and 1920x1200 is quite innovative though. Whereas the industry has been switching the panel to another resolution, Apple is using real-time downscaling of a frame buffer, applying image scaling algorithms, to preserve the panel's native resolution which offering the heightened pixel count, something only now possible with the HiDPI panel and modes.

I still have to see it in person before saying if it comes out good or not, but the method itself is innovative.

iOS 5 and iOS 6 ? Not so innovative. Catching up to Android for 2 years straight after calling Google a "Copycat" in every media is quite hypocritical on Apple's part.

Apple's biggest technical leads are that scaling algorithm and finger tracking for trackpads. Nobody else is even close.
 

G51989

macrumors 68030
Feb 25, 2012
2,530
10
NYC NY/Pittsburgh PA
The scaling method applied to select between 1440x900, 1650x1080 and 1920x1200 is quite innovative though. Whereas the industry has been switching the panel to another resolution, Apple is using real-time downscaling of a frame buffer, applying image scaling algorithms, to preserve the panel's native resolution which offering the heightened pixel count, something only now possible with the HiDPI panel and modes.

I still have to see it in person before saying if it comes out good or not, but the method itself is innovative.

I saw this as well. Its different for sure. Not sure how it would come out in real life either, I'll have to swing by my local Mac Outfitters store and check them out once they hit the floor. Not interested in purchasing the Laptop, but the screen is something I'd love to get a look at.
 

LethalWolfe

macrumors G3
Jan 11, 2002
9,370
124
Los Angeles
Why do 90% of video pros use Macs? Besides Mac Pros come with 6 or 12 cores. Also you can always put in the highest end nVidia graphics. It's a tower workstation for a reason - open it up and expand!
You should really frequent some pro editing forums. It's common now to see discussions about Avid, Adobe, Windows and HP towers by long time Apple users. In the past 18 months or so Apple has done a great job of losing end-user evangelists that it took a decade to cultivate.

Trust me, no one is excited about the state of the Mac Pro and more people would be buying HP workstations right now if they weren't already entrenched in a Mac-centric workflow. Many people have already realized they can't depend on Apple anymore and need to shift platforms (or be platform agnostic as best they can). It's just going to take some time for them to work out all the logistics.


Lethal
 
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