Do you think it's worth getting the new "Mac Pro" - Poll

[unclegit]

This doesn't look like a gaming machine to me at all. A gamer would want to replace those soldered-in Fire Pros and get a new GPU every year or so. Fire Pros themselves are way overpriced to only be used for gaming. Also, the state of Thunderbolt GPUs is pretty bad right now.

I agree it's not a gaming machine at all - the choice of fire pro's tells you it's a workstation.

But don't look soldered in to me - looks like the boards drop in vertically.

It's not PCIe - so you'll have to go to apple for a new card or two - but it's not on board either.

 

[Tesselator]

Very good point, however the whole poll at this point is based on what we currently know. So, apply some reservation for change of opinion.

Hehe, tru-dat... I'm waiting for the Yes or No poll which asks the question: Will you buy one in the next 6 months? (after it's released and shipping that is.)

 

[Erasmus]

Do we know that this thing doesn't come in a dual CPU configuration for the 12-core version?

As far as I can tell, we know nothing about it, except what it looks like, what ports it has, and a very vague indication of what will power the top spec.

For example, we have no idea if Apple will release a 4-6 core, single or maybe dual non-Fire-Pro GPU version as Apple's gaming mac (I hope so).

And it will all be irrelevant if the base cost is well over 3 grand, because Apple will lose a lot of sales, as pretty much the only people who would buy them are those people who absolutely need a super-fast Apple product for work, and nothing else will do. Which clearly limits the market a lot.

 

[ActionableMango]

Go to http://www.apple.com/mac-pro/

I agree it's not a gaming machine at all - the choice of fire pro's tells you it's a workstation.

But don't look soldered in to me - looks like the boards drop in vertically.

It's not PCIe - so you'll have to go to apple for a new card or two - but it's not on board either.

Well if you go here and look at the seventh page (7th dot?) you'll see the boards with the GPU are not just "graphics cards". At the very least, the two boards are different and one of them is also the interface to the SSD card. This does not sound like replaceable graphics to me.

I think the "traditional PC motherboard" was split into three boards, including on-board GPUs for two of those boards.

Do we know that this thing doesn't come in a dual CPU configuration for the 12-core version?

Did you see the internal pictures? I don't see how there's room for it. Another CPU and four more memory slots?

 

[ctyhntr]

I'm waiting for release two; R2

 

[derbothaus]

Release the entry price and I will vote. Right now it is looking as advertised to be around $8000-$10,000. Then all the seriously expensive TB peripherals and $50.00 cable to connect them bringing it even higher.

 

[softwareguy256]

A big flop in the making. Obviously steve wasn't around to fire everyone responsible for this dumb idea. Who cares what a box that sits under a desk is going to look like? People want to stick massive number of cards, hard disks, gpus, and memory into that thing. That is it. It can weigh 50 pounds and draw the energy equivalent of a space heater. Who cares?

 

[Tutor]

All Real Mac Pro Owners Should Rejoice

Phil just drove up the resale value of your Mac Pro by announcing the continuation of the Mac Pro moniker via the tube/cylinder.

I need a 5th "no" option that says, "All of the above four 'No's'."

 

[Tesselator]

Do we know that this thing doesn't come in a dual CPU configuration for the 12-core version?

I don't think there's enough space for dual - nor enough sink area to cool two processors. Just a guess by watching the released info tho.

 

[Erasmus]

I don't think there's enough space for dual - nor enough sink area to cool two processors. Just a guess by watching the released info tho.

Oh well. Maybe Apple decided that if a developer needs more than 12 cores, it's time to start thinking about learning OpenCL...

Not CUDA

Still hoping for a 6 core low end version with two enthusiast level GPUs
I'll use it to get my PhD done, I promise!

 

[Tesselator]

Oh well. Maybe Apple decided that if a developer needs more than 12 cores, it's time to start thinking about learning OpenCL...

Not CUDA

Maybe... Also something that comes to mind... NVidia cards usually require a considerable bit more power and with the wimpy PSU in the new MacPro6,1 we may actually never see another NVidia offering for MacPro.

Too bad IMO, NVidia cards outclass and out-feature ATI GPU's by miles and miles. Here's a peek at the PSU btw:

​

.

 

[Dr. Stealth]

Even if I absolutely loved this machine I couldn't buy it.

I REQUIRE CUDA for my work. period. Even if an external CUDA solution was available I couldn't pay the $1500 Apple will want for the two Firepro GPUs to be sitting idle.

Apple has for many years charged 400-500% premium for RAM. Everyone knows that and 98% never buy Apple RAM upgrades. Apple now believes they have a way to FORCE you to buy it..... Solder everything to the mainboard or move back to their proprietary ways. They'll give you 2 choices you have to decide on when you BUY it.... They will ask with a smile..... Do you want just 4 inches of bone or the full 8 inches?

This type of strategy always works the opposite with me. I walk.....

 

[Salavat23]

I think this is more of a high end consumer computer than anything.

What is a workstation? I think the following criteria are necessary for a workstation:

1. Multiple storage options. If this is a serious machine made for serious work for serious professionals who use the computer to make money, they need some sort of on-board RAID options such that they can continue work where they left off in the event of a hard drive failure. If the flash PCIe drive fails that stores the OS, you're screwed and you may have just lost a multi-thousand dollar contract.

2. Serviceability. If this is a pro machine, you need the ability to quickly replace parts and get back to work asap. Good luck changing the graphics on that Mac Pro.

3. Air flow. The system has only a single fan. If this fan fails for whatever reason, pretty much every single component in that computer is toast. On a regular tower, if the CPU fan fails, you might damage the CPU, but the other components remain in tact. This risk is not something any professional would take.

I think anyone who needs a serious workstation will go the route of something like an HP Z620 or Z820. This Mac Pro just maintains the "cool" factor.

 

[derbothaus]

Maybe... Also something that comes to mind... NVidia cards usually require a considerable bit more power and with the wimpy PSU in the new MacPro6,1 we may actually never see another NVidia offering for MacPro.

Too bad IMO, NVidia cards outclass and out-feature ATI GPU's by miles and miles. Here's a peek at the PSU btw:

Image
​

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Except when it comes to OpenCL execution.
http://www.anandtech.com/show/6994/nvidia-geforce-gtx-770-review/15
Look at the LuxMark graph. Now say sorry
If OpenCL takes off as it is preparing to do, you'll want AMD or you'll want Nvidia to apologize and put their compute execution back into their consumer cards.

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Even if I absolutely loved this machine I couldn't buy it.

I REQUIRE CUDA for my work. period. Even if an external CUDA solution was available I couldn't pay the $1500 Apple will want for the two Firepro GPUs to be sitting idle.

Apple has for many years charged 400-500% premium for RAM. Everyone knows that and 98% never buy Apple RAM upgrades. Apple now believes they have a way to FORCE you to buy it..... Solder everything to the mainboard or move back to their proprietary ways. They'll give you 2 choices you have to decide on when you BUY it.... They will ask with a smile..... Do you want just 4 inches of bone or the full 8 inches?

This type of always strategy works the opposite with me. I walk.....

The RAM is not soldered. At least from all prelim reports.

 

[Erasmus]

Maybe... Also something that comes to mind... NVidia cards usually require a considerable bit more power and with the wimpy PSU in the new MacPro6,1 we may actually never see another NVidia offering for MacPro.

Too bad IMO, NVidia cards outclass and out-feature ATI GPU's by miles and miles. Here's a peek at the PSU btw:

Indeed. It seems to me that AMD are better for gaming, and NVIDIA is better for GPGPU. Oh well, hopefully Apple is doing the right thing, and can really kick OpenCL up a notch. I always wanted to learn OpenCL, but could never find reasonable and simple tutorials to do so.

P.S. I like your sig. It's very true.

 

[spunkgarLEWII]

Tutor,

Any indication that this will INDEED drive up the costs of the 4,1 and 5,1 Mac Pros? Given the 4,1 to 5,1 firmware.. I just wanted to know.. in case I ever decide to get this iCan Mac Pro. It looks like a trash can shape.

Phil just drove up the resale value of your Mac Pro by announcing the continuation of the Mac Pro moniker via the tube/cylinder.

I need a 5th "no" option that says, "All of the above four 'No's'."

 

[DisMyMac]

3. Air flow. The system has only a single fan. If this fan fails for whatever reason, pretty much every single component in that computer is toast.

It will shutdown in time. Annoying, but not catastrophic.

 

[Erasmus]

It will shutdown in time. Annoying, but not catastrophic.

You know, I don't reckon it would. I think it would severely throttle itself, but I would not be surprised at all if the convection circulation that would be generated even without the fan would still dissipate enough heat to keep it comfortably idling.

Also, does anyone know if it would be possible if Apple would have a non-ECC RAM option? Or if it would be possible to just use the far-cheaper non-ECC RAM in it?

 

[Dr. Stealth]

Planned obsolescence.

The RAM is not soldered. At least from all prelim reports.

I understand that. But everything else is or is a move back toward proprietary... It's the path they have chosen that I was making a reference to. It sux.

Disposable appliance...... Like the iMac, iPod, iPhone, iPad and now the disposable Mac Pro. It's sooo small you won't feel sooo bad dropping it in a dumpster in a couple years. Use it 2-3 years at best, donate it to the church, give it to your kids, and buy a new one..... Planned obsolescence.

Kind of like a subscription computer... Keep the money flowing.....

Adobe has jumped on this strategy and so are many others...

 

[derbothaus]

I understand that. But everything else is or is a move back toward proprietary... It's the path they have chosen that I was making a reference to. It sux.

Disposable appliance...... Like the iMac, iPod, iPhone, iPad and now the disposable Mac Pro. It's sooo small you won't feel sooo bad dropping it in a dumpster in a couple years. Use it 2-3 years at best, donate it to the church, give it to your kids, and buy a new one..... Planned obsolescence.

Kind of like a subscription computer... Keep the money flowing.....

Adobe has jumped on this strategy and so are many others...

Sorry Doc. I hate quick triggered edification too. I misunderstood and agree fully on your points. I am not a fan of the new 'concept' but I am working on my usual curmudgeon self. I am trying to look on the bright side. Like many others the hate will spew if the price is not right.

 

[kitsunestudios]

I have three needs from this: Adobe CC, Blender 3d, and games. LOVE the design and form facto. Don't really care about PCI cards; haven't needed one for a Mac since 1999. I do care about the GPU.

Workstation GPUs have never been great gaming cards, and Blender's GPU render only works with CUDA at the moment, not AMD's OpenCL implementation. Ultimately, this will be competing against an i7 iMac with the 680MX for my money later this year.

If I can get one of these for less than $3000 with prosumer nVidea GPUs in SLI, I'm sold.

 

[Tutor]

Polarization has set in. Mac Pro 4,1 and 5.1 were the best of the best in their time.

Tutor,

Any indication that this will INDEED drive up the costs of the 4,1 and 5,1 Mac Pros? Given the 4,1 to 5,1 firmware.. I just wanted to know.. in case I ever decide to get this iCan Mac Pro. It looks like a trash can shape.

It's too soon for there to be certainty. However, my gut tells me that it will drive up the cost of used Mac Pros owned by anyone who has upgraded them because of their previous investments and because of the obstacles posed to those potential sellers stripping down their Mac Pros pre-sale to use those parts in the 2013-2014 Cylinders. Also from what I've been reading on the related threads, early opinions seem to split about evenly pro vs con with a sizable faction holding out until final release. This tends to make me believe that since we now know for sure the direction that Apple is taking, the time to wait, for many new or upgrade purchasers, is over. Thus, the members of the con group who don't have the Mac Pro 4,1 or 5,1 have no reason to wait any longer - they can now get one of the last truly upgradeable Mac Pros or just jump ship to another platform. Moreover, when the Mac Pro 4,1 and 5,1 were first sold, they were tops in performance and very competitively priced the higher in performance they yielded, i.e., the dual CPUs. Those systems didn't become any slower or feature-less with todays' announcement. Apple is now shooting for a different goal in the market. Apple's competitors already have boxes that have dual Xeon E5-Sandy Bridges and will run dual Xeon E5-Ivy Bridges. Thus, when all is said and done that new Cylinder better be competitively priced. That would be uncharacteristic of Apple for a product that low on the performance spectrum, inspiring many to soak up the remaining new 5,1s. That's why I believe that overall, the unveiling of the Cylinder will have a positive impact on Mac Pro 4,1 and 5,1 resale values and also help soak up any remaining new 5,1's. The Cylinder is innovation from the low end of the pro market - so low that, unless there's more pent-up cash out there than I imagine, more and more will come to realize that if they need more compute performance, then they should jump ship or explore GPU performance-assisted upgrades to their current systems.

 

[thejadedmonkey]

It looks like it would make a great x-mac, good for me at home, I can program on, moderate expansion if I'm in a pinch, basically a souped up mac mini.

As a Mac Pro, no way. It'll end up looking like this.

 

[Macsonic]

I think we need more information on the new 2013 Mac Pro and how it performs for long hours of usage plus the price point. With external upgrades, maybe that may mean more clutter, more cables? Just taking into consideration your desk will have 2-3 monitors. And how the new design handles heat problems. And if the GPU is detached or soldered needs to be verified.

 

[thekev]

Sorry Doc. I hate quick triggered edification too. I misunderstood and agree fully on your points. I am not a fan of the new 'concept' but I am working on my usual curmudgeon self. I am trying to look on the bright side. Like many others the hate will spew if the price is not right.

I would say it's one of those things where we'll have a much better idea of what they're selling 6 months into its release cycle. We'll see software updates and whether any additional peripheral solutions surface. We'll see if OSX gets decent gpu drivers and up to date OpenGL for once that is lacking in bugs due to attempts to use deprecated features.

Ya lets form a cogent argument by saying "would you buy it for one million dollars" REALLY - and when exactly has anyone EVER sold a consumer product for one million dollars. Bottom Line Apple put the best they have in this system and it's the best most cutting edge product on the planet - THAT'S HOW you vote yes.

I assume you are not looking for a pony, yet you apply the same mentality. It's logical to factor in everything prior to making a decision. If you need certain functionality in your system that isn't provided by this base unit, it is effectively part of the price. "Cutting edge" often means lacking in initial compatibility, so it may be many months into the life cycle of this machine before some users can even approach it for their needs. That isn't a big deal because they're unlikely to consider updating it prior to 2015. Intel isn't really on a 12 month cycle with those processors. The same goes for workstation gpus. They can be much more stable in certain applications, but their update cycles are not as regular. You certainly don't have the practice of upclocking and rebranding from the prior year.

Excellent points IMHO.

Both cost and performance (ROI) are figured into corporate (or I should say proper) purchase decisions by any business entity (from an independent to Fortune 100).

I suspect these things will be a bit on the expensive side, just for the initial tube. But keep in mind, that there will be a good chance that additional items would be needed (besides monitor/s), to get a suitable working solution. Storage in particular, which will add costs above and beyond the base model (or whatever CPU/GPU combinations available to chose from, or even SSD capacity, as now they really have users over a barrel).

It's nice to see responses from people with sanity rather than Apple logos drawn in magic marker on their chests. I think the guys looking for cheaper thunderbolt peripherals are likely to be disappointed. Look at something like a cheap eSATA solution. They can be pretty terrible. Most of the time external solutions perceived as cheap get there by cutting costs and running on slim margins as far as I can tell.

Consider if someone might need a Promise Pegasus for storage, those start at $999. So it can get ugly fast, and worse, even the Pegasus units are a serious compromise IMHO, as they use consumer grade drives rather than enterprise grade to save on costs (not nearly as reliable this way, nor are these drives designed for the abuse RAID configurations generate to begin with).

I'm not sure why they even support RAID 5 or anything that splits off parity, not that anyone has used RAID 3 in many years. Are enterprise drives really that much more reliable outside of the error recovery timings?

Lots of compromise here, that will both increase costs to the user (not necessarily Apple, as I suspect this will generate an even higher gross margin for them if the sales numbers meet or exceed their targets), and decrease the performance vs. a more traditional design (box with PCIe slots & HDD bays).

That would be something I brought up before. Many of the proponents of a smaller design suggested it would bring down the cost of the machine, because the price is really driven by the cost of aluminum and building sleds for SATA connections that are paid for either way. It is important to consider total costs, but I'm highly skeptical that this would have any effect on the availability of thunderbolt peripherals.