If you had to choose: Thunderbolt Vs Upgradeable GPU + PCIe slots?

[slughead]

Non sense. You can run multiple devices at the same time.

I said that 2 devices can't do the Same thing at the same time--as in on the same controller, you can't be transferring to the computer at 20Gbps with both ports at the same time. FOR INSTANCE: if you had both ports on the same controller, each going to a SSD, then forming a software RAID 0, you would not get a total of 40Gbps of throughput in each direction. This is the exact scenario Tesselator is talking about.

This is exactly what you just said. Is there something seriously wrong where we can't agree on this?

The notion that this Mac Pro doesn't cover a wide variety is workloads is comical. Finding extreme high end corner cases doesn't make the market the Mac Pro is targeted at significantly smaller.

No, the new Mac Pro definitely will be highly functional for the workflows of many professionals. I absolutely don't dispute that.

However, an iPad is also highly functional for the workflows of many professionals. I believe flat five said a Mac Mini would work fine for him, and that he uses a Macbook Pro for his work regularly.

I'm just saying: Thunderbolt 2, though clearly versatile, is not a replacement for PCIe. PCIe slots are capable of up to 8 times more bandwidth, and the availability of devices is much larger. Also, having 2 GPUs that are definitely proprietary and likely not upgradeable is a very big disadvantage. The point of this thread was to destroy the myth that Apple was forced to adopt Proprietary GPU for the new Mac Pro in order to adopt thunderbolt (they were not) and to point out that even if it were true, it is not desirable for many if not most people.

Though there is significant statistical bias in the poll, the results seem overwhelming.

 

[slughead]

It'll work just fine. In fact much better than the 2012 MP because I'll be able to add not just one or two of them but 24 of them. But my style will be different becuase i don't game much. I'll be wanting to add 12 to 24 GTx680 cards which in two years will be about $100ea. Even in two years time I'll still be able to blow any DT/WS system off the planet and into outer space - unless they start adding TB2 or TB3 ports to their designs too that is.

I'd really like to see your frame-rates bottlenecking 24 GTX 680 through 6GBps! That's 250MBps per card.

What is the opposite of scalable performance?

That reminds me of the guy who ran an emulator within an emulator on a 1985 macintosh to run OS X. It took something like 2 days for it to even boot.

 

[subsonix]

I'd really like to see your frame-rates bottlenecking 24 GTX 680 through 6GBps! That's 250MBps per card.

Frame rates are completely irrelevant if you use the cards for computing. On the other hand, the two internal cards that comes with the Mac Pro should be sufficient to get the frame rates you want.

I bet Tesselator's example of 24 cards is not meant to feed hundreds of screens.

 

[slughead]

Frame rates are completely irrelevant if you use the cards for computing. On the other hand, the two internal cards that comes with the Mac Pro should be sufficient to get the frame rates you want.

I bet Tesselator's example of 24 cards is not meant to feed hundreds of screens.

I'm not sure the bandwidth requirements of CUDA-aware applications, but 250MBps has got to be approaching insufficiency.

 

[jav6454]

In response to the original thread question, I will take the PCIe 3.0 lanes everyday. Simply put, the upgrade path of my computer is assured and I won't have to spend $3k+ on a new setup every so often.

 

[flat five]

However, an iPad is also highly functional for the workflows of many professionals. I believe flat five said a Mac Mini would work fine for him, and that he uses a Macbook Pro for his work regularly.

nah.. mac mini wouldn't be too cool for me (i could if i had to but i'd prefer not to.. clocks are way too slow.. i'd have to research the gpus in them too to see how well they can handle the openGL stuff in my apps.. almost certain i wouldn't see much of an advantage in my openCL applications)..

i don't do a shipload of rendering.. maybe around 40-50 hi-res images in a year and they're used mostly for sales purposes instead of my actual work but when the time comes to render, i don't want anything else other than the mac pro.. i've done a few on the macbook and it's sort of scary having the fans going full speed all night long. i just don't have the durability confidence i have from a mac pro.. (but then again, at any given minute on-site, i guess my mbp could get run over by a forklift and i give it approx 0% chance of survival if that happens )

i use a mbp on every job.. i'll search around to see if i can find a site pic of my laptop half covered in saw dust.. but yeah, it's right there amongst drills/saws/dirtbag dudes/etc.. but for the most part, it's displaying content created on the mac pro.. i'd rather use an ipad in this situation but the apps aren't there yet.. maybe once the concept of gestures progresses further we'll be able to get better 3d usability out of miceless/keyboardless computers.

dunno- if i really had to, i could use a pencil/paper for 80% of my work.. i mean i've done that plenty in the past.. efficiency and precision go way down though. as well as much of the designs i'm into these days would be pretty much impossible without computers.. i'm not sure how much attention you pay to architecture but in the past couple of decades, we're seeing a new breed of non-rectilinear design.. it's not as if designers are simply progressing in their minds which lead to these new shapes.. the computers/software are driving designs these days and literally showing designers things which in the past, were basically unfathomable..

 

[subsonix]

Though there is significant statistical bias in the poll, the results seem overwhelming.

It may seem that way because of bias. The thread title is in my opinion pretty neutral, while the actual poll questions are not. There is a lot of suggestion in the Thunderbolt question, you basically start out by reminding everyone why you think Thunderbolt is bad, then ask, do you want it?

Consider this:

Do you want to live in a city or country side?

A. I want to live in an expensive city and risk getting robbed every day
B. I want to live in the country side

Or.

A. I want to live in a city
B. I want to live in the country side with high unemployment and long travels.
​

 

[flat five]

Though there is significant statistical bias in the poll, the results seem overwhelming.

more important than how biased you may/may not have presented the poll is--
who are you polling?

not much different than asking a bunch of musclehead car aficionados who build their own engines and certainly service them on their own etc.. [edit]and honestly, a lot of the responses here seem as if they're coming from the same breed of people.. like i sometimes can't tell if we're talking about computers here or monster trucks and drag racers [/edit] ... if you had to choose 'fuel injectors vs. carburetors etc.' ...i mean, you already know the answer before asking the question so it just becomes a backslapping fest..

but, if you ask the same thing to the majority of people, it's not like they're going to answer the poll in an opposite fashion.. the majority answer will be 'who gives a shit? i don't'

 

[flat five]

nah.. mac mini wouldn't be too cool for me (i could if i had to but i'd prefer not to.. clocks are way too slow.. i'd have to research the gpus in them too to see how well they can handle the openGL stuff in my apps.. almost certain i wouldn't see much of an advantage in my openCL applications)..

i don't 100% believe everything my application developers say but when their specs requirements say things like this:

Computers including 13” Apple MacBook, 13” MacBook Pro, and 13” Retina, and any brand laptop that only has the embedded Intel graphics chip, should be avoided as this chip does not support OpenGL adequately

...i pretty much rule those out as computers i should consider.. i don't know much about the macmini but i (maybe wrongfully?) lump it in with the above computers.

who knows though.. maybe that iris pro will be a lot better?.. i sure hope so.. finally get rid of this stop gap of a solution which is to have two gpus in a laptop even though we can only use one

 

[flowrider]

On and On she goes, where she stops nobody knows And, a few folks are getting their post counts up

But, I think the poll tells the story - 70% to 30%, the majority has spoken.

Lou

 

[flat five]

But, I think the poll tells the story - 70% to 30%, the majority has spoken.

the majority of what though? if this (and other recent polls here) have anything to do with reality then the new mac is going to flop-- hard.

so i hope you're at least open to the idea that when (if) this thing sells like hotcakes, this forum is fairly out of touch with and definitely no measuring stick of what most pro users want or need.

[and yes, i realize my last statement will be met with "well then you're not a real pro and should use an iMac. Go back to the kiddie section while us adults speak" (or whatever)... so there, i already said it for you ... no need to waste your typing skills on saying it again.]

 

[MacMadness]

On and On she goes, where she stops nobody knows And, a few folks are getting their post counts up

But, I think the poll tells the story - 70% to 30%, the majority has spoken.

Lou

Hey Lou-

I think you and I are becoming fast friends,
because once again I'm in total agreement with you.
(this time about the complete stupidity of this thread...
...like most here about the new MP).

It's kind of like watching a car wreck, though...you just gotta look...

 

[slughead]

It may seem that way because of bias. The thread title is in my opinion pretty neutral, while the actual poll questions are not. There is a lot of suggestion in the Thunderbolt question, you basically start out by reminding everyone why you think Thunderbolt is bad, then ask, do you want it?

I merely compared a hypothetical upgrade to the 5,1 mac pro (which has PCIE 3.0) to the new Mac Pro. As I point out in OP, Apple could've included TB2 on an upgraded tower form factor with upgraded GPUs, they just decided not to for various reasons. There's nothing wrong with thunderbolt, just Apple's implementation in this computer.

The questions make the new Mac Pro look bad--but that's only because it is that bad. There are people in this thread who say thunderbolt is worth sacrificing the upgradability of PCIe graphics and extra slots--that's fine, they can vote that way.

I wanted a strictly PCIe Vs thunderbolt poll--but that's irrelevant, because the New Mac Pro does indeed have PCIe, it's just stuck [likely permanently] to a couple 16x PCIe video cards.

Holy cow, if I would've just put "All thunderbolt and no PCIe Vs 4 ports of PCIE 3.0", can you imagine the howls from newMP fans screaming that the iTube actually does have 32 lanes of PCIe? I qualified it because it'd be equally silly to describe computer with two PCIe 16x 3.0 slots and 6 TB 2 ports --because that ignores the key benefit about having Slots instead of soldered-on/proprietary graphics which the nMP doesn't have: Slots make it upgradeable. Apple made this choice for its users, this poll is asking what the users think about it.

How should I have worded this poll?

 

[OS6-OSX]

How should I have worded this poll?

"Why do you think Apple changed the upgradeability of the MP?"
A. 3rd parties were selling reasonable priced cards while Apple had problems selling their over priced items.
B. Apples price for ram was humorous.
C. TB monopoly because of ownership
D. Done because of request by customers (surprised Apple has not claimed this!)

 

[flat five]

D. Done because of request by customers (surprised Apple has not claimed this!)

surprised why? i'm pretty sure i could find more quotes by apple workers/execs saying or alluding to them not listening to their customers in many regards because their customers generally don't know what the hell they're talking about.. (and honestly, i pretty much agree with that sentiment)

customers are good at bug sniffing as well as giving apple insight into many different styles of real world workflows.. but they're not very good at fixing bugs or providing solutions for more streamlined workflows.

 

[aggri1]

That has absolutely nothing to do with the technology, which was the point before. There is no reason why scsi and firewire can not exist on the same machine.

Yeah, I had a PowerMac with SCSI (card) and Firewire. And USB 1.1 (where each scanned page took about 20-30 seconds to transfer after scanning, hah)!

 

[slughead]

"Why do you think Apple changed the upgradeability of the MP?"
A. 3rd parties were selling reasonable priced cards while Apple had problems selling their over priced items.
B. Apples price for ram was humorous.
C. TB monopoly because of ownership
D. Done because of request by customers (surprised Apple has not claimed this!)

E. Make mac pros compatible with thunderbolt displays (which Apple sells)...

As far as "requests by customers" to take upgrade options away, you really think anyone, ANYONE wants proprietary video cards? Apple did not need to do this in order to have thunderbolt, period. They only did it so they could sell more thunderbolt displays and change the form factor to the iTube.

They could've very easily thrown 1 or 2 Thunderbolt ports in an upgraded Mac Pro tower motherboard without the support for displays.

As far as your poll question, I didn't ask that question because I'm not super interested in the answer (with the possible exception of if it comes directly from Apple).

I wanted to know what users thought about the false choice between thunderbolt and PCIe/GPU upgradability, and I think the numbers reflect that

 

[KaraH]

"Along with the other external drives on the gondola to the left of the Genius Bar."

I got mine at the Easton store. Walked in, asked an employee, we found the LaCie d2 (3TB), paid, went home.

The apple store I looked in did not have any TB drives where they have the drives.

 

[flat five]

The apple store I looked in did not have any TB drives where they have the drives.

you should of given in to temptation

#

I am REALLY tempted to do this in an Apple store:

'Hello! May I help you find something today?'

"Yes. Where are the thunderbolt drives kept?"

#

 

[Tesselator]

I'd really like to see your frame-rates bottlenecking 24 GTX 680 through 6GBps! That's 250MBps per card.

You still don't seem to understand any of this. There are no frame rates. Well, there are actually but not like you're thinking. They're between one frame every 10 sec. and one frame every hour. Ift's for the very reason that CUDA and OpenCL don't need a frame rate that Apple's TB2 scheme is going to work so awesomely! Usage will probably look something like:

1. 0.001sec to 1sec of data transfer to the card,
2. 10sec to 6000sec of card rendering,
3. Then a returned frame which if 4k will take about 0.2sec.

Of course no one is going to be able to add 24 GPU cards of any consequence for display purposes nor can I imagine anyone wanting to.

Although we did see a TB1 demo which benched a fast GPU running fast enough to keep up with 75% of the games currently available - at the same speed as if it were in a PCIe slot directly. So I guess we could add one GPU (per port or per controller as the case may be) for display purposes on the MacPro's TB2 and have each run 95% of all games currently and through 2015 - at the same speed as if the card was installed in a PCIe slot.

- And again this has already been said my me and others many times already. Why are we keeping this going?

----------

"Why do you think Apple changed the upgradeability of the MP?"
A. 3rd parties were selling reasonable priced cards while Apple had problems selling their over priced items.
B. Apples price for ram was humorous.
C. TB monopoly because of ownership
D. Done because of request by customers (surprised Apple has not claimed this!)

E. All of the above.

 

[skottichan]

The apple store I looked in did not have any TB drives where they have the drives.

Yes, and in my experience at home in Ohio, and here in Connecticut, (and their surrounding areas) the Apple Stores have plenty of them.


Edit: Also... if your location is accurate (DC), the Georgetown Apple Store has the exact Thunderbolt LaCie d2 drive I bought at my store, in stock.

 

[ThisIsNotMe]

I am REALLY tempted to do this in an Apple store:

'Hello! May I help you find something today?'

"Yes. Where are the thunderbolt drives kept?"

'Hello! May I help you find something today?'
"Yes. Where are the 16x PCIe graphics cards kept?"
(Goes both ways)

 

[beaker7]

http://www.anandtech.com/show/7230/asus-introduces-z87deluxequad-worlds-first-thunderbolt-2-certified-motherboard

Could have both.

 

[slughead]

Although we did see a TB1 demo which benched a fast GPU running fast enough to keep up with 75% of the games currently available - at the same speed as if it were in a PCIe slot directly. So I guess we could add one GPU (per port or per controller as the case may be) for display purposes on the MacPro's TB2 and have each run 95% of all games currently and through 2015 - at the same speed as if the card was installed in a PCIe slot.

Well that's a stretch, considering the GTX680 (one generation behind, if you're keeping track) is already 20-50% throttled by 2GBps in many modern games. This will only get worse at graphics cards get more powerful. The tom's hardware guide article even described the situation :

At least you don't have to worry too much about procuring a flagship graphics card, right? [...] Pinching off that bus means that, at a certain point, it doesn't matter how big of a GPU you attach to the host. - Tom's hardware

I guess you can cherry-pick your benchmarks all you want, unless you're "upgrading" your dual W9000 firepros with a card from 2011 (like the 7970), you're going to have a bad time.

 

[Tesselator]

So you select the other 5%. OK, you can do that. Doesn't mean much tho.