I've read that the number of higher end recording studios have also been in decline for some time. They certainly aren't needed for most electronic music and it's a huge market.
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Is the new Mac Pro a failure?
- Thread starter ZombiePhysicist
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I've read that the number of higher end recording studios have also been in decline for some time. They certainly aren't needed for most electronic music and it's a huge market.
Personally I don't see it as a workstation because it's so unlike workstations. But as I said, that's a matter of opinion. If other people think of it as a workstation, that's fine with me and I can see that point of view. If people think of the Alienware as a workstation that's also fine with me, and I see why someone would think that too, even if I disagree. The definition is unimportant to me--a big part of it is marketing anyway.
I'm not an Apple hater--my house is filled with Apple products. I dislike Apple's MP redesign because we've lost so much and gained so little (I made a bulleted list see my post #79).
I think I made a reasonable case in post 79 that the nMP is worse than the cMP in many important ways, and not better except in very few, trivial ways. So far the only argument I've received back is someone quite literally telling me to shut up.
Wasn't me.
I agree there is marketing involved, but the MP uses components that make it a workstation (ECC RAM and CPU above all).
It clearly isn't for everyone, but even the cMP wasn't.
But as it as already been said many time, the Dxx don't have ECC ram... And they're the one doing the heavy work and manipulating data in many, many use case (opencl).
Once your data reach the GPU everything goes and what you get back can or cannot be accurate. To really consider ECC as vital for a workstation both the main ram and the VRAM has to use it.
There wasn't much "response" to #79 because it's the same list of stuff that has already been pointed out hundreds of times on this forum. It always circles back to some customers (and potential customers) are upset by the nMP update, and most customers are not, and most importantly, none of this endless debating is going to change anything.
There are pages of posts here debating what constitutes a "workstation" and what constitutes a "pro". It's completely and utterly meaningless.
There's only one question that matters. Is there a Mac that can meet your needs? If yes (or at least "good enough") - buy it. If no, that sucks (and I mean that sincerely) - unfortunately, time to consider a hackintosh/Windows PC.
That's the whole freaking story in a nutshell. Apple is not reversing course, and if anything, will double-down. They have absolutely ZERO interest in making a new version of the cMP. They will kill the MP altogether before even considering that.
Threads like this one, where the anti-nMP agenda was clear from the OP - I'm cool with. Like I've suggested before, people can start their own threads to bash the nMP and go on for 20 pages about it . My beef is when that crowd invades every other thread with the trolling and nonsense.
And I said a lot of times I'm not happy about Apple's choice for GPUs.
But it is entirely wrong to say that the GPU is the place where "the heavy work is done". It depends on the task.
Not all the people are doing intensive 3D working with a Mac Pro.
A good post that summarize all the thread (and many others).
The Mac Pro isn't for everyone. It wasn't for everyone even in the old flavor.
The only "failure" I can see is Apple non updating it this year (the basher still speaking about a 2013 machine but the reality is the MP is an "early 2014" computer).
There surely are people that can't be satisfied with the MP.
There is no need to storm every thread to repeat the same things over and over again.
hey mango
i think your list in 79 is accurate.. all points true.
i'll comment on one of the items though.
- 2 CPU sockets (now only 1)
(a little background-- i'm doing approx 100 renders per year.. i mean, i do more than that for experimental/education or personal stuff but i put out a $et of 3-5 every 2-3 weeks.. i'd say the average time per scene is 6 hours..)
rendering is one of, if not THE most resource (cpu) hogging operation in all of 'creative pro' land..
the following is based off the above.. i realize others might have different use cases than mine and the following doesn't necessarily apply.
-----
render scenes aren't just created out of thin air.. you must first model them.. you'll notice i say i put out 1 or sometimes 2 sets per month.. well the weeks in between are spent (in part) designing and modeling the objects that will be rendered.. the majority of my time working on a computer, when i'm physically sitting there doing work, is spent modeling.. during this phase of a project, you want quick response, no beachballing, no lagging, etc.. whatever speed i might be physically capable of drawing at, i want my computer to be faster..
the best chance of getting that to happen is by using the fastest processors available.
the quads or six cores are best for these phases..
now, the reason i mentioned this part is to show, that i'm completely aware of a potential logic path to follow and arrive at "well, the solution for you would be to have 2 * 6core.. that way you get the fastest processing along with twice the amount of rendering cores."
continuing...
as an analogy, my project's steps could be likened to ,say, a custom furniture maker.. she receives an order, spends the next month making the item, then ships it to the buyer.. the first part, same with me.. some sort of client contact..
the second part, her time in the shop creating the object, can be likened to me designing/modeling an object on a computer.. this is the part where i'm working with the tools.. this is where i want solid/fast/no headaches..
now, the third part, the shipping of the object.. this can be likened to the rendering phase..
at the onset of delivery phase, her work is complete.. she doesn't have to physically work or spend too much more of her time on this project.. she's done her little celebration dance already..
she does however still have a spending choice ahead.. how fast should the item deliver vs how much money do i want to spend.
assuming she's at least moderately experienced in her profession, she has finished her work a week earlier than she promised the client they'd have it in their house.. she's not even stressing shipping since she's on schedule and has properly accounted for correct shipping times..
she's competent.. most of her projects do in fact deliver on time.. but, of course (of course!) there are those times when unforeseen circumstances arise and the piece needs to be in phoenix by tomorrow.
budget wise, she going to take a hit and must spend the additional dollars for expedited shipping..
likewise, i also run behind at times and may find myself modeling on thursday night when the images are due friday morning.. and there's still 30hrs rendering time ahead.. in these instances, i obviously need 32 cores at my disposal so the render set will finish in 6hrs instead of of 30 and i'll be able to deliver as promised in large part due to my freaking awesome, albeit incredibly expensive computer..
these number can also equate to the furniture girl's crisis.. if she needs to ship to phoenix by tomorrow morning then best case scenario is pay a crap-ton of money and put the thing on a plane, pronto.
that is her ultimate option here.. it's impossible for her to deliver any faster than 6 hrs.. and if she does actually succeed in doing so, she's just spent at least 20x her original budget.
but people who render aren't backed against a wall like that.. we have much, (MUCH!) better options available to us during similar crisis.
places like this:
https://us.rebusfarm.net/en/
that's 3000 cpu cores available to me, at a moments notice, for around $5 per scene with a rendering time of around 30 seconds instead of my 6 budgeted hours.. including uploading the scene then downloading the finished render, let's call it 2 minutes total.. or approx 180x faster than what my computer can do it at..
one of the cost-to-performance comparisons i'm faced with when buying a computer is this..
- should i spend twice the amount of money on a 12 core computer in order to get my renders back 3 hrs quicker than the estimated 6 hrs via 12 cores?
now put that up against other options also available to me:
(and fwiw, i do use these services at times.. not always.. not mainly.. but a handful of projects during the year include outsourced rendering.)
but let's just say i outsource all of my renders in a year.. (100).. and let's say i plan to use my particular computer for 5 years (500 renders total)
via outsourcing, i will spend an additional $2500 in five years (500 renders @ $5 each) with a total amassed upload/render/download (2 mins each) time of 16 hrs.
via 12core computer, i will spend an additional $5000 in five years (5000 more than fast quad/hex) with a total amassed rendering (3 hours each) time of 1500 hrs. (62 days)
it's 62 days for $5000.. vs 0.6 days for $2500
i know a lot of you all love making cost comparisons around here so please, even if you think i'm full of crap about everything else, please do your cost comparison on these figures.. they're very real numbers.
(another situation and another analogy would be a mass producer of furniture and a render house.. in these scenarios, the house would be able to justify an onsite render farm with no need to outsource.. and the furniture maker could justify their own shipping fleet.. but recognize this -- even in these cases, the render house is not using a personal computer to render with.. just like the shipping dept isn't using PCs (personal cars) )
i'm trying to make the point that wanting and/or arguing over 16 cores vs 12 cores is simply setting your sights too low.. i can't stress it enough how incredibly low you have your sights set when you compare it to the sights of apple and other computer manufactures and software designers.. hardware and software designers and manufactures have much keener vision than every spec nerd here regardless of how expert they may boast.. in their (devs etc) sights are these render farms which are 100x faster than what a 12core cpu offers.. and these computer/software combos are going to be available soon enough.. look to the future (the near future).. get out of the past. these computers are designed to give you 20,40,100x speed improvements at half the cost..
recognize.
that in less than 1/2 decade, dual cpu sockets is going to look stupid when placed alongside a hardware/software combo utilizing gpgpu.. even to you hardcore_est of hangeroners
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Well said & I do wonder how many of the regular nMP bashers were ever in the market to buy one. How many have actually ever bought a new MP from Apple? The cost of a new MP is trivial to those who actually earn money from using their MP but just because you can finally afford to buy a used MP to upgrade & geek out about doesn't mean that you were ever in the market for a new professional workstation.
I bought a new cMP after the nMP was shipping it was a PITA to find.
It shipped May 15 2014
Hence why I said "In many use case".
3D isn't the only one to benefit from GPGPU. Video compression is more and more done on the GPU and so is any matrix/vector based mathematical heavy task. And it is those that would benefit the most from stray bit protection afforded by ECC which is just isn't there on the nMP.
I was in the market to buy about 250 of them to replace our geomatic lab out of waranty cMP. But I couldn't since I wouldn't have been able to plug our existing hadware in them.
We reverted to windows and bought HP Zxxx series instead.
I bought two Mac Pros from Apple - the first (1,1) in 2006 (or was it 2007), and the 6-core Westmere in 2009. I would definitely have bought a new one in 2013/2014 had Apple brought one to market that would make my DAW (much) more powerful than my current one. I work as a composer. I need as fast CPU's as possible, as fast SSD's as possible. Dual GPU's are totally irrelevant and useless to me and everybody else not working in 3D/CAD/video editing and such. Seems the nMP was made more or less solely to pull off a Pixar Animation PR stunt, not to cater for the majority of the pro Mac market.
But seriously... I am not going to repeat myself anymore in threads like these - I really hope Apple have changed their mind and will return to the Pro market with an improved Mac Pro of some sorts. I am not holding my breath but I would hate leaving OS X and Logic, would really prefer to stay here.
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Did you guys see this? (sorry if it has already been posted, it's friday I just feel lazy and don't want to read back 
)
http://www.macworld.co.uk/news/mac/...-usbc-thunderbolt3-skylake-processor-3536364/
"2015 Mac Pro Release date rumors and secs"
Apple hasn't announced a launch date for the next generation of Mac Pro systems, so we have to do a little detective work.
First up, code in OS X El Capitan is hinting that a new Mac Pro may be on its way soon. There is a reference to a new Mac that is code named "AAPLJ951" within El Capitan, according to Pike’s Universum.
The current Mac Pro is codenamed AAPLJ90 so there is some logic to this new reference being a new version of the professional-level workstation.
Another clue that this is the Mac Pro is the fact that the code hints that there are 10 USB 3.0 ports. Currently there are 4 USB ports and 6 Thunderbolt 2 ports on the Mac Pro. We think that adopting Thunderbolt 3 on the Mac Pro may make more sense as it brings Thunderbolt to USB-C at 40Gbps, for the best of both worlds, more on that below...
Other evidence that a new Mac Pro nay arrive soon is the fact that Intel launched its new processor chips in September 2014 - not just any Intel chips, but the next-gen versions of the current Mac Pro chips, and therefore the obvious upgrade - with these new chips now available an update of the Mac Pro line seems imminent."
)http://www.macworld.co.uk/news/mac/...-usbc-thunderbolt3-skylake-processor-3536364/
"2015 Mac Pro Release date rumors and secs"
Apple hasn't announced a launch date for the next generation of Mac Pro systems, so we have to do a little detective work.
First up, code in OS X El Capitan is hinting that a new Mac Pro may be on its way soon. There is a reference to a new Mac that is code named "AAPLJ951" within El Capitan, according to Pike’s Universum.
The current Mac Pro is codenamed AAPLJ90 so there is some logic to this new reference being a new version of the professional-level workstation.
Another clue that this is the Mac Pro is the fact that the code hints that there are 10 USB 3.0 ports. Currently there are 4 USB ports and 6 Thunderbolt 2 ports on the Mac Pro. We think that adopting Thunderbolt 3 on the Mac Pro may make more sense as it brings Thunderbolt to USB-C at 40Gbps, for the best of both worlds, more on that below...
Other evidence that a new Mac Pro nay arrive soon is the fact that Intel launched its new processor chips in September 2014 - not just any Intel chips, but the next-gen versions of the current Mac Pro chips, and therefore the obvious upgrade - with these new chips now available an update of the Mac Pro line seems imminent."
I'm not exactly an expert on the matter, but I seriously doubt ECC is a factor in video compression ....
BTW the GPUs of the MP 6,1 are far from being high end, I know that.
What kind of hardware you have to connect and you couldn't ?
Why are you always sticking with only a small part of what I said and not the entirety of it. Quite dishonest in my opinion. GPGPU isn't just about 3D or video compression. I also gave an other example which you disregarded since it totaly demolished your argument. Try to debate honestly.
Expansion cards that aren't available in an external form.
It's quite speculative.Did you guys see this? (sorry if it has already been posted, it's friday I just feel lazy and don't want to read back
http://www.macworld.co.uk/news/mac/...-usbc-thunderbolt3-skylake-processor-3536364/
"2015 Mac Pro Release date rumors and secs"
Apple hasn't announced a launch date for the next generation of Mac Pro systems, so we have to do a little detective work.
First up, code in OS X El Capitan is hinting that a new Mac Pro may be on its way soon. There is a reference to a new Mac that is code named "AAPLJ951" within El Capitan, according to Pike’s Universum.
The current Mac Pro is codenamed AAPLJ90 so there is some logic to this new reference being a new version of the professional-level workstation.
Another clue that this is the Mac Pro is the fact that the code hints that there are 10 USB 3.0 ports. Currently there are 4 USB ports and 6 Thunderbolt 2 ports on the Mac Pro. We think that adopting Thunderbolt 3 on the Mac Pro may make more sense as it brings Thunderbolt to USB-C at 40Gbps, for the best of both worlds, more on that below...
Other evidence that a new Mac Pro nay arrive soon is the fact that Intel launched its new processor chips in September 2014 - not just any Intel chips, but the next-gen versions of the current Mac Pro chips, and therefore the obvious upgrade - with these new chips now available an update of the Mac Pro line seems imminent."
The only real clue is the 10 USB 3.0 ports. It puzzles me, because 10 USB ports take a lot of space on the connection panel. Keeping the current design it would mean only 2 TB3 ports ..... or a redesign of the Mac pro.
I'm starting to wonder if there might be an "iMac Pro" coming down the pipe.
Apparently there were 5k & 8k LG panels discovered during this last year that were for Apple's use.
I could see a 32"-35" 8k iMac Pro at some point. Perhaps Apple has decided the workstation market is a waste of resources?
Apparently there were 5k & 8k LG panels discovered during this last year that were for Apple's use.
I could see a 32"-35" 8k iMac Pro at some point. Perhaps Apple has decided the workstation market is a waste of resources?
Yep they did. What? did you think they were there just to gather dust?
At this point I've come to the same conclusion regarding what I've bold above.
But unlesss they drop Johny a clue and they start bulding iMac with adequate airflow I don't see how they'll pull it off without cooking the required GPU for an 8k screen.
I agree wholeheartedly with everything you had to say about Apple hardware going in a "rip and replace" direction. It's a real drag and not professional-friendly in the least.
But I do use my Mac Mini as a kind of media server at home, and I find it works pretty well without iCloud. I play music via AirPlay to any (or all) of three sets of speakers -- controlling playback with the Remote app on my phone or any other iOS device. I send video to my projector straight from my Mini's iTunes library via a three year-old Apple TV. Local music and video streaming work quite reliably and don't require iCloud as an interediary.
As for Photos, yes, it works much, much better with iCloud, I'll admit that. But wow is it ever better than the old way. I now have ALL of my photos (about 15K of them) available on my iPhone or my MacBook Air or any web browser. Edits on any of these sync to all the others, so I can load a whole bunch of photos from my dSLR onto my Mini at home, and then later edit out the ones I don't want while riding the subway, and know that will all carry through to my main library at home. Huge side benefit: all of this is now backed up in case of disaster at home. Compare this to iPhoto, where I had to manually import photos from my iPhone, then edit them down ONLY on that one Mac, then sync the changes manually back to the phone -- carefully choosing which subset of them I wanted to carry around since there was no such thing as the download-on-demand system we have now.
I just don't see what the benefit of 8K is at this point.
Keeping with their current schema of desktop scaling an 8K iMac would be huge and unwieldy. It seems like a solution in search of a problem, for all Apple's faults that doesn't tend to be one of theirs.
The benefit would be for those working on 8k media.
http://nofilmschool.com/2015/09/canon-developing-8k-uhd-cinema-camera-120-megapixel-dslr-display
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