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Is the new Mac Pro a failure?
- Thread starter ZombiePhysicist
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That link is for an adaptor "adding 10GbE connectivity to any computer with a Thunderbolt port." It is impossible to add a Thunderbolt port card or whatever to the cMP as there is no support on the motherboard (an Intel requirement). There is not & never will be a way to add Thunderbolt to a cMP.
I beg to differ. It's possible but likely not practical given other options which are available.
As long I know Thunderbolt relies on the system chipset is similar to the south bridge so unlikely could be possible to implement as an pcie bridge.
Whatever the fact is there is no Thunderbolt adapter available, either not feasible (market or technical barriers ) or simply Intel is not interested to "update" older hardware (planed obsolescence).
There are other options for 10GbE than using an pcie enclosure for Thunderbolt, Akiito sells a Tb-10GbE adapter which looks like an aluminum mouse just very expensive (400$), I hope soon 10GbE to come mainstream and prices down to reasonable, right now 10GbE is mostly used to link servers to routers and routers among them (as high speed backbone) that's due the costs, I just wired my office with Cat 6E cable just to be ready when its necessary, also ok my home I've routed few wires among the access point and the main firewall just to future proof it.
I just joined this forum because wanted to be able to respond to this topic.
It really stinks that this is the only headless desktop with half decent graphics cards. The iMac and Mac Mini have their uses but Apple is going down a path I increasingly find difficult to follow.
I have been using Apple products since college before I could afford them. I didn't spend any of my own personal money on a Mac until the MacBook Unibody 13 inch. That machine was so incredible that I upgraded to a 15 Inch late 2011 MacBook Pro. I went back to the 13 Inch form factor in 2015 with the new Retina MacBook Pro 13 with the new track pad. I love it. Apple's laptops are second to none.
Last year I bought a Retina 27" iMac and it has served my boyfriend like a champ. He uses it for video editing with iMovie and we are considering upgrading to Final Cut. It is a fabulous machine but the upgradability concerns me. It is essentially a mega big laptop on a stand that can't move. For an office machine it's perfect.
I have a late 2012 Mac Mini 2.3GHz Core i7 I use to make iOS and OS X programs. I upgraded it to a 16GB of RAM and a 256GB SSD with the original 1TB hard drive. This turned out to be a major pain in the butt because now I can't get it to upgrade to El Capitan. Now I only use it as a media server for our Apple TVs in the house.
The Mac Pro on the other hand is crap. I have wanted a Mac Pro for a long time but I didn't want to buy an outdated machine for top dollar. My hopes where killed when the the new Mac Pro was released. I ended up building my own desktop about six months ago because I gave up on waiting. It is a Core i7 5930K (3.5GHz 6 Core w/ HT) 32GB DDR4, 500GB SSD, RAID 0 Array of 4 x 4TB 7200 RPM drives and 2 x nVidia GeForce GTX 970 cards for my video editing using Premiere. It is water cooled and it is near silent at idle and mildly noisy when cranking out video or rending 3D projects. It runs Windows 10 Pro and it is everything I wish I could get in a Mac. Money isn't an issue. My machine cost a lot even building it myself. Apple is walking away from a lot of money. It isn't like the previous Mac Pro wasn't a looker. All they had to do was make it use SLI and not make all of the expansion external and I would have gladly bought the Mac Pro instead. However I am finding that Windows has come a very long ways and Apple needs to up their game and quick because not every computer is an appliance.
It really stinks that this is the only headless desktop with half decent graphics cards. The iMac and Mac Mini have their uses but Apple is going down a path I increasingly find difficult to follow.
I have been using Apple products since college before I could afford them. I didn't spend any of my own personal money on a Mac until the MacBook Unibody 13 inch. That machine was so incredible that I upgraded to a 15 Inch late 2011 MacBook Pro. I went back to the 13 Inch form factor in 2015 with the new Retina MacBook Pro 13 with the new track pad. I love it. Apple's laptops are second to none.
Last year I bought a Retina 27" iMac and it has served my boyfriend like a champ. He uses it for video editing with iMovie and we are considering upgrading to Final Cut. It is a fabulous machine but the upgradability concerns me. It is essentially a mega big laptop on a stand that can't move. For an office machine it's perfect.
I have a late 2012 Mac Mini 2.3GHz Core i7 I use to make iOS and OS X programs. I upgraded it to a 16GB of RAM and a 256GB SSD with the original 1TB hard drive. This turned out to be a major pain in the butt because now I can't get it to upgrade to El Capitan. Now I only use it as a media server for our Apple TVs in the house.
The Mac Pro on the other hand is crap. I have wanted a Mac Pro for a long time but I didn't want to buy an outdated machine for top dollar. My hopes where killed when the the new Mac Pro was released. I ended up building my own desktop about six months ago because I gave up on waiting. It is a Core i7 5930K (3.5GHz 6 Core w/ HT) 32GB DDR4, 500GB SSD, RAID 0 Array of 4 x 4TB 7200 RPM drives and 2 x nVidia GeForce GTX 970 cards for my video editing using Premiere. It is water cooled and it is near silent at idle and mildly noisy when cranking out video or rending 3D projects. It runs Windows 10 Pro and it is everything I wish I could get in a Mac. Money isn't an issue. My machine cost a lot even building it myself. Apple is walking away from a lot of money. It isn't like the previous Mac Pro wasn't a looker. All they had to do was make it use SLI and not make all of the expansion external and I would have gladly bought the Mac Pro instead. However I am finding that Windows has come a very long ways and Apple needs to up their game and quick because not every computer is an appliance.
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Its been quite awhile since I've tried to delve into the guts of just what TB does and its final configuration interconnect / integration requirements. Nevertheless, I do very much recall old reports on the technology as it emerged such as this one from MacRumors as well as from ZDNet: the first plainly stated that TB was running on a cMP motherboard back in 2009 and the latter has a photo of a stand-alone PCI board with TB. Overall, this makes it pretty darn clear that at at least one point in time, TB was very much capable of being a 100% stand-alone PCI style daughterboard.
I suspect that it is more of the shift in the markets, such as from desktop to mobile, mobile to handheld, plus also from wired to wireless ... which also influences the next paragraph ... which results in the business assessment being that it doesn't have as great of a potential for rapid & broad (equals profits) adoption.
Right: taking the next step up in wired connectivity hasn't been as rapid/cheap as those which have gone before it, probably in no small part being because all of those laptops, tablets & smartphones will prefer to employ wireless. As such, even though 10GBit Ethernet is coming down in cost (Newegg has 'No Name' PCI cards for under $40 now), there's still the question of where the market customer is who has the demand which is going to "pull" on the supply system to improve prices - - and what this really comes down to is that for many use cases, the performance bottleneck is the gateway connection back to the Internet, not the local LAN. As such, upgrading the LAN from 1G to 10G is really only going to be a benefit to those who need high performance local networked storage.
You're rigth to Blame Apple on the long delays on upgrading theys PCs, they just Skips entire CPU generations and pretend to sell a previous generation at the same price the current one.
About your other comments, that's your particular case, I admit you're case is not uncommon but the vast majority is Happy and proud the nMP only lament Apple doesn't upgrade it as soon as new chipset/cpus are available, there is no big challenge cost to provide the nMP with support for Xeon E5v3 and DDR4, just the Dynosaurs at Cupertino decided they can still sell the nMP as was launched (they have vacuum cleaner's salesman mind IMHO).
Gee - did I make a mistake when I recently bought a 96 port 10GbE switch for about $800 per port?
(Note to -hh: the cost per switch port is a critical part of the equation. It doesn't matter for most people if the 10 Gbe NICs drop to $10 each if an 8 port switch costs $2000.)
Not at all. Nor did I make a mistake when I bought a 12 port 1GbE switch for $16k. (Actually, it was worse than that - it was $16K for a twelve port 1 GbE linecard to add to my $80K switch chassis.)
My projection is that the NAS market will rather quickly push 10 GbE into the mainstream. The allure of 1 GB/sec access to network storage is very strong.
Don't you want access to network storage at nearly the same speed as your PCIe SSDs?
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My apologies if I am misunderstanding what you're saying but there is no reason Apple couldn't have upgraded the nMP with the latest generation processors and memory technology.
Some broadband providers are pushing up against 1Gb speeds. 10Gb isn't that far fetched.Gee - did I make a mistake when I recently bought a 96 port 10GbE switch for about $800 per port?
Not at all. Nor did I make a mistake when I bought a 12 port 1GbE switch for $16k. (Actually, it was worse than that - it was $16K for a twelve port 1 GbE linecard to add to my $80K switch chassis.)
My projection is that the NAS market will rather quickly push 10 GbE into the mainstream. The allure of 1 GB/sec access to network storage is very strong.
Don't you want access to network storage at nearly the same speed as your PCIe SSDs?
The new Mac Pro reminds me of the G4 cube which was cute and a marvel of engineering but didn't replace the Power Mac.
Its all nice and good but it's insane to make us pay big bucks for Thunderbolt accessories that would be much less expensive as internal PCIe cards.
This is just the first step in the Mac Pro. By removing the sata ports and making the drive PCIe SSD they can effectively start locking down the Mac Pro too. How long until they start soldering the CPU and RAM. It will go the way of the Mac Mini.
I hate to say it but if the desktops get any worse this will be my last MacBook and iPhone. I want a unified environment in my house and I came real close to buying a surface book. I'll switch to developing Windows Mobile apps.
Apple needs to understand iOS and OSX are package deals. My workstation is not disposable. It will be upgraded for years to come. It not being Apple is a chink in the armor. It's not a oh well situation.
Perhaps you missed the point of my post - I've already heavily invested in 10GbE infrastructure.
I'm not expecting to have 10GbE at home this decade - at any cost. And I'm waiting for my "broadband provider" to break 100 Mbps at an affordable rate. I'm dreaming about 1 Gbps. 10 Gbps is not happening anytime soon.
No, I did not miss your point. I was merely pointing out 1Gb consumer broadband is here now and therefore 10Gb ethernet is not something that's not unreasonable to ask in a pro level system. My comment was not intended to be a reflection of your situation...just a data point supporting 10Gb ethernet.
Gee - did I make a mistake when I recently bought a 96 port 10GbE switch for about $800 per port?
(Note to -hh: the cost per switch port is a critical part of the equation. It doesn't matter for most people if the 10 Gbe NICs drop to $10 each if an 8 port switch costs $2000.)
Not at all. Nor did I make a mistake when I bought a 12 port 1GbE switch for $16k. (Actually, it was worse than that - it was $16K for a twelve port 1 GbE linecard to add to my $80K switch chassis.)
My projection is that the NAS market will rather quickly push 10 GbE into the mainstream. The allure of 1 GB/sec access to network storage is very strong.
Don't you want access to network storage at nearly the same speed as your PCIe SSDs?
I absolutely agree with you, NAS and Gamer/Enthusiasts (more than pro- workstation) are pushing hard on 10GbE Adoption, I'll check that 50$ adapter, I'm considering to install Gb Internet conexion ASAP is available (the best right now here is Verizon 150mb very expensive just not remember that's is Verizon, still hope Google Fibre comes to my community or at least AT&T fibre).
About Ethetnet switches they skyrocket in per/port cost as long you need more than 24 ports this is due "lower demand" and more complex internal interconnection... (¿?) I see also a 200k router at BP or Aramco don't remember cost about 1000$/port (was when GbE was the novelty and most pc only had 10/100 adapters (deja vu anyone?).
Not sure I would agree with that classification. It may not be low cost but it is available.
i'm guessing 10Gb ethernet is going to be leapfrogged by wifi.
http://www.extremetech.com/computin...eally-need-a-10gbps-connection-to-your-laptop
2018?
http://www.extremetech.com/computin...eally-need-a-10gbps-connection-to-your-laptop
2018?
In a lab maybe, but in real life there is so much interference all around us that you'll never reach those speed except in very controlled setting or really close to your router.
Wifi os always a shared bandwidth, ethernet by contrast you have full bandwidth dedicated (and no interference issue) everyone has its place warranted.
When 10GbE becomes mainstream the bottlenecks will be other kind.
I'm guessing that you are guessing.
And considering how current wifi is clearly trounced by copper, I don't expect that current generation copper (10GbE+) needs to worry about next generation radios.
A shared single path connection is sad compared to a multi-path full duplex connection.
right.. lab or theoretical speeds would be amazing.
i'm thinking more along the lines of real world use never being worse than 100MB/s.. i.e.- moving a 20GB library wirelessly would take 3 minutes.. real world.
that'll be sweet.
Hey, honest question. It seems that the performance differential between a 6 core, dual D700 mac pro and an external thunderbolt drive enclosure would not be that significant compared to the PC you built for the purposes of video editing. Was price the deciding factor between the two options?
I am also confused when you say that it does not have SLI when it has the AMD equivalent of dual GPUs. Is it just that they are not Nvidia?
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