I think Riwan was trying to argue for the nMP intangibles. I was seconding it. No attitude unless you want one!
Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
Just got nMP - Base Model (Developer) - disappointing ....
- Thread starter udflyer
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
I think Riwan was trying to argue for the nMP intangibles. I was seconding it. No attitude unless you want one!
Nothing? Up to six monitors and much more memory are huge. Running a compiler faster is not the only advantage of one system over another.
goMac was addressing the OP. The OP said:
"...BUT my overall development tasks are not that different time wise."
I don't see anything in the OP's post that said anything about the need for memory or six monitor support. What is so difficult to understand that goMac isn't addressing other use cases? He's addressing the OP's use case.
Last edited:
Some thoughts to the OP from a developer.
Just a few thoughts about NEEDS for developing:
1) Most of the time you will be looking at a flashing cursor trying to write code (or fix code that you've written and doesn't work yet). This requires VERY little CPU/RAM power. Newer/bigger/better hardware will not help here (assuming the computer was made in the past 14 years).
2) A good IDE (IntelliJ, Eclipse, XCode, etc) love RAM. They like to build indexes of all of your files at launch to provide fast file/method/variable lookup and usage. As long as you're not using swap space you have enough RAM. There are other posts about detecting swap usage, so I won't go over that. Newer/bigger/better hardware MAY help here. It depends on how much ram you need to prevent swapping to disk. Know your NEEDS (I'll get to wants)
3) Compilation: some languages/compilers are single threaded. That can be the nature of the beast. If this is you, then you care more about CPU Core SPEED than you do CPU Core COUNT. If your tools are multithreaded (or you're using many tools at once), then core count becomes more important. Memory also comes into play here. Again, know your NEEDS.
4) Miscellaneous: Other than basic hardware, what can you do to speed up your workflow? Personally, I love 3 or more monitors (or 2 if they are big enough). Trying to develop on a single screen frustrates me. Do you like to listen to music while you work? Then maybe you need enough disk space to hold your tools, libraries, projects, AND music library. Do you also want to play games on your machine when you're not working? Perhaps a graphics card is not important for work, but it is for play. Then maybe you do need to use iTunes, an IDE, encode video, run 4 virtual machines, and host a SCM repository all at the same time. Only you know that.
5) The future: eventually, machines start to feel slow. Either you're throwing more tasks at them or the tasks themselves have gotten more intense (I'm looking at you, javascript). What was a fast machine in 2007 may be painful to use now. There is no such thing as future proof, but you can delay the inevitable. Newer/bigger/better hardware will help here.
Just a few thoughts about WANTS for any computer:
1) It is good to be the king. I know I felt that way when I bought my MP. Did I need dual Xeon processors? Do I need to support 128GB of ram? Or 6 internal hard drives? No. But I wanted to know that I could.
2) Being the king is not cheap. Right now it costs $9,599. Do you want to be the king (and there is nothing wrong with that)?
3) Find out what you NEED. Find out what you WANT. Make sure whatever you buy does the first, and figure out how much of the second you are willing to buy.
Whenever there is any doubt, there is no doubt.
Just a few thoughts about NEEDS for developing:
1) Most of the time you will be looking at a flashing cursor trying to write code (or fix code that you've written and doesn't work yet). This requires VERY little CPU/RAM power. Newer/bigger/better hardware will not help here (assuming the computer was made in the past 14 years).
2) A good IDE (IntelliJ, Eclipse, XCode, etc) love RAM. They like to build indexes of all of your files at launch to provide fast file/method/variable lookup and usage. As long as you're not using swap space you have enough RAM. There are other posts about detecting swap usage, so I won't go over that. Newer/bigger/better hardware MAY help here. It depends on how much ram you need to prevent swapping to disk. Know your NEEDS (I'll get to wants)
3) Compilation: some languages/compilers are single threaded. That can be the nature of the beast. If this is you, then you care more about CPU Core SPEED than you do CPU Core COUNT. If your tools are multithreaded (or you're using many tools at once), then core count becomes more important. Memory also comes into play here. Again, know your NEEDS.
4) Miscellaneous: Other than basic hardware, what can you do to speed up your workflow? Personally, I love 3 or more monitors (or 2 if they are big enough). Trying to develop on a single screen frustrates me. Do you like to listen to music while you work? Then maybe you need enough disk space to hold your tools, libraries, projects, AND music library. Do you also want to play games on your machine when you're not working? Perhaps a graphics card is not important for work, but it is for play. Then maybe you do need to use iTunes, an IDE, encode video, run 4 virtual machines, and host a SCM repository all at the same time. Only you know that.
5) The future: eventually, machines start to feel slow. Either you're throwing more tasks at them or the tasks themselves have gotten more intense (I'm looking at you, javascript). What was a fast machine in 2007 may be painful to use now. There is no such thing as future proof, but you can delay the inevitable. Newer/bigger/better hardware will help here.
Just a few thoughts about WANTS for any computer:
1) It is good to be the king. I know I felt that way when I bought my MP. Did I need dual Xeon processors? Do I need to support 128GB of ram? Or 6 internal hard drives? No. But I wanted to know that I could.
2) Being the king is not cheap. Right now it costs $9,599. Do you want to be the king (and there is nothing wrong with that)?
3) Find out what you NEED. Find out what you WANT. Make sure whatever you buy does the first, and figure out how much of the second you are willing to buy.
Whenever there is any doubt, there is no doubt.
Running VMs, testing across OS versions and different OSs is also useful in many development cases. Running web/app/DB servers also a possibility if not hosted on a server/cloud...
The capabilities of the nMP are able to make a difference time-wise that are unrelated to the speed of the machine and the specific use case of the OP. To only address the the mentioned use case and ignore other advantages is probably unfair.
For development, I don't know if either of those are significant advantages. Even if you're running a lot of companion design apps, 16 gigs is totally fine for development, and an iMac maxes out at 32 gigs. (My Mac Pro is 8 gigs, and it's getting a little tight, but it took a while.)
Dual displays are nice for development, but six displays can't get around the fact that when you're writing code, you're only looking at one window at a time. Two maybe for reference plus code. I've seen people make good use of three (which Mac Mini, iMac, and Macbook Pro all still support.) But six?
I'm not saying the 4 core Mac Pro doesn't do something things better, but none of them are really relevant to development. The best case for the 4 core Mac Pro that I think could be made for a developer is that it could eventually be upgraded to a higher core count, or that the developer is in a specialty industry (like pro video app development) where the large number of Thunderbolt ports and GPUs are necessary.
I'd say maybe even gaming, except the iMac's GPU is in a lot of cases better for gaming under OS X still, and is ample competition under Windows.
I kind of understand the all-external-display argument, but that's a lot of cash to put out when you could buy two iMacs for the same price. And iMacs still support external displays.
Heck, for the amount of money a 4 core Mac Pro costs, you could buy two iMacs, and just use one as a second display.
.................
I know it is marginal to the thread (and your post is very comprehensive) but ...this last sentence sounds truly good.
Unfortunately I do not understand the meaning of it.
Would you mind explaining it in a fool-proof way?
Thanks!
Ed
Why? It's the specific use case that has led to the OPs disappointment with the nMP.
4 monitors works well for me. Increases productivity a ton. So does 32 gigs of ram when running mutiple vms. Two iMacs? Thats pretty silly. Do you even write code for a living?
----------
Its the one that was mentioned in the post but there are other advantages can possibly mitigate that.
32GB LR-DIMM did not work for me in my late 2013 Mac Pro with 12-core CPU. System did not boot.
32GB HyperCloud DIMM did work just fine, running at 1333 MHz instead of 800 MHz that a R-DIMM would be limited to with a 12-core CPU. More here: https://forums.macrumors.com/posts/20777838/
Funny - I have a 2009 and would love a nMP for my development work. The more threads means the more simultaneous files Xcode can compile, as my projects grow in size the slower they become to build.