Largest Fabricated Complaint about MP

[-hh]

I never understood the complaint about no front ports. You can easily rotate Mac Pro so it faces you all the time. There's no optical in front and the design is made in such a fashion, that basically there's no technical reason to differentiate between "sides", you know since it's cylindrical...

I suspect that much of the 'none in front' complaint stems from the ease-of-use aspect of being able to quickly plug in an extra 'Something' to bang it out…before wireless synching, it was probably an iPod/iPad/iPhone, etc.

And sure, the nMP is on a swivel such that you can just "spin it around"…but the real proof in the pudding is going to hit only after there's already 3-4-5-6 other things plugged in already: is it still going to be an 'easy spin'?

I doubt it.

Mr. Murphy has always made sure that the proverbial Perfect Office Setup always requires 2 inches more cable length than whatever you have.

As such, the statistical odds of having spare "loose" cable on all 3-4-5-6 of the other things already plugged in is functionally zero. Murphy's Law would have it no other way.


-hh

 

[Cubemmal]

I'm not a hater yet I think there's some truth to that complaint. The old MP could hold internally most of what you want. The nMP cannot.

You have to now use a rack and take up office (or closet) space to hold the external drives because the nMP does not have the expansion bays. Additionally if you had an old MP, and everything set up with internal drives, you'll have to buy external drives which adds to the cost.

I've said this before, if I had the $$, I'd buy one, I love the design and yes it would be overkill for me. Since I don't need it, and I don't have the money for it, I'll not be buying it, but I really do love the design. That doesn't mean I'm willing to sweep some of the short comings under the rug

The argument is artificial, here's a real world use case.

I have three sit-stand desks with a computer setup on each. One a Windows laptop for work, two is a Mac Mini for email and such, and three is my workstation with a 2009 MP. The MP has to sit on the floor as it weighs over 50 lbs probably, and therefore it's got a perfect MESS of cables going to it. And it has a few external boxes, eSATA 8 bay hard drive for one. By far it's the messiest desk of the three, which is distressing to me as a clean desk helps me think and work better.

Now I moved it into another room for another use, and while my nMP isn't here yet I set the desk up with everything except it. I'm down to four clean external cables, power, two ethernet and one TB off to the peripherals. Since it's on the desk all the keyboard, mice and display connectors are contained on the desk, instead of dangling down to the floor with the oMP. I wish I had pictures but it's about an order of magnitude more contained. If I wanted to I could bring it down to two cables, by putting the ethernet off the TB chain. And I'll be adding external boxes, but they are off in a nice cabinet, very clean and tidy.

Two points, the oMP did not contain most of what I wanted. It contained some of it. And two, due to the ginormous size, it has to be off the desk on the floor with a desk to computer cable clutter that I couldn't find a way to organize in 5 years. So in this real world example I've proven that the nMP can easily be less cluttered than the oMP.

Can the oMP be less cluttered? Yes, if you put it on your desk behind your monitor, and only have internal peripherals. However few people would want that there, or would have a desk that could take it either in size or weight. I'll also note that in that configuration you'll have a big looming computer staring at you, and the noise would be quite louder than when its on the floor. Clearly the computer was meant for the floor, which is why Apple included the big handles and equivalent feet.

EDIT: Here's a video from Corning on the technology

http://www.electronista.com/article....to.100.meters.tested.10x.longer.than.copper/

You can have all your Mac Pro peripherals in a different room. Or have the nMP in a different room and just your monitors (with included IO hubs) on your desk.

 

[theluggage]

You have to now use a rack and take up office (or closet) space to hold the external drives because the nMP does not have the expansion bays.

Well, one obvious product that I'm sure will appear before long is some sort of rack/trolley that fits a nMP and a bunch of peripherals into a space roughly the size of an old cheesegrater.

Meanwhile, having your drives in a nice hot-swap enclosure sitting on the desk is far more convenient than having them embedded in your computer - and with USB3 and Thunderbolt speeds using external or hot-swappable drives to hold video projects etc. makes a lot more sense.

The nMP makes perfect sense if someone is setting up a new system from scratch, with new external storage units, digitisers, displays etc. using Thunderbolt/USB3 and DisplayPort or relying on networked storage.

The problem is that the old MP was long past its sell-by date (and has been discontinued for a year in the EU) by the time the MP arrived, so people are looking for a drop-in replacement to upgrade their old MPs while reusing their expensive internal storage, PCIe-based specialist cards etc.

 

[Cubemmal]

The stupidest complaint is easily from The Verge review

John Lagomarsino, Director / Editor ... I do wish Apple had included an SD card slot like they do in their other Macs, though.

What, did I hear that right? He wants a, wait, SD card reader built into the device? Wait for it, I'm feeling ... peals of laughter coming on ... what an idiot. Besides the fact that there probably isn't room for a reader, does he think that this machine, with this design, should have a card reader? Shouldn't it be compact flash card instead, since most professional cameras use them? Should it be a micro, or a mini? Why not have an all in one like those $10 readers?

As it is I think the HDMI port detracts from the essential simplicity of the tube, but I understand that with 4k video maybe it is necessary at the moment. And they have a spot to fill. But a SD card reader on a $3k starting price computer?

We need better reviews.

 

[Cubemmal]

More The Verge review nonsense

BAD STUFF
Needs software tuning to get performance right
Very expensive

Stupid stupid, does The Verge only hire stupid people? All computers need software tuning to get performance right, and very expensive? Compare to what, a mini? Compared to equivalent class computers (HP or Dell workstations) it has been demonstrated that it's a relative bargain, depending on your needs.

 

[calaverasgrande]

I'm basically just annoyed that the power button has to be nestled among all the wires coming out the back.
That drove me nuts with my Mac mini.
Sure, in a perfect world it would just run 24/7 and never need re-booting from a power button. Unfortunately my visa request to immigrate to that perfect world has been denied. So I must make do with the OSX we get in this world, which will eventually fall down and require a reboot.

As far as the cables complaint and the external storage complaint. THose are minor annoyances to me. But to be fair, almost everyone I know with a Mac Pro already has a pile of external drives or has NOTHING installed on the inside of their Mac at all.

 

[wildmac]

The stupidest complaint is easily from The Verge review



What, did I hear that right? He wants a, wait, SD card reader built into the device? Wait for it, I'm feeling ... peals of laughter coming on ... what an idiot. Besides the fact that there probably isn't room for a reader, does he think that this machine, with this design, should have a card reader? Shouldn't it be compact flash card instead, since most professional cameras use them? Should it be a micro, or a mini? Why not have an all in one like those $10 readers?

As it is I think the HDMI port detracts from the essential simplicity of the tube, but I understand that with 4k video maybe it is necessary at the moment. And they have a spot to fill. But a SD card reader on a $3k starting price computer?

We need better reviews.

Actually CompactFlash is going the way of Firewire, but there will be something new in another 3 years, so yeah, stupid request.

 

[Average Pro]

Wambulance

8) The only internal component you can change is the RAM

Oooops, guess what...

https://www.macrumors.com/2013/12/27/new-mac-pro-confirmed-to-have-removable-cpu/

 

[AidenShaw]

8) The only internal component you can change is the RAM

Oooops, guess what...

https://www.macrumors.com/2013/12/27/new-mac-pro-confirmed-to-have-removable-cpu/

...and what does Apple support say about swapping CPUs?

Of course the parts can be disassembled - after all they had to be assembled at one point.

In order to call a component "user upgradeable", you need to have both:

• a system that someone reasonably handy with readily available hand tools can disassemble and reassemble
• a source for components better than the original ones that one can buy for the upgrade

Neither of those points are currently known.

 

[flat five]

...and what does Apple support say about swapping CPUs?

they say this:

"If you open your Mac Pro or install items other than memory and SSDs, you risk damaging your equipment. Such damage isn’t covered by the limited warranty on your Mac Pro."

http://manuals.info.apple.com/MANUALS/1000/MA1668/en_US/mac_pro_late-2013_ipig.pdf

 

[AidenShaw]

they say this:

"If you open your Mac Pro or install items other than memory and SSDs, you risk damaging your equipment. Such damage isn’t covered by the limited warranty on your Mac Pro."

http://manuals.info.apple.com/MANUALS/1000/MA1668/en_US/mac_pro_late-2013_ipig.pdf

And if you upgrade your quad new Mini Pro to a deca, and two months later Apple OSX starts to crash whenever you connect a USB 3.0 drive - then what?

That certainly wouldn't be "damage" caused by the upgrade, would it?

 

[flat five]

And if you upgrade your quad new Mini Pro to a deca, and two months later Apple OSX starts to crash whenever you connect a USB 3.0 drive - then what?

That certainly wouldn't be "damage" caused by the upgrade, would it?

I really don't know.
probably going to take a few brave guinea pigs to find out.

fwiw, I don't foresee myself ever swapping a CPU.. maybe if you can swap boards to e5v3 or something but even then, the high cost per small performance increase probably wouldn't be worth it (to me)

 

[thejadedmonkey]

More The Verge review nonsense



Stupid stupid, does The Verge only hire stupid people? All computers need software tuning to get performance right, and very expensive? Compare to what, a mini? Compared to equivalent class computers (HP or Dell workstations) it has been demonstrated that it's a relative bargain, depending on your needs.

And depending on your needs (e.g. a fast CPU and large internal storage pool), it's an absolute clusterf***.

 

[ProphetX]

For a serious reply.
1) It's easier to turn aroudn than the old Mac Pro to get to the ports.
2)In truth, it's only cables for an optical drive and a box to hold the drives that were previously internal. And depending on what people do for peripherals, it could be the same number of cables.
3) Half right, not expandable internally, but has a decent number of external ports.

Your joking right. Compare the sizes. How is it easier to turn the oMP around?

 

[Joshua M]

And if you upgrade your quad new Mini Pro to a deca, and two months later Apple OSX starts to crash whenever you connect a USB 3.0 drive - then what?

That certainly wouldn't be "damage" caused by the upgrade, would it?

What is the argument here? You couldn't officially upgrade the oMP CPU, but plenty of people did. You can't officially upgrade this one, but plenty of people will.

Your logical fallacy is: slippery slope.

 

[haravikk]

I'm not a hater yet I think there's some truth to that complaint. The old MP could hold internally most of what you want. The nMP cannot.

This isn't true for everyone; video professionals will have outgrown the internal capacity of a workstation Mac Pro a long time ago, so having an external array for high capacity/speed is nothing new, and Thunderbolt should be plenty fast enough for this purpose.

Other than that, the only things a workstation Mac Pro could hold were an optical bay, which not everyone needs, and PCIe cards. If anything that last one is the more annoying for those that need it, as PCIe enclosures are very expensive for what they are; namely an external PCI bus with limited top speeds and an external power requirement.

Many people that were happy with the four to six (possibly a few more) internal drive bays of a Mac Pro probably didn't need the full power available to a workstation Mac Pro anyway (I include myself here, I only really have a Mac Pro because I was replacing a PowerMac G5 and had the money, and the Mac Mini just wasn't very powerful at the time). There are also people that used Mac Pros for gaming, but then that's never been what they were for. Even so, moving those drives to an external enclosure for a new Mac Pro (or Mac Mini, if that's sufficient for your needs) can still result in a much smaller total footprint for your devices, plus you can move the drives somewhere more discreet if you wish, so it's not strictly a disadvantage.

IMO the biggest issue is the loss of integrated PCIe slots, as video professionals that already have external storage arrays, are most likely going to have Mini-SAS or eSATA ones, rather than Thunderbolt ones, so it's not a simple case of just using an existing array. Adaptors that can handle eSATA are again very expensive for what they are, presumably Mini-SAS too (if there are any, otherwise you're stuck with a PCIe enclosure). Things would have been a bit easier if there were a more obvious upgrade path from eSATA/Mini-SAS to Thunderbolt, for example if Apple had provided eSATA ports on this early Mac Pro or, more likely, provided a reasonably affordable Thunderbolt to eSATA cable, and maybe a more competitively priced PCIe adaptor than those currently available.

 

[slughead]

IMO the biggest issue is the loss of integrated PCIe slots, as video professionals that already have external storage arrays, are most likely going to have Mini-SAS or eSATA ones, rather than Thunderbolt ones, so it's not a simple case of just using an existing array. Adaptors that can handle eSATA are again very expensive for what they are, presumably Mini-SAS too (if there are any, otherwise you're stuck with a PCIe enclosure). Things would have been a bit easier if there were a more obvious upgrade path from eSATA/Mini-SAS to Thunderbolt, for example if Apple had provided eSATA ports on this early Mac Pro or, more likely, provided a reasonably affordable Thunderbolt to eSATA cable, and maybe a more competitively priced PCIe adaptor than those currently available.

mini-sas is easy, just fork over $900 for 10Gbit/s !

 

[Bear]

Your joking right. Compare the sizes. How is it easier to turn the oMP around?

That's not what I said. I said it was easier to turn around THAN the old Mac Pro.

 

[Average Pro]

Hillarious

Thanks for the laugh. I knew someone would beat me to the punch line.

Following the logic presented below, then everything in the MP is upgradeable. Because anything that was ever assembled...Wow! This could apply to more than just the MP.

Also love the attempt at legal jargon. I've provided my own reference in the form of a picture. There's a chapter in there which defines:

1) someone-reasonably-handy
2) better

Smile.

...and what does Apple support say about swapping CPUs?

Of course the parts can be disassembled - after all they had to be assembled at one point.

In order to call a component "user upgradeable", you need to have both:

• a system that someone reasonably handy with readily available hand tools can disassemble and reassemble
• a source for components better than the original ones that one can buy for the upgrade

Neither of those points are currently known.

 

[AidenShaw]

Thanks for the laugh. I knew someone would beat me to the punch line.

Following the logic presented below, then everything in the MP is upgradeable. Because anything that was ever assembled...Wow! This could apply to more than just the MP.

Also love the attempt at legal jargon. I've provided my own reference in the form of a picture. There's a chapter in there which defines:

1) someone-reasonably-handy
2) better

Smile.

What did you add to the discussion with that post?

I made a reasonable post that pointed out that if you can't get upgraded parts, and that if it's incredibly difficult to disassemble and reassemble the new Mini Pro, then in practical terms it's not upgradeable.

You replied with pointless mockery.

 

[flat five]

Smile.

fwiw, i think aiden and me see a lot of this stuff differently but this is something i agree on..

it addresses real scenarios that absolutely are going to occur and the answers to those two bullet points are important.

when my computer breaks (and i'm able to self diagnose), will i be able to go buy a part and fix it or-- do i have to take the computer to the shop and leave it there which also means i'll have to pay additional labor fees on top of the already (assuming) expensive parts.

that's a legit concern if you're planning on investing in a computer which you expect to outlast its warranty.


the other point-- "a source for components better than the original ones that one can buy for the upgrade".

personally, this isn't so important to me but i'm sympathetic towards it.. if you're mainly a hobbyist/tinkerer/enthusiast then it wouldn't make much sense to buy a computer whose configuration has to stay the same as the day you bought it.. but i do feel if the repair situation holds true (i.e.- it's true with the old mac pro-- (though very limited in official gpus)) then this upgrade-to-better will be true as well..

 

[goMac]

If you're complaining that the new Mac Pro's CPU upgrades are less supported than the old Mac Pro's CPU upgrade, you're a moron.

Both were warranty voiding, both were considered not user upgradable.

Basically anything that deals with thermal paste is considered not user upgradable.

 

[Rock Hound]

I just finished setting up my 6-core today, and in my case the new Mac Pro has freed up a lot of desk space. The CPU just fades into the background at the corner of the desk, and the hot-swap RAID/JBOD box sits behind the monitors.
All I have to do is swivel the displays to get full access to the RAID box.

My deskscape is now dominated by the monitors instead of a giant tower. A printer and two scanners sit on a table in the corner. The only difference between my old spaghetti pile and the new one is the addition of two cables to support the external drive box. Of course, people with a battery of PCI cards will have a different experience.

Rotating the CPU to plug and unplug cables is a piece of cake - much easier than finding the plugs in the back of my old tower.

I performed a batch process on a few thousand audio files that ran all the cores, real and virtual, above 90 percent for about 3 hours. The computer didn't break a sweat - it is effectively silent, and the air coming out of the top of the CPU was just slightly warm. Very, very impressive.

The only unpleasant surprise thus far is that the video works a bit differently than expected. I was not able to daisy chain my Displayport monitors, which means that Apple must still not be supporting Displayport 1.2 (WTF?). The other odd thing is that the monitors do not span normally. The system will not let me spread an application window across two monitors, which is quite problematic for me. It would be nice if Apple would return more configuration options to the Displays pref pane.

 

[borad]

The other odd thing is that the monitors do not span normally. The system will not let me spread an application window across two monitors, which is quite problematic for me.

That’s just a Mavericks thing, isn’t it? Turn off ‘Displays have different Spaces’ in ‘Mission Control’ if you must span across displays.

 

[Rock Hound]

That’s just a Mavericks thing, isn’t it? Turn off ‘Displays have different Spaces’ in ‘Mission Control’ if you must span across displays.

Thanks, that's a huge relief!