I've absolutely adored everything about this system outside of editing non Pro Res at 60fps+ That's the biggest weakness this thing has lololol.
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MP 7,1 Mac Pro 8.1 - WHAT IF...
- Thread starter maikerukun
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I can't stop.... touching it 😂. It's so well built!
REALLY hope the 8,1 is equally as impressive an engineering masterpiece
The 7,1 and the M2 Max MBPs happens when Apple puts their hearts and minds to it. Each product was a love letter to their respective audiences.
Now, what happens when Apple is lost in the clouds?? You get the Trash can and the 2016 MBP with butterfly keyboard(ugh).
Now, what happens when Apple is lost in the clouds?? You get the Trash can and the 2016 MBP with butterfly keyboard(ugh).
What the W1 does is augment Bluetooth - it effectively provides a superset of Bluetooth's functionality for things like pairing, multi-device awareness, Find my..., etc.
But it relies on the iPhone having commensurate functionality at a system-deep level, which Sennheiser etc can't do.
ahh got it now. Sennheiser don't need W1 chip to do that, Apple needs to open up API that does that.
On Android it called "Fast Pair". These silly things that Apple does is being slowly broken by the EU.
Notch.
The f%*king notch.
As my partner, a long time Macbook Pro user, until she bought a "gaming system" as her 3D workstation, meaning her next laptop is likely to be an iPad Pro with a Bydge keyboard put it, with morbid fascination at why they didn't just make a thicker top bezel:
"don't they get that the bezel is what provides a visual break between your work and the background?"
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And that's why I've called Apple Black Swan Fragile - because so much of their business relies on using exclusive proprietary links between their products, which a legislature can make vanish.
If Apple was required to make Airdrop an open protocol - certainly one of my biggest reluctances to buying a Windows workstation would disappear.
Yeah, but Apple is in the thrall of decorators, not designers. The decorative value of equal top and side bezels is why there's a notch.
*edit* and to go back to earlier posts, the fact there's no one else able to make a macOS laptop means there's no significant competitive pressure for Apple to change that. So consumers don't get what they want, they get what they will tolerate.
*edit edit* ...and it's really a simple fix for Apple - a global setting to make the menubar sit below the notch, rather than app by app piecemeal, and then the area around the notch becomes space for non-clickable (or option key to disable backstopping so it's clickable) status display space.
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After a bit more messing about I noted that:
The A4000 on my interior scene is slower when using Optix for LookDev IPR. Use ODIN instead and it’s essentially real-time. Loading textures and them showing in the IPR is nearly instant.
Using a single 6800 out of the four with ODIN is comparable in speed. Use more than one and it is slower. Updating textures is a little slower.
My feeling here is that this is more of a software thing than anything else. It seems that things are more optimized on Windows than Metal on MacOS.
Up until now I hadn’t used OPTIX that much. It’s certainly cool but it’s not fairy dust. My test renders showed how it can over de-noise particularly on small details. To be fair, Noice on Arnold is the same (agin on difficult interiors). ODIN on the other hand always seems to do a good job.
Despite these teething issues, I still marvel at the design of the machine. For kicks I tried to put the Nvidia card in a spare PC. Well nope, that didn’t go well. Didn’t have a power cable long enough, way too many wires etc etc.
But with the 7,1 I can swap out multiple gpus, add in non MPX gpus along with the power connectors in less than 2 mins. It’s so easy and practical and every time I do it I always wonder whether this will be the last Mac you’ll ever be able to do this on and if so, what a shame.
The A4000 on my interior scene is slower when using Optix for LookDev IPR. Use ODIN instead and it’s essentially real-time. Loading textures and them showing in the IPR is nearly instant.
Using a single 6800 out of the four with ODIN is comparable in speed. Use more than one and it is slower. Updating textures is a little slower.
My feeling here is that this is more of a software thing than anything else. It seems that things are more optimized on Windows than Metal on MacOS.
Up until now I hadn’t used OPTIX that much. It’s certainly cool but it’s not fairy dust. My test renders showed how it can over de-noise particularly on small details. To be fair, Noice on Arnold is the same (agin on difficult interiors). ODIN on the other hand always seems to do a good job.
Despite these teething issues, I still marvel at the design of the machine. For kicks I tried to put the Nvidia card in a spare PC. Well nope, that didn’t go well. Didn’t have a power cable long enough, way too many wires etc etc.
But with the 7,1 I can swap out multiple gpus, add in non MPX gpus along with the power connectors in less than 2 mins. It’s so easy and practical and every time I do it I always wonder whether this will be the last Mac you’ll ever be able to do this on and if so, what a shame.
I've owned my 7'1 for just over a year and it's been a weird experience. I've owned many a cool thing but I still remember that sense of awe when the I first unboxed it, there really isn't a computer like it. On the other hand I haven't enjoyed the constant bashing from sections of the internet telling me how terrible it is nor having any direction from Apple on their plans for pro's as a company.
Personally I think that some of the criticism of the 7'1 is unfair and it seems to mostly come from people who've never owned one (maybe I'm wrong here?). If it had shipped with a stronger CPU would people have been as critical? That seems its main weakness. I think Apple dropped the ball by not offering a more compelling base model.
When I was building my daughter a PC it was easy to get sucked into the PC's are cheaper and more performant thing. I.e., a $550 I7 CPU performing the same as my 16 core Xeon on Cinebench. Then you start thinking WTF Apple! Until I asked myself does it have 64 PCIE lanes? No. Can I stuff 5 GPU's in it? No. Can it take 8 cards? No. Does it have more than a single Thunderbolt port? No. Is it pretty lol? No. Can it be two computers in one, i.e. Windows and Mac? No.
So maybe it's not that bad after all then?
Personally I think that some of the criticism of the 7'1 is unfair and it seems to mostly come from people who've never owned one (maybe I'm wrong here?). If it had shipped with a stronger CPU would people have been as critical? That seems its main weakness. I think Apple dropped the ball by not offering a more compelling base model.
When I was building my daughter a PC it was easy to get sucked into the PC's are cheaper and more performant thing. I.e., a $550 I7 CPU performing the same as my 16 core Xeon on Cinebench. Then you start thinking WTF Apple! Until I asked myself does it have 64 PCIE lanes? No. Can I stuff 5 GPU's in it? No. Can it take 8 cards? No. Does it have more than a single Thunderbolt port? No. Is it pretty lol? No. Can it be two computers in one, i.e. Windows and Mac? No.
So maybe it's not that bad after all then?
Those high end Core Intel's are targeted towards gamers. I would say a PC workstation can do the stuff you mentioned without worry but no to macOS and your daughters PC did not cost $6K did it?
Pick your posion..
PS. the 7,1 is a great machine its just most are fed up with Apple's lack of communication.
Sure PC Workstations can, for a price like anything else. A base Xeon workstation from Puget starts at $9k.
No, her's didn't - particularly as I had most of the parts lying around and did a few trades
The lack of communication is probably the thing that gets me the most.
Well, guys I am gonna take a break. For my health too. see y'all in April/June or worse Q4 2023(hopefully not)
see y'all in April/June or worse Q4 2023(hopefully not)
It really is just unbelievably engineered. I've genuinely not seen anything like it. The feel, it's SO COLD at ALL TIMES no matter what you're doing on it, it's heavy as hell and the cable management "no cables" is simply unreal LOL
I absolutely adore it.
Whatever man lolololol, I kinda love the notch. I literally never notice until someone says something about it but it's a very unique identifier that stays out of the way.
The AS “compute module” might be more evidence that the 8,1 is an Intel refresh. It could be an M2 Ultra daughter card. Do you think it will be compatible with the 7,1 or only the 8,1?
I asked for a diagram to suggest how this new rumoured setup is supposed to work.
Sounds exotic.
Is there any existing system that’s comparable?
Sounds exotic.
Is there any existing system that’s comparable?
That would be absolutely amazing if they came up with something like that!!!!
An M-series afterburner type card for an x86-64 machine would seem to be the best solution.
When the afterburner was launched, Apple made a big deal about it being an FPGA and reprogrammable, and I suspect a lot of people thought that meant dynamically, in flight by whatever task was using it.
Just putting a bunch of excess yield A/M series chips on a card would seem to be a win / win / win solution.
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I have a slightly different take on that.
Apple press politely admires it. Tech press acknowledge it.
YouTubers gawk and scratch their heads with awkward smiles and giggles while they reach for various "tests" they don't understand in an effort so that "you and me" (talking to the camera now) can "find out together" what "this thang can do".
Hobbyists whine on forums about how expensive it is and immediately start pointing out the 90% of cases that an Apple Studio Ultra already meets or beats the Mac Pro in and how "no one needs" a Mac Pro.
Professionals mutter in areas of the internet no one even knows how to find anymore: "Hrmf. Mmhmmm. Interesting. I don't know. Will have to test it fist. Hmmrf. Maybe"
Apple boardroom: "Great launch everyone! High fives all around! This sure is one powerhouse! Will be great for pros!" *crickets*
—train of thought continues below in response to smckenzie—
Yep.
Nothing to enjoy about it. But isn't it water off a goose's back for you too?
The way the world turns. People love validating what they have or want by criticising what they can't get.
Despite the high hopes I had for MaxTech when he started his YouTube channel and as far away from it I stay now.... he might be the one exception of a person I know that bought the Mac Pro with high hopes of putting it to good use and found out that it was a bad match for him.
A few valid points of criticism has been covered numerous times in this and other threads. But the loudest voices are from armchair warriors, for sure.
The strengths of a Mac Pro can't always be evaluated in an afternoon. Buying one is more akin to a marathon than a sprint.
An overwhelming majority of people out there—whose voices you hear in relation to reviews and buying guides, and almost everyone the in the first wave of YouTube clips—are buying stuff "out of their own pocket". You'd all be surprised (maybe) how many 'one man bands' out there across small photography, videography and 3D visualising businesses don't know how to charge for services+gear.
People in this category are often critical of seemingly expensive pro gear. For them, a camera is a $2500 expense. A fancy computer costs them $4150 and needs to be saved for, or paid off over a few months.
A pro acquires a $6500 camera that generates $40000 short term. A computer costing $16000 works 24/7 generating many times that cost in revenue. Horses for courses, as it were.
I for one certainly hope the 8,1 ASi Mac Pro smashes it out of the park, with stonking increases in performance that have pro's salivating for an upgrade. Having waited an age for the 2019, I expect you all rushed out and bought one at launch; by 2023 you're hopefully dying for an upgrade.
With any luck you'll all be looking to offload your 7,1 MPs at once, and the value will go through the floor (hey, your projects have already long paid for them). Only hobbyists like me will be interested in a hulking x86 Mac, but I'd buy one as a (massive) upgrade from my 5,1 - if the price is right. I have no doubt they're beautifully constructed, and I'd like to be able to continue rebooting into / virtualising Windows as desired.
OTOH, if pro's hang on to them as render boxes or file servers, I'll likely head in the direction of a Studio Max.
Btw, I think it very unlikely Apple will release any new x86 Mac at this point. I think they'd rather wait until 2027 to release an ASi 8,1, saying nothing all the time, than force themselves to support x86 macOS a day longer than they need to. Though I'm also sure it won't come to that, and the new MP will be along in the next few months. It's possible too that the 7,1 will hang around for a while, 2018 Mac mini-style, for those who need specific aspects of the 7,1 that aren't replicated by the first-gen ASi MP.
With any luck you'll all be looking to offload your 7,1 MPs at once, and the value will go through the floor (hey, your projects have already long paid for them). Only hobbyists like me will be interested in a hulking x86 Mac, but I'd buy one as a (massive) upgrade from my 5,1 - if the price is right. I have no doubt they're beautifully constructed, and I'd like to be able to continue rebooting into / virtualising Windows as desired.
OTOH, if pro's hang on to them as render boxes or file servers, I'll likely head in the direction of a Studio Max.
Btw, I think it very unlikely Apple will release any new x86 Mac at this point. I think they'd rather wait until 2027 to release an ASi 8,1, saying nothing all the time, than force themselves to support x86 macOS a day longer than they need to. Though I'm also sure it won't come to that, and the new MP will be along in the next few months. It's possible too that the 7,1 will hang around for a while, 2018 Mac mini-style, for those who need specific aspects of the 7,1 that aren't replicated by the first-gen ASi MP.