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"Mac Pro Label" on the new Mac Pro 2013?

Dr. Stealth said:
These are no doubt custom fabricated racks. If you know what you need you can have anything custom fabbed. You won't be seeing any ads for them in the back pages of Mac World.... Are they still around ?

At any rate MacStadium has been around for several years and if they are currently thriving and expanding (here in the USA!) they have to be doing something right. Have a look at the pics of their Mac Mini racks and Data Center.... They're awesome. They know what their doing....
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handsome pete said:
Hence the questions I posed above. Not saying it cannot be done, but seems a bit dubious given that it's for an unreleased product with minimal known specs. Unless they had some sort of special access to the pre-production version, but that's doubtful seeing as though they didn't even have the right specs listed on their site. Fabrication on this seems a bit premature without having a few units on hand to see if it actually makes sense in the first place.

And I'm sure you can agree coming up with a racking solution for a Mac mini inherently seems a bit easier than a tube not designed for it in the first place. They certainly wouldn't be the first successful company to introduce vaporware to the public. Not saying that's the case. But it's certainly not out of the realm of possibility.
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Excellent points by Pete, I'll add of course one of the missed pretenses in the good doctor's reply: Popularity and/or the number of readers an article or rag receives is not a reflection of accuracy or probability. To prove this all one needs to do is visit one the opinion/discussion blogs about the movie series "The Matrix". All fascinating conjecture... and, of curse, about as realistic as that MacPro rack they showed - or a server comprised of 512 interconnected iPhones. Will someone eventually try and hook up 6 or 8 MacPro6,1's ? Probably. But trying to connect "270 [MacPro6,1 Desktop Grade] machines running as "servers in 12 square feet" and selling/advertising that as a "datacenter floor space" solution is ludicrous and improbable even with the most flamboyant imaginations. That would be about as probable and expeditious as attempting to build datacenter clusters out of thousands of MacMini units... Oh wait, they already claim that as well:

solution1.jpg

From the very same site.​

Preposterous!
 
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I have to say....

This is by far the best application I have seen yet for the new Mac Pro to date. It certainly wasn't built for MY desktop.
 

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Dr. Stealth said:
I have to say....

This is by far the best application I have seen yet for the new Mac Pro to date. It certainly wasn't built for MY desktop.
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The best application for an unreleased product? An application that we don't even know works? Please elaborate.

Seems like you're just shilling for this company.
 
handsome pete said:
The best application for an unreleased product? An application that we don't even know works? Please elaborate.

Seems like you're just shilling for this company.
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I completely agree with your sentiment but it doesn't really matter if he's a shill or not.

Why, you ask?

Because there is absolutely no such customer on the entire planet and never will be. The idea of doing something like that with any likely specification Apple is apt to offer in that form-factor is completely irrational to the point of being absolutely ludicrous.
 
handsome pete said:
The best application for an unreleased product? An application that we don't even know works? Please elaborate.

Seems like you're just shilling for this company.
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I've seen Pixar demoing the same unreleased product. You think it's vaporware? If companies waited to begin applying an application until all the pieces and parts were in hand they would be.... Well they'd be like handsome pete standing around with their hands in their pockets waiting for their competition to prove that something works before they make a move.

Look up the word Innovation.

Good thing the Wright Bros. didn't subscribe to the same train of thought....
 
ScottishCaptain said:
Will the new Mac Pro even support two CPUs heat wise?

As I've pointed out before, each side of the triangular heat sink is basically a giant vapour chamber (akin to a large flat heat pipe). I'm wondering what this would do if you jammed two CPUs on it, and if it would even work. The fact that they had to design the heat sink like that tells me that a solid block of aluminum (or copper) wasn't enough for even a single CPU.
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The W9000 ( 250+ W ) runs hotter than any of the Xeon E5s v2 (130W ) . If there are two of them it would be easy to evict one of those and put in another CPU (presuming could find room for another 4 RAM DIMMs ( which can't).

It is for more so there isn't enough room for the RAM that would come with another CPU more so than a TDP problem. ( presuming they have the dual W9000 TDP problem solved .... probably since claim those kinds of TFLOP numbers. )

Plus is just counting cores the third side GPU brings about an order of magnitude more cores than a third side CPU would.

Or saying why can't do two CPUs and two GPUs ? That isn't going to work with a triangle. Going to a square isn't going to work so well in provision balanced roll-over heat handling as the triangle. Everyone is connected to all neighbors in a triangle. For square one of those other sides will be longer length. It is not as balanced.

Nevermind probably past what a single fan can handle even if larger and more efficient.
 
Dr. Stealth said:
I've seen Pixar demoing the same unreleased product. You think it's vaporware? If companies waited to begin applying an application until all the pieces and parts were in hand they would be.... Well they'd be like handsome pete standing around with their hands in their pockets waiting for their competition to prove that something works before they make a move.

Look up the word Innovation.

Good thing the Wright Bros. didn't subscribe to the same train of thought....
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First off, I call BS on the Pixar claim.

And the rest of what you're saying is pretty much nonsense as well. You can certainly design well in advance. But these guys are claiming they're already out for fabrication on a finished design, dependent on a product still unreleased (announced not even a month ago), without ever having said product in hands and going off of minimal specs released by Apple. Seems a tad absurd to me.

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subsonix said:
That remains to be seen I think. ;)

http://www.macminicolo.net/facility.html
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Can you admit that the form factor of a Mac mini is inherently more suitable for a rack design than a tube?
 
handsome pete said:
Ha, no problem. I'm not even saying this Mac Pro "solution" is beyond the realm of possibility. Just seems a bit suspect at this point.
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The only way it's possible is if Apple gifts Pixar (same company BTW...) with the machines. If the decision needs to survive rational thought then it's impossible.
 
Tesselator said:
The only way it's possible is if Apple gifts Pixar (same company BTW...)
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Wrong.... Apple sold Pixar to Disney years ago..... 2006. Jobs personally worked the deal. 90% of Steve Jobs wealth at the time of his death was from this sale, not from Apple. Steve Jobs was Disney's single largest shareholder.
 
Dr. Stealth said:
Wrong.... Apple sold Pixar to Disney years ago..... 2006. Jobs personally worked the deal. 90% of Steve Jobs wealth at the time of his death was from this sale, not from Apple. Steve Jobs was Disney's single largest shareholder.
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I see, so when Disney bought Pixar everything changed right? All the interests, personal. relationships, loyalties, and agreements just suddenly up and transformed into a brand new company.

LOL

Naw, it's still the same company - just like I said - I happen to actually know this. ;)
 
Tesselator said:
I see, so when Disney bought Pixar everything changed right? All the interests, personal. relationships, loyalties, and agreements just suddenly up and transformed into a brand new company.

LOL

Naw, it's still the same company - just like I said - I happen to actually know this. ;)
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You really have a hard time admitting when you're wrong..... ;)

I'm sure you can say it... Say "WRONG" You just need practice in front of a mirror.... ;)
 
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Kind of a smarmy reply

Tesselator said:
So nice of you to do your background checks after the article. :) Better late than never I guess...

You should modify those silly renderings as well - or name the firm who intends to manufacture MP6,1 square unintelligent cubby-hole shelves for a tube-shaped Desktop grade computer running Apple Server software. :rolleyes:

Next I expect the same company to produce a server rack design comprising 256 iPhones.





Hehehe...
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I'm sure the company doesn't have to answer to you for anything they do.
 
You guys are silly. Someone tells you they know something about Pixar and you make comments like this? Yeah, pretty silly. Oh well, it's not important I guess. :p
 
Dr. Stealth said:
I have to say....

This is by far the best application I have seen yet for the new Mac Pro to date. It certainly wasn't built for MY desktop.
Click to expand...

Form factor aside, is there any compelling reason to create a server farm from an array of Macs? I'm not personally aware of one, and Apple both EOL'd Xgrid and pointed remaining customers to alternative solutions.
 
thekev said:
Form factor aside, is there any compelling reason to create a server farm from an array of Macs? I'm not personally aware of one, and Apple both EOL'd Xgrid and pointed remaining customers to alternative solutions.
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This is right from Macstadium... They've been doing this for 14 years with Mac Minis and are expanding. Makes sense to me.

"For Datacenter operators like us, the costs of operating are significantly driven by the cost of Datacenter floor space (square footage), the cost of power, and the cost of Air Conditioning. Apple products have always adopted themselves to greatly reducing these costs. At MacStadium, we are are able to facilitate 240 Mac mini’s per 8 square feet with a total power draw of less than 30AMPS @ 110VAC – that is about 1/6th the space and power utilized by traditional 1U Rack Servers. The reduced operating costs are then passed on to our subscribers in the form of hosting and collocation services at a fraction of the price typically associated with such platforms by other dedicated server hosting companies."
 
subsonix said:
The fact that they showed alternative solutions pretty much makes that part of your argument disappear.
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Solutions not directly supported by Apple. They had to guide them toward something.

goMac said:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_Qmaster
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When was the last time they even updated that?

Dr. Stealth said:
This is right from Macstadium... They've been doing this for 14 years with Mac Minis and are expanding. Makes sense to me.

"For Datacenter operators like us, the costs of operating are significantly driven by the cost of Datacenter floor space (square footage), the cost of power, and the cost of Air Conditioning. Apple products have always adopted themselves to greatly reducing these costs. At MacStadium, we are are able to facilitate 240 Mac mini’s per 8 square feet with a total power draw of less than 30AMPS @ 110VAC – that is about 1/6th the space and power utilized by traditional 1U Rack Servers. The reduced operating costs are then passed on to our subscribers in the form of hosting and collocation services at a fraction of the price typically associated with such platforms by other dedicated server hosting companies."
Click to expand...

I wonder how it compares with the new ones. For most server duties the configuration wouldn't be very helpful. The dual gpu thing would be useful where gpu computation is used. If we're talking about a data center that just slicese these up into VMs, that makes zero sense.
 
thekev said:
Solutions not directly supported by Apple. They had to guide them toward something.
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The solutions wasn't other platforms, they are certainly supported by OS X and are the same solutions they would end up using else where.
 
thekev said:
When was the last time they even updated that?
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Because the folded most of what it does from a GUI standpoint into Compressor and that the basic functionality hasn't changed much.


".. Distributed encoding. ... "
http://www.apple.com/finalcutpro/compressor/

".. This new support document from Apple tells you how to send Compressor jobs to clusters for faster processing. What it won't tell you is how to set up a cluster in the first place. There are two types of clusters you can build. A virtual or QuickCluster can be made from the extra cores in your Mac and an external cluster is made from sharing the processing power of other Macs on a network.

Setting up a virtual or 'Quick Cluster' was previously achieved in the Apple Qmaster preference pane. To build a virtual cluster with Compressor 4, the machine has to be made available for sharing via the Apple Qmaster menu 'Share this Computer' in Compressor. ... "
http://www.fcp.co/final-cut-pro/art...to-clusters-from-final-cut-pro-x-and-motion-5


If we're talking about a data center that just slices these up into VMs, that makes zero sense.
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It may make sense for a termnial services server that is being colocated to get to bigger pipes. But yeah to be sliced into multiple VM slices not really.

I"m not sure those this mini hosts folks are doing lots of VM slicing. When mini use unloaded it goes to sleep and hits those low energy states they talk about.

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thekev said:
Solutions not directly supported by Apple. They had to guide them toward something.
Click to expand...

Guide them? Most folks were gone. Xgrid only competitive edges were that it was "free" (bundled), had a Mac GUI, and that it integrated relatively easily into OS X Server authentication set-ups. Other than that is was a single platform ( where every other solution is multiple platform) and not any faster.

The Xgrid controller process was 32 bit so if needed to move large data ( over 2GB ) you needed a shared file system ( which is probably a good idea if wasn't 32bit for huge bulky stuff . )

Most folks scrounging for spare CPU cycles want to go multiplatform to gather from whatever machines are idle. For homogenous cluster..... well they are mostly Linux. Intel's high end parallel development tools ... Linux/Windows.
 
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