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Mac Pro Rising
- Thread starter No One
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To be fair, post #1 of this thread is OP spreading a rumor about the nMP being a complete failure and how there is a 7,1 Mac Pro redesign coming with slots and bays. So if I want to talk bad about the nMP and talk great about slots and bays, that's definitely on 100% topic.
The reason why I keep bringing this stuff up is that there are some people who have shown ignorance about the topic (not you, you are pretty smart about your posts, but my post wasn't about you). In this thread they describe how they can't even imagine why anyone would want bays. They ask why would anyone want "slow drives" as if we all wanted slow drives, or if that was the only purpose for a bay. I don't think wanting slots and bays means I want a "slow drive", and saying so is ignorant and fires me up.
Um. Laptops have inadequate GPUs, small screens, and terrible keyboards, among other things. If you go around plugging in a bunch of external stuff to make up for their failings, then you have to question why you have a laptop in the first place.
--Eric
And don't forget that they have tiny high-RPM fans that scream under load - until the whole system throttles back to a comfortable temperature (or until it fails early due to high temperatures).
And Dog help you if you mouse left and the searing hot air blast from the fan is on your mouse hand.
Inadequate for what? Todays laptops have GPU's as fast as top of the line stuff from 4 years ago. What were you doing 4 years ago on your desktop so that your GPU was not adequate for the job?
Computers have gotten crazy fast lately that upgrading seems a lot less necessary than before. My 2012 rMBP is still so fast and responsive with El Capitan, no need to upgrade whatsoever. Yet my 2009 MBP was sluggish in 2012 so I had to upgrade to this one after only 3 years. I think I can get at least another 2-3 years out of this laptop, so in total I'd have used it for 6-7 years compared to 3 on my old one.
And top of the line stuff in 2016 is much better than 4-year-old tech. (And is still not fast enough, honestly.) If you don't understand why anyone would want a faster GPU, I'm not sure what to tell you. If you're fine with casual usage and don't push your computer at all, that's cool, but I don't think this is the right discussion for you.
--Eric
I do own a Mac Pro and occasionally play games, so yes I'd like a top of the line GPU every now and then, but I wouldn't call the GPU's in laptops inadequate. Inadequate by definition requires a specific task. They are perfectly adequate for Photoshop work for example. Not adequate to play the latest AAA games at highest settings.
I would. Lots of other people would. It's fine if you're happy with a laptop and don't do anything more intensive than Photoshop, but plenty of people do more than that. I spend a certain amount of time waiting for my computer to finish stuff, so faster GPUs and CPUs will always be welcome (until such time as they are infinitely fast
). I'm not sure if you understand that there are more uses for GPUs than playing AAA games, although that's a perfectly acceptable reason for wanting something better than 4-year-old tech.--Eric
I'm with Hank on this. I have never once heard a HDD referred to as a "rust drive"
SSDs really aren't cost effective for bulk storage. There's still a place in the world for regular spinning hard drives.
There will always be a place in this world for spinning rust..they'll have 10TB out soon enough that'd be a lot of money in SSD. But you know Digital Ocean advertises all its droplets are on SSD's which makes me wonder what their costs are if bought in bulk
My suggestion is that for people who need much more than what a laptop offers, it's a legit workstation they want - not a desktop like the nMP that can't be built out for high end applications. Sure, 20-30% of creatives who need more than an MBP or iMac, but not a true "workstation", are served by the nMP. Those of us doing high end video/CGI/VFX/3D/VR/etc, who I guesstimate are 70-80% of the "more than MBP/iMac" crowd, are not. The "'tweeners" can just get the lower end versions of the workstation for roughly what a desktop would cost - but the hard cores could load 'em up. Everybody wins.
must have been using a PC to begin with because Macs were lacking software for this anyway. Never heart of CGI/3D work being done on a Mac, ever.
Just pick up a used dual 4,1 and upgrade the cpus and ram. On par with the trash cans. A lot cheaper too and all the expansion.
Ran across this obscure low budget movie that lists the SW used. Every app used has a Mac version.
Not saying that any or all the contributors used a Mac for the gig but the SW was there. 
Always love reading that I don't exist.
Perhaps you should question why Maya, Modo, Houdini, Lightwave, Mudbox, ZBrush, mental ray, VRay, Arnold, Renderman, Mari, Nuke, PFTrack, Syntheyes, 3DEqualizer, Mocha, Fusion, Krakatoa and Clarisse have Mac versions?
That's a lot of software sitting idle.
The core apps exist but studios always write in-house add-ons and scripts and they do it on Linux and Windows. To do Avatar, Fox does not use the core Maya package, it's all in-house stuff.
Also, most of the software you listed was not available for OS X for a long time, so many studios had a Linux based workflow to begin with. Why change if it ain't broke?
Even Pixar, when Jobs was the CEO, had Linux boxes for almost everything and Renderman did not have a Mac version for a long time.
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The multicore Geekbench may be comparable but the single threaded performance of the cMP vs. nMP is much lower so if your application can use 12 cores that's fine but if it doesn't scale well over multiple cores then the performance will be way down.
So, again, all that software exists on OSX but nobody is using it? Are companies buying it, but just letting it sit on a shelf? How does the economics of all that porting and testing work? Could you be wrong, and perhaps some people are doing CGI with Macs?
New info...
Who am I? No One.
New Mac Pro revision waits on Sierra GM. Inventory builds for expected demand.
Dual full-length graphics cards installed in every build resemble AMD reference design with single 6-pin power socket. Apple-styled coolers are same color as tower exterior. Output is single row of four DisplayPort ports, maybe one HDMI, not close enough look to know. So far all towers built with two graphics cards.
One 120mm fan cools PCIe chamber but nothing like old Mac Pro. Uses clever flow pattern and open space is only for extra cards. Logic board PCIe power sockets are near graphics cards sockets with easy access and short and neat cables. Like I said before shape is not conventional tower at all. PSU is long thin shape for length of tower and I cannot see any fan. Maybe it is hidden.
CPU cooler is entire length of tower with one 120mm fan each end. Still cannot learn CPU part numbers but look at Broadwell EP v4 parts list and easy to guess except for top end core count.
Dual full-length graphics cards installed in every build resemble AMD reference design with single 6-pin power socket. Apple-styled coolers are same color as tower exterior. Output is single row of four DisplayPort ports, maybe one HDMI, not close enough look to know. So far all towers built with two graphics cards.
One 120mm fan cools PCIe chamber but nothing like old Mac Pro. Uses clever flow pattern and open space is only for extra cards. Logic board PCIe power sockets are near graphics cards sockets with easy access and short and neat cables. Like I said before shape is not conventional tower at all. PSU is long thin shape for length of tower and I cannot see any fan. Maybe it is hidden.
CPU cooler is entire length of tower with one 120mm fan each end. Still cannot learn CPU part numbers but look at Broadwell EP v4 parts list and easy to guess except for top end core count.
Who am I? No One.
This is just like reading the old Dolphin posts about the next great PowerMac with a Motorola CPU, right before the IBM G5 was announced! Whether fantasy or reality, it's a fun read.
Yes, I can see it now. It's now shaped somewhat like a toilet bowel or Apple's HEADquarters 2 with some squaring off on a few sides. It also has feet but not traditional feet. It's casing is made out of mostly a semi-transparent material. Kind of a throw back to the original iMac but it's not plastic. That's why No One is able to report their visual observations but not details.
Who am I? I am an insider. I've been biding my time and have kept quiet (so as to not lose my job!), but I can't take this nonsense anymore. So here's my info, which is necessarily limited in detail (job to keep, remember):
- Same form factor. No change in the color or anything else. The tube really was intended to last 10 years. Whether we'll see an update after this one is anyone's guess, though.
- Slightly updated power supply (50 watts more). There is no way that the tube can fit much more than this (e.g., big enough to support arbitrary "2 full-length video cards") without becoming a mini Chernobyl and/or making an unacceptable amount of noise (for Apple, anyway).
- Updated processors providing a minimum of 6 cores and a maximum that is not yet set in stone.
- Updated graphics based on RX-480 variations. Top card is "RX-490" with DDR5X. This is where the extra power is going. Same graphics form-factor (no standard slots). People - especially anyone wanting to game on a 'pro - are likely to be grumpy about the graphics performance (worse than GTX-1080), but compute performance will be 20-50% better than the present variations.
- A bone will be thrown and two flash drive slots will be available.
- Merged TB-3 / USB-3 plus an HDMI port.
Even if it's just for the fantasy and dream! Totally agree and appreciate the glimmer of this (at the moment) fairy tale.
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Now this I like,as far as what to realistically expect.