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MSI Vortex w/ Dual 980's - nMac Pro style case
- Thread starter p.l
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Fully customisable, no proprietary connectors, fully upgradable, up to date technology, affordability. Just wait...some brandwashed sheep is going to say this isn't workstation level
Who cares, As long as MSI are going to offer warranty I'm def purchasing this as my next 'workstation'
Can't wait for it to get Hackintoshed.
The Gibberati will have a tough time explaining why a $3K machine is leaving their $10K workstation for dead.
The Gibberati will have a tough time explaining why a $3K machine is leaving their $10K workstation for dead.
I had a laptop once with MXM GPU that was theoretically upgradable, but no compatible faster board was ever released. It was a situation similar to the nMP...I could change GPUs to any GPU that was initially sold with the laptop, but that's it. Parts were not for sale anywhere except grey market on Ebay for exorbitant prices. And if you already had the fastest GPU as I did, there was nowhere to go but down.
I haven't really followed MXM stuff for the last few years. Are those video cards really fully upgradable? If so, MXM has come a long way.
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Yes they have always been upgradeable as long as there were mobile drivers available. The only problem was if a manufacturer like Sony used their own device IDs on an MXM module like they did with the Geforce 8600M in Vaio laptops. You had to edit NVidia drivers to be able to install them. I think like many people that Apple etc didn't want people upgrading GPUs as it would hurt system sales.
In this MSI Vortex the GTX980 is the full version that NVidia managed to make more efficient then PCIE version.
Before MXM it was still possible to change graphic cards in some laptops. My first PC laptop was a Dell with upgradable ATI Rage 3D. But the upgrade part was for Dell's only.
Hmmm, I wonder if that was the case with my HP laptop. I didn't know about the device ID trick, and it wouldn't surprise me if HP did that.
It does not take a sheep to see they market it as a gaming machine and not a workstation.
This isn't the 90s. it takes a sheep to believe there is a distinction between those two categories and then paying much more money for something called 'workstation'. Maybe MSI will sell another version called Vortex Workstation to make people like you happy. Same parts, just another thousand dollars. Or maybe throw in a server CPU for some weird reason even though workstations rely more on GPGPU power these days.
Flash forward to 2016. If we see major film studios buying up these gaming machines for their film production, you might have a point. A little crossover is to be expected, but mostly from hobbyists, power users and enthusiasts. I just don't think these are going to be a target machine for most independents, freelancers or major businesses. Slapping them with a sheep label probably won't change their minds.
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They took the nMP and removed most of its bad sides.
Whatever you call it doesn't matter as long as it will do what you want.
One question is: what took them so long?
Presumably the GPU release date...
Whatever you call it doesn't matter as long as it will do what you want.
One question is: what took them so long?
Presumably the GPU release date...
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If one runs applications that heavily depend on multithreaded low latency performance with loads of L3-cache and large amounts of RAM (>64GB), how is there not a distinction between this vortex and a real workstation with Dual Xeon CPUs and ECC-RAM? You sound like a person that never seen what the lack of those things can do to performance in some applications.
For normal home users and most photoshop users this will be just as good as any Mac Pro would be. But there are a large part of the professional users which requires "workstation" parts, and no, the difference between an i7 and an Xeon is more than just the name (twice the L3 cache, dual-cpu support, ECC RAM and so on), some applications will benefit greatly from this.
There's a reason why Dell, HP and Lenovo all offer "Workstations" that has "Workstation parts". You seem to lack the necessary understanding on why these might not only be "beneficial" but even _required_ in some situations and applications.
Please do note that I say most normal users will be just as well of with an MSI Vortex as a "pure" workstation (I myself was oogling the Vortex and currently just waiting for final pricing and availability dates in Sweden).
Conversely Linus Tech Tips built what they called 'The MOST Compact Gaming PC' last May and they installed an 18 Core Xeon 2699 v3 even though games don't use that many cores. In gaming that CPU would be bested by a Devil's Canyon or Skylake quad core. Even in many 'workstation' scenarios the Skylake would win. So these terms 'gaming' and 'workstation' mean little or nothing until one actually needs the specific features that server components offer, which in most usage is pointless. It's even more pointless debating this crap that has been going around for 15+ years. All that matters is application performance, not marketing terms.
Anyway, here's Linus enjoying himself...
That is correct, it is only the times you actually need a "Workstation" and the feature that entails (as you put it "server components") it matters. For most users, most of the time, server parts doesn't add anything to their everyday computer use. Heck, even for most users of workstations I'd dare to guess they don't use all the features all the time.
But for the few users for which it matters, the term "Workstation" signifies that it does use "server components".
It's a marketing term, nothing more, nothing less. A marketing term that signifies that people that need multiple cores, ecc-ram, huge amounts of L3 cache and everything else the server-line of products offer know that they'll get those things.
That is really all there is to it, a workstation computer signifies it has those things, and for the few users that actually DOES need them, it is easy for them to spot candidate computers when the computers that contain those things are called "Workstation". It would be hard for them to find them if let's say dell had all computers bundled up under the same page called "Computers" without any way to separate laptops from desktops or gaming pc's for office pc's or office pcs from workstation (you get my point).
Nothing less of a marketing term than "Sports Car", "Family Car", "Sedan" or "SUV" are for cars.
People looking for a SUV tend to want to find them easily and expect a certain featureset from them that might not be found in a "Sports Car". Most of the users of SUVs don't really need SUVs for their everyday life either.
Certainly interesting, particularly their "tunnel" approach to cooling versus the nMP. Certainly not a great looker, but that was to be expected
I guess the question is who is this marketed at, because as the comments point out, at the quoted prices it seems outrageously expensive for the video punch you're going to get.
I guess the question is who is this marketed at, because as the comments point out, at the quoted prices it seems outrageously expensive for the video punch you're going to get.
Nice, FWIW - I'd still go genuine Apple, but the same dumb tin can design and only on a 450w power supply? Most power supplies that are built worth a darn for critical project stability are 800, 1000, or more watts -- and the best PSUs are designed to run standard load with minimal (or no) fan cooling and to deliver cleaner energy, even before needing to turn on the fan - usually due to heat generated under higher load demand and higher quality components are more tolerant of current increase requirements before having to kick in fans and everything else... the lower-end watt ratings are typically made as cheaply as possible and definitely not intended for computer parts' longevity. But given how rapidly technology is swapped out, only people who buy used equipment would care and I'd wager most don't... this isn't to say that smaller PSUs are cheaply built, but - generally - that can be the case. It's possible high end custom rigs are more balanced with watt availability and top-notch efficiency (80 Plus Platinum, or better).
When I say "cleaner" I mean interference and noise-free. Hook a PSU to an oscilloscope and check various voltage ranges. The smoother the line means the smoother the signal. The rougher the line means each little spike is being consumed by the hardware. One or two little spikes are relatively harmless (unless one is large enough to cause the computer to freeze) but it all adds up over time... like hitting speed bumps, you don't care until after hitting enough that the axle breaks. The microscopic lines in each chip can handle spikes so often before they break. Like electromigration during overclocking, cleaner electricity helps. That's why Haswell and newer chips have voltage regulation on-die, to help smooth current because today's manufacturing processes (22nm and thinner) absolutely require cleaner current... here used to be an online resource that reviewed a lot of PSUs, on all 3 rails, to find these nitpicky details. I should try to find it again one day...
Unfortunately or idealistically the EU introduced efficiency standards demanding that computer manufacturers include lower energy PSUs in systems. It might even be possible that Apple lobbied them for those rules to make it harder on competitors. This was the primary reason Apple claimed it stopped selling the cMP in Europe and promised 'something exciting is coming'. Well that didn't work out well. But that's a discussion that has already done taken up hundreds of comments in another thread.
I imagine if you care that much about it, you're best off getting a separate power conditioner rather than rely on the PSUs of your sensitive electronics though.
