My essay on Thunderbolt ports vs PCIe Slots

[barmann]

That's what I keep saying too. They need to offset even the potential extra costs incurred and that's about $1000 to $1,500 as I see it. I may not ever actually spend that but I can't justify a system where I can't do a decent normal migration because it all went into the main system unit. Or, I can't configure it competitively (price-wise) for the same reason. They need to offset the costs of two PCIe card edge <--> TB2 enclosures (and that's NOT TB1, that's TB2...) and they need to offset the costs of a 4-bay TB1 enclosure plus another 2-bay TB1 enclosure. And if 16GB DIMMs are more (I think they are the same but some people keep saying they're more) per GB then that needs to be offset as well.

I don't see that happening , Apple would have to sell the Can below value .
I agree they need to spec them very well, significantelly better than current MPs , as even BTO upgrades are likely to be very expensive for years .

To offset costs for adopters, I think they simply need to get involved into basic TB peripherals; hubs/docking stations and empty enclosures, making them as affordable as they can manage .

 

[paulrbeers]

Many large business companies use tele-conferencing to reduce travel expenses. Using an iMac or any decent all- in- one pc is ideal for that.
An example is Federal government very big employer more the 2 million workers. Lets say an IRS agent 90,000 of them Needs CE course for accounting . in the 90's they went to a center rented for the course maybe 1000 agents went to a hotel in Kansas City and took the course. Now they use an all in one pc and take the same course . Back in the 90's they needed a laptop to go to kc now the office pc is fine.

I tend to agree with most of your points, but I must be honest your point about desktops being more prevalent in business (or in life in general) is off. I've worked for 3 different Fortune 500 companies and they are all trading in desktops for laptops. I've watched our Developers go from Hulking desktops to small laptops. Heck I've seen PROCESSORS (which is some of the lowest paid members of a corporate environment) move to laptops. Why? Because laptops necessary to carry out business for the next 3-4 years (about the typical time a computer is used before replaced in a corp environment) is now Cheaper than a desktop was just 5-10 years ago. Another huge advantage that the corp world sees is Disaster Recovery. Give all of your employees laptops and if there is a massive fire or tornado that destroys your building, all of your employees take their laptops to an alternate location and you are up and running in days (if not sooner).

You can't do this with desktops as they are all gone with the fire/tornado/natural disaster/etc.

No. Maybe the Fed Gov't is going to all-in-ones (but then whenever did they do the right thing?), but the world is going mobile. More and more are laptops, ipads, and phones. They day of the desktop is past. Unless you need the ultra-power of a good hulking desktop, you go mobile with a laptop as your desktop.

 

[phrehdd]

First, I appreciate your well constructed and thoughtful "esssay" but alas, we shall disagree on some basic notions.

The reason the Mac Pro has had a limited market was due to Apple's own desire to push other more profitable devices to market (iMac comes to mind). At any time, Apple could have done some design changed to the MP based on end user demands, but chose to ignore or throw a deaf ear.

The beauty of the MP was not just power but the ability to add and upgrade. This was a very important facet to many pros and prosumers. The video card facet you mentioned was well...not quite right. A large number of people do add or change out their graphics cards. What was the challenge was again Apple not providing or deterring the scale of choice of what cards could be used. We see plenty of people talking about flashing non-Apple-supported cards and having great success. Thunderbolt could be added and let's face it, Apple could have provided an interim TB card for the MP as it stands today but chose not to do so as it would upset their marketing strategy. The limitations of the MP is about profit and not about demand by end users.

When you speak of what the MP can and cannot do, it is a bit misleading. There are non-Mac PCs that can do pretty much all that you say the present MP cannot do "at the same time" so this pretty much suggests it is a design only issue of Apple. Again, Apple chose to exact a machine with limitations.

In another universe, the new device coming out by Apple would be called a Mac Mini Pro and Apple would say that the MP is retired as this new Mini will fulfill the needs of those needing an MP. The new device has far more in common with a Mac Mini than a Mac Pro. - non-upgradeable GPU, limited ability to upgrade (if at all) the internal drives/card and of course, everything really was meant to be connected from the outside.

Some feel Apple has slightly distanced itself from the professional world and this might be true. Considering the lack of MP model updates, far and few real break through in pro level software on a timely basis and more. To me, it is a pity and it would have been nice if Apple was a bit more honest. If they feel that the pro world is too small a group to go after then they shouldn't worry about the creation of full sized fully capable MP machines being made that is designed to meet the needs of those that would buy them. Perhaps Apple simply cannot juggle as much as it thinks it can or claims it can and something had to give.

As for me, I had an early model Mac Pro that I maxed out and had excellent use of the machine. My present machine is a Mac Mini quad 2.0 with SSD internal that works very well for my purposes and is as fast on certain applications and faster on most applications than my old quad 2.66 Mac Pro. I'll welcome the new Mac Pro Mini if the price doesn't put it out of reach. It is an excellent upgrade path for the Mini. As for those with MP needs, they'll have to consider long and hard whether the new MP is worth the investment of all the peripherals (TB being costly etc.) vs simply jumping over to non-Apple world to get the "MP" they really want and need with fully capable upgrades internally.

Just tossing peanuts from the gallery here.

 

[dyn]

You may be missing the whole point of the powerful computer, the large files which necessitate the performance in the first place.

I'm not missing that point but you are. You are now talking about a niche product. If you need high performance storage you shouldn't be looking at a Mac and no one who needs high performance storage will do that. They'll turn to special solutions that allow for more than 3 PCIe ssd's or something like that and storage networks that use high speed interconnects. A whole different setup and way out of most peoples league.

Ergo, you need large amounts of high speed storage which now you can only achieve by:

1. TB - Expensive, but closest in terms of SATA performance.
2. USB 3 - Cheaper, but performance is less than that of native SATA.
3. LAN - Performance significantly worse.

That is NOT high performance storage, that is normal storage. You'll be running with an ssd or with a RAID setup. There are many other solutions to this and yes, they are all equally expensive because performance will
cost you a lot of money. We're talking about things like 10GbE, Fibre Channel and the like. TB is about as expensive as those.

Btw, number 3 is inherently wrong. LAN is only a terminology to define some kind of network. It is not a protocol like TB, USB3, Fibre Channel, etc. If we are talking storage then most of it will run over some kind of network, usually dedicated. These are fast connections, especially in large environments such as with HPC. So to say a LAN has significantly worse performance is simply incorrect. It highly depends on what you are using for that LAN.
There are also cases where these networks are faster than USB3, SATA and TB.

TB is NOT a replacement for internal storage. Period!!!

Because TB isn't storage. TB is a way of connecting a computer and a device. The same way as Fibre Channel is. In this case we are talking about something that does 20 Gbps per channel (it has 2 in total), the fastest SATA only does 6Gbps in total. Also, SATA only knows disks, Thunderbolt knows PCIe + DisplayPort and therefore is able to interact with a whole lot more devices. You pay more but you also get a lot more.

The people who use a Mac Pro won't be needing those kind of high speed interconnects. All they need is SATA3, USB3 and TB. It's fast enough for what they want/need. For those who want faster...you're looking at a whole different setup. Most of us here won't be able to afford it, let alone set it up and manage it.

 

[flat five]

Of course. However what kinds of devices are these that ultimately benefit from TB? That's the question. Monitors? You've always been able to plug into any other Mac/PC. Drive enclosures? Same.

yeah.. but it's kinda a pain in the butt.. i mean, i do both of those things--
unplug a display's dvi then plug in a dvi with mdp->dvi adapter.. i also use my macpro's internal drives for my mbp.. so that's connect the two via fw800 then reboot the mac pro in target disk mode..

thunderbolt simplifies both of those..

(fwiw- if the only thing thunderbolt did was replace dvi cables, i'd still be hyped on it.. i'm not really sure why people aren't excited by how versatile thunderbolt is (or can become if it continues to improve and gains popularity etc)

----------

The new device has far more in common with a Mac Mini than a Mac Pro.

aside from the fact that the new mac appears to be more powerful (and maybe way more powerful in certain regards) than any mac pro ever sold to date.. sure, point taken

----------

everything really was meant to be connected from the outside.

oh.. you mean how it is now? how much & what type of stuff do you have connected from the outside on your current mac pro? and what about the inside?

 

[VirtualRain]

First, I appreciate your well constructed and thoughtful "esssay" but alas, we shall disagree on some basic notions.

The reason the Mac Pro has had a limited market was due to Apple's own desire to push other more profitable devices to market (iMac comes to mind). At any time, Apple could have done some design changed to the MP based on end user demands, but chose to ignore or throw a deaf ear.

The beauty of the MP was not just power but the ability to add and upgrade. This was a very important facet to many pros and prosumers. The video card facet you mentioned was well...not quite right. A large number of people do add or change out their graphics cards. What was the challenge was again Apple not providing or deterring the scale of choice of what cards could be used. We see plenty of people talking about flashing non-Apple-supported cards and having great success. Thunderbolt could be added and let's face it, Apple could have provided an interim TB card for the MP as it stands today but chose not to do so as it would upset their marketing strategy. The limitations of the MP is about profit and not about demand by end users.

When you speak of what the MP can and cannot do, it is a bit misleading. There are non-Mac PCs that can do pretty much all that you say the present MP cannot do "at the same time" so this pretty much suggests it is a design only issue of Apple. Again, Apple chose to exact a machine with limitations.

In another universe, the new device coming out by Apple would be called a Mac Mini Pro and Apple would say that the MP is retired as this new Mini will fulfill the needs of those needing an MP. The new device has far more in common with a Mac Mini than a Mac Pro. - non-upgradeable GPU, limited ability to upgrade (if at all) the internal drives/card and of course, everything really was meant to be connected from the outside.

Some feel Apple has slightly distanced itself from the professional world and this might be true. Considering the lack of MP model updates, far and few real break through in pro level software on a timely basis and more. To me, it is a pity and it would have been nice if Apple was a bit more honest. If they feel that the pro world is too small a group to go after then they shouldn't worry about the creation of full sized fully capable MP machines being made that is designed to meet the needs of those that would buy them. Perhaps Apple simply cannot juggle as much as it thinks it can or claims it can and something had to give.

As for me, I had an early model Mac Pro that I maxed out and had excellent use of the machine. My present machine is a Mac Mini quad 2.0 with SSD internal that works very well for my purposes and is as fast on certain applications and faster on most applications than my old quad 2.66 Mac Pro. I'll welcome the new Mac Pro Mini if the price doesn't put it out of reach. It is an excellent upgrade path for the Mini. As for those with MP needs, they'll have to consider long and hard whether the new MP is worth the investment of all the peripherals (TB being costly etc.) vs simply jumping over to non-Apple world to get the "MP" they really want and need with fully capable upgrades internally.

Just tossing peanuts from the gallery here.

There's a lot of stuff here...

- The Mac Pro market is limited because Apple sells an iMac?!... No... the Mac Pro market is limited because it's an expensive niche product.

- Yes, the ability to add and upgrade is important to a Mac Pro, and my views on that are clearly outlined in the first post. You seem to be arguing that the existing Mac Pro is easy to upgrade. If you look through the threads in this forum, you'll see it's not easy (and this forum is dominated by geeks - not average computer users).

- I'm not sure you understand what's involved with implementing Thunderbolt, but it's not just a matter of adding a card. I explained the options in the first post and why Apple went the direction they did with this new Mac Pro.

- If Apple wasn't interested in the Pro market, we wouldn't have this new Mac Pro. The easy thing for Apple to do would have been to flash the bios in the existing Mac Pro and offer new CPU options. Instead, they invested a lot of R&D to give us a powerful computing platform that can tap into the huge and growing installed base of Thunderbolt enabled systems out there and get us away from having to rely on the declining PC/PCIe market for upgrade options.

- As a previous Mac Pro owner, now using a Mac Mini, I'd think you'd have more constructive views to share on how it's not the end of the world to have peripherals outside the box. Clearly you're getting by without any internal expansion now after having been on a Mac Pro. Why not share your wisdom on how to make the switch and still be productive rather than adding to the chorus of you can't possibly be productive on this new computer without slots 'n bays?

 

[flat five]

- As a previous Mac Pro owner, now using a Mac Mini,

oh jhc... i didn't even make it that far in the post..
#

 

[Sean Dempsey]

how long before OP is accused of working for apple/drinking the kool-aid?

a fellow JUGgalo

 

[flat five]

a fellow juggalo

#

(was always wondering what that emoji was.. i now think it was their pre-pre-nmp announcement)

 

[VirtualRain]

oh jhc... i didn't even make it that far in the post..
&#55357;&#56853;

a fellow JUGgalo

&#55357;&#56450;

(was always wondering what that emoji was.. i now think it was their pre-pre-nmp announcement)

LOL... You guys are killing me here!

 

[zephonic]

If Apple wasn't interested in the Pro market, we wouldn't have this new Mac Pro. The easy thing for Apple to do would have been to flash the bios in the existing Mac Pro and offer new CPU options.

Macs don't have BIOS, they have EFI. But you knew that and your point is clear.

 

[phrehdd]

There's a lot of stuff here...

- The Mac Pro market is limited because Apple sells an iMac?!... No... the Mac Pro market is limited because it's an expensive niche product.

- Yes, the ability to add and upgrade is important to a Mac Pro, and my views on that are clearly outlined in the first post. You seem to be arguing that the existing Mac Pro is easy to upgrade. If you look through the threads in this forum, you'll see it's not easy (and this forum is dominated by geeks - not average computer users).

- I'm not sure you understand what's involved with implementing Thunderbolt, but it's not just a matter of adding a card. I explained the options in the first post and why Apple went the direction they did with this new Mac Pro.

- If Apple wasn't interested in the Pro market, we wouldn't have this new Mac Pro. The easy thing for Apple to do would have been to flash the bios in the existing Mac Pro and offer new CPU options. Instead, they invested a lot of R&D to give us a powerful computing platform that can tap into the huge and growing installed base of Thunderbolt enabled systems out there and get us away from having to rely on the declining PC/PCIe market for upgrade options.

- As a previous Mac Pro owner, now using a Mac Mini, I'd think you'd have more constructive views to share on how it's not the end of the world to have peripherals outside the box. Clearly you're getting by without any internal expansion now after having been on a Mac Pro. Why not share your wisdom on how to make the switch and still be productive rather than adding to the chorus of you can't possibly be productive on this new computer without slots 'n bays?

If the Mac Pro is limited it is because Apple decided to price and set limits to its ability. Naturally they don't want it to compete with the iMac. But then again, they chose to limit the types of video cards, not support Blu Ray with a lame excuse even though there are always requests to support that medium for various reasons.

As for Thunderbolt, there is absolutely no reason a card cannot be made with the appropriate chipsets and sit in a 4x or 8x lane slot. I do happen to recall the original notion under its original name before Apple/Intel implementation. There is plenty of literature on the net about it. Apple chose a path based on what it thinks we will stomach. There are many people who like me appreciate Mac machines but also remain frustrated. The same goes for the operating systems can do and wont do. The wont do is often a choice Apple makes and insists it is what we want. (sound familiar?)

Again, for my needs, the new Mac (Mini) Pro would be a fine addition. I think the present Mac Pro with internal slots available and more would suit the needs of others who have patiently waited for Apple to get with the times and simply provide a newer version of the tower with present or forward generation hardware rather than let it sit and fall way behind or come out with last generation tech. I am sure your advocacy for the new model remains a good well intentioned expression but for some, it will fall on deaf ears because they prefer a more typical internal upgrade approach.

As for me - I don't sit (anymore) in the geek column nor do I sit in the typical Mac user column. I do take the time to explore options and potentials for technologies as I did in my previous job within IT and IS.

Just a thought for you ... Mac Pro has not really received major attention for at least two years and creates a void as the hardware fall behind and this creates somewhat of a vacuum. There is no better time to make a "switch" to this Mac (Mini) Pro than now when there are no alternatives. Is this just good planning on the status quo or do you think it was planned? If you take a look at forums dealing with vid/movie work, music and other Mac Pro oriented use, you will see constantly the frustrations of how Mac Pros have fallen behind and people resort to Windows or Hackentosh to get the power they 'believe' they need.

 

[FluJunkie]

Unless you need the ultra-power of a good hulking desktop, you go mobile with a laptop as your desktop.

I would suggest that a not insignificant number of people on a Mac Pro forum are people who do need the "ultra-power of a good hulking desktop".

It's always fun to see the perspectives here, where people forget that for some segments, an nVidia Titan is someone looking for a cheap, entry-level card.

 

[dyn]

Another huge advantage that the corp world sees is Disaster Recovery. Give all of your employees laptops and if there is a massive fire or tornado that destroys your building, all of your employees take their laptops to an alternate location and you are up and running in days (if not sooner).

You can't do this with desktops as they are all gone with the fire/tornado/natural disaster/etc.

And exactly the same applies to notebooks, tablets, smartphones, etc. Disaster recovery always means loss of productivity. What kind of device you use doesn't matter. That's because work is partially digital and partially analogue. If the building burns down all the papers will be lost. If you need those papers it doesn't matter if you have a laptop or desktop: they are gone and those devices are not going to bring them back or magically allow you to work on them. The same applies to R&D departments. They are more than just laptops and desktops. R&D means labs, it means prototypes and such. If the building burns down those will all be gone. Will they be able to do their job? Nope, because the essentials for that are gone.

The reason why most companies both big and small use desktops is for the simple fact that those machines stay in the building. For various companies that is mandatory due to regulations. It means added security. Most companies do not want to have data that leave the premises. TSA is even a huge problem for some. You don't want data that is sensitive or very interesting for competitors to sit on a laptop that is easy to carry and thus easy to steal or lose. We all know that laptops get lost and stolen frequently. Same thing for other easy to carry devices such as smartphones and tablets.
There are many companies (again both big and small) that prohibit such devices because of these reasons.

They day of the desktop is past. Unless you need the ultra-power of a good hulking desktop, you go mobile with a laptop as your desktop.

And there, you just supplied a very good reason why the day of the desktop isn't past. Another reason is given above: security. Something that is becoming even more important with all those eavesdropping from "intelligence" services such as MI5, NSA, etc. The Dutch one is even warning against something like that, as well as corporate espionage.

For consumers the day of the desktop is past. They want a computer to check email, surf the web, watch multimedia and they want it to look good and/or easy to put in a closet or something. You can do that with tablets and laptops, not with desktops.

 

[paulrbeers]

I would suggest that a not insignificant number of people on a Mac Pro forum are people who do need the "ultra-power of a good hulking desktop".

It's always fun to see the perspectives here, where people forget that for some segments, an nVidia Titan is someone looking for a cheap, entry-level card.

What you are missing here, is that my original post was about the fact that for the most part the desktop is dying. It is becoming more and more of a niche product. The sales numbers prove that.

----------

And exactly the same applies to notebooks, tablets, smartphones, etc. Disaster recovery always means loss of productivity. What kind of device you use doesn't matter. That's because work is partially digital and partially analogue. If the building burns down all the papers will be lost. If you need those papers it doesn't matter if you have a laptop or desktop: they are gone and those devices are not going to bring them back or magically allow you to work on them. The same applies to R&D departments. They are more than just laptops and desktops. R&D means labs, it means prototypes and such. If the building burns down those will all be gone. Will they be able to do their job? Nope, because the essentials for that are gone.

You seem to think that the data anymore is stored in the "working" building. No longer my friend. All three of the fortune 500 companies I have worked for have built data "bunkers" and have two of them. Data is stored less and less on the personal computers. The whole idea is that if the "working" buildings burn down or are destroyed by a natural disaster, all the employees go to a second location and log into the servers housed in bunkers. There are always two data "bunkers" as well so if one goes down, they flip everything to the secondary location. All an employee needs is a working computer and an internet connection. That's why laptops and other portable devices are the mainstay and desktops are almost completely gone. The three companies I have (and currently do) worked for require us to take our laptops home just for this reason. The ONLY employees that still use desktops are CSR's because quite frankly to move them to another location is problematic because they need phones. Alternative call centers pick up the slack when we lose any given call center. Redundancy my friend.

The reason why most companies both big and small use desktops is for the simple fact that those machines stay in the building. For various companies that is mandatory due to regulations. It means added security. Most companies do not want to have data that leave the premises. TSA is even a huge problem for some. You don't want data that is sensitive or very interesting for competitors to sit on a laptop that is easy to carry and thus easy to steal or lose. We all know that laptops get lost and stolen frequently. Same thing for other easy to carry devices such as smartphones and tablets.
There are many companies (again both big and small) that prohibit such devices because of these reasons.

Nope. Companies big and small are going portable. But instead of having you store data on your computer, you store it on the network. We all have laptops with "small" 128GB SSD's in them. Why? Because that isn't our primary storage. In fact the company does network sweeps regularly to make sure that we aren't storing a bunch of personal data.

Heck we don't even have a developer anymore in our building that has a desktop. The only desktops to even be found are the guys who put together our promotional videos.

----------

I would suggest that a not insignificant number of people on a Mac Pro forum are people who do need the "ultra-power of a good hulking desktop".

It's always fun to see the perspectives here, where people forget that for some segments, an nVidia Titan is someone looking for a cheap, entry-level card.

I would say that the Mac Pro forum is an insignificant number of people to be honest compared to overall sales. And many who have Mac Pros could be just as easily served by a Macbook Pro or Mac Mini. I'm in the process of replacing my Mac Pro.

Fact of the matter is even a quad core mobile processor is more than most need anymore. Only if doing large video production does processing power really come into play (I'll give you gaming as well, but frankly that's not a mac strong suit no matter what many will try to tell you).

 

[VirtualRain]

What you are missing here, is that my original post was about the fact that for the most part the desktop is dying. It is becoming more and more of a niche product. The sales numbers prove that.

Nope. Companies big and small are going portable. But instead of having you store data on your computer, you store it on the network. We all have laptops with "small" 128GB SSD's in them. Why? Because that isn't our primary storage. In fact the company does network sweeps regularly to make sure that we aren't storing a bunch of personal data.

Heck we don't even have a developer anymore in our building anymore that has a desktop.

Agreed. All our creative professionals use MacBooks. All our developers, sales, and support staff use laptops (mostly Windows). We only have iMacs, Mac Minis, and Windows Desktops for testing. The only place I've ever seen a Mac Pro was with our video production agency where a few editors had them, but a lot of the other staff there used MacBooks. And the same observation applies to our customers and partners. I still see some old mini Dell desktop systems on some desks, but those are few and far between and seem limited to accounting or purchasing type roles that are 9-5 and never take their work home with them.

Even today, the number of TB ports in our office easily out number PCIe slots... And that's with a 10:1 ratio of Windows to Macs in our environment.

 

[VirtualRain]

As for Thunderbolt, there is absolutely no reason a card cannot be made with the appropriate chipsets and sit in a 4x or 8x lane slot. I do happen to recall the original notion under its original name before Apple/Intel implementation. There is plenty of literature on the net about it. Apple chose a path based on what it thinks we will stomach. There are many people who like me appreciate Mac machines but also remain frustrated. The same goes for the operating systems can do and wont do. The wont do is often a choice Apple makes and insists it is what we want. (sound familiar?)

Thunderbolt requires DisplayPort input... it is more than just exposing a PCIe bus connection in a port. It's simply not achievable in a normal PCIe setup as an add-in card without a cable kludge or a custom GPU of some kind.

Again, for my needs, the new Mac (Mini) Pro would be a fine addition. I think the present Mac Pro with internal slots available and more would suit the needs of others who have patiently waited for Apple to get with the times and simply provide a newer version of the tower with present or forward generation hardware rather than let it sit and fall way behind or come out with last generation tech. I am sure your advocacy for the new model remains a good well intentioned expression but for some, it will fall on deaf ears because they prefer a more typical internal upgrade approach.

I'm one of those who has been patiently waiting for Apple to get with the times and offer me a new generation of hardware. People need to realize, the old form factor is dead... It has been dying a slow painful death for years, and Apple finally took the initiative to nail the coffin shut. As we've been discussing, even the desktop PC is in a death spiral... How long does it have? 2 years? 5 years? Not much more than that. Max Pro enthusiasts should be excited that Apple has breathed new life into this category of computing.

 

[phrehdd]

Thunderbolt requires DisplayPort input... it is more than just exposing a PCIe bus connection in a port. It's simply not achievable in a normal PCIe setup as an add-in card without a cable kludge or a custom GPU of some kind.



I'm one of those who has been patiently waiting for Apple to get with the times and offer me a new generation of hardware. People need to realize, the old form factor is dead... It has been dying a slow painful death for years, and Apple finally took the initiative to nail the coffin shut. As we've been discussing, even the desktop PC is in a death spiral... How long does it have? 2 years? 5 years? Not much more than that. Max Pro enthusiasts should be excited that Apple has breathed new life into this category of computing.

Thunderbolt card could be used simply for data communications but for those that want video that too can be done with one additional feed cable -
as example: http://www.tomshardware.com/news/asus-thunderbolt-Z77-H77-pcie,15925.html

Something similar to the above could have been an option for the Mac Pro. The reality is Apple elects not to offer something of this sort. The Mac Pro is far from the old rep as being both robust and cutting edge. The 2 year void will be filled as you pointed out by the new Mac (Mini) Pro and for some as stated it will be a great fit and others will grumble and either jump ship, buy the new model or stick with the traditional MP and try to max it out.

This entire notion that traditional PCs are dying out sure sounds like you are now considering the MP as a non-niche item and just another computer. My take is it is both - depending on who is buying it. Many over the last two years were hoping for a MP that was a box per se, but only 1/3 or 2/3 the size of the present tower. I belong to that group as well as Windows PC counterparts that excel and surpass the MP didn't need to be as large and certainly had the same capacity for upgrades (or better).

No matter - the reality is that the new Mac (Mini) Pro will be upon us and I look forward to discussion on real use, both positive and less positive.

Cheers

Phrehdd

 

[FluJunkie]

What you are missing here, is that my original post was about the fact that for the most part the desktop is dying. It is becoming more and more of a niche product. The sales numbers prove that.

I'm not missing it, I just don't care, because it's my niche product. I regularly use more RAM than a laptop has, have all my cores running, and hit my GPU fairly hard.

For that matter, the "desktop is dying" thing largely applies only to consumer desktops. The reason Dell, HP, etc. are retreating toward the enterprise market is sales of desktops there have been considerably more flat.

I would say that the Mac Pro forum is an insignificant number of people to be honest compared to overall sales. And many who have Mac Pros could be just as easily served by a Macbook Pro or Mac Mini. I'm in the process of replacing my Mac Pro.

Fact of the matter is even a quad core mobile processor is more than most need anymore. Only if doing large video production does processing power really come into play (I'll give you gaming as well, but frankly that's not a mac strong suit no matter what many will try to tell you).

Note I didn't say anything about what "most" people need. I simply suggested that you flippantly dismissing the idea that people need computational power on a forum dedicated to people who bought workstations is a little flawed.

And no, it's not "only if doing large video production" that one needs processing power. Because you cannot imagine a use does not mean one doesn't exist.

 

[Tesselator]

The fact that it can only be used in a mac pro. Now TB products can be used with ANY other mac, as well as PCs. That's a much larger market.

Of course. However what kinds of devices are these that ultimately benefit from TB? That's the question. Monitors? You've always been able to plug into any other Mac/PC. Drive enclosures? Same.

I like this one. I think I may buy it too!

https://thunderbolttechnology.net/product/blackmagic-cinema-camera

Thunderbolt enabled digital film cameras with a beautiful design that features a machined aluminum chassis, interchangeable optics, high resolution 2.5K sensor, 13 stops of dynamic range and 12-bit RAW uncompressed and compressed ProRes and DNxHD file formats! Includes sun shield, power supply, carry strap, UltraScope waveform monitoring software via Thunderbolt connection and a full version of DaVinci Resolve Software for Mac OS X and Windows. EF version for Canon and Zeiss or MFT for micro four thirds lens.

MSRP: $1,995 (Plus $195 if you want a grip)

http://www.blackmagicdesign.com/products/blackmagiccinemacamera/
​

Mmmm, just look at the sweet Add To Cart button... Yummy!

 

[-hh]

...Henry Hudson.. duh..
he has a whole river named after him

[fwiw- i, personally, don't get a 'high horse' vibe from hh]

Thanks, but too late: I've been offline, as a close friend's two year old just was diagnosed with stage 3 cancer and have zero tolerance for it. In any case, its simply my initials, although the hyphen also has a relevant history.

That's what I keep saying too. They need to offset even the potential extra costs incurred and that's about $1000 to $1,500 as I see it. I may not ever actually spend that but I can't justify a system where I can't do a decent normal migration because it all went into the main system unit. Or, I can't configure it competitively (price-wise) for the same reason.

this keeps on coming bavk to the business case and "Value" assessment. True, other aspects of the finsl product may motivate us to forgive Apple even without a price break, but the persistence of these comments suggest that they're a bit too far out in front of the market in regards to the deployment of high performance remote storage ... Although this has also been true since Lion for CD-less OS releases Enoch have become reliant on high speed Internet bandwidth - in contrary to what is actually the ground truth for much of the USA.

Thunderbolt card could be used...

Something similar to the above could have been an option for the Mac Pro. The reality is Apple elects not to offer something of this sort. The Mac Pro is far from the old rep as being both robust and cutting edge...

Yes, and this stagnation is why the conversations on the Value assessment on the old Mac Pro has been in clear decline. When it comes to Apple providing post-sale product support via incremental upgrades (EG, newer video cards, USB3 PCIe card w/Apple drivers, etc...the reality is that this not-really-consumer product was treated and supported much like a disposable consumer product.


-hh

 

[freejazz-man]

Firstly, 10GbE whilst awesome at sequential speed is poor due to the relatively high latency and therefore reduces actual overall disk access performance, plus STILL costs the earth and requires a TB to 10GbE adapter!!!

Secondly, I have all my files (Photos, Videos, Documents) on my 7200 RPM internal drives for fast access when I need it.

95% of the time my machine is idle, spending the four figure sums is for that final 5% of the time.

Moving to TB, USB3 or whatever is a STEP BACKWARDS in performance or as I've previously said, costs an extortionate amount of money.

The bottom line is, I currently have everything I need in one box with one plug working at maximum, native performance, which is what I bought all the kit inside it to do.





I know, thanks.

The point I was making is that to get to near native (the additional chips in the way slow things down, see: http://hexus.net/tech/reviews/stora...tation-thunderbolt-portable-ssd-128gb/?page=2) costs a lot of money for what can be done internally, for pretty much free.

Plus, I have a separate SSD for Windows and OS X, can I do that in the new Mac Pro? Not a chance!!!

No, you haven't outlined how moving to USB3, TB, or high speed shared storage is a decrease in performance compared to your internal 7200 RPM. I have a hard time believing that video editors can edit off of 10Gbe but you "can't access files" off of 10Gbe at a reasonable rate of performance.

 

[slughead]

No, you haven't outlined how moving to USB3, TB, or high speed shared storage is a decrease in performance compared to your internal 7200 RPM. I have a hard time believing that video editors can edit off of 10Gbe but you "can't access files" off of 10Gbe at a reasonable rate of performance.

He just posted some benchmarks demonstrating the latency with certain TB SATA controllers.

It's not a problem with TB itself, he's just showing that the some of the available TB devices aren't so great yet. As to whether this is a problem with most/all of the TB SATA controllers, I don't know.

I am not in favor of TB for desktops and therefore decidedly against Apple's move with the nMP, but I assumed that TB would theoretically be the same as PCIe, apart from the 1GB/s throughput per channel (TB2 is only 2 channels). However, if the technology hasn't matured yet, I wouldn't be surprised.

There's all this talk about how PCIe cards have been so unsupported on mac, while at the same time ignoring that the TB products are substandard and have many bugs of their own that may be even less likely to be resolved.

 

[cmichaelb]

And how about those dual cards? Despite years to perfect the technology, SLI and Crossfire are buggy as hell and often limited in their application. I have very low opinion of two card setups, and I feel it remains to be seen how well or how poorly Apple's implementation will work and what software it will work with. What I do know is that we don't see any evidence of Crossfire support in Mavericks. Will the second card only be for OpenCL? Who knows. I'd much rather be able to upgrade to a faster single card than rely on a dual card setup.

Buggy as hell? I've run a crossfire set up for 4 years and have yet to have one graphics related issue with it.

These were mid range cards 4 years ago and the setup runs beautifully. Mind you, this is on a machine running windows - first xp, then vista, windows 7, windows 8, back to windows 7.

 

[slughead]

Buggy as hell? I've run a crossfire set up for 4 years and have yet to have one graphics related issue with it.

These were mid range cards 4 years ago and the setup runs beautifully. Mind you, this is on a machine running windows - first xp, then vista, windows 7, windows 8, back to windows 7.

I read a lot of reviews when I was shopping for a video card about 12 months ago. There were a LOT of problems, especially with crossfire, that have resolved over the past 2 years. There is still a whole lot of in-game frame-rate variability with Crossfire over SLI, and SLI over single GPU cards. There are also sometimes issues with games after their initial release (before the first update) but in general games are bug-fixed for SLI/Xfire before they are released nowadays.

That said, do you really think Apple's going to the OS X drivers as shorn up as the Windows Drivers? This is their first attempt; even with AMDs help it's going to be a bear.