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New Mac Pro is a failure?

poiihy

poiihy

macrumors 68020
Original poster
Aug 22, 2014
2,301
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The whole point of a mac pro is as a powerful computer that you can upgrade and bla bla. It's supposed to be the escape from all the compactness of the iMac and Macbooks. But now the Mac Pro itself is now compact and now you cannot upgrade it or anything! No PCI slots, no SPACE. Apple wanted to make their products not user-serviceable but they knew it would fail, so they left it serviceable. Look at the PowerMacs. They have PCI slots and classic drive bays. I don't even know if the latest classic Mac Pro had PCI slots (did it?). And with this new Mac pro, rather than having everything internal you have to plug in external devices like hard drives and optical drives. Classic mac pro had many hard drives, it was a great fat storage machine; it made a great server. Also, being the new Mac pro cylindrical instead of rectangular, it doesn't compactly fit anywhere. It is not good for placing next to each other for servers or many workstations together. It would be better if it was rectangular like the powermac cube :rolleyes: :p Although the compactness is nice for portability, we got the Mac mini for that, and we need an opposite. Now it is too similar to the Mac mini.
I ran out of things to say so this is the end. :p
 
Zwhaler said:
Well, it is fast and has lots of GPU power. I don't think it is a failure.
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The classic Mac Pro could have been upgraded too. My point is this compactness is the opposite of what the Mac Pro is supposed to be. Now Apple has no upgradeable computers anymore :(
 
poiihy said:
The classic Mac Pro could have been upgraded too. My point is this compactness is the opposite of what the Mac Pro is supposed to be. Now Apple has no upgradeable computers anymore :(
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That's true. As you know Apple has been desperately trying to phase out optical media, firewire, etc. Even PCIe expansion is on their list. They want to make a super powered Mac Mini, essentially.
 
Zwhaler said:
That's true. As you know Apple has been desperately trying to phase out optical media, firewire, etc. Even PCIe expansion is on their list. They want to make a super powered Mac Mini, essentially.
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Upgradability is dying :( (or has already died)
Now we have to use boring old power rocks :(
 
Srsly?

People, seriously, do we need to have this discussion again?
 
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I thought the same before I bought one, now I get it. Most of us now want multiple drives, some for capacity and some SSD's for performance. The problem is housing all this internally means RAID controllers and messy cabling. Our storage requirements are only going to increase and we have reached the limits of what we can put into a reasonable sized PC case. Moving the storage external to the computer solves this.

I agree with you that not been able to swap out GPU's in future could be an issue, but what PCI cards are you wanting to have and why can't you place the storage external to the computer? You have plenty of choices, from USB3 to Thunderbolt arrays, there will be something in your budget.

If this is just about being able to 'tinker' then build a Hackintosh. It will give you more flexibility than a Mac ever will and is much cheaper. Don't get me wrong I would love Apple to start building kit for enthusiasts too as a side-line to all their consumer stuff but I don't see it happening.
 
Most certainly not a failure, the Mac Pro is what it is. A design statement proving what Apple is capable of.

In our vast lab, an R&D center we have no use for them but they weren't designed as a mainstream workstation anyway. In what might be called Apples fantasy world where they call iPads "Magical & Revolutionary" the black can shaped desktop fits well.

In our money making multinational large scale enterprise we deal in real world scenarios. Upgradeable computers are still of great value to us. Since we're not paid to sit, stare and admire the shape and size of our machines, a rather plain style is ideal. Far less expensive as well.

The black can will look splendid in an Apple museum one day :)
 
I don't really think so. They probably sell about as well as the Mac Pro ever has. Back in the day, Power Macs were far more common because they were considerably cheaper, and offered serious performance gains over a laptop or imac for lots of people.

These days, unless you're doing something hardcore a MacBook Air will probably be adequate for 90% of your work. That doesn't mean you have no business buying a Mac Pro, rather that a lot of people would rather go with the small portable that requires no special table or wires.

It's also 1/3 of the cost!

That's probably why Mac Pros aren't anywhere near as common as they used to be. If I were in the market for a machine today, I'd probably still get an iMac though, because $2000-ish vs $4000-ish for a setup!

But Mac Pros are so cool!
 
shaunp said:
I thought the same before I bought one, now I get it. Most of us now want multiple drives, some for capacity and some SSD's for performance. The problem is housing all this internally means RAID controllers and messy cabling. Our storage requirements are only going to increase and we have reached the limits of what we can put into a reasonable sized PC case. Moving the storage external to the computer solves this.
your budget.
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As technology is currently, the tower Mac Pro can hold 32TB of data without any internal adjustment. That should still fit within the needs of a very large number of users. You could easily bump that up to around 45TB with minimal cable adjustments.

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Regardless, as a engineering showcase I think the new Mac Pro has its place in life. They might deviate from it in a year or two, but just having it as a statement piece is fine.
 
How is it not upgradable?
It comes apart on cards so you should be able to upgrade whatever you want when it comes available.
People are already buying and replacing their flash drive from buying new ones on EBAY isn't that upgrading their computer?
 
westrock2000 said:
As technology is currently, the tower Mac Pro can hold 32TB of data without any internal adjustment. That should still fit within the needs of a very large number of users. You could easily bump that up to around 45TB with minimal cable adjustments.

----------

Regardless, as a engineering showcase I think the new Mac Pro has its place in life. They might deviate from it in a year or two, but just having it as a statement piece is fine.
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How do you get 32, let alone 45 unless you are putting drives into the optical bays? Also how good is the software RAID in OS X, and how much of a hit does it have on performance?

I've played around with software RAID in Windows and it wasn't so good. It's better with Linux, it would be interesting to see how OS X performs here.

I was never a fan of the old case, it seemed too big for the available storage slots, but I agree there needs to be something between the mini and the nMP and I think Apple are missing a trick by not building a product line for enthusiasts too.
 
Only failure is lack of software that fully utilize nMP power. Especially lack of CrossFire under OS X. But that's not hardware's failure :)
 
mmm... pro machine - speed, reliability, unpack it, plug it in and get going. I miss playing around with internals and 'tinkering', but in terms of a fast mac on my desk, it does what it is designed for. Most (most not all) pro users want what I described - I use my mac to make stuff, I don't have time to tinker..... (although I did buy a 4-bay Promise RAID, but I just plugged it it).

Negative observations - bloody cables everywhere, I have to turn the thing around every time I want to turn it on (really dumb place for the power button) and did I mention the bloody cables everywhere....
 
shaunp said:
How do you get 32, let alone 45 unless you are putting drives into the optical bays? Also how good is the software RAID in OS X, and how much of a hit does it have on performance?
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He probably means using 6TB HDD's in all the slots, then yes it can take that much. You can get more using all but 1 PCIe slot for Plextor M.2 SSDs or OCZ Revos.

Zeiss said:
Negative observations - bloody cables everywhere, I have to turn the thing around every time I want to turn it on (really dumb place for the power button) and did I mention the bloody cables everywhere....
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For me those negatives were on my old Pro as well. Cables out the back, and font, and I to pull the machine forward out from under the desk to get at the back of it.

In regards to the power button, I agree it's on a silly spot. Although I have my MP angled so I don't need to turn it around, just slip my hand in behind it.

I think I managed my cables very well though.

SQumxTIl.jpg


Got the handy Ikea cable caddy to run everything along the underside of the desk, and all my external drives and docks are on a shelf under the desk.
On the shelf
6 External drive enclosures/docks
1 7 Port USB 3.0 hub

On top there you can see the Focusrite Scarlett audio interface in the top right ( that red box )
Next to the MP is the Elgato Thunderbolt Dock
The LG monitor also has a TB and USB Hub on the back
A little speaking under the monitor when I'm not using headphones which nearly all the time.

Barely a cable in sight
 
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I don't have any statistics to share but my guess is the new Mac Pro appeals to a smaller population than the old tower version. This is due to the pricing and inability to readily upgrade or custom the internals. If there is a failure it is the form over function driven design of the new Mac Pro that limits the scope of potential buyers.

Personally, I find the new Mac Pro to be an elegant looking system if one is able to make all the cables "disappear" out of sight and any peripherals that in the past would have been on the inside of the old Mac Pro.

I'm looking forward to see how Apple handles the Mac Mini or will they further diminish the appeal so it only is wanted by even a smaller group of potential customers.
 
poiihy said:
The classic Mac Pro could have been upgraded too. My point is this compactness is the opposite of what the Mac Pro is supposed to be. Now Apple has no upgradeable computers anymore :(
Click to expand...

Apple has decided to produce computers are for all intense and purposes "sealed" No upgradability. The MP is no different at this stage.

As for being a failure - I guess we'd have to see the sales numbers to determine that. Its only a failure if apple does not sell them in the numbers they estimated.
 
poiihy said:
The whole point of a mac pro is as a powerful computer that you can upgrade and bla bla. I
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I've said this a million times, you apparently do not work in an Enterprise level company. We buy computers and outside of memory upgrades (which even those are rare), we use them and then replace them. The reason is because we create initial installs that include all of the necessary software so that releasing (10+ machines) at once with the exact same setup. When OS updates occur, we can push out the entire setup again to all machines. If we start "upgrading" willy nilly then we can't do the push.

So no, for Enterprise users, updatability is not a point at all.
 
paulrbeers said:
I've said this a million times, you apparently do not work in an Enterprise level company. We buy computers and outside of memory upgrades (which even those are rare), we use them and then replace them. The reason is because we create initial installs that include all of the necessary software so that releasing (10+ machines) at once with the exact same setup. When OS updates occur, we can push out the entire setup again to all machines. If we start "upgrading" willy nilly then we can't do the push.

So no, for Enterprise users, updatability is not a point at all.
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I think the simpler thing to say is that here on MacRumors and elsewhere we've had this curious trend where people are telling others what computer they should use. And that's bizarre. There are a lot of pros here with a lot of use cases—as you point out, lots of enterprise setups and probably fire and forget. For the production house I work at there's a lot of cobbling and upgrading, since A) we don't have the coin to buy big machines specc'd out, or with any regularity, and B) we often receive parts as trade for work or as part of testing (especially GPUs— we've gotten a couple of Nvidia cards for our Macs and PCs that way.) Then there are users like a lot of people here, who just like the idea of keeping their old kit and seeing how long they can keep it running.

The nMP and cMP both have advantages and disadvantages for all the possible audiences that would buy it. But just because it doesn't fit your ideal role doesn't mean it's a failure any more than the people here who are satisfied with their purchases make it a success in the wider scheme of things.

In other words: stop making insipid threads like this, people.
 
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