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New Mac Pro is a failure?

Thats just really a problem for guys who buy a Mac Pro for themselves. And come on the OSX side there where never that many expansion cards to begin with.

And if we are talking enterprise, HP, Dell, Fujitsu, all of them could seal their machines to no upgrades internally and no enterprise would really cry. Those machines are bought, and a few years later are completely replaced. No one is going to the IT guy and asking yeah can I get some more RAM sticks? You get to hear wait for next years replacement. And more disks in those workstations? There you dont save anything on the drive of the workstation its all in the network.
 
bennibeef said:
Thats just really a problem for guys who buy a Mac Pro for themselves. And come on the OSX side there where never that many expansion cards to begin with.

And if we are talking enterprise, HP, Dell, Fujitsu, all of them could seal their machines to no upgrades internally and no enterprise would really cry. Those machines are bought, and a few years later are completely replaced. No one is going to the IT guy and asking yeah can I get some more RAM sticks? You get to hear wait for next years replacement. And more disks in those workstations? There you dont save anything on the drive of the workstation its all in the network.
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Exactly my point.... Enterprises don't care about upgradability. They want the exact machine over and over again. So much cheaper to keep up and running if you only deal with a handful of variations rather than each machine having their own custom config. There is a LOT more money to be made in the Enterprise realm than there is in the Prosumer/Consumer. Further, with the advancement of CPU's and GPU's, most Prosumer/consumers can be just as well served with a high-end iMac rather than a Mac Pro (especially if you throw in a couple of quad core Mac Mini's and use distributed computing for video encoding).
 
paulrbeers said:
Exactly my point.... Enterprises don't care about upgradability. They want the exact machine over and over again. So much cheaper to keep up and running if you only deal with a handful of variations rather than each machine having their own custom config. There is a LOT more money to be made in the Enterprise realm than there is in the Prosumer/Consumer. Further, with the advancement of CPU's and GPU's, most Prosumer/consumers can be just as well served with a high-end iMac rather than a Mac Pro (especially if you throw in a couple of quad core Mac Mini's and use distributed computing for video encoding).
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You have an example of how this gets done? Most encoding I'm aware of has to build the file sequentially. You can multi-machine renders and image sequences, sure, but that's a different beast from a video encode.
 
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.
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How do you know what the Mac Pro is supposed to be? Are you a wizard?
 
fuchsdh said:
That's what I was referring to. AE requires multimachine settings where each computer is rendering a single frame of an image sequence, not a complete whole movie with sound and whatnot.
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Compressor doesn't. It breaks up an encoding into parts (not single games)...
 
paulrbeers said:
Exactly my point.... Enterprises don't care about upgradability. They want the exact machine over and over again. So much cheaper to keep up and running if you only deal with a handful of variations rather than each machine having their own custom config. There is a LOT more money to be made in the Enterprise realm than there is in the Prosumer/Consumer. Further, with the advancement of CPU's and GPU's, most Prosumer/consumers can be just as well served with a high-end iMac rather than a Mac Pro (especially if you throw in a couple of quad core Mac Mini's and use distributed computing for video encoding).
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I think the Mac Pro is built at the intersection of enterprise and pro user. Shops that want to buy or lease a lot of machines, and replace them all in four years. Especially with the lease angle.
 
poiihy said:
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
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the title and your comment is really depressing...i'm planning to upgrade...but this...yeah.....
 
I wonder if Apple will release upgrades for the (already obsolete) D300/500/700 GPUs? It's technically feasible, especially if Apple upgrades the nMP and keeps the same physical form factors. With how they do power though, I strongly doubt it.

The CPU appears to at least be upgradable within the family, unclear if non-apple-shipped CPUs work.

The GPU issue I predict to be a bigger one: Imagine if your cMP still had a 7570, or a GT120... I know I wouldn't be using it.

My 2010 now has 4 (yes quad, using PCIe expansion chassis.) AMD 7970s. And 128GB of RAM. And a 100TB 1GByte/sec FC SAN. And 4 monitors. And 4k broadcast HD-SDI out.
 
I used the gt120 from March 2009 until January 2014. It was the secondary card for many configs. I assume it's still running. Not obsolete. It was/is the soldier.

I hope my current nMP has the same run.
 
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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8TB in each of the 4 SATA bays.

You can then additionally add 1 or 2 to the optical bays if you want.

You can then additionally add 1-6 laptop drives (2.5") in the PCI-Express slots.

I have had 9 drives in mine at one time before.

If you want RAID5 software you will have to use ZFS. Its not 100% smooth integration, but it is stable and it does work....very well.


EDIT: I should point out that I am having a problem finding the 8TB for sale, but I stumbled across a place last week that had them for sale. They were very pricey. The 6TB drives are pretty easy to find now though.
 
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westrock2000 said:
8TB in each of the 4 SATA bays.

You can then additionally add 1 or 2 to the optical bays if you want.

You can then additionally add 1-6 laptop drives (2.5") in the PCI-Express slots.

I have had 9 drives in mine at one time before.

If you want RAID5 software you will have to use ZFS. Its not 100% smooth integration, but it is stable and it does work....very well.


EDIT: I should point out that I am having a problem finding the 8TB for sale, but I stumbled across a place last week that had them for sale. They were very pricey. The 6TB drives are pretty easy to find now though.
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That's what I thought, it starts getting messy and there are no proper RAID solutions unless you buy an Apple RAID card and i don't know if this only works with SAS drives. I built a PC with a similar thing in mind (loads of internal storage) and it wasn't that great. Cabling was a pig and RAID cards were a bit hit and miss. I decided to ditch it for a nMP once I reached the memory limits of the PC (32GB with a core i7).

If you need lots of capacity with reasonable performance the only way to really go is with an external array. At least for workstations anyway, servers are slightly different, but I wouldn't want one of these under my desk as they are usually very noisy.
 
bennibeef said:
Thats just really a problem for guys who buy a Mac Pro for themselves. And come on the OSX side there where never that many expansion cards to begin with.

And if we are talking enterprise, HP, Dell, Fujitsu, all of them could seal their machines to no upgrades internally and no enterprise would really cry. Those machines are bought, and a few years later are completely replaced. No one is going to the IT guy and asking yeah can I get some more RAM sticks? You get to hear wait for next years replacement. And more disks in those workstations? There you dont save anything on the drive of the workstation its all in the network.
Click to expand...

This exactly.

When we buy Mac or PC based workstation or server systems we buy the spec we need for the life of the machine. We usually get the entire thing built and warrantied by the manufacturer (including RAM which we know we can get cheaper but usually don't have the time nor care about installing it ourselves) and we set it up to stay there.

The only time we go into the chassis is for repairs, and that rare given the nature of the Mac Pros, HP Elite, and Dell Precision systems. Those guys are just too bloody rock solid.

By the third years we're keeping our eyes out for the next system and watching the industry trends. Then by year 4 or 5 we upgrade the entire system, keeping most of the components with the machine, and just sending it down the line for graphics work, front end machines, client workstations, etc.

The nMP is really the best workstation I've set up only because it's light and easy to move and all we (would have to do since we don't own one) is plug in the TBolt ports. It's not the fastest, and it's not the easiest to secure or rack-mount without dropping another $1000. That's my biggest issue with it.
 
Digital Skunk said:
When we buy Mac or PC based workstation or server systems we buy the spec we need for the life of the machine. We usually get the entire thing built and warrantied by the manufacturer (including RAM which we know we can get cheaper but usually don't have the time nor care about installing it ourselves) and we set it up to stay there.
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There's a big difference between almost no options (the MP6,1), and lots of options (standard workstation or server).

Even if you never open the case on the system after purchase, being able to "we buy the spec we need" is important. And, having the manufacturer warranty the whole package (including the four 10GbE ports and four 16Gbps FibreChannel ports) is important.
 
AidenShaw said:
There's a big difference between almost no options (the MP6,1), and lots of options (standard workstation or server).

Even if you never open the case on the system after purchase, being able to "we buy the spec we need" is important. And, having the manufacturer warranty the whole package (including the four 10GbE ports and four 16Gbps FibreChannel ports) is important.
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Ah yes. Thanks for chiming in on that indeed.

Most of the broadcast industry still runs on PC workstations. HP and Avid is king so even if we buy the system configured from Avid, Avid still warranties the entire thing. Third party periphs included.

The only time I've seen the nMP in the wild in broadcast has been in the boutique post production houses, and most of them don't have Facilis or Avid ISIS systems that need either GigE or Fibre.

The configuration options may indeed be another issue I have with the nMP if I pickup a client that wants to integrate it into their workflow in any form that's more than a headless iMac.
 
poiihy said:
The whole point of a mac pro is as a powerful computer that you can upgrade and bla bla. ... But now the Mac Pro itself is now compact and now you cannot upgrade it or anything! No PCI slots, no SPACE. ...
I ran out of things to say so this is the end. :p
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Most professional systems in data centers are not internally upgraded, but externally connected to storage devices, clients, monitore, etc. Why would I want a server that is internally upgradable when I can connect it to my central storage, monitors and other things that I also provide for other work stations?

The only point is that it is not tack mounted. True, but how many Mac Pros were you planning to deploy?
 
Would it not be easier to just bump up the same topics from last year and earlier this year? It will save everyone a lot of typing and increase productivity.
 
you do know why they are making macs non-upgradable, right? to kill off 3rd parties supplying upgrades...
 
I would be surprised if Apple haven't sold more of these 6,1's than the previous generations by a big margin. They are not a direct replacement in no way shape or form- more a silent Xeon workstation with big GPU power using less than 450 watts.

Nearly all my new clients for the 6,1 are windows only; used as a workstation for apps with 8.1 such as 3dsmax, maya etc. All have had their anti apple blinkers taken right off with the surreal lack of noise of a chinook taking off and one client is looking at replacing their single core Xeon precision or Z series systems with the black can. Lunchtimes playing bf4 they argue over using it lol. This system has had more converts than any other in Windows corporate clients than any other Macintosh I can ever remember. Handy they need a mixed Mac/Windows consultant to set them up :D

If Apple bring out a larger cored 7,1 with room for more than one of the larger Xeon CPU's which can take far more ram HP and Dell will have a serious problem sticking to the traditional workstation layout.

Which is a pita for us cos we'd like the Mac Pro to be a modular workstation once again :(
 
poiihy said:
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.
Click to expand...

I'm hardly an Apple fanboy but I've followed Macs for quite some time now, and I do not recall Apple ever making statements to that effect. The point of the Mac Pro has always been that it was a more powerful Mac. Full Stop.
The old Mac Pro was only 'more upgradeable' in that it had internal drive bays. Yes it did have PCI slots, but it also DID NOT have TB2, HDMI or USB3.

As far as the rest of your points you are just reaching.
The only real failure I see of the nMP is that it does not have a security cable slot, so it is hard to secure in education or public facilities such as rented post prod suites.

Having 3 TB2 busses, 2 gbit ports and 4 USB3 it is pretty much a data gobbling octopus.
 
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