No PCI slots, no sale. The wide variety of GPUs available for the cMP is of great importance to me.
I have no idea what I'm going to do when my 5,1 dies, but I'm certainly not going to buy a new Mac Pro.
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New Mac Pro, One Year Later
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No PCI slots, no sale. The wide variety of GPUs available for the cMP is of great importance to me.
I have no idea what I'm going to do when my 5,1 dies, but I'm certainly not going to buy a new Mac Pro.
I think I fit into the weird "Needs Mac Pro but not for the horsepower" group.
I work in Photoshop, Lightroom and Indesign 99% of my workday. The MBP is lower clocked, runs hot as a desktop and maxes out at 16GB of RAM so that was out. I tried an iMac but returned it due to screen issues such as color shift and uniformity issues. So that left me with a mac mini which is a joke now and the base MP. I chose the MP.
I looked at HP and companies like Puget Systems but once you add faster CPU's (v3 versions of the same chips from the MP line), PCIE SSD, RAID drives and 3rd party RAM they are anywhere from $200-$1000 more expensive.
Now if Apple could figure out how to make an iMac in the future, such as the Retina version, that doesn't run at water-boiling temps and has better uniformity like an NEC display then I may finally get one. Until then this machine suits my workflow best.
I believe the nMP uses the v2 (Ivy Bridge) version. The HP Z420/Z620/Z820 use this CPU. The HP Z440/Z640/Z840 use the v3 (Haswell) version.
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I would be interested in hearing from nMP owners if the inability to change out graphics cards has been an issue for them. It's probably too early to really say but my how a year goes by.
I meant I priced out with the new machine with the v3 that matched the specs/speed of the v2 from the late 2013 MP since they don't sell the older v2 anymore.
As for cost difference a big part seems to be even though the v3 chips are cheaper than their matching v2 cousins is due to DDR4 being ridiculously expensive right now making the savings from the CPU void.
You can still buy the v2 versions. You just need to configure a Zx20 system instead of a Zx40 system. You can do so directly from HP's web site.
Yep that's absolutely my point - but my other is why not also bring out a dual socket xeon class high end workstation with a modular logic board too along with the nMP? Binning the cMP concept along with the Final Cut Studio suite of apps, vacating that market to Adobe and avid for the software and dell and hp for the hardware has to be one of the most baffling decisions I can think of with a company that has the war chest to buy a nation and support OS X and this small minority of pros at the very high end.
I agree completely... with but a few exceptions that are out of Apple's realm.
Too much common sense here
Too much logic here
Computers like the above are too useful
Apple buyers that are true pros would be too happy
Sales would bring in too much money
See all the problems?
Why? Because they have decided it's not the direction they want to go. Love it or hate it Apple has decided not to pursue those who want such a system. I'm not a fan of the can and I'm bummed about the direction. But it's take what Apple is offering or switch to another platform that does.
The Mac Pro isn't a consumer PC. It is a workstation class computer. There is a difference between consumer and workstation. Though lately it seems that the Mac Pro has been moving closer to becoming a consumer piece of hardware.
On the other hand, it's far below the norm for Xeon workstation computers - less memory, fewer cores, no PCIe slots, no internal expansion....
One could easily be forgiven for confusing it with a consumer PC.
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You'll all be asking for memory slots on your iPhones soon. How dare you?!
Sometimes your posts really make my day.
Other times I get nasal burns from inhaled coffee.
I ordered my nMP on launch day and finally received it in early February. It was to replace another first generation product - the Mac Pro 1,1 that I'd purchased back in 2007 and had served me very well. I'm still as happy as a pig in brown stuff with my cylindrical masterpiece. I remember one day soon after buying it wondering what the whirring sound was in my room only to realise that the hands of the clock on the wall above my nMP was making the noise while my computer was completely silent.
The lack of internal storage has been an issue, but not one I haven't coped with. If costs had been lower, I'd have liked a Thunderbolt storage array, but instead I went with a Synology NAS which has been marvellous (and offered me all sorts of extras that have streamlined my workflow and made working away from my home office a breeze - just access the NAS via WebDav on my MacBook Pro and away I go).
You can imagine just how much faster the machine is over my MP 1,1, but it's not just the speed increase - everything about this machine is a massive step forward for me and worth every penny.
In summary - still very happy with the machine. The prices of IPS based 4K monitors are dropping rapidly at the moment so I suspect during Q1 or Q2 2015 I'll be buying a 4K monitor to replace my 30" ACD and then my new set up will be complete.
The nMP was a long time coming, but I for one am very very happy with it.
The lack of internal storage has been an issue, but not one I haven't coped with. If costs had been lower, I'd have liked a Thunderbolt storage array, but instead I went with a Synology NAS which has been marvellous (and offered me all sorts of extras that have streamlined my workflow and made working away from my home office a breeze - just access the NAS via WebDav on my MacBook Pro and away I go).
You can imagine just how much faster the machine is over my MP 1,1, but it's not just the speed increase - everything about this machine is a massive step forward for me and worth every penny.
In summary - still very happy with the machine. The prices of IPS based 4K monitors are dropping rapidly at the moment so I suspect during Q1 or Q2 2015 I'll be buying a 4K monitor to replace my 30" ACD and then my new set up will be complete.
The nMP was a long time coming, but I for one am very very happy with it.
I ordered my nMP on launch day and finally received it in early February. It was to replace another first generation product - the Mac Pro 1,1 that I'd purchased back in 2007 and had served me very well. I'm still as happy as a pig in brown stuff with my cylindrical masterpiece. I remember one day soon after buying it wondering what the whirring sound was in my room only to realise that the hands of the clock on the wall above my nMP was making the noise while my computer was completely silent.
The lack of internal storage has been an issue, but not one I haven't coped with. If costs had been lower, I'd have liked a Thunderbolt storage array, but instead I went with a Synology NAS which has been marvellous (and offered me all sorts of extras that have streamlined my workflow and made working away from my home office a breeze - just access the NAS via WebDav on my MacBook Pro and away I go).
You can imagine just how much faster the machine is over my MP 1,1, but it's not just the speed increase - everything about this machine is a massive step forward for me and worth every penny.
In summary - still very happy with the machine. The prices of IPS based 4K monitors are dropping rapidly at the moment so I suspect during Q1 or Q2 2015 I'll be buying a 4K monitor to replace my 30" ACD and then my new set up will be complete.
The nMP was a long time coming, but I for one am very very happy with it.
Ditto....
We bought the maxed out 12-core MP6,1 shortly after it was released for general sale Dec 2013. We received ours early Feb 2014 as I recall, and ahead of the estimated delivery date.
We have been extremely pleased with the MP6,1. It works alongside our two other MP5,1 12-core models and a souped up iMac13,2. Our freelancers much prefer to use the MP6,1 compared to anything else in the office.
We're so happy with the MP6,1 we decided to buy the MP6,1 6-core before years end for business investment and depreciation reasons. Based on our 12-core we do not expect to be disappointed with the 6-core model.
The Dual D700s perform very well for us and have no complaints using them.
Running the MP6,1 with Yosemite is rock solid for us.
Our plan is to eventually go all in with Thunderbolt-2 for storage and for connecting the MP6,1s together with Thunderbolt connections rather than investing in an expensive 10GbE network. We've already tested using Thunderbolt for connecting MP6,1, iMac13,2 and an older MBP8,3 (17-inch, late 2011) and observe a nice healthy 350 MBytes/sec i/o transfer rate.
Overall, we are extremely satisfied with the MP6,1 model and it has met most of our expectations.
So glad I stuck to my guns and decided to pass on the nMP. Maybe some day I won't need to have the storage requirements I do now, or have to need to use Blu-ray or DVD's, or will care about having things organized without cables everywhere, or care about having to purchase external chassis that I didn't used to. But right now I do I certainly do not want what is on the right...
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That is pathetic IMO.
The Alu stock tower supports what SATA II and SATA III inside using spinners and SSDs along with 1 or 2 SuperDrives. Yes you can RAID-0 4 drives for maybe 500 to 600 MBytes/sec at best. Then you will need a boot device which I suppose could be a PCIe SSD, a backup disk and a Time Machine disk.
Don't try and tell me you don't have a tangle of cables hanging out the back of your Alu tower, because you do.
Oh.... and the power use of that tower is enough to heat a small room in the dead of winter and runs up your electric bill in a hurry or if you have that for free your using up a valuable earth resource compared to the MP6,1.
Do you have any idea what the cost and waste is for having all that Alu casing for the tower ?
Try lugging your big ole tower to a gig someday.
I can easily show you a pic like this if you like...
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That is pathetic IMO.
The Alu stock tower supports what SATA II and SATA III inside using spinners and SSDs along with 1 or 2 SuperDrives. Yes you can RAID-0 4 drives for maybe 500 to 600 MBytes/sec at best. Then you will need a boot device which I suppose could be a PCIe SSD, a backup disk and a Time Machine disk.
Don't try and tell me you don't have a tangle of cables hanging out the back of your Alu tower, because you do.
Oh.... and the power use of that tower is enough to heat a small room in the dead of winter and runs up your electric bill in a hurry or if you have that for free your using up a valuable earth resource compared to the MP6,1.
Do you have any idea what the cost and waste is for having all that Alu casing for the tower ?
Try lugging your big ole tower to a gig someday.
I can easily show you a pic like this if you like...
Well said. My nMP is on TOP of my desk too.
That is pathetic IMO.
The Alu stock tower supports what SATA II and SATA III inside using spinners and SSDs along with 1 or 2 SuperDrives. Yes you can RAID-0 4 drives for maybe 500 to 600 MBytes/sec at best. Then you will need a boot device which I suppose could be a PCIe SSD, a backup disk and a Time Machine disk.
Don't try and tell me you don't have a tangle of cables hanging out the back of your Alu tower, because you do.
Oh.... and the power use of that tower is enough to heat a small room in the dead of winter and runs up your electric bill in a hurry or if you have that for free your using up a valuable earth resource compared to the MP6,1.
Do you have any idea what the cost and waste is for having all that Alu casing for the tower ?
Try lugging your big ole tower to a gig someday.
I can easily show you a pic like this if you like...
It may fit all in a nice little tube, but at least in the Aluminium block everything can run a full speed and not under-clocked because of a half arsed power supply.
The nMP is nice in many ways, it is also greatly crippled in many others.
Crippled in what way... care to explain that ?
We have a 12-core MP6,1 maxed out in the office. It can run 'full speed' without issues. Just what are you talking about ?
No need for additional or new GPUs. The dual D700s are good for several years in our office for the type of work we do IMO.
Adding drives is simple if required by exchanging Drives and/or SSDs in attached Thunderbolt-2 enclosures... not a problem at all.
External SSDs can be accommodated anytime to capitalize on faster SSDs. The current SSD provides close to 1 GByte/sec and quite honestly this is fast enough. If we want more we can simply strip 2x SSDs externally and make use of the Thunderbolt-2 20 Gbps transfers.
Your negative ideas have no merit IMO.