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nMP vs Workstation Price Comparisons
- Thread starter fixmdude
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Your affection for NV is well known, but this exercise has nothing to do with recommendations, better judgements, or solid advice
we're merely trying to price out comparable systems. This says a few things (in my mind)...
1. Not surprisingly, you can build a comparable system for less (even less than this with a more modest PSU
)2. Surprisingly, it's not a LOT less... 10% at these price points is close. No one can say there's an"Apple Tax" or suggest Apple is gouging.
3. If the GPUs turn out to be recognized in Windows as workstation cards that support the Catalyst Pro drivers, this is going to be a very attractive workstation for Windows professionals.
This says a few things (in my mind)...
1. Not surprisingly, you can build a comparable system for less (even less than this with a more modest PSU
2. Surprisingly, it's not a LOT less... 10% at these price points is close. No one can say there's an"Apple Tax" or suggest Apple is gouging.
3. If the GPUs turn out to be recognized in Windows as workstation cards that support the Catalyst Pro drivers, this is going to be a very attractive workstation for Windows professionals.
It's a nice Windows/Linux machine no doubt( you can't hackintosh it). That PSU is still entirely overkill for me.
For a workstation I would never overlock it at all, although if you got a 1000W server gold rated PSU you can easily up the CPU.
I have to entirely agree with VR's 2nd point. There isn't much of Apple gouging on their Workstation line if we look at these price ups, and compared to other pre-assembled Workstations they're much better value.
Then please please please show me, and the folks at Tonymacs to get IVY-EP, that motherboard, and those AMD cards to work with OSX.
For some yes, the majority will most likely kill the system. I've done plenty of overclocking and I still would not overclock a workstation. Especially if you're going to buy/build multiple workstations for small companies.
Time tells right now, the previous MP's were very well priced, and so far the nMP looks to be as well.
I suppose as the month of December starts tomorrow, at some point we are going to be swamped in Geekbench and Luxmark results and arguments over the nMP.
Those of us trying to understand usability and system stability will have to try to seek the wood from the trees in the p***ing competition that will start and has probably even started tonight!
But then I've never understood having the fastest computer, fastest car etc etc for me they are items I use to get through my day with the least stress and earn me money.
Tutors final comment says it all "No. Time will tell how what is paid is rewarded with performance"
Those of us trying to understand usability and system stability will have to try to seek the wood from the trees in the p***ing competition that will start and has probably even started tonight!
But then I've never understood having the fastest computer, fastest car etc etc for me they are items I use to get through my day with the least stress and earn me money.
Tutors final comment says it all "No. Time will tell how what is paid is rewarded with performance"
If that Geekbench results are true, and you managed to get a current 5.1 "somehow" to use the new IVY_EP 12core, why not create a step by step build on Tonymacs, with the methods you used to install OSX so that an entire community can benefit from it?
Rather than just posting a link to hackintosh forums that when searched don't return any information on the CPU that you apparently used to creating a hackinstosh using the latest IVY-EP 12core CPU.
What I did find are people having nothing but issues.
http://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/291831-asus-sabertooth-x79-ivy-bridge-e-4930k/
http://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/293544-black-screen-i7-4930k-x79-deluxe-hd6870-gigabyte/
Those that do manage to get it working Mountain Lion still experience some issues, and nothing on 10.9 yet it seems.
So the machine you posted there is using a Sandy-EP again, and the chap that is using IVY-EP can't even use mavericks so far it seems.
Now how old is that thread? Months.
Do you really expect any professional, or small business to not be able to do any work at all during that time? He saved $150 on your quad core build, but is spending anywhere from days, weeks, to months tinkering to get it to work?
How much productivity hasn't been lost? How much money hasn't been wasted?
I like custom builds myself, but for a workstation that's supposed to arrive and start working it seems like a horrible mess of time and money.
I appreciate for some this is a great Hobby, but this thread seems to be turning into Overclockers, and XtremeSystems where the most complex, and time consuming build seems the best.
Yet where are the savings? Your Quad core build was $150 less, add in the AMD cards, and lessen the PSU and it's bit more.
Do you honestly expect a small business, of say FCPX editors to wait while someone figures out how to get the system running, and install OS X 10.9, and write the Kexts for the AMD R9 series cards? Let alone get it 100% stable?
Now how old is that thread? Months.
Do you really expect any professional, or small business to not be able to do any work at all during that time? He saved $150 on your quad core build, but is spending anywhere from days, weeks, to months tinkering to get it to work?
How much productivity hasn't been lost? How much money hasn't been wasted?
I like custom builds myself, but for a workstation that's supposed to arrive and start working it seems like a horrible mess of time and money.
I appreciate for some this is a great Hobby, but this thread seems to be turning into Overclockers, and XtremeSystems where the most complex, and time consuming build seems the best.
Yet where are the savings? Your Quad core build was $150 less, add in the AMD cards, and lessen the PSU and it's bit more.
Do you honestly expect a small business, of say FCPX editors to wait while someone figures out how to get the system running, and install OS X 10.9, and write the Kexts for the AMD R9 series cards? Let alone get it 100% stable?
Your affection for NV is well known, but this exercise has nothing to do with recommendations, better judgements, or solid advice
This says a few things (in my mind)...
1. Not surprisingly, you can build a comparable system for less (even less than this with a more modest PSU
2. Surprisingly, it's not a LOT less... 10% at these price points is close. No one can say there's an"Apple Tax" or suggest Apple is gouging.
3. If the GPUs turn out to be recognized in Windows as workstation cards that support the Catalyst Pro drivers, this is going to be a very attractive workstation for Windows professionals.
I will likely buy a nMP in the next 60 days, but i bet a year from now that $150 difference grows to $500, as Apple will still be charging full price. Thats where the profit margin swells.
Anyways its great Apple is close and looks to not be gouging too much out of the gate. As with all apple products its best to but when they are brand new releases.
Here is hoping OpenCl is being leverage by more than 2% of apps in the next two years, and its more like %25 of GPU aware apps. CUDA is where the apps are today sadly for nMP owners.
Also to comment on an older point, I propose a conscious design reason the nMP does not have the components of a larger case is to stimulate the TB biosphere.
So now you're posting snarky comments to what is an entirely feasible scenario?
I'm genuinely interested in a possible hackenstosh for my work, but if its time, effort, and loss of productivity is an issue it's not a comparable workstation.
Not when that saved $150 turns out to mean days of no work getting done.
If there was a way to build that cheaper system, and have it up and running within a working day it would be fantastic.
Maybe, and hopefully the hackenstosh community will manage it in time, although maybe the nMP needs to be released first for folks to see that kexts are needed for the new graphics cards and hardware.
As it stands it's a fantastic Windows, and Linux machine.
I'm in the nice area where my stuff uses OpenCL, but I'd want the option of CUDA if I need it. Hopefully Apple will offer that later on, as it just seems odd to alienate a large portion of potential customers.
TB is in those which comes first scenarios. Not many products ( that are cheap ) as not many support it. Not many support it because there's a lack of products. :/
I'm not going down the road of challenging what Tutor knows about his kinda thing as he probably knows more than any on here about it! 10.9 will be fixed very quickly for LGA2011 as soon as the nMP is fully supported via OSX.
But that's a topic for another thread I do agree - what we're looking on here is spec equivalent PC workstations with the black can that are fully supported by manufacturers out of the box with 3 year warranty like AppleCare. Offering home built systems with separate warranties for the component parts simply isn't an option!
I entirely agree. The last solid works station I built for someone was with consumer parts, and when the GPU went it took over a month to get a replacement in the EU through warranty. It's simply time consuming and annoying.
Where as if he went straight to DELL it would have been a few hundred more expensive, but they would have collected and replaced it within a few days.
At the moment Apple's entire workstation vs other complete workstations looks well priced. All we need now are solid performance numbers, of not just synthetic benchmarks, but also real work scenarios.
I stopped building custom workstations for the exact same reasons years ago. They need to work all the time with minimal downtime for replacement parts and more importantly I'm not doing the donkey work for the small margin I made building the bloody thing. Plus in my case when setup one is going to be 60 miles away and the other 3,500 miles
I got an HP z820 in addition to my Mac Pro that can take any GPU (and has the PSU to take multiple GPUs) and they'll drive to my house if it goes down. Mine has dual 2687Ws and is crazy fast, but the V2 CPUs are significantly faster.
I do mainly After Effects work and Cinema 4D with Octane Render so CUDA is a must for me.
The z820 is definitely in the picture - however HP's default configurations for the models what they sell here in the UK are a nightmare to get an equivalent for the nMP. Dell on the other hand you can configure and compare very accurately!
How can you configure a z820 without any PCIe slots, no hard drive slots, only 4 DIMM slots and an anemic power supply?
Lol
The base z820 minus CPU and graphics is http://www8.hp.com/uk/en/products/workstations/product-detail.html?oid=6536594#!tab=features
£2400 which is £99 less than the base black can here in the UK!