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This is not a "Pro" machine.
- Thread starter timehacker11
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Not really: I was illustrating a "Do as I Say, Not As I Do" paradigm.
It might, but absolutely not within the next 5 years for sure, and with 95% odds against happening over the next 25 years. FYI, I do travel internationally, so I do have a pile of adaptors: the value added of having a 1:1 parity for even just those few devices I may take on travel ... simply isn't there: basically, your assumption is a fallacy because of the Law of Diminishing Returns.
Okay, but as you then go on to say:
Right, but you do recognize that you haven't experienced everything, so you also need to be careful to not suggest that your worldview of needs are more important than anyone else's.
FWIW, if that doesn't suffice, c'mon west for ~30 miles to where I'm at and I can show you a couple of thousand workstations that don't move anywhere near as frequently as you've seen...more along the lines of once every 3-5 years, which is about the same rate as which the hardware gets replaced anyway.
An interesting observation, although I'd say that having to relocate an old fashioned tower PC is relatively small beans in comparison to all of the other boxes of stuff that many office workers have in terms of paper files, etc. In my home office, there's also more than six boxes full of just film slides/negatives...that's a bigger nuisance than the Mac Pro's size.
expense of TB cables, which still aren't even available in the USA
ha.. really? i'm glad i don't need 10 ft then
But others do...plus, at 10ft, it represents a capability step backwards from USB or Firewire.
Yes, we can hope/expect that over time, the price will moderate. However, there's still the question of by how much and at what price point you/we will consider it worth spending the money to avoid crawling under a desk...YMMV if that's $500, $250, $100, etc...although we can be sure that in those cases when we know that it is being paid out of our own personal pocket in terms of reduced wages/profits instead of more painlessly out of some vague large corporation overhead account.
Unfortunately, maintaining two Mac Pro designs (single / double) simply wan't going to go on forever: the desktop market is shrinking and it costs more to support two configurations than just one configuration, particularly one where one can just swap out the CPU to a different number of cores. Considering that the Tube's specs say up to twelve (12) cores, it can be reasonably argued that it is functionally equivalent to the current top end MP. This is essentially a "Supply Chain" efficiency activity.
-hh
Not sure why they couldn't. Everyone else seems to be able to support more than one. Waiting 3-4 years for a new Mac Pro that is computationally 'functionally equivalent' to the old one and far behind the performance available elsewhere in the workstation market is not what I'd call progress. But hey, it's small.
Well things have been moving extremely slowly over the past 6 or 7 years. Remember just 8 years ago Intel promised to deliver 80core chips by 2011/12 and I don't see them in any mainstream systems. According to Mores Law and events preceding 2005/6 we should have been seeing system performance double every 12 to 18 months. And in fact the 2012 MP5,1 is only about double the performance of the 2006 MP1,1. That's barely double in 6 years! And PCs are on relatively the same track - so this isn't just Apple.
I suppose we could start or renew old conspiracy theories about withheld technology but as things have been going over the past five or six years I'm not sure it's reasonable to expect a huge jump is system performance from the MP5,1 to the MP6,1. Still, from what I can see however the overall performance increase will be significant enough to notice - even considering base configurations.
Sure it is. Its possible. Apple is choosing not to.
I use Maxwell a lot. So just as a real world example, the currently shipping (or recently ceased shipping) top end Mac Pro has a Maxwell benchmark of about 750.
The new top end Mac Pro (assuming 12 core @ 2.7) will do about 775.
Top end Ivy workstations will do about 1630 when released.
Right, but at what price-point. That Mores law is supposed to be a doubling at relatively the same dollar value. I realize the Banksters have printed up and trifled 30 trillion to the overall deficit of the dollar value but if other goods and serves are only up about 50% or so then why does it require a $18K computer to double the performance of yesteryears' $6K model. That's a 300% increase - and a six-fold inflationary differential from what one would commonly expect.
$18K? Wha?
You can build it for ~6-7k. That's what we are doing. 2 top end Xeons total about $3800. Intel has been pricing their top end models about the same for several gens. That leaves 2-3k for the rest of the internals.
W/ Apple Tax, maybe what, 8k? Not so different from what the top end DP's have been the last couple models.
A dual 8 core Lenovo, with 64 GB ram, and dual workstation GPU is somewhere around $17,000. The prices for the Xeons have gone up, it settles down somewhat over time though, and if you get last generation now it will probably be at a lower price than when Sandy Bride-EP was released since new generation CPUs are due any month now.
If you buy now, you are basically getting last gen CPUs. If you wait until the ivy bridge Xeons are released you will not get that Dell for $7k. Although, probably for significantly less than $26k.
If you buy now, you are basically getting last gen CPUs. If you wait until the ivy bridge Xeons are released you will not get that Dell for $7k. Although, probably for significantly less than $26k.
Yeah i mean the point is that whatever the real market price is for top end workstations at that time, if its 7k or 8k or whatever, I'd totally buy an equivalent performance Mac Pro for the market price plus the typical Apple 10-15% premium. Too bad I won't be able to. Maybe Apple will surprise us all and release two sized iTubes. Who knows, it was a sneak preview after all.
Well, if the example of the "Top end Ivy workstations [which] will do about 1630" are coming in at $4k ~ $6k and if 1630 is really double the speed of the MP6,1 then that is certainly something. Kind of a few iffy ifs there tho.
When I look at Dell or Boxx systems which I know to be about twice as fast as the $6k MP5,1 they usually price out at between $16k and $20k. While their $6k offerings are only slightly faster (15%?) than the MP5,1 is. I see some Intel Xeons which are over $5k each too BTW - as in WAY over...
But I've not attempted a DIY xeon system yet so I dunno much about that.
Well, if the example of the "Top end Ivy workstations [which] will do about 1630" are coming in at $4k ~ $6k and if 1630 is really double the speed of the MP6,1 then that is certainly something. Kind of a few iffy ifs there tho.
When I look at Dell or Boxx systems which I know to be about twice as fast as the $6k MP5,1 they usually price out at between $16k and $20k. While their $6k offerings are only slightly faster (15%?) that the MP5,1 is. I see some Intel Xeons which are over $5k each too BTW - as in WAY over...
But I've not attempted a DIY xeon system yet so I dunno much about that.
The EN 4-socket Xeons are usually $3-6k and are meant for 4P servers.
The ones that go into 2P workstations I'm referring to generally top out around $1800-$1900 each retail.
You can of course spec stupid expensive stuff on Boxx and others because they offer all kinds of wacky variations. 4 Tesla, GPU machines, watercooled, etc.
Boxx also offers an "overclocked" Xeon machine for some absurd amount that they advertise as hitting 4Ghz+, when if you actually know how Xeon overclocking works its about a 3% speed boost due to a slight BCLK bump. Their rep called to pitch it to me and he couldn't figure out why i was laughing at him.
The performance projections really aren't all that iffy. Estimates of course but they won't be wildly off. Ivy is based on Sandy and Maxwell scales pretty much linearly on 2 sockets. The only 'estimate' was the Ivy vs Sandy per-clock performance gain which I estimated at 6% or so.
Anyway, we'll see. The point really isn't even money so much as my disappointment that Apple is no longer going to make a high end offering.
I think there is hope for that eventually, but not for this year. They would have been saying "Up to 24 cores" and the whole bit, if the plan was to have a DP model.
I could see a larger model that has a bigger radius and maybe somewhat taller too. The current model is basically a triangle on the inside, with the CPU and 2 GPUs on each side. If it was expanded out, and made a square, it would seem possible to have a DP option. That, or they eventually drop one GPU in some models to replace it with a CPU, but I doubt that because I don't think they will want to sacrifice the 6 TB ports.
It would be pretty awesome to see DP variant by Haswell E5s. With up to 15 cores on a single CPU, we could have 30 cores in DP models. That possibility doesn't exist until early 2015 though.
Ya, it looks like no more dual offerings from Apple for at least 18 months. And probably much longer than that.
HP will charge you $3100 for upgrading to the 2687W, or $3500 when adding a second processor ($400 is built into the base offering with one CPU).
A duel 2687W + a decent GPU is about $8K for the HP z820, once you get their standing 20% off coupon added in. That's without much RAM and only 500 GB HDD, but that's comparable to Mac Pro offering and you can outfit with the same cheaper prices from Newegg and the like for both systems.
Then if you look at these geekbench scores, http://browser.primatelabs.com/geekbench2/top, that 2x2687W configuration does score roughly 2x the top of the line 5,1 Mac Pro. My system with 2x2630s scores pretty close to the top 5,1 Mac Pro, and it was about $3500 without RAM and HDD upgrades.
Sandy Bridge brought some pretty nice performance improvements, so its pretty understandable why people were a disappointed in Apple for missing that boat.
Interesting.
I wonder if we'll get so super-lucky as that sneak-peek being so preliminary that the shipped unit will actually be SB? Hehe...
As it stand, I guess Apple new MacPro will either be not powerful enough for the people who really need a top of the line workstation and bloody too expensive for the more common power user for who the iMac isn't enough...
Apple really need an in-between offering. How about a six-core i7 with a Titan or GTX780 or two.
I was one of those who bought the 1.6Ghz G5 when it came out in 2003. At the time it filled my workflow and setup better than the iMac. I used it until 2010 when I bought finaly my first iMac. The Powermac were still relatively affordable. But today, Apple doesn't, and don't seem to want to, offer a real headless desktop computer that the hobbyist can buy.
Yes for most of my work I could use an iMac. But for some of the task that I have to do I need more GPU power that the iMac can give me. But I don't really need the power of a 12 core XEON processor or ECC ram and the price tag that comes with those.
Oh well, I guess what this post amount to is me finally realising that maybe it's time to go back to PC for my graphical work... After all, pretty much all the tool that I use are on both plateform.
Apple really need an in-between offering. How about a six-core i7 with a Titan or GTX780 or two.
I was one of those who bought the 1.6Ghz G5 when it came out in 2003. At the time it filled my workflow and setup better than the iMac. I used it until 2010 when I bought finaly my first iMac. The Powermac were still relatively affordable. But today, Apple doesn't, and don't seem to want to, offer a real headless desktop computer that the hobbyist can buy.
Yes for most of my work I could use an iMac. But for some of the task that I have to do I need more GPU power that the iMac can give me. But I don't really need the power of a 12 core XEON processor or ECC ram and the price tag that comes with those.
Oh well, I guess what this post amount to is me finally realising that maybe it's time to go back to PC for my graphical work... After all, pretty much all the tool that I use are on both plateform.
Possible I suppose, since we can't varify any of the information is accurate, but I don't think its likely, since it did show 12 cores/24 threads. It maybe that this early development 2690 v2, or what ever it was, was not up to the same spec as the full production models will be (ie maybe to ship early versions intel doesn't push clock rates as high?). I don't know if that is likely though either, as I am completely guessing.
From rough guesses though the speed makes sense. 1 Ivy bridge 12 core vs 2 Westmere 6 cores at high clock rates is going to be close. Exactly how close will depend on usage, plus you have the GPU issue, which should be a large advantage for the new Mac Pro.
Exactly. If its $2499 for the nMP with the E5-1620 v2, you're not getting any more CPU power than the iMac. The GPU power will probably be better, but we don't really know what the bottom end will be yet, so its hard to know by how much. Plus, to even approach the data capacity and speed of a maxed out iMac, you're likely going to have to pay an arm and leg for a good sized PCIe SSD, or a TB HDD, or some combination of both, plus you need the screen, if you don't already have one. So, that's just a lot of cross over, with the entry level nMP offering little to distinguish itself from an expensive headless iMac.
If priced at ~$2000, that will change. And the nMP may see great success, as many people are looking basically for a headless iMac, but I don't think they are going to want to pay $3000+ for the complete system.
If Apple puts the 1620 v2 at ~$2000, you could see a comparable system in the nMP with the 1650 v2 at ~$2500. That, I think ,would be the sweat spot of sales for the nMP. You get a 6-core, with two nice GPUs at about the price of a maxed out iMac. Given the lack of internal storage, thus greater need to buy TB expansion, as well as a display, I think that's the price point to hit. If that 6 core is more like $3000, or a little more,....eh, sales might suffer.
Well, they could, but its a Manufacturing cost issue.
For example, if the fixed cost of developing a Mac is $20M, this number gets applied twice for the two Mac Pro designs - once for single CPU and once for dual CPU. If they go to a single design ... and assuming a lot of 'all other factors being equal', the net result is that the consolidation lets them save $20M.
Apple is simply electing to streamline their product line to save money.
Size can have some bearing on some costs...from Apple's perspective, there's warehouse storage and shipping, for example. But from the consumer's perspective, these are only one time expenses and they're minor in comparison to the overall lifecycle investments they make in the platform. As such, small doesn't pass the credibility sniff test for being anywhere close to being important to their bottom line.
-hh
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Oh please, get off your internal expansion high horse. You know darn well all you used those slots for in the Mac Pro was a fiber NIC to your external SAN that's managed by IT (who also bought you the machine, configured it, and told you it'll be more than enough for what you need - and we're right) and a three year old video card. From an IT perspective, the new Mac Pro is EXACTLY what you lot need: compact, powerful, and with MAXIMUM EXTERNAL EXPANSION. Your SAN isn't in your current Mac Pro, you connect to it using Fiber (or, if you're stupid rich, 10GigE) over an ADAPTER. Your high speed video encoders? EXTERNAL. Broadcast controllers? Feed mixers? Broadcast switches? Sound boards? Scratch disk?
EXTERNAL.
My Data Center has an entire rack devoted to your EXTERNAL gear, yet you're crying that you'll have a Thunderbolt to LC Fiber adapter sticking out of your shiny new cylinder? Geez, what a crying shame that is.
"But we can't upgrade our video cards!" First off, if you can't do something with twin FirePro video cards, then you're already looking at a distributed rendering or GPU "Cloud" solution anyway. Second of all, do you not see how few official video cards are actually supported in the Mac Pro? You get one, maybe two per year, at an inflated cost. From my IT perspective, this new design is a win-win: you get twice the power in a workstation, and I'm not shelling out $5,000 for new FirePro or Quaddro cards every time AMD or nVidia finally decide to bless you with an upgrade card for your older Mac Pros.
"But it's not a workstation, it's meant for amateurs!" No, a cheap PC is for amateurs or frugal people. You get everything you need for serious work here: a Xeon E5 processor with up to twelve cores, twin FirePro cards, a speedy boot drive, and plenty of memory, plus 20Gbps Thunderbolt 2 ports. If you seriously need more horsepower, go fuss at your IT guy to build you a VMWare cluster of linux machines or something for the additional horsepower you need. Scream at your vendors to support TB2 on their equipment and software natively and at full bandwidth. Apple has given you the crutch of FW800 for years after it died, and it's finally time you grow up and join the modern era of USB3 and Thunderbolt.
I'm not sure what you're getting at here. From my perspective, the new Xeon processors have given us a lot more performance compared to the last gen/year in our VMWare deployments. I would assume going from the current Xeon Westmere Mac Pros to the nMP Xeon E5 CPUs will result in similar performance increases to what we've seen.
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Sorry, but:
a) It isn't about internal-vs-external, but of the cost for the capability, and some solutions simply cost more, which makes them a lesser value.
b) Neither one of us have a good independent survey to be able to demonstrate that 90% (or whatever) of all Mac Pros are deployed in large Enterprise environments where there's a "free" fiber SAN for us to use and that the removal of the organic (internal) capability is a non-starter.
For example, what percentage of MP's are being used in the generic small "one man business"? And what do tiny shops do for their high performance storage capability? Sure, they can go buy a 4TB Promise R4 RAID ... but a bit north of $1000 per, its a 50% cost increase.
Great! Oh, but wait there's no such thing as a free lunch: so for a small business who doesn't have their first fiber SAN, just how much will it cost to stand up a new turnkey system from scratch?
Insofar as capacity, let's say just 12TB worth, as that's an obvious comparison: the value performance baseline is $1500 (three 4TB internals in RAID0 on the 2012 Mac Pro).
Beat the price and you have a viable business case. Or fail...and you're just like any other IT Dept who has forgotten that they're a support organization who lives on overhead dollars paid for by the business units.
-hh