MP 7,1 Waiting for Mac Pro 7,1 A1991 (no more)

[Theisus]

Who benefits more from making a disposable computer?

It will be interesting to see how that right to repair legislation pans out in Nebraska, Apple's horse is against it and it is pretty clear from how they are designing my computers (thin as possible) why.

If it passes they might have to rethink the way they are designing their computers.

 

[EnderBeta]

Having used the 2013 Mac Pro for just about a week now I am very happy with how quite it is. It can run a number of virtual machines at once which is very handy for me to stress test programs using one machine. Since this is a work machine that was purchased by my employer and I wanted a Mac it was the best choice I had. A Hackintosh ['autocorrect' correction] is one of those things I wouldn't dare ask my boss to invest a lot of money on.

For a personal machine I would never have purchased it. In fact when I bought my Late 2015 iMac 5K I was debating on it or the Mac Pro back then and came to the same conclusion at that time. I'm hoping things improve in the next few years but I think the assessment from Mago about the Macs being on life support is dead on, short of the MacBook line.

What a sad state of affairs. I remember when I was attending Savannah College of Art and Design and had the chance to use the G3 iMacs in the computer labs, the G4 PowerMacs for classwork and in the computer labs loving it. I used to cringe when I had to work on a HP dual xeon system.

I would have loved to have a PowerMac during that time period but all I had to work with in my dorm room was the Compaq Pentium 4 machine (the one before HT). Needless to say for classwork I lived in the computer labs as much as possible and there was a group of us. It was great times.

I don't feel like currently Apple has the same focus and care being put into their new machines. I really like my iMac. It's a great machine and the design was beautiful in 2012. I would say it's coming up on time for a new model so I'm not too unhappy with it. The Mac Pro though has had no update in years, not even quite spec bumps. It's so disheartening.

I have a meeting coming up in a few minutes so I will stop rambling.

 

[deuk1219]

What a sad state of affairs. I remember when I was attending Savannah College of Art and Design and had the chance to use the G3 iMacs in the computer labs, the G4 PowerMacs for classwork and in the computer labs loving it. I used to cringe when I had to work on a HP dual xeon system.

I would have loved to have a PowerMac during that time period but all I had to work with in my dorm room was the Compaq Pentium 4 machine (the one before HT). Needless to save for classwork I lived in the computer labs as much as possible and there was a group of us. It was great times.
I have a meeting coming up in a few minutes so I will stomp rambling.

As a 2013 Mac Pro user, and a very recent SCAD grad, I really wish Apple can invest more time and money back into their professional line of Macs. Montgomery Hall, the game developmen/animation/vfx/motion media design building, is still heavily equipped with the 2013 Mac Pros and it's nice to see some great work being pushed out from the machines by the students to this very day, and the students appreciate using them.

 

[EnderBeta]

As a 2013 Mac Pro user, and a very recent SCAD grad, I really wish Apple can invest more time and money back into their professional line of Macs. Montgomery Hall, the game developmen/animation/vfx/motion media design building, is still heavily equipped with the 2013 Mac Pros and it's nice to see some great work being pushed out from the machines by the students to this very day, and the students appreciate using them.

I remember when that hall opened up. It was a huge step up from the smaller hall they had the previous year. When I was there in 2000 to 2004 they where mixed with HP Xeons 533FSB and Power Macs of various G4 trims. I think the G5 was coming out right around the time of graduation.

It has got to be difficult seeing the new PC based machines updating but nothing on the Mac front.

 

[askunk]

just got the tracking number for a dual E5-2699v4 with 1024 GiB of RAM.

I think I just came.

 

[AidenShaw]

I think I just came.

More porn:

(click to enlarge)​

 

[Chicane-UK]

Heh - we had to spec and install some HP DL380's at work for a project which we ordered with 1TB RAM, and a total of something stupid like 44 cores from two CPU's. Even as a millennial, it's still amazing to see a system with that much RAM installed. I remember building a system with 16MB RAM and thinking it was a lot.

 

[AidenShaw]

Heh - we had to spec and install some HP DL380's at work for a project which we ordered with 1TB RAM, and a total of something stupid like 44 cores from two CPU's. Even as a millennial, it's still amazing to see a system with that much RAM installed. I remember building a system with 16MB RAM and thinking it was a lot.

I remember buying a system with 16MB of disk and thinking it was a lot!

The ML350 in the order above is very similar to the DL380 (dual socket, 24 DIMM slots,...) but it comes in a 5U tower/rack chassis with more room for fun stuff.

Fun stuff (4 * Titan-X Pascal)
​

This system arrived last week - but only 24C/48T. The 44C/88T system is in transit.

​

A DL380 (2U) with a pair of Titan-X Pascal cards.

 

[JamesPDX]

Blackmagic really needs to switch all their devices to TB3. I've held off on most TB2 devices since I kinda figured it was a dead standard with a short lifespan. It never really caught on. TB3 seems like it will be more mainstream.

Apparently, it's not critical at this time to upset the production line, but it would be nice to just swap out the connection interface card on whatever piece of hardware of choice. Apollo, Focusrite, Antelope, Avid, and many others are still using Thunderbolt II (some of these side-by-side with Dante networked audio) and our motion picture industry is not seeing a bottleneck on ingest and playback from SSDs.

A question: What RAID configuration would it take to fully saturate the Thunderbolt II bus? https://www.blackmagicdesign.com/products/ultrastudiothunderbolt

They're making both versions, and even a PCIe card and it's hardware encoding, (12G SDI, HDMI 2.0, Analog, 4:4:4, Ultra HD and 4K up to 2160p60, etc) which is very cool.

But it doesn't come with a watchband, nor is it thin because it's a professional piece of equipment with non-disposable hardware.
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I liken the MP to a Bugatti Chiron, in that it only appeals to a small portion of people and is not a huge money maker.

Why does VW keep the Bugatti brand in business if it is loosing money on the cars it sells and spending a fortune in R&D? It's the prestige of making one of the fastest, best designed production cars ever.

That is what the MP is SUPPOSE to do; capture the creative market who want the most out of their equipment. There is a level of prestige that comes with catering to these clients and being know as the best. These people are trend setters. Apple's margins are so high on their other products that it doesn't matter if the margins on the MP aren't massive, the value that catering to these clients bring manifests itself in other ways.

At one point in Apple's history, they understood this. Now however it's 1181 days (at the time of writing) without so much as spec bump, and they are trying to sell me an iPad as a super computer.View attachment 692187

Re: The iPad Pro,

"That's no computer... ...It's a lifestyle station..." -Obi Wan

 

[askunk]

More porn:

ok... I need some paper towel now...

I remember buying a system with 16MB of disk and thinking it was a lot!

Dude... My first computer had 5 kB of RAM (VIC20) and my first personal computer was a Mac IIcx with 4MB of RAM and whopping 40 MB (yes... megaBytes!) of Quantum Hard Drive... fantastic drive, it still works

(sorry for the OT!)

 

[StuAff]

ok... I need some paper towel now...



Dude... My first computer had 5 kB of RAM (VIC20) and my first personal computer was a Mac IIcx with 4MB of RAM and whopping 40 MB (yes... megaBytes!) of Quantum Hard Drive... fantastic drive, it still works

(sorry for the OT!)

I had a VIC20 too. November 1982...played some great games on that thing!

 

[sigmadog]

my first personal computer was a Mac IIcx with 4MB of RAM and whopping 40 MB (yes... megaBytes!) of Quantum Hard Drive... fantastic drive, it still works

Started my business with a Mac IIfx. I loved that computer.

 

[askunk]

The Mac II and IIfx were the best computers in town. Times when Apple wanted to build the fastest computers on the market.

 

[Anto38x]

I don't disagree with you, but see NAB as a possible venue for a controlled leak prior to WWDC. I doubt we'll hear anything in the rumored March/April event in regards to the Mac Pro (granted the way Tim defines the way we see Apple involved in the "Pro" arena is up for debate). Also I would argue a silent release wouldn't do anything for them, like the quiet Tuesday updates we used to see in the 2000-2010 era.

Apple really has the next 4 months to make a serious move, even if availability is in the second half of 2017. To the apologetics saying CPUS & GPUS aren't ready, no one is really buying that anymore. Apple has in the past held some private sessions even if it is in a private hotel venue to preview/demo and leak some information. A crumb from the table would be more promising than nothing, granted even discontinuing the Mac Pro at this point would be more welcome than nothing.

The truth is many have already left and if they haven't are really researching and planning their exit strategies. I know I have. In the past Apple has really promoted the "creative Pro" with their Final Cut Studio and more recently FCPX offerings, demoing the power of the tube Mac in a black box, with Pixar (IIRC) and others was at least a crumb that dropped prior to the WWDC announcement-that would be a light at the end of the tunnel, if nothing comes by the end of WWDC, regardless of availability, many or those who still remain will be jumping or hacking. If Apple really thinks it can go any longer than this spring to release any information really demonstrates their ego is larger than their new facility and will deteriorate into what Xerox or RIM is today.

Basically if WWDC comes and goes without any actual information on a Mac Pro it is a dead product line.

Really well said.... I agree with all you have said... it was like you took the words out of my mouth!!

 

[filmak]

The funny thing is that they will soon have a new campus full of old Macs and LG displays...

 

[deconstruct60]

The funny thing is that they will soon have a new campus full of old Macs and LG displays...

The LG ( UltraFine) Displays don't work with 'old' Macs; just the late '16 Macs.

The cloud and online services folks are going to consolidate in the Infinite loop campus, so this move is a bit of a "musical chairs" move. It is some 3rd party leased building space that is going to get left out when all the moving stops in 7-8 months. People's current computers are probably going with them because that is likely way easier than restoring 13,000+ backups onto new ones. There is going to be enough admin "drama" just spinning up the new site without layering on top 10's of thousands of new installs on top of that.

It is way easier to leave behind just the empty furniture.

There are probably a small bump in new computers coming too though. Folks who had put off retiring some older one probably are motivated to sending that to "decomission / recycling" as it would be one less thing to prep to move. ( there is deferred office 'spring clean' that is going to happen for some subset of folks moving. )

 

[Aldaris]

@deconstruct60

Some of the older macs (including the 2013 Mac Pro) will run the ultrafine displays at reduced resolutions, but if we buy what they were pitching in October they will all have touch bar MacBook Pro's and iPad Pros.

 

[nutritious]

I got a message from Tim Cook

"Thank you for your concern about Mac Pro. It is the fastest Mac Pro we've ever shipped! It is a great machine that works like magic. Better than Mac Pro is iPad, especially iPad Pro. iPad Pro is the greatest pro machine we have ever shipped, even better than Mac Pro. It only has one button and one port for charging. You can bring it with you wherever you go! It is also lacking user facing file system, which is great for productivity. You cannot go wrong with such a magical device. I use my iPad everyday for email and youtube. iPad has changed my life in such profound ways."

 

[OS6-OSX]

This was a Letter to Tim Cook found still in his in box

Mr. Cook
"You are a cheap penny pinching *#^#)@! How in the #&#@ did you ever get that #&(@9@& position?
You have no ^(@$&@ imagination! If you would have started your own ##*@^@ company instead of $&@#@(@^
up Steve's, you would have absolutely #&#@&@(@ nothing! You #&@*@*#^ #^_@*#7 #&#*@)@* silly
(#&#^@^^ #^#&@*@*@ #^#&@*@99! Take your over priced #*@(@#*# dated tech #*@$$& nMP and #*#(@(#^ you &#()@) #&@!

Have a nice day!

 

[Aldaris]

^lol

 

[JamesPDX]

The Mac II and IIfx were the best computers in town. Times when Apple wanted to build the fastest computers on the market.

My first Studio Vision Pro and Sound Designer II systems were on a IIci. 16GB RAM! That was a solid machine.

 

[AidenShaw]

My first Studio Vision Pro and Sound Designer II systems were on a IIci. 16GB RAM! That was a solid machine.

I think that you meant 16 MiB. ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macintosh_IIci )

The latest MacBook Pros have a paltry 16 GiB, but I don't think that Apples had 16 GiB in 1989.

 

[richinaus]

I was just thinking looking at apps like Keyshot. Will these developers start to not support MacOS soon if there are no workstations released?
When I first got a mac there were way more apps for windows than the mac but this has changed over the years, to a point where they are nearly interchangeable. If Apple does not release decent hardware to run them, if I was a developer I wouldn't bother making newer versions, and put my resources onto Windows.

Any thoughts on this?

 

[t0mat0]

Should the Mac Pro pay for itself? Couple of Apple analysts recently said there must have been a right mess up with the Mac Pro - for the millions they invested in it they surely haven't seen that back in sales.

Is it likely they'd plunge as much money in a new Mac Pro vs rejigging the current design?

 

[Jack Burton]

I was just thinking looking at apps like Keyshot. Will these developers start to not support MacOS soon if there are no workstations released?
When I first got a mac there were way more apps for windows than the mac but this has changed over the years, to a point where they are nearly interchangeable. If Apple does not release decent hardware to run them, if I was a developer I wouldn't bother making newer versions, and put my resources onto Windows.

Any thoughts on this?

Many render engines were/are cross platform when they were CPU based, but as they move to GPU (to compete with each other, and the others that started life as GPU renderers) many are going CUDA only (and thus windows only) or CUDA/CPU combination. Maxwell render is cross platform, but their GPU solution which is new is Win only. Although the classic Mac Pro can take nVidia cards, Next Limit didn't bother to develop for that old hardware on the Mac.

The only company I know committed to GPU rendering app on the Mac is Maxon, the makers of cinema 4d. They backed AMD ProRender. Who knows if that will go anywhere and if it will be too late.

I can'r recall any render engines that support both nVidia and AMD that have feature parity between the two. Not even cycles. I don't want to even waste the time researching anymore.

I fear it would take a big player like Autodesk to change the game in the regard, but do they even care at this point?
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Should the Mac Pro pay for itself? Couple of Apple analysts recently said there must have been a right mess up with the Mac Pro - for the millions they invested in it they surely haven't seen that back in sales.

Is it likely they'd plunge as much money in a new Mac Pro vs rejigging the current design?

I doubt it's likely they would reinvest in the design that effectively killed off a sector of their business.