What is your biggest disappointment with nMP?

[wallysb01]

No, it's aimed squarely at the left and right sides of the bell. The small data guys and the big data guys both.

Not exactly, but close. Some medium/big data aren’t going to be happy moving a decent amount of stuff out of internal. Even if you have 200TBs located in a dedicated data solution not on your desk, it can be nice to put 20TBs of it local. Or some flavor of that, even if its 20TBs offsite and 5TBs local, the nMP will be a bit of pain in the butt to migrate to due to the cost of thunderbolt.

I think the biggest issue is that 256GB is really small for OS+working files for what I would guess to be just about everyone that really “needs” a Mac Pro. And that getting up to 1TB for $800 is pretty damn steep and thunderbolt isn’t much better given the speed drop off you’re likely to see. Also what profession work flow really needs the OS and program files to be on drive going 1GB/s? Isn’t it just the data read/write really what matters as the other stuff get put into RAM anyway? So why “waste” space on your super speed drive for OS and apps? Personally, I’d rather have a slow 500GB boot drive and save the $200 bucks or what ever.

 

[MattDSLR]

People getting this thread wrong as I can see.
I'm very happy that some of you bought nMP mini.
And I hope it will work out for you well.
Why would I but a nMP mini if my 12 core is still faster then an 8 core i'm happy with 20TB of internal storage
Waiting for boxing day to get two 1tb SS drives that will go on PCI card, and it will give me 22TB internal storage with in one box (2 SSD and 20 spin ups, hey look no extra cables and it will include internal BR drive too and 6 USB 3.0 ports )
I hope this one box is not coming to the end and if it is, oh well will look for another used 12core to replace my wives 6 core or will have to start looking at PCs.
To spend 10k for something that its not much faster what my current computer is (I know the new MP Mini looks great but I do not care about the looks). My desk looks amazing with a tower and 3 monitors on it and a drobo that runs in a different room connected through USB3.0 and there is no other drives on my desk and it looks very clean with one box on there.
I stopped at my local apple store and spoke to business sales group and the sales rep that looked after me for last 6 years and I asked them how are the sales going for new MP, he told me very slow comparing to 2010 and 2012 releases.
This proves this thread, that there is large amount of people that are not happy with it, and the reason why they are not happy are marked in the first post.
For people that are switching from 1.1 or 2.1 MP because their computer are on the last leg, it makes sense, or for those that are switching from a mac mini or older iMac it also does. But for those that are switching from 5.1 or 4.1 or 6 core or dual processor and they are buying base 6 core or 4 core it doesn't make sense as the 4.1 and 5.1 would still be faster unless they are buying those new MP minis for looks and that is OK. As I mention before I like the looks and it will look great beside my B&W speakers in my HT room and I may buy one for that.
So if you bought a nMP and you are happy with it than this thread is not for you. We do not want to upset you, but because I'm not happy you will not change my mind by bing rude on this thread. You can Always start your owned thread why you like your nMP mini.
If you bought nMP mini because you had to do it, because it will speed up your work than i'm very happy for you too.
Unfortunately the New MP Mini is a strip down version of what could of been amazing.
Slower graphics that could of been faster if used in bigger case with better cooling
Limited processor turbo speeds that could of been faster if used in bigger case with better cooling
Room for extra drives since we would be using bigger case for extra cooling why not throw in there Sata3 option the rest looks OK
Give us an option to go with dual processor and if people will pay for it than sell it
Have a Mac Pro Mini and Mac Pro Max and I bet you they both will sell well.
Some people think because I complained I can't buy them what is a wrong assumption. Maybe I do not want to buy them because I hate the way it was build and how it was cater to only 20 to 30 % of mac pro users.

Until the support and upgrade options will be there people will still use the 5.1 and 4.1 and they will love them.

This maybe a too drastic change by apple and people like me and allots of other Mac Pro users hate the limitations of the new Mac Pro Mini (and please do not ask what they are as they are marked in the first post)

Well hope this explains this thread to some of the new MP owners and please do not try to convert people tat have issues with nMP

Well, would like to wish all of you a wonderful Holidays

 

[Nugget]

Is that the royal or the editorial "we," Matt? Let's not get too full of ourselves, here.

 

[OS6-OSX]

For people that are switching from 1.1 or 2.1 MP because their computer are on the last leg, it makes sense, or for those that are switching from a mac mini or older iMac it also does. But for those that are switching from 5.1 or 4.1 or 6 core or dual processor and they are buying base 6 core or 4 core it doesn't make sense as the 4.1 and 5.1 would still be faster unless they are buying those new MP minis for looks and that is OK.
:

Matt, "We" are behind you all the way! Even though you completely left out the 3.1!

 

[handsome pete]

This proves this thread, that there is large amount of people that are not happy with it, and the reason why they are not happy are marked in the first post.

That's completely anecdotal. It doesn't "prove" anything.

Unfortunately the New MP Mini is a strip down version of what could have been amazing.
Slower graphics that could have been faster if used in bigger case with better cooling
Limited processor turbo speeds that could have been faster if used in bigger case with better cooling

Sorry, pet peeve of mine so I felt compelled to fix.

 

[JoeG4]

There isn't a $1500 i5/i7 model.

Would've snapped that up in a heartbeat XD

Also it kinda seems like Apple flipped the birdie to everyone that isn't a video editor of some sort.

 

[Quash]

t and a drobo that runs in a different room connected through USB3.0 and there is no other drives on my desk

Great argument dude

You can't possibly do this with a nMP, oh no wait you can do it with much much faster thunderbolt enclosures...

And no way they will sell less nMPs the the 2012 MP (with outdated tech), that's just crazy talk.

 

[thejadedmonkey]

I don't think there's many people who value a limited sized drive with amazingly fast IO and a slow CPU, who are willing to pay $3k+ for it. I think the number of people who need a large storage pool and fast CPU is much higher.

 

[ElectronGuru]

I changed my mind "-)

Most disappointed that there isn't a Dual CPU single Graphics option. A dual Quad or Hex core would be faster and cost much less than the current 8 core and 12 core. Could also have 2X the ram slots for all us non-video Mac Pro Users....

Any chance they will release a dual CPU one graphics version - or do dual CPUs have to live on the same motherboard??

This is a three board form factor. I don't see a thermal or power limitation that would prevent a 2+1 configuration vs the 1+2 we have. But apple seems to be saying that CPUs are a dying breed and that there is a better way.

From a practical standpoint, the issue is similar to changing from 32 to 64 bit. It will take years for the software to catch up. Once there, I can see benefits to boards that can do display AND processing duties. But that will be a long wait-for-value for the early adopters.

The price is the biggest disappointment, for 3,000 bucks you get only a 256GB storage and a quad core processor. Seems ridiculously expensive for me.

A big chunk of that cost are the GPU. If you don't have or see value in them, this configuration doesn't work.

Apple is just being Apple. They always trend out technologies before they have actually trended out. And they are almost always right!

Very well said.

And for me, disappointment was lack of a companion display!

 

[ZnU]

This is a three board form factor. I don't see a thermal or power limitation that would prevent a 2+1 configuration vs the 1+2 we have. But apple seems to be saying that CPUs are a dying breed and that there is a better way.

Yeah, look at it like this: with both CPU and GPU, adding another processor gets you more cores. Most GPU workloads already scale quite nicely to arbitrarily large numbers of cores — if you can scale to 1024 you can probably scale to 4096, or 16,384, or whatever. Many CPU workloads, in contrast, don't perfectly scale across cores. Apple probably sees per-processor core count on CPUs climbing high enough to be way past the point of diminishing returns for most users over the next few years (e.g. 18 cores with Broadwell in 2H 2015).

If you can already fit 'too many' cores on a single CPU, there's not much point in having two. If, on the other hand, there's no such thing as 'too many' GPU cores, there are significant gains in having two. That's the bet Apple is making with this system.

 

[Macsonic]

Well hope this explains this thread to some of the new MP owners and please do not try to convert people tat have issues with nMP

Well, would like to wish all of you a wonderful Holidays

Happy Holidays to you and your family too. Looking forward to 2014, I hope business will be prosperous.

 

[MH01]

Apple is just being Apple. They always trend out technologies before they have actually trended out. And they are almost always right! This is a form factor for probably the next 10 years. I hope nobody is using spinning disks of any kind in 5 years let alone 10...

It is apple being apple, though they are most definitely not always right.

This is not the form factor the workstations. This form factor results in compromises in performance due to design, and removal from heat. Single CPU and dual gpu is also very limited/wasted configuration for an industry that does bit just do video editing.

The new Mac Pro is a very good looking one trick pony for video editing, not the form factor for workstations in the future.

These form factors have been done before, look at shuttle cps, they have had 1xcpu and 2xgpu for years. Just cause apple does a sexy version of a shuttle case, does not mean the industry will follow lol.

 

[stefmesman]

Its a question and not the war

So, for now we have:
Price
-subjective

Expandability
-for 90% of users the thunderbolt ports will be enough

Storage
- will be adressed as larger pcie ssd's become available

Internal Bays
- the oMp also had 4? You can now get 8/16 (and more) external and there will be no speed difference.

Video Cards (or luck of some features build into cards for gaming)
- no one should buy this machine just for gaming.

Multiple CPU options
- first real thing that they should have given an option to. (But probably not possible due to the design)

Ram limitation do to single CPU (4 vs 8 slots)
- is coherent to the "want" above.

Looks (well I like the looks less the power button it should be somewhere more accessible)
- really?

Luck of displays with TB2
- tb2 chips wont be in full production until 2014, although apple should have updated thier thunderbolt display with usb3.

Luck of apple storage options and not 3rd party(it would be amazing to have apple customer support)
- apple have never done so, why should they now?

CPU speeds much slower comparing to current models (iMac, rMBP and MP5.1 are faster in allots of cases).
- when running software that doesnt use more then 1 core. Wich is, what this machine wasnt build to do. And in my oppinion lack by the developers who created the software. (Photoshop im looking at you)

The computer will use less power but all the external storage will consume more power the the existing 5.1 MP, so there will be no savings in power usage.
- true

More then 2/3d of the things mentioned are things that can be easily adressed for why they are not there.

 

[antonis]

This guy either can't afford the nMP and is just upset that it's getting so many great reviews, or he completely misunderstands the target market and workflow/action set for this machine. Glad mine is coming this week.

I would say it a little bit differently: People where expecting this machine to be able to cover more roles than it does, because Apple leaves many gaps open. In every chance, people are constantly asking for a real Mac desktop machine, that they can tune according to their needs. Apple ignores them so far, and did the same with nMP.

Just check how many people where customizing their old MP with PC GPUs, so it could cover a more wide set or roles. All these people are now pushed to switch to PC h/w.



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Video Cards (or luck of some features build into cards for gaming)
- no one should buy this machine just for gaming.

Correction: No one should buy this machine for gaming (removed "just"). It's already obsolete before even delivered, for that matter.

 

[Gonk42]

I hope this one box is not coming to the end and if it is, oh well will look for another used 12core to replace my wives 6 core or will have to start looking at PCs.

I didn't realise that they have polygamy in Canada!

(Sorry - I was idly perusing the forums on Boxing Day.)

 

[haravikk]

The huge expenses, aside from the desk clutter is a major issue.

Again, desk clutter is only really an issue if you let it be; you have the choice of whether to put something on your desk or not.

But that aside, is it really so surprising? With a redesign I was always expecting Apple to reduce the size of the Mac Pro; while I didn't expect them to go quite so far with it, it was always possible they'd switch to 2.5" bays, or reduce the number of 3.5" bays in light of higher capacity drives, while removing the optical bays (losing space that many people use for additional hard drives). So even if they hadn't ditched drive bays entirely like they did, you may have still ended up hunting for an enclosure. I think that expecting Apple to continue with the same design forever, or to retain high internal drive space when not everyone needs it was bound to end in disappointment no matter what Apple did; I did initially hope they'd keep the same size and just ditch at least one optical bay, adding more room for drives, but that hope died as the Mac Pro continued to go without a proper update until a full redesign became inevitable.

I'm just saying that it's a bit like complaining that your FireWire devices don't work with any current Macs (except the Mac Mini, though that's unlikely to last); it was bound to happen eventually. Granted the cost isn't as high to get a Thunderbolt to FireWire adaptor, but I'm not sure anyway was that surprised it happened; same with anyone expecting Apple to keep space for two 2.5" drive bays in the next Mac Mini, as personally I think it's unlikely, though they may keep room for an SSD blade. But should these people be surprised when they can't move two 2.5" drives over to the next Mac Mini? I don't think so.

 

[wildmac]

Well that's the problem. Barefeats always tests After Effects, Photoshop, Crysis, World of Warcraft, and all the top games they can get their hands on, NONE of which are optimized for those GPUs, so their 3.5Ghz 2013 iMac will beat the Mac Pro in every gaming result. However, TheVerge's review is probably the best for my purposes as it was aimed at video editors. Once Adobe CC is optimized over the next few months, it'll trounce the old Mac Pros, no question.

At least for WoW, I think the nMP will do ok, since it's more of memory hog that other resource hog, and that's the only game I care about.

You make a good point about Adobe CC, and while i'm still on 5.5, this is something to think about that will eventually make me bit that bitter CC pill. (Allthough I actually care more about LR, and I am current on that, so should see the improvements there when they update.).

But still, Barefeats will be more useful to many than all this Geekbench byte-peeping.

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For people that are switching from 1.1 or 2.1 MP because their computer are on the last leg, it makes sense, or for those that are switching from a mac mini or older iMac it also does. But for those that are switching from 5.1 or 4.1 or 6 core or dual processor and they are buying base 6 core or 4 core it doesn't make sense as the 4.1 and 5.1 would still be faster unless they are buying those new MP minis for looks and that is OK.

If you had added this qualifier in the beginning, 5 pages of flaming could have been saved...

Even the fans of the nMP would admit that many with a 4,1 or 5,1 currently might not benefit hugely from a nMP yet, depending on their config.

 

[ljmac]

And for me, disappointment was lack of a companion display![/QUOTE]

This!

 

[DesterWallaboo]

No NVIDIA option. I need CUDA support for my work unfortunately.

We use CUDA for our Adobe apps. But Adobe has said that they plan to move off of CUDA and move to full OpenCL implementation on future products. So for us this is a winning situation.

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I'd say that internal storage is pretty much a non-issue for most pro-users. Most pro setups aren't storing their projects internally anyway. Most studios, like ours, are running SAN setups. We will be running some external RAIDs (which we prefer anyway) on some workstations as well.

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What I see a LOT of on these nMP posts is sour grapes from people that a) cannot afford one , b) don't know the difference between workstation setup needs/requirements and consumer setups, and c) likely wouldn't use the power of the machine anyway,

 

[beaker7]

What I see a LOT of on these nMP posts is sour grapes from people that a) cannot afford one , b) don't know the difference between workstation setup needs/requirements and consumer setups, and c) likely wouldn't use the power of the machine anyway,

Yeah that must be it.

For the most part the nMP debate consists of people arrogantly projecting their own needs as the only ones that are 'correct' and 'pro' in a desperate and hilarious attempt at affirming their own beliefs. Human nature, though, so no real surprise. It's what the internet is for.

 

[Macsonic]

Again, desk clutter is only really an issue if you let it be; you have the choice of whether to put something on your desk or not.

But that aside, is it really so surprising? With a redesign I was always expecting Apple to reduce the size of the Mac Pro; while I didn't expect them to go quite so far with it, it was always possible they'd switch to 2.5" bays, or reduce the number of 3.5" bays in light of higher capacity drives, while removing the optical bays (losing space that many people use for additional hard drives). So even if they hadn't ditched drive bays entirely like they did, you may have still ended up hunting for an enclosure. I think that expecting Apple to continue with the same design forever, or to retain high internal drive space when not everyone needs it was bound to end in disappointment no matter what Apple did; I did initially hope they'd keep the same size and just ditch at least one optical bay, adding more room for drives, but that hope died as the Mac Pro continued to go without a proper update until a full redesign became inevitable.

I'm just saying that it's a bit like complaining that your FireWire devices don't work with any current Macs (except the Mac Mini, though that's unlikely to last); it was bound to happen eventually. Granted the cost isn't as high to get a Thunderbolt to FireWire adaptor, but I'm not sure anyway was that surprised it happened; same with anyone expecting Apple to keep space for two 2.5" drive bays in the next Mac Mini, as personally I think it's unlikely, though they may keep room for an SSD blade. But should these people be surprised when they can't move two 2.5" drives over to the next Mac Mini? I don't think so.

Hi Haravikk The new Mac Pro somehow was meant for a specific, smaller pro users market whose work is GPU intensive and needed dual cards and having the budget to buy. I mentioned from a previous post, about pro users having various setups and needs. It so happens with the new MPro's cost and configuration and being a first generation, new OSX, it did not fit my workflow.

Out of curiosity, will you be getting the NMac Pro 3.7ghz quad or the 6 core 3.5ghz? I think the clock speed between 3.5ghz and 3.7ghz is incremental and the hexcore would be the better choice.

 

[prfrma]

The six and the eight core turbo boost to the same as the 4 core anyway.

 

[wallysb01]

Its a question and not the war

So, for now we have:
Price
-subjective

I wouldn’t say its subjective. Its dependent on your use. If you need CPU cores and not 2xGPUs, its a pretty terrible deal. If 4-6 fast CPU cores and you can use 2xGPUs, its at least a decent deal.

Expandability
-for 90% of users the thunderbolt ports will be enough

“90%”.....“enough”....you pulled that from where?

Storage
- will be adressed as larger pcie ssd's become available

Going from 1TB to 1.5 or 2TB over the next 2-3 years isn’t going to really matter.

Internal Bays
- the oMp also had 4? You can now get 8/16 (and more) external and there will be no speed difference.

Until we actually see these things running, its impossible to know for sure. There is some chance of bottle necking issues with those PCI lanes.

Video Cards (or luck of some features build into cards for gaming)
- no one should buy this machine just for gaming.

I think you’re missing the whole CUDA thing...

Multiple CPU options
- first real thing that they should have given an option to. (But probably not possible due to the design)

Agreed.

Ram limitation do to single CPU (4 vs 8 slots)
- is coherent to the "want" above.

If you need, and I mean NEED, 128GB of RAM, you currently have to buy 4x32GB sticks. Go price that out relative to 8x16GBs... And why doesn’t OSX allow more RAM anyway? Is there a real reason OSX couldn’t have 1TB of RAM?

More then 2/3d of the things mentioned are things that can be easily adressed for why they are not there.

That numbers really just about 1/3 or less. It would appear you just don’t really understand people that have uses different than yours.

 

[Quash]

It is apple being apple, though they are most definitely not always right.

This is not the form factor the workstations. This form factor results in compromises in performance due to design, and removal from heat. Single CPU and dual gpu is also very limited/wasted configuration for an industry that does bit just do video editing.

The new Mac Pro is a very good looking one trick pony for video editing, not the form factor for workstations in the future.

These form factors have been done before, look at shuttle cps, they have had 1xcpu and 2xgpu for years. Just cause apple does a sexy version of a shuttle case, does not mean the industry will follow lol.

I was referring to removing internal storage bays/disc burners. These are surely gonna be gone soon enough. You can of course debate if it's 2,3 or 5 years...

On the dual gpu cards on all workstation the are indeed taking a leap.
I wouldn't call it a one trick pony but it's certainly a bet on GPU Compute becoming more important. I think they are right but i agree it might not pan out for a lot of use cases.

Would have been nice if they offered two types of models one with dual gpu, one cpu. And one with 2 cpu's and 1 GPU. But that's probably not an investment they were willing to make. Since they probably sold a lot more of the single CPU model the last couple of years. Mostly the 6 core 3.33 model i guess.

 

[wallysb01]

Would have been nice if they offered two types of models one with dual gpu, one cpu. And one with 2 cpu's and 1 GPU. But that's probably not an investment they were willing to make. Since they probably sold a lot more of the single CPU model the last couple of years. Mostly the 6 core 3.33 model i guess.

I wonder, if users had the option to have a single CPU, single GPU nMP (with reduced TB ports) and priced $2500 or less, how would sales vs. the duel GPU look?