No. This'll be a terrible gaming machine unless you get the D700, which is too expensive for gaming.
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What REALLY is the difference between FirePro and consumer?
- Thread starter Cubemmal
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No. This'll be a terrible gaming machine unless you get the D700, which is too expensive for gaming.
A $3000 computer with two one-generation old Fire Pro cards, no crossfire in OS X, and no ability to drop in the latest GPUs. It's safe to say the nMP is very far from being what gaming consumers want.
Even the current MP at $2500 was a fairly bad deal for gamers, but at least you could sell the 2-generations old 5770 to partially fund a better card, drop it in, and have OS X without Hackintoshing.
Also, the extra cost required to upgrade from the D300 to the D700 will likely be more than it'd cost you to just build yourself a more capable gaming PC.
Well, that's not an option though. Nobody wants two different computers side by side and switch from one to the other every now and then.
Careful, there are a lot of people who will take you seriously
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That's exactly what I do, works great! (see my sig)
'Nobody'? I sure do. I used to do everything from a single Mac Pro, but saving/quitting my work to reboot to play games got old in a hurry. With a dedicated gaming PC, I don't have to worry if my Mac Pro will work properly with aftermarket cards/pay Apple's absurd markup for video cards, nor do I have to interrupt things in OS X when I want to play. Plus, I can leave Steam running on the PC so every game is always up to date. Sure, I could use Steam in OS X if I was willing to accept decreased performance and decreased selection, but I'm not. I don't have to screw around with Boot Camp drivers either.
There were tons of advantages to having a seperate gaming machine with the tower Mac Pro, and there will be more with the new Mac Pro. At least I was able to upgrade the video card in my current Mac Pro, something we will likely be unable to do in the future. If I hadn't already built myself a gaming PC years ago, I sure would now.
Actually, with the nMP being a terrible choice for gaming, there will probably be a rise in dual-rig configurations.
What? Price wise the Mac Pro may not be the best choice for gaming, but for performance it'll be just fine. Why would I want to blow another few thousand on a gaming rig when my Mac Pro would have similar performance? Might as well just throw money in a pile and burn it.
Apple has already said the PCIe SSD will be user upgradable.
His claim was that TB can run a hard drive "out of the box" whereas PCIe can't. If anything, the opposite is true.
It won't be good for gaming at all. One off drivers from apple or firepro on the pc side. Neither is a pretty picture if you want to game.
The FirePros bench the same as the consumer variants, and the Mac Pro supports Boot Camp with Crossfire just fine, even though the Mavericks AMD drivers are excellent.
Looks like a pretty picture to me.
"Limitations" were what I was addressing--the only thing limited was Apple's previous hardware offering, not the rest of the market or the technology. Therefore Apple was only really "limited" by their past reluctance to provide a market-level professional-grade product.
Apple could've popped the "Apple Spice" EFI into a decent Workstation motherboard and would've had 24 cores ( over 2 processors) with 8 PCIe slots divvying 80GBps worth of lovin that would make the nMP look like a children's toy....
Which it is, according to some users who promote it
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Consumer variants from 2 years ago or more.
That's only if Apple offers a bridge or Crossfire works over PCIe with these cards.
.... Neither are things you know for sure, and many doubt.
Unless you have a source.
"Limitations" were what I was addressing--the only thing limited was Apple's previous hardware offering, not the rest of the market or the technology. Therefore Apple was only really "limited" by their past reluctance to provide a market-level professional-grade product.
Apple could've popped the "Apple Spice" EFI into a decent Workstation motherboard and would've had 24 cores ( over 2 processors) with 8 PCIe slots divvying 80GBps worth of lovin that would make the nMP look like a children's toy....
Which it is, according to some users who promote it
I think the problem is they wouldn't have sold many. Apple's likely betting that if they sell something fundamentally different than Dell or HP they'll get more sales.
It might be a risky bet, but half the people on this forum were already threatening to buy Dell or HP anyway, so what does Apple gain from appeasing those folk?
If the D700's are priced anything like their retail counterparts (w9000, which is $3,500), the price is going to be multiple thousands more than a gaming PC with power far greater than the best-case scenario, which is this:
- D700's clock the same as the W9000's (not going to happen)
- Dx00's can be run in Crossfire (ZERO evidence this is going to be the case)
- The PSU is > 450Watts so it doesn't have to downclock the GPU or CPU (Apple says it's 450W, but who you gonna believe, right?)
Even if all those planets align, it's going to be thoroughly trounced by a top of the line $1900 Gaming PC with Dual GTX780's
So why "burn a couple thousand" on a gaming rig? Because that's still likely less money with way better performance than the D700 and it can easily and readily be upgraded. That's why. If the D700 can't do crossfire, gaming is really going to be pathetic on the nMP--basically the same gaming experience as standard high-end single GPU system from 2 years ago.
Yes, the D300 or D500 will be "just fine" for gaming, probably not quite as good as an iMac, but "fine."
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So maybe the "limitation" is that Apple users are silly form over function weirdos that wouldn't buy a high-powered product unless it's in a pretty box?
Not saying that's untrue, just linking it into Schiller's "limitation" comment
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Sure they bench the same. It's rather similar hardware on the boards. Do the firepro drivers on either mac or pc side optimize for gaming? I guess I just want something that is optimal for gaming when I go out and shop for a gaming rig. Seems to make sense.
No.
both older , current , and upcoming Mac Pros are not optimized for games.
If primarily looking for a gaming rig, then looking in the wrong place.
One generation old? Where are the newer generation AMD FirePros than the W7000-9000 series ?
As much as folks moan and groan about Intel's progress both AMD and Nvidia discrete graphics divisions are moving in even slower motion. The K40 Nvidia is chest thumping about this week? The same GK110 with all of the units turned on finally.
AMD will probably do some GCN 1.1 ( which again from a graphics perspective is largely just fully enabling the architecture design that is already released. ) around mid 2014 for FirePro.
There is no tick/tock progressions. Far more rebadging of the same stuff with some modest clock speed bumps sprinkled in.
The realities are that the ultra performance GPUs that AMD and Nvidia discrete businesses sell are relatively much bigger than most of the rest of the stuff heading for next processes. So the smaller stuff, which can leverage the lower yield better are going to get there first. Second, the overall business isn't so good that these two can keep overlapping pipelines of design teams allocated to keeping up with a tick/tock yearly pace. So the architectures are increasing being streched longer. So get lots of rebadges and slow rolled rollouts to pass the time.
Actually, closer to 400 watts - Apple is describing the power consumed from the wall, not the power delivered to the components. 90% efficiency is very good for a PSU, so 400 watts is a better estimate for the power available to the components.
Gee, a cheap Dell consumer mini-tower has a 400 watt PSU....
Perhaps he was referring to these facts:
GK104 and 7970(Tahiti) were closely matched.
Quadro K5000 was Pro GK104, FirePro D500-700 are Tahiti
Nvidia's GK104 successor was GK110, AMD's Tahiti Successor is Hawaii
Nvidia has been selling a Pro GK110 for some time now (as you pointed out)
AMD has no Hawaii Pro cards, yet.
So, while you can run latest GK110 based Pro Cards in an OLD Mac Pro, you are stuck with previous (compared to current Tech) GPU Pro cards in nMP.
Nvidia has been pretty regular about knocking AMD down and taking their candy.
The fact that you can already put better GPUs in OLD MP than any amount of dollar burning will get you in nMP is rather significant and just more Nvidia leaving AMD for dead.
Nobody chants "We're number 2! "
There is no way the D700 BTO is going to be a $7000, or even $3500 upgrade.
By that logic the D500 should be a $1480 or more (2xW7000's) upgrade and its not, its more like $640 when you subtract the processor and ram additions to the hex over the quad.
The D700 is probably over $1000 BTO, but I would bet under $2000 for the pair, unless they plan on selling next to none.
By that logic the D500 should be a $1480 or more (2xW7000's) upgrade and its not, its more like $640 when you subtract the processor and ram additions to the hex over the quad.
The D700 is probably over $1000 BTO, but I would bet under $2000 for the pair, unless they plan on selling next to none.
Actually, closer to 360 watts - Dell is describing the power consumed from the wall, not the power delivered to the components. 90% efficiency is very good for a PSU, so 360 watts is a better estimate for the power available to the components.
Or something like that.
You're actually wrong here.
I'm reading from the PSU in the unit - which sums the products of the currents and voltages on the different rails.
Apple's 450 watts from the wall (and probably about 400 to the components) is strangely out of line with the components and performance that Apple claims. Perhaps the 450 watt consumption is for the base quad core system, and higher end configs have bigger power supplies and higher consumptions.
There's not much space between the DIMMs on the Mac Mini Pro for a 1000 w power supply, though.
Yeah, somewhere around here is the "2 + 2 =3" thread I started about this.
As I stated there:
1. Apple uses bigger PSU in 12 core/D700 machine.
2. Apple throttles the heck out of everything and keeps it under 450 Watts
Because any 3rd option involves magic/perpetual motion machine type stuff.
I really think people are missing the significance of the "If a CPU or GPU isn't using all of it's thermal capacity another one can take advantage of EXTRA thermal capacity" (I have paraphrased from memory)
That phrase tells you something. TO ME it sounds like trying to run all 3 at max is going to see the Gigaflops curve droop like licorice in the sun.