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Why are you NOT buying a nMP?
- Thread starter avemestr
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I work in 3D for a living. The big selling point of dual GPUs with OpenCL doesn't do much for 3D work (which is why I'm not upgrading), but the statement that you can get a lot more for a lot less money is simply untrue, and you should probably stop saying that. Or do yourself a favor and prove it. If you go the used Mac Pro route, like I did at home, you're simply getting kind of similar performance for far less money. We just purchased some HP Z820 workstations at the studio, switching from Mac Pros. The HPs are more expensive, I think closer to $12,000 per machine. More computer? Yes, in some ways. Less money? Not even close.
yeah.. '3D work' is very broad.. especially when considering modeling/drawing wants fast clock speed and rendering wants lots of cores.. they fight each other and these two elements are often found within a single program..
dunno, if you ask me, these things are awesome for 3D work ala industrial design/arch viz/ architecture/ etc.. and much of the software is coming to or has already come to mac.. i just don't see the "if you want to do serious architecture work, you have to use windows" thing lasting too much longer.
i'm not really sure what 'better' solution is out there right now.. there are alternates of course but 'better' becomes questionable (assuming you're not using catia and the likes)
CPU swaps are not too hard on that machine. You could upgrade to a 6-core W3680. That will be faster than the current 4-cores, though not by much. And the BTO i7 iMac is going to be about exactly the same as, or even a little faster than, the 4-core nMP if your software wont use those GPUs....
To me it sounded like hes referencing the duel GPUs not being that useful to him and thus he can get more machine for him for less cash. And thats not even remotely hard to prove. HP can give you the 1650v2 in the z420 for about $2100 (after the ever standing 20% off). Then you can add your own 16GB of RAM for $200 and pick up a few SSDs for another ~$100/128GBs and your on your way with the same system minus the 2xGPUs for $1000+ less than what Apple sells.
The nMPs will get up there in price fully configured, but $12K is well out of reach without some seriously stupid BTO options. The maxed out CPU and GPUs will look like about $7500. 64GB of RAM can be done for $600 at newegg and the 1TB SSD is $800. So youre still looking at about $9K.
At HP, you can get the z820 with 2x10 core 2660v2s 2xW9000s and still be well under $10K at $7.2K after 20% off. That leave a lot of room for what ever other configurations you need for this mini-cluster of z820s you got, including RAM and disks. And the HP will have both better CPU and GPU crunching power than the top BTO nMP.....
Now let's be serious here the iMac is a severely heat-constrained device. You won't be able to do 4 hour renders or transcodes with 100% CPU and get much turbo going. It's just not made for it. Not only that, you'll shorten the lifespan of the thing. But the Mac Pro is made for that. The difference between the two may be negligible on 2 minute benchmarks, but if you're talking about big tasks, the Mac Pro will excel.
I just built an i7 based computer for 2k.
I can spec it out on pcpartpicker.com for you if you'd like.
I have zero need or use for a Xeon proc or ECC ram.
I'm not like a pro computer builder or anything. I just sourced out all the bits I wanted. Ordered them on Amazon and built it that weekend. Problem solved except for what to do with the 999 bucks I saved.
I highly doubt that...
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Not to mention the difference in memory bus, and other differences.
Although you may have saved "999 bucks" you originally stated that you can get a "whole lot more computer" for less. Just because you have no need for EEC Ram or Xeon processors...doesn't equal more computer and saving you $1000. The only way someone can actually claim an item is more computer for less and vice versa would be to actually do a line by line comparison for equal or nearly equal parts directly to an individual vs. a prebuilt computer. That is as if someone were to say a car is a car and you can get more car for less. If we were to substitute car 1 with a Ford and car b with a Lexus...you can say both cars or trucks will get you to point a and b but you can't say a Ford Focus will be more of a car than a V8 Lexus.
None of this is to say that the system you built isn't high performing but just the statement that you can get more computer for less than another isn't really fair if you are skipping out on parts in a prebuilt machine that you have no need for...ergo leave out of your build.
I just see a black box that makes money man. The black box I have in front of me makes me money better than my old black box. This black box is better than the black round tube that Apple is offering for what I've got to do and it was cheaper.
You shouldn't put so much stock into "reviews"; almost every product will have good ones and bad ones. If you go in with that strategy, you'll never buy anything.
http://www.amazon.com/Compatible-Wi...&qid=1387343963&sr=8-1&keywords=orico+usb+3.0
I've put about ten of these into Mac Pros. Not a single issue. You just need to feed it power of course. The two port version doesn't require power.
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My reasons for not buying a nMP:
- Currently have a 4,1-5,1 6-core w/32GB RAM, USB3, and a couple GPUs that still meet my needs well
- I have two mini-SAS RAID boxes attached via an x8 lane Areca RAID card which is much faster than TB2
- TB2 still uses an x4 lane switch, and there are no affordable devices to aggregate TB ports yet
- I'd also have to buy an expensive external TB expansion chassis just to make it work at half speed
- I have four HDDs and two SSDs internally, and don't want to put them a third external box
- My 2012 MacBook Pro has more internal storage than a nMP can handle, with a pair of Samsung SSDs (256GB 840Pro & 1TB 840Evo)
- I'm attempting to bypass TB and TB2, waiting for a replacement for PCIe that can do x8 lanes or better
- Waiting to see what can actually be user-serviced/upgraded on a nMP by letting others guinea-pig with it
- Still have clients that need Blu-rays burned, which I do with my current MP internally (film festivals)
- Unimpressed with the design that has no 'front-facing' ports or power button, forcing you to spin it with all those cables connected
- Might seem silly to some, but looks like my cat would easily knock it over the first time she brushed up on it
I get you. The great thing about computers...actually for most things...is that nothing is a one size fits all approach. Some people need just a tablet, some need specific software, and some need specific requirements.
On a side note, I like both Windows and Mac (I use both for different purposes) I personally think Apple has a bit of a different price model this time around vs. in previous versions. I find their CPU upgrade (if rumors are true about the cost) to be far higher than they should. At the same time, the GPU prices seem to be much more reasonable.
I distribute all the renders i do across two MPs but I never found their 4 core machines to be quite worth the money for zbrushing and 3d coating and maya-ing. I was hoping that low end nMP would suit my needs, but honestly, that e5v2 is like a 280-320 dollar chip hardly belonging in a 2,999 computer IMHO. The base gpus will have a fair ammount of ram, but the single 780 I'm running still kills that low end dual gpu set up. I've got x79 board which will become a dinosaur with the next gen of ram. The plan is to get one of those ethusiast six cores and swap out the 4820k I got once everybody is on to the new board architecture etc..
With all four cores active you aren’t going to get turbo going with either processor. The iMac has haswell 3.5 vs. the Ivy Bridge 3.5 GHz in base clock. Haswell is about 10% faster, so its more like 3.85 in Ivy Bridge terms. While the iMac is smaller, and less apt for high heat, its also disputing far less of it at 84W. It will probably be louder, but I’d really like to see someone put the two heads up in a long term 4-core workload and actually show me the difference. This isn’t the old power-PC iMacs, the cooling has much improved.
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Ok............
1. End of life Architecture. Haswell-E and DDR4 are coming in 6 months.
2. Not enough choice in configuration. Two GPU wether you need them or not, single CPU only, only four DIMM, no PCIe slots, no Hard Disk bays, Only one SSD.
3. Thunderbolt is not a replacement for PCIe. Thunderbolt is only 20Gb/s per port, a single x16 PCIe slot is 126Gb/s - The price of just a thunderbolt "device" is 2-3x more than a PCIe add-in card with the same functionality would be.
4. I don't want a squid on my desk. I don't want all these things dangling off the back of my Mac Pro each with their own power outlets. Cables, cables everywhere!!
I really just don't know who this product is for. A very strange individual with a lot of self defeating requirements in their computing. Fast enough to offer 12 cores, but slow enough to require two CPU's, fast enough to need dual GPU's but not fast enough to need dual CPU's, needs fast storage but only 1TB. Someone who needs up to 64GB of RAM but not 128GB or 256GB now or in the future.
It's just .... strange.
2. Not enough choice in configuration. Two GPU wether you need them or not, single CPU only, only four DIMM, no PCIe slots, no Hard Disk bays, Only one SSD.
3. Thunderbolt is not a replacement for PCIe. Thunderbolt is only 20Gb/s per port, a single x16 PCIe slot is 126Gb/s - The price of just a thunderbolt "device" is 2-3x more than a PCIe add-in card with the same functionality would be.
4. I don't want a squid on my desk. I don't want all these things dangling off the back of my Mac Pro each with their own power outlets. Cables, cables everywhere!!
I really just don't know who this product is for. A very strange individual with a lot of self defeating requirements in their computing. Fast enough to offer 12 cores, but slow enough to require two CPU's, fast enough to need dual GPU's but not fast enough to need dual CPU's, needs fast storage but only 1TB. Someone who needs up to 64GB of RAM but not 128GB or 256GB now or in the future.
It's just .... strange.
Because unless they release a new version of Logic Pro that's re-architected to take advantage of OpenCL, the new Mac Pro is just not a cost-effective machine for audio engineering work. I don't think it's a very cost-effective machine for anything but video editing, and that seems to be the only people Apple had in mind when they designed this. That's besides the extreme dislike of the form factor that requires a mess of external devices. I mean, at least that I could deal with.
But my 2008 Mac Pro octo-core is showing its age; the Firewire bus died and had to buy a 3rd-party card to get my Ensemble working again. And its old RAM is too expensive now to really boost that. I don't really know what I'm going to do, as I refuse to go back to Windows and spend half my time fixing device conflicts and random issues. Yeah, I could pick up a current-model MP on the cheap, but that would just be treading water with old tech. Not a good long-term investment.
Honestly, I feel a bit like Apple has turned its back on most of the pro community except for the video editors. And it's not a good feeling to be ignored by the company you've given thousands and thousands of dollars to over the years.
But my 2008 Mac Pro octo-core is showing its age; the Firewire bus died and had to buy a 3rd-party card to get my Ensemble working again. And its old RAM is too expensive now to really boost that. I don't really know what I'm going to do, as I refuse to go back to Windows and spend half my time fixing device conflicts and random issues. Yeah, I could pick up a current-model MP on the cheap, but that would just be treading water with old tech. Not a good long-term investment.
Honestly, I feel a bit like Apple has turned its back on most of the pro community except for the video editors. And it's not a good feeling to be ignored by the company you've given thousands and thousands of dollars to over the years.
A bit off topic
Yes I Used this cable from EBay
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/350765247178?ssPageName=STRK:MEWNX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1439.l2649
Connect to an unused Drive Bay motherboard socket adjacent to the card. You need to cut off the end plastic lug of the cable on the Sata side in order to get it into the socket. Alternatively use the spare Drive Bay data connection.
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If you are happy breaking the law then thats great for you. Hope you are not using that in business then.
Ivy E CPUs used in the nMP were just released and many of them are not available in the retail channel yet. Others are only just starting to ship systems with these CPUs.
But it's end of life architecture?
We won't see Haswell E until around the end of 2014.
Firstly I want to state these were my personal reasons for not buying the new Mac Pro but I will explain in depth what I mean exactly on this point you highlighted, just remember you don't need to agree with my reasoning it's just my opinion.
Haswell-E chips have already leaked and engineering samples are out there in the wild. They will be launching in retail in 6 months time.
It doesn't matter when Ivy Bridge-E released because it was late. Intels Consumer socket (LGA 1150) was already on Haswell architecture while Intels Enthusiast/Workstation/Server socket (LGA 2011) was still on Sandy Bridge-E. It was only in September that we finally received Ivy Bridge-E on LGA 2011 and it's already outdated.
What you need to keep in mind is that the high end sockets (LGA 1366, LGA 2011) are on a three year cadence before irrelevancy. LGA 2011 came out in November 2011. It is now December 2013. Haswell-E is coming in 6 months time and will not be using the LGA 2011 socket. It has a brand new socket.
The nMP is just getting in at the end of the sockets life time, has no upgrade path at all and will be outdated in multiple ways in 6 months time (GPU, CPU and Memory).
If you want a nMP and can wait I say pick up the revised model coming next year which will be coming about 5-6 months after Haswell-E launches and still have two more years of CPU upgrades to come on the same socket, plus you'll benefit from DDR4 bandwidth and higher chip densities. We've been using DDR3 for almost a decade already.
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That's a deal!, how'd you score that?Picked up a new 2012 12-core for $1999.
Too hard to resist
It will get me by just fine until nMPv2 is released