I'm contrary too. I'd rather roll my own to get exactly what I need at any particular point in time.
Plus, I have enough systems; just not enough OctaneRender GPUs, Topper.
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Why are you NOT buying a nMP?
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I'm contrary too. I'd rather roll my own to get exactly what I need at any particular point in time.
Plus, I have enough systems; just not enough OctaneRender GPUs, Topper.
I surmise that you, as do I, have the early Titans (GK110A) that don't raise an OCL stink with Mavericks like the new Titans and 780Ti's (GK110B). You're welcome to purchase 30 more Titans, then you'll have 4 times as many as me. I'm in a holding pattern for Titans because, for what I use them for - 3d rendering, an EVGA GTX 780 Ti SC ACX is 1.32 times faster. I'll be running my EVGA GTX 780 Ti SC ACXs only under Windows for the time being. This discussion about GPUs brings to mind another reason that I'm not getting a nMP - it'll cost me more money to add CUDA cards. Moreover, I've built each of my 32-core Supermicro System-8047R-7RFT+ systems with (A) 15 Terabytes of storage, (B) 128 gigs of ram, (C) 32 fast, but cool, tweaked CPU cores, and 2 CUDA/Octane Render GPUs, for less than the cost of the top of the line nMP. I like the fact that I can put one together and tweak these Supermicro systems to emulate underclocking behavior [just as I did on my two EVGA SR-2s (1366 motherboards with dual 5680s where I get Geekbench 2 scores in excess of 40,000 - one currently houses 4 GTX 680 SCs and the other 4 GTX 580Cs)]. From cracking open the boxes to booting into the OS takes 2-3 hours. Plus, I like the price - under $9K.
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I picked up another old mac pro (12core, 2012) after seeing a ship-date of February appear on my nMP purchase screen.
After looking at some other threads on here I figure I should throw a new GTX 780 (hadn't realized how easy the install seems, need cuda anyway) in the box and it actually seems like maybe I made the better choice after looking at nMP benchmarks showing up today which seem to be kind of crap..
Never did like the idea that I'd be stuck with precious few upgrade options on the cylinder.
After looking at some other threads on here I figure I should throw a new GTX 780 (hadn't realized how easy the install seems, need cuda anyway) in the box and it actually seems like maybe I made the better choice after looking at nMP benchmarks showing up today which seem to be kind of crap..
Never did like the idea that I'd be stuck with precious few upgrade options on the cylinder.
Looking at selective benchmarks and not understanding the full context is always a bad idea.
I'd be curious to hear the 'full context' of cnets review showing an 8100$ 8core nMP outperforming a 4core (quoted at 3500$) frag box by 27% in cinebench. Frag box is obviously not a pro machine, but still. CPU performance just looks totally underwhelming.
The gpu performance when the bugs are worked out will probably be extremely high, but no cuda...
It seems almost as if the nMP was created solely for FCP-X users.
It's a synthetic benchmark score. What percentage were you expecting? 40%? 50%? I am curious what would have made it a good increase in your eyes? 13.62 vs 9.89 is miles ahead
The frag box is over-clocked, by the way
Why not? Answer in my sig. I use my Mac Pro for hobby photography, NOT video editing. I have no need for dual FirePros and I sure as hell am not going to blow $6K on a computer when an $1000 Hackintosh would do everything I need in one neat box on my desk.
The nMP is even more of a nich product than the old MP. I'll be surprised if it's still around in three years.
The nMP is even more of a nich product than the old MP. I'll be surprised if it's still around in three years.
Based on the orders we have just taken from 2 clients (105 units)and the dozens of quotes I had to put out last week, these boxes are already a hit with businesses. Looking at your usage you would be the last person I would recommend buy a new Mac Pro when your needs would be served by any model of iMac, god, even a Mac mini would do you. Imagine the money you would save on electrical consumption alone.
Building a PC is a pretty simple, take the specs of the high end iMac, add a desktop GPU to it, lots of SATA III ports and internal bays, and there you go. I'd prefer a used Mac Pro tower since I can more easily run OS X on it, but once that option is gone, a hackintosh is a better solution than the nMP for me.
If you're needs differ, then buy whatever you like. Nobody is stopping you.
I know how simple building a PC is, but I asked you a question: please post the specs of your $1000 hackintosh.
I would've expected at least double the fragbox (it's more than double the price).
But more importantly, Apple had been suggesting almost double the performance of the 2012s, so I had hoped midrange to midrange. I.e. a multicore geekbench cpu performance around 30k. When in reality the midrange was / is hitting 18-20K.
The GPU is obviously a different story, but again being stuck without an nvidia option there is a real problem.
And I look around and find more bad news:
http://www.marco.org/2013/11/26/new-mac-pro-cpus
A 2012 12core mac pro with 2 GTX 780s is decently cheaper and I'm betting outperform the 8100$ rig by a long shot + the drivers are well supported.
Doing all this research on it now I'm glad the shipping was delayed.
Sure, an iMac would work, but I prefer to use my own monitor and I like to upgrade components from time to time. Adding a larger drive to an iMac is not a pleasant experience.
The graphics processing on the Mini is probably good enough, though some plugins can use a faster GPU. I'm actually interesting in seeing what Apple does with the next Mac Mini - I may sell my tower and buy one. My guess is that Apple removes the drive bays, but its a cheap enough computer that I don't mind buying more external storage to use with it.
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You're missing the point: for "prosumers" who want a desktop Mac, a hackintosh desktop is a relatively cheap option that may be more appealing once used MP towers are obsolete.
Or maybe by that time desktop computers will no longer be available. But I sorta doubt it. People like desktop towers because having all computer components in a single box is a tidy and practical solution.
I am not sure I am following. What bad news did you see in Marco's explanation of turbo boost in Intel's latest Xeon CPUs?
You seem to be really bent on pointless synthetic benchmarks like Geekbench. The new Mac Pro outperforms the previous Mac Pro in Geekbench yet you are betting that it will outperform the latest Mac Pro?
What boxes? You mean the 2013 Mac Pros?
How are the sales compared to the introductions of the Nehalem or Westmere models?
The Turbo looks pretty so-so, not Apple's fault but seems they could've offered better options on the processors.
6-core 3.5 | 3.9 3.7 3.7 3.7 3.6 3.6
And..
15” RMBP 2.6 | 3.8 3.7 3.6 3.6
27” iMac 3.5 | 3.9 3.9 3.8 3.7
nMP 4-core 3.7 | 3.9 3.7 3.7 3.7
And the midrange nMP is performing pretty close (depending on the rig - slower) to the 12core 2012s for much higher prices.
Not to mention that apparently the Firepros are likely some variant of 7970s, again a card that when bought stock is way outperformed by the GTX 780. Something that seems to turn up when you look at the comparison of the nMP to the iMac housing a GTX 780m.
Another question is why would businesses buy the four core nMP when it's likely outperformed across the board by the cheaper iMac?
Lots of questions..
There's more to performance than max turbo boost clock speeds.
I cannot speak for all businesses, but I abhor desktop computers stuck the back of a monitor.
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assuming one has a task that can actually use multi cores at lets say 50% per core then I look at it this way...
The 15" RMBP will only do 34W TDP and will not be at its turbo speed anymore - 2.6 is much slower than 3.5
The 27: imac is 84W TDP - will hang longer at turbo but will eventually fall back to 3.5 still pretty good
The nMP is 134W TDP with the best heat sink of them all and will stay up there longer and 3.7 is still the fastest of the bunch
While I agree the 27" vs nMP Quad is more of a push --
Once one gets to the HEX and beyond the amount of parallel power is big. If you can use it is great - if not - its a waste
So to answer the original question --
I am NOT buying a nMP because I am not close to maxing out my Quad imac. The nMP would be no faster than my current solution.
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I've been following nMP for years, but after all the hoopla I've ended up with a decision to keep my current MP for at least another year or two.
Why: the one I want today would cost at least 6-8K and then I have to get new RAID boxes instead of the external ones I have now that are not TB models, that would eat up another 3-4K at least.
So I just don't see 10 grand of speed improvement for what I do. I do limited professional photography and yes my machine is slow compared, but it gets it done, and the video editing I do my machine can also accomplish. I'm not doing 4K video.
Basically I'm a high end prosumer/low end pro and I can't pay the cost of this and financially with the economy how it is right now I'm cutting back on luxury purchases (pre-Obama I would have bought it just 'cause, but my taxes are through the roof).
Why: the one I want today would cost at least 6-8K and then I have to get new RAID boxes instead of the external ones I have now that are not TB models, that would eat up another 3-4K at least.
So I just don't see 10 grand of speed improvement for what I do. I do limited professional photography and yes my machine is slow compared, but it gets it done, and the video editing I do my machine can also accomplish. I'm not doing 4K video.
Basically I'm a high end prosumer/low end pro and I can't pay the cost of this and financially with the economy how it is right now I'm cutting back on luxury purchases (pre-Obama I would have bought it just 'cause, but my taxes are through the roof).
The problem is that these "people that like desktop towers" are a dying breed. If they weren't, then companies would be lining up to sell them tower boxes. Sales figures show that the number of people interested in this is falling every year.
I think I'm just gonna stick to upgrading my 2010 Mac Pro.
For under $2,000 I can add:
- GTX 780
- 2x PCIe SSDs in a RAID-0 Stripe (1200 MB/s)
- And some more RAM
That ought to provide the machine with at least an extra 2 years of useful life, possibly more. I'll acknowledge that the nMP is likely faster, but I don't think it'll be that much faster.
The other reason is internal storage. I currently have 16TB of storage in my 2010 Mac Pro. In the long run I will have to migrate that to external storage, but I might as well continue to use it while I can.
And the cherry on top prompting me to do this? When I do eventually upgrade I can take the expensive PCIe SSDs with me using a Thunderbolt enclosure
For under $2,000 I can add:
- GTX 780
- 2x PCIe SSDs in a RAID-0 Stripe (1200 MB/s)
- And some more RAM
That ought to provide the machine with at least an extra 2 years of useful life, possibly more. I'll acknowledge that the nMP is likely faster, but I don't think it'll be that much faster.
The other reason is internal storage. I currently have 16TB of storage in my 2010 Mac Pro. In the long run I will have to migrate that to external storage, but I might as well continue to use it while I can.
And the cherry on top prompting me to do this? When I do eventually upgrade I can take the expensive PCIe SSDs with me using a Thunderbolt enclosure
Absolutely. Another point is that outside of us computer geeks, very few people who do buy towers actually upgrade them. The upgradability is a feature that helps sell the tower but is never put to use. I think part of this is due to Windows requiring driver downloads which often result in further complications, but even most Mac Pro users I know don't modify the original configuration on their towers except for maybe adding more HDDs.
I just wish Apple would give home users something for the desktop between the Mac Mini and the Mac Pro. I find the Mini design to be colossally stupid (expensive laptop components in a desktop, inaccessible SATA drive bays) and the new Mac Pro to be absurd overkill even for many professionals. Mac users need a headless iMac in a form factor somewhere between the Mini and the Pro - a way to purchase high end consumer hardware that isn't sandwiched onto the back of a display.
My plasma TV Machine doesn't have an AVR glommed onto the back of it, so why should my computer monitor have a computer fused onto the back of it?
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Right on! I'd bet that in 2020 upgraded macpro5,1s will still be used profesionally. It's cool that one can load up the lower ODD bay with SSDs and leave room for four 3.5" spinners below. That's a $1500 option on the nMP, lol!
Yes, I know there are quite a few people wishing for something like this - the fabled xMac - to plug the gap in the line up. There must be business reasons driving Apple's decision to not create something like this though.
I think that's just Apple's method -- keep model line-up to its minimums. They've had that mentality for years. I mean, it took 6 years before they had 2 new iPhone models at the same time. They cut back the 17" MacBook Pro many people loved. Tim Cook was streamlining the production pipeline long before he took over as CEO.
On one hand, it would be nice to have more options. On the other hand, the more models they offer, the longer it takes them to refresh them. Look how long the Mac Pro took. And no word in the Mac Mini yet. If there was another model, people would be frustrated that it's not Haswell yet and what's taking Apple so long and why is everything about iOS!