Will there be a new Mac Pro in 2015?

[linuxcooldude]

i'm not getting the connection you're tying to make regarding 'upgrading' to a 4-core from an 8-core.. (although if you did that between a 2009 mp and a 2013 mp, it would in fact still be a performance upgrade.. albeit slight in certain areas)

but why aren't you comparing a 2009 8-core to a 2013 8-core.. the performance enhancement between the newer and older becomes much more apparent.. it could definitely be considered an upgrade then.



at least you realize that's nothing but a wild guess

Because some people know that they cannot win their argument on a direct comparison so they have to resort to flim flam. Trouble with comparing prices from 4 years ago do not include inflation, cost of implementing new technology vs old. More performance cost more money.

 

[filmak]

The 2008 MPs had cheaper CPUs and real expensive Ram.
Intel pricing of today, and of 2 years ago, is exactly the opposite.

So shipping a product in 2008 with the basic installed ram was really cheaper.

Even today the prices of nMP cpus are very high.

 

[Bubba Satori]

I have a gut feeling that the release is tied to Thunderbolt 3. Until TB3 ships there will be no new Mac Pro.
The new Cinema Display will almost certainly be TB3 and I would not be surprised if they ship hand in hand.

So, when is TB3 due? From what I know it's now or Q1 2016.

My main workstation died just two weeks ago and I refuse to buy one of the current nMP since it is essentially EOL. So, all I can do is wait and tinker around on my laptop in the meanwhile. It's been over 650 days since the release of the nMP. The longest wait ever as around 685 days.

This is frustrating to the point that after over 20 years with Apple I am looking at a Windoze 10 machine. I'm getting pretty fed up with how they have been handling the entire Mac lineup in recent years. For starters someone needs to explain to Jony Ive that functionality trumps pretty design. He may want to reread the principles of design by his hero Dieter Rams. With Jobso gone there is no one left to keep him on target.

They're available on the new Precision workstations with all the latest Quadros that Dell announced 10/1.
http://www.dell.com/learn/us/en/uscorp1/press-releases/2015-10-01-new-dell-precision-workstations

 

[Melodist]

The 2008 MPs had cheaper CPUs and real expensive Ram.
Intel pricing of today, and of 2 years ago, is exactly the opposite.

So shipping a product in 2008 with the basic installed ram was really cheaper.

Even today the prices of nMP cpus are very high.

Because some people know that they cannot win their argument on a direct comparison so they have to resort to flim flam. Trouble with comparing prices from 4 years ago do not include inflation, cost of implementing new technology vs old. More performance cost more money.

Right but what if I can't get 4-5 years later a machine that's more powerful than my current rig for the same / slightly higher price? And Apple's BTO has always been ridiculous, with charging almost twice as much for a CPU upgrade than the CPU actually costs retail and not deducting the costs from the CPU you don't actually take due to the BTO. That's why I present challenges to Apple and expect a certain level of performance for what you pay.

 

[filmak]

Right but what if I can't get 4-5 years later a machine that's more powerful than my current rig for the same / slightly higher price? And Apple's BTO has always been ridiculous, with charging almost twice as much for a CPU upgrade than the CPU actually costs retail and not deducting the costs from the CPU you don't actually take due to the BTO. That's why I present challenges to Apple and expect a certain level of performance for what you pay.

I understand your pain, but with little patience there will be a new nMP hopefully soon.
Now about your requirements, I don't think that you 're going to see a workstation from Apple , at least in the near future, similar to the old cMP designs.

So if there is not any possibility for you to adapt to their current/new form and external HDs / devices you will have to abandon Apple hardware for something else that you will be (?) satisfied with, but have in mind it will be expensive too, in this class, probably noisy and it will be running other OS.

About BTO, BTO is expensive for sure but the high prices I have mentioned are about retail intel CPUs.

I can ensure you, by first hand experience, that in terms of performance the nMP is certainly a great step up from the 2008 cMP, of course you have to ignore the fact that the GPUs are not upgradeable right now. Anyway I don't think that for your audio processing you have to worry a lot about GPUs performance, even in 5 years from now. (Perhaps I'm mistaking here, I don't know your exact needs).

Imho you won't find the perfect workstation system, there always be some kind of compromises.

The nMP is a very quiet system, and I think this is important for you, very responsive, with really good performance running a great modern OS. You will have to spend more money...

I really like mine... You can wait and judge the next iteration of it...

 

[MacVidCards]

the problem here is that function has a variety of meanings and that a computer has a multitude of functions.

i believe apple does the right thing and singles out a main function of a machine or device and rolls with that..
.the difference with your interpretation of main function is where the disagreement happens.

to you, it seems the most important function of a machine is to survive some sort of stress test / benchmark that has little to no relevance in what apple deems the main function of the machine.. the usability

likewise, just because you can't put two 7970s in a mac pro and have it run at full power for an hour without throttling does not indicate some sort of form over function conflict.. you're the one saying the function of the computer should be hardware that doesn't throttle under high heat but that doesn't make it so (and totally ignoring the fact that these pieces of hardware are designed to throttle.. the machines aren't overheating because of this inherent design).. if someone asks "what is the function of a computer", it's almost embarrassing to think there are people out there that would respond "to post a high furmark score".

there are manufacturers out there that actually do design around that type of stuff as the main function.. the computers which relate more your design principles are in fact being produced.

luckily for both of us, we're offered a choice to buy designs which are more closely suited to accomplish our tasks/functions.. to me, i feel i choose the machines/software which are suited towards the functionality i'm after.. to you, i still can't figure out why, instead of using the computers capable of posting the highest benchmarks, you're continuing to stay within the mac environment..

there was never a time when a mac couldn't be 'beat' by another type of computer.. never.
but you just sit around and complain about that being the case.. "oh.. oh.. dell has a higher benchmark.. it's better"
meh.

You must enjoy typing. Lots of typing, little actually said. If I wasn't in a phone I would grab the quotes further up where you said an iMac wasn't meant to do heavy lifting for extended time, so it lowers clocks, while the nMP was designed to run for hours without throttling. This is what ixxx69 meant by your points always being 10% unsupportable. Now you are saying that a computer shouldn't be expected to run at full speed? Do you understand what happens with rendering? Is there a "only render at 75% of speed to avoid getting too hot and causing yourself electronic discomfort" setting that I don't know about?

Your arguments are disingenuous and illogical. You could actually win an occasional discussion if you didn't always retreat to this level of nonsense. It can't be both things.

Read his advice again, you could be a far more effective agent for Apple PR if you removed the 10% nonsense quotient.

 

[Simon R.]

Just a small sidenote. All this talk about the nMP being "so silent". It might be even more silent than the cMP, but I will say that my cMP is "silent". Silent enough to not bother me at all when composing music three feet from it. And that's with a GT680 gfx card it in too. It just has this very low "flowing" sound, not intrusive at all. Again, the nMP might be even more silent, but noise has IMHO never been a problem on the cMP either - most noise has come from harddrives, and I don't use mechanical harddrives anymore.

 

[JamesPDX]

Just a small sidenote. All this talk about the nMP being "so silent". It might be even more silent than the cMP, but I will say that my cMP is "silent". Silent enough to not bother me at all when composing music three feet from it. And that's with a GT680 gfx card it in too. It just has this very low "flowing" sound, not intrusive at all. Again, the nMP might be even more silent, but noise has IMHO never been a problem on the cMP either - most noise has come from harddrives, and I don't use mechanical harddrives anymore.

Did you get a Thunderbolt 2 and/or a USB 3 card for your cMP? Or is everything inside the box? What's your editing rig?

 

[JamesPDX]

I understand your pain, but with little patience there will be a new nMP hopefully soon.
Now about your requirements, I don't think that you 're going to see a workstation from Apple , at least in the near future, similar to the old cMP designs.

So if there is not any possibility for you to adapt to their current/new form and external HDs / devices you will have to abandon Apple hardware for something else that you will be (?) satisfied with, but have in mind it will be expensive too, in this class, probably noisy and it will be running other OS.

About BTO, BTO is expensive for sure but the high prices I have mentioned are about retail intel CPUs.

I can ensure you, by first hand experience, that in terms of performance the nMP is certainly a great step up from the 2008 cMP, of course you have to ignore the fact that the GPUs are not upgradeable right now. Anyway I don't think that for your audio processing you have to worry a lot about GPUs performance, even in 5 years from now. (Perhaps I'm mistaking here, I don't know your exact needs).

Imho you won't find the perfect workstation system, there always be some kind of compromises.

The nMP is a very quiet system, and I think this is important for you, very responsive, with really good performance running a great modern OS. You will have to spend more money...

I really like mine... You can wait and judge the next iteration of it...

Man, it would be so great to be able to harness GPU power for VI plugins. Somebody do that. And make it two rack spaces, on a sled, and 16" deep for absurdly awesome heat-sinkage. Or FFS, just do this and let it run OS X: http://www.boxxtech.com/products/apexx-5

 

[JamesPDX]

The nMP or other Apple products don't fail on all points of Ram's principals. But Ive seems to be prone to compromising function for the sake of design and that's an issue. Jobs seemed to have kept Ive in check on that one, but with him gone and no one to counterbalance him things go amiss.



The screen is very sharp. That's not the problem, although the color gamut is less than sRGB and it's close to impossible to calibrate for color critical work. The problem is the glass cover that picks up reflections too easily. This is an issue if you are sitting in in an office with overheads etc. It's less of a problem in a darken room, but even then you will show up as a reflection if you are wearing anything but dark clothing.



Well, physics haven't changed in the past few years, so glare didn't suddenly become obsolete or vanish as a phenomenon. Even with multi-coating a flat sheet of glass that is sitting perpendicular to your eye-line is asking for trouble.



So, your logic is that people should not use the i7 in the iMac to it's full potential, because the cooling on the machine is poorly designed for aesthetic reasons? What if I told you not to drive your car over 55, because it will become unstable do to an aesthetic design choice? How would you feel about that?




That's not the point. It can be any shape it wants to be.




Nope. I am actually buying a nMP as soon as Apple ships the update.

I don't completely dislike the nMP, I just feel it is a somewhat flawed design. The flaws would be less glaring if it wasn't the only pro model Apple sold. Like I said, it didn't matter with the 5,1 because it was a jack of all trades. Stock out of the box or filled with expansion cards it worked either way. The 6,1 is not a Swiss Army knife like the old machine was. So anyone who has specialized needs beyond the stock configuration is compromised, since it's the only model they sell.

Right now we are starting to use the OCTANE GPU renderer at work. For that purpose we are building workstations with up to 4 x Titan (12GB) cards. They go right inside the case with dual Xeons, a small RAID, network card etc. in a nice clean package. You can't do that with a nMP.




I really don't care if you believe that I have one at work or not.



I work in post production. So I have dual monitors, a PCI chassis with network card, multiple external drives / RAID, a tablet, mouse, keyboard, SD car reader and docks for magazines from digital cinema cameras. Add to that thumb drives, DSLRs that are sometimes run tethered or unloaded via USB and a steady stream of portable hard drives bringing footage in and out. So, yes. My desk is littered with gear. The ports on the nMP are constantly being accessed and it's a cable jungle back there. In short it's a mess.

Taking the nMP on set or on the road is a PIA, because everything is in pieces and the machine itself can't be racked or fitted into a road case without the additional expense of a specialized mounting chassis. The old 5,1 was a beast, but everything fit in a single clean box that you just picked it up or installed in a road case.

We constantly reconfigure workstations and move people around in teams as jobs come in. It was easy with the old 5,1 case, since it held almost everything inside. Now you are moving the nMP and multiple external drives, the PCI chassis and all the cables. It's no fun.

In terms of performance my current 12 core / D700 nMP is faster than the old 12 core 5,1 boxes I have used in the past. For the most part it's not a day and night difference, but the nMP is faster. System throughput is better, it will play 4k without problems. There have been problems with the D700 not working properly with programs like DaVinci Resolve etc. but updates should fix that. In terms of software support the switch from CUDA to AMD was less painful than expected. Some things don't seem to run as smooth as they used to, but again that will improve with time and updates. Thunderbolt and USB3 have been by far the biggest improvements that came with the nMP. It would be difficult to go back to working without TB.

Some people have reported GPU cards or the entire nMP failing under weeks of heavy pounding and I suspect it may be a thermal issue. Granted we probably use these machines harder than any other business, but this never was a problem with the 5,1. So, far neither of the 12core/D700 systems I have used have had a problem and I regularly leave them to crunch overnight with a full load.

Mr. Hank, have you ever worked with those Boxx machines? Though I'm a musician, I'm interested in Post and I used to work as a dialog editor and ADR loader using the Waveframe. Long ago.

 

[ixxx69]

There are advantages of more CPU's.... You realize that both Kontakt, VEP, Logic and other DAW software can utilize more cores, right? Especially Logic works best with as many as possible. There is no sense in saying that multiple CPUs won't be a benefit. Obviously having 12 cores instead of 6 will be better - especially if the clock speed is in the same range on both.

And regarding TB - don't get stuck in semantics. Yes TB is "PCI over a wire" but the bandwidth of TB1 and 2 (and the upcoming 3) is still way below the ... what do you want me to call it, so you don't get confused? "logic board card based" PCIe? Everybody knows this. TB is still not up to the task of replacing "old fashioned" PCI.

True about the cores... I understand Logic X was previously limited, but can now handle at least 24 threads. As typical, it's a balance between single thread performance and multi-thread performance... both are important. Unfortunately, if you need more multi-threaded performance than the nMP (or any other Mac ever made) can offer, then you're going to have to go to a non-Mac solution. You'd be in that 2% niche where 6-12 cores just can't keep up for audio work.

TB may not technically be up to the task of replacing PCIe as far as bandwidth goes, but I'd be curious to know what audio devices need more than TB2 (or even TB1 for that matter)? TB2 - 20Gb/s (~2.5GB/s) bandwidth seems pretty capable for any audio device? Aside from trying to do eGPU, there's not many practical applications that need more than TB2... and even bandwidth for eGPU doesn't seem to be a major roadblock in most cases (the bigger issue there seems to be it's currently a clunky unsupported solution). But I'm interested to know otherwise.

Again, I know I was being a little flip in an earlier post about all these "broke" professionals here, but seriously, I kind of feel like I'm missing something here when we're talking about working on pro recordings involving hundreds of tracks where dozens of plugins and effects are required, but an extra few grand in new equipment is a major stumbling block.

 

[H2SO4]

tbh, i don't think the nmp fails at any of those.. and actually has a very strong standing in every one of those points (with #7 needing more time to judge)

I disagree with a few of the points but especially number 4. Can you please explain how the nMP, ‘Makes a product understandable - It clarifies the product’s structure. Better still, it can make the product clearly express its function by making use of the user's intuition. At best, it is self-explanatory.’?
Thanks.

 

[ixxx69]

You must enjoy typing. Lots of typing, little actually said. If I wasn't in a phone I would grab the quotes further up where you said an iMac wasn't meant to do heavy lifting for extended time, so it lowers clocks, while the nMP was designed to run for hours without throttling. This is what ixxx69 meant by your points always being 10% unsupportable. Now you are saying that a computer shouldn't be expected to run at full speed? Do you understand what happens with rendering? Is there a "only render at 75% of speed to avoid getting too hot and causing yourself electronic discomfort" setting that I don't know about?

Your arguments are disingenuous and illogical. You could actually win an occasional discussion if you didn't always retreat to this level of nonsense. It can't be both things.

Read his advice again, you could be a far more effective agent for Apple PR if you removed the 10% nonsense quotient.

I'm kind of in a bind here, because my intention is to no longer acknowledge your posts (which have gotten so absurd that I've run out of adjectives to describe them), but as is now par for the course, you continue to string together non-sequiturs into incoherent ramblings. However you've introduced this new twist of using my name (in multiple posts) to attack other members here, and while that will briefly get my attention, it's pathetic.

There's nothing illogical about his statement. The iMac was not designed to render for hours on end. Apple compromised that ability in the name of thinness, just like they do on all their products other than the MP. Whether that's the right compromise to make is a matter of opinion. Different strokes for different folks.

 

[linuxcooldude]

Again, I know I was being a little flip in an earlier post about all these "broke" professionals here, but seriously, I kind of feel like I'm missing something here when we're talking about working on pro recordings involving hundreds of tracks where dozens of plugins and effects are required, but an extra few grand in new equipment is a major stumbling block.

In some ways I can understand what your saying. I can't speak for all pro/power users out there, but sometimes I wonder if their job description even justifies getting a workstation or some such. Sometimes people talk so much of price/performance, maybe that the money they make from it is not enough to be buying one in the first place. Nothing wrong with getting the best price or saving money. Generally for people buying high end workstations for the jobs they do will be a drop in the bucket for what they get in return. Even a tax write off at the end of the year for their business. I don't think they should be throwing away there money needlessly either.

It kind of reminds me of this video:

The iMac was not designed to render for hours on end. Apple compromised that ability in the name of thinness, just like they do on all their products other than the MP. Whether that's the right compromise to make is a matter of opinion. Different strokes for different folks.

Thats the contention I have as well. iMacs are ok for short videos, long renders, not so much. I've talked to many people and people I've worked with an iMac next to my Mac Pro it was a painful experience.

Also remember talking in an internet forum for someone who does a weekly web show on what type of Mac to use for editing. Well this one guy came on saying a MacBook pro is cheaper and could do it faster ( QuickSync )

But......He edits approximately a solid 24 hours of video a week. Not something I would want to envision doing on a MacBook Pro with thermal throttling and mobile GPU.

 

[Xteec]

I hate it when this thread gets derailed by all the nMP hate. Yes, Apple stopped making the computer for you (and me). Will they ever bring it back? Who knows - but maybe start another thread to discuss that.

The part of this thread I enjoy most is all the speculation about part leaks/releases and whether they would go into a refreshed nMP.

From my point of view, it was pretty clear from about 2011-2012 onwards that Apple had stopped caring about the cMP market. It was likely that they were going to stop making computers for that market. We should all be happy they are still making something reminiscent of the cMP in the nMP. Otherwise, we'd all be stuck using over-heating iMacs.

 

[MacVidCards]

I'm kind of in a bind here, because my intention is to no longer acknowledge your posts (which have gotten so absurd that I've run out of adjectives to describe them), but as is now par for the course, you continue to string together non-sequiturs into incoherent ramblings. However you've introduced this new twist of using my name (in multiple posts) to attack other members here, and while that will briefly get my attention, it's pathetic.

There's nothing illogical about his statement. The iMac was not designed to render for hours on end. Apple compromised that ability in the name of thinness, just like they do on all their products other than the MP. Whether that's the right compromise to make is a matter of opinion. Different strokes for different folks.

I'm sorry that you missed the gist of those posts. If you have a moment, read them again slowly, i'll be happy to explain the trickier parts if you still don't understand. I agreed with you 100% in your assessment of his methods of discussion. I was not disagreeing with you at all, I was very pleased to see such a logical and thought out viewpoint.

If you didn't mean what you said, you can always retract it or backpedal.

By the way, I think saying that someone has "absurd" posts which are "pathetic" and "incoherent ramblings" is beneath your potential, and the usual high standards on this board. Not liking what someone says doesn't actually give you the right to say such things, please feel free to point out where I was factually inaccurate.

Please compare these quotes and see if you recognize the flip-flopping going on:

"the nmp is shaped the way it is due to the function it's trying to accommodate.. and i think you'll have an incredibly hard time showing a better example of a computer which was designed function first."

"likewise, just because you can't put two 7970s in a mac pro and have it run at full power for an hour without throttling does not indicate some sort of form over function conflict.. you're the one saying the function of the computer should be hardware that doesn't throttle under high heat but that doesn't make it so (and totally ignoring the fact that these pieces of hardware are designed to throttle.. the machines aren't overheating because of this inherent design).. if someone asks "what is the function of a computer", it's almost embarrassing to think there are people out there that would respond "to post a high furmark score"."

"but don't be mistaken.. both machines will produce the exact same results.. the mac pro isn't going to give you a better render.. but it will power through large loads under less stress than an imac. in fact, it's designed to do just that."

If it is designed "function first", then why is it using down clocked GPUs that have to draw less then 125 Watts each? Shouldn't the "function" be "to render things quickly via OpenCl" and then the form dictated by what the 7970s need to be able to do that? They needed 275 Watts of power each coming in, and the ability to dissipate 275 Watts of power each in the form of heat to run to their potential.

To admit that they are running in a lesser configuration, by definition, means that "form" dictated "function".

And this is why I find statements like :

"I think you'll have an incredibly hard time showing a better example of a computer which was designed function first" only make sense if you have small print at the end that says *(from Apple's current lineup). Are you really defending that phrase? Wouldn't anything that allows it's interior components to run at their full potential be a better example of form following function?

 

[h9826790]

i believe apple does the right thing and singles out a main function of a machine or device and rolls with that..

I think if there is only one main function, that will be "making money" for Apple

 

[MacVidCards]

Show of hands, who here is in film biz?

Personally I have been there more then 25 years, was dicing carrots as a PA for Craft Service and driving an RV to set while still in college.

The #1 Mantra on any production is getting absolute BEST finished product to client at the end of the job, as quickly as possible.

Every dollar spent is supposed to show up on screen, one way or the other. If I ran a post facility I would have a very hard time justifying a machine that ran at 75% of what competitors machines ran at.

Colorist: OK, while we wait for that round of corrections to render, how about I run our sizzle reel for you?

Client: Again? I've seen it twice already, why can't you do the correct in real time? The guys I used last time did the same thing in real time.

Colorist: Ah, well they were probably using a machine that wasn't designed to look really awesome and save energy. I'll pull some of the cables aside so you can admire the smooth, polished finish.

Client: I don't actually give a damn, when will this be done?

Colorist: Well, you added a complete redo of everything, so we'll need another day.

Client: Why are we paying you the same rate as the shop down the street that can do this in real time?

Colorist: You know what? I'll have Jimmy make another round of Lattes while I cue up the sizzle reel again, I don't think you really get the beauty of it until the 3rd or 4th viewing.

From my time in the film business I can tell you that it is harshly unforgiving of wasting time or resources. There is no, and I mean NO, excuse for something you are doing to take longer because you want to save 200 Watts for the environment or have a cooler looking device to do the job. It is 100% about getting best job done in the least possible time. Edit bays and color facilities are expensive. And they are in serious competition. Nobody in their right mind is going to use a machine that is significantly slower then the competition (and can't be made to be any faster or catch up).

Making excuses for Apple isn't going to save this market. (though I am sure they are thankful for the valiant effort) Apple stepping up to the plate with a real machine is what is needed.

 

[Simon R.]

Did you get a Thunderbolt 2 and/or a USB 3 card for your cMP? Or is everything inside the box? What's your editing rig?

Hi James.

I am working as a composer, so not really and "editing rig" I guess But no, no TB or USB3 - I have 7 internal SSD's - 4 in the regular bays, one in the extra optical and two on a Sonnet SSD PCI card. Then I have an RME UFX FireWire soundcard and an UAD DSP card. So yes, everything is inside the box, except for the rack mounted UFX.

 

[Simon R.]

TB may not technically be up to the task of replacing PCIe as far as bandwidth goes, but I'd be curious to know what audio devices need more than TB2 (or even TB1 for that matter)? TB2 - 20Gb/s (~2.5GB/s) bandwidth seems pretty capable for any audio device? Aside from trying to do eGPU, there's not many practical applications that need more than TB2... and even bandwidth for eGPU doesn't seem to be a major roadblock in most cases (the bigger issue there seems to be it's currently a clunky unsupported solution). But I'm interested to know otherwise.

No no, not audio interfaces - but sample streaming, thousands of voices over TB on SSD's in a rack enclosure, together with DSP-card, 3 displays + an audio interface. There might be bottlenecks there. But I am not going to throw 5-8000 $ at it as an experiement and see if it actually works well or not. Yes, even for "professionals" like me, money isn't growing on the trees. Most people working as film composers, game music composers etc are not getting Hans Zimmer fees you know...

Again, I know I was being a little flip in an earlier post about all these "broke" professionals here, but seriously, I kind of feel like I'm missing something here when we're talking about working on pro recordings involving hundreds of tracks where dozens of plugins and effects are required, but an extra few grand in new equipment is a major stumbling block.

Problem is, I can't get that for "a few extra grand" in the Mac Pro, not even the 12 core. And I simply refuse to buy a ridiculously priced can like the nMP 12-core, which isn't even going to give me THAT much of a boost. And with the added risk of saturating the TB interfaces with sample streaming... I am not gonna try that expensive experiment.

 

[mattbrickwall]

Does anyone clever have any more information on the graphics drivers that showed up in the El Capitan Beta. Are they in the gold master release of El Cap? Have they changed? Really need a new machine!

 

[flat five]

You must enjoy typing. Lots of typing, little actually said. If I wasn't in a phone I would grab the quotes further up where you said an iMac wasn't meant to do heavy lifting for extended time, so it lowers clocks, while the nMP was designed to run for hours without throttling. This is what ixxx69 meant by your points always being 10% unsupportable.

i didn't actually say that though.. i said- but it will power through large loads under less stress than an imac. in fact, it's designed to do just that.

so maybe you just changed the meaning of my statement by 10%+ ?

regardless, that's not what ixxx meant.. or- his statement was in response to something different that i do which is.. making a prediction inside of a post in which i also/mainly talk about current things.. current perspectives etc.

so if i end this post with "oh, and the GPUs that will be available for 7.1 will also work in a 6.1".. then you'll flip out.. especially when my arguments for this happening are weak in comparison to concrete evidence (such as the type of evidence you'll see when someone puts a D700+ in a mp6.1 )

at least, that's what i took away from ixxx69's critique on my posting style.

Now you are saying that a computer shouldn't be expected to run at full speed? Do you understand what happens with rendering? Is there a "only render at 75% of speed to avoid getting too hot and causing yourself electronic discomfort" setting that I don't know about?

thing is, you're somehow deciding what 'full speed' means and making your own determination of when a component throttles.. but you simply have no idea what type of performance the designers were targeting.. i'm willing to guess in many cases, the computers/devices perform better than the engineers targeted but the way you speak, it's as if these designers strive for some certain benchmark but fail to reach that point.

another thing is that you're a victim of marketing hoopla.. if a gpu was marketed with 'turbo' then i doubt you'd go around talking about throttling so much.. if they advertised their base MHz as the speed then said it could turbo up to ___ speed, it'd be an entirely different story for you even though nothing has changed except the sales pitch.
just look at intel.. imagine they listed their turbo speed as the actual speed of a cpu.. you'd now be having a field day with so much throttling going on because a cpu throttles simply by activating more cores. it only runs at 'full speed' under the lightest of loads but the more crunching it's expected to do, the slower it runs.

but since intel markets full speed as 3GHz and says you can get bonus speeds of 3.5GHz, somehow in your head- 3.5GHz is not the full speed of that cpu.. 3GHz is.

same thing happens with GPUs.. different nomenclanture

reality is, you and i will never find common ground until you quit using benchmarks as a deciding factor in determining a computer's worth or usability. simple as that.

I disagree with a few of the points but especially number 4. Can you please explain how the nMP, ‘Makes a product understandable - It clarifies the product’s structure. Better still, it can make the product clearly express its function by making use of the user's intuition. At best, it is self-explanatory.’?
Thanks.

it means you could open the box, hook up the computer to your display/keyboard/etc, turn the thing on and use it..
all without reading a manual or instructions.. it's self explanatory

 

[flat five]

Show of hands, who here is in film biz?

Personally I have been there more then 25 years, was dicing carrots as a PA for Craft Service and driving an RV to set while still in college.

The #1 Mantra on any production is getting absolute BEST finished product to client at the end of the job, as quickly as possible.

that's great and all but how about you tell the class your story about when you actually used a piece of software installed on a computer to accomplish tasks in the film biz.
you know, using the computer for what it's designed for.

pretty sure if you did that, you'd find the computer, and especially the benchmarks of said computer, sits very very low on the totem pole as to what's important regarding to getting the job done.

you speak as if the sole bottleneck in making a film is how fast a computer can process data.. it's ridiculous.

next time you see a producer, ask them to list the top 25 most important things they need when making a film.. see where "a computer that geek benches 30k" falls on that list.. (hint- it will not be on that list)

 

[mattbrickwall]

What is with the trolling? Flat Five you find it so hard to be civil then don't bother posting. What's with your attitude?

 

[flat five]

ok. thanks