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New Mac Pro

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Re: New Mac Pro

#91
post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

3D modelers want NVIDIA cards, not Radeon, as NVIDIA supports CUDA. This has been a longstanding issue with 3D folks; the old trashcan Mac Pro had NVIDIA GPUs even with otherwise-outdated internals. When rumblings came of new Mac Pros a few years ago there was excitement that they could get some fast machines again; alas this appears not to be the case.

In theory you can stick any nvidia cards you want into this machine. Don't have to stick with the stock AMD GPUs.

Unfortunately for reasons that remain murky Nvidia still hasn’t put drivers out for Mojave and their absence from the keynote leads me to believe they won’t have drivers for Catalina. Nvidia blames Apple saying they’re not approving drivers. So yes you can slap a 2080ti in your Mac Pro but without drivers it’s useless.

Re: New Mac Pro

#92

The thing the Mac Pro does is magically make the price of every other computer look that much better. $6000 for a computer? Johnson, that's insane. What about $4999 for an iMac Pro? It comes with a display. Great, order it! What about $2499 for a Mac Mini with 32GB and 1TB SSD? Great, order it! What about $2499 for a Macbook Pro? Great, order it!

The 1987 Mac II released at $5,498, $12,125 adjusted for inflation. Granted, that included a monitor. IMO these things are designed for companies like Pixar, Disney, and aerospace, the "if you have to ask, you can't afford it" world.

> aerospace

I was under the impression that most engineering software for mechanical and aerospace engineers are only supported on Windows.

Re: New Mac Pro

#93
post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But your build doesn't run macOS.... that's all that matters for so many folks. (I aggree - I feel like maybe I will never be able to afford or justify a Mac-based system in my 3rd world country...)

MacOS is what keeps me on Apple for now, but this box is not the answer everyone is looking for. People just want an affordable desktop that you can easily expand over time. At $6000 just for the starting model, in my head I'm already planning to move back to Windows. The only major thing I might miss is iCloud. The cheese grater lineup is still the best incarnation of the Mac Pro overall. People don't want to be for…

> People just want an affordable desktop that you can easily expand over time.

Who wants that? You can tell what people want based on what’s selling in the market. Most people want a laptop. Most of the rest want a Word/Excel machine. A small minority want an expandable desktop.

Re: New Mac Pro

#94
post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

3D modelers want NVIDIA cards, not Radeon, as NVIDIA supports CUDA. This has been a longstanding issue with 3D folks; the old trashcan Mac Pro had NVIDIA GPUs even with otherwise-outdated internals. When rumblings came of new Mac Pros a few years ago there was excitement that they could get some fast machines again; alas this appears not to be the case.

In theory you can stick any nvidia cards you want into this machine. Don't have to stick with the stock AMD GPUs.

This is a professional machine. No one wants to buy it and use hacky work-arounds, they want good drivers. Which aren't an option with nvidia on macos.

Re: New Mac Pro

#95
post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Only Apple could get shat on for using appropriate but obscure terminology.

But is it appropriate here? from that wikipedia page: > The simplest form of space frame is a horizontal slab of interlocking square pyramids and tetrahedra built from aluminium or tubular steel struts Do you see anything that looks like that?

Simplest form ≠ only form.

Re: New Mac Pro

#96
post #46

Lack of NVIDIA support is a deal-breaker. The AMD ecosystem is just so far behind when it comes to frameworks like CUDA, OptiX, cuDNN, etc.. Why can't Apple open up kernel-level support by cooperating more with NVIDIA? This state of things seems completely bizarre to me.

Maybe it's NVIDIA blocking the way? If Linus is correct, then they are not a nice company to work with.

Re: New Mac Pro

#97
post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know why people still keep waiting for Apple to support gaming in any way at all. Worse than just not supporting gaming, they're antagonistically blocking companies like Nvidia who tried to fill in the gap with external GPUs. https://appleinsider.com/articles/19/01/18/apples-management... If you want to game, you buy Windows, end of story.

Blizzard released a lot of games for macOS. Also I played Rimworld, Factorio recently and those games seems to have Mac version as well. I'm not very involved gamer, I just play sometimes and it seems that Mac supports almost all games I need.

> Blizzard released a lot of games for macOS. Also I played Rimworld, Factorio recently and those games seems to have Mac version as well.

I don't think any of those games are GPU intensive. Blizzard seems to want their games to run on as many machines as possible, and Rimworld and Factorio are both 2D.

Re: New Mac Pro

#98
post #52

I know being expandable is important here but I am stunned by the fact that an iMac Pro actually comes with better SSD and Video Card for less money and you get a screen to boot! 256g SSD is shameful, I don't care what they were thinking. No Nvidia support mentioned so I know a few that just wrote it off for that oversight alone. They will probably hold out just to be sure but that was the hope for them and others. W…

256g of SSD would be appropriate under the conditions that a) this is a very basic and affordable configuration, so less than 3k and b) the machine would be user-expandable with NVMe drives or similar. Then you would get the minimal SSD just good enough to install the OS and put in third party storage to save money. And of course, you would want to be able to put in more than 4T of storage.

Why do you think that it's not user expandable? Surely you can just put a PCIe SSD card in the new Mac Pro and use that for storage?

Re: New Mac Pro

#99

That price is just absurd. I waited for Mac Pro announcement to decide whether I'll stay with Windows or jump to macOS. Macbooks are not for me, but I hoped for a remotely reasonable priced computer, something like $2000 with another $1000 to expand with more memory, etc. But $6000 for 8-core CPU, 256 GB SSD, GPU that is less powerful than my old $200 NVidia 1060? It's just laughable. Otherwise seems like a good mach…

The new Mac Pro, like Mac Pros always have been, is for music/TV studios and design agencies that bill their time starting at $500/hour. It's really not for individuals, and that's ok. Apple made a computer "just for the pros", like HN begs for in every butterfly keyboard thread. I'm thrilled about it even though I know I'll never touch one. It's for people who don't know what a CPU core is but know how to produce a…

Yep. For me personally, it's a reassuring signal that Apple is doubling down on macOS and professionals, and gives me hope that next year's MacBook Pro redesign won't be a disappointment.

Re: New Mac Pro

#100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Only apple could manage to call a bent piece of metal pipe a "space frame". Or every architect and engineer in the world. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_frame

So... > In architecture and structural engineering, a space frame or space structure (3D truss) is a rigid, lightweight, truss-like structure constructed from interlocking struts in a geometric pattern. Space frames can be used to span large areas with few interior supports. Like the truss, a space frame is strong because of the inherent rigidity of the triangle; I don't see any triangles here.. All the examples on t…

Triangles aren't the only forms used to build space frames. There are lots of geometries that can be used.
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