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New Mac Pro

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Re: New Mac Pro

#102

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…

>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!

I'm guessing it's just price discrimination. People who are in the market for a Mac Pro (or rather, their employers) are probably not price sensitive.

Re: New Mac Pro

#103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think that Nvidia will release cards for this Mac. May be even existing ones will fit. There are PCI-E ports there after all.

Will they be able to release drivers with the new kext situation? They still don't even have drivers to use their newer cards in Mojave

Here's to hoping. Maybe I can finally get my nvidia card working on my hackintosh laptop.

Re: New Mac Pro

#104
post #70

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…

> 580X is old, 2017 old Is it? This site claims it came out in March 2019 but I definitely can't keep the various graphics card lines separate in my head: https://www.techpowerup.com/gpu-specs/radeon-pro-580x.c3398

Yes, 580X is old (it's the same hardware as RX 480 from 2016) In fact, everything in that machine is old: the Xeons they use are rocking the Skylake core form 2015, with all of the recently discovered side-channel vulnerabilities.

The upcoming AMD Threadripper 3 CPUs with PCIe4 would be a much better Pro offering. Clock-for-clock they are beating Skylake now, rumored to have up to 64 cores. Also, PCIe4-based RAID 0 arrays are pushing 15GB/sec transfer speeds IIRC.

Re: New Mac Pro

#105
post #87

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.

> 3D modelers want NVIDIA cards, not Radeon, as NVIDIA supports CUDA What do 3D modelers use CUDA for? I know it gets used for machine learning, but I'm not familiar with what else.

I've heard that CUDA can help decrease render times on Adobe Premiere Pro and several other programs. I'm guessing that includes 3D modeling software like Fusion 360 or something to help with various molding and simulation features.

Re: New Mac Pro

#106
post #4

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…

But where are you going to find a quality $1000 stand for your display?

This is the one aspect that was truly ridiculous. When that number was quoted you could hear the crowd pause in disbelief, followed by a rumble of conversation interspersed with laughter.

From The Verge:

> Still, all hope isn’t lost: we also don’t know how robust the box that the Pro Display XDR comes in is. It’s entirely plausible that you’ll just be able to prop up the $5,999 display with a hunk of cardboard or by leaning it up against a wall. Just be careful not to drop it.

Re: New Mac Pro

#107
post #47

Very sad day. In the first moments, I thought everyones wishes had come true, and they bring back the old style Mac Pro back, with a redesigned housing. But the old Mac Pro had started around 2-3k, so while never cheap, not out of reach of an enthusiast user. While the specs of the new Mac Pro are certainly impressive, the price is just out of the range of all private and most professional users. Not sure why Apple r…

You can probably load it up with a lot of PCIe SSD cards. There's really no need to add bays for magnetic drives anymore (if you want magnetic drives, you probably want them in a NAS)

Magnetic drives perhaps not, but I was mostly thinking of SSDs. But indeed, if you can use some of the PCIe slots for storage, it would probably be ok. Still a too large gap between the Mini and the Pro.

Re: New Mac Pro

#108

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.

MacOS does not support vendor-supplied drivers which has been the bane to every graphics engineer's existence. Supporting mac for games as a result, is a completely inane task we avoid like the plague. To me, because of the GPU, this machine is a giant paperweight.

I’d argue this is good for users, because vendor-supplied drivers always seem to have crappy updater software running at all times and send pop-ups at all hours on Windows. Vendors really need to better support open-source drivers for user experience purposes, but they don’t because they want more control over their market.

Re: New Mac Pro

#109

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.

MacOS does not support vendor-supplied drivers which has been the bane to every graphics engineer's existence. Supporting mac for games as a result, is a completely inane task we avoid like the plague. To me, because of the GPU, this machine is a giant paperweight.

I don't think any $5000 machine is a good choice for gaming.

Re: New Mac Pro

#110

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.

They were priced like a low end Sun computer, so that must have been what they were after [1]. But it still didn't make sense. The near-identical Amiga 2000 in 1987 was 1495 dollars.

[1] http://www.bitsavers.org/pdf/sun/Sun_Price_List_Dec88.pdf

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