201–210 of 731 posts
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The first step up from 256GB is 2x512GB, and there's configurations up to 2x2TB. My guess is that the 256GB configuration is meant for users that work primarily with data that's kept on network storage.
There's no professional that would buy a machine with 256GB of storage. Let's call it what it is - a throwaway configuration meant to hit a price point.
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…
Most of the people that are buying this will attached very large external storage as it is most likely going to be used as a video editing workstation.
Can people really use all this power with the GPUs offered? The base is a 580X. The original AMD 7870 was a great gaming card in 2012... but boy the latest attempts to keep that thing going with the 480 and 580 are really pushing it. It's still a good budget gaming card but an embarrassment to offer with a Pro computer at that price. I love that Vega 2 can come with so much RAM, but until the world moves away from CU…
People doing CUDA work are not using Macs. And for Mac apps that do use compute they'll take advantage of it.
I wish Apple wasn't so anti-nvidia, but at the same time an awful lot of the comments in here are basically saying "People who would never have bought this now won't buy it because..."
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I disagree that it’s always been this way. I bought a G4 tower when I was in college and it sure as heck wasn’t $6,000 back then. This is the only traditional desktop computer that Apple sells, so it’s disappointing that everybody outside of movie studio employees has to fall back to an iMac or a Windows/Linux machine.
The new Mac Minis are really powerful. What doesn't it have that you're hoping for?
- Apple finally made the RAM on the new Mac Mini upgradeable, but it is not user-serviceable; you have to get the RAM installed by an Apple-authorized repair center in order for the warranty to stay valid on the Mac Mini. The same holds true for the iMac Pro.
- The Mac Mini lacks expansion slots. All expansion must be done externally using Thunderbolt or USB-3.
Until the 2013 Mac Pro was released, Apple has sold an entry-level Power Mac or Mac Pro model for around $2,500 in inflation-adjusted currency that was user-serviceable and has expansion slots. The 2013 Mac Pro was still user-serviceable, but it lacked expansion slots. Now Apple is finally selling a user-serviceable, expandable Mac, but at prices that are beyond what many users can afford. There are no user-serviceable, expandable Macs that cost under $5,999.
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It's competing against machines such as the Boxx dual-CPU workstations, which start at $8000 [1]. I can see movie studios and such shelling out the big bucks to buy these for their 3D modellers, but only the super rich would buy one for themselves. [1] https://www.boxx.com/systems/workstations/d-class
Competing on what, markup? What advantage does this hardware give for movie studios when consumer grade hardware outperforms it?
You would get something like this instead of consumer hardware because man hours cost real money. At a previous job they wanted a VR PC, so someone speced out a bunch of high end parts and a case with flashy lights. A couple days of my salary went to putting it all together. That was the first time I had to RMA a motherboard. When I asked they didn't think to confirm the GPU would fit in the case and luckily it did. It also took a couple weeks longer than it should to get up and running because of things like this.
Some specialty software is only certified for specific hardware. You can probably deviate, but it's like building a hackintosh. You might not be able to upgrade it and the man hours will likely kill any benefit.
I also see a lot of managers forget that artists aren't always tech savvy. Honestly, you don't pay them to be tech support, anyway. You want to pay a known quantity and get improved return. It can be a huge time suck to nickel-and-dime when you're tying to manage large projects.
However, using consumer grade hardware has its place.
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Right. If you're working with multi-terabyte files that live on a NAS or an external directly-attached storage, the local drive is basically a cache of the OS plus whatever you're physically working on at that moment.
And it seems to come with 10gbe by default which is consistent with it.
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> 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 a…
I so want to buy that CPU, but I'm starting to suspect it might never be released.
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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…
On the developer side of things, the 2018 Mac Mini update is a much lower priced computer with an option for a 6-core i7. If you really need a dedicated GPU, you can add one with a Thunderbolt enclosure. The new Mac Pro is for movie studios and maybe very large machine learning models.
Complaining only signals that you are not the market they’re targeting. This is for Hollywood media makers, high end studios, etc. This was never to be a mass market item.
I worked at two movie studios (Pixar, Weta Digital) and they were both almost 100% Linux with a smattering of Windows machines here and there. Apple stuff was mainly iPads for story boarding and that kind of stuff.
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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…
I disagree that it’s always been this way. I bought a G4 tower when I was in college and it sure as heck wasn’t $6,000 back then. This is the only traditional desktop computer that Apple sells, so it’s disappointing that everybody outside of movie studio employees has to fall back to an iMac or a Windows/Linux machine.
> Prices ranged from $1,599 to $3,499,
According to one online inflation calculator, $1599 in 2000 dollars is $2,372.95 in 2019 dollars. and $3499 is $5,192.58.
So, I guess, yeah.I do recall them seeming awfully expensive.
I agree this new release seems awfully awfully expensive.