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New Mac Pro

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Re: New Mac Pro

#341

Post by aseipp »

minimaxir wrote: post #53

For developers, there's another constraint in investing in the Mac Pro: the increasingly high likelihood Apple will move to ARM: > Mac Pro + display coming in at $11,000 a year or so before a switch to ARM is a hard nope from me. It's a little freeing, so I can now actually get a Mac mini https://twitter.com/stroughtonsmith/status/11356329822896537...

Why on earth would you ever even consider getting a Mac Pro if a Mac Mini will do the job you need? Unless you have $5,000+ just sitting around you want to throw away on street creds? This is a serious question, because I really cannot possibly fathom what scenario would actually put you in that position as a buyer other than, "I have money and I like to spend it".

Also the idea that ARM hardware is somehow a threat to your "investment" is just random FUD. First, it's still just speculation. But second, assuming it's 100% true -- you're kidding yourselves if you think Apple is suddenly going to appear with magical Xeon-class 28-core ARM CPUs sometime in the next year that can compete with what they're offering here. Try 5+ years (minimum) after their first desktop-class CPUs are proven rock-solid. This Mac Pro cycle will probably last that long. If they do switch anytime soon, it will likely be only lower end machines like the MacBook Airs and non-Pro models. And even then, if history is anything to go by, they'll offer 5+ years of binary compatibility for newer devices to run old applications and multi-target toolchain support for developers to target all systems. People keep computers, even laptops, for longer and longer now. x86 macOS machines are not going anywhere, anytime soon, and Apple knows not to randomly segment/abandon users like that.

I'm not going to buy this machine for a number of reasons (including the astronomical base cost), but FUD about future magical ARM machines doesn't hold up at all, IMO.

Re: New Mac Pro

#342

Post by Nexxxeh »

eropple wrote: post #289
cm2187 wrote: post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find that link aggregation is pretty much useless and/or unstable. Not sure what good two 10gbe ports do. But seeing 10gbe becoming part of the standard spec is a really welcomed improvement. Not the least because it will drive prices down.

I'm not mad that it's 10GBASE-T, but I'd personally rather 10G over SFP+. The sorts of shops that can afford these probably already have some pretty burly networking infrastructure, and 10GBASE-T is both expensive and (IME) less reliable. The encoding/decoding capacity of Ethernet-over-twisted-pair seems to be reaching a point of sharply diminishing returns and the hardware for 10GBASE-T is really expensive for what'…

>but I'd personally rather 10G over SFP+.

Is that the wrong way around? I'm struggling to parse otherwise.

Re: New Mac Pro

#343

Post by snuxoll »

cm2187 wrote: post #326
kbirkeland wrote: post #286

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm curious what your experiences are here. With enterprise-level networking equipment and LACP (802.3ad), I've never run into any weird issues.

I tried between two enterprise dlink switches, and also between a synology NAS and a dlink switch. Link aggregation in general only provides performance with multiple connections to multiple machines, so using link aggregation between one client (Mac) and one NAS will like result in zero performance improvement (the packets will only use one of the cables). It only makes sense if you have two or more NAS that you wan…

D-Link gear isn’t exactly what I’d judge networking standards on, they work I suppose but they’re hardly what I would install in even a small business office.

I have multiple LACP bonds on my Juniper EX2200 at home working without issue, though the single stream limits you mentioned are the one thing LACP can’t fix.

Re: New Mac Pro

#344

Post by pcwalton »

snazz wrote: post #108
banachtarski wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It's not good for users when vendor drivers work and Apple's drivers don't. I know OpenGL is deprecated, but a lot of apps still use it because it's cross platform, and Apple has the worst GL drivers in the industry. Even Metal is missing many features from Vulkan [1].

[1]: https://github.com/KhronosGroup/MoltenVK/blob/master/Docs/Mo...

Re: New Mac Pro

#345

Post by TomVDB »

wayoutthere wrote: post #194
llampx wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

You would if you had a storage appliance on a SAN, as the SAN is almost certainly faster than a single SSD. This is an extremely common setup for video production, so it’s not out of the target market at all.

I know nothing about SAN, but I'm still surprised that it would be faster than a PCIe connected local SSD?

Re: New Mac Pro

#346

Post by kllrnohj »

internobody wrote: post #35
dllu wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

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.

Most major 3D modeling programs support OpenCL, as well, not just CUDA. In particularly any of them with MacOS ports are not CUDA-only (since, you know, MacOS hasn't supported CUDA-capable GPUs for many many years now), making the argument for CUDA specifically rather moot.

In terms of just GPGPU performance Vega is pretty competitive against Nvidia. It's not nearly as one-sided as the gaming space is. That is, in fact, the one saving grace of the Radeon VII in the first place vs. the RTX 2080 - its stronger professional workload capabilities.

Re: New Mac Pro

#347

Post by hinkley »

Shivetya wrote: post #23

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…

The entry level Macbook Pro is not the best bang for the buck. For about as long as I can remember, the best value in the neighborhood of $2950. So the 'good' Macbook gets cheaper due to inflation and not much else.

Right now you can get 32 gig of RAM and the 512 SSD for around that mark. I'd probably throw in the video card upgrade for a personal computer, maybe not for a work one unless you're doing AI.

Re: New Mac Pro

#349

Post by snuxoll »

rhinoceraptor wrote: post #282
jrs95 wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah the pricing for the base model is insane. You can get a more powerful PC with 4x the storage for half the price. And you're right about Nvidia. I also stream on Twitch, was hoping I might be able to get one of these to replace my current PC. Without Nvidia there's no way.

If you spec something with similar workstation grade hardware, you'll be in the same ballpark. Gaming PC hardware isn't comparable.

I assume this uses ECC DDR4 which would at a minimum explain some of the price tag. That will set you back $500+ retail for 32GB alone, still don’t understand where the rest is going with a 8-core CPU and a RX580X though.

Re: New Mac Pro

#350

Post by timc3 »

rhinoceraptor wrote: post #282
jrs95 wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah the pricing for the base model is insane. You can get a more powerful PC with 4x the storage for half the price. And you're right about Nvidia. I also stream on Twitch, was hoping I might be able to get one of these to replace my current PC. Without Nvidia there's no way.

If you spec something with similar workstation grade hardware, you'll be in the same ballpark. Gaming PC hardware isn't comparable.

Have a look here https://zworkstations.com/products/z840/

I tried coming up with something similar to the base spec MacPro but got larger storage, more cores and an Nvidia card with a decent saving.

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