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New Mac Pro

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Re: New Mac Pro

#481

Post by firefwing24 »

Not a strict 1:1 comparison, but I guess as a reference point? (Prices from US Amazon)

- Asus Rog Dominus Extreme - 1,677.48

- Intel Xeon W-3175X - 3.1 -> 3.8 boost (28 Core) - 3,078.49

- Decent Case - 200$ (maybe even bump to 400)

- 4 x 8 GB DDR4 3000 MHz Corsair C15 - 160$

- 970 EVO m.2 NVMe Drive - 69.99

- Radeon Pro 580X - Around 200$

- Noctua NH-D15 - 90$

- 1000W Titanium Seasonic - 256.92

Total: 5,732.88

Yeah there's some differences like having more cache, or more RAM support... but $5,999 from Apple is for the 8-core base model...

Edit: I clearly new to writing lists.

Re: New Mac Pro

#482

Post by woranl »

This new Mac Pro design gives me trypophobia. Do we really need that many holes on the front? Somehow this "industrial design" is really giving me goosebumps. That's a first for Apple product...

Re: New Mac Pro

#483

Post by nihonde »

chaostheory wrote: post #444
saagarjha wrote: post #246

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those alternatives don’t run macOS.

You can get iCloud on Windows now https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204301 It's not a great solution, but I'm not paying over $6000 for a Mac Pro.

Pro machines for A/V production are routinely $7-10k and have been for as long as I can recall, right back to the 90s. You’re probably just not in the market. These are for commercial buyers who make lots more money from these machines than they spend.

Also, six months ago everyone was bellyaching about how Apple has no serious pro devices and was abandoning the desktop. Now it’s too expensive, and my eyes can’t roll back far enough.

Re: New Mac Pro

#484

Post by ericd »

chaostheory wrote: post #428
ericd wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the answer is to expand externally. The solution I settled on was a Mac Mini to serve as my interface and run desktop applications, and a big hefty expandable Threadripper box running Linux that I SSH into to do all heavy lifting (and that I can put away in a closet). A NAS holds most files. I've been really happy with the Mac Mini for this role, and the Threadripper box provides more power than I could reaso…

I don't want an overpriced, glued shut Mac Mini. I don't have issues with physical space. I've tried the Thunderbolt / USB3 chaining solution when I had a iMac. I didn't like it. I want a reasonably price Mac desktop like the ones from years ago, but that's not going to happen. Anyways I found my solution: iCloud for Windows https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204301 This is going to make my transition back to Windows…

For me the sticking points on Windows that prevent me from considering it for more than gaming are 1) advertising to me within the OS, 2) frequent, aggressive restarts for updates, even when actively using the computer and 3) the higher quality productivity app ecosystem on the Mac. The first two signal a big lack of respect for their users, imo. I know you can tweak it, but they make it unnecessarily hard, and I think I’ve seen updates reverting my choices. Apple has also done some of #2, but not nearly to the same extent.

Also, the Mac Mini isn’t glued shut, first thing I did when I got it after verifying that it booted was to swap in 32 gigs of aftermarket RAM.

But good luck!

Re: New Mac Pro

#485

Post by samcat116 »

jandrese wrote: post #252
_ph_ wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, they seem to be Apple-specific, as they are controlled by their T2 chip. So expect extremely expensive SSD too.

Do they have to be special sauce drives? The picture makes it look like standard M.2 drives. It doesn't seem like you should need anything special if the T2 chip is just acting as a bog standard drive controller that happens to send only encrypted data to the drive.

I believe those drives are just the flash, as the T2 chip actually acts as the controller. That might be wrong but that's what I've gathered from how the iMac Pro works and I assume this is a similar configuration.

Re: New Mac Pro

#486

Post by ben-schaaf »

auggierose wrote: post #354
ptrott2017 wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I used to develop professional 3D tools and CUDA is used to accellerate features in 3D software including: scene manipulation, simulation, real time rendering, ray tracing, rendering shader effects and video encoding etc.

What does CUDA support that Metal 2 cannot do? Recently I've been implementing some 3D mesh algorithms in Metal 2, and it was quite easy to do.

Support for all the CUDA code that's already out there. Not that I've used Metal, but that's what seems to be the reason behind OpenCL's lack of adoption

Re: New Mac Pro

#487

Post by seanmcdirmid »

chaostheory wrote: post #436
seanmcdirmid wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think there is much demand anymore for a Mac tower in the consumer space; actually, I don't think towers have been a popular option in the consumer space for a long time for any platform.

Yes because: 1. Apple first failed to update the cheese grater line for years consecutively 2. Then Apple's redesign of the Mac Pro transformed it into a larger Mac Mini trashcan which wasn't really expandable compared to the original cheese grater line. No one asked for that. There is evidence for demand for a reasonably priced Mac Pro Tower if you look at the Hackintosh community and eBay sales of older cheese grat…

The cheese grater was already pro, not consumer. The last consumer tower was probably the G4 era, afterwards the iMac, mini, and laptops took over consumer completely, leaving towers to the pro market.

There is "niche" demand for consumer towers, sure, but I don't think it would be worth Apple's effort. The iMac 5K is really good, and its even the cheapest option to get one of the best displays out there.

Re: New Mac Pro

#488

Post by buildbot »

cm2187 wrote: post #335
eropple wrote: post #289

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 isn't SFP+ not compatible with 1G (i.e. can only be used with a 10G network equipment)? If you are selling a machine that people will plug into either a 1gbe or 10gbe network, you'd rather have some interface that can downgrade.

You can use SFP in an SFP+ socket, but not the other way around. The downgrade to 1GB would work fine. Since this is still a desk focused machine vs. datacenter, I'd expect most offices to be wired to cat6 ethernet which can do 10GB if needed vs. SFP+ cables or SFP+ to Fiber.

Re: New Mac Pro

#489

Post by macintux »

seltzered_ wrote: post #379
jrochkind1 wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just as I'm curious what prices really were. don't know exactly what Gr tower line you are talking about, but according to https://www.macstories.net/mac/the-power-mac-g4-line/ , the first reasonable powermac G4 was summer 2000, and > 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 rec…

They were even higher in the early 90's. In 1993 the Power Macintosh 8100 (one of the first ppc computers) started at $4200 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power_Macintosh_8100

I remember drooling over the IIfx at $10k.
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