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New Mac Pro

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Re: New Mac Pro

#611

Post by Tepix »

shaklee3 wrote: post #603
chx wrote: post #500

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We are past that now, new PCIe 4.0 SSDs just have been showcased along with the new AMD chips and they can do 5GBytes/s read and a bit above 4GB/s write (AMD is rumored to have invested in the R&D of the controller). You'd need 40 GbE to match one -- and EPYC Rome, also scheduled for this fall, will have 160 lanes allowing for dozens of them. You could very easily reach 100 GByte/s read which no network will match.

Pcie 3 was not the bottleneck for SSD. They typically are only 4 pcie lanes, when they could go up to 16 for 4x the bandwidth.

But the standard M.2 NVMe interface happens to only have 4 lanes. PCIe4 will double the available bandwidth for these very common SSDs.

Re: New Mac Pro

#612

Post by jrs95 »

snuxoll wrote: post #587
rhinoceraptor wrote: post #535

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's an 8 core Xeon, plus a custom motherboard with dual 10gb, I would think that alone is probably about $2000.

I guess a 8-core Xeon W costs a cool $1K by itself, 10Gb networking isn’t tremendously expensive these days so it probably contributes $300 to the cost at MSRP. Still, $6K is too much, $4-5K would be less outrageous and still turn a healthy markup.

Yeah, I was expecting it to be either significantly more powerful than the iMac Pro or to have a lower cost for the base model. Neither of those things happened. I was willing to go out of my way to get hardware that's not quite ideal for my use case and still pay extra for it just to have macOS, but $6k is just too much. It might be expandable but each generation of Intel CPUs is incompatible with the last generations motherboards. If you care about single-core performance then it just doesn't make sense.

Re: New Mac Pro

#613

Post by justinclift »

chx wrote: post #500
ianhowson wrote: post #268

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are plenty of cheap NVMe SSDs that can push 3.5Gbytes/sec (Samsung 970, Adata XPG). Even with dual 10Gbe NICs, you can't match that, nor the low access times of local storage. But I do agree that SAN storage is the norm here.

We are past that now, new PCIe 4.0 SSDs just have been showcased along with the new AMD chips and they can do 5GBytes/s read and a bit above 4GB/s write (AMD is rumored to have invested in the R&D of the controller). You'd need 40 GbE to match one -- and EPYC Rome, also scheduled for this fall, will have 160 lanes allowing for dozens of them. You could very easily reach 100 GByte/s read which no network will match.

> You could very easily reach 100 GByte/s read which no network will match.

High end networking gear already has higher throughput:

http://www.mellanox.com/page/ethernet_cards_overview

https://www.servethehome.com/mellanox-connectx-6-brings-200g...

A SAN/NAS using the same PCIe 4.0 SSD's you mention could probably fill the pipes too.

... and it would probably need a bunch of network stack tuning. ;)

Re: New Mac Pro

#614

Post by chaostheory »

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #585
chaostheory wrote: post #564

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes the cheese grater was Pro and it was at a reasonable price starting at $2k- 3k depending on the model. Yes that’s adjusted for inflation.

$2400 in 2006 is just over $3k in 2019. Not sure if that is consumer, more like a higher end iMac sans display.

Yeah, you're paraphrasing what I wrote. It is not consumer. It was called a Mac Pro and it's half the cost of the new Mac Pro, accounting for inflation

Re: New Mac Pro

#615

Post by syntheticcdo »

threeseed wrote: post #308
shoo_pl wrote: post #257

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's silly to be honest. I am a developer myself and I can tell you Mac Pro or iMac Pro is a waste of money in every way imaginable. Look up barefeats benchmarks. Unless you have very specialised needs (like video editing) there is visible penalty when you increase the number of your cores. For every day usage 6-8 cores is what you should be aiming at, and preferably with highest clock speed possible. The more core…

It depends on your needs. With Scala/Hydra I routinely run my 8-core i9 MacBook Pro to 100% for quite a few minutes. So I could definitely see more cores improving build times.

"100%" CPU utilization means very little with modern Intel CPUs and TurboBoost. Intel CPUs have the headroom to clock much faster than base clocks but often can't sustain due to thermal constraints.

Using a desktop processor with more thermal headroom (with adequate cooling) would presumably be much better bang for your buck than increasing core counts in an already thermally-challenged laptop.

Re: New Mac Pro

#616

Post by askafriend »

terandle wrote: post #602
askafriend wrote: post #579

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is it arrogance? Have you ever bought a nice pice of furniture? This stand is a super low volume, custom design. It's solid milled aluminum and likely very hefty since it needs to handle a 32" monitor (which itself is probably pretty hefty). Not to mention the intricate hinge design that they say is rock solid (not an easy feat to achieve). This whole system is built to compete against $25k-50k reference monitors…

That link does not help your case $300 for a fashionable lamp you can use for life and is a major fixture of a living space vs a $1,000 monitor stand? Congrats Apple you made restoration hardware look like ikea in terms of pricing.

Did you see how big that monitor is? It's going to be a permanent fixture on your desk. It's as much a part of your room and your life as anything else.

In any case, the only issue here is how they presented the pricing. They should have just said that they're selling a $6k display but if you don't want the stand, they'll sell it separately for $5k. If they framed it like that then no one would complain.

Re: New Mac Pro

#617

Post by ksec »

noir_lord wrote: post #234
jwr wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For development, I'm actually perfectly fine with 256GB SSD. And I don't care about the video card much at all. Still, I don't see this as a developer machine — I think an iMac Pro is a much better value proposition for developers, and in my case, where I really mostly care about single-threaded performance for interactive development in Clojure and ClojureScript, I'm looking at the iMac.

On the flip side over in Linux land I built an 8 core 16T desktop with 64GB of RAM and two 27” 4K HDR monitors for less than half the price of the base Mac Pro. Oh and it has an RTX2080 which beats an RX580 so badly it’s practically attempted murder. I bet the apple tax I really do (typing this on a 5th gen mini) but the base model is hilariously expensive and in a world where I can buy a 12 core/16T for 499 that bea…

>On the flip side over in Linux land I built an 8 core 16T desktop with 64GB of RAM and two 27” 4K HDR monitors for less than half the price of the base Mac Pro.

I am betting at half the price of Mac Pro, it doesn't include support for ECC, and hence Memory aren't ECC, the CPU aren't Server Grade ( Even on the AMD side you will need to use at least EPYC ), motherboard aren't Server Grade, with less PCI-E slot and not a decent case with decent power supply. Yes Ryzen supports ECC, but it is not tested as such, and broad vendor have to do their testing as well. And testing is expensive. ( Hence why Server Grade CPU are expensive )

Honestly I love AMD and loathe Intel. But these kind of comparison all over the internet is like saying I could get a 500hp Nissan GTR over 500hp Ferrari at half the price, but why did we not ever see that argument in Cars forum and only on tech forum.

Re: New Mac Pro

#618

Post by chaostheory »

datalus wrote: post #609
chaostheory wrote: post #396

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The big issue with older mac pros is for how long is it able to install the latest versions of MacOS?

There are ways around the official support drop as well, I run macOS mojave fine with a Mac Pro 3,1. These original cheese grater macs are truly still the best desktop tower they'll ever make at this point. It'd be fun to trick one out with a 3rd gen threadripper, which is probably faster than the 28-core rumored $35,000 mac pro. Here's the patcher: http://dosdude1.com/mojave/ There are caveats, but I've found it to…

I get where you're coming from but the whole point of getting a Mac is "it just works". I just don't have the time to deal with a Hackintosh. Also from past experience, there's a reason why they sunset older machines. At some point the OS updates are just no longer compatible with the old hardware. The Mojave patch notes that you linked further confirms this.

Another issue is that Windows 10 is now at the point of working decently and it has Ubuntu baked in. Apple also has iCloud sync software for it. I will miss Mac Apps, but given economics, most people just crank out electron apps anyways.

I give up on Apple computers. imo There's no viable option for iPhone or iPad though, so I'll still will be with Apple on some level.

Re: New Mac Pro

#619

Post by thirdsun »

atonse wrote: post #283
rock_artist wrote: post #137

As most of us here are with the developer hat. I think it's worth reminding that the target audience of those machines are Pro creatives. (those who didn't ditch Apple yet ;) ) It's also the second time I remember Apple revert a critical interface removal. (first one was FireWire from the first Unibody MacBook). Apple lost a lot users when they've ditched PCIe. you can buy those Thunderbolt-PCIe cages and have a lot…

This likely is a great machine for creative pros. But as a developer, I wanted a desktop class CPU and just a separate monitor (tired of hearing my laptop fans all the time, and it not being expandable), so I can upgrade them independently. So while developers are pros, we won't appreciate things like XDR because we don't need them, unlike movie studios and photographers. So a $5k monitor is overpriced for editing co…

> But as a developer, I wanted a desktop class CPU and just a separate monitor (tired of hearing my laptop fans all the time, and it not being expandable), so I can upgrade them independently.

What's wrong with the Mac Mini? Sure, there's no way to upgrade the CPU, but considering the resale value of Apple hardware replacing the whole machine every few years is actually a worthwhile upgrade strategy.

Of course the same sell and replace upgrade path applies to the iMac (Pro) - I understand that you would like to keep the display separate, but it's a fantastic display which doesn't really have any alternatives right now. I don't see how you could much better in that category.

Of course, if MacOS isn't that important to you, this discussion isn't worth having - in that case you could buy whatever you want.

Re: New Mac Pro

#620

Post by chaostheory »

alexis_fr wrote: post #300
saagarjha wrote: post #246

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those alternatives don’t run macOS.

Yep. Ubuntu lost by several orders of magnitude. They lost me with Unity, which seemed like something overly fancy which wasn’t required. Had they gone for stability instead of UI, they mighy have kept the users and developed a more suitable alternative to macOS. It really feels like a list battle. I’d pay $200 a year for an OS, especially an open-source one that doesn’t send my data to Amazon.

If you don't like Ubuntu's GUI, it's baked into Windows 10 now. It's not ideal since you're missing out of the remaining good Mac apps (that aren't electron based) but it's a viable alternative now.
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