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Apple Updates The Mac Pro

techcrunch.com

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Re: Apple Updates The Mac Pro

#83

Post by gtaylor »

foxhill wrote: post #70
gtaylor wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You could build something much more powerful for cheaper, and still be able to upgrade/change out individual internal components. I've bumped the RAM capacity/speed twice since I built this machine three years ago. Upgraded the video card once, and CPU once. When I decide to do a more thorough re-vamp, I can re-use the power supply, the case, the video card, and a bunch of other components. What you're really paying…

i do a lot of audio recording. having a machine that is near silent even at full load is incredibly useful.

It's OK if you didn't want to, but you can build something cheaper and even more quiet than this new Mac Pro yourself. There are some excellent cases and cooling systems, and you can choose your components with your needs in mind.

With these Mac Pros, I don't think people who buy them are necessarily concerned about specs or cost-effectiveness. I think they are enthusiasts that need Mac OS, and find the Macbook Pro or iMac underpowered.

Re: Apple Updates The Mac Pro

#84

Post by wmf »

foxhill wrote: post #52
oofabz wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, they are Ivy Bridge-E. Haswell-E doesn't ship until 2014.

how comes there are no 16-core mac pros? :(

Sounds like there's not enough room to cool 16 cores. (BTW, Ivy Bridge-EP supports 20 or 24 cores in a 2-socket machine.)

Re: Apple Updates The Mac Pro

#86

Post by gtaylor »

jfb wrote: post #80
gtaylor wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unless I'm misunderstanding something, you could already blow this thing away at its price point by building your own. It wouldn't be as pretty looking, but you could do better (if specs are the primary concern).

This is certainly true; but I wonder for how much longer it will be -- it doesn't seem that economics really favor the build it yourself model nearly as much as they used to.

I guess I haven't ran into this. I've been able to re-use some of my components through different incarnations of this desktop, and it's saved me a ton of money.

For example, I don't need to upgrade my entire desktop to upgrade my video card. I can toss something nasty in there, and even if my motherboard doesn't support the latest and greatest PCIe spec, my next one will. Ditto for SATA.

I've got a ton of mileage out of my case, as well. Spent a little more to get something nice, and ended up liking it so much that I've held on to it for close to five years now. Ditto for my modular power supply.

Re: Apple Updates The Mac Pro

#87

Post by reeses »

jawilson2 wrote: post #9

Well, it looks like I'm done using Mac Pros for CUDA development.

The Mac Pro has always been just about the worst platform for CUDA/OpenCL development. Lack of power, hardware driver support, and underperforming GPGPU (especially OpenCL) APIs have made it more of a prototyping environment than a production environment.

4096 stream processors just reinforces Apple's lack of interest in pursuing that market segment. It's good today (although they'll be clocked down compared to, say, a 7990) but I suspect that's what we'll be stuck with for "the next ten years."

I'll probably mistake mine for my wastepaper bin at some point and set it on fire. :-)

Re: Apple Updates The Mac Pro

#89

Post by masklinn »

konstruktor wrote: post #29
[deleted] wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[deleted]

For example via one of the many TB docking stations that have been promised for a long time.

The TB ecosystem will probably get a significant boost with the new pro, since its extensibility is basically USB3 or TB2, and mostly focused on TB2 (6 TB ports versus 4 USB3 ports I think?)
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