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Mac Pro

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Re: Mac Pro

#131

I love watching people moan about this yet unreleased product. I think the new Mac Pro episode will resemble the iPad one - lots of "ohemgee it's like just a bigger ipod, lol, how stupid do they think we are, kthx?" reactions, when in fact this product will probably push a new paradigm shift in the way workstations are built i.e. moving away from the plastic pieces of shit ubiquitously sold now. Seriously, I dare you…

We reserve our right to moan at consumer junk with the workstation label glued on.

Innovation is not something I really want in the workstation market.

I want something utterly reliable that works flawlessly for several years and if something goes wrong I can swap the bits out in minutes. If I need more disks, just throw them inside it without playing around with half knackered frayed cables, external enclosures, power management and cable routing, volume management etc. More RAM? chuck it in. More CPU, chuck another CPU in.

Apple aren't offering ANY of that.

To be honest, neither Alienware or Razer are even workstation class machines either.

People have a low expectation of the term "workstation" these days.

Citation:

http://www.hp.com/united-states/campaigns/workstations/z820_...

Edit: will the "downvoters" please bother to stop and explain what their idea of a workstation is?

Re: Mac Pro

#132

I love watching people moan about this yet unreleased product. I think the new Mac Pro episode will resemble the iPad one - lots of "ohemgee it's like just a bigger ipod, lol, how stupid do they think we are, kthx?" reactions, when in fact this product will probably push a new paradigm shift in the way workstations are built i.e. moving away from the plastic pieces of shit ubiquitously sold now. Seriously, I dare you…

[deleted]

Re: Mac Pro

#133

Hurrah! GPUs sealed directly into the machine. No more keeping old macs alive with extra GPUs. (the quadro 4000 and k5000 really helped the 2009 macpro) It also appears to only have one CPU. From what the page says its only got one Memory controller, which as the "new"* Xeons have onboard memory controllers. So that seems a bit of a fail. *as in the same Xeons that have been in the HP Z620/820 for the last 8 months

This Mac Pro will be using the Ivy Bridge-based Xeons, not the Sandy Bridge-based ones that are in the HP machines you refer to.

Re: Mac Pro

#134
I've been using the same Mac Pro since 2008. I bought an ATI Radeon 6970 around a year or so ago and extended its life that much more. For most of my computer's life, its had a PCIe eSATA card and an external case. It works great still but its starting to show its age.

I can't say I'm too excited about a computer that's relegated to an much more expensive Mac Mini. Thunderbolt 2 is nice but its a poor substitute for internal drive bays and 16x PCIe.

Re: Mac Pro

#135
I wonder if you can use the center to play office basketball with the paper scraps. If it gets hot because of usage you may even have a fun little fire pit to use.

Regardless it looks cool and it may have issues but it will be a great computer, overpriced but great.

Re: Mac Pro

#136
post #70

"Okay, we COULD just label the ports with regular high color contrast paint. Say, white paint on a black background or black paint on a white background. But that would be TOO EASY and the panel would then really 'pop' against our otherwise monolithic clean design. Which would be distracting." "But during actual use the ports are going to be on the BACK of the device (so you won't see it) and will have random stuff p…

Playing the devil's advocate here:

Black on black is pretty funky, but it might make sense to have LED lights. When you plug stuff into its expansion ports, chances are you're gonna move the machine slightly, so it lights up automagically which lets you see where things are.

You may also put this inside a cabinet or under the desk maybe (I'd put it on a mantlepiece) where light isn't abundant. Shake it, ah, there it is. No hard drive so you can shake your heart out!

Re: Mac Pro

#137
post #119
post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My current mac pro has 6 displays attached, three of which are "high resolution" (2560x1600). I think that the 4k displays require 2x thunderbolt ? Or else why would there be a limitation of 3 ? So all 6 TB ports used, and no ability to add a 4th display. EDIT: well, I could add a 4th with HDMI, but it would be low resolution, and the 5th and 6th displays are impossible. Also, all 6 TB ports used up, so no further ex…

Thunderbolt can be daisy-chained just like USB, so you're not limited to just the 6 provided ports.

"Thunderbolt can be daisy-chained just like USB, so you're not limited to just the 6 provided ports."

Ok. Still trying to understand the "3" limitation on 4k displays. If it's a bandwidth issue, you'd think the number would be 4, since there are two cards.

And if it is bandwidth, then presumably 3 4k displays plugged in and ... even the empty TB ports become unusable since there is no more bandwidth available ?

I just want to plug in 6 monitors and am trying to figure out how :)

Re: Mac Pro

#138
Only 2 things that I don't like about it: 1) price, 2) can't upgrade.

Otherwise it's very impressive.

Re: Mac Pro

#139
post #119
post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My current mac pro has 6 displays attached, three of which are "high resolution" (2560x1600). I think that the 4k displays require 2x thunderbolt ? Or else why would there be a limitation of 3 ? So all 6 TB ports used, and no ability to add a 4th display. EDIT: well, I could add a 4th with HDMI, but it would be low resolution, and the 5th and 6th displays are impossible. Also, all 6 TB ports used up, so no further ex…

Thunderbolt can be daisy-chained just like USB, so you're not limited to just the 6 provided ports.

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