This is so awesome. Wow. Amazing design.
Mac Pro
421–430 of 571 posts
Re: Mac Pro
#422Re: Mac Pro
#423Earlier quoted context omitted.
I definitely see what you are saying, and that is why I do think it is a very impressive and very cool computer. But a lot of the value for me was the one device. A single, unix based[1] device that did everything from be my htpc to be my fileserver to be my desktop, music player, build box, run all my vms, etc. I derived a lot of value from that. Even if the second device is an apple TV, it's still a second device.…
Some Googling suggests that PCIe 4.0 4x is 64Gb/s per direction, Thunderbolt is 10, and Thunderbolt 2 is 20. Edit: Then again, this thing has 6 Thunderbolt ports. As ugly as it would be, a device could hypothetically be made that uses, say, 5 ports.
PCIe 4.0 is double the bandwidth of PCIe 3.0, which is about 1 GB/s per lane, or 16 GB/s for PCIe 3.0 x16. PCIe 4.0 x4 would be ~8 GB/s, and x16 would be 32 GB/s. Unfortunately, the spec won't be finalized for another couple years.
Re: Mac Pro
#424Earlier quoted context omitted.
Some Googling suggests that PCIe 4.0 4x is 64Gb/s per direction, Thunderbolt is 10, and Thunderbolt 2 is 20. Edit: Then again, this thing has 6 Thunderbolt ports. As ugly as it would be, a device could hypothetically be made that uses, say, 5 ports.
PCIe 4.0 is double the bandwidth of PCIe 3.0, which is about 1 GB/s per lane, or 16 GB/s for PCIe 3.0 x16. PCIe 4.0 x4 would be ~8 GB/s, and x16 would be 32 GB/s. Unfortunately, the spec won't be finalized for another couple years. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PCI_Express#PCI_Express_4.0
> PCIe 4.0 x4 would be ~8 GB/s
That's what I said, 64 Gbps. :)
Re: Mac Pro
#425Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't see how this is a mass market design. It's a bunch of Xeons cores paired with ECC RAM, stupid-fast storage, and way more GPU power than any reasonable person can use. And probably priced to match. Weird industrial design != mass market.
This is just blind speculation (I am not apple [power] user, nor have I owned the new mac pro): Maybe (sacrificing customizability[?] for portability) + (somewhat superficial/look change maybe for change's sake) + (lack of (water cooling, cd/dvd/bluray%, power surge supply/protector thingy%, raid%)) != professional market? % = if you want these, there goes some of the portability/simplicity. (unless apple monitor usu…
My thoughts having never owned a Mac Pro (though on my 2nd MacBook Pro): SAN/NAS + the near uselessness of internal optical drives.
In a "professional" environment, large storage is on the network, redundant, with regular backups (preferably including off-site backup). The more important the data is, the less likely anyone wants it sitting on someone's desktop any longer than necessary for that person to do their job.
The handful of people using Mac Pros in my work environment generate and store massive amounts of data, but they don't store it on their desktop indefinitely.
Re: Mac Pro
#426Earlier quoted context omitted.
Heh, I bet you're somewhere with high bandwidth, no data caps and very low latency. Here, I'm 30-60ms away from the big datacentres, and 200-400ms away from the US. Data is capped at ~500gb per month on the high end plans, and that's both upload and download. I'm lucky to get 10 megabits down, 1 megabit up on a good day. Coupled with the fact our country's going to head back to the 1950s with the inevitable change of…
Australia? But yeah, where I am I was on mobile internet for a year where I would go 2 weeks on a 2G connection and even on the 3G I had pings of 200~ to data centers in my city.
Guessed it. I was debating whether to mention it in my post.
Re: Mac Pro
#427OK, so it's not a Mac Pro. It's a Mac Mini Pro. As long as it's not too expensive, it's exactly what a lot of prosumers might want (especially those who want to ditch their laptops for iPads and iPhones, and maybe a MBA for the road- a lot of people's MacBook Pros live on their desks). I can't see a serious video editor wanting one, but they're all jumping ship to get cheaper Wintel workstations (and at some point, s…
"I can't see a serious video editor wanting one, but they're all jumping ship to get cheaper Wintel workstations" Is this actually the case? I don't know anything about that segment of the computing industry, but I just assumed that FCP was the industry standard.
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Re: Mac Pro
#428OK, so it's not a Mac Pro. It's a Mac Mini Pro. As long as it's not too expensive, it's exactly what a lot of prosumers might want (especially those who want to ditch their laptops for iPads and iPhones, and maybe a MBA for the road- a lot of people's MacBook Pros live on their desks). I can't see a serious video editor wanting one, but they're all jumping ship to get cheaper Wintel workstations (and at some point, s…
"I can't see a serious video editor wanting one, but they're all jumping ship to get cheaper Wintel workstations" Is this actually the case? I don't know anything about that segment of the computing industry, but I just assumed that FCP was the industry standard.
Dont know how much of this is true but i have recently seen this video which talks a bit about it:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3TyswmRCdl8
Re: Mac Pro
#429Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't see how this is a mass market design. It's a bunch of Xeons cores paired with ECC RAM, stupid-fast storage, and way more GPU power than any reasonable person can use. And probably priced to match. Weird industrial design != mass market.
I assume he is referring to the strange decision to make the thing so small (and beautiful) at the expense of any internal expandability. So professionals are going to have all sorts of hard drives and external graphics cards and optical drives etc hanging off this thing.
sorry if I am barking up the wrong tree.. but do you think it will be beautiful with all the breakout cables ?
For me this whole thing looks like a blast from the past - my trusty C64 with everything outside the box (and there were some articles in the 64er magazine [german magazine] which showed how to build everything into a single case for the neat, "integrated" look)
Re: Mac Pro
#430Earlier quoted context omitted.
PCIe 4.0 is double the bandwidth of PCIe 3.0, which is about 1 GB/s per lane, or 16 GB/s for PCIe 3.0 x16. PCIe 4.0 x4 would be ~8 GB/s, and x16 would be 32 GB/s. Unfortunately, the spec won't be finalized for another couple years. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PCI_Express#PCI_Express_4.0
> PCIe 4.0 x4 would be ~8 GB/s That's what I said, 64 Gbps. :)
Oh wow, yeah... didn't realize it was 20 Gbits/s for TB2 and not GB. It's not even close to as fast as currently shipping PCIe 3.0 x16, at 2.5 GB/s versus PCIe's 16. I guess external video cards are not really much of an option. Even using up all six TB2 ports won't get you as much bandwidth as a single PCIe 3.0 x16 slot.