The Mac Pro Review • Hacker News Board

Re: The Mac Pro Review

#101

Post by rsynnott » Wed, Jan 01, 2014, 2:29 AM UTC

corresation wrote: post #57

The one strange assumption that most Mac Pro reviews start with is a baseline of two compute cards -- that the Mac Pro is competitive when compared with other machines with two high-end compute cards. But I don't want two high-end compute cards, and I suspect that many who are trying to convince themselves that they'll benefit from it will gain no value from it. For many, many workloads, modern compute still represen…

> But I don't want two high-end compute cards

In which case, do you want a Xeon workstation of any sort? As mentioned later on in the review, you make significant sacrifices for Xeon (startlingly expensive, last-gen cores), and, besides the option for more cores than you can get on an iX, the main thing you get is extra PCIe lanes, which are not actually that useful for most things; one of the few things they _are_ useful for is dual hefty GPUs.

Re: The Mac Pro Review

#102

Post by veidr » Wed, Jan 01, 2014, 2:29 AM UTC

For me the disappointing takeaway is that good high-res monitor support isn't implemented. Like the reviewer, I had assumed the same types of scaling options that the high-res MacBook Pros have.

However, according to this review, the new Mac Pro doesn't work with the new Dell 4K monitors (I don't consider 30Hz refresh as 'working'), and even with the 4K display that Apple sells, it only works at its native 3840 x 2160 at 60Hz. When choosing a 'Scaled' resolution, it renders blurry junk.

That is pretty disappointing (although I imagine it will be fixed at some point).

http://anandtech.com/show/7603/mac-pro-review-late-2013/11

Re: The Mac Pro Review

#103

Post by asdfs » Wed, Jan 01, 2014, 2:42 AM UTC

patrickg_zill wrote: post #89

It is a well written review. Note that the D700 specs match closely with the R9 280, 280X, or 290, cards which sell retail for $349 to $449 or so each (the Mac Pro has 2 of these in the 2x D700 config). See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AMD_Radeon_Rx_200_Series . The 2048 shaders would match with the 2048 number for the 280X, I think (if I am reading the chart right). The W7000 is the much more expensive "pro" versio…

Were it not for the current shortage of 280X cards due to Litecoin mining, one could build a similar Hackintosh for quite a low price. Though you'd be stuck with 3GiB of memory per card rather than 6GiB (at least until MSI releases their 6GiB 280X, which they have listed on their site).

Re: The Mac Pro Review

#104

Post by rsynnott » Wed, Jan 01, 2014, 2:59 AM UTC

mortenjorck wrote: post #40

mwfunk wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"MACS"?

Writing "Mac" in all caps as if the writer obtusely believes it to be an acronym for something is part of the style manual for passive-aggressive platform debate.

I assume it stands for Malevolent Alien Computer System, or something.

Re: The Mac Pro Review

#105

Post by stephencanon » Wed, Jan 01, 2014, 3:12 AM UTC

rmrfrmrf wrote: post #98

corresation wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This has kind of been the claim for years now, though, with a burgeoning market of compute apps just around the corner. Only it isn't so easy, and compute applications only apply for a specific set of problems, not only because of the GPU geared restrictions and architecture of these designs, but because of the islands of memory forcing endless memory copies back and forth. Unified memory should go a long way to maki…

I wouldn't be surprised if Apple develops a library to help facilitate GPU usage, similar to how they developed Grand Central Dispatch to help developers utilize multicore CPUs more effectively.

Even better: what if Apple developed a whole language for GPU compute? They could eventually get other vendors to participate and make it an open standard. How about "Open Compute Language"? Nah, too verbose. How about "OpenCL"? ... =)

Re: The Mac Pro Review

#106

Post by roc » Wed, Jan 01, 2014, 3:25 AM UTC

rmrfrmrf wrote: post #98

corresation wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This has kind of been the claim for years now, though, with a burgeoning market of compute apps just around the corner. Only it isn't so easy, and compute applications only apply for a specific set of problems, not only because of the GPU geared restrictions and architecture of these designs, but because of the islands of memory forcing endless memory copies back and forth. Unified memory should go a long way to maki…

I wouldn't be surprised if Apple develops a library to help facilitate GPU usage, similar to how they developed Grand Central Dispatch to help developers utilize multicore CPUs more effectively.

Doesn't GCD do OpenCL?

Or do you mean something more seamless and auto-magical?

Re: The Mac Pro Review

#107

Post by al2o3cr » Wed, Jan 01, 2014, 3:37 AM UTC

guelo wrote: post #15

Wow. For me, the big takeaway from this review are the benchmarks showing the iMac and MBPs beating out the Mac Pro. That shows that this machine is really for niche markets like professional video editing. Makes you wonder why Apple even bothers.

"Makes you wonder why Apple even bothers."

The line of video professionals happy to pay $10k/box to get their renders done faster screaming "TAKE MY MONEEY NAOW" might have something to do with it...

Also, since you missed all the charts showing the MP demolishing everything else by 2.5x+ on multithreaded workloads (ya know, the thing that people buy MPs for) you may want to verify your consumption of what the kids call "h8rade".

Re: The Mac Pro Review

#108

Post by leephillips » Wed, Jan 01, 2014, 4:29 AM UTC

coldtea wrote: post #79

yapcguy wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I like Anandtech but they have come into criticism recently, from some of their long-time readers, for fawning over Apple products.

> I like Anandtech but they have come into criticism recently, from some of their long-time readers, for fawning over Apple products. Which, instantly, should be reason enough to understand that said criticism is BS. Apple products are among the best in the industry, period. Not just from the industrial design part of it, but overall: coherence of product vision, attention to important characteristics for the target…

http://store.apple.com/us/reviews/MC747LL/A/apple-45w-magsaf...

EDIT: rsynnott, below, has an excellent point.

Re: The Mac Pro Review

#109

Post by ksec » Wed, Jan 01, 2014, 4:34 AM UTC

1. People hate Apple for whatever they do. 2. Those who said Mac Pro makes no sense have absolutely zero understanding in GFX market. 3. People who cries about Money Vs what you get to buy and build have absolutely zero understanding about engineering trade off. ( Which I expect HNers to have even from a software engineering perspective )

Re: The Mac Pro Review

#110

Post by rsynnott » Wed, Jan 01, 2014, 4:39 AM UTC

leephillips wrote: post #108

coldtea wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I like Anandtech but they have come into criticism recently, from some of their long-time readers, for fawning over Apple products. Which, instantly, should be reason enough to understand that said criticism is BS. Apple products are among the best in the industry, period. Not just from the industrial design part of it, but overall: coherence of product vision, attention to important characteristics for the target…

http://store.apple.com/us/reviews/MC747LL/A/apple-45w-magsaf... EDIT: rsynnott, below, has an excellent point.

The trouble with reviews on that sort of product is that almost nobody has any reason to ever write a good one, because everyone writing one is buying the thing because their old one broke. Unless you have a product that _never ever fails_, reviews on spare parts are always going to be pretty awful.