The Mac Pro Review • Hacker News Board

Re: The Mac Pro Review

#31

Post by Watabou » Tue, Dec 31, 2013, 10:25 PM UTC

yapcguy wrote: post #23

leephillips wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

AnandTech is often the only place that measures and reports anything about the screens of computers, tablets, and phones aside from how many pixels they have (color space, color accuracy, etc.). For this alone they are gold.

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

It looks like your dislike of Apple somehow means that Anandtech is the one who is biased? Really? Come on now.

Re: The Mac Pro Review

#32

Post by gfodor » Tue, Dec 31, 2013, 10:26 PM 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.

It's a "forward looking" architecture (to steal the line from the iPhone 5S pitch.) They're betting big on GPU compute. I wouldn't say it is for "niche markets", though perhaps today it is only useful to smaller markets, it's that this computer is going to over time get faster and faster relative to the 2013 iMac and MBPs as more apps take advantage of the GPUs. It's kind of a unique phenomenon and makes the benchmarks misleading. That said, it remains to be seen if this bet will pay off -- we could end up 5 years from now with the same small subset of apps taking advantage of GPUs as there are now.

Re: The Mac Pro Review

#33

Post by Cookingboy » Tue, Dec 31, 2013, 10:28 PM UTC

yapcguy wrote: post #23

leephillips wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

AnandTech is often the only place that measures and reports anything about the screens of computers, tablets, and phones aside from how many pixels they have (color space, color accuracy, etc.). For this alone they are gold.

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

That's just them being silly, since Apple actually do make fantastic products and care more than the superficial marketing specs wars (GHz race, number of cores race, megapixel race, screen size race, etc).

Re: The Mac Pro Review

#34

Post by davidy123 » Tue, Dec 31, 2013, 10:29 PM UTC

M4v3R wrote: post #2

AnandTech hardware and Ars Technica's software (especially OS X) reviews are works of art by themselves. The level of details that goes into these pieces is nothing short of amazing. They are examples of tech journaling done right.

Really? It's the same format that's been around since the earliest days of Web reviews. Newer sites are moving on to data allowing comparisons between anything (storagereview was an early leader in that). Although it's not quite as pathetic as sites that post screen captures of benchmark programs, I find sites like anandtech are like quaint bedtime stories in comparison.

Re: The Mac Pro Review

#35

Post by LukeShu » Tue, Dec 31, 2013, 10:31 PM UTC

Cookingboy wrote: post #29

at-fates-hands wrote: post #28

Interesting they compared the new Mac to a workstation. Older workstations these days are a lot more affordable and can easily be upgraded. Most MACS you're stuck with what you get. Case in point, I just purchased an HP 8400 workstation for a friend. $320 for a dual proc 2.6GHz quad core Xeon, 16GB RAM, Two 320GB SAS drives in RAID config and ATI Fire V7350 1GB video card. Sure its a pig and isn't the quietest PC in…

Really? $320 for a new machine with that spec? That graphics card alone costed more than that when it was new, did the CPU/storage/power supply come at negative price? If this was true, it would really explain HP's financial situation /s EDIT: that graphics card despite being old, still sells for $300 on Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/ATI-100-505143-FireGL-512-bit-Express/...

Read closer. He "just" recently paid that. The HP 8400 is what, a 2007 machine? The prices when the parts were new is irrelevant.

Re: The Mac Pro Review

#36

Post by Cookingboy » Tue, Dec 31, 2013, 10:31 PM UTC

Watabou wrote: post #31

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.

It looks like your dislike of Apple somehow means that Anandtech is the one who is biased? Really? Come on now.

He wasn't speaking for himself, he was talking about some of their readers.

Re: The Mac Pro Review

#37

Post by bfrog » Tue, Dec 31, 2013, 10:33 PM UTC

A 1 year warranty is such a joke for this much money. I think this and the new mbp where should anything break you need a full replacement basically, need to have some serious warranty coverage changes. 3 years minimum in my mind. Just another way to nickle and dime you on something like an almost required extended warranty.

Apple, your stuff is mostly nice. Fix your product warranty and maybe I'll open my wallet.

Re: The Mac Pro Review

#38

Post by Cookingboy » Tue, Dec 31, 2013, 10:34 PM UTC

LukeShu wrote: post #35

Cookingboy wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Really? $320 for a new machine with that spec? That graphics card alone costed more than that when it was new, did the CPU/storage/power supply come at negative price? If this was true, it would really explain HP's financial situation /s EDIT: that graphics card despite being old, still sells for $300 on Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/ATI-100-505143-FireGL-512-bit-Express/...

Read closer. He "just" recently paid that. The HP 8400 is what, a 2007 machine? The prices when the parts were new is irrelevant.

I suspected as much, but then it's silly to bring it into a cost/performance comparison against a brand new top of the line 2013 desktop. Yes they are upgradable, but by the time you upgrade them to modern spec it will cost a lot more than $320.

Re: The Mac Pro Review

#39

Post by mwfunk » Tue, Dec 31, 2013, 10:34 PM UTC

at-fates-hands wrote: post #28

Interesting they compared the new Mac to a workstation. Older workstations these days are a lot more affordable and can easily be upgraded. Most MACS you're stuck with what you get. Case in point, I just purchased an HP 8400 workstation for a friend. $320 for a dual proc 2.6GHz quad core Xeon, 16GB RAM, Two 320GB SAS drives in RAID config and ATI Fire V7350 1GB video card. Sure its a pig and isn't the quietest PC in…

"MACS"?

Re: The Mac Pro Review

#40

Post by mortenjorck » Tue, Dec 31, 2013, 10:44 PM UTC

mwfunk wrote: post #39

at-fates-hands wrote: post #28

Interesting they compared the new Mac to a workstation. Older workstations these days are a lot more affordable and can easily be upgraded. Most MACS you're stuck with what you get. Case in point, I just purchased an HP 8400 workstation for a friend. $320 for a dual proc 2.6GHz quad core Xeon, 16GB RAM, Two 320GB SAS drives in RAID config and ATI Fire V7350 1GB video card. Sure its a pig and isn't the quietest PC in…

"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.