I see a lot of people complaining about Mac Pro not for them and iMac / Pro doesn't fit their needs / price point.
Is there any reason why Apple isn't considering the option of using AMD?
Apple Is Listening
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Re: Apple Is Listening
#352Earlier quoted context omitted.
If you want to get a 6 Core I7 with a high end GPU and 16GB of RAM. Mac Mini 6 Core I7 16GB RAM - $1500 BlackMagic eGPU - $700 $2200 27” 5K iMac 6 Core i9 3.66Ghz 16GB RAM,256GB SSD - $2800. A 5K display by itself is going to set you back $1300. So now you’re at $1500 for the Mac itself.
Mac Mini 6 Core I7 16GB RAM - $1500 BlackMagic eGPU - $700 $2200 So for a mere $2,200 we can have: 1. A two year-old GPU inside the BlackMagic that has roughly roughly half the performance of the GTX 1080 Ti that was state of the art two years ago. Also, for this privilege, we pay $700 for this $200 GPU. https://www.videocardbenchmark.net/gpu.php?gpu=Radeon+Pro+58... 2. Whatever nightmares come with eGPU usage in 201…
From the article you posted: "...it a solid performer even when under load for a long time."
Small case, excellent thermal management
From a simple, binary, "yes or no" perspective, the Mac mini clearly throttles based on the thermal condition. But, this is not a "gate," conspiracy, or anything of that nature. Everything with an Intel processor will adjust speed based on the thermal condition, with the severity of the slowdown and impact on performance depending on how much money you've invested into a cooling system if you've built the machine yourself.
All this said, we're impressed with how the performance on the Mac mini held up as the job progressed and time ticked on. The clock speed averaged out at around 3.4GHz to 3.5GHz under 100 percent CPU workload with the i7 models, but at no point did it drop below the 3.2GHz base clock speed —making it a solid performer even when under load for a long time.
Do you have comparative benchmarks between the Mini and a desktop under load for a long time?
Why would you think that an eGPU codesigned with Apple, where Apple wrote the drivers, to run on Apple hardware would have issues? I chose Black Magic’s eGPU since it appeared on Apple’s website, and I don’t know that market. But there are raw enclosures for $200 that let you put in any card with a supported driver.
Re: Apple Is Listening
#353Earlier quoted context omitted.
I seriously doubt the Hackintosh community has gotten any bigger than it was 5 tears ago. Any numbers to back that claim? Also, the Mini and the iMacs have always had upgradeable RAM.
Here's subscribers over time to /r/hackintosh [1] - about 600% growth over the last 5 years. Also, the 2014 Mac Mini removed the ability to upgrade RAM [2], but now it's back with the 2018 Mini. [1] https://subredditstats.com/r/hackintosh [2] https://www.macworld.com/article/2836399/new-mac-mini-restri...
Not convinced about the subreddit stats tbh. I've been subscribed for many years but I stopped building hackintoshes 3 years ago. It's a shame the comments/posts are limited to 1 year only.
Thanks, I didn't know the 2014 model didn't have upgradeable RAM. The last one I bought was the 2013.
Re: Apple Is Listening
#354> Apple has doubled-down on its refusal to sell user-serviceable, upgradeable, and expandable hardware at prices that are within reach for most customers
Apple needs to bring back something like the Quadra 700, which was only $5700 in 1991. ;-)
Though I suppose what you are asking for is actually the 1st gen Mac Pro, which was $2500 in 2006.
Re: Apple Is Listening
#355I think I might just be done with Apple. That culture of saying nothing and the surprising customers with things is like betting in Vegas. And unfortunately for Apple, the house always wins. They can repair the damage of the Mac Pro debacle with a new Mac Pro, but they haven't owned the train wreck of a keyboard on the Macbook Pro. Sure, they might be ready to hit it big on a double down on black, but in the meantime…
What about the trackpad though? I just can't get over how inferior everyone else's trackpads are.
The MacBook Pro trackpad is a disaster - the palm rejection simply doesn't work. Baffling, since palm rejection works fine on the iPad.
Re: Apple Is Listening
#356Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm probably not a good target, but my wishlist for a laptop (that I cannot buy anywhere right now) is: - Great touchpad (Apple are the only ones ticking that box) - Good keyboard (Old apple and thinkpads are fine. New apples are terrible, just like the Asus UX430 I got at work). - Great thermals (I want to be able to use my laptop as a laptop. Most of them nowadays burn during summer in hot areas). - Good battery li…
I have much the same wishlist as you, and also haven't found anything that ticks all of the boxes. My day job is network/sysadmin/IT, which mostly involves remote connectivity to other hosts, so my local CPU grunt needs are not particularly heavy. That said, given the dearth of good options out there right now, I just replaced an old MacBook Air with a Surface Book 2, and with a few exceptions, I couldn't be happier…
Thanks for the pointer.
Unfortunately, the surface book base model is now on sale for 1499€ here (with a pen for "free"). With only 8Gb RAM, 256Gb HDD and 0 upgradability it'll be a pass from me. It is good to know that PC's are starting to get good trackpads though!
Re: Apple Is Listening
#357I see a lot of people complaining about Mac Pro not for them and iMac / Pro doesn't fit their needs / price point. Is there any reason why Apple isn't considering the option of using AMD?
The main rumor these days (well, it's been a rumor for quite a few years) is that they'll be dropping Intel and switching to house-designed ARM chips across the board.
Re: Apple Is Listening
#358Earlier quoted context omitted.
Here are my issues as a user of a 2013 Mac Pro: - Neither the Mac Mini nor 2019 Mac Pro are user-serviceable; you have to take your Mac to an Apple-approved repair center if you want to upgrade your RAM (see https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT205041#one and https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT208377 ). I guess it's nice to have DIMMs when the computer is out of warranty, but I'd like to preserve my warranty and not have…
For most consumer PCs, I have no problem with most things being soldered on like RAM, CPU, etc...but soldering on the storage is unforgiveable. And it has nothing to do with being able to upgrade it, but rather it's about the problems this introduces (and the options it limits) when it comes to data recovery when your machine inevitably @#$@#s up.
Indeed. I was able to recover 10 years of photos and data from my brother-in-law's non-booting 2009 iMac earlier this year after he extricated the disk from behind the flat panel. He bought a new disk and I transferred the data onto it. His family now has a functioning computer again and all of their photos back, as if nothing ever happened.
Re: Apple Is Listening
#359Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm now using an early 2017 MacBook Pro 13" "Escape" (14,1 sans Touch Bar), with the 2nd-gen butterfly keyboard. My main workflow revolves around iTerm2, zsh, tmux, and NeoVim. Even though I have a real Esc key, I usually use Ctrl-[ as it's closer to the home row and faster for me. Far more worrying to me is the butterfly keyboard in this scenario (for dev). The Ctrl, Tab, Return, and especially the A, J, K, D, and T…
We all know that heat is the enemy of Li-ion batteries. I'm working remote in SE Asia, and even with office A/C it's very hot here. This laptop is a little over a year old, has never been used outdoors or outside an office, and it's already in "Service Battery" mode and shutting down at around 70% charge. Something sounds very wrong there. Unless you are regularly using it in areas above 35° C it shouldn't really mat…
Clarification: I have used this in rooms with no A/C, but to my knowledge it's never been in a room with temperatures above what Apple recommends as above normal range.
Re: Apple Is Listening
#360Earlier quoted context omitted.
You will not be editing raw 8K video using the tiny 8 core CPU and 256GB storage space of the base model which the parent was referring to ($6000). Its true that for Hollywood projects, the price of this might not be a huge deal, even with the baller fully speced out model. Heck in my own industry (pharma) we're paying thousands and thousands of dollars for software that doesn't do much except have the magical 21CFR…
I wouldn’t put much emphasis on the storage. Most places that are doing video editing at this level are using all flash based SAN networking over 10/100GB Ethernet/fibre. As for the CPU, I agree. However I’m not 100% sure on how much can be offloaded to the GPU these days, 5-ish years ago when I was working with video editors a lot, it wasn’t much that could be offloaded. Maybe it’s improved a lot.
I got Vegas Pro Edit from a Humble Bundle recently. Almost everything seems to be GPU accelerated.