New Mac Pro Tech Specs • Hacker News Board

Re: New Mac Pro Tech Specs

#441

Post by collyw » Fri, Sep 27, 2019, 4:25 PM UTC

maccard wrote: post #413

ganonm wrote: post #381

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple service is atrocious. Don't they make you book an appointment and turn up at their store just to get someone to look at it? I hear of people who spend more time taking their laptops to the local Apple store than most people with major illnesses spend going to the doctor... I bought a Dell XPS13 laptop recently which unfortunately had a non functioning motherboard. I contacted Dell and a technician came to my ho…

> Apple service is atrocious. Don't they make you book an appointment and turn up at their store just to get someone to look at it? I had a macbook pro with a logic board that died. I phoned Apple, they couriered me a replacement device next day, and that courier picked up my old device. Literally couldn't ask for better service.

I was just thinking reading the comment that you replied to that this goes one of two ways. Some people seem to get wonderful service, others crap for relatively high price.

Re: New Mac Pro Tech Specs

#442

Post by maaaats » Fri, Sep 27, 2019, 4:25 PM UTC

bgentry wrote: post #440

maaaats wrote: post #242

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not at my laptop until monday so not sure about all details, but almost that, yes. It's a top specced P1. Xeon but 6 cores I think. 64gb ddr4. 1500mb/s read I think it was on the SSD. Not silent, exactly though, hehe.

Wow, that’s a beast of a laptop. I just configured one and the cost isn’t all that different from my 18mo old iMac Pro :) I have to imagine that the battery life isn’t great given the non-mobile parts, and that it must weigh a ton? I’m enjoying the combo of a powerful workstation where I work most of the time, and then a thin & light portable device for when I need portability. For me that combo works well and hits t…

Yeah, not cheap, but my company let me choose between that and a top of the line macbook, and since my previous macbook was a catastrophy I switched setup entirely.

The weight isn't too bad, I have it in my backpack commuting by bike in hilly Norway. But maybe too heavy for a shoulder bag. The battery time is useless, yes, so that's the big tradeoff. But since I bike instead of commuting by train or so, I never used my previous laptop not plugged in anyway.

Re: New Mac Pro Tech Specs

#443

Post by lliamander » Fri, Sep 27, 2019, 4:25 PM UTC

alluro2 wrote: post #253

bgentry wrote: post #236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your Lenovo laptop has an 8 core 3.2GHz Xeon with 4.2GHz Turbo Boost, 19MB Cache, 64GB DDR4, silent cooling even under heavy load (which it can sustain), and an SSD that does 1700MB/s with full disk encryption?

Actually, P53 and P73 can be specced with all of those - and more. Up to 128GB RAM, Quadro graphics, 3 drive slots/bays (2 NvME, 1 2.5")...And the chassis is not compromised for thinness, so cooling is adequate.

I'm thinking of getting either a P1 or a P53 for my next work upgrade. The P53 will likely have better thermals, but the P1 has an option to remove the discrete GPU, and just use the integrated GPU. As I have no need for a fancy GPU, I figure it would reduce unnecessary power draw.

Re: New Mac Pro Tech Specs

#444

Post by chx » Fri, Sep 27, 2019, 4:41 PM UTC

AceJohnny2 wrote: post #173

chx wrote: post #98

It is still not shipping so there's not really a reason not to use a Threadripper for lower price AND higher performance. Or even Epyc chips. We know the Titan Ridge Thunderbolt controllers work on AMD motherboards. Alpine Ridge had firmware problems but Titan Ridge is fine.

Apple & Intel are deeply entwined, both at a technical and a contractual level. There's a reason Apple has never made an AMD computer.

Well, AMD had nothing to offer really especially in the low power space where Apple mostly is but Sharkstooth and Rome so throughly trounces Intel high end it's not even funny. (Yes, Sharkstooth is not yet out but already the Ryzen 3000 chips make a joke out of the lower end of Intel Xeons and leaking benchmarks paint an interesting picture of the upcoming Threadripper 3000s.)

Re: New Mac Pro Tech Specs

#445

Post by tracker1 » Fri, Sep 27, 2019, 4:44 PM UTC

nickjj wrote: post #340

Corrado wrote: post #103

I think they should include Apple Care for their professional equipment. This won't put any any more money in Apple's pocket but I could see it being another differentiator and a good bit of PR, especially to all of those price arguments. Plus, it's only $300 and I'm sure Apple could suffer that "loss" on a $6,000 - $30,000 purchase.

> I think they should include Apple Care for their professional equipment. This won't put any any more money in Apple's pocket but I could see it being another differentiator and a good bit of PR, especially to all of those price arguments. Do Apple hardware failures happen often? In ~20 years of assembling PCs with consumer grade parts I've only had 2 legit non-keyboard/mouse hardware failures (3 if you count lightn…

Funny, in about the same period ~27 years or so, I've seen enough PSU failures alone, that I always use a UPS. I've seen ram that failed a couple times, quite a few motherboards die in the early 00's. A MB that was DOA and a video card that died after a year. Oh, and a first gen Intel SSD that suddenly thought it was an 8mb drive.

I still prefer to DIY for value... my 4790k build lasted 5 years, just put together a new one, placeholder cpu waiting for 3950X. Will probably, again, last 5 years or so.

Re: New Mac Pro Tech Specs

#446

Post by chx » Fri, Sep 27, 2019, 4:45 PM UTC

TazeTSchnitzel wrote: post #314

chx wrote: post #98

It is still not shipping so there's not really a reason not to use a Threadripper for lower price AND higher performance. Or even Epyc chips. We know the Titan Ridge Thunderbolt controllers work on AMD motherboards. Alpine Ridge had firmware problems but Titan Ridge is fine.

Motherboard design takes time — and Apple would also need AMD firmware and software support. If Apple want to go AMD it would be next year's model at the very earliest.

Eh, no. Google has been testing Rome for a long time before official announcement, this Mac Pro could easily have been the launch customer for Threadripper 3000.

Re: New Mac Pro Tech Specs

#447

Post by bitwize » Fri, Sep 27, 2019, 4:47 PM UTC

drivingmenuts wrote: post #61

bitwize wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or plug the mouse into the USB hub on the keyboard. (You did say "proper keyboard" by which, for a Mac, I assume you meant "Matias Tactile Pro")

I thought OP meant a das Keyboard.

That's a nice one too, but the Matias is intended for use with Macs and has a more Mac-like placement of the alt and super keys.

Re: New Mac Pro Tech Specs

#448

Post by tracker1 » Fri, Sep 27, 2019, 4:50 PM UTC

Uehreka wrote: post #205

mark_l_watson wrote: post #151

A great machine to be sure for high end content creation but Apple is not chasing the deep learning dev market because of the lack of CUDA. That market is better served by Linux boxes with appropriate GPUs for TensorFlow, PyTorch, etc. support.

Nvidia really has the GPU market under their thumb. It would be one thing if their pitch was "We're not as good as AMD for games, but we've got CUDA for professionals and researchers!". At least that way there could be some sort of segmentation and I could tell people shopping for GPUs to "get the right one for what you want to do!" But that's not the world we live in. Nvidia's pitch is "We make the only hardware tha…

I'd guess that within 2 years AMD will be competitive to Nvidia at the high end. Their strategy is a bit different, they're delivering good value at 2/3 the way up the performance graph... not as big a markup as a $1200 RTX 2080 Ti, but the RX 5700 XT is decent, especially for the price.

Most people aren't spending over $500 on a GPU, so they get the volume sales. The better aftermarket cards have been selling out pretty consistently. And the longer term strategies are similar to how they approached Ryzen. So, I'd think that Navi can definitely succeed in that light.

The real lock in for NVidia, is all the existing CUDA development. Intel and AMD will have a lot of work, One API may help there, so long as Intel and AMD can work together, without Intel's often and weird lock in attempts.

Re: New Mac Pro Tech Specs

#449

Post by rubbingalcohol » Fri, Sep 27, 2019, 4:53 PM UTC

ryanwaggoner wrote: post #397

DoctorPenguin wrote: post #282

Please forgive my ignorance but the specs on this are just average in my opinion. Why would I choose this over a custom build pc with almost the same, if not better, components? My experience with all apple products at work has been quite bad so I might be a little biased.

I have zero interest in building my own PC, or dealing with fragmented and terrible support when issues crop up, or using anything other than macOS. And definitely not to save a few bucks. You clearly are different in your values and priorities. That’s what “if you don’t understand, you’re not the target market” means.

The parent didn't mention anything about saving money, or building a machine from parts. You can order a custom build from any number of OEMs and have a same-day on-site service warranty. The point about building a technically superior machine stands. I use Apple for their laptops because the OS is superior on a touch pad. But really all their desktop machines are joke hardware. The Mac Pro is just a bigger more expensive joke than the others.

Intel is old news on HEDT ever since Threadripper became a thing. The final nail in that coffin will be the November release of the third-gen Ryzen Threadripper making that 28 core Xeon obsolete. I'm curious if the new Mac Pro will even be available by then.

AMD builds admirable video cards, but the Radeon VII is inferior for professional work compared to Nvidia cards and CUDA.

MacOS is superior to Windows but inferior to Linux. A lot of people with HEDT builds are in Linux (myself included). I appreciate being able to do some of my favorite Unixy stuff in MacOS at a fraction of the speed, but for high end use it's still a joke.

Re: New Mac Pro Tech Specs

#450

Post by wffurr » Fri, Sep 27, 2019, 4:55 PM UTC

whywhywhywhy wrote: post #394

wffurr wrote: post #389

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Doesn't the new top tier Mac Mini fill a lot of the role the trash can Mac Pro did? You can hook up GPUs to it with the thunderbolt ports. I think the top model is faster than the trash can Mac Pro.

> You can hook up GPUs to it with the thunderbolt ports Thunderbolt GPU cases are hundreds of dollars. For a dual GPU Mac Mini setup (which would be a mass of cables and require 3 outlet plugs) you could afford a 3 GPU Windows tower. As someone who used to be a pretty extreme Mac evangelist I really did look into all this before I made the switch to a Windows machine.

Sure, Windows machines have always been cheaper for similar specs and performance. The Mac Mini and GPU setup is way cheaper than the new Mac Pro and hits a bunch of the use cases (development, machine learning, gaming) that people wanted a Mac Pro for.