New Mac Pro • Hacker News Board

Re: New Mac Pro

#661

Post by auggierose » Tue, Jun 04, 2019, 10:09 AM UTC

ben-schaaf wrote: post #486

auggierose wrote: post #354

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What does CUDA support that Metal 2 cannot do? Recently I've been implementing some 3D mesh algorithms in Metal 2, and it was quite easy to do.

Support for all the CUDA code that's already out there. Not that I've used Metal, but that's what seems to be the reason behind OpenCL's lack of adoption

Sure. But there is also a lot of Metal code out there in order to make iPads fly. And they really do fly, I was amazed what kind of performance I could get out of them. For example, I had an algorithm running on my iMac Pro, programmed in Swift, utilising all of its 18 cores fully. It took about 5 minutes on a typical example. Then I recoded the algorithm for Metal, and it runs on the same example on my iPad Pro in under 10 seconds.

So, my bold prediction: Apple is going to shred Nvidia to pieces within the next 10 years.

Re: New Mac Pro

#662

Post by TheOperator » Tue, Jun 04, 2019, 10:36 AM UTC

Shivetya wrote: post #23

I know being expandable is important here but I am stunned by the fact that an iMac Pro actually comes with better SSD and Video Card for less money and you get a screen to boot! 256g SSD is shameful, I don't care what they were thinking. No Nvidia support mentioned so I know a few that just wrote it off for that oversight alone. They will probably hold out just to be sure but that was the hope for them and others. W…

What's wrong with a 256gb ssd? More than enough for plenty of use cases.

Re: New Mac Pro

#663

Post by pdimitar » Tue, Jun 04, 2019, 10:38 AM UTC

copperx wrote: post #648

pdimitar wrote: post #401

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I thought it was matte? Damn.

Matte option is $1k extra.

So the iMac Pro has a glossy and a matte option?

I feel stupid for not knowing this. Haven't seen it in the Apple Store app.

Re: New Mac Pro

#664

Post by justinclift » Tue, Jun 04, 2019, 11:22 AM UTC

chx wrote: post #658

justinclift wrote: post #639

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oops. Didn't spot that, sorry. :) That being said, after re-reading the comment they're talking about adding multiple PCIe cards to a box to achieve 100GB/s of local total throughput. That would be achievable over a network by adding multiple PCIe 200Gb/s network cards too. :)

Nah, a motherboard with enough M.2 connectors could easily exist. Or, U.2 or OCuLink. We have already seen 1P EPYC servers with six OCULink connectors...

Sure. My point is just that whatever bandwidth you can do locally, you can also do over the network.

As a sibling comment mentions though... the cost difference would be substantial. :(

Re: New Mac Pro

#665

Post by julienreszka » Tue, Jun 04, 2019, 11:22 AM UTC

thrower123 wrote: post #495

It's the most expensive cheese grater I've ever seen

The usual cheese graters actually look fine, but this...

Re: New Mac Pro

#666

Post by [deleted] » Tue, Jun 04, 2019, 11:25 AM UTC

llampx wrote: post #186

duskwuff wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The first step up from 256GB is 2x512GB, and there's configurations up to 2x2TB. My guess is that the 256GB configuration is meant for users that work primarily with data that's kept on network storage.

There's no professional that would buy a machine with 256GB of storage. Let's call it what it is - a throwaway configuration meant to hit a price point.

[deleted]

Re: New Mac Pro

#667

Post by your-nanny » Tue, Jun 04, 2019, 11:38 AM UTC

bscphil wrote: post #599

your-nanny wrote: post #557

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I suspect the issue is that in Linux the copy paste comnands are specific to each application, which can be annoying when copy pasting between multiple alplications., without a lot of configuring.

Hmm, that sounds like a possibility, though as a practical matter every UI application I can remember using on Linux uses Ctrl-C / Ctrl-V, and terminal applications use Ctrl-Shift-C / Ctrl-Shift-V - because Ctrl is for sending signals to applications (like Ctrl-C). That's universal enough that I don't see any issue. (Actually I prefer it to the way Apple separates Cmd and Ctrl, which I find infuriating because of the…

Ctrl-Y, a la emacs. E.g. Matlab uses that by default.

Re: New Mac Pro

#668

Post by rwmj » Tue, Jun 04, 2019, 12:11 PM UTC

chrisseaton wrote: post #454

Spivak wrote: post #416

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not a transparency issue, this dark pattern exists everywhere. You advertise "New X starting at $x" which is low enough to attract customers. But the thing you sell for $x is actually lacking in some small but important capacity making it unattractive for actual use. Then you sell an upgrade for the target price and customers are more willing to pay because it feels like they're paying a small premium for the th…

Where do you think the 'switch' is in that? At what point do they switch something from what was previously offered to something not expected? I don't think there is any switch. The specs are presented as up-front as any hardware spec is.

The switch is that you're some way through the "funnel" before you discover that to get a decent spec machine you need to spend a lot of money. It's the "power of commitment" sales trick.

Re: New Mac Pro

#669

Post by datalus » Tue, Jun 04, 2019, 12:13 PM UTC

chaostheory wrote: post #618

datalus wrote: post #609

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are ways around the official support drop as well, I run macOS mojave fine with a Mac Pro 3,1. These original cheese grater macs are truly still the best desktop tower they'll ever make at this point. It'd be fun to trick one out with a 3rd gen threadripper, which is probably faster than the 28-core rumored $35,000 mac pro. Here's the patcher: http://dosdude1.com/mojave/ There are caveats, but I've found it to…

I get where you're coming from but the whole point of getting a Mac is "it just works". I just don't have the time to deal with a Hackintosh. Also from past experience, there's a reason why they sunset older machines. At some point the OS updates are just no longer compatible with the old hardware. The Mojave patch notes that you linked further confirms this. Another issue is that Windows 10 is now at the point of wo…

I'm not sure if you can say Macs just work anymore, and obviously this is the realm of people who like to tinker or make things work for the sake of the process. If only there was a word for it... Oh wait I think it's up up next to that Y up there :)

The old hardware is pretty well supported in the Mac Pro because of how modular it remains. The majority of the incompatibility comes from not having a GPU that works with Metal. Those patch notes are mostly for devices with soldered components, like the GPU.

Re: New Mac Pro

#670

Post by chrisseaton » Tue, Jun 04, 2019, 12:23 PM UTC

rwmj wrote: post #668

chrisseaton wrote: post #454

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Where do you think the 'switch' is in that? At what point do they switch something from what was previously offered to something not expected? I don't think there is any switch. The specs are presented as up-front as any hardware spec is.

The switch is that you're some way through the "funnel" before you discover that to get a decent spec machine you need to spend a lot of money. It's the "power of commitment" sales trick.

I don't agree - it says how much storage each version comes with up front in large font on the marketing page https://www.apple.com/mac-pro/specs/. It even lists the 256GB SSD option first, as the default option.