Luminous Landscape Forum

Equipment & Techniques => Computers & Peripherals => Topic started by: JimGoshorn on June 10, 2013, 03:21:25 pm

Title: New Mac Pro
Post by: JimGoshorn on June 10, 2013, 03:21:25 pm
Showed an advanced preview today at WWDC:

http://www.macworld.com/article/2041203/the-wait-is-nearly-over-apple-unveils-new-mac-pro.html

Jim
Title: Re: New Mac Pro
Post by: design_freak on June 10, 2013, 03:30:27 pm
http://www.apple.com/mac-pro/
Title: Re: New Mac Pro
Post by: Leszek Piotrowski on June 10, 2013, 04:32:45 pm
If the price is not too high,... I'll take one.
Title: Re: New Mac Pro
Post by: BernardLanguillier on June 10, 2013, 07:54:22 pm
Very interesting specs and design philosophy.

Now, some things I would like to see clarified:
- Does someone know how many memory banks it has/the max amount of supported memory?
- price?
- it seems that all the USB ports are on the front, is that really the case?
- how to manage the scratch disk if there is only room for one storage device?
- considering that the accelerated pace of OSX releases does absolutely not match the needs of advanced users, how well does it run windows knowing its heavy reliance on Thunderbolt 2?
- upgradability of GPUs and will they always have to come in pairs?

Thanks.

Cheers,
Bernard
Title: Re: New Mac Pro
Post by: design_freak on June 10, 2013, 09:05:38 pm
Very interesting specs and design philosophy.

Now, some things I would like to see clarified:
- Does someone know how many memory banks it has/the max amount of supported memory?
- price?
- it seems that all the USB ports are on the front, is that really the case?
- how to manage the scratch disk if there is only room for one storage device?
- considering that the accelerated pace of OSX releases does absolutely not match the needs of advanced users, how well does it run windows knowing its heavy reliance on Thunderbolt 2?
- upgradability of GPUs and will they always have to come in pairs?

Thanks.

Cheers,
Bernard

-It looks like 4 banks. No idea - I would be nice if there will be more than 64GB.
-Price is unknown.
-It is hard to say where is front ;)
-I think you can use TB to get more space without any loosing of speed
-I don't use new OS, so I can't tell that it not match my needs...
-You can use additional GPU via TB2
Title: Re: New Mac Pro
Post by: BernardLanguillier on June 10, 2013, 09:26:26 pm
-It looks like 4 banks. No idea - I would be nice if there will be more than 64GB.
-I think you can use TB to get more space without any loosing of speed
-I don't use new OS, so I can't tell that it not match my needs...
-You can use additional GPU via TB2

Hum... that's what I was afraid of.

- 64GB is not that much, what is the price of 16GB ECC modules at 1866 Ghz?
- cache disks externalized may not be an issue, TBC
- you may have missed my point. I am not discussing the capabilities of OSX 10.9, I am discussing the fact that 10.9 being released this quickly after 10.8 is bad news for serious users because it always creates compatibility issues and generates a lot of complexity that prevents from upgrading some apps in the portfolio because some apps typically aren't compatible with older OSs... so I am not complaining about 10.9, I am complaining about the pace of upgrade of OSX,
- I am not sure that TB2 will be fast enough to deliver the speed potential of those new graphic cards I may be interested in upgrading to at a later stage. But this may be possible, so let's keep it TBC for now.

Cheers,
Bernard
Title: Re: New Mac Pro
Post by: phila on June 10, 2013, 09:38:50 pm
Very interesting specs and design philosophy.

Now, some things I would like to see clarified:
- Does someone know how many memory banks it has/the max amount of supported memory?
- price?
- it seems that all the USB ports are on the front, is that really the case?
- how to manage the scratch disk if there is only room for one storage device?
- considering that the accelerated pace of OSX releases does absolutely not match the needs of advanced users, how well does it run windows knowing its heavy reliance on Thunderbolt 2?
- upgradability of GPUs and will they always have to come in pairs?

Thanks.



Cheers,
Bernard


It would appear to be 4.*
Find out closer to the release date.
All the ports are on the "back" in fact (although there is nothing stopping you making that the "front").
*
?
? I wonder about this myself. I, and I assume most photographers, aren't going to require that sort of GPU power. Maybe there will be an option to configure for one? And maybe use the space for another PCI Flash module?

* Obviously the days of everything on the inside (pretty much) are gone. Expansion via TB2 is now the new reality. While at first I wasn't too happy with this approach it does have its advantages. You will no longer be paying (one hopes) for features you might never use (PCI slots perhaps - although I use 2 extra myself). ASSUMING good expansion units are forthcoming, and the very design of the MacPro would seem to guarantee this. Storage, PCI, etc can all be added as required. Maybe even memory (I don't know enough about that to say)? Apple itself might even expansion units available? I can see an integrated, perhaps stackable system? Maybe with some sort of integrated TB connection system?

While I like a clean workspace more than most and would prefer it to be cable free, the massive reduction in size and footprint will free up a lot of area on my desk!

I guess we will see...
Title: Re: New Mac Pro
Post by: studio347 on June 10, 2013, 10:03:00 pm
I like it. Even though it might be not perfect.. it's great that Apple didn't drop off powerful computer division. I understand that some people hate the fact that it can't be modified...or difficult to do it. It's very essence to some people... But this is Apple's decision which was probably tough one even for Apple. I might want to plan to replace it every two years or so... meaning selling through ebay or.. The design looks fine. The beauty is in the efficiency of the form. I hope the form works well for the computer. I need 32(now)or 64 ram( probably near future) and a fast and stable hard drive(SSD). As long as I can get a fast external SSD for 10 or 15 M interval_continuous chrono sync, it looks fine for my usage.... :)
Title: Re: New Mac Pro
Post by: K.C. on June 10, 2013, 11:04:15 pm
Very interesting specs and design philosophy.

Now, some things I would like to see clarified:
- Does someone know how many memory banks it has/the max amount of supported memory?
- price?
- it seems that all the USB ports are on the front, is that really the case?
- how to manage the scratch disk if there is only room for one storage device?
- considering that the accelerated pace of OSX releases does absolutely not match the needs of advanced users, how well does it run windows knowing its heavy reliance on Thunderbolt 2?
- upgradability of GPUs and will they always have to come in pairs?

Any attempts at answering these questions are pure speculation.

Today's announcement was vague for a reason, it's still being developed.
Title: Re: New Mac Pro
Post by: John.Murray on June 11, 2013, 11:33:33 am
I was very surprised to see the form factor, expecting a rack mountable solution that a lot of people were asking for; but it makes a lot of sense.  Your typical workstation today has at least 3-4 individual fans, none of which are particularly optimized to work in conjunction with others.  The single fan approach makes a lot of sense - I'm amazed how small this thing is.....

In regard to performance, it appears they've doubled memory bandwidth, and with new TB-2 ports you'll get the same PCIe performance (20GBx2) as the internal PCIe bus, making and external expansion cabinets practical with no performance trade-off.  Looking closely at the Dual GPU cards in Apple's photo, they appear upradeable .....
Title: New Mac Pro: rotate with top handle for port access
Post by: BJL on June 11, 2013, 12:40:25 pm
All ports are together, just above the power-in connection, so clearly intended to be out of the way at the back most of the time. Apple's PR suggests that one access ports by rotating the whole unit, using its top handle (the port lights come on when you do this!), but I would prefer at least one USB on the side opposite the main cable zone, for casual hook-ups. On the other hand, being small enough to go on a desktop is a great advantage for port access.

I also want the option of a transparent outer cover: it looks much cooler with the cover off!

P. S. I like the "iChimney" design, with a single integrated vertical heat outlet and fan system.
Title: Re: New Mac Pro
Post by: W.T. Jones on June 11, 2013, 01:21:18 pm
Interesting design, Miller Electric Manufacturing has used a similar wind tunnel cooling design in their inverter welding power supplies for nearly two decades. I am talking 400 amp machines that weigh 80 lbs or so, Very efficient cooling. 

The lack of an optical drive is puzzling to me, but that seems to be the way Apple is heading will all computer designs. Never the less, kudos to the designers, Very forward out of the box thinking IMHO. The small size & neatness is very tempting indeed.
Title: Re: New Mac Pro
Post by: george2787 on June 11, 2013, 07:04:44 pm
I'm curious about the caché issue, this thing mounts PCI express SSD capable of nearly 1GB/sec... say you get 1TB and your data is in an external enclosure, should't that be enough speed/space for scratch?
Title: New Mac Pro: good riddance to the last internal removable media drives
Post by: BJL on June 11, 2013, 07:40:34 pm
The lack of an optical drive is puzzling to me ...
With almost all my software installs by download, I use optical drives about once a year lately, so I am happy to have a single portable one for the rare remaining DVD installs on all computers in my department, and reduce the size and cost of the computers. I guess that, as with diskette drives, Windows computers will hang on to them for some years longer than Apple has, but external USB diskette drives were all I needed for that transition too.
Title: Re: New Mac Pro
Post by: Ellis Vener on June 11, 2013, 09:35:41 pm
Anyone else notice that, at least in the photos they are showing so far, there is no visible Apple logo/icon on the new Mac Pro?

Edit: Found it! It is above the connectivity dock on the back. Talk about minimal, sheesh Sir Ivey!
Title: Re: New Mac Pro
Post by: John.Murray on June 11, 2013, 11:51:54 pm
A liitle more detail here:

http://www.fxguide.com/quicktakes/the-new-mac-pro-the-cube-comes-of-age/
Title: New Mac Pro: why no PCIe slots, and no Nvidia graphics option
Post by: BJL on June 12, 2013, 02:36:04 pm
John,
thanks for that link. Something just struck me with Apple's pushing TB over internal PCIe card slots:
1) Apple is pushing mobile computing like mad, and probably already makes more profit on laptops than desktop/deskside computers.
2) laptops do not have PCIe slots, but can use TB2 expansion for anything that fits its 20Gb/s limit.

So Apple would very much like expansion devices to move away from PCIe cards to using TB (or USB), making them usable with its laptops too.

This would also benefit those of us who aspire to do as much as possible with a (docked) high-end laptop.

I also suspect that Apple is trying to push general purpose GPU processing, and push the use of the multi-vendor supported and open OpenCL standard for this rather that Nvidia's proprietary CUDA. Not offering Nvidia GPU's and having two GPUs but only a single (albeit 12-core) CPU are what suggests this to me. And the fact that Apple was the originator of OpenCL.

P. S. I just realized another reason for the lack of choice of GPU's: they need to be a custom mod, omitting the integral fan system and such of the standard PCIe version.
Title: Re: New Mac Pro
Post by: geotzo on June 13, 2013, 06:24:24 am
The price tag is probably going to be higher than the last Mac Pro... which will force even more users to get into high end pcs.
I like the design but it looks limited in terms of upgradability, ie only 4 slots for memory, not many connectivity slots for an engine that
only accepts ssds, no internal optical drive etc
Title: Re: New Mac Pro
Post by: Ellis Vener on June 13, 2013, 09:47:35 am
Great link John, thank you for sharing. it's clearly a machine that a lot of "modders" are going to dislike, but I think  a lot of working photographers, videographers, and editing studios will embrace. 
Title: New Mac Pro. One more time: expansion is there, but is external
Post by: BJL on June 13, 2013, 09:58:04 am
The price tag is probably going to be higher than the last Mac Pro... which will force even more users to get into high end pcs
I suspect that also, a large proportion of former potential Mac Pro customers have already moved to iMacs or even MacBook Pros, which now meet the needs of many people who formerly needed the tower unit, and so the new Mac Pro is more focused on the remaining upper part of the Mac Pro market. So yes, I expect a higher entry price, just for the dual graphics cards to start with.
... it looks limited in terms of upgradability, ie only 4 slots for memory, not many connectivity slots for an engine that only accepts ssds, no internal optical drive etc
With the ability to connect up to 36 Thunderbolt devices and four USB3 ports, the four memory slots are the only part that seems a real limitation on expansion, and with Apple saying that OS X 10.9 has been tested with up to 128GB of RAM, I have to think that Apple knows that fast 32GB RAM cards are coming (at a "Pro" level price!) As far as adding mass storage or optical devices, upgradability is clearly there through those external options, since Thunderbolt and probably even USB3 have enough speed for that. Locally networked mass storage via Fibre Channel (using a TB adaptor) or gigabit ethernet are options too -- though offering the newer 10Gb ethernet would be more "future proof".

P. S. I already asked elsewhere, but are there examples other than graphics cards where one would need internal PCIe slots because the 20Gb/s of TB2 is not enough?
Title: Re: New Mac Pro
Post by: BJL on June 13, 2013, 12:32:07 pm
The complaint keeps coming up that the new Mac Pro will lead to a desktop cluttered with multiple external accessories and cables, so I am wondering, what add-ons would people expect to need for a "photographer's workstation"?

My guess is that a large majority of Mac Pro users will have nothing more than the main unit and maybe an external disk storage device, and even with the latter, this will occupy far less space and also weigh far less than the current Mac Pro tower. And maybe a small optical drive that is almost always stored away in a drawer or on a shelf, and can serve multiple computers.

To me, the ability to share accessories like mass disk storage, optical drives, and maybe video capture interfaces between multiple devices (say a desktop and a laptop computer) beats esthetic worries about a couple of extra cables. More so since laptops cannot use internal PCIe accessories at all, AFAIK.
Title: Re: New Mac Pro
Post by: EricWHiss on June 13, 2013, 01:37:11 pm
What I like about my current mac pro is that it has 4 hard drive bays and two cd-rom slots (which I can fit another drive into).   I can have my working files on a 4tb drive and OS and apps on another drive each with their own internal back up drives. I can swap out drives easily and drives are cheap.   Its clean and no extra boxes/power supplies/cables to deal with.   What I don't like about the new design is that its all RAM drive which will be expensive and buying RAM from apple has always been very expensive compared to aftermarket.
Title: Re: New Mac Pro
Post by: Mr. Rib on June 13, 2013, 03:37:59 pm
First of all, from a "pro" machine I'd expect that it's easy to customize it and upgrade it when the need comes. Since we don't know if it is going to be possible with new Mac Pro or not, let's not go into this topic (if RAM / graphic cards / processors aren't swappable, for me it's just a one big laugh).
Since you are asking, please remember that a lot of photographers are involved in shooting motion nowadays. And also look at a wider spectrum, it's not just photographers and motion guys who were expecting Apple to deliver. But even as as a "mere photographe" when it comes to your desktop needs, you need at least a HD backup rack. This makes it two racks- one for your storage, second for backup. Probably some mass storage / optical 3rd solution for critical projects. speaking of racks- it would be great if the chassis was compatible with server racks. A solution you can put horizontally or vertically depending on the need... and I know guys who would benefit from it greatly due to the amount of hardware they need to work (not neccessarily photographers, but other "pros").
So now we have a mac pro unit with 2-3 additional boxes full of hardware, just to get things started. I won't even go into peripherals that pro users need to attach, like external video cards, pro realtime converters for broadcast applications, etc etc. Oh and yes, each external device usually means it's own power supply, it's own cooling. So, from a PRO standpoint, what are the benefits of this new chassis form? It has a single fan, yeah that's cool, too bad all of the other stuff will need their own fans anyway.
If this thing was MODULAR, detatchable from a bigger module incorporating all of the aforementioned, I would probably like the idea. But the big question remains- will RAM/graphic cards/proccessors be easily accessible and swappable?
Title: Re: New Mac Pro
Post by: design_freak on June 13, 2013, 07:23:28 pm
May I ask on what specifications you working on now? What is your memory? How much memory you really need? For what purpose you are using an old Mac Pro?
Title: Re: New Mac Pro
Post by: BernardLanguillier on June 13, 2013, 08:56:49 pm
Having looked into the reality of my set up today, the main issues I would have with the new Mac Pro proposal would be

- the lack of PCI slots to host a SCSI card - this could be solved with on external TB PCIe box like the OWC Helios (http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/Thunderbolt/PCIe_Chassis/Mercury_Helios/)
- the lack of an internal slot for a scratch disk, but the very fast SSD may be fast enough to manage both boot disk and scratch disk without significant impact on performance,
- the cost of installing more than 64GB or RAM (32 GB modules are still super expensive, not even sure if they exist in the right config)

Now, I am starting to look seriously into the cost of a clearly superior PC hardware and I notice a pretty significant inflation over the last 5 years. I would cost me 1.5 times what I paid my Mac Pro 8 cores 5 years ago to get a similarly speced PC. More accurately, to get a PC similarly sized relative to the evolving needs we have (larger data, video,...).

Cheers,
Bernard
Title: Re: New Mac Pro
Post by: John.Murray on June 14, 2013, 12:02:20 am
A SCSI card?  Presumably SAS, I assume - there are TB solutions that handily will eliminate the need.
The internal storage would easily handle swap as it's over 2x (1200 MBps) the bandwidth of any SATA/SAS drive through a controller.  Both Steve and I have been raving about PCIe based SSD storage.
ECC memory is *significantly* more expensive because the demand is significantly less, remember that this is socket 2011 - memory must be populated in 4's.

Obviously we'll have to wait for pricing, but in any case - a serious socket 2011 rig is going to cost some serious money no matter what.  Last time I priced an equivalent PC to the current Mac Pro iteration, it came in at roughly 1/2 the price (using desktop video cards as opposed to workstation class cards)

A bit off topic - I wonder if OS X Mavericks will properly support 10bit displays?
Title: Re: New Mac Pro
Post by: design_freak on June 14, 2013, 05:11:32 am
A SCSI card?  Presumably SAS, I assume - there are TB solutions that handily will eliminate the need.
The internal storage would easily handle swap as it's over 2x (1200 MBps) the bandwidth of any SATA/SAS drive through a controller.  Both Steve and I have been raving about PCIe based SSD storage.
ECC memory is *significantly* more expensive because the demand is significantly less, remember that this is socket 2011 - memory must be populated in 4's.

Obviously we'll have to wait for pricing, but in any case - a serious socket 2011 rig is going to cost some serious money no matter what.  Last time I priced an equivalent PC to the current Mac Pro iteration, it came in at roughly 1/2 the price (using desktop video cards as opposed to workstation class cards)

A bit off topic - I wonder if OS X Mavericks will properly support 10bit displays?
Yes SCSI sometimes is needed for other equipment (not only storage)  Ex. for old high-end drum scanners ...
Title: Re: New Mac Pro
Post by: BernardLanguillier on June 14, 2013, 05:21:06 am
A SCSI card?  Presumably SAS, I assume - there are TB solutions that handily will eliminate the need.

A SCSI320 card for an external RAID array. Yes, I could buy an equivalent TB array, but that would cost me around 1,500-2,000 US$ extra...

Cheers,
Bernard
Title: Re: New Mac Pro
Post by: BJL on June 14, 2013, 11:25:33 am
Thanks Eric, Mr. Rib, and Bernard for your comments (and for following me over here from the MF forum!).

I think we all agree that there will likely be high costs for any internal upgrades like RAM, mass storage, and graphics cards, due to the use of custom or "extreme" hardware components, and also a cost barrier for those who wish to reuse accessories from previous computers (I am looking _at_ your SCSI devices Bernard!). Apple has never put much priority on backward compatibility, going way back to its dropping internal support for 5.25" floppy disks and then 3.5" diskettes long before "IBM-compatable" PC's did.
Title: Re: New Mac Pro
Post by: Mr. Rib on June 24, 2013, 09:10:33 am
Bernard,

First and foremost, the storage. I need a backup raid, at least one. Then there's my RAID setup for regular storage and then there is SSD for scratch / system partition. I would like to have all of these inside one chassis.
I need a SCSI interface for a drum scanner and as you are probably aware I would like to have the card incorporated inside the chassis, not some external solution (if there even is such a thing with a TB interface..).
All of this in one chassis that is server-rack-compatible when you put it in a horizontal position while still being able to use it in regular, vertical position.
Of course I would expect new mac pro to be fully customizable and upgradable by user, so that I can keep my machine up to date with a 1-1.5 year upgrades. I'm not asking for a lot..
A real masterpiece would be a modular design allowing to attach / choose modules you need- but everything contained in a single chassis which you can link / unlink.
Title: Re: New Mac Pro
Post by: BernardLanguillier on June 24, 2013, 08:35:09 pm
Bernard,

First and foremost, the storage. I need a backup raid, at least one. Then there's my RAID setup for regular storage and then there is SSD for scratch / system partition. I would like to have all of these inside one chassis.
I need a SCSI interface for a drum scanner and as you are probably aware I would like to have the card incorporated inside the chassis, not some external solution (if there even is such a thing with a TB interface..).
All of this in one chassis that is server-rack-compatible when you put it in a horizontal position while still being able to use it in regular, vertical position.
Of course I would expect new mac pro to be fully customizable and upgradable by user, so that I can keep my machine up to date with a 1-1.5 year upgrades. I'm not asking for a lot..
A real masterpiece would be a modular design allowing to attach / choose modules you need- but everything contained in a single chassis which you can link / unlink.

Well, Apple could still propose an upgrade path where new graphic cards/CPU could be replaced in store by certified Apple service people. This would solve many of concerns related to the frozen specs of the current integrated design.

Regarding extensions/modularity, it could in fact be done fairly easily by third party vendors thanks to the TB2 connections. I have some fairly detailed ideas on how it could be done, but won't disclose that here.  ;)

Cheers,
Bernard