Luminous Landscape Forum
Equipment & Techniques => Computers & Peripherals => Topic started by: Josh-H on October 15, 2013, 06:40:04 pm
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Now that we are moving closer to a release of the new Mac Pro my thoughts have been turning to potentially upgrading my current Mac Pro. My current machine still flies along as its pimped out with max ram, hardware RAID, SSD's etc. However, it is starting to get a little long in the tooth in a few areas (video card, cant add more RAM etc) and although an upgrade is no where near mandatory - it might be nice.
Looking deeper into the new Mac Pro I am starting to feel like this may be a case of form over function. Last time I checked desks, walls and racks are square and are designed to work most efficiently with square and rectangular shapes. The new cylinder mac pro is going to be a bit of a strange beast to house. Yes its small, but I cant help but feel its going to sit like an out of place black shinny vase on a desk - which by the time I attach all the required peripherals its going to mutate into somewhat of an octopus and potentially a cable management nightmare.
As a minimum
- Cable connection to external Monitor
- Thunderbolt 2 connection to external RAID chassis for image storage
- USB 3 to Card Reader
- USB 3 to external time machine back up drive
- USB 2 to headphones
- USB 2 to colorimeter for display calibration
- USB 2 to spectrophotometer
- Power Cable
Ok - some of those can be removed when not in use - but most of them are being used most of the time. Currently my Mac Pro sits nicely under my desk and all the cables are nicely tucked up the back and out of sight. Its neither in the way, nor taking up desk space, nor hard to manage. With the new beast, sitting as designed on top of a desk, all that cable infrastructure is going to draped around it like spaghetti. I'm having visions of some Dalek like device from Doctor Who hooked up to machinery in an operating theatre.. ;D
And what about that external storage option for images? Nothing on the market yet for thunderbolt 2.... Surely Apple will release some sort of matching storage solution? Or, do we see a continued promotion of Promise's offering? (Promise have announced a TH2 chassis as coming soon...)
I dunno.. but this new MAC Pro may well have the engine to deal with 4k rendering etc... but it could prove a real nightmare to house and manage in the long term. I mean it wont work well in a rack system either.. Why didn't they make it cuboid? well.. I cant help thinking that might have seen direct comparisons to the previously tanked 'cube'.
The new thermal design looks 'clever' and the specs are cutting edge for a desktop form factor - but will it actually be a practical beast to house? dunno.....
Have to say, I feel at this point (without having tried one) that I think I would have preferred to see a typical rack mount chassis or a continuation of the existing chassis....
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Josh,
Mostly agreed, but what prevents you from putting the new Mac Pro under your desk?
Cheers,
Bernard
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what prevents you from putting the new Mac Pro under your desk?
Fear of using it as a foot stool. ;D
In all seriousness - nothing. And that may well be a solution. Although I do think it will need to sit on something to avoid the inevitable carpet dust...
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The only way the form factor makes sense is processing power vs: acoustic noise. pretty much all other workstations have multiple fans on all subsystems with no real way of centrally controlling overall cooling. In that probably a brilliant design. As far as external devices; 1 or 2 (or 3 or 4) thunderbolt runs to external cabinets ought to take care of that :)
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As far as external devices; 1 or 2 (or 3 or 4) thunderbolt runs to external cabinets ought to take care of that :)
Agreed. As one how's owned MacPro's from day one, there's never enough internal slots or areas for drives for many, why attempt it? That said, I will probably pass on the first generation to see that all the bugs are worked out. Might change my mind though <g>
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As we can see in a simple nice trashcan, the trashcan design is quite beautiful unlike some people's suggestions. It's very simple and functional... it just makes sense. And it's very useful!, safe to the leg too. Easy to grab and move.. Round/ circular shapes belongs to pure nature, and square/rectangular seems to belong to more humans. I can imagine the apple developer teams are very emotional and creative bunch... They have devoted quite a long time for the previous MP design. Let them to focus on something new/ different and interesting...:)
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There is no debating that the new Mac Pro is another good looking Mac product, very well designed, but for those that need processing power, it leaves much to desire.
Maybe a modular design, stack another on top and it can do parallel processing and suddenly we have a little beast.
Good luck to those who jumps on it, it will be interesting to hear your experiences, in particular from those that uses very large file sizes
Henrik
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There is no debating that the new Mac Pro is another good looking Mac product, very well designed, but for those that need processing power, it leaves much to desire.
Maybe a modular design, stack another on top and it can do parallel processing and suddenly we have a little beast.
Good luck to those who jumps on it, it will be interesting to hear your experiences, in particular from those that uses very large file sizes
In fact, as of now, it is a really fast machine that should be a top performer for large images processing, not sure much faster could be built for less than 10,000 US$. The problem will be in the difficulty to upgrade it to keep it current moving forward.
Cheers,
Bernard
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I guess we will soon find out ;D
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In fact, as of now, it is a really fast machine that should be a top performer for large images processing, not sure much faster could be built for less than 10,000 US$. The problem will be in the difficulty to upgrade it to keep it current moving forward.
A confidential informant in Cupertino points out that Apple has said nothing publicly about the power source for the new Mac Pro. In fact, he tells me, it will be battery powered—and the batteries, embedded inside a sealed case, will not be replaceable.
As we can see in a simple nice trashcan, the trashcan design is quite beautiful unlike some people's suggestions. It's very simple and functional. . . . Round/ circular shapes belongs to pure nature
You have cracked the code: Apple has concluded that all computing devices should be disposable. You're not supposed to upgrade them, just use them for a while, pitch them in the trashcan, and then buy the newest model.
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The new thermal design looks 'clever' and the specs are cutting edge for a desktop form factor - but will it actually be a practical beast to house?
Call me a doubter, especially after "The Cube". Effectively cooling a computer is one of the most important mechanical requirements of its build design. How many selectively placed cooling fans does the current Mac Pro have? Twelve? And now Apple is reducing the size, placing a large fan at the top and calling this better. It may be, but I'd like to see the temperature readings at various spots in its carriage during an AE lenghty rendering or huge batch process.
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... I'd like to see the temperature readings at various spots in its carriage during an AE lenghty rendering or huge batch process.
No doubt you'll be able to; my Mini has 15 different temperature sensors, I imagine the new MP will be similarly equipped.
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when is this beast coming out?
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when is this beast coming out?
An Apple event is scheduled for tomorrow…
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Josh,
Mostly agreed, but what prevents you from putting the new Mac Pro under your desk?
Cheers,
Bernard
If I understand things correctly, the start button is located where all the ports are. If one wishes to have the cables running from the back of the tower (preferable), it's definitely going to be difficult for some of us to comfortably get at the start button. Place the start button at the front and you're presented with a rather unsightly 'cable salad'. As opposed to where my Mac Pro tower presently resides (under the desk with just the front side - start button side - visible), I would unquestionably need to find another solution if and when I update to the new Mac Pro.
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Fear of using it as a foot stool. ;D
That's what I currently use my MP for [I have a standing desk and a high chair] and it is one of the numerous ergonomic benefits over the new form factor which seems like it was designed by marketing numpties.
Making something 'smaller' by putting the insides [hard drives etc] on the outside is bogus nonsense, more cable nests, more expensive enclosures to buy, more clutter and for zero benefit as far as I can see. If you are that bothered by size as opposed to capacity/upgradeability then an iMac or Mac Mini would be better choice.
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hmm possibly - but then an imac/mini is using a 4 core 65w desktop class cpu. how do *you* cool a 12 core server class Xeon? Answer: everybody else does it in huge noisy, inefficient enclosures - sure lots of room for additonal stuff, but i have yet to see *any* enclosure capable of holding "enough"; so we goto SAS or Fiber Channel Cabinets with expensive i/o adapters and cables with their attendant PCI->whatever-bus->whatever-device->using-whatever-driver..... etc...
or an alternative; Thunderbolt which *is* a PCI bus, removing at least 2 layers of device driver abstraction between the CPU and the external cabinet ......
If you don't like, or need the grunt the "footstool" offers, buy an iMac, or MacBook Pro and hook it up to the same......
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Let's wait and see - what the total cost of ownership will end up being
There are pro's and con's with everything.
There will be very tangible ways to determine the effectiveness and some that are more difficult to measure such as brand loyalty/preference of OS.
The way the machine is configured is perhaps not the most suitable one for still image processing, but may be fine for other types of content creation.
Most people here don't have >64gb of ram - would they suddenly go out and buy it now, just because a new Macpro comes out - so for the 90% of user this unit it probably all they will ever need.
However those of use who desire and needs more, will need to look elsewhere
Henrik
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For large storage, why not use a NAS tucked in your closet? Using gigabit ethernet, multiple RAID drives and local SSD "cache", I would think that performance is enough for most people (it sure is for my 18MP files).
As a benefit, you get to move noisy and volume-occupying stuff away from your eyes and ears, and things like redundancy, hot-swapping and backup tools.
-h
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For large storage, why not use a NAS tucked in your closet? Using gigabit ethernet, multiple RAID drives and local SSD "cache", I would think that performance is enough for most people (it sure is for my 18MP files).
As a benefit, you get to move noisy and volume-occupying stuff away from your eyes and ears, and things like redundancy, hot-swapping and backup tools.
I have been using best in class gigabit NAS (in fact 10 gig compatible but the network isn't up to that) and just cannot stand anymore how slow they are compared to my previous SCSI320 direct attached storage solution. The worst is the time it takes for raw converters to chunck through hundreds of D800 images and the save time in PS. Yes... it is supposed to be asynchronous except you cannot do some types of operations without stopping the save operation...
It is just killing me and removing all the fun of image processing on large files.
It is true that the NAS are several meters away and therefore totally silent compared to the previous direct attached storage solution I was using, but it seems that TB2 will enable cables up to 10m, which is good enough for me to deliver the same "cabinet value" as my current NAS.
Internal storage in the Mac Pro was not relevant for me because I want to dissociate a change of machine from a change of storage. So one or several external storage boxes are a given.
I do not use any PCI card in my Mac pro anymore since the SCSI Raid died... do the cluster I was once afraid of with the new Mac Pro will in fact not happen for me.
The price is the remaining unknown. If it is affordable I'll probably get one.
Cheers,
Bernard
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I have been using best in class gigabit NAS (in fact 10 gig compatible but the network isn't up to that) and just cannot stand anymore how slow they are compared to my previous SCSI320 direct attached storage solution. The worst is the time it takes for raw converters to chunck through hundreds of D800 images and the save time in PS. Yes... it is supposed to be asynchronous except you cannot do some types of operations without stopping the save operation...
It is just killing me and removing all the fun of image processing on large files.
I can see that people have different needs and expectations (and budgets). PS and 36 MP is perhaps more demanding than LR and 18MP.
I would think that Adobe/Apple/... could optimize their stuff now that everyone have SSD drives, and more and more people use NAS. Why not have a multi-layered (automagic) cache system where your photo app gets 20GB or 200GB of dedicated, blistering fast space on the local SSD, 1TB or so of local spinning drive work space and multiple TB of secure-ish NAS.
-h
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It is true that the NAS are several meters away and therefore totally silent compared to the previous direct attached storage solution I was using, but it seems that TB2 will enable cables up to 10m, which is good enough for me to deliver the same "cabinet value" as my current NAS.
quote
Sumitomo Electric Industries has announced that it's the first company to receive certification from Intel to produce optical Thunderbolt cables. Currently all Thunderbolt cables have metal components, which limit the maximum length of those cables to around 10 feet. Optical Thunderbolt cables will allow lengths of up to 100 feet, which will be helpful in professional post-production studios, especially as noisy hard drives or other accessories can be kept away from sensitive audio recording equipment.
Sumitomo Electric says the new cables will provide the full 10 Gbps of the metal cables, and can become tangled or pinched up to 180 degrees without seeing any kind of signal degradation. The optical cables will be as thin as the current metal Thunderbolt cables, but their connection heads will be slightly longer at 38mm versus the metal cable's 28mm connection. One other difference is that optical cables are not capable of powering devices, like external hard drives. Any bus-powered devices will need a separate power supply to run when connected via an optical Thunderbolt cable.
The new optical Thunderbolt cables will be compatible with all Macs and devices shipped with Thunderbolt ports to date. Sumitomo Electric Industries has not announced any pricing yet.
unquote
http://global-sei.com/news/press/12/prs105_s.html
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The new optical Thunderbolt cables will be compatible with all Macs and devices shipped with Thunderbolt ports to date. Sumitomo Electric Industries has not announced any pricing yet.
Even better!
Cheers,
Bernard
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hmm possibly - but then an imac/mini is using a 4 core 65w desktop class cpu. how do *you* cool a 12 core server class Xeon? Answer: everybody else does it in huge noisy, inefficient enclosures - sure lots of room for additonal stuff, but i have yet to see *any* enclosure capable of holding "enough"; so we goto SAS or Fiber Channel Cabinets with expensive i/o adapters and cables with their attendant PCI->whatever-bus->whatever-device->using-whatever-driver..... etc...
or an alternative; Thunderbolt which *is* a PCI bus, removing at least 2 layers of device driver abstraction between the CPU and the external cabinet ......
If you don't like, or need the grunt the "footstool" offers, buy an iMac, or MacBook Pro and hook it up to the same......
As I said if you are not bothered about size/upgradeability get an iMac. Yet this new Pro Mac is being misleadingly marketed on size as if pro users really care about that. Apple seem obsessed with making things smaller even when it is of no consequence and usually at the expense of functionality. The misleading bit is the fact that just because you make the computer smaller the extra parts needed for a pro machine still have to go somewhere and now not tidily inside a single box. So the insides now have sit next the dinky computer, so more clutter not less. I can put 8 HDs in my current MP so currently 32TB's worth, I can add 5 cards internally or 4 if using a double height graphics card which greatly reduces the rat's nest of cables I have to deal with. It's pretty quiet too, can't hear it above ambient noise when it under my [standing] desk if I have window open with rustling trees and birds being main sound and a low murmur if window is closed. An animator friend just replaced his iMac and finds it annoying that the new machine lacks a DVD/RW which means the edge that he cannot see is slightly thinner. Now he has to add a ext DVD to his desktop which makes a mockery of the few millimetres shaved off the edge of his monitor.
I should mention that a colleague of mine does all his pro video editing work on his new 15" MacPro and can do it in real time using FCP X - which he finds ideal for his sort of corporate fast turnaround work which may involve multi-camera shoots using a few go pros whose files take serious power to manage. So you can get a lot of power in a very compact space.
Whilst on the subject of size I like my 17" MP screen and was very underwhelmed by the shiny eyed apple employee recently trying to convince me that the 15" replacement was better as the screen was higher resolution. It was still smaller though, a point she really, really didn't get. My 17" MP screen is actually the same resolution as my 26" monitors, but I'd much rather work on the bigger screens.
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Sumitomo Electric Industries has announced that it's the first company to receive certification from Intel to produce optical Thunderbolt cables.
Original spec Thunderbolt peripheries are not exactly commonplace or cheap and I still cannot get a Lightning version of some Apple attachments for my year old iPad, so being able to affordably/easily add stuff is a major concern as Thunderbolt 1 items are still obscure/pricey.
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... and I still cannot get a Lightning version of some Apple attachments for my year old iPad..
Is that not Apple being naughty, naughty ? They're selling Lightning adapters for an exorbitant amount, thus the somewhat laggardly and lackadaisical attitude.
Original spec Thunderbolt peripheries are not exactly commonplace or cheap ... so being able to affordably/easily add stuff is a major concern as Thunderbolt 1 items are still obscure/pricey.
Yes, you're correct. Nevertheless, Lightning is an interface, controlled by Intel, here to stay and probably the way forward - at least for the forseeable future. I suspect that much of this delay is down to Intel (as are the excessive prices). I took the road some time ago of separating hard drives from the computer enclosure, so I'm not personally fazed by this perceived limitation of the new mac. I think it's an advantage but fully understand why others may feel differently about it.
New technology is constantly being hobbled (similar strategy to bcooters comments on the new Sony A7's) purely for the financial benefit of the 'majors'. Can't recall where I read it, but at the time USB3 was announced, one pundit wrote a convincing 'reprimand' on the basis that improved USB3 speeds - great, but why weren't the new drives enabled with 802.11n wireless networking ability? apparently the technology is there but Intel were reluctant.
I suspect Apple have seen the way forward but in the meantime you and I have to pay the penalty, as you so aptly put it.
ps
The Sumtomo press release was released last year, Dec-2012. I haven't followed it all since. t I'm sure the prices will be exorbitant, but the ability to have the freedom to place hard drives (and other peripherals) up to 30M away is appealing and all with a single cable ... Just pop a tranquilliser before you ask about the price!
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Is that not Apple being naughty, naughty ? They're selling Lightning adapters for an exorbitant amount, thus the somewhat laggardly and lackadaisical attitude.
They're being completely and utterly useless is the way I'd put it.
New technology is constantly being hobbled (similar strategy to bcooters comments on the new Sony A7's) purely for the financial benefit of the 'majors'.
Sony are long time guilty purveyors of hobbled products. And this marketing strategy also known as 'taking the piss' selling was what led to RED being founded as Jannard got fed up with it.
The Sumtomo press release was released last year, Dec-2012. I haven't followed it all since. t I'm sure the prices will be exorbitant, but the ability to have the freedom to place hard drives (and other peripherals) up to 30M away is appealing and all with a single cable ... Just pop a tranquilliser before you ask about the price!
Hiding drives away from computers/backing up to a more secure location certainly appeals. But if employing an armed guard is cheaper......
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Today's announcement looks good. 4-cores for $2999 and 6-cores for $3999. Available in December.
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So it'll only cost twice as much as my last MacPro.
Bargain!
And to only have 256gb storage in a computer costing well over £3k is taking the piss.
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Typical Apple - to say ( force you to) put the OS and programs on the macpro and the work data on external HD'S....
Only 64GB of RAM seems not very much either....
Leaves us the GPU force that is huge...
The main reason for me to upgrade will be the processor speed- coming from a 2008 mac pro 8 core 2,8HZ i will have to find out how much more speed it will bring...
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coming from a 2008 mac pro 8 core 2,8HZ i will have to find out how much more speed it will bring...
If you are mostly using LR and PS - then I suspect not much improvement in real world use. Your current machine has 22.4 Ghz of processing power and is configurable up to 32 Gig of Ram. If you opted for the 6 Core option in the new Mac Pro that would give you 21 Ghz of processing power. Now those new processors are faster, more efficient and do things better. But, in real world terms for image editing the difference would likely not be noticeable.
The new 8-core machine seems to me to be the sweet spot. Not sure what is out there to really take advantage of 12 cores..... But by the time you take the 8-Core option, put 64 Gig of RAM in it and 1TB of flash storage its going to be an expensive machine. Then another 3K plus on external NAS and drives.
I would hang onto your 2008 Mac Pro - max out the RAM at 32 Gig and put a OWC mercury striped SSD (http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/SSD/PCIe/OWC/Mercury_Accelsior/RAID) in it for Boot and Apps. A far cheaper solution that will scream. (Its what I use ;D).
I personally wont be upgrading initially to the new Pro. My 2008 Mac Pro still screams with its upgrades (32 Gig RAM, Mercury Striped SSD for Boot and Apps, Hardware internal RAID). If, I did not own a Mac Pro and wanted 'grunt' then the new machine is obviously a great option for those looking to upgrade from a iMac.
I suspect that now that the specs are out for the new machine that there may be quite a few people scurry to grab the last of the current generation Mac Pros at bargain prices.
Edit - I just noticed OWC now actually have an upgrade for the 2008 Mac Pro to take it from 32 Gig of Ram to 64 Gig of Ram (http://eshop.macsales.com/item/Other%20World%20Computing/64FB8MPK64GB/). Thats even more reason to hang onto a 2008 machine. The Ram upgrade is not cheap - but its a lot cheaper than a new Mac Pro once you spec it out. With 64 Gig of Ram in a 2008 machine with the mercury accelsior striped SSD card you will have blistering performance for image editing for a lot less money than a new machine. The 64 Gig option from OWC really extends the 2008 Mac Pro working life for quite a few more years in my view. The strong argument for the new Mac Pro is for video editing and if crunching 4K is your thing there is likely going to be no substitute.
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The number of cores is unfortunately still not as important as we would like as many applications stuggle to parallelize efficiently or at all.
The 6 cores one with 512GB SSD and an OWC upgrade to 64GB may end up being the best buy.
I am still using a 2,1 with 32gb and a fast SSD and memory seems to be the bottleneck more than the number of cores, but speed of each core has a high impact. So yes, the 64gb limitation is disapointing.
Cheers,
Bernard
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My friend Thomas Pindelski has been playing with the bargain 2009 Mac Pro's the past few weeks. He has an extensive tutorial here -
http://pindelski.org/Photography/mac-pro/
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The number of cores is unfortunately still not as important as we would like as many applications stuggle to parallelize efficiently or at all.
You're certainly right there, but I had a pleasant surprise from Lightroom yesterday.
http://www.kasson.com/bleeding_edge/?p=743
The 6 cores one with 512GB SSD and an OWC upgrade to 64GB may end up being the best buy.
The 64 GB makes it a nonstarter for me. Is that a hard limit, or just an Apple-imposed limit? IOW, can OWC fix that?
Jim
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My friend Thomas Pindelski has been playing with the bargain 2009 Mac Pro's the past few weeks. He has an extensive tutorial here -
http://pindelski.org/Photography/mac-pro/
Interesting reading.
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The 64 GB makes it a nonstarter for me. Is that a hard limit, or just an Apple-imposed limit? IOW, can OWC fix that?
Its a hard limit limitation of the Xeon motherboard. There is no fix for it.
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Its a hard limit limitation of the Xeon motherboard. There is no fix for it.
Are you suggesting it is not a matter of waiting for the arrival of 32GB Ram sticks?
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what do you mean the arrival of 32GB ram sticks they have been around for awhile now! :-) and also bigger sticks!
though the price is not for us mortals :-)
Henrik
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Are you suggesting it is not a matter of waiting for the arrival of 32GB Ram sticks?
Yes, I believe that is correct. OSX is actually limited at present to a max of 96 GB (pre Mavericks) of RAM so the 64GB limit in the new Mac Pro is not really a major deal breaker. It just would have been nice to be able to go to the full 96GB.
You can actually go to 128GB of RAM in the 2010-2012 Mac Pro (OWC sell this upgrade) - However, you must run Mavericks to recognise the extra RAM or Bootcamp with 64-bit versions of Windows or Linux. The reason you can go to this much RAM in the old Mac Pro's was because they were dual machines (thus twice the RAM slots). The new Mac Pro's are single only. Thats the hard limitation of the Xeon motherboard. I have no idea if this is firmware fixable.
There is a gotcha with OWC 16GB modules for the Mac Pro and that is that you have to run only 16GB modules. You cant mix and match with smaller modules. So its a fairly major financial commitment to put 128GB into a Mac Pro.
Edit - I put this in my post above - but its worth putting here for Mac Pro 2008 users. I just noticed OWC now actually have an upgrade for the 2008 Mac Pro to take it from 32 Gig of Ram to 64 Gig of Ram (I have no idea how long this has been available - I just found it). Thats even more reason to hang onto a 2008 machine. The Ram upgrade is not cheap - but its a lot cheaper than a new Mac Pro once you spec it out. With 64 Gig of Ram in a 2008 machine with the mercury accelsior striped SSD card you will have blistering performance for image editing for a lot less money than a new machine. The 64 Gig option from OWC really extends the 2008 Mac Pro working life for quite a few more years in my view. The strong argument for the new Mac Pro is for video editing and if crunching 4K is your thing there is likely going to be no substitute with those Fire Core cards.
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I have been trying to identify the CPU for the Macpro and I think this is it
http://ark.intel.com/products/75780/Intel-Xeon-Processor-E5-1650-v2-12M-Cache-3_50-GHz
which has a max memory of 256GB
so its either the mainboard or an apple issue
Henrik
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I have been trying to identify the CPU for the Macpro and I think this is it
http://ark.intel.com/products/75780/Intel-Xeon-Processor-E5-1650-v2-12M-Cache-3_50-GHz
...
Henrik
I see it costs 600$ on a 4000$ macPro- would have liked to see a faster processor in it for that money.
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Isn't that per 1000 units?
Henrik
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Agreed. As one how's owned MacPro's from day one, there's never enough internal slots or areas for drives for many, why attempt it? That said, I will probably pass on the first generation to see that all the bugs are worked out. Might change my mind though <g>
I am surpriced by this.
What cards do you use?
Most professionals I know in the photo industry are not using internal cards for nothing but raid and GPU. Most of them are already using external RAID. In big shoops the external RAID is shared. Most of them use a laptop only, or a laptop and a desktop. In video this is different but, AJA it's not an issue (they are moving to Thunderbolt fast), and most of the other cards run on thunderbolt chassis with the plus that you can use the card on location with your laptop. Promise and Sonnet NAS(s) are not an issue because they have certified thunderbolt to Fibber Channel adapters.
This is not just creative professionals. Intel have stay on the 40 Lanes of PCIe for a long time. A trip to basic math will show that they are not thinking of PCs with a bunch of slots (remember when we use to have 8?)
(2) 16 bit for cards = 32 lanes. You got 8 Lanes for all the rest of the system
Of course you can build a machine with two Xeons if you want to rise the price.
Maybe Apple was to fast to introduce the form factor. They could have wait to the next generation thunderbolt to have 40GB/s per port, but the true to be told most people don't need the PCIe slots. I am an engineer and when people started to buy laptops I remember one of my colleges telling people not to be idiots that they don't have a way to change the CPU and the graphics card and add other cards. I ask the person how long do he has his current computer (he told me 5 years before the generalization of USB). I then ask him what was the last time he buy a card for the computer. He told me never. I finally told him so why do you care?
Then I told my college: If physicians were like TI geeks everybody will be dying because physicians will give the patients the medicines they needs and not proper for the patient. Guess what he is using today?
Note: the question is not rhetoric, I am sure that you do use multiple cards. I just need to learn scenarios where a photographer can need that multiple cards, in case some one like you request my advice.
Best regards,
James
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Its a hard limit limitation of the Xeon motherboard. There is no fix for it.
Surprising.
I don't have information on the custom mother board of the mac pro in that direction. It's seems to be a limitation of just 4 slots and the density of current 1.8K memory modules.
Nothing on the xeon processor mandates the hard limit that you found on the documentation:
http://ark.intel.com/products/75283/
It will be surprising as you can have 128GB on the old mac pro (http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/memory/Mac-Pro-Memory).
Can you share your source with us ?
Best regards,
J. Duncan
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"Compared with the 2.66gHz 4-core current MacPro (“MP”) the nMP 4-core will be 39% faster and the 6 core will be 97% faster on CPU tasks. However, you can buy a mint 2009 MP 4-core ($700) and upgrade it to a 6-core 3.33gHz i7-980 ($275 net of old CPU resale) with USB3 ($50) and a 256gB SATA III SSD $175) on an Apricot PCIe card ($50)and with a GTX660 GPU ($150 net) for $1,400. I set forth the details of the upgrades here. The CPU speed of this upgraded MP machine will be 35% greater than the 4-core nMP and 10% less than the 5-core nMP and you will have a lot of money left in your pocket."
http://pindelski.org/Photography/2013/10/23/new-mac-pro/
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It will be surprising as you can have 128GB on the old mac pro (http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/memory/Mac-Pro-Memory).
Can you share your source with us ?
HERE (http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/memory/Mac-Pro-Memory#1333-memory)
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HERE (http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/memory/Mac-Pro-Memory#1333-memory)
That configuration is for the old technology, ints not related to the new box. It is the same page I link in my question.
So, Should I understand that your statement was in error (in the sense that we don't know) or you just happend to link the wrong page?
Best regards,
J. Duncan
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That configuration is for the old technology, ints not related to the new box. It is the same page I link in my question.
So, Should I understand that your statement was in error (in the sense that we don't know) or you just happend to link the wrong page?
Best regards,
J. Duncan
I think you might be confusing what I said. I said it was possible to put up to 128 Gig of RAM in the 2010-2012 Mac Pro. I did not say it was possible to put this much RAM in the new Mac Pro which has not yet been released. Its limit is 64 Gig.
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I think you might be confusing what I said. I said it was possible to put up to 128 Gig of RAM in the 2010-2012 Mac Pro. I did not say it was possible to put this much RAM in the new Mac Pro which has not yet been released. Its limit is 64 Gig.
Ok , I copy you. I believe that I misunderstood Jim Kasson. When he say :
"The 64 GB makes it a nonstarter for me. Is that a hard limit, or just an Apple-imposed limit? IOW, can OWC fix that?"
I understood that he was talking about the new machine, that also have a 64GB limit.
So when I read your reply " that it is a hard limit", I continued with the misunderstanding.
So we all agree that we don't know if the new Mac Pro will be able to get more than 64GB with denser memory modules.
Thanks for the clarification.
For photography 64GB is more than enough, but for video, 3D and engineering and heavy multitasking folks could find it limiting.
For me the issue with the machine is more about price, the lack of nvidia options for Adobe software (cuda) and the storage. I don't like that we can't expand without trowing the old module and I have concerns about the form factor. The PCIe connector is not were it normally is on PCIe based SSDs.
The same interface placement issue runs for the graphics cads. If that was not the case it will be easy for Nvidia and AMD to keep the machine actualized.
This is particularly painful because, the mac market is finally big enough for that to happen. We were finally seen new cards from the top vendors target at the mac market.
A normal box will have keep the momentum. I sense that this is a missing opportunity. In the other hand if Apple got a good contract from AMD and keeps the cards current and a good price, it will change my perspective.
Finally I am not sure about the price performance of the 6 core, and for me the 4 core is not enough difference from a top of the line iMAC with a good Nec monitor. For 1000$ we get more powerful graphics and a chip that cost less than 600 dollars.
Best regards,
J. Duncan
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http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2426141,00.asp?mailingID=E4CC2F31E698305D5D237DA35ECBCEBB
quote
The Mac Pro can be equipped with an Intel Xeon E5 with four, six, eight, or twelve cores. All Mac Pros come with dual AMD FirePro GPUs, and it's up to the buyer to choose a pair of D300, D500, or D700 GPUS.
The system's memory DIMM slots and Flash storage slot are easy to get to, so you can upgrade memory or swap Flash storage drives easily. This gives the deadline-conscious user the ability to swap a malfunctioning Mac Pro out for a working one while still keeping their OS, apps, files, and environment intact. Flash storage swaps are the new hard drive swaps.
The system is dead quiet, especially at idle. Even under load, streaming 16 4K HD video streams ..
unquote
So now you know - budget on buying at least two ...
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So now you know - budget on buying at least two ...
Damn! I don't have that many kidneys.
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I have been trying to identify the CPU for the Macpro and I think this is it
http://ark.intel.com/products/75780/Intel-Xeon-Processor-E5-1650-v2-12M-Cache-3_50-GHz
which has a max memory of 256GB
so its either the mainboard or an apple issue
Henrik
To clarify,
There is no evidence that you can't replace the memory modules by 32GB ones when they hit the market. There is no reason to believe that.
Best regards,
J. Duncan
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Hi ,
You can't change the GPUs. That means that the machine is basically dead.
Of all the cards that a system could have that is the only one people actually change.
With multiple cards on the line, not been able to replace them, it's not only bad for costumers is bad for apple.
I can't understand how they decided to do this.
If confirmed, it's a Fatal flaw.
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2426141,00.asp?mailingID=E4CC2F31E698305D5D237DA35ECBCEBB
and
http://translate.google.com/translate?u=http%3A//www.mac4ever.com/actu/84534_exclu-les-cartes-graphiques-des-mac-pro-sont-inter-changeables-prise-en-main&hl=en&langpair=auto%7Cen&tbb=1&ie=UTF-8
Best regards,
J. Duncan
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Mac rumors evokes today the possibility that the GPUs and their sister board may in fact be replaceable.
Wait and see.
Cheers,
Bernard
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I decided against waiting...
The cost of entry was making me ill.. $5,300 for the 6 Core in Australia before adding RAM (say 64 Gig) and extra Flash (500 Gig or 1TB) + external T2 Chassis and drives and it starts getting close to $10k AUD. On top of that those new GPU's are $ invested in hardware I simply don't need for editing still images. Ideal for 4k video crunching though. Frankly, I'd rather drop 10k on a camera or lens than on a computer.
Instead... I upgraded my 2008 Mac Pro:
And picked up a December 2011 build Mac Pro Server 2 x 2.4 Ghz 8-Core Machine for a bargain price (mid 2010 model). I've already put a OWC Mercury Accelsior 480 Gig Striped SSD in it for boot and apps and its about to get 64 Gig of Ram as well. My all in price is under $3000. I can upgrade it too 12 cores in the future and up to 128 Gig of RAM as well as being able to upgrade the GPU and hang off pretty much whatever external storage I want. No over priced T2 peripherals - thats true, but with 4 internal drives in RAID 0+1 its plenty fast internal storage (it also came with the latest gen. Apple RAID card). External storage can be either Gigabit, Esata or FW800 or possibly a USB3 PCI card down the track. Lots of options... and options are good. ;D
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I decided against waiting...
The cost of entry was making me ill.. $5,300 for the 6 Core in Australia before adding RAM (say 64 Gig) and extra Flash (500 Gig or 1TB) + external T2 Chassis and drives and it starts getting close to $10k AUD. On top of that those new GPU's are $ invested in hardware I simply don't need for editing still images. Ideal for 4k video crunching though. Frankly, I'd rather drop 10k on a camera or lens than on a computer.
Instead... I upgraded my 2008 Mac Pro:
And picked up a December 2011 build Mac Pro Server 2 x 2.4 Ghz 8-Core Machine for a bargain price (mid 2010 model). I've already put a OWC Mercury Accelsior 480 Gig Striped SSD in it for boot and apps and its about to get 64 Gig of Ram as well. My all in price is under $3000. I can upgrade it too 12 cores in the future and up to 128 Gig of RAM as well as being able to upgrade the GPU and hang off pretty much whatever external storage I want. No over priced T2 peripherals - thats true, but with 4 internal drives in RAID 0+1 its plenty fast internal storage (it also came with the latest gen. Apple RAID card). External storage can be either Gigabit, Esata or FW800 or possibly a USB3 PCI card down the track. Lots of options... and options are good. ;D
Good :)
You have a very strong point the machine appears to be directed to video and maybe, just maybe 3D. In particular Adobe is a CUDA shop at this moment. In this forum we have a lot of Photographers with unusual high level demands, because either of Medium format (or large) or volume. Most photographers will be good with a strong laptop and invest the difference in a good monitor, a raid array, marketing or trips etc.
For the most part esata and USB3 can replace Thunderbolt.
best regards,
J. Duncan