Pages: 1 2 [3]   Go Down

Author Topic: The new Mac Pro - A round Peg in a Square Hole? Musings and Thoughts....  (Read 34829 times)

kers

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 4388
    • Pieter Kers
Re: The new Mac Pro - A round Peg in a Square Hole? Musings and Thoughts....
« Reply #40 on: October 23, 2013, 06:34:26 am »

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.
Logged
Pieter Kers
www.beeld.nu/la

tived

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 714
    • http://
Re: The new Mac Pro - A round Peg in a Square Hole? Musings and Thoughts....
« Reply #41 on: October 23, 2013, 08:00:02 am »

Isn't that per 1000 units?

Henrik
Logged

jduncan

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 434
Re: The new Mac Pro - A round Peg in a Square Hole? Musings and Thoughts....
« Reply #42 on: October 23, 2013, 12:52:35 pm »

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

Logged
english is not my first language, an I k

jduncan

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 434
Re: The new Mac Pro - A round Peg in a Square Hole? Musings and Thoughts....
« Reply #43 on: October 23, 2013, 12:53:31 pm »

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
« Last Edit: October 23, 2013, 01:24:10 pm by jduncan »
Logged
english is not my first language, an I k

Rajan Parrikar

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 3950
    • Rajan Parrikar
Re: The new Mac Pro - A round Peg in a Square Hole? Musings and Thoughts....
« Reply #44 on: October 23, 2013, 01:58:02 pm »

"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/

Josh-H

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 2079
    • Wild Nature Photo Travel
Re: The new Mac Pro - A round Peg in a Square Hole? Musings and Thoughts....
« Reply #45 on: October 23, 2013, 06:49:28 pm »

Quote
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
Logged
Wild Nature Photo Travel

jduncan

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 434
Re: The new Mac Pro - A round Peg in a Square Hole? Musings and Thoughts....
« Reply #46 on: October 23, 2013, 11:05:17 pm »

HERE



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
Logged
english is not my first language, an I k

Josh-H

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 2079
    • Wild Nature Photo Travel
Re: The new Mac Pro - A round Peg in a Square Hole? Musings and Thoughts....
« Reply #47 on: October 24, 2013, 01:06:43 am »


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.
Logged
Wild Nature Photo Travel

jduncan

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 434
Re: The new Mac Pro - A round Peg in a Square Hole? Musings and Thoughts....
« Reply #48 on: October 24, 2013, 08:38:43 am »

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
« Last Edit: October 24, 2013, 09:01:42 am by jduncan »
Logged
english is not my first language, an I k

Manoli

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 2296
Re: The new Mac Pro - A round Peg in a Square Hole? Musings and Thoughts....
« Reply #49 on: October 24, 2013, 08:58:06 am »

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 ...
Logged

jjj

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 4728
    • http://www.futtfuttfuttphotography.com
Re: The new Mac Pro - A round Peg in a Square Hole? Musings and Thoughts....
« Reply #50 on: October 24, 2013, 09:52:56 am »

So now you know - budget on buying at least two ...
Damn! I don't have that many kidneys.
Logged
Tradition is the Backbone of the Spinele

jduncan

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 434
Re: The new Mac Pro - A round Peg in a Square Hole? Musings and Thoughts....
« Reply #51 on: October 25, 2013, 05:23:23 pm »

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
Logged
english is not my first language, an I k

jduncan

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 434
Re: The new Mac Pro - A round Peg in a Square Hole? Musings and Thoughts....
« Reply #52 on: October 25, 2013, 05:27:56 pm »

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
« Last Edit: October 25, 2013, 05:41:07 pm by jduncan »
Logged
english is not my first language, an I k

BernardLanguillier

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 13983
    • http://www.flickr.com/photos/bernardlanguillier/sets/
Re: The new Mac Pro - A round Peg in a Square Hole? Musings and Thoughts....
« Reply #53 on: October 25, 2013, 09:38:35 pm »

Mac rumors evokes today the possibility that the GPUs and their sister board may in fact be replaceable.

Wait and see.

Cheers,
Bernard

Josh-H

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 2079
    • Wild Nature Photo Travel
Re: The new Mac Pro - A round Peg in a Square Hole? Musings and Thoughts....
« Reply #54 on: October 28, 2013, 04:39:07 am »

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

Logged
Wild Nature Photo Travel

jduncan

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 434
Re: The new Mac Pro - A round Peg in a Square Hole? Musings and Thoughts....
« Reply #55 on: October 28, 2013, 07:52:29 am »

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
Logged
english is not my first language, an I k
Pages: 1 2 [3]   Go Up