Luminous Landscape Forum
Equipment & Techniques => Computers & Peripherals => Topic started by: BernardLanguillier on May 09, 2019, 02:17:23 am
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Would someone have any update on the new Mac Pro?
Apple is once again taking their time on this one...
Some people seem to think it will get announced during the Apple WW Developers conference between June 3-7.
Any views on this?
Regards,
Bernard
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Let's hope for a possible announcement at the WWDC (June 3rd?)…
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WWDC would be a great place to announce the new MacPro
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If there is problem I could offer Apple my house to do te announcement...
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If there is problem I could offer Apple my house to do te announcement...
Be sure to email Tim Cook about your house… ;D
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From what I've gathered reading the blogs, the new MacPro is likely to be so expensive, it will be out of the running for most of us.
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looking back into the future...
Apple's Phil Schiller WWDC Jun 13, 2013, 9
"Can't innovate anymore, my ass,"
presenting the trashcan macpro
The first macpro was offered on sale - jan 2014
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Apple insider April 04, 2017
https://appleinsider.com/articles/17/04/04/all-new-mac-pro-with-modular-design-apple-branded-pro-displays-coming-in-2018
Breaking
All-new Mac Pro with modular design, Apple-branded pro displays coming in 2018
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https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/johnpaczkowski/apple-says-it-is-completely-rethinking-the-mac-pro
April 4, 2017
“We are completely rethinking the Mac Pro,” Phil Schiller, Apple’s SVP of worldwide marketing said during a recent roundtable with a handful of reporters at the company’s Machine Shop hardware prototyping lab. And it won't just be the computer. “Since the Mac Pro is a modular system, we are also doing a pro display. There’s a team working hard on it right now.”
And Schiller offered something even rarer: an apology. "The current Mac Pro ... was constrained thermally and it restricted our ability to upgrade it," he said. "And for that, we’re sorry to disappoint customers."
2018...
aug 2018... moved over to a hackintosh my first 'self designed' 10core-i9 macPro- replacing my 10 year old mac pro ( no regrets) gaining speed a factor 4-5
may 2019...
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From what I've gathered reading the blogs, the new MacPro is likely to be so expensive, it will be out of the running for most of us.
Just like high end Win workstations from HP and Dell can easily cross the 50,000 US$ barrier list price.
Cheers,
Bernard
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I gave up a few years ago when I needed a MacPro for video work and there were issues with the graphics cards overheating and creating rendered images with glitches. I bought a used HP workstation and it took a little while to learn the Windows OS, but now I don't think I'm going back to Mac for any high end workstations. Windows 10 has been very stable.
I liked the Mac OS "experience" a bit better, but at this point, I don't trust Apple to fully support high end computers going forward...
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Just like high end Win workstations from HP and Dell can easily cross the 50,000 US$ barrier list price.
Cheers,
Bernard
Whatever. Each and every time the iPhone/iPad centralized company loses with Mac ‘specs per dollar’ against the competition. Let’s face it, their Mac Pro roadmap is a disaster and a disrespect to its more than loyal customers.
Regards,
Jaap.
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I suspect (from reading a lot of Mac blogs) that we're looking at something like this - this is the machine I've posted about on MacRumors - others who read the tea leaves differently have posted other possibilities:
CPU: New Cascade Lake Xeon-W, 12 to 28 cores. These $1000-$3000 CPUs are cut-down versions of Intel's Xeon-SP server CPUs with the multiprocessing features removed. The advantage over the smaller LGA-2066 Xeon-W chips is that they can have more cores - Apple will offer options that exceed the 18 core maximum of the iMac Pro (which uses the smaller chips).
RAM: 6 channels, 6 or 12 slots, minimum 48 (6x8)or 96 (6x16) GB, maximum 384 (6x64) or 768 (12x64) GB. 8 GB DIMMs for these CPUs are substantially more expensive per gigabyte than 16 GB DIMMs, so Apple may start with the 96 GB configuration that's only a little more expensive.
Storage: Primary SSD array run from the T2 (or T3?) controller. Either PCIe x4, two channels (fast, 1 TB to 4 TB configurations) or PCIe x8, with four channels (really fast, with 2 TB to 8 TB configurations). The iMac Pro uses PCIe x4 with two SSD channels off the controller, and the Mac Pro will either be the same or a doubled version. T
There may also be a couple of standard (NVMe) or proprietary storage expansion slots, since the SSD run off the T2 is locked to the T2 chip and can't be expanded without reprogramming the security (Apple could give their stores tools to do it, but a user won't be able to). Right now, they won't expand the iMac Pro's T2 locked SSD at all, but they can replace it without replacing the motherboard, which means that the reprogramming tool exists somewhere.
GPU: AMD GPU in a proprietary Apple GPU Slot, probably with a second Apple GPU Slot free. The Apple GPU Slot is probably just a PCIe x16 slot with a small extension to pump the video out over Thunderbolt, but the size and shape of the GPU card will be nonstandard (including no rear panel ports). There are two reasons to make it nonstandard - one is that standard PC GPUs are inefficiently (and loudly) cooled with their big ol' fans. The Apple GPU Slot will use the computer's cooling (possibly liquid cooling) instead. The second is that Apple doesn't want to deal with NVidia GPUs, and an incompatible slot keeps them out.
Depending on the timing of the Mac Pro versus the timing of Navi, the baseline GPU will probably be a Vega 64, with Radeon VII and Instinct models as upgrade options. If Navi's ready, they'll use comparable Navi GPUs A second GPU will be optional, and will probably have to match the first. They will probably commit to offering GPU upgrades (but they said it was possible for the Mac Pro 2013 and the only upgrades that ever shipped were the higher end GPUs offered as BTO at release).
Ports and upgrades:
RAM should be user upgradeable and there will probably be a way of adding internal SSD storage (although upgrading the boot drive will at least require an Apple technician if they allow it at all, due to the T2). The CPU may well be unofficially upgradeable until Intel stops using the LGA-3647 socket (probably using other CPUs that Apple offers, possibly some that they don't). There is a slight chance the CPU is officially upgradeable as well. The GPU will probably be officially upgradeable, although parts availability may be an issue.
There may be a free standard PCIe slot - probably half length and low wattage - primarily for I/O boards of different types.
The primary port will be a bunch of Thunderbolt 3 ports (this is also why AMD CPUs are unlikely - they don't support Thunderbolt easily).
The most likely configuration is 6 ports on 3 buses (like the 2013 Mac Pro, but Thunderbolt 3 instead of 2). Either 4 ports on 2 buses (iMac Pro) or 8 ports on 4 buses would also be reasonable. There may be a way of bridging two Thunderbolt ports on different buses to support high-speed external PCIe boxes.
There will almost certainly be dual Ethernet ports, at least one of them 10 Gb. The most logical configuration is actually one 10Gb port to connect to the fastest things on your LAN (NAS units, servers, iMac Pros, MacBook Pros using TB3 to 10GbE adapters) and one 1 Gb port for Internet connectivity, printers, etc. There's no reason to go 10 Gb on the secondary port (since segmented networks where both segments are 10 Gb are rare - the usual reason to segment is to get the printer, etc. off the 10 Gb segment) , but Apple might, just to simplify things - the secondary port will just auto-negotiate 1 Gb speed, so there's no reason not to.
There should be a few convenience ports - the most obvious is at least a couple of old-style USB-A ports, hopefully up front since the major reason to have them is for thumb drives. They will probably include a headphone jack, also for convenience sake. I personally think card readers are unlikely - SD will probably not be the only standard for much of the life of the machine. From a still photographer's viewpoint, SD plus XQD/CFExpress would be a good combination, but video folks use three or four others as well.
It'll be expensive (think iMac Pro, then a little more), but I don't think it'll be as expensive as some people on the Mac forums are saying (forum opinion ranges from $2999 starting price to $15,000 starting price). Intel did us a big favor with those new Xeon-W chips that are cut down versions of the server chips. I used to think it'll be a $6499 machine because it had to use a server chip - now I'm closer to $5499 to start.
$5499 Mac Pro: 12 core Intel Xeon-W, 1 TB SSD, 48 GB of RAM, Vega 64
or maybe it'll be $5999, but with a higher base configuration? 12 core Xeon-W, 2 TB SSD, 96 GB of RAM, Vega 64.
BTO options:
CPU: 16 core $500, 24 core $1500, 28 core (also higher clocks) $3000
GPU: Vega 64X $200, Radeon VII $500, Radeon Instinct $3000+
Second GPU: Has to match the first, Vega 64 $400,Vega 64X $900, Radeon VII $900, Radeon Instinct $3400+
RAM: 96 GB $300 (if not standard), 192 GB $2000, 384 GB (gulp!) $7000
Storage: 2 TB $400 (if not standard), 4 TB $2000, 8 TB (if offered) $4500
The base model is a desktop workstation that fills some high-end photographers' needs, especially if they also do video. The smaller upgrades are relatively reasonable (a $6700 machine probably won't break the bank if $5500 is OK), while the top upgrades are for Hollywood. It tops out over $25000, but that's not for photographers...
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And the box?
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As long as I know how I can expand it, the shape of the box (probably something weird and Apple-y) doesn't matter to me...
Expansion:
RAM - User upgradeable with standard registered ECC DIMMs - hopefully an easy hatch or "pull the case off and it's staring me in the face"
SSD (boot) - Either service center only or not allowed (T2 issue)
SSD (extra storage) - hopefully User upgradeable - either standard NVMe slots or some sort of (hotswap?) Apple module.
CPU - unofficially replaceable with other Intel LGA 3647 CPUs. On previous Macs, other CPUs Apple has used in the same model tend to work (to go from 12 to 28 cores, buy Apple's chosen 28 core CPU and drop it in). CPUs Apple hasn't used that would seem compatible (same generation and socket) are very hit or miss - let someone else try it first. Official processor upgrades are unlikely, but possible - Apple has occasionally done that.
GPU - User upgradeable, but part comes from Apple.
PCIe - If it exists, a half-length, 75 watt card will be user installable
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Very interesting Dan.
The only thing I find surprising is the lack of double CPU. Otherwise is pretty much exactly what I was expecting.
Cheers,
Bernard
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I think everybody that would like a Mac pro would be happy if they make a new version of the 2012 box.
and do it NOW ( i mean 4 years ago)
Somehow Apple always wants to make something wild and exciting and waits until the hardware is there to make it so..
( a car with square wheels)
In the mean time a PRO does not have a workable computer... how PRO is that?
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As long as I know how I can expand it, the shape of the box (probably something weird and Apple-y) doesn't matter to me...
Expansion:
RAM - User upgradeable with standard registered ECC DIMMs - hopefully an easy hatch or "pull the case off and it's staring me in the face"
SSD (boot) - Either service center only or not allowed (T2 issue)
SSD (extra storage) - hopefully User upgradeable - either standard NVMe slots or some sort of (hotswap?) Apple module.
CPU - unofficially replaceable with other Intel LGA 3647 CPUs. On previous Macs, other CPUs Apple has used in the same model tend to work (to go from 12 to 28 cores, buy Apple's chosen 28 core CPU and drop it in). CPUs Apple hasn't used that would seem compatible (same generation and socket) are very hit or miss - let someone else try it first. Official processor upgrades are unlikely, but possible - Apple has occasionally done that.
GPU - User upgradeable, but part comes from Apple.
PCIe - If it exists, a half-length, 75 watt card will be user installable
Every time I see a post like this, I hear The Who singing “We won’t be fooled again” in my head.
I bought the 2013 MacPro partly on the promise of upgradability. My primary business is video, and GPUs are THE key component in color grading systems. Apple sold it as an upgradable system, but not one upgrade option has ever materialized (except a CPU upgrade if you initially bought a lower-spec CPU). To my way of thinking, that system is an abject market failure in terms of creating any upgrade options at all. I thought that Apple had a big enough market presence that a third-party eco system would evolve, but I was wrong.
Meanwhile, had I bought a PCI expansion chassis for my 2010 Mac Pro or switched to a PC platform, I could have upgrades GPUs twice in the 6-year interim.
I don’t think I’ll be buying a new Mac Pro with a unique, proprietary interface set.
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I don’t think I’ll be buying a new Mac Pro with a unique, proprietary interface set.
If the upgrades are proprietary, I think it will be another failure. What we want is PC type upgradability that runs macOS, i.e., a box with slots. How long does it take to design a nice box?
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In response to Bernard's question:
The problem with dual CPU is that Intel doesn't make dual socket capable versions of any CPU other than a few 4-12 core Xeon SP chips(almost all of which have low clock speeds) - the Xeon Silver line. They used to, but the move to Xeon SP eliminated the reasonable dual-capable Xeons. They do make multi socket capable versions of a bunch of desirable chips, but those are actually capable of going up to 8 sockets, not just 2 - Xeon Gold and Platinum.
Why not use 8 socket chips in a 2 socket motherboard? Each individual chip is approximately 3x as expensive as an otherwise similar chip without the multiprocessing capability. A 28 core Xeon Platinum is around $10,000 (and you need two of them to get any benefit), while a nearly identical 28 core Xeon-W 3275 (same LGA-3647 socket, same 6 channel memory, same power requirement) with a slightly higher clock speed is around $3000 - the only difference is that the multiprocessing capability is turned off - which frees some power for higher turbo speeds.
The Xeon Silver chips make no sense for workstations because a single Xeon-W chip is both faster and cheaper than two Xeon Silvers (even a 16-core Xeon-W is probably faster than two 12 core Xeon Silvers due to clock speed differences, and the 24 and 28 core variants are no contest).
HP does use Xeon Gold and Platinum in workstations - but that's why the Z8 can go over $50,000 easily (and over $100,000 if you work at it). Apple will almost certainly prefer the $5500-$25,000 market (and they're unlikely to make a dual-socket motherboard for the tiny number of customers who'd go for ultimate performance). The only configurations that make any performance sense at all would be dual 24 core and dual 28 core, since a dual 16 core would be so close in performance to a single 28 core that it doesn't really matter.
For processors alone, a dual 24 core system would be about a $12,000 upgrade over a single 28 core system, and a dual 28 core would be around $17,000. I'd expect Apple to increment the price more like $17,000 and $25,000 - because it would require a new motherboard (and probably a power supply and other components) for a tiny number of systems.
Not worth it - except in one specific (unlikely, but not impossible) circumstance. If Apple is a big enough Intel customer, can they get some semi-custom dual-capable CPUs without the 8-processor capability? The traditional cost per CPU for dual-capable chips is about 125 to 150% of the cost of a similar single-processor only CPU, not 300%. At a 25% or 50% markup, it might be worth it. HP couldn't get Intel to do it - they wouldn't use those 8-way CPUs with the 300% cost unless they had no choice...
In response to D Fuller and faberryman:
People have been asking Apple for a mid-priced box with PC type expansion for years, and Apple has consistently refused (the last one was the old Power Mac 7600). The old Mac Pro was priced well above the price of any iMac - the iMac has moved upscale over the years. Apple hates PC expansion for a number of reasons (some of them valid engineering considerations, while others are part of feuds in the industry).
1.) NVidia - Apple really, really doesn't want NVidia graphics on the Mac! NVidia has proven unwilling or unable to write a stable Mac driver, and Apple is very happy with the performance and stability of their AMD driver and doesn't want to take the effort to write an equivalent driver for NVidia - especially if it's for one system that won't even be a huge seller. Apple cares a LOT about system stability, and they've avoided most of Windows' stability problems over the years - in large part by using highly restricted Hardware Compatibility Lists. No NVidia is the most jealously guarded of all of those measures.
2.)Cooling and engineering - The standard PC graphics card is a huge engineering compromise. When the slot design of PC motherboards was worked out, no expansion card used very much power. They were designed to draw power from the slot and be cooled by the system fans. Nobody anticipated 300 watt GPUs - so hacks have been used to accommodate them - but no engineer would design a card from scratch that needed multiple external power connectors and several loud fans! Apple's GPU Slot will be a nice design that integrates properly with system power and cooling - but that means it won't be standard PCIe (it'll probably be some custom connector based on PCIe, but with extensions for Thunderbolt and power - and some sort of integrated cooling).
3.) Stability - Many PC graphics cards are overclocked to well beyond what Apple would consider stable on a Mac. Quadros and other workstation cards aren't - but a slotbox is going to tempt people to stick GeForces (or even standard AMD gaming cards) in there, and Apple doesn't want the support hassles.
4.) Gaming - Apple goes out of its way to be hostile to gaming on the Mac - and they reap stability benefits for doing so. To see what gaming does to the stability of otherwise comparable systems, look at the story of Windows 2000. Windows 2000 was by far the most stable Windows to that point (the first consumer-friendly version of NT). Its major drawback was that it wouldn't run games (unless they were very well behaved, ran in a window, and didn't access hardware directly). Windows XP a year and a half later was essentially 2000 with the game support finally ported over from DOS-based Windows 98 to the NT-based platform. It took Microsoft nearly 7 years (from the release of XP in late 2001 until Service Pack 3 was released in 2008) until XP was as stable as Windows 2000. Most of that instability was added by adding game support - games do all sorts of weird things. Apple keeps games in a VERY tight sandbox, and NVidia doesn't like that!
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Thanks Dan, that does indeed make sense.
Cheers,
Bernard
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2.) Cooling and engineering - ... Apple's GPU Slot will be a nice design that integrates properly with system power and cooling - but that means it won't be standard PCIe (it'll probably be some custom connector based on PCIe, but with extensions for Thunderbolt and power - and some sort of integrated cooling).
This is what I thought about the 2013 design. The trouble is that if you really put it to work, the GPU Fails due, it seems, to overheating. So rendering a moderately-complex sequence out of Resolve regularly produces errors that require re-render. So regularly that many people resort to rendering stacks of frames rather than any video codec, so that the frames with errors can be re-rendered (and then the stack re-rendered to a video file in another piece of software). It’s a bloody inefficient way to work.
Apple has never offered a fix for this, or any upgrade to their original GPUs. Given that, why would anyone trust them to develop a product line that is anything other than appliance—good for what it’s capable of today, perhaps, but never likely to see any upgradability, even when it fails to perform.
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Apple has never offered a fix for this, or any upgrade to their original GPUs. Given that, why would anyone trust them to develop a product line that is anything other than appliance—good for what it’s capable of today, perhaps, but never likely to see any upgradability, even when it fails to perform.
That's indeed a fair question.
Apple has lost a tremendous amount of credibility as a provider of serious professional solutions... I am not sure how that can recover this.
This tiny pro segment represents way too little of Apple's revenue to carry any significance on the balance sheet, and my bet is we'll be lucky if Tim cook has spent more than a few hours working on the new Mac Pro within the last 2 years...
Cheers,
Bernard
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Apple will try again - whether people trust them is another story. They're not going to adopt triple-slot PC graphics cards with a bunch of noisy fans. Might they get themselves in another thermal corner? Yes, they might - but the whole industry is rapidly headed for a thermal corner, since there's a limit to how many fans you can stick on a graphics card (and the limit is lower for real work than it is for boy-racer gaming GPUs).
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Apple will try again - whether people trust them is another story. They're not going to adopt triple-slot PC graphics cards with a bunch of noisy fans. Might they get themselves in another thermal corner? Yes, they might - but the whole industry is rapidly headed for a thermal corner, since there's a limit to how many fans you can stick on a graphics card (and the limit is lower for real work than it is for boy-racer gaming GPUs).
Are those the only options?
I completely understand and appreciate Apple's commitment to design. But design fails when it doesn't serve it's purpose. Gaming is not the only use case that needs GPU power. Serious video work needs it just as much, as do many scientific (computational genetics comes to mind) and engineering applications. Architects produce models as complex as CGI artists, and fly clients through them.
I think Apple knew the Mac Pro design was a failure within a month of its hitting stores. It's to small to cool its components when they're under load. And I think that's why there have been no upgrades from Apple or anyone else--because they knew as soon as people started stressing the machines that they wouldn't support any additional capability. As you can tell, it kind of iritates me.
I love the Mac OS and I love Apple's committment to design, but I believe they've come to see everything through the lens of the iPhone: an object in isolation. But in the real world, different devices have different design requirements, and need to interact with other devices, so that doesn't work. My Mac Pro sits elegantly on my desk with (at the moment) eight cables of various colors coming out of it to connect to the various devices I need to get my work done. It's a rat's nest. Where's the elebgance in that?
It wouldn't surprise me if the new Mac Pro has an Apple designed GPU that's not compatible with anything except Metal. (Their GPU in the A11 Bionic chip is pretty amazing and it’s their first attempt.) Apple's software will run beautifully on it, but everybody elsee will be playing catch-up. It may not happen, of course, but Apple has thrown whole industry workflows into the EOL pile before when they thought things needed a reboot.
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Are those the only options?
I completely understand and appreciate Apple's commitment to design. But design fails when it doesn't serve it's purpose. Gaming is not the only use case that needs GPU power. Serious video work needs it just as much, as do many scientific (computational genetics comes to mind) and engineering applications. Architects produce models as complex as CGI artists, and fly clients through them.
I think Apple knew the Mac Pro design was a failure within a month of its hitting stores. It's to small to cool its components when they're under load. And I think that's why there have been no upgrades from Apple or anyone else--because they knew as soon as people started stressing the machines that they wouldn't support any additional capability. As you can tell, it kind of iritates me.
I love the Mac OS and I love Apple's committment to design, but I believe they've come to see everything through the lens of the iPhone: an object in isolation. But in the real world, different devices have different design requirements, and need to interact with other devices, so that doesn't work. My Mac Pro sits elegantly on my desk with (at the moment) eight cables of various colors coming out of it to connect to the various devices I need to get my work done. It's a rat's nest. Where's the elebgance in that?
It wouldn't surprise me if the new Mac Pro has an Apple designed GPU that's not compatible with anything except Metal. (Their GPU in the A11 Bionic chip is pretty amazing and it’s their first attempt.) Apple's software will run beautifully on it, but everybody elsee will be playing catch-up. It may not happen, of course, but Apple has thrown whole industry workflows into the EOL pile before when they thought things needed a reboot.
Many excellent points here.
My hope is that Apple has finally understood that the target population of Mac Pros require solutions, not devices. I think I remember that Apple had put together a group of consultants to perform hearings in order to understand the workflow of users. It shouldn't have taken more than 30 mins for them to understand that a super cool polished box surrounded by many peripherals doesn't make an elegant solution as you very rightfully write.
Standards are also important and I share your hope that Apple will have remained reasonably close to what cross platform developers will be able to manage.
Cheers,
Bernard
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What Apple has NOT learned we already can say is that Pro's need the machine NOW.
Not over 2 years when they have finally got there design together.
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since there's a limit to how many fans you can stick on a graphics card
dear - you can put a liquid cooling system and then put fans, as many as you wish outside of the card area... may be not in a macprison, but in a normal win(linux, bsd, etc)tel world
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Liquid cooled graphics cards are rare (not nonexistent - you see them in high-end gaming systems, and probably also in supercomputers).
I actually think Apple is relatively likely to liquid cool the GPU (which is a major argument for moving away from PCIe to something designed for it).
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Liquid cooled graphics cards are rare (not nonexistent - you see them in high-end gaming systems, and probably also in supercomputers).
I actually think Apple is relatively likely to liquid cool the GPU (which is a major argument for moving away from PCIe to something designed for it).
Anybody need a liquid cooled video card for photography?
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Anybody need a liquid cooled video card for photography?
No, but you never know the future... Already Lightrooms detail uses the GPU in a way one 46mp needs a few seconds with a good graphics card
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Anybody need a liquid cooled video card for photography?
One could ask does anybody need a Mac Pro for photography?
But for those of us who do video, GPU-based computation is fundamental.
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One could ask does anybody need a Mac Pro for photography? But for those of us who do video, GPU-based computation is fundamental.
This is the problem with the new Mac Mini. It has no graphics capability. I don't know if the integrated graphics will even run the new Enhance Detail feature of LR. My late-2011 says the process will take six minutes, but it doesn't finish. Which probably means an eGPU. More boxes more cables, particularly when you know you are going to have to add an external RAIDD enclosure. An iMac with upgraded graphics may be a better choice, but an entry level Mac Pro would be even better. Provided it is not silly expensive.
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An iMac with upgraded graphics may be a better choice, but an entry level Mac Pro would be even better. Provided it is not silly expensive.
We’ll see. If Dan is right, an entry level Mac Pro could make a pretty nice iMac look cheap.
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I can see two reasons why Apple might liquid cool CPU and GPU (if they do one, they'll probably do both).
1.) Apple hates noise, and giving in to standard PCIe graphics cards means noisy fans even on modest cards. As I've mentioned before, putting multiple fans on an expansion card is really a hack caused by the rapid increase in GPU power and heat dissipation. When Apple designed the much loved cheesegrater Mac Pro, most of the standard GPUs were passively cooled, and none needed to cool hundreds of watts.
2.) If they design a system that provides hundreds of watts worth of liquid cooling for the GPU, they can go all the way from a Vega 56 (what photographers would generally choose) on up to a high-powered Radeon Instinct with one design.
Oh, and photographers would love the liquid cooled CPU that almost certainly would come with the liquid cooled GPU design.
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Apple most likely was waiting for the newer AMD graphics cards to come out.
This is the problem with the new Mac Mini. It has no graphics capability. I don't know if the integrated graphics will even run the new Enhance Detail feature of LR. My late-2011 says the process will take six minutes, but it doesn't finish. Which probably means an eGPU. More boxes more cables, particularly when you know you are going to have to add an external RAIDD enclosure. An iMac with upgraded graphics may be a better choice, but an entry level Mac Pro would be even better. Provided it is not silly expensive.
I hate to say it like this, but a Mini with a i9, a PCIe 16x slot, 2 NVMe slots & 4 RAM slots would fulfill many needs. Put it in a Cube case and call it the 2019 Cube ;)
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Apple most likely was waiting for the newer AMD graphics cards to come out.
Probably, along with the new PCI 4.0 chipset.
I hate to say it like this, but a Mini with a i9, a PCIe 16x slot, 2 NVMe slots & 4 RAM slots would fulfill many needs. Put it in a Cube case and call it the 2019 Cube ;)
Indeed... you call also call it the 2019 Mac Pro... ;D
Cheers,
Bernard
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But the GPU of the Mac mini is a very basic one... for C1 it is not the right choice.
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I am perhaps in the minority of liking the idea of modular expandability over a big box which for the majority of users has a lot of empty space inside for un-needed expansion slots—if it can be done with nice uncluttered aesthetics. My proposal is expansion units for extra graphics cards, mass storage, and so on, that stack below or above the main unit, connected by TB 2 or some such. I envision the same "rounded square" cross section for all components, combined like a stack of Mac minis, maybe with a central opening up the middle of each module to help with cooling ventilation and also hide the interconnect cables. And with some options for these add-on modules provided by Apple, so as to not rely on third-party providers. Could there even be TB2 connectors in the top (plug) and bottom (socket) of each module to avoid cables?
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I guess we’ll know in a few hours... if Apple decided to allocate enough engineering resources to this project to make it happen of course.
Personally I probably won’t buy one, or stay on OSX much longer, if it’s not announced tomorrow.
The rationale being that Apple most probably won’t invest enough to keep the “modules” up to date if they have not invested enough to develop it on time.
It would be a bit of a pain to migrate back to Win 10 about 10 years after my move to Mac, but an ironic symbol that the Mac Pro that brought me to Mac in the first place would be the one convincing me for good that Apple does’t care anymore about content creation.
We’ll know in less than 24 hours...
Cheers,
Bernard
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Great discussion, and thanks to Dan especially for the detailed speculation.
Being a Mac user has always been tough. I first crossed paths with Macs in 1987 (the Classic), though I didn't actually get hands on one myself until grad school about 1991. I was a traditional darkroom guy from the mid-'70s and computers to me were both uninteresting math machines and a looming threat to traditional photography.
In the '90s Apple almost died and Mac users were in the minority, but the OS of the time (as scary as this seems now) was always better than the Windows alternative. My first computer purchase in 1996 was a PowerMac 7300 (cost me thousands, eventually sold years later for $10...).
Fast forward to the present where most everyone has an Apple-logo'd product on their desk or in their pocket, and it's a new day. What hasn't changed is Apple's elitism and high prices, which seem to be the cost of admission to a world where computers don't feel like computers but more like seamless, well-oiled digital experiences.
On the one hand you have macOS which free is and a joy to use most of the time, and on the other hand the over-priced/under-spec'ed hardware needed to run it. We here are pretty much in agreement that the upcoming announcements won't change this a bit.
Someone on page 1 of this thread mentioned Hackintosh. That avenue seems to be the obvious (though somewhat controversial) middle ground solution for those who love macOS but can't justify or swing the cost of ownership of actual Apple hardware. And it is Apple itself which created the need for this genre, to be populated by determined users that have never been properly served by the mothership.
Thankfully there are "options" (Windows 10 and Linux), though many (such as myself) prefer macOS. I'm familiar with all three OS's; I have a 2011-build triple-boot i7 Hackintosh tinker machine running Mojave latest, Win10 latest and Deepen Linux latest. I'm writing from a general use MacBook Air right now because typing isn't taxing the GPU, ha!
I work in higher-ed IT and have access to recent model SSD iMacs in the office, and I support over 400 Macs of various vintages (including about 75 Mac Pro cylinders). But if I had to spend my own money for a newer, more current higher-end machine for home, the options would include serious consideration of the Hackintosh route, followed by a recent-model used Mac (always let someone else pay retail first, like with a car) and finally, a home-built Windows PC (he says holding his nose).
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As far as the Mac Pro goes, the topic isn’t price. It’s a problem of technical competitiveness vs high end workstation manufacturers, namely HP and Dell (whose prices go much higher than anything Apple has ever released by a factor of 10 or more).
But we all know that this lack of technical competitiveness results mostly from lack of focus and therefore investment. Apple most probably could release the best workstation in the world if Tim Cook “wanted to”. And who knows, they may announce just that today.
Besides willingness there are also self-inflicting wounds related to design thinking I guess. But with the right user needs in mind that also may end up being a strength.
Cheers,
Bernard
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As far as the Mac Pro goes, the topic isn’t price. It’s a problem of technical competitiveness vs high end workstation manufacturers (whose prices go much higher than anything Apple has ever released by a factor of 10 or more).
I am sure the topic of price will come up following Apple's announcement tomorrow.
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The more billions you have, the more billions you want... At this point Apple could give the new Pro's away and not feel it.
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The more billions you have, the more billions you want... At this point Apple could give the new Pro's away and not feel it.
You may have gone to grad school but it doesn't seem you got an MBA. 😁
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I am sure the topic of price will come up following Apple's announcement tomorrow.
Most probably not among people who know what they are talking about.
Cheers,
Bernard
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You're right, that it wasn't!
So let's say they could probably lower prices a bit?
Does anyone know Apple's margin?
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The more billions you have, the more billions you want... At this point Apple could give the new Pro's away and not feel it.
You are probably correct in terms of direct revenue.
Now there is a lot more than direct revenue.
I have probably spent around 20K$ in Apple products these past 12 years because I bought a Mac Pro.
I will leave the Apple eco-system if I consider they have abandoned the content creation market. And many are likely to make similar choices sooner or later.
I am not sure that Apple will find that revenue irrelevant in a context where the iPhone has pretty much become little more than a great smartphone among many other great smartphones.
Cheers,
Bernard
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I must add I did actually get some free computer hardware from Apple. After a large corporate purchase... ;-) They can do it when they want to (but obviously not on a large scale).
And some free lunches courtesy of "Uncle Steve" via the Apple rep. Not to mention the overnight stay for an Apple Executive Briefing (wine and dine) up at Cupertino back in 2007. Individual hotel rooms. Dinner the night before at some fine restaurant. They starting serving lunch in the conference room as we were finishing up breakfast ;-)
There is Apple money to burn.
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OK guys, $11K+ for new Mac Pro and monitor ;-)
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That's a sweet monitor .. 32", 6k, 1000 nits, HDR
Pro goes up to 28 core Xeon, 1.5TB 2933 EC ram, 8 PCI, 4 double, 3 single, one with I/O, 2 x 3TB, 2 x USB A, video options I didn't altogether follow but goes up to 14 teraflops I think [edit] and can support 6 of the 6k monitors
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OK guys, $11K+ for new Mac Pro and monitor ;-)
Two years to clone the cheese grater? A $5000 monitor?
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All existing hardware just tanked in value...
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I made the decision years ago that I would use Apple for portable and Microsoft for Desktop..... a decision I have never regretted. I have the best of both worlds at a price point that makes sense. There will be a few who will drop $10,000++ on an Mac Pro but I won't be one of them.
Cheers......
Victor
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Sounds good and pretty much 100% aligned with Dan’s crystal balling... except for the number of Io... the 2013 pro has 4xUSB A and 6xTB... and I use all of them even if Apple’s USB implementation is really unstable for me.
The IO expansion card apparently only has 2xTB and 2xUSB A so I am still short on USB ports... ;) if it works in a stable way why not but USB being not chainable pretty much 200% of buyers will purchase the IO card meaning it should be seen as being part of base price.
I have just watched the video... and it really looks like it’s total of 2 USB A ports including the IO card... which would probably force me to move to a wireless keyboard and mouse as a start... and to add a dock on top of it... what a pain really.
As far as GPU go I am a bit confused btwn internal PCI slots and the MPX, that appears to be an external eGPU chassis able to host 2 GPUs. Are we saying max 2+ 2x2=6 GPUs? Having looked at the video again it seems that the MPX is internal and is the only way to host GPUs and that it’s therefore max 4 GPUs.
As far as the screen goes, it certainly will be beautiful but IMHO 4K is already useless for editing since pixels are too small to be able to do critical image review. I use one as a second screen for navigation but fonts are already too small... not sure about the use of a 6K screen. Besides does’t the 2 years old Dell 8k cost the same for those who would see a need? I guess this only makes sense for video edition, but then is 8K not needed?
I guess that the 999 US$ stand clarifies the positioning. Apple is only interested in selling this screen to a tiny crowd of people who used to pay 20,000+ US$ for very very specific super high end video editing screens. They really don’t want other people to buy it, probably because they can’t produce it in large quantities. Now, it will take only a few days for OWC to design a stand that will sell for 200 US$ and they will still make a huge margin on it... ;D
Cheers,
Bernard
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There’s a lot to take in here, and I’ve found no information on cost at all yet, but this looks like a genuinely interesting machine. Especially in the middle ranges of the CPU choices, where the speeds are highest, and there are a good number of cores, if not the maximum number. Depending on what applications you live in, fewer (but still plenty) cores at higher speeds may be the optimum choice.
IO needs some study. I can’t figure out quite what’s there. There seem to be 4 T3 ports, two of which double as USB-C. and two USB-3 Type A ports. If that’s correct, it’s oddly limiting. But then, there are slots to add ports.
I would bet real money that there has been some conversation with Red on this box, given the emphasis on 8K and the presence of the Red Raven in the Apple store. Makes me wonder if there will be a Red Rocket card coming for the Afterburner module.
Why a 6K monitor? Seems like neither fish nor fowl. The display tech seems interesting, but I’d me more interested in one in 4K DCI.
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There’s a lot to take in here, and I’ve found no information on cost at all yet, but this looks like a genuinely interesting machine. Especially in the middle ranges of the CPU choices, where the speeds are highest, and there are a good number of cores, if not the maximum number. Depending on what applications you live in, fewer (but still plenty) cores at higher speeds may be the optimum choice.
Indeed, 12~16 cores, 128~256GB RAM, 1~2 high end GPUs, 2~4 TB SSD is probably the sweet spot here.
IO needs some study. I can’t figure out quite what’s there. There seem to be 4 T3 ports, two of which double as USB-C. and two USB-3 Type A ports. If that’s correct, it’s oddly limiting. But then, there are slots to add ports.
Yes, 2 TB/USB-C on top, 2 TB rear, 2 USB 3.0 rear and that's it.
To my eyes, the lack of USB 3.0 ports is the one screaming issue I see with the proposed specs. That will force the usage of a TB3 dock and my experience with those has been very poor in terms of stability. It also means that keyboard and mouse need to be wireless, and that is a major pain because they always run out of battery when you need them the most.
In the real world, all the time you gain with better performance can be killed with a single issue forcing you to re-boot your machine once or twice because the dock lost its connection.
Cheers,
Bernard
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This macPro is a better design than the round one, but very expensive.
Still i see exclusive Apple NVME bars and GPU-units making it less versatile to expand.
The base unit is not that intersting and a sort of iMacpro without a screen that already costs 6000$.
Then you also have to connect your harddisks with some box.
It seems targeted for high end video and some scientific work considering all the ram you can put into it.
Photographers will have a better choice with an iMac, hardwarewise; but i don not like to have a screen attached.
The mac mini has no sensible GPU; maybe an added eGPU will be the solution.
I think we will see this mac pro and screen a lot... in movies ;)
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Here are the specs
https://www.apple.com/mac-pro/specs/
Processor Configure from an 8‑core to 28‑core Intel Xeon W processor
8-Core
3.5GHz Intel Xeon W
8 cores, 16 threads
Turbo Boost up to 4.0GHz
24.5MB cache
Support for up to 1TB 2666MHz memory
12-Core
3.3GHz Intel Xeon W
12 cores, 24 threads
Turbo Boost up to 4.4GHz
31.25MB cache
Support for up to 1TB 2933MHz memory
16-Core
3.2GHz Intel Xeon W
16 cores, 32 threads
Turbo Boost up to 4.4GHz
38MB cache
Support for up to 1TB 2933MHz memory
24-Core
2.7GHz Intel Xeon W
24 cores, 48 threads
Turbo Boost up to 4.4GHz
57MB cache
Support for up to 2TB 2933MHz memory
28-Core
2.5GHz Intel Xeon W
28 cores, 56 threads
Turbo Boost up to 4.4GHz
66.5MB cache
Support for up to 2TB 2933MHz memory
Memory Configure up to 1.5TB of DDR4 ECC memory in 12 user-accessible DIMM slots
32GB
Four 8GB DIMMs
48GB
Six 8GB DIMMs
96GB
Six 16GB DIMMs
192GB
Six 32GB DIMMs
384GB
Six 64GB DIMMs
768GB
Six 128GB DIMMs or 12 64GB DIMMs
1.5TB
12 128GB DIMMs
Requires 24-core or 28-core processor.
8-core processor operates memory at 2666MHz.
12-core to 28-core processors operate memory at 2933MHz.
Graphics Configure two MPX Modules with up to four GPUs
AMD Radeon Pro 580X
36 compute units, 2304 stream processors
8GB of GDDR5 memory
Up to 5.6 teraflops single precision
Two HDMI 2.0 ports on card
Four DisplayPort connections routed to system to support internal Thunderbolt 3 ports
Support for up to six 4K displays, two 5K displays, or two Pro Display XDRs
Half-height MPX Module fits in an MPX bay and enables PCIe slot 2 for additional expansion
AMD Radeon Pro Vega II
64 compute units, 4096 stream processors
32GB of HBM2 memory with 1TB/s memory bandwidth
Up to 14.1 teraflops single precision or 28.2 teraflops half precision
Infinity Fabric Link connection enables two Vega II GPUs to connect at up to 84GB/s
Four Thunderbolt 3 ports and one HDMI 2.0 port on card
Two DisplayPort connections routed to system to support internal Thunderbolt 3 ports
Support for up to six 4K displays, three 5K displays, or two Pro Display XDRs
Full-height MPX Module fills an MPX bay and uses extra power and PCIe bandwidth
AMD Radeon Pro Vega II Duo
Two Vega II GPUs, each with 64 compute units and 4096 stream processors
64GB of HBM2 memory (32GB per GPU), each with 1TB/s memory bandwidth
Up to 28.2 teraflops single precision or 56.4 teraflops half precision
Onboard Infinity Fabric Link connection connects the two Vega II GPUs at up to 84GB/s
Four Thunderbolt 3 ports and one HDMI 2.0 port on card
Four DisplayPort connections routed to system to support internal Thunderbolt 3 ports
Support for up to eight 4K displays, four 5K displays, or four Pro Display XDRs
Full-height MPX module fills an MPX bay and uses extra power and PCIe bandwidth
Expansion Slots Eight PCI Express expansion slots
Two MPX Modules or up to four PCI Express card slots
Each MPX bay provides:
x16 gen 3 bandwidth for graphics
x8 gen 3 bandwidth for Thunderbolt
DisplayPort video routing
Up to 500W power for an MPX Module
Alternatively, each MPX bay can support:
One full-length, double-wide x16 gen 3 slot and one full-length, double-wide x8 gen 3 slot (MPX bay 1)
Or two full-length, double-wide x16 gen 3 slots (MPX bay 2)
Up to 300W auxiliary power via two 8-pin connectors
Three full-length PCI Express gen 3 slots
One x16 slot; two x8 slots
75W auxiliary power available
One half-length x4 PCI Express gen 3 slot with Apple I/O card installed
Afterburner ProRes and ProRes RAW accelerator card
PCI Express x16 card
Accelerates ProRes and ProRes RAW codecs in Final Cut Pro X, QuickTime Player X, and supported third-party apps
Supports playback of up to 3 streams of 8K ProRes RAW or up to 12 streams of 4K ProRes RAW
Storage Configure up to 4TB of SSD storage 1
256GB SSD
One 256GB module
1TB SSD
Two 512GB modules
2TB SSD
Two 1TB modules
4TB SSD
Two 2TB modules
Up to 2.6GB/s sequential read and 2.7GB/s sequential write performance.
Storage encrypted by the Apple T2 Security Chip.
Input/Output
I/O card installed in the half-length x4 PCI Express slot with:
Two USB 3 ports
Support for USB-A (up to 5Gb/s)
Two Thunderbolt 3 ports
Support for Thunderbolt 3 (up to 40Gb/s)
Support for USB-C (up to 10Gb/s)
Support for DisplayPort
Two 10Gb Ethernet ports:
Support for 10Gb Ethernet performance over copper cabling
Support for Nbase-T industry standard: 1Gb, 2.5Gb, 5Gb, and 10Gb Ethernet link speeds using RJ-45 connectors
Additional Connections
Two Thunderbolt 3 ports on the top of the tower enclosure
Support for Thunderbolt 3 (up to 40Gb/s)
Support for USB-C (up to 10Gb/s)
Support for DisplayPort
1 Testing conducted by Apple in May 2019 using preproduction 2.5GHz 28-core Intel Xeon W-based Mac Pro systems with 384GB of RAM and a 4TB SSD. Mac Pro systems tested with an attached 5K display. Tested with FIO 3.13, 1024KB request size, 150GB test file and IO depth=8. Performance tests are conducted using specific computer systems and reflect the approximate performance of Mac Pro. 1GB = 1 billion bytes; 1TB = 1 trillion bytes; actual formatted capacity less.
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Form the AppleInsider article:
https://appleinsider.com/articles/19/06/03/apple-debuts-new-mac-pro-apple-pro-display
"Mac Pro models with an eight-core Xeon, 32GB of RAM, and the Radeon Pro 580X will start at $5999, and will be available in the fall. There will be a version optimized for rack deployment, also available in the fall."
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https://appleinsider.com/articles/19/06/04/editorial-the-new-mac-pro-is-overkill-for-nearly-everybody-and-it-hit-apples-own-target
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I think the biggest question is whether you need all “pro” features, otherwise you certainly can get similar performance for much less.
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I'm not sure this new display will be good for photography or video work. It gets it's high contrast from local LED dimming, and that might not produce accurate shadows, but might be fun for watching movies...But not for mastering them.
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I think the biggest question is whether you need all “pro” features, otherwise you certainly can get similar performance for much less.
The question of whether you need all the features of this machine is a good one, but you cannot get similar performance for much less. You may be able to get performance that meets your needs for much less, but if you need massive multithreading, top level GPU performance, and lots of fast RAM, it's going to cost you.
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Indeed, 12~16 cores, 128~256GB RAM, 1~2 high end GPUs, 2~4 TB SSD is probably the sweet spot here.
Yes, 2 TB/USB-C on top, 2 TB rear, 2 USB 3.0 rear and that's it.
To my eyes, the lack of USB 3.0 ports is the one screaming issue I see with the proposed specs. That will force the usage of a TB3 dock and my experience with those has been very poor in terms of stability. It also means that keyboard and mouse need to be wireless, and that is a major pain because they always run out of battery when you need them the most.
In the real world, all the time you gain with better performance can be killed with a single issue forcing you to re-boot your machine once or twice because the dock lost its connection.
Cheers,
Bernard
You could presumably add four more USB-A or C ports with an add-in board like the Sonnet Allegro Pro (https://www.amazon.com/Sonnet-Allegro-SuperSpeed-10Gbps-Connectors/dp/B07LG5TS6H?ref_=bl_dp_s_web_2530475011) (if drivers are available by the time the thing ships) but it is a bit of a mystery why there are such a limited number of ports on the machine. After all, there are more on the Trash Can Mac Pro.
I'm fine with wireless keyboards, etc. But then, I have a pair of chargers with 32 AA rechargeables always available in my office.
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Promise Pegasus Modular Storage for 2019 Mac Pro up to 32TB (https://9to5mac.com/2019/06/04/promise-pegasus-mac-pro-storage/)
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The promise solution is pretty neat. I am very happy about my Pegasus2 and 3 TB Raid units.
Cheers,
Bernard
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Bernard
Will you get the new Mac Pro? Which configuration would you get if you decide to get it?
Steven
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It sure depends on your own needs. I for one already know that my current workstation is as fast or even faster then most of the new Mac Pro options.
All I needed are 8/12cores, two pro NVIDIA cards and 128gb of memory. This gives me top performance in C1 and Photoshop, even though it’s sad how bad PS uses modern resources...
I do know that the benefit of 12 cores vs 8 is minimal more won’t do any good. (Always regarding the software I need to use)
The only drawback I have is no ECC memory. However, I can live with that.
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Will you get the new Mac Pro? Which configuration would you get if you decide to get it?
I bought my current trash Pro 6 years ago and I find LR to be irritatingly slow on my Hasselblad files (LR issue obviously), so upgrading to a faster machine is appealing.
Assuming the workload won’t increase very significantly (resolution,...), a perfectly stable, fast and upgradable Pro is a tempting option that I could see myself using many years I have to confess. I am a bit disappointed the new pro isn't based on PCI 4.0, because that pretty much means the core components are already outdated the day the are released. It also looks like AMD may have been a better provider of high core count CPUs at a more competitive price point.
I would probably go for 16 cores, 192 GB, a duo of GPU and 4 TB SSD.... if I can afford it. ;)
On the other hand, I'll probably check in parallel what kind of discount I could get on an HP or Dell high end workstation...
Cheers,
Bernard
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I bought my current trash Pro 6 years ago and I find LR to be irritatingly slow on my Hasselblad files (LR issue obviously), so upgrading to a faster machine is appealing.
That seems odd. I'm also using a 2013 Mac Pro as my primary platform for photography (six-core 3.5GHz Intel E5, 64 GB memory, upgraded third-party 2 TB SSD), and consider the performance still to be acceptable on Fuji X-T[12] and Nikon D800E files. Rendering is quick, slider performance is responsive, and even computationally-intensive functions such as Dehaze (only slightly more latency than the other sliders) and Enhance Details (typically about 15 seconds to render) perform quite well. Some third-party apps that demand a lot of graphics accelerator compute cycles—e.g., Topaz Gigapixel—are quite sluggish, but I don't use them very often so they wouldn't justify upgrading to a machine with more powerful GPUs.
Seems to me the 2019 Mac Pro is a product designed for commercial video production and parallelized or graphics-intensive scientific applications—which, no doubt, is how Apple defines its "pro" customer base. I'm sure they'll sell a lot of them since many of these potential purchasers (1) have UNIX dependencies or (2) have applications that don't run on Linux or (3) can't abide MS-Windows.
But to return to your original comment, my feeling is that either there is something strange about the way Adobe handles Hasselblad files, or something unusual about your software environment.
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But to return to your original comment, my feeling is that either there is something strange about the way Adobe handles Hasselblad files, or something unusual about your software environment.
That may be case. LR is faster on D850/Z7 files (although I still find it pretty slow), the move to 100 megapixels per file seems to be pretty impacting.
I am also used to C1 Pro that is much faster on my system (export time is probably 3-4 times faster thanks to a great GPU implementation) so that may explain also different expectations.
Cheers,
Bernard
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That may be case. LR is faster on D850/Z7 files (although I still find it pretty slow), the move to 100 megapixels per file seems to be pretty impacting.
Where is the delay? Rendering? I don't think the difference between ~40 and ~100 Mpx files should be very significant. How much main memory in the box? SSD for all files?
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Thank you Bernard and Christopher for your thoughts.
I don’t find my mid 2010 tower all that slow with my Phase One IQ4 150 camera using Capture One and PS. I use PTGui for the stitching. Ptgui is a bit slow stitching the 150 MP files. I only have 24gb of ram. The old tower is a 6 core 3.33ghz.
Steven
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I am a bit disappointed the new pro isn't based on PCI 4.0, because that pretty much means the core components are already outdated the day the are released.
Seriously ?
The new MacPro will be so ridiculously fast I think you should just buy one and enjoy it.
Besides the fact that the PCIe 5 spec is going to be ready before PCIe 4 has even launched (https://www.techspot.com/news/78355-pcie-50-ready-before-pcie-40-can-launch.html).
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Seriously ?
The new MacPro will be so ridiculously fast I think you should just buy one and enjoy it.
Besides the fact that the PCIe 5 spec is going to be ready before PCIe 4 has even launched (https://www.techspot.com/news/78355-pcie-50-ready-before-pcie-40-can-launch.html).
Interesting read, thanks.
I should just buy it then. ;D
I was looking at the price of HP Z4 G4 or Dell Precison 7820 for the kind of configuration I have in mind, and they go for around 30,000 US$... ;D ;D ;D
Cheers,
Bernard
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Where is the delay? Rendering? I don't think the difference between ~40 and ~100 Mpx files should be very significant. How much main memory in the box? SSD for all files?
Everything is low from rendering to export. Files are on an external Raid 6 TB3 enclosure converted to TB2 with read speed measured at around 400 MB/s, so file loading should take less than 0.5s. Ram is 128GB.
Cheers,
Bernard
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The Promise drive thing is a joke - really, who purchasing this is box is going to wait for platter hard drives? I'm not joking, take the 16x PCIe slot, put in a PCIe bridge (switch) and give it 8-12 NVMe slots. Or do it with SATA 2280 drives & put in a RAID controller. It be a Vega II Duo card, plus a solid state SAN inside. Ala https://www.amazon.com/High-Point-SSD7101A-1-Dedicated-Controller/dp/B073W71K4Z but with 3-4x the cards.
The size of the box means it's most likely going to be tucked under a desk or behind the monitor. We've all become adept at doing the USB-C to USB-A hubs, so for most accessories, it'll plug into something plugged into the back of the monitor. Apple is anti-port - just look at the MacBook or MacBook Air - and just know what you're getting into. Remember that for every TB3 port they put on the machine, that's 4 PCIe lanes they've given up elsewhere. Xeon's have more lanes than the i series, but there is still a limit.
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Everything is low from rendering to export. Files are on an external Raid 6 TB3 enclosure converted to TB2 with read speed measured at around 400 MB/s, so file loading should take less than 0.5s. Ram is 128GB.
I assume your LR catalog(s) is (are) stored on the local SSD, correct? That's about the only thing I can think of that might account for the performance problems you're experiencing. I guess there could be some sort of Adobe pathology in processing the Hasselblad files, but that wouldn't explain your issues with files from the D850 and Z7. I don't experience any behavior I would describe as slow with D800E files on my 2013 Mac Pro.
I had quite a bit of experience—admittedly quite a few years ago now—doing performance tuning on large multiuser UNIX machines. Throwing more hardware resources at a bottleneck sometimes helped, but only if it was possible to identify a particular constraint that was causing a problem and resolve it with a targeted upgrade. I would be surprised if additional CPU cycles or beefier graphics hardware would significantly speed up your rendering and export issues. I'd be more inclined to look for a problem with the TB i/o channel.
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Thanks Chris, that makes sense, I’ll look into it.
Cheers,
Bernard
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I am using LRcc on a 10 core i9 processor at 4.5 gigaHZ. ( hackintosh - overclocked within limits and watercooling on the processor)
LR uses only the CPU but to the max and with hyperthreading- I read a use of 1900%.
Since more cores lowers the gigahertz there is an optimum- now- on year later- i thing i would buy a 12-14 core i9.
That speeds things up. Also i use the NVME 2TB for caching and storage of my ongoing work. the samsung can do about 2500Gb/s - Photoshop files are stored at about 1gb/sec
for archival purposes i use platter harddisks.
I have 32 gb ram- for my use 64 would be optimum-( photoshop with large files and ptgui) more would only be cache. ( maxed out = 128gb)
On other thing i could do to make my work faster is to have two NVME as a raid0- but have not tried that yet.
My system is now on an SSD but could also go to NVME. Apart from a faster GPU that would max-out the speed of my machine.
This whole system is beneath 4000€- it is the macpro we could use as a photographer but Apple will never make this.
PS
Hackintosh is not for everyone- there will always be some little problems...but for me it works.
Since the imac 2019 has arrived this would be a very good choice too... but you get the screen with it.
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LR uses only the CPU but to the max
Don't read too much into the reported CPU utilization by the MacOS Activity Monitor or the command line top(1) utilities. On UNIX systems such as MacOS, 100 percent CPU utilization does not necessarily mean the host system has insufficient compute cycles to process the load it is under. The system's process scheduler will always try to maximize the use of the CPU. One hundred percent utilization is more likely to be an indication that the system is efficiently using the available processing power than that it doesn't have enough of it—especially on a desktop or laptop system with a single user.
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Honestly the biggest speed up I had the past few months are two fold:
- The dual NV RTX 2070 were a massive speed pump in C1. I can seriously say there is no WAIT at all for raw processing. Even on 150MP files. Here C1 is just amazing as it actually scales nicely! Currently, I work only with one QUADRO RTX 4000 as I do more PS work and here I need the 10bit support. (I would love NV to make it possible to use "gaming" and pro cards in one system)
- m2 SSDs. I currently have 2x2TB SSD 970 PRO for short term storage and working files. the speed is incredible. Saving, loading, processing and even LR benefits. I would wish something like a 10-20TB SSD would be more affordable. The difference to my RAID10 (20drives) over 1010GbE and my internal RAID 10 with 16 drives is staggering.
In the end the details are important. Honestly the speed difference between my 16core, 12core and 8core CPUs isn't that important compared to the aspects above.
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Honestly the biggest speed up I had the past few months are two fold:
- The dual NV RTX 2070 were a massive speed pump in C1. I can seriously say there is no WAIT at all for raw processing. Even on 150MP files. Here C1 is just amazing as it actually scales nicely! Currently, I work only with one QUADRO RTX 4000 as I do more PS work and here I need the 10bit support. (I would love NV to make it possible to use "gaming" and pro cards in one system)
- m2 SSDs. I currently have 2x2TB SSD 970 PRO for short term storage and working files. the speed is incredible. Saving, loading, processing and even LR benefits. I would wish something like a 10-20TB SSD would be more affordable. The difference to my RAID10 (20drives) over 1010GbE and my internal RAID 10 with 16 drives is staggering.
In the end the details are important. Honestly the speed difference between my 16core, 12core and 8core CPUs isn't that important compared to the aspects above.
Completely agree about the NVME.
C1 uses the GPU and Lightroom the CPU.
In the latter case the amount of cores IS important. Then it develops more Raw images at the same time.
The new Macpro uses xeon cpu's - very reliable, combined with buffered RAM. but also very expensive and usually one generation behind the core i9 and i7 when it comes to speed.
If i did scientific work i would choose Xeons- but as a photographer i can do with the core i9.
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I would probably go for 16 cores, 192 GB, a duo of GPU and 4 TB SSD.... if I can afford it. ;)
Why do you need 192GB of RAM and dual GPUs?
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Why do you need 192GB of RAM and dual GPUs?
My guess because C1 uses two GPUs and he sometimes needs more memory for PS than 128GB ;)
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My guess because C1 uses two GPUs and he sometimes needs more memory for PS than 128GB ;)
Just because C1 can use two GPUs doesn't mean he needs two GPUs. What size files does he work on that need more than 128GB RAM?
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Just because C1 can use two GPUs doesn't mean he needs two GPUs. What size files does he work on that need more than 128GB RAM?
Indeed, C1 pro, as well as PTgui, make good use of all available GPU power and are simply in a totally different league performance wise compared to LR. Probably something like 5-10 CPU years ahead... just ridiculous.
The motivation for the amount of memory is 4 fold:
- more cores need more memory and I believe that with 16 cores 192GB is the bare minimum. That’s a fact of life some people dreaming of 32 or 64 cores AMD Threadripper machine are not always fully aware of... you would typically need at least 256/512 GB of RAM with those. You will have noticed that all Apple benchmark results were done on a pro with 384 GB ram. For the same reason I believe
- I currently use 128 GB with 8 cores and have run out of ram many times when working concurrently on raw conversion, stitching, dof stacking and PS
- since the CPU needs 6 modules the choice is btw 96 and 192 and 96 is too little with 16 cores (that’s only 6 GB per core)
- since ram is user upgradable, I expect OWC to come up quickly with much cheaper ram modules. As a result the amount of ram is likely to have a lower impact on price compared to other components
Cheers,
Bernard
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- I currently use 128 GB and have run out of ram many times when working concurrently on raw conversion, stitching, dof stacking and PS
- since the CPU needs 6 modules the choice is btw 96 and 192 and 96 is too little with 16 cores (that’s only 6 GB per core)
- since ram is user upgradable, I expect OWC to come up quickly with much cheaper ram modules. As a result the amount of ram is likely to have a lower impact on price compared to other components
Cheers,
Bernard
So, the question basically comes down to this: how many mac minis can you have working for you for the price of that monster? If you want, I can always glue them into one chunk of aluminium casing. For a modest fee, of course. ;-)
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So, the question basically comes down to this: how many mac minis can you have working for you for the price of that monster? If you want, I can always glue them into one chunk of aluminium casing. For a modest fee, of course. ;-)
Do you provide the glue or should I procure it?
Cheers,
Bernard
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So, the question basically comes down to this: how many mac minis can you have working for you for the price of that monster? If you want, I can always glue them into one chunk of aluminium casing. For a modest fee, of course. ;-)
The Mac Minis only have integrated graphics.
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The Mac Minis only have integrated graphics.
Yeah, that was one downside. Plus, didn't they use shared memory for graphics?
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Yeah, that was one downside. Plus, didn't they use shared memory for graphics?
They do indeed. I believe, could well be wrong, that there is only 1.5 gb used by the GPU, even if 64 gb is installed.
Phil
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Indeed, C1 pro, as well as PTgui, make good use of all available GPU power and are simply in a totally different league performance wise compared to LR. Probably something like 5-10 CPU years ahead... just ridiculous.
The motivation for the amount of memory is 4 fold:
- more cores need more memory and I believe that with 16 cores 192GB is the bare minimum. That’s a fact of life some people dreaming of 32 or 64 cores AMD Threadripper machine are not always fully aware of... you would typically need at least 256/512 GB of RAM with those. You will have noticed that all Apple benchmark results were done on a pro with 384 GB ram. For the same reason I believe
- I currently use 128 GB with 8 cores and have run out of ram many times when working concurrently on raw conversion, stitching, dof stacking and PS
- since the CPU needs 6 modules the choice is btw 96 and 192 and 96 is too little with 16 cores (that’s only 6 GB per core)
- since ram is user upgradable, I expect OWC to come up quickly with much cheaper ram modules. As a result the amount of ram is likely to have a lower impact on price compared to other components
Cheers,
Bernard
It is some programs- Photoshop for one- that are not very efficient in using RAM memory. Photoshop never releases RAM until you do it by hand. I guess it is all cache-memory it stores.
Ptgui is an example that releases RAM as soon as its no longer needed. It works very efficient. Photoshop could be so much more efficient (also on other fronts).
The people at Adobe neglect it since photoshop 3(?) Maybe because it is of no direct commercial value- or maybe they are afraid to open a can of old-software-worms...
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For photographic work and basic video editing, a 10 or 12 core iMac Pro packs a lot of power and is a much better value.
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The new Mac Pro, like all ultra-high end workstations, is a terrible deal in its base configuration, because so much of the base cost goes to support upgrades. The case and cooling system on that monster are probably $1000 on their own and the 1.4 KW power supply is at least another $500. A high-end Corsair 1.4 KW power supply for gaming systems is $500, and it wouldn't surprise me if Apple's using something a step above that. The motherboard has more expansion and features than a $1600 Asus Dominus Extreme that uses the same socket. There's half the cost of the base model with no CPU, GPU, RAM or SSD.
Every one of those "infrastructure" components is enormous overkill for the base 8-core system with 32 GB of RAM, one modest GPU and a 256 GB SSD. A $3000 iMac supports those specs just fine, and it comes with a nice display. What Apple's done with the base configuration is picked components that work for use cases that stress other parts of the system.
A high-end music production system might need a 28-core CPU and half a terabyte of RAM (the Mac Pro will swallow both easily), but the $200 GPU is just fine - it just needs to put the controls on the screen, and a Radeon 580X is fine for that even at high resolution.
Conversely, a 3D modeling system might do all the work on the GPUs - the CPU really just runs macOS and displays the interface. An 8-core CPU can handle that just fine, and twin Vega II Duo GPUs are what's doing the work.
There are even some applications that don't need much RAM (small, fast scientific or financial models that run largely in the processor cache). They want high-cache multicore processors and sometimes powerful GPUs as well, but not RAM - SSD requirements vary.
For Hollywood-level editing, a 28-core system with half a terabyte of RAM and quad GPUs makes sense - but the lead actors make more than the cost of a lead editor's workstation in a day of shooting.
The one configuration that doesn't make sense is the base configuration - it's a $6000 computer that performs like a $3000 computer, because it contains $3000 worth of "plumbing" to support upgrades. HP's Z8 comes in an even more absurd base configuration - they'll sell you a $3000 computer that performs like a $500 computer. It has a slow quad-core processor, 8 GB of RAM, some GPU even slower than Apple uses and a 1 TB hard drive. Any desktop Core i3 box is faster - but the Core i3 can't take all the upgrades.
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Can the video cards in the 2013 Mac Pro be upgraded to work with the new 6K Mac Pro Display XDR? I gather that the Mac Mini will not support a 6K display. Or, is the new Mac Pro the only Apple computer that will drive the new Mac Pro Display XDR?
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Apple really doesn't even want to sell Mac Pros, but they have a small group of influential customers (probably in Hollywood) who want to buy them. They'd much rather sell you an iMac, because they're easier to support.
The rule about Apple towers for 20 years or so has been "you'll never see one that could hurt sales of any iMac". The cheapest tower has always been more expensive than the most expensive base iMac, and there has never been any configuration that is cheaper in a tower. If there's an iMac that can get there, it'll get there for less. The tower is only economical in configurations that nothing else can reach. When iMacs used laptop CPUs, there were towers with desktop CPUs, but now that you can get an iMac with an 8-core 9900K or even an 18-core Xeon, the tower has retreated into more exotic territory.
This is frustrating for photographers, who often prefer desktop or tower computers to use with our Eizo and NEC monitors, but whose performance needs are nicely handled by iMacs and even top-end MacBook Pros. We aren't the people Apple is trying to frustrate, though. Their goal is to frustrate gamers! Apple doesn't want to support often unstable gaming hardware, nor to provide the APIs games need, which are a major source of instability in Windows.
The best illustration of this is nearly 20 years old - Microsoft released the relatively stable Windows 2000, then the very buggy initial version of XP a year and a half later. Windows 2000 had essentially no game support at all beyond Solitaire and Minesweeper, while XP was pretty much 2000 with a better user interface and all the gaming APIs bolted on. It took four or five years and three service packs to get XP's stability to where 2000 was. That wasn't all games, there were driver problems as well, but a whole lot of it was games...
Apple has decided not to provide hardware that will attract gamers to the Mac, thereby washing their hands of all the support issues. Any midrange tower will attract gamers - GeForces will show up in any PCIe slot that isn't impractically expensive, and they'll demand support for them. Apple is very happy with their in-house AMD graphics driver, which is closer to a workstation driver than a gaming driver in stability, and either can't figure out how to write its equal for NVidia or simply don't want to put in the time. By releasing only gamer-frustrating hardware, Apple has forced this support-intensive market segment to Windows.
The other half of this strategy is to keep making iMacs more and more attractive to non-gaming audiences. I suspect we're getting the new display on the next iMac Pro, perhaps as early as this fall! While the pricing may seem not to work, they could actually do it.
The standalone Pro Display is probably a 50% margin item - Apple will take a margin that high on expensive accessories that don't sell a lot of copies. That gives them $2500 to get the parts at wholesale. $500 of trhat is probably the case, power supply, Thunderbolt controllers, etc., leaving $2000 or so as their cost for the panel.
The other key to how to fit the panel's cost in an iMac Pro is that Apple will sometimes take a low or even zero margin on the display (only - they take their customary margin on the rest of the computer) in an iMac at first. They use the same screen for years, and the cost always drops, but they make a splash by releasing an iMac with an impossibly expensive screen. They did this both with the original 27" iMac (a $1799 computer when their 27" Cinema display with no computer cost $1000 and nobody else sold a decent 27" display for less) and later with the 27" Retina iMac - any display with that resolution was selling for more than the whole iMac.
If they set out to make a $6000 iMac Pro with the new display, they might be willing to subtract the $2000 panel right off the top at zero margin, leaving $4000 for the rest of the computer. 40% of that $4000 is margin, so they can buy $2400 worth of components at wholesale - enough for a nice base configuration, and they can actually fit a little more in due to the Apple Tax.
Since iMac Pros are hard to expand, most customers buy overpriced RAM and storage from Apple (at 60% margin?). 64 GB of RAM and a 2 TB drive are $1000, while 128 GB of RAM alone is $2000. If the average customer buys $1500 in RAM and storage, they have an extra $300 from that 60% margin sale, allowing them $2700 in components at wholesale before the upgrades.
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Every one of those "infrastructure" components is enormous overkill for the base 8-core system with 32 GB of RAM, one modest GPU and a 256 GB SSD. A $3000 iMac supports those specs just fine, and it comes with a nice display. What Apple's done with the base configuration is picked components that work for use cases that stress other parts of the system.
Excellent point! It reflects the requirement that an engineered workstation—as opposed to one that is simply thrown together from discrete components—must attempt to minimize bottlenecks. Or, more accurately, to balance the inevitable performance limitations so that multiple components max out simultaneously rather than having the entire system bog down when a single component reaches its limit.
This is frustrating for photographers, who often prefer desktop or tower computers to use with our Eizo and NEC monitors, but whose performance needs are nicely handled by iMacs and even top-end MacBook Pros.
An acquaintance, a graphics artist who doesn't do video, told me the other day she has no interest in the new Mac Pro. She has a couple of large Eizo monitors attached to her late-model MacBook Pro, and is quite comfortable with the performance. No interest in an iMac, however—at least not the current models: she can't stand the displays.
Apple really doesn't even want to sell Mac Pros, but they have a small group of influential customers (probably in Hollywood) who want to buy them. They'd much rather sell you an iMac, because they're easier to support.
I suspect it's more accurate to say that Apple really doesn't want to sell Mac Pros in small quantities. I think the kind of customers Apple is targeting—the ones the company was talking to when they were developing the specs for this new box—are those which are likely to make quantity buys. And I wouldn't underestimate the market for high-performance workstations in the scientific community: that's why the likes of HP and Dell need to support Linux.
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The point about small quantities is an interesting one - they probably don't mind having Mac Pros out there in large organizations with substantial support resources. What they don't want is to have to see them at the Genius Bar. They are much harder to support at the Genius Bar (or even at Apple service depots) than anything else, because of the variety of configurations.
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...she can't stand the [iMac] displays.
That's a prejudice I had, too. Until I started working with the 2017 iMac Pro. I can't say I miss my NEC.
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(...)
Their goal is to frustrate gamers! Apple doesn't want to support often unstable gaming hardware, nor to provide the APIs games need, which are a major source of instability in Windows.
The best illustration of this is nearly 20 years old - Microsoft released the relatively stable Windows 2000, then the very buggy initial version of XP a year and a half later. Windows 2000 had essentially no game support at all beyond Solitaire and Minesweeper, while XP was pretty much 2000 with a better user interface and all the gaming APIs bolted on. It took four or five years and three service packs to get XP's stability to where 2000 was. That wasn't all games, there were driver problems as well, but a whole lot of it was games...
Apple has decided not to provide hardware that will attract gamers to the Mac, thereby washing their hands of all the support issues.
(...)
Windows 2000 had full support for games using the DirectX API. You must be thinking about NT4 which had only limited support for the API. The difference was that Windows 2000 was never advertised by Microsoft as a gaming operating system and had a different user base.
Windows 2000 and XP had the same problem that a driver crash would trigger a kernel crash and take the whole machine out. This was only resolved in Vista when GPU drivers were splitted in a kernel and user mode part. The operating system could then recover despite a user mode crash.
I would argue that Apple do not need to scare gamers: not many game developers seem to bother with releasing their games for Macs, given the small user base and different APIs.
Anyway, I agree with you that not having games is a good thing for professional users. For instance, the recent Windows 10 1903 build was delayed due to incompatibilities with games running digital restriction management (DRM) tools which could crash the machine (like before!). Not something you would want to have on that workstation running serious stuff...
Cheers,
Fabien
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Can the video cards in the 2013 Mac Pro be upgraded to work with the new 6K Mac Pro Display XDR? I gather that the Mac Mini will not support a 6K display. Or, is the new Mac Pro the only Apple computer that will drive the new Mac Pro Display XDR?
The video cards in the 2013 Mac Pro can't be upgraded because there's nothing to upgrade them to. (Well, that's assuming you already have the Firepro D700s in the machine.) They can support several 4K displays at the cost of much of the available Thunderbolt 2 bandwidth, and they can support multi-cable displays like the HP Z27q 5K display. That might mean that an interface to the new 6K display is possible.
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Can I hook up my Eizo to an iMac Pro? I work with two monitors, and trust my Eizo more than anything Apple can produce. I'll use the iMac screen for tools.
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So, here's my question.
Well, first, my situation. I'm a semi retired retoucher/photographer, have been using Macs since they were affordable and powerful enough for companies to replace high end Scitex and Crosfield stations in the early nineties. Always had the luxury to work with the latest stuff that the lease terms or bean counters allowed, which is a lot, and never had to think about what to buy, they just plopped it on my desk one day and hooked it up. Cool, new Mac. When I left work, I thought I was going to have to buy a trashcan in '13 for about 6-7000, but was mercifully steered towards a modified 2010 tower from Other World Computing (3.46 6 core, 32 GB memory, 500 gig SSD) for much much less by a board member here (thank you, forgot your name), and have been happy since. I spent most of the budget on an EIZO CG277, which I thought, and still do, is a more important component. All flows to an Epson P800, which I could just kiss, it's so good and reliable. I only use this thing for Photoshop/Lightroom, and it works just fine, for me, although I just learned that I can't progress further than Sierra 10.12 and on to Mojave because of some sort of hardware glitch or something, tried everything, but, end of the line for OS progression in this thing, it seems. Still works great, I can do whatever I want to do, maybe a bit slow working with 1 gig plus files, but, what's the rush? But, I do know that, eventually, I will have to upgrade to keep up with the OS and Adobe train of "improvements". That's why I am thinking of a new computer.
So, can I just get by with an OWC trashcan and external storage array of some sort? This new cheese grater is way overkill, right? It's not as though Photoshop and Lightroom are becoming that much more complex - seems to me that they have hit a wall of sorts, which is fine by me. At least slowed down tremendously in requiring a lot of expensive hardware to run. I could care less about video, which seems to be the market for Mac Pros since the mid aughts. Haven't even played a video game since the original Atari. So, what I need is a solid computer that is maybe a bit quicker that what I have now, is affordable, and I can depend on for at least five years, maybe ten. As someone said earlier in this thread, this introduction may very well tank the value of the trashcan, so, hey, here I am with my card to take advantage.
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So, what I need is a solid computer that is maybe a bit quicker that what I have now, is affordable, and I can depend on for at least five years, maybe ten.
Mac mini.
6 core, i7, 512GB SSD, 32GB RAM (very cheap if you can face installing it yourself).
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So, can I just get by with an OWC trashcan and external storage array of some sort? This new cheese grater is way overkill, right?
The new Mac Pro appears to be designed primarily for commercial video and compute-intensive scientific applications—and, of course, price-insensitive hardware aficionados who just have to have the most powerful machine they can get their hands on.
I'm currently using a 2013 Mac Pro (six-core 3.5GHz Intel E5, 64 GB memory, 2 TB SSD) as my primary platform for photography, and for running Lightroom and Photoshop its performance is excellent. Some other apps that demand a lot of GPU compute cycles—e.g., Topaz Gigapixel—are quite sluggish, but I suspect you would need very beefy graphics hardware to appreciably speed them up.
What are your file storage requirements? If 2TB is enough primary filestore, I'd skip the storage array, attach an inexpensive external drive with a spinning disc, and store an updated clone of the internal SSD on the external drive every night as a back-up. (Or, better yet, add a second inexpensive external drive to provide either a redundant clone or a repository for Time Machine snapshots.)
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Yeah, storage is no whoop, it's so cheap these days, just hook up a few redundant 2T drives, or probably 6T drives, although it's a race to my grave to fill up 6T at this point, and clone them once a day. That's the easy part.
I think we have maxed out hardware for photography some time ago, unless one is creating incredibly large files from triple digit MP cameras, which I'm not, yet. I don't do billboards.
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The new Mac Pro, like all ultra-high end workstations, is a terrible deal in its base configuration, because so much of the base cost goes to support upgrades. The case and cooling system on that monster are probably $1000 on their own and the 1.4 KW power supply is at least another $500. A high-end Corsair 1.4 KW power supply for gaming systems is $500, and it wouldn't surprise me if Apple's using something a step above that. The motherboard has more expansion and features than a $1600 Asus Dominus Extreme that uses the same socket. There's half the cost of the base model with no CPU, GPU, RAM or SSD.
Every one of those "infrastructure" components is enormous overkill for the base 8-core system with 32 GB of RAM, one modest GPU and a 256 GB SSD. A $3000 iMac supports those specs just fine, and it comes with a nice display. What Apple's done with the base configuration is picked components that work for use cases that stress other parts of the system.
A high-end music production system might need a 28-core CPU and half a terabyte of RAM (the Mac Pro will swallow both easily), but the $200 GPU is just fine - it just needs to put the controls on the screen, and a Radeon 580X is fine for that even at high resolution.
Conversely, a 3D modeling system might do all the work on the GPUs - the CPU really just runs macOS and displays the interface. An 8-core CPU can handle that just fine, and twin Vega II Duo GPUs are what's doing the work.
There are even some applications that don't need much RAM (small, fast scientific or financial models that run largely in the processor cache). They want high-cache multicore processors and sometimes powerful GPUs as well, but not RAM - SSD requirements vary.
For Hollywood-level editing, a 28-core system with half a terabyte of RAM and quad GPUs makes sense - but the lead actors make more than the cost of a lead editor's workstation in a day of shooting.
The one configuration that doesn't make sense is the base configuration - it's a $6000 computer that performs like a $3000 computer, because it contains $3000 worth of "plumbing" to support upgrades. HP's Z8 comes in an even more absurd base configuration - they'll sell you a $3000 computer that performs like a $500 computer. It has a slow quad-core processor, 8 GB of RAM, some GPU even slower than Apple uses and a 1 TB hard drive. Any desktop Core i3 box is faster - but the Core i3 can't take all the upgrades.
This is about the best understanding of how a machine like this fits into its ecosystem that I've ever seen. Well thought out, Dan!
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This is about the best understanding of how a machine like this fits into its ecosystem that I've ever seen. Well thought out, Dan!
Indeed.
What this means is that the new Mac Pro basically doesn't make sense below 15,000~20,000 US$ configurations.
The same applies to highend workstations from HP, Dell, Lenovo, Titan,...
Cheers,
Bernard
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I would like to see some realworld tests with photoshop, LR C1 etc between the maxed out iMac 2019 and the new Macpro say a with 14 core version with dual GPU and 192Gb Ram...
My guess is the macpro will be faster but only economical significant for very few people/companies that develop thousands of raw images a day. The 8 core imac 2019 is already very fast and can be upgraded with 128 GB RAM.
What is still missing in the current lineup is a kind of mac pro 2012 based on the hardware of the imac 2019. I dislike a glossy screen and 1600x 2560 pixels is my favourite for photo development.
(4K and larger for presenting photos)
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Indeed.
What this means is that the new Mac Pro basically doesn't make sense below 15,000~20,000 US$ configurations.
The same applies to highend workstations from HP, Dell, Lenovo, Titan,...
Cheers,
Bernard
I suspect there will be a $10,000ish configuration that will make a lot of sense to a great many video editors, but we’ll have to wait and see how pricing shakes out.
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I would like to see some realworld tests with photoshop, LR C1 etc between the maxed out iMac 2019 and the new Macpro say a with 14 core version with dual GPU and 192Gb Ram...
My guess is the macpro will be faster but only economical significant for very few people/companies that develop thousands of raw images a day. The 8 core imac 2019 is already very fast and can be upgraded with 128 GB RAM.
What is still missing in the current lineup is a kind of mac pro 2012 based on the hardware of the imac 2019. I dislike a glossy screen and 1600x 2560 pixels is my favourite for photo development.
(4K and larger for presenting photos)
An update of the Trash Can Mac Pro would suit this beautifully. I think the 2013 model is a great fit for still photographers who don’t like Apple’s glossy monitors. The problem is that the iMacs are such a good value for that use that most are willing to accept the glossy screen.
I think there are very, very few still photographers for whom the new Mac Pro will make financial sense. In the video world, though, anyone shooting on Red or Arriraw or working in Resolve will see real productivity benefits from the right configuration of this machine.
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An update of the Trash Can Mac Pro would suit this beautifully. I think the 2013 model is a great fit for still photographers who don’t like Apple’s glossy monitors. The problem is that the iMacs are such a good value for that use that most are willing to accept the glossy screen....
There was a thermal problem with the Macpro 2013- Maybe for that reason the expendability stopped (for instance with new GPU's that needed even more cooling)
Also it has no Thunderbolt 3 but 2. IF i am correct you need TB3 for speed and the uses of an eGPU.
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Can I hook up my Eizo to an iMac Pro? I work with two monitors, and trust my Eizo more than anything Apple can produce. I'll use the iMac screen for tools.
The iMac Pro can certainly drive at least one external monitor. I have a Dell - I forget the model number, but the resolution is 2560 x 1440. I use it as a second screen, though, as the iMac screen is pretty good.
Jeremy
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That cheesy 27 inch monitor is such a waste of desk real estate.
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There was a thermal problem with the Macpro 2013- Maybe for that reason the expendability stopped (for instance with new GPU's that needed even more cooling)
Also it has no Thunderbolt 3 but 2. IF i am correct you need TB3 for speed and the uses of an eGPU.
Believe me, I know all that very well, that’s why I said “an update”.
The thermal problems are a real issue for video renders, but I’ve never run into that in any still photography work, even working on composite files well over a Gigabyte.
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The new, much improved Mac Mini can use an eGPU via TB3; how does that rate as a more affordable still photographer’s editing tool?
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The new, much improved Mac Mini can use an eGPU via TB3; how does that rate as a more affordable still photographer’s editing tool?
I read on MPG site ( may 2019) that there are issues with adobes enhanced detail in combination with egpu and mojave...
Not sure if that is already old news...
https://macperformanceguide.com/blog/2019/20190506_1240-eGPU-EnhanceDetails-update.html
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The best photographers' machines almost always end up being iMacs and MBPs, because they are the only ways of getting reasonable CPUs along with a GPU without spending $10,000 for a reasonable configuration.
Apple does this on purpose - they love the iMac, so they make it hard to avoid. Some of their strategies are positive, such as extremely reasonable pricing - if you look at all you get with one (including the expensive monitor), it is a great value. Of course, if you don't want the monitor, much less so. They also use negative strategies - you can't get a Mini with a GPU because it would make it easier to avoid the iMac, or they make the Mac Pro extremely high end so it can't be used to avoid the iMac.
Apple's desktop strategy for 20 years since the very first iMac has been "the iMac is our desktop for most people, and we're going to structure our desktop line around it". Expandable machines have always been positioned well above any iMac, while Minis have always lacked features available on iMacs. As the iMac has gotten more powerful, the Mac Pro has retreated further into exotic realms. When the iMac used laptop chips, there were reasonably priced towers around - still above any iMac, but that wasn't as high a bar as it is when ordinary iMacs have Core i9-9900Ks and iMac Pros have 18-core Xeons.
The good news is that I suspect the iMac Pro is getting a new display - and we're probably going to like it. Although I don't have real evidence, I wouldn't be surprised to see the new XDR display (or a version of it with a somewhat less exotic backlight) show up on the next iMac Pro, and (in keeping with Apple's pricing strategy), it might not be fantastically expensive.
The $5000 XDR display probably carries a 50% margin - Apple will set margins that high on some limited-production hardware where they think they can get away with it. They need $500 or so for the case, power supply, Thunderbolt controller, etc., so they're likely to be spending $2000 or so on the panel itself.
They can actually get a $2000 panel into a $6000 iMac Pro - here's how... First of all, they'll take a low or zero margin on the display panel itself in an iMac when they want to make a splash. They did this with the first 27" iMac - panels like that were found only in $1500 monitors at the time, and they somehow managed to put one in a $1800 computer. They did it again with the 5K Retina iMac (the 4K 21.5" was less exotic) - the only 5K monitors available at the time were more expensive than the iMac... They make it up over time - their volume helps lower the cost of the panels, and they eventually become normal-margin items (even the 5K Retina display probably makes them a good margin by now), but they don't start out that way.
Assuming they'll take a zero on the $2000 panel, they then have $4000 for the rest of the computer. 40% of that is margin, so they can buy $2400 worth of parts at their wholesale pricing, which is enough for a very nice base configuration. In fact, they even have a bit more wiggle room than that. One of the disadvantages (to customers) of the iMac Pro is that you buy your RAM and storage from Apple at inflated prices.
Assuming the average iMac Pro has $1500 in RAM and storage upgrades at purchase, and that Apple averages a greedy 60% margin on those items, they grab $300 in "extra" margin on the upgrades, which they can apply to the base configuration while maintaining a 40% margin on everything except the display. They can now use $2700 in parts in addition to the display...
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I just read that the new macPro can store SATA harddisks.
Pegasus makes the internal housing.
https://www.promise.com/us/Promotion/PegasusStorage
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Why are people excited about the Promise 'adapters'? Why would you put a bicycle tire on a Ferrari?!?
Putting spinning rust in the new Mac Pro is a waste of space & power. Plug it in via USB, or better, put a few in an external enclosure - it'll be cheaper & more efficient. Yes, hard drives are large, cost effective storage, and things like data recovery can be done much more efficiently than on a SSD drive, but this machine is not designed for slow.
Want to design something useful - put 8-12 2.5" bays or 2280 slots that'll take SATA SSD's which are 20% the speed of the NVMe drives but scale much better (doesn't require PCIe lanes per drive).
NVMe SSD - 2,800MBps
SATA SSD - 560MBps
SATA HDD - 90MBps
HDD's speeds are for sequential reads/writes only - fragmentation all over the place throws these speeds in the toilet. Hard drives are spinning platters of rust that just can't be fast - physics doesn't allow for it. Yes, I do lots of NAS systems with HDDs but I usually also have SSD caching. Also do a lot of backups to HDD's, but it's not my primary working medium.
-Joe
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Hi I hope this isn't considered off topic but I am wondering which Mac Pro configuration or iMac Pro you guys would recommend for a working pro with the following needs:
Photographer using Capture One Pro and Photoshop for Canon and Fuji GFX100 ( soon ) cameras
Videographer using FCPx, Resolve, and shooting with Ursa Mini 4.6K, and using Pro res and Braw files
I already have an NEC Multisync PA 241w monitor that is about 10 years old but seems fine FYI, I already have a 2010 Mac Pro 2 x 2.66 GHz 6-Core Intel Xeon with 32 GB ram ATI Radeon HD 5770 1024 MB and its slow with video of course, and kinda slow with Photos.
Thanks in advance
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Any update about the new Mac Pro availability?
It was announced nearly 4 months ago and still no visibility.
Is that another Trump casualty?
Cheers,
Bernard
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Any update about the new Mac Pro availability? It was announced nearly 4 months ago and still no visibility. Is that another Trump casualty?
Apple moved production of the Mac Pro from China to Texas. Apple applied for a waiver from the 25% tariffs on some of the parts, but they were denied. The price will inevitably go up.
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My guess would be Apple announces availability during their end of October event. With shipping at the end of the year.
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My guess would be Apple announces availability during their end of October event. With shipping at the end of the year.
Wouldn't that be a 3 months delay relative to their June commitment?
Cheers,
Bernard
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As long as it shows up at some point soon. I am debating if I jump in early and get one or wait for the bugs if any to be fixed. I usually don’t like to be first in on a new computer and new OS.
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As long as it shows up at some point soon. I am debating if I jump in early and get one or wait for the bugs if any to be fixed. I usually don’t like to be first in on a new computer and new OS.
Indeed, I usually wait at least 6 months until I upgrade to a new release of Mac OS.
Upgrading to 10.14 basically made my MAc Pro 2013 so unstable that I had to remove by OWC 2TB SSD and revert back to the original Apple 1TB one... Huge cost of productivity...
Cheers,
Bernard
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It might be six months after the OS release, for a new Mac Pro. 😀
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Any update about the new Mac Pro availability?
It was announced nearly 4 months ago and still no visibility.
Is that another Trump casualty?
Cheers,
Bernard
Perhaps soon now ... (emphasis on perhaps)
https://www.theverge.com/2019/10/30/20940337/apple-mac-pro-fcc-launch-release-date
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I'm just glad I am not fixed on the expensive mac stuff. The prices are just crazy.
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I'm just glad I am not fixed on the expensive mac stuff. The prices are just crazy.
I agree - this macPro might be worth the price but only for a very selected group of people.
It is like the nikon 0.95 lens , a 8000€ statement of technical skill.
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Well, I also see some buyers skills around the corner ;)
Regards,
Jaap.
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Let’s see. Apple is really taking their time on this one...
I guess it means it will be absolutely flawless. ;)
Cheers,
Bernard
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Model 2006-2012
Model 2013
....
....
Model 2019(or 2020)
But every year new phones and iPads....
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Model 2020, not faster than my current workstation (2018) and 3 times the cost.......
Model 2006-2012
Model 2013
....
....
Model 2019(or 2020)
But every year new phones and iPads....
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Model 2020, not faster than my current workstation (2018) and 3 times the cost.......
Model 2020 get interesting if you do high end video AND have the assignments to pay for it.
Then of course you have to buy the special modules etc, so you spend about 15.000+
At 8000 you better buy an even faster iMac; or a Windows container.
That will also leaves you 3000-5000 € to spend on... photography?
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Exactly.......how could it not be so?
There is a long list of possible issues... all experienced with Apple models these past years ;)
- instability in some configurations (for example with some USB or TB3 peripherals connected,...)
- thermal issues resulting in lower performance in some configurations
- random crashes
- ...
Cheers,
Bernard
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I'm thinking that for 99% of still photographers, the new Mac Pro will be much more expensive than useful. I can work with Photoshop on my 2013 MBP, and while with some very large files, it can slow down, my Windows workstation is not much faster for most photographs. This is a dual processor HP Z820 with 128gb RAM and an Nvidia Titan X GPU with 11gb Vram.
The one advantage of my Windows workstation (I use it for motion picture color correction) is that is has 128Gb of RAM. And that means with very large files, it does not need to use a disk cache which speeds work with large files. To my surprise though, the workstation also takes a long time to save large files, even to high speed media or even the RAID.
If you're doing video, and desire a Mac, then I can see investing in the new Mac Pro. Maybe also if you're working with very large files, such as panoramas and stitching. Or, maybe just scrolling through hundreds of images at a time in LightRoom. For the average landscape photographer... Maybe a nice iMac is a much better buy.
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The new Pro is probably indeed overkill for a majority of photographers.
On the other hand, a fast amd GPU is a god sent for C1 Pro users though.
On my 6 years old mac pro with 2 GPU it’s 4-5 times faster than LR to export jpg or tiff files.
The problem is Photoshop, at least on the CS6 version I am using, it’s incredibly slow at saving large files. Tens of times slower than theoretical (and measured by benchmark tools) write speed of disk system.
Cheers,
Bernard
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The problem is Photoshop, at least on the CS6 version I am using, it’s incredibly slow at saving large files. Tens of times slower than theoretical (and measured by benchmark tools) write speed of disk system.
Cheers,
Bernard
Do you save your files without compression?
I do that and the write speed differs from 100-1500mb/sec. The disk speed itself is 2500...
Compression makes saving much slower.
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Do you save your files without compression?
I do that and the write speed differs from 100-1500mb/sec. The disk speed itself is 2500...
Compression makes saving much slower.
Yes,
Always without compression. This is not always consistent, sometimes it's fast, most often very slow.
I am saving to a TB3 Raid 6 Promise unit that tests in excess of 700 MB/s using Blackmagic disk speed benchmark but a large tiff file can take more than one minute to save although it should take a few seconds max.
Cheers,
Bernard
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Yes,
Always without compression. This is not always consistent, sometimes it's fast, most often very slow.
I am saving to a TB3 Raid 6 Promise unit that tests in excess of 700 MB/s using Blackmagic disk speed benchmark but a large tiff file can take more than one minute to save although it should take a few seconds max.
Cheers,
Bernard
So there is something to be won using an m2 disk... I am thinking of getting a second and make a raid0. This second 2TB m2 will cost me 450€... (compare that with apples prices )
I also do not know why there are these upholds when saving. Maybe it has to do with writing layer/stop/after layer...
It is stupid Apple does not make a macpro 2012 style; - This new mac pro is a kind of MacProPro leaving a big hole in the lineup, where on windows this is filled with a machine costing under 4000 €.
Then you can have the top processors i9 12 core running at 4.5 GHZ and about the fastest GPU, + 2TB m2 memory + 64gig ram.
The box let you put 8 hardisks in + 3 or more m2 bars and 128gig of ram...and about 4-empty PCI slots for more...
I just timed 2 savings in PSB on the m2 ( samsung evo 970 2TB) ( timing in photoshop)
1 5GB - flat document 4.9 sec = 1020mb/sec
2 3 layer document ( 2 layers + top curve) 19,8 GB in 25,6 sec =773mb/sec
so you get an idea.
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Something is strange here. I save large Tiffs all the time to my NAS. A 3gb file takes 10-15seconds. Saving to my m2 is a lot faster. However, Adobe products are still kinda slow....
Yes,
Always without compression. This is not always consistent, sometimes it's fast, most often very slow.
I am saving to a TB3 Raid 6 Promise unit that tests in excess of 700 MB/s using Blackmagic disk speed benchmark but a large tiff file can take more than one minute to save although it should take a few seconds max.
Cheers,
Bernard
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I just realized that Apple is probably waiting because they realized they screwed up by choosing Intel CPUs which are now being kicked around by AMDs latest offering. ;D
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I just realized that Apple is probably waiting because they realized they screwed up by choosing Intel CPUs which are now being kicked around by AMDs latest offering. ;D
You mean like this: https://www.theverge.com/platform/amp/circuitbreaker/2019/11/7/20954044/microsoft-amd-qualcomm-intel-processors-arm-surface-laptop-3-pro-x-future-computers
Just happened to read this.
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I‘m not talking about laptops and mobile stuff. I’m not talking about people who have the time don’t even know how to benchmark stuff.
Just look at some real benchmarks (for example puget system) you will see how amazing AMDs newest generation is and how intel is grasping for straws.
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I'm not keen on bombastic generalizations (aka fanboy statements), so my reply was more in tongue in cheek.
I'm aware of the newly rediscovered competitiveness of AMD, although it seems to be somewhat limited if adequate thermal management cannot be provided. I just looked through Puget's benchmarks, and while the newer Ryzen seem to enjoy a healthy advantage for LR, for Photoshop is more of a wash.
For Apple side of things, considering how well the current AMD supports Thunderbolt they might not even be an option.
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ars Technica report that Apple are now saying December for the Mac Pro launch
"Apple has been saying since its June developers' conference that it would ship the overhauled Mac Pro and the new Pro Display XDR this fall, and it has just announced a new window for those launches: this December. It says that the new MacBook Pro will be able to drive up to two Pro Display XDR monitors."
Last paragraph ....
https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2019/11/apple-announces-16-inch-macbook-pro-with-new-keyboard-design/
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Not the Mac Pro, but today Apple released the new MacBook Pro, which looks to be a terrific all-around computer which allows up to 8TB SSD storage (for an earth-shattering fee). I will be budgeting for it early next fiscal year.
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Not the Mac Pro, but today Apple released the new MacBook Pro, which looks to be a terrific all-around computer which allows up to 8TB SSD storage (for an earth-shattering fee). I will be budgeting for it early next fiscal year.
Seems like a great machine indeed. Not too expensive for a change.
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Tuesday is order date. I am interested, just not sure I want the first one. Any thoughts?
https://www.macrumors.com/2019/12/07/apple-releasing-mac-pro-december-10/ (https://www.macrumors.com/2019/12/07/apple-releasing-mac-pro-december-10/)
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Tuesday is order date. I am interested, just not sure I want the first one. Any thoughts?
https://www.macrumors.com/2019/12/07/apple-releasing-mac-pro-december-10/ (https://www.macrumors.com/2019/12/07/apple-releasing-mac-pro-december-10/)
I'd love to have one of course but those prices!! And, if memory serves, a previous contributor to LULA had a great deal of trouble when he got his round version.
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Tuesday is order date. I am interested, just not sure I want the first one. Any thoughts?
https://www.macrumors.com/2019/12/07/apple-releasing-mac-pro-december-10/ (https://www.macrumors.com/2019/12/07/apple-releasing-mac-pro-december-10/)
Potentially interested, but my Macpro 2013 died last week and I had to have it repaired... that will probably delay my order of the new Pro one year or so.
Cheers,
Bernard
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Finally here .... although a few of the options are not yet available
https://www.apple.com/shop/buy-mac/mac-pro/tower#
There's a rack option available as well
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I think they are completely crazy... my combination for next year would cost me 18.000EUR.... I honestly am not planing to spend more then 5-6.000 on it and still have something faster.
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I think they are completely crazy... my combination for next year would cost me 18.000EUR.... I honestly am not planing to spend more then 5-6.000 on it and still have something faster.
What you need to compare to though is Dell and HP workstations.
And unfortunately they are in a similar price range (and can go much much higher in price maxed out on 2 CPU/4 GPU highest end ones).
I’ll let someone with more free time perform an exact comparison.
But yes, a mid range config that is coherent goes to 20,000 US$.
Cheers,
Bernard
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Partly you are correct. However, partly not, because it’s super easy to built my own workstation for a windows platform, but not really on a Mac one.
For me saving over 10k is worth the day of work.
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I think they are completely crazy... my combination for next year would cost me 18.000EUR.... I honestly am not planing to spend more then 5-6.000 on it and still have something faster.
Well the processor 28 core already costs 3000+€
AMD is making a 24 core for 1500€ and is very fast...
The real thing for this mac pro are the special parts that are designed to work only with this macpro:
The double GPU pack and the afterburner; then we talk high end video based on RAW and Final Cut Pro; Video benefits well from so many cores.
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What you need to compare to though is Dell and HP workstations.
And unfortunately they are in a similar price range (and can go much much higher in price maxed out on 2 CPU/4 GPU highest end ones).
I’ll let someone with more free time perform an exact comparison.
But yes, a mid range config that is coherent goes to 20,000 US$.
You can get sizable discounts from HP and Dell on workstations that list for $20K. Can you do that with Apple?
Jim
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You can get sizable discounts from HP and Dell on workstations that list for $20K. Can you do that with Apple?
Can you get sizable discounts as an individual?
I believe that the answer is that you can get discount from Apple as a corporate user buying 10 machines.
Cheers,
Bernard
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Can you get sizable discounts as an individual?
I believe that the answer is that you can get discount from Apple as a corporate user buying 10 machines.
If I by two, for me and a friend, would they at least let me round it to $100 K?
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I am your friend!
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:D
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Can you get sizable discounts as an individual?
Yes, on machines that expensive.
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Yes, on machines that expensive.
Thanks, good to know.
What level of discount would you expect to be able to negotiate as a buyer with no pre-existing relationship?
Cheers,
Bernard
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Thanks, good to know.
What level of discount would you expect to be able to negotiate as a buyer with no pre-existing relationship?
PM on the way...
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Things are getting cheaper.
Just found this item on macsales for 1200$:
https://eshop.macsales.com/item/OWC/SSDACC4M208T/
Internal PCI 8TB NVME to be used on a PCI3.0 4x slot.
in raid0 it can do 6000MB/sec.
You can put it in the new mac Pro, but on all other macs it has to be connected via thunderbolt in some external PCI-enclosure.
The old 2012 macpro has PCI 2.0 so will not get the most out of it.
Every recent PC-tower will be able to use it.
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Sonnet makes a PCIe3.0 card to 4x NVMe slots for $400 - https://www.sonnettech.com/product/m2-4x4-pcie-card.html
Pair that up with 1-4 drives and have at it.
If you're doing TB3 you can do the https://eshop.macsales.com/shop/express-4m2 for $290. Not quite as fast (TB3 is a PCIe 3 x4 tech).
The new Mac Pro should be able to take 3 PCIe cards at x16 and 3 more at x8 (assuming a single height graphics card).
https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT210104
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While the new macpro uses PCI-3.0
PCI-4.0 boards are already the new norm.
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While the new macpro uses PCI-3.0
PCI-4.0 boards are already the new norm.
Yes, that's true.
Now the Pro is still by far the best solution for those looking for a very powerful Mac supported by Apple.
But there are indeed faster and cheaper options in the Windows world.
Cheers,
Bernard
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It is possible that the nextgen iMac has PCI4.0 and will be again faster than this Mac Pro for some use.
Faster is one of the key selling points of the MacPro.
PCI 4.0 doubles the bandwidth for NVME memory and Graphic cards. Already you can buy very fast PCI4.0 ssd's at 200€/TB that can do 5GB/sec.
in real life that is 4300mb/sec vs 2600mb/sec for the current ssd's.
So a Windows tower with PCI 4.0 will be a faster and cheaper solution for many purposes than this new MacPro;
Also the new generation of AMD-cpu's are equally fast and cheaper than the intel processors.
Key point of the MacPro will be the specific combination of hardware to efficiently work with FinalCutPro-X.
In that light it is really unlogical how they first killed the old FinalCutPro to go to FinalCutPro-X.
They lost a lot of the potential buyers for this MacPro.
It is unlogical that Apple has not chosen the PCI-4.0 platform for this Mac Pro; But that has to do with the Xeon processors that always walk behind, but are more reliable.
I do not know exactly how important that difference is for FinalCutPro-X, but it is crucial for scientific work.
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Mac Pro’s used to be the best in class technology wise. Not anymore now, due to the continuing use of Xeons (tailored for server applications and multi-CPU designs) and a motherboard with an old(er) PCIe 3.0 interface.
Regards,
Jaap
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Diglloyd is testing a Macpro 16 core and finds the Xeons core-speed is already 30% behind the i9 in the 2019 Imac.
( and the iMac 2019 is still slower than my 1.5 year old i9-hackintosh)
So that makes the macPro even more a niche product.
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I thought I would see how fast my 2 year old build (i7-8700K stock, 64gb Ram, Nvidia GTX 1070, Samsung 960 1TB) compared to Diglloyd speeds. To my surprise I am as fast as his brand new Mac Pro in executing the processing of 190 4150 Raw Files to best quality Jpeg.
I'm ready to start a new build because for sure Apple isn't getting any of my money for a Mac Pro.
Cheers......
Victor
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I thought I would see how fast my 2 year old build (i7-8700K stock, 64gb Ram, Nvidia GTX 1070, Samsung 960 1TB) compared to Diglloyd speeds. To my surprise I am as fast as his brand new Mac Pro in executing the processing of 190 4150 Raw Files to best quality Jpeg.
I'm ready to start a new build because for sure Apple isn't getting any of my money for a Mac Pro.
Cheers......
Victor
Speed is equal because in this case it all depends on the GPU- with a 2020 high end GPU you will be a lot faster i think...without a major upgrade.
also you can mount already that same 4x2TB RAID0 harddisk and have the diskspeed he has : 6GB/sec.
Then Lloyd has serious problem connecting his 'old' NEC 2560x1600 px screen... - Could be Apple that only 5K and the new 6K screens work perfect...
Then 10.15 Catalina... have not heard anything good about that.
https://macperformanceguide.com/
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I'm ready to start a new build because for sure Apple isn't getting any of my money for a Mac Pro.
Looks like a very clever decision. Regarding your proposed new build, I would be interested in what you think of the looks of the new Macpro. Have you seen the look-alike Dune Pro PC case, including the 'cheese grater' option :o ?
Regards,
Jaap.
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Very nice looking case with the ability to sound dampen. I don't think that one will be available for some time so more than likely I'll stick with Fractal.
Victor
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I thought I would see how fast my 2 year old build (i7-8700K stock, 64gb Ram, Nvidia GTX 1070, Samsung 960 1TB) compared to Diglloyd speeds. To my surprise I am as fast as his brand new Mac Pro in executing the processing of 190 4150 Raw Files to best quality Jpeg.
I'm ready to start a new build because for sure Apple isn't getting any of my money for a Mac Pro.
Cheers......
Victor
I recently did a new build, Hackintosh, Gigabyte Designare z390, I-9 9900K, 64gb DDR4, 2xSamsung 970 Evo Nmve, a few sata SSD's, RX580 graphics card and a fenvi T919 wifi/bluetooth card. I have had it running on Mojave and now Catalina. it is a well supported build on Tony Mac and it was basically a flawless OS install based on the Tony Mac build guide. Upgrade forn Mojave to Cataline was a standard upgrade with no hickups or re-installs.
Its my 4th Hack and this one is fast, stable and was a very easy install.
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I recently did a new build, Hackintosh, Gigabyte Designare z390, I-9 9900K, 64gb DDR4, 2xSamsung 970 Evo Nmve, a few sata SSD's, RX580 graphics card and a fenvi T919 wifi/bluetooth card. I have had it running on Mojave and now Catalina. it is a well supported build on Tony Mac and it was basically a flawless OS install based on the Tony Mac build guide. Upgrade forn Mojave to Cataline was a standard upgrade with no hickups or re-installs.
Its my 4th Hack and this one is fast, stable and was a very easy install.
Just looked at the specs... 5ghz processor speed, but only 16 PCI-e lanes... is that enough?
The GPU already uses 16 lanes and then the samsung needs 4 lanes makes 20..
(I understand PCI-e-4.0 motherboards are not ready for osx yet?)
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Just looked at the specs... 5ghz processor speed, but only 16 PCI-e lanes... is that enough?
The GPU already uses 16 lanes and then the samsung needs 4 lanes makes 20..
(I understand PCI-e-4.0 motherboards are not ready for osx yet?)
I'm not seeing any issues...
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but only 16 PCI-e lanes...
The GPU already uses 16 lanes and then the samsung needs 4 lanes makes 20..
no, 16 is the max that goes to PCIe expansion slots (that MB has 3)... the rest of lanes are not going there and can be used for NVMe, etc... so if you put 16x PCIe card in one slot then you can't have any other cards in the other slots for that 16x card to work in 16x mode