New Mac Pro - PCIe 1.25 GB/s SSD, Dual ATI/AMD FirePro GPUs with 3X 4K monitors

Page 3 - Seeking answers? Join the AnandTech community: where nearly half-a-million members share solutions and discuss the latest tech.

Childs

Lifer
Jul 9, 2000
11,313
7
81
But thunderbolt speeds are expressed in Mbps while PCI-E speeds are expressed in MBps. So there is a whole magnitude of speed difference. Now if the speeds were actually comparable then I would say this design is genius. Because it would be sized for most people and those who need expansion would attach a box. But given the speed difference it isn't quite there yet.

So as I understand it thunderbolt 1 was PCI-E 2.0 x4. So this is PCI-E 3.0 x4. Now perhaps most of these speciality expansion cards can run at that speed effectively. But somehow I doubt it if they are to accelerate 4k+ full data rate raw video. Plus Thunderbolt has some overhead.

If someone can get the job done on MacBook Pro then this would be great. But this is supposed to be an upgrade for current Mac Pro users who have likely upgraded their machines. It's a whole other level of performance expectation.

To tell you the truth I don't really know much about what video editors need but I'd imagine they need everything they can get. At least some of them. And those people will be pushed to Windows. So this machine by its design is pushing away a subset, however small, of its prior users.

If they haven't left already, I dont see how this would push them away any faster. People are already using Red Rockets and MacBooks. A RR + Sonnet chasis can already do realtime 4K playback and transcoding. Most PCIe 3.0 cards don't even fully utilize the available bandwidth, so it might not be that big of an issue. For most pros, its all about workflow.

Also while I know their revenue model depends on people buying whole new machines it's disheartening to know that not even one (overpriced) option exists for people who want to upgrade or expand a Mac OS running machine. The old Mac Pro premium pretty much priced an upgradability tax. And people accepted that. But now that's not even an option anywhere in the line up.

Apple has been going this way for awhile. I used to hold out every year for the infamous xMac, but it ain't coming through that door anytime soon. Some of the logic for the Mac Pro's expansion capabilities might be to bring it in line with the other Macs. So buy your RR + Sonnet, and then buy the Mac that fits your workflow. Need more raw performance or expandability (via TB of course), go Mac Pro. Need mobility, MBP. Or buy both, and one RR, and when you need to go in the field take your MBP and RR, do the quick edits you need to do in the field, and when you get back in the office do your post on a Mac Pro.

It'll be interesting to see how much it costs. In my mind I was thinking $3k, but I just looked up how much the Mac Pro I have at work retails for, and its over $6.2k.
 

Kaido

Elite Member & Kitchen Overlord
Feb 14, 2004
48,732
5,470
136
In Apple's Core Technology Overview document for Mavericks, they say it can currently support up to 128gb of RAM:

http://images.apple.com/osx/preview/docs/OSX_Mavericks_Core_Technology_Overview.pdf

Page 6:

With its 64-bit kernel, OS X is able to address large amounts of physical RAM. OS X
Mavericks has been tested to support up to 128GB of physical RAM on qualified Mac
computers.

Single 32gb DDR3 sticks are currently available for $533:

https://superbiiz.com/detail.php?name=D313LR32GS

So maxing out a Mac Pro Turbine at 128 gigs would cost about $2150 at today's market prices. There's always a premium for the top-tier stuff; you can buy a non-ECC 64gb kit for $450 on Newegg and throw it on a Hackintosh-compatible board for cheap(er):

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16820231513

Couple that with OWC's PCIe SSD and you've got yourself a budget competitor, haha. There was a guy over on Tonymac who has been running 128 gigs of RAM for over a year now: (although I think technically 10.8 only supports up to 96gb)

http://legacy.tonymacx86.com/viewtopic.php?f=169&t=55963
 
Last edited:

MrX8503

Diamond Member
Oct 23, 2005
4,529
0
0
To clarify, I mean relatively speaking - OWC's PCIe SSD solution was released over a year ago. I use them occasionally when I'm feeling lazy on engineering stations - just pop the card in, no cables, no fuss, install the OS, boom, done. Pretty easy. But your average SATA-III SSD will give you 500 MB/s easily, and it's cake to throw those on a RAID card for faster speeds, so while 1.2 GB/s sounds fast (and IS fast), it's not necessarily new tech.

Also, I haven't seen much performance improvement once you get past like 300 MB/s. Everything is pretty dang instant by then, you know?

How many pice ssd desktops do you come across? No one is saying its new tech.

Overall I'm very impressed with the Mac Pro. The downsides is upgradability and price. I'm afraid to see how much this thing is.
 
Last edited:

Kaido

Elite Member & Kitchen Overlord
Feb 14, 2004
48,732
5,470
136
How many pice ssd desktops do you come across? No one is saying its new tech.

Overall I'm very impressed with the Mac Pro. The downsides is upgradability and price. I'm afraid to see how much this thing is.

Pretty much zero. I've only seen a few in the wild. It's interesting that motherboards are getting mSATA slots onboard too...once the sizes start going up (480gb max right now), having a nice little 500 MB/s mini boot SSD plus your regular spinning drives for storage will be pretty awesome.

I'm not totally opposed to not having expandable storage in the Mac Pro, but it's definitely weird. I mean, it makes sense with today's technologies - there was a 4TB Seagate USB drive on sale the other day for $149, and with USB 3.0 speeds (and 4TB sizes), does having it internal really matter anymore? Plus pros usually use externals anyway (Firewire or eSATA multi-bay drive cases), so having a 20Gb/sec Thunderbolt 2 connector will be awesome for huge data transfers, like you'd get when working with 6K RED footage.

I think the design is pretty much inevitable. The i7 NUC's will be out soon and have 16 gigs of RAM with a SATA-III mSATA drive. If they throw Tbolt 2 on there, we could probably get usable speeds out of the external GPU chassis and have it be completely modular...
 

Eug

Lifer
Mar 11, 2000
23,825
1,396
126
This looks like it could really be a nice machine, I personally can't afford such a nice thing.
Maybe I'll do what I did for my Cubes. I bought them both long after they were discontinued, for cheap, mainly for the form factor. I used one for quite a while at work as an image storage machine and occasional low end photo editing, and the other I used mainly for VPN and a bit of surfing. Now they just sit on the shelf as (fully-working) "art" pieces.
 

Kaido

Elite Member & Kitchen Overlord
Feb 14, 2004
48,732
5,470
136
Maybe I'll do what I did for my Cubes. I bought them both long after they were discontinued, for cheap, mainly for the form factor. I used one for quite a while at work as an image storage machine and occasional low end photo editing, and the other I used mainly for VPN and a bit of surfing. Now they just sit on the shelf as (fully-working) "art" pieces.

Yup same for mine. Love the Cube too much to get rid of it.

I'm waiting for an i7 NUC, probably a Gigabyte Brix to upgrade it. That'd be fairly painless since it's so small...
 

vailr

Diamond Member
Oct 9, 1999
5,365
54
91
Roll your own Mac Pro:
honeywell-solar-speaker-set_a_360x_1.jpg

"Honeywell Solar Outdoor Wireless Speaker Set w/Dock"
 
Last edited:

ss284

Diamond Member
Oct 9, 1999
3,534
0
0
In Apple's Core Technology Overview document for Mavericks, they say it can currently support up to 128gb of RAM:

http://images.apple.com/osx/preview/docs/OSX_Mavericks_Core_Technology_Overview.pdf

Page 6:



Single 32gb DDR3 sticks are currently available for $533:

https://superbiiz.com/detail.php?name=D313LR32GS

So maxing out a Mac Pro Turbine at 128 gigs would cost about $2150 at today's market prices.

OSx support for large ram capacities has been awful. The 2013 will end up supporting the same amount of ram as the old 2010 model, but at double the cost due to the 32GB stick requirement. Apple could have easily added two internal HD bays and 4 more ram slots.
 

colonelciller

Senior member
Sep 29, 2012
915
0
0
this new computer is ABSUUUUUURRRRRDDDD.

the eason to buy this device aimed at professionals (yet graphics cannot be upgraded... wtf???) is that it looks pretty damn cool.

looks cool
price will be stupid
cannot upgrade graphics (on a workstation!)

apple's CEO needed something cool looking this year to save his job
 

mugs

Lifer
Apr 29, 2003
48,920
46
91
When I woke up today, my first thought was how nice it would be if someone would produce a disposable, non-upgradeable professional workstation in the $2500+ price range.

Apple delivers yet again :thumbsup:

You're obviously too poor to be in Apple's target demographic.
 

GWestphal

Golden Member
Jul 22, 2009
1,120
0
76
The new Mac Pro is better than the old, maybe it looks a little weird, but it is significantly faster. Internal upgrades took a hit, but external upgrades got a big boost.

What people should be pissed about is that 10.9 still doesn't have a new modern filesystem like ZFS. For shame Apple! HFS+ is a kludgey 20+ year old old system. Get with the program already!
 
Feb 25, 2011
16,917
1,556
126
this new computer is ABSUUUUUURRRRRDDDD.

the eason to buy this device aimed at professionals (yet graphics cannot be upgraded... wtf???) is that it looks pretty damn cool.

looks cool
price will be stupid
cannot upgrade graphics (on a workstation!)

apple's CEO needed something cool looking this year to save his job

Upgrading GPUs on a workstation isn't all that common. Generally we see them come in, get used for 4-5 years, and then get replaced. Leased, even.

We like onsite support agreements, and after those lapse, the security blanket evaporates and people think their computer is suddenly "old."
 

sxr7171

Diamond Member
Jun 21, 2002
5,079
40
91
If they haven't left already, I dont see how this would push them away any faster. People are already using Red Rockets and MacBooks. A RR + Sonnet chasis can already do realtime 4K playback and transcoding. Most PCIe 3.0 cards don't even fully utilize the available bandwidth, so it might not be that big of an issue. For most pros, its all about workflow.



Apple has been going this way for awhile. I used to hold out every year for the infamous xMac, but it ain't coming through that door anytime soon. Some of the logic for the Mac Pro's expansion capabilities might be to bring it in line with the other Macs. So buy your RR + Sonnet, and then buy the Mac that fits your workflow. Need more raw performance or expandability (via TB of course), go Mac Pro. Need mobility, MBP. Or buy both, and one RR, and when you need to go in the field take your MBP and RR, do the quick edits you need to do in the field, and when you get back in the office do your post on a Mac Pro.

It'll be interesting to see how much it costs. In my mind I was thinking $3k, but I just looked up how much the Mac Pro I have at work retails for, and its over $6.2k.

Good points. I agree that few cards have proven to need PCI-E 3.0 x16 speeds. But the limit this offers is PCI-E 3.0 x2. Which may be sufficient for those cards. But it doesn't leave much room for future growth.

And yes these machines are very expensive. So if they to offer this for $5k many will have a hard time with that. When you outgrow it, it's not a $1k card that you need, you need to spend another $5k on a new machine. If it comes in at $3k it will make a huge difference but I really doubt it will. The SSD alone is a $1K part and the 12 core Xeon etc makes me think this is a $5k machine in a case that prevents expansion. Basically a great machine crippled for the sake of vanity.

But ultimately you are a Mac Pro user so I still wonder if your department would order these.
 

sxr7171

Diamond Member
Jun 21, 2002
5,079
40
91
How many pice ssd desktops do you come across? No one is saying its new tech.

Overall I'm very impressed with the Mac Pro. The downsides is upgradability and price. I'm afraid to see how much this thing is.

No doubt its tiny for how powerful it is. If Thunderbolt can get faster with each generation quickly then one can keep up if their bank account can.
 

sxr7171

Diamond Member
Jun 21, 2002
5,079
40
91
OSx support for large ram capacities has been awful. The 2013 will end up supporting the same amount of ram as the old 2010 model, but at double the cost due to the 32GB stick requirement. Apple could have easily added two internal HD bays and 4 more ram slots.

There's no room at all for HD bays. Besides Thunderbolt based external RAID works fine. But 4 RAM slots? Yeah that just makes things unnecessarily expensive. But I can't even think of any program that needs 128GB RAM. Maybe they exist but I don't know of them.
 

Eug

Lifer
Mar 11, 2000
23,825
1,396
126
Upgrading GPUs on a workstation isn't all that common. Generally we see them come in, get used for 4-5 years, and then get replaced. Leased, even.

We like onsite support agreements, and after those lapse, the security blanket evaporates and people think their computer is suddenly "old."
Yep. That's why I mentioned that it seems (from my very superficial knowledge of them) a lot of corporate workstation users do the updates every 3 or so years, without ever changing what's in the computer. Some has to do with features and performance, but much of it has to do with support.

Ironically, the one person I know who is trying to get one through work doesn't actually need it. He's a web designer, but not infrequently tells his bosses to get him the latest and greatest, and they just do it. :p
 

Eug

Lifer
Mar 11, 2000
23,825
1,396
126
Actually it's more of a design modification of the Power Mac Cube, except that it's a cylinder now. For this reason, it's also 10" tall, a fairly tall "small" all-in-one like the Cube. Both the Cube and the Cylinder were/are positioned as pro machines too.
 

Childs

Lifer
Jul 9, 2000
11,313
7
81
Good points. I agree that few cards have proven to need PCI-E 3.0 x16 speeds. But the limit this offers is PCI-E 3.0 x2. Which may be sufficient for those cards. But it doesn't leave much room for future growth.

And yes these machines are very expensive. So if they to offer this for $5k many will have a hard time with that. When you outgrow it, it's not a $1k card that you need, you need to spend another $5k on a new machine. If it comes in at $3k it will make a huge difference but I really doubt it will. The SSD alone is a $1K part and the 12 core Xeon etc makes me think this is a $5k machine in a case that prevents expansion. Basically a great machine crippled for the sake of vanity.

But ultimately you are a Mac Pro user so I still wonder if your department would order these.

We'll get some in, although I might not. We have racks full of machines and storage for ingest and rendering, so not everyone who would need the speed of a Mac Pro would need the internal expansion of the previous versions. And while 4K is the new sexy, more footage is coming in using pro camcorders and DSLRs. It really all depends on workflow. I think this new Mac Pro is in keeping with what Apple did with FCPX...its aimed at the new breed of pro customer who is not bound by the older workflows. Its probably where the real growth is. I think for the inbetweeners (prosumer to small shop) this will be a tough decision. One Mac Pro might need to be a jack of all trades, and the new one may not be for some. But then again, they still have their old Mac Pros.

One group I work with is actually evaluating using a couple racks of Minis for their rendering. Over the last year even I started using them to replace my Xserves. The notion was ridiculous when Apple still sold Xserves. Granted, using a USB or TB to ethernet adapters and TB to FC adapters isn't as elegant as having everything in the chasis, but they get the job done, for considerably less. Pricing is probably going to determine whether internal expansion is really necessary on this Mac Pro. If it costs the same or more than the relative spec'd current Mac Pro, thats obviously less value.
 

jalaram

Lifer
Aug 14, 2000
12,920
2
81
It would be neat if they used the same cylinder design (albeit shorter) for the Mac Mini. Keep it black and it would look like a big hockey puck. :)