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iMac Pro thoughts
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[Oliver Peters] “My original post, mentioning 20-25%, was factoring in the MacPro”
Well, factoring in just it’s “real” predecessor seems as the only “real” relevant yardstick. But even once the new Mac Pro comes out I’d say factoring in the ’13 Mac Pro (even if to the huge advantage of the ’19 Mac Pro, no doubt) would be rather silly, even though I’m sure everyone is going to “logically” do it.
On the other hand I guess one could say that the grim, horrible picture everyone seems to want to paint of the ’13 Mac Pro ain’t all they’re cracked up to be either. IOW so much for “outdated even when it was released” if it can still hold it’s own with FIVE year younger hardware. ????
[Oliver Peters] “What are your iMP specs? What are the storage specs?”
10 core, 128GB with local SSD storage. And yes, raw has just barely higher demands on a system than just plain ProRes… which is why it is THE game changer for me. Once everyone has adopted it (especially certain HDMI-out-only cams), it will be yet another serious notch on Apple’s “yeah, sure… we DON’T CARE ABOUT PROS“-belt. But that’s another thread.
– RK
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[Bob Zelin] “- what on earth makes you think that you will go out and get a “new Mac Pro” and install any NVidia GPU card, any RAM, any CPU, any 10G card that you want ? “
Was it ever like this with Macs?
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absolutely – the “old” Mac Pro from 2006 – 2012. Companies like Other World Computing (https://www.macsales.com) were created because of computers like this. You get third party RAM, upgrade your own processors, it was easy to work on. You pulled out the old GTX-120, or old ATI card, added internal NVidia Quadro 4000’s, or GTX-680’s. You added Cubix or Magma expansion chassis, and put whatever you wanted in there (like Pro Tools I/O cards). And of course I/O cards from AJA, Blackmagic, and Matrox. And of course, the AVID HIB card that went to the Nitris DX breakout box.
I would love to know the politics of Apple these days. If they get to sell you an iMac Pro, and the iMac or iMac Pro works great with an eGPU box – WHAT DIFFERENCE to them does it make if it’s an NVidia GTX-1080ti card or an AMD Vega 64 card. They don’t make either – and they get to sell the computer and keep all the profit. WHY do they care what a third party company does to enhance their product, and why do they make it so difficult for these third party companies ? Of course, this all ties in with the new insanity of SIP (System Integrity Protection) which all started in
December 2017. Bottom line – they get to sell what they manufacturer – why do they care what people want to stick on the computer, and why are they making it so difficult, after all this time ?Bob Zelin
Bob Zelin
Rescue 1, Inc.
bobzelin@icloud.com -
[Bob Zelin] “absolutely – the “old” Mac Pro from 2006 – 2012. Companies like Other World Computing (https://www.macsales.com) were created because of computers like this. You get third party RAM, upgrade your own processors, it was easy to work on. You pulled out the old GTX-120, or old ATI card, added internal NVidia Quadro 4000’s, or GTX-680’s. You added Cubix or Magma expansion chassis, and put whatever you wanted in there (like Pro Tools I/O cards). And of course I/O cards from AJA, Blackmagic, and Matrox. And of course, the AVID HIB card that went to the Nitris DX breakout box. “
It goes further back than that, Bob. I’d say dang near almost to the Mac iici and IIfx in 1989. The idea was that you bought the equivalent of a big ol’ cavern whose sole purpose was for you to pop the top off of and fill to your hearts content with anything you wanted — the sky’s the limit.
There used to be catalogs for a dozen companies chock full of every kind of accessory that you could load into your Mac — and we all aggressively subscribed to all of them — because we wanted to know which RAM was fastest, which drives were most reliable, which cards supported the most IO, who added acceleration, on and on.
Sure, it’s nice that computers can handle a lot of this stuff natively now. I don’t miss manually configuring Token Ring networks any more than I miss blacking my tapes. But I do miss the days when Mac video creators were driving innovation across the industry — in drives, in monitors, in RAM, you name it — because we demanded the best of the best, because no matter how good the computers Apple sold us, we wanted them to be BETTER, faster, capable of more stuff than Apple or anyone else imagined. OUR imagination was the only limit to performance.
Okay, and to a lesser extent, our budgets and the technology itself, but the early days of the COW and our predecessor community going back to 1995 (June of 1995, to be exact — we crossed our 23rd anniversary last week!) was shaped by people who were pushing the tech faster than developers really wanted to go. LOL But they sold us the stuff, and stepped up when we demanded that it worked the way WE wanted it to work, even if it was something that they hadn’t intended when they designed it.
It’s sad to me that the Mac user community has become not only complacent, but actively hostile to the idea that Apple wasn’t doing enough to develop the computers we need. It’s not Moore’s Law that has slowed innovation to a crawl. It’s users who are happy to take whatever Apple gives them, and shout down anyone who wants to drive Apple to do better.
On one hand it seems ridiculous to say that here, among some of the most dissatisfied people on the internet. LOL At the same time, I think back to 1999, when Apple created a computer so powerful that they were forbidden to export it to some countries. This message was playfully exaggerated, but it was true. Can you even imagine Apple trying to pretend that theirs are the most powerful computers on the market? It simply doesn’t come up any more.
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And the remarkable thing is that we took that computer, and made it even MORE powerful. Why? Because we demanded that capability from our computers. We DEMANDED the ability to customize them, to make them vastly more powerful, because we understood, yes, we’re a niche. You can’t make money selling a computer to us that does everything we need. We get it. Just stay out of our way, and everything will be fine. ????
[Bob Zelin] “WHY do they care what a third party company does to enhance their product, and why do they make it so difficult for these third party companies ?”
I swear I think a lot of it is because we let them get away with it. There’s a reason why the key images for the early days of marketing FCP was on a laptop with FireWire. That wasn’t as big a deal here in the COW, where we were early adopters of Cinewave, Decklink, Kona, Aurora Igniter, and so many more. We used Final Cut Pro as the foundation of a heavy-iron suite that could run circles around anything out there once we finished shaping it to our needs.
But now, people who insist that an iMac Pro still isn’t enough for the work they’re doing, or the work they want to do, are treated as deviants, liars, ignoramuses, or trolls. Yeah, it’s a niche, like it’s always been. But now Apple and a significant part of its user base are new sets of obstacles, instead of the foundation we build on to reach newer heights.
That’s all I’d like to see a return to. An Apple that enables its customers to drive technology further, faster, and in previously unimaginable directions through creative third-party partnerships, and a user base centered around encouraging each other to think bigger, and pointing the way to the specifics of making it happen.
Less about me and what I need. Less about either/or. Less about how much more I can do with less. More about making the entire industry bigger, better, bolder. More about what’s possible with MORE. More about demanding more from our vendors, enabling each other to do more.
And yes, it was that way for the vast majority of our tiny little life cycle. In the context of the COW, I’d say something like 18-20 of our 23 years. This today? This is NOT how it was. And talking about how it was is anything but ancient history.
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I didn’t mean the expandability. By the way PowerMac 9600 had more slots than cheesegrater MacPro. I meant there always were hoops to jump through to make something to work in Mac: flashing firmware, patching kexts, etc.
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[Bob Zelin] “why do they care what people want to stick on the computer, and why are they making it so difficult, after all this time ?
“It’s in Apples DNA. Jobs never wanted to release anything but a sealed box, computing appliance and technology (and consumer habits) over the past 5-10 years have finally gotten to the point where doing just that is commercially viable.
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