Mac Pro – Thoughts? Winner or Loser?

[Craig Seeman]

[Walter Soyka] “who do you think will buy this?”

If Apple does what I think they’ll do, motivated FCPX users. I suspect they’ll be feature improvements only accessed or best utilized on it. Obviously speculative but:
Background rendering will be truly background, not pauseround. Obviously only those who need that will get MP.
Multiple simultaneous for both Viewers. You want that you’ll have to get a MP.
Resolve power users.
Regardless of the above specifics, I think Apple’s Apps will have dual GPU specific features that go beyond “speed.” I think there’s a reason why they’re tagging an FCPX upgrade to the release to the MacPro.
Faster by itself wouldn’t be enough if the iMac really is fast enough. I think it’ll be tied to features.

[Jerry Hofmann]

You got that right for sure!

Jerry

Apple Certified Trainer, Producer, Writer, Director Editor, Gun for Hire and other things. I ski. My Blog: https://blogs.creativecow.net/Jerry-Hofmann

Current DVD:
https://store.creativecow.net/p/81/jerry_hofmanns_final_cut_system_setup

8-Core 3.0 Intel Mac Pro, Dual 2 gig G5, AJA Kona SD, AJA Kona 2, Huge Systems Array UL3D, AJA Io HD, 17″ MBP, Matrox MXO2 with MAX – Cinema Displays I have a 22″ that I paid 4k for still working. G4 with Kona SD card, and SCSI card.

[Jeremy Garchow]

[Walter Soyka] “Let me try another way — who do you think will buy this? What market needs more than an iMac but less than a sizzle-core HP Z-series, and would be willing to pay double the price of an iMac to get it?

Since the Internet obfuscates meaning, when I say “who do you think will buy this,” I am not trying to argue that no one will buy this. I’m actually just asking who you think will buy this.”

Due to the form factor, that there’ll be some upgrading happening. People that were content with iMacs but have a growing business might look at these and, due to the sheer size, function, and I’m sure what will be a decent amount of power, will upgrade to the first MacPro they’ve ever owned, across all Mac using business types.

There are many Mac diehards that will buy it sight unseen.

Developers, scientists, professionals that are outside of the video world will snatch these up.

Basically, anyone who hasn’t left Apple, still likes Apple, and needs a faster machine than an iMac.

My biggest gripe with the iMac was the form factor. The performance was OK, and certainly a stop gap until something else came out, but now if this new MacPro proves to not be a total dud, this is a perfectly suitable form factor, and I’m sure it will be the fastest Mac I’ve ever owned.

People complained about what the iPhone 5 was not, but it is, by far, the best phone I’ve ever owned.

Is it the best, most fastest, biggest screen phone on the market? Does it have every single bell and whistle that technology can offer? Nope, but it does work well, functions well, and is the fastest phone that I, personally, have ever owned.

I am sure the new MacPro will follow those general sentiments.

[Paul Dickin]

[Walter Soyka] ” who you think will buy this”
Hi
Anyone who finds two TB and one Gig-E ports causes them juggling problems with their connectivity needs.
In the SCSI era workstations were always smallish boxes with external storage as fast as internal.
Now we’re in a 4K video age anything smaller than a Promax box is always going to need external storage as fast as internal.

The era of Apple deviating from a simple box with good external connectivity has been confined to the era of the current G5/Mac Pro form factor – until 2005/6 there were only 2+1 internal drive bays.

Anyone who says their ‘workflow’ demands a single large box can only have worked in the last few years.
On lots of different levels (energy consumption etc) is that sustainable?
Or are our grand-children going to be saying: “Well, here’s another nice mess you’ve gotten me into!”

On a different tack: if the current high end graphics cards (like AMD 7990) are two lesser graphics engines combined into one package (presumably driven by one 16x PCIe slot) why can’t the engines be separated and each connected by one 8x TB channel each? Wouldn’t that give the same throughput? Obviously with rewriitten GPGPU drivers.

[Jerry Hofmann]

I think the third-party manufactures will have to adapt to this machine to take advantage of all that raw power. So it will be interesting at NAB 2014! it makes a lot of sense for most pro users. Some enterprising company with the graphics GPU acceleration might do well in a couple of years.. If there’s really a need , after all this has extremely beefy graphics already. FCP X.1 will likely amaze. Apple usually has 10 year plans for everything. We start year 3 with FCP X this year. Apple likely spec’d this machine 4 years ago.

Jerry