Mac Pro – Thoughts? Winner or Loser?

[Jeremy Garchow]

Yes, thanks Mathieu.

[Lance Bachelder]

Exactly, let me get to work , not fiddle with PCI slots – this is the most exciting Mac Pro yet! My only problem with my new iMac is the 2 Thunderbolt ports – now with 6 and at twice the speed you can add drives etc with no bottleneck.

I think it’s gonna be pricey – guessing similar to current Mac Pro BTO – Xeon’s alone are over a grand each and dual GPU’s isn’t going to be cheap. Only possible downer is they went with ATI instead of nVidia but developers like Adobe and BMD have been optimizing for OpenCL so it should be more than powerful enough – especially in full 4,000 core config…

Looking forward to more on this for sure. I have to say, overall, this was one of the best keynotes in years!

Lance Bachelder
Writer, Editor, Director
Downtown Long Beach, California
https://www.imdb.com/name/nm1680680/?ref_=fn_al_nm_1

[Craig Seeman]

[Jeremy Garchow] “This is the most portable MacPro, ever.”

FWIW the reduction in size is a major feature. It now makes the MacPro much for viable for bringing on some location work.

[Marcus Moore]

And of course we’re not sure there can’t be substitutions. Perhaps the GPUs can be switched out at purchase for CUDA compatible ones.

There are lots of unanswered questions to be sure, but whether people get on board now, or 5 years from now- this is the way computing is going.

[Lance Bachelder]

I agree – large towers and PCI slots are gonna fade away and I’m happy to see them go. Heck I just threw an old Kona 3 card in the trash because it was worthless. I’ll bet everything we now need/want a card for will be in a nice, tidy case with a Thunderbolt port – Red Rockets, Quadro’s etc. Think of the heat and power savings – heck the power supply in my new PC is bigger than the new MacPro!

Lance Bachelder
Writer, Editor, Director
Downtown Long Beach, California
https://www.imdb.com/name/nm1680680/?ref_=fn_al_nm_1

[Ricardo Marty]

Has anyone seen Craig Seeman?

Ricardo

[Walter Soyka]

[Lance Bachelder] “Think of the heat and power savings – heck the power supply in my new PC is bigger than the new MacPro!”

I think this could actually cost heat and power — now every peripheral will require its own cooling system and individual power supply.

By moving to all-external expansion, you lose the efficiency of a centralized power supply and a centralized cooling system.

Walter Soyka
Principal & Designer at Keen Live
Motion Graphics, Widescreen Events, Presentation Design, and Consulting
RenderBreak Blog – What I’m thinking when my workstation’s thinking
Creative Cow Forum Host: Live & Stage Events

[Larry Towers]

It isn’t Sad. A professional recognizes specs that are limiting.

i.e. 1-They brag about PCIe bandwidth of up to 40GBps!

But you can’t get access to that bandwidth! This design limits expandability to thunderbolt 2 @ 20gbps (bits not Bytes!) that’s less than 7% of available bandwidth available to peripherals!!!!

2-The numbers they compare to are the current ENTRY LEVEL SINGLE PROCESSOR MAC PRO

This is NOT a huge upgrade.

[Craig Seeman]

[Ricardo Marty] “Has anyone seen Craig Seeman?”

I think I saw him waiting on line at the Fifth Ave. NYC Apple Store to buy one. He wants to make sure he’s first when it comes out three months from now. 😉

[Jim Giberti]

[David Mathis] ” Why does this “thing” look like something of a Star Trek movie? “

Does it?
It looks like a pretty common shape to me…like you find in every drawing program and shelf and fridge.
Basically you can go circular, square, rectangular or cylindrical. I’m guessing they put a bit of thought into it. I suppose it could have been triangular for effect.

What would you have a new evolution of Mac computer designed in 2013 look like, your 20 year-old Quadra?