Mac Pro – Thoughts? Winner or Loser?

[Larry Towers]

What is so incredible about starving peripherals of available bandwidth, forcing octopus expansion scenarios, increasing energy costs?

[Herb Sevush]

[Jeremy Garchow] “I like the size, and as far as spaghetti, my current MacPros look like spaghetti, so what’s the big deal?”

A difference in quantity not a difference in kind. Take your current Mac Pro spaghetti and now double it – either that bothers your or it doesn’t. I will suggest that the reasons that computers developed as they have still exist – externalizing storage and all i/o peripherals will waste energy by requiring redundant cooling and power.

I can see the value in the new MacPro and depending on the price I might get one but I will say that as far as design goes it is in the exact opposite direction I would have preferred. I love the design of the ProMax One – internal raid, internal LTO, multiple internal boot drives that are swappable from the outside – for me that is an ideal design. If I were just starting out I would be all over that machine. Not saying it’s a better design, just that it’s better for me.

Herb Sevush
Zebra Productions
—————————
nothin’ attached to nothin’
“Deciding the spine is the process of editing” F. Bieberkopf

[Jeremy Garchow]

[larry towers] “forcing octopus expansion scenarios, “

All expansion is an octopus scenario, unless you have PCIe cards that you don’t use.

[Jim Wiseman]

Looks like it has two fast graphics cards already. Plenty of bandwidth. Very fast RAM. Looks extremely powerful for video. For anyone moving on from Adobe, looks quite attractive, especially FCPX, naturally. Aperture should fly too, my preferred photo app. Wonder what quality comes out of the HDMI 1.4 port? Thunderbolt T-Tap or Blackmagic for monitoring if necessary, cheap. Thunderbolt 2 looks good: Apple or someone is going to have to provide enclosures for storage and external PCIe as well for those that need it. AJA ioXT for acquisition will work fine. LaCie or something for eSATA, miss that. Looks like up to 64GB removable very fast 1866 Mhz RAM with 3rd party possible. 32GB sticks would allow up to 128, but for my purposes 32GB total is plenty.

I’m glad to see a very high performance machine from Apple. No need for Windows for me, ever. With a 2010 and a 2012 Mac Pro Tower for my PCIe needs, legacy software, and Adobe CS6 (no CC, thanks), and this next year, I should be set. I can adjust to the new model. Sounds like an upgrade to X is coming when the new Mac Pro releases. I WILL be learning FCPX.

Jim Wiseman
Sony PMW-EX1,Pana AJ-D810 DVCPro, DVX-100, Nikon D7000, Final Cut Studio 2 and 3, Media 100 Suite 2.1.3, Premiere Pro 5.5 and 6.0, AJA ioHD, AJA Kona LHi, Avid MC, Hexacore MacPro 3.33 Ghz 24Gb RAM GTX-285 120GB SSD, Macbook Pro 17″ 2011 2.2 Ghz Quadcore i7 8Gb SSD, G5 Quadcore PCIe

[Larry Towers]

Currently
drive expansion– no
Graphics card expansion–No
ESata exaoansion no
Video card expansion i.e. aja etc–No
No

With this dumb configuration I will have to have additional cables To an expansion chassis and or cables to every device previously mentioned that would normally sit in the computer. At least doubling the number of cables for signal, not to mention powering all of these now outboard devices, not all of which will be powered by thunderbolt.

[Steve Connor]

Larry, I’m sensing that you’re not impressed?

Steve Connor

There’s nothing we can’t argue about on the FCPX COW Forum

[Larry Towers]

This is seriously painful for me. We have a bunch of 2008 computers to replace. This will work for some. But it is not the computing powerhouse we needed it to be for the future. We can’t afford to upgrade computers every other year. This computer is only impressive today. With no expandability that runs at processor bus speed it is designed to be disposable. SO seriously disappointed.

[Lance Bachelder]

It’s been the opposite with my iMac – I don’t even use the AC anymore. My old Mac Pro was a space heater, I was spending hundreds per month on AC! And my new Thunderbolt external storage is quieter and cooler than my old racked raid and internal storage.

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

[Ricardo Marty]

You where not far off in many aspects in others let me know

ricardo

[Larry Towers]

Plenty of bandwidth? For what? Only the processor. ONLY 7% TOTAL bandwidth is available for ALL external devices.

20gbps vs 40GBps
That is not enough for a pro solution. The numbers look great until you realize they are comparing the top of the line new mac pro to the current entry level mac pro.