Maxed out MacPro Pricing

[Rick Lang]

[Paul Dickin] “Not a test, but this analysis of Intel’s spec sheet is informative over the turbo boost constraints on the 12-core versus 8-core and lower:
https://www.marco.org/2013/11/26/new-mac-pro-cpus“

Paul, that analysis makes the 6-core look quite attractive compared to the 8-core. Lots to ponder…

Rick Lang

iMac 27” 2.8GHz i7 16GB

[Darren Roark]

I was at a Lumaforge event where Peter Chamberlain gave an overview of Resolve 10 and mentioned that in an update it would support GPU acceleration for Red files once the new Mac Pro is released. It would make a lot of sense that fcpx would have this as well. If that’s the case, it makes the top end GPU more enticing than getting more cores on the CPU.

[Rick Lang]

Darren Roark:
“Peter Chamberlain gave an overview of Resolve 10 and mentioned that in an update it would support GPU acceleration for Red files once the new Mac Pro is released. It would make a lot of sense that fcpx would have this as well. If that’s the case, it makes the top end GPU more enticing than getting more cores on the CPU.”

Good information. I agree with you and Andy, given the budget can handle it, the dual D700 is highly desirable and personally I’ll sacrifice some RAM (down to 32 GB) and CPU cores (down to 6 cores) if needed. So weary of not having a great GPU. Sacrificing RAM and cores doesn’t mean the tasks can’t be done, they just take longer. Finding you have an inadequate GPU, can mean you aren’t going to be able to do the task. Now I don’t plan to be doing 16 angles of 4K multicam, but you know someone will want to do it.

As for working with Red files, that’s for others to value. I’m hoping that FCP X will work with (compressed 4K) CinemaDNG raw files from the Blackmagic Production Camera. If not there is of course the workflow of using DaVinci Resolve at the front and back end to handle raw debayer and rendering final deliverables with FCP X using any flavour of ProRes generated by Resolve. For some things though, it would be better if FCP X did CinemaDNG.

I think many people feel there will be substantial enhancements to the next version of FCP X and it likely will be a paid update to 10.1.0. I also expect that Mavericks will have a point increase as well to include further support for the new Mac Pro and perhaps other accessories such as a 4K screen which hopefully will finally include support for display graphics beyond 8-bit such as true 10-bit. Maybe a trivial thing in a way but a welcome improvement. I just can’t imagine how Apple could put the design energy they have done into the Mac Pro without adding a 4K 10-bit colour display option. It doesn’t have to be a retina screen to be useful but display technology is evolving and it may be the best time for Apple to upgrade their displays. I haven’t calculated the bandwidth of supporting 3 4K 10-bit screens but if it fits within the Thunderbolt 2 threshold, then in my opinion they will do it soon.

Edit: there is hope–did the calculations and it should be feasible to support 3 4K 10-bit colour displays (just not on a single Thunderbolt 2 controller; requires two streams on two controllers plus one on HDMI as Apple has said. Here’s my calculations assuming one 4K 10-bit 30 fps video… UHD and 24 or 25 fps will be less. The bottleneck could be getting the video data fast enough from external storage as one video would take about a gigabyte per second! Apple’s performance claims use UHD, 3480×2160, so my calculations are perhaps overstating the requirements but let’s say that will allow for the audio data I left out.

4096×2160 = 8,847,360 pixels per frame
X 30 bits per pixel = 265,420,800 bits per frame
X 30 frames per second = 7,962,624,000 bits per second for one display which I think HDMI 1.4 supports plus audio.

Rick Lang

iMac 27” 2.8GHz i7 16GB

[Darren Roark]

Don’t forget RAM is user serviceable so we will be able to save money there as soon as OWC is able to determine what they want to sell. All the big memory providers already make ECC sticks that are compatible on paper. At least you have the option to sell the 16gb you remove on ebay. I don’t think it will take OWC long.

[Marcus Moore]

Well I hope it’s not guessing. I’m really not try to lead anyone down the garden path here, and I’ll definitely be disappointed in my Apple rep if he’s given me inaccurate pricing info.

Let’s look at it like this-

the $4,000 machine is 6-core, 256GB SSD, 16GB RAM, and D500s.

my $7,500 config ($7,700 Canadian) was 8-core, 512GB SSD, 64GB RAM, and D700s.

If my info is correct, then the SSD bumps are $500 for 512GB, and $1000 for 1TB. And RAM is $600 for 32GB, and $1,200 for 64GB. I think those things are pretty sensible since they line up with similar BTO options on the iMac.

So, the the price difference between the $4,000 machine and my $7,500 config is $3,500.

Take $500 and $1,200 off for the RAM and SSD, and that means that COMBINED, the jump to 8-core and D700s is $1,800. As I mentioned to Andy above, you just don’t drop the price for the new components on top of the existing config. You get value back on the CPU and GPUs you’re replacing.

How exactly that $1,800 increase is split between the CPU and GPUs I’m not sure- I’m killing myself now not pricing out a few more configurations that would seemingly have filled in the gaps.

But your 8-core+D500s+32G+500G has to be at least $5,000 adding the just RAM and SSD bump. So you might be right that bumping the GPUs is the lion’s share of that $1,800 value I mentioned, and perhaps bumping to the 8-core is only going to cost you another $500-

brining you to a total of $5,500.

[Marcus Moore]

OWC already has a teaser image up saying they plan to have 2013 MacPro RAM ready as soon as they can test it.

The savings are not insignificant, but not compulsory for me.

I think you’ll be able to save just over $200 for 32GB RAM and about $450 for the full 64GB, based on similar info for iMac upgrades.

I had a hellish RAM upgrade last year that took me a week to fix. That $450 I’m saving is less than 1 days work, so I can rationalize just having the machine show up ready to go.

[Marcus Moore]

I’d love to see a real breakdown on what components are affecting what aspects of FCPX and Motion (or other applications). I think this would help a lot of people determine where their pain points are, and their money is best spent.

As far as I know-

SSD – In general has provided an amazing speed boost which affects application launching times and general “snappiness” of the OS. As long as it’s not more than 80% full (or is that a slowdown that only affects spinning discs?)

RAM – I’m a bit foggy on this. If you don’t have enough it can lead to lots of spinning beachballs.

GPU (and VRAM) Rendering, Open GL performance, (some exporting?)

CPU – this is where I’m not sure the benefit I’m getting out of it. How multi-core aware are FCPX and Motion? What does that affect in real usage?

[Darren Roark]

[Marcus Moore] “I had a hellish RAM upgrade last year that took me a week to fix. That $450 I’m saving is less than 1 days work, so I can rationalize just having the machine show up ready to go.”

I’ve been lucky I haven’t had that happen since the G5 days. It’s worth the risk as the same spec RAM from other vendors is priced less than half for the new pros.

The other thing I am curious about is the GPUs are speculated to also be user serviceable as they are on daughter cards. If it’s like upgrading the proprietary SSDs on a MB Air, it’s probably not going to be worth the money.

[Marcus Moore]

The spread is really wide on existing MacPro RAM ’cause that’s REALLY old-style RAM. And for some strange reason Apple hasn’t deprecated the price on components. Just like existing MacPro GPUs are WAAAAAYYYY overpriced via Apple.

A brand-new iMac, to config to 32GB RAM will cost you $600.

Via OWC, it’s like $380 bucks. Still less, but not less than half.

Less less than it had been before.

😉

[Darren Roark]

[Marcus Moore] “A brand-new iMac, to config to 32GB RAM will cost you $600.

Via OWC, it’s like $380 bucks. Still less, but not less than half.”

That’s the rub, you can get other ‘apple tested’ 32GB kits for around $290. But then what is your time worth if it’s crap? I’m waiting to see what the performance is before I pull the trigger. I have 32GB in my tower right now, and with the current version of FCP X it never goes beyond 16GB when at full load. I’m sure the new one will be able to use more. Can’t wait for Apple to take my money though.