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New MacP power consumption
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[gary adcock] “I disagree Herb, without FW or eSata, most will start moving to USB3 and TB for external devices, all of them newer and far more energy efficient than what has been on the market, one focus on externals being that are forced to run cooler externally than if placed inside the machine. “
If I were designing a system from scratch I can see the advantage your talking about but not when trying to fit the Tube into an already existing environment. What about all of us who already own PCIe peripherals and would have to buy external TBLT to PCIe expansion boxes, that would require their own power and cooling systems. Do you think they should throw them out when the buy the Tube so they can take advantage of the more power efficient new systems. I won’t.
[gary adcock] “I really think people are missing the point about the new MacPro, most people I know that call themselves “power users” virtually never touch the inner workings of a computer once they buy it. We are talking less than 5% of “power users” ever change graphics cards or swap out drives.”
I do and I have. Which is why I love the design of the ProMax One. If I were starting from scratch I’d be all over that system – the exact opposite design of the Tube – everything in one box, one power supply, one cooling system, drives that can be swapped without opening the case, only 1 power cable and the only other cables are i/o to monitors and decks.
I’d be very interested to see a power usage comparison between that setup and the octopus system built around the Tube.
[gary adcock] “Whereas I do not see very many people at all that just leave ever single peripheral they have connected to a machine on an running in the same manner if they are not using them.
“If you have external storage my experience is you generally leave it on as long as the computer is on. That would go for any PCIe expansion box as well.
Herb Sevush
Zebra Productions
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nothin’ attached to nothin’
“Deciding the spine is the process of editing” F. Bieberkopf -
[Herb Sevush] “Do you think they should throw them out when the buy the Tube so they can take advantage of the more power efficient new systems. I won’t.”
Sorry Herb, but that is just foolish, you go ahead and hang onto your multi-year old peripherals but don’t continue to bitch because it no longer suits you.
Most of the Pros I know change out hardware when they update their main editing systems, then pass the old one down the pipeline. Because there has not been an update in over 2 years many people are actually are setting on gear that is 3-5 years old.
This is business and you need to keep reasonably close to current to be able to maintain an edge, to stay ahead. You respond as if the old machine is not still usable in some fashion. You have a marked adversity to change that you have proclaimed here many, many times on the Cow.
“If you have external storage my experience is you generally leave it on as long as the computer is on”
That would not be the experience of many other users here, myself included why have all that crap slowing your computer down if you are not using it, sorry but that is an incredibly bad habit you have and it is not how most of the users I know and work with handle their hardware.
gary adcock
Studio37Post and Production Workflow Consultant
Production and Post Stereographer
Chicago, ILFollow my blog at https://www.garyadcock.com
Or follow me on Twitter
@garyadcock -
[gary adcock] “This is business and you need to keep reasonably close to current to be able to maintain an edge, to stay ahead.”
I have a 2 year old 16 TB Maxx Digital raid with an ATTO 680 controller that gets around 800 MB/s both read and write when 80% full. Now explain to me why I should toss this out and spend around 5K to get an equivalent Pegasus that probably isn’t quite as fast? For the energy efficiency? So it will look cool with my Tube? I really don’t get the logic. I throw stuff out when it slows me down, the way my MacPro does now. That’s definitely going on the shelf but when evaluating it’s possible replacement I will keep in mind the other effective gear I still work with.
[gary adcock] ” You have a marked adversity to change that you have proclaimed here many, many times on the Cow. “
My grumpy old man disposition not withstanding, life is change, and I have no desire to be dead. However there are always choices to be made and not every new product announcement fills me with joy. Sometimes I’m right, I loudly proclaimed 3D TV to be the quadrophonic sound of the new millennium, and sometimes I’m wrong, I did after all own both an EMC and an *edit system.
If the price is right I might get a Tube because I like the SSD and the twin GPUs, I would be more likely to buy it if it had internal PCIe lanes – my preferences are tied to the environment I work in.
Herb Sevush
Zebra Productions
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nothin’ attached to nothin’
“Deciding the spine is the process of editing” F. Bieberkopf -
I have a Mac Pro 8 core 2009 edition with 5 internal drives, a DVD-R drive, and all three available card slots full. I love the all-in-one nature of the system, but I’m SOOOOO ready to get the new Mac Pro when it comes out, and transition my hardware to Thunderbolt.
I think it’s actually better that the industry moves beyond expansion cards, and towards external Thunderbolt boxes (plastic case, AC adapter and all). An expansion card can only go into a particular kind of desktop machine (one whose ranks are thinning across the entire PC industry). A plastic external case with Thunderbolt can attach to a tiny 11″ laptop, an all-in-one desktop, a workstation, etc.. That’s expands the market for the add-on device, which drops the price. And the vast majority of “power users” need only one or two of those devices anyway, so I think they can manage with a few extra items around their desk.
I also think that Apple did the right thing to focus the new Mac Pro on the one thing that everyone cares about — ie, speed/power. As the texture artists who did the Mari demo showed, not everyone needs maximum expandability, but pretty much everyone wants a computer that’s damn fast. Apple has given us that.
When I get the new Mac Pro, I’ll probably look into buying the Atto ThunderStream external RAID box to replace my Atto R380 card (aging, by the way). It will be another device to power, but it also lets me put my 8 drive Sonnet RAID about 10 feet from my computer, which I couldn’t do when the R380 card was sitting in the machine.
And then I’ll replace my Decklink SDI card (which I only use for monitoring) with a small external device from Matrox or Blackmagic.
And then I can toss my eSATA card, because the native USB3 plugs on the Mac Pro are much faster.
Finally, I’ll consolidate the 5 internal drives into 2 or 3, and can easily find a small Thunderbolt JBOD box to accommodate them — again, up to 10 feet away, so they don’t make a sound.
It doesn’t seem bad to me. I’ll have an amazing computer that’s quieter and that uses less power. And it’s a computer that Apple will likely sell more of, and pay more attention to, than they did the conventional big box with tons of internal expansion.
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Los Angeles Cameraman
Canon C300 (x2), Zeiss CP.2 lenses, P2 Varicam, etc.
http://www.lacameraman.com -
[Helmut Kobler] “I also think that Apple did the right thing to focus the new Mac Pro on the one thing that everyone cares about — ie, speed/power. As the texture artists who did the Mari demo showed, not everyone needs maximum expandability, but pretty much everyone wants a computer that’s damn fast. Apple has given us that.”
The Mac Pro will be very fast, but it will not be best in class on CPU-intensive applications. There it could be as slow as half the speed of a dual-socket PC with two of the same Xeon CPUs that the Mac Pro uses.
Apple is offering a computer that will be faster than most people need, but still not fast enough for a couple niches with niches. For these small groups, it’s a step backwards from previous Mac Pro designs.
I am not trying to be needlessly critical of the machine. It’s going to be a great solution for a lot of post-production. It should run apps like FCPX and Pr fantastically.
For a few disciplines like 3D and serious compositing, though, the new Mac Pro will compromise performance for form factor.
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 -
[gary adcock] “That would not be the experience of many other users here, myself included why have all that crap slowing your computer down if you are not using it, sorry but that is an incredibly bad habit you have and it is not how most of the users I know and work with handle their hardware.”
We’re talking about storage and video I/O, right? What editor can turn those off?
How do they slow the system down when they’re on?
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 -
[Walter Soyka] “We’re talking about storage and video I/O, right? What editor can turn those off? How do they slow the system down when they’re on?
“Not everyone on this forum uses their machine for just editing. Your telling me that you turn on everything, every time you turn on your computer? You keep every single peripheral on every minute of the day? That just not logical.
Not every person has need to have the I/O devices on continually as they would be if you were using a card based desktop, that to my thinking is absurd, power stuff up and not use it all? that to me is a waste.
Yes Walter, having multiple peripherals on your computer can slow it down if it not being used.
How many times have you had your whole system wait while an attached FW drive spins up from sleep?That constant pinging to maintain a connection to the OS does draw resources from the OS, there was even a point in the early versions of OSX where it you had to turn off pinging the time servers that make sure the clock is correct to be able to handle some video formats.
Things are changing, we are becoming more and more a portable society and for me Apple is just extending those philosophies to the new desktop and is it really any different than an imac or a mac mini?
gary adcock
Studio37Post and Production Workflow Consultant
Production and Post Stereographer
Chicago, ILFollow my blog at https://www.garyadcock.com
Or follow me on Twitter
@garyadcock -
[Walter Soyka] “Apple is offering a computer that will be faster than most people need, but still not fast enough for a couple niches with niches. For these small groups, it’s a step backwards from previous Mac Pro designs.”
Correct, and while some of my tasks will do quite well the new MP, most of my high end work will stay on a PC that I can configure specifically for each type of task
gary adcock
Studio37Post and Production Workflow Consultant
Production and Post Stereographer
Chicago, ILFollow my blog at https://www.garyadcock.com
Or follow me on Twitter
@garyadcock -
[Herb Sevush] “I have a 2 year old 16 TB Maxx Digital raid with an ATTO 680 controller that gets around 800 MB/s both read and write when 80% full. Now explain to me why I should toss this out and spend around 5K to get an equivalent Pegasus that probably isn’t quite as fast? “
I use a nearly same setup using a $400 ATTO Thunderlink housing, with 0 loss in performance from my existing array and it connects to the 4G Fibre backbone for archiving and storage on my network.
Yet I have a 18T Native TBT Pegasus array that is native TBT that I can maintain that same data rate in Raid 5 and it was only $3200. So I get more storage volume and save money.
[Herb Sevush] “My grumpy old man disposition not withstanding,”
Damn Herb, I am not a millennial, or even a GenXr. I am just a realist that change is not a bad thing even though it is sometime painful. I agree with Walter also, that this is a machine that fills a large part of the existing Apple EGO-system, I will get one, but for some of the more specialized work, the Tube is not going to cut it for me.
gary adcock
Studio37Post and Production Workflow Consultant
Production and Post Stereographer
Chicago, ILFollow my blog at https://www.garyadcock.com
Or follow me on Twitter
@garyadcock
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