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The Cheese Grater is back
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[Brett Sherman] “Now for us in the mid-level. It’s hard to see how I justify a purchase of this machine. “
+1 on that.
Herb Sevush
Zebra Productions
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nothin\’ attached to nothin\’
\”Deciding the spine is the process of editing\” F. Bieberkopf -
[Herb Sevush] “And by “they” I mean Apple, and by “you” I mean me.”
Herb, it’s really good to hear from you.
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[Oliver Peters] “For grins I priced out an HP Z8 in something that’s fairly close to the base configuration of the Mac Pro. $8K.”
Second reply.
For grins I priced out a PC at ADK, a well known video integrator. For less than 5.5K I can get 1TB SSD boot drive, 64k memory, Thunderbolt and all assorted i/o including a firewire 800 for legacy drives, nVidia 2080ti & 12 cores (but an i9).
This computer would kick the stuffings out of the base Mac Pro at 6k. But of course it doesn’t run OSX. While some may bemoan the cost of subscriptions, the dongle cost for using OSX only software is fairly steep.
Herb Sevush
Zebra Productions
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nothin\’ attached to nothin\’
\”Deciding the spine is the process of editing\” F. Bieberkopf -
[Jeremy Garchow] “Herb, it’s really good to hear from you.”
Likewise.
It’s ever so nice to be appreciated in one’s own time.
Herb Sevush
Zebra Productions
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nothin\’ attached to nothin\’
\”Deciding the spine is the process of editing\” F. Bieberkopf -
[Herb Sevush] “For grins I priced out a PC at ADK, a well known video integrator.”
Yes, I can do that too and have done so with companies like Puget. But it misses the point that this is not the arena that Apple is playing in.
Second, although an i9 will outperform a Xeon by the numbers – and is probably a better CPU for NLEs and AE – it is inherently not designed to run 24/7 flat out. The i9 certainly blurs those lines and is more than adequate for most content producers. Regardless, Intel gets a premium price for the Xeons over the Core series and that adds to the cost from the get-go.
So, can you spec a cheaper PC? Sure. But that is not a direct comparison part-for-part.
– Oliver
Oliver Peters – oliverpeters.com
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[Steve Connor] “How on earth could you be confident about that when we have NO idea about how the new Mac Pro will perform?”
Resolve performs better with CUDA. Apple makes expensive hardware. So it’s a fair bet that a custom PC running NVIDIA cards will outperform a MacPro with AMD cards. I have no intention of spending that sort of money But seriously, matching specs on anything I build will be cheaper than a computer Apple makes.
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[Michael Gissing] “Resolve performs better with CUDA.”
So you trade one “proprietary” system for another. We all make choices.
“Better” is relative. Metal is new-ish, and seems to be direct competition for CUDA and now with this new machine, developers may be more interested as they will have more opportunity to give customers a real performance difference with faster/multiple/purpose built GPU hardware inside the Mac with direct PCIe access.
The new Mac Pro looks like a monster machine. I am curious to it’s performance in a non maxed out version. We need some power, but not maximum power. Although, when you look at it in the grand scheme of gear, it’s like buying a new higher end camera body. Guess it’s time to raise rates again?
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[Oliver Peters] “So, can you spec a cheaper PC? Sure. But that is not a direct comparison part-for-part.”
My guess is if I changed the12 core i9 to an 8 core Xeon it will increase the price around 1.5K for both CPU and motherboard, which means for 7K you will have a computer that kicks the stuffings out of the 6K base Mac Pro.
And more importantly I’m not comparing spec for spec, I’m comparing feature for feature and useability for usability. For editing with heavy rendering, as opposed to being a server on a render farm, the i9 system would be the way to go. A useable Mac Pro is going to be somewhere north of 8K, probably around 10K to compete with the 5-6K systems I’m describing.
I’m not knocking the Mac Pro for what it is designed for, I’m complaining that it wasn’t designed for me, and neither is anything else that Apple offers.
Herb Sevush
Zebra Productions
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nothin\’ attached to nothin\’
\”Deciding the spine is the process of editing\” F. Bieberkopf -
Maybe I’m missing something, but I feel like Apple has covered all its bases in terms of hardware for professional editing. If you’re a smaller business or an individual pro-editor, need horsepower and some minor upgradeability via Thunderbolt, you have the iMac Pro. If you’re a large business or have a big need for upgradeability, want something that is engineered to be modular right down to how you want to mount your monitor or whatever other largescale process required of your business, you now have the Mac Pro. Sure, the Nvidia thing is a poke in the eye for some folks, but many of the companies that make software that utilizes those cards, seem to be excited about the Mac Pro and are moving towards making their software take advantage of its built-in capabilities. That seems to be lessening that sting just a bit.
Of course, this is all just blathering about nothing at this point. We won’t really know until the darn thing gets released and used in the real world.
Winston A. Cely
ACTC Media Broadcasting Video Instructor
Apple Certified Editor FCPX 3\”If you can talk brilliantly enough about a subject, you can create the consoling illusion it has been mastered.\” – Stanley Kubrick
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[Winston A. Cely] “but I feel like Apple has covered all its bases in terms of hardware for professional editing.”
Completely agree. I think there’s a lot of “envy” going on, because some folks simply can’t afford/justify the top-of-the-line machine any longer. That’s OK. Any decent computer these days will give you real-time performance with 4K media, which is more than most editors are dealing with anyway. So there isn’t an need for many to make that jump.
– Oliver
Oliver Peters – oliverpeters.com
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