The new Mac Pro VS MSI?

[Shawn Miller]

[Oliver Peters] “[Eric Santiago] “has anyone ever had fun on the DELL site and see how high they can get a single workstation price up too”

Since this is one of those usual Mac vs. PC debates, I have to say that the shopping experience on nearly every PC maker’s website is one of the worst shopping experiences on the web. You can hardly find anything and what’s there is hard to understand.”

Sure, some sites are certainly better than others. HP and Dell are terrible IMO, whereas Puget Systems and Bold Data systems are easy to navigate, and they make machine configuration fairly straightforward. Even better, companies like Puget Systems and Boxx make it easy to talk to a human about which configurations might be most beneficial to the buyer.

[Oliver Peters] ”
Contrast that with buying Apple hardware on their website and it’s easy to see why some folks are willing to pay a bit most, just for the more productive and pleasant experience. And if we are talking about name brands, mainstream PC makers, the cost is generally the same or more than that of the equivalent Mac.

– Oliver
“

Doesn’t having limited configurations make this much easier though? Your choices are basically between which two CPU models, which one of two GPU models, how much RAM and how much storage, right? Not knocking it, but that just seems an easier lift. That said, the last PC I purchased was through Puget Systems, and it only took a few minutes to configure the system I wanted – but, I’m a long time PC user and I’ve built a number of computers over the years, so maybe someone with less experience configuring workstations would have a more difficult time… hard to say.

Shawn

[Shawn Miller]

[Bob Zelin] “for $88,000, it better come with one important feature – CLIENTS !”

But, if it cuts your render times down from days per frame to hours per frame, it might just be worth the cost. ☺ I would still be curious to know what’s in the $88k machine…

Shawn

[Greg Janza]

[Tom Sefton] “but no UK local tech support makes them impossible for us. “

Just out of curiosity, what kind of local tech support do you actually need?

I Hate Television. I Hate It As Much As Peanuts. But I Can’t Stop Eating Peanuts.
– Orson Welles

[Bob Zelin]

for $88,000 ?

This is the Silverdraft Flame workstation for Autodesk Flame applications –
https://www.bhphotovideo.com/bnh/controller/home?A=details&O=&Q=&ap=y&c3api=1876%2C%7Bcreative%7D%2C%7Bkeyword%7D&gclid=EAIaIQobChMIwe7Clf711wIVw4uzCh2pkwxAEAQYAyABEgKuDfD_BwE&is=REG&sku=1297200

$23,500

this is the Silverdraft Davinci Resolve workstation
https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1297201-REG/silverdraft_silver33_base_resolve_computer_system_xeon.html
$12,7500

this is the Silverdraft After Effects Workstation
https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1297199-REG/silverdraft_silver11_adobe_after_effects_workstation.html
$10,500

and a Silverdraft Resolve “blown out” workstation for $33,000
https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1297197-REG/silverdraft_silver55_power_resolve_computer_system_dual.html

So you tell me exactly what is an $88,000 workstation for. This is like saying “I can’t use any shared storage system except Quantum, and it is SO worth the $200 – $300,000 that we spend for it”. My reply to this – that’ just stupid.

Bob Zelin

Bob Zelin
Rescue 1, Inc.
bobzelin@icloud.com

[Tom Sefton]

Probably not a whole lot for something supplied as an off the shelf product, but it would need importing and there would be difficulties with phone/remote support compared with a UK distributor.

Co-owner at Pollen Studio
http://www.pollenstudio.co.uk

[Shawn Miller]

[Bob Zelin] “So you tell me exactly what is an $88,000 workstation for. “

VFX, visualization and scientific simulation. It’s rarified air to be sure – I personally have never worked on anything more powerful than a 4 CPU machine with 96GB of RAM, but there are use cases that justify the need for even more powerful machines. I imagine that rendering out 8k stereo VR videos could fit into this category. Again, I would be curious to know what’s inside the $88k workstation… a machine with 8 NVidia M600s alone would set you back over 30k… add 4 CPUs and maxed out ram (1TB), that’s possibly another $20k assuming you build it yourself. Does the $88k machine include some sort of premium support and software licensing?

[Bob Zelin] “This is like saying “I can’t use any shared storage system except Quantum, and it is SO worth the $200 – $300,000 that we spend for it”. My reply to this – that’ just stupid. “

I don’t think it’s a question not being able to work on anything less than a computer with less than a terabyte of RAM, 4 CPUs and 8 GPUs, it’s that for some work, these configurations make sense and are less expensive in the long run than building or sending projects out to a render farm. Most of my heavy 3D work is done on a workstation that could be done on a $3,000.00 laptop… in the long run though, it would make my projects a lot more expensive to produce.

Shawn

[Bernard Newnham]

I edit on Premiere at normal HD, no 4k, usually exporting in H264. I’d prefer AS11, but the Tricaster we use can’t cope with that (rubbish things, Tricasters) .

For many years I upgraded my PCs every 18 months or so, when things seemed a bit slow. I’m a big fan of Asus, so generally an Asus motherboard and GeForce GPU (with CUDA of course). Now I find I haven’t needed a major upgrade for a while, which still surprises me. I’m not broke, I can afford any sensible current stuff, but I don’t spend what don’t need to spend. The thing runs fast enough.

It’s been so long that I needed Belarc Advisor to find out what I currently have –
3.30 gigahertz Intel Core i5-2500
ASUSTeK Computer INC. P8Z68-V LE Rev X.0x
8174 Megabytes Usable Installed Memory
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 960

So for us ordinary people doing ordinary stuff, I don’t think you need a Ferrari equivalent.

……and who needs support, in the UK or anywhere? My gear has largely just worked for years. I upgraded the GPU a while back, mostly because I fancied moving up from the GeForce 460. The system worked pretty much the same afterwards. The new GPU came from a UK supplier in a couple of days and the switch took a couple of minutes. No special importing required.

Bernie

[Andy Patterson]

[Andrew Kimery] “[andy patterson] ” What about Lenovo, Dell, MSI, Asus and HP? ”

What about them? Are they about to launch new computers that people have been clamoring for for years?”

Everyone was comparing Apple to Apple. iMac VS Mac Pro. I think it is good to see what the competition has to offer. Is there really anything that great about the release of new Apple products? All Macs and PCs will get the same hardware.

[Andrew Kimery] ” While Dell, HP, MSI, etc., are forced to compete mainly on price because they all get their main parts and OS from the same venders Apple markets a wholistic experience that can only be provided by them. Sony tried to do something similar with it’s VIAO line but it wasn’t sustainable..”

The Sony VIAOs were just Windows PCs. Sun Micro System and SGI were more like Apple but in the end Apple and Windows PCs use the same hardware.

[Andrew Kimery] “[andy patterson] “why doesn’t the new iMac Pro keyboard come with the touch bar? ”

IIRC the touch bar is powered by an ARM CPU running iOS so putting that into a wireless keyboard probably isn’t practical at this point in time.”

I am hip to the ARM CPU. I think it is odd that Apple forces users do edit differently depending on the which compter they use. Apple must figure the touchbar is kind of gimmicky and that Apple users are not going to pay extra money for the gimmicky touchbar features.

[Greg Janza]

It’s surprising to hear that tech support would actually play a role in deciding on a system these days. Most technical issues can be dealt with through web searches or queries on forums like this one.

I Hate Television. I Hate It As Much As Peanuts. But I Can’t Stop Eating Peanuts.
– Orson Welles

[Walter Soyka]

[greg janza] “It’s surprising to hear that tech support would actually play a role in deciding on a system these days. Most technical issues can be dealt with through web searches or queries on forums like this one.”

We depend on our machines to work non-stop. I like that I could call HP today and they will show up at my office tomorrow with spare parts to repair a machine under warranty.

Walter Soyka
Designer & Mad Scientist at Keen Live [link]
Motion Graphics, Widescreen Events, Presentation Design, and Consulting
@keenlive   |   RenderBreak [blog]   |   Profile [LinkedIn]