Andrew Kimery
Forum Replies Created
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[Oliver Peters] “Look at it this way. Apple is looking out for your best interests. They know you can’t upgrade the nMP much, so they want you to get as many years out of it as possible :)”
All I want is a bone, just throw me a bone Apple. haha
[Darren Roark] “This is the grey area, the GPUs, RAM, and SSD are considered ‘user serviceable’ but as of yet there are no 3rd party GPUs or Apple upgrades available.
I’m hoping they offer upgrade kits as they have in the past for the cgMP™. That will say a lot if that happens or not.”
I know the GPUs are replaceable, but are they intended to be user upgradeable the same way the RAM and SSD are?
I think Apple’s money is in external GPU expansion via ThB even if it’s still not yet as fast as a 16x slot. AFAIK the Mac versions of GPUs that fit inside cMP are the same as the Windows versions but w/just different firmware(?) and a price hike which is why you can flash a Windows card and make it a Mac card. Starting w/10.8 (I think) Apple started supporting pretty much every card, but only official Mac versions give you the grey boot up screen. Maybe when the new, nMP come out Apple will offer the new GPUs will be backwards compatible with the 2013 nMP and Apple will offer them as stand alone purchase for those that want to upgrade, but that just seems very unlike Apple these days.
It all depends on the performance hit of course, but I’d bet most people would go with an external solution where they could pick their card vs paying a premium for Apple’s custom designed, AMD-based GPUs that only work in a nMP.
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I don’t know if it’s still applicable or not but I’ve heard that you shouldn’t use the App Store for Resolve because it doesn’t get regular updates like the version you can download directly from BM.
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[Jeremy Garchow] “If I knew that MacPro prices would drop in a year, I’d just wait. My point is that Apple isn’t going to drop the prices, not by a significant amount anyway, in 12 months time. “
But how many years would you wait? 1? 2? 3? But then a new model comes out and the waiting cycle starts all over again. You couldn’t wait indefinitely because at some point you have to buy it. That’s my point. Better/faster/cheaper is always around the corner yet people (especially when it’s business related) have to buy at some point.
I guess where I’m sorta confused is that many products work on 12-18 month product cycles (cars, consumer electronics, camping gear, etc.,) and many people still buy the current model year, as opposed to waiting for a ‘year end clearance sale’, yet you make it sound like it’s an unsustainable business model.
And it’s exactly what how Apple worked until recently. 12 month-ish product cycles which meant improvements and/or price drops. It used to be that they’d roll out a new the top end unit w/a spec bump and everything else would get bumped down a notch. Ex. Good, Better, Best 2013 MP and then 2014 comes and and we get a new Best which makes the old Best the new Better, the old Better the new Good and the old Good goes away (and usually ends up in the refurb section for a limited time at a decent discount).
[Jeremy Garchow] “Except now, you have to subscribe to your phone payment (or outlay a bunch of cash if you want to own it outright) and in return you get a new phone whenever the new model comes out. Is that’s what’s going to happen to computer hardware?”
Isn’t laying out cash up front to buy your computer outright always what we’ve done with computer hardware (assuming you didn’t rent/lease it from a VAR)? Yet Apple’s recent lag time on laptop and desktop hardware cycles is unusual for them and unheard of in the industry. Hell, in the G4/G5 days it was a 6mo cycle (big upgrades coming every 12 months and a speed bump halfway in between). Not that I expect that to return, but you can’t tell me better CPUs and GPUs haven’t come out between now and June 2013 when the nMP was announced. Maybe the R&D costs are too high compared to the cMPs, which used more standardized parts, and that’s why Apple hasn’t given us a speed bumped nMP?
FWIW I think cell phones have largely been decoupled from cellphone plans as all the major carriers have stopped going with the traditional 2yr contract with subsidized phone. The options now seem to be leasing (which lets you trade it it after 12 months for a new model) or buying outright (either all up front or on a zero interested, 24mo installment plan).
[Jeremy Garchow] “Have you regularly used new Macs? Can you honestly say the old cheesegrater is still a better computer?”
Yes (mid range, D500 models) and I expected my socks to be blown off since I usually work on a 2009 MP (upgraded) but my overall impression was ‘meh’. I didn’t sit there with a stopwatch, but working mainly with camera native HD (multicam) and exporting to H.264 and ProRes the nMP didn’t feel appreciable faster like I assumed it would (using PPro FWIW).
On the flip side I was very surprised at how well the 5K iMac performed (it had been a long time since I last used an iMac and it was much more ‘consumer’ in terms of performance back then).
In mid-2016 a 2009 cMP with non-stock upgrades like SSDs, USB 3, modern GPUs, etc., is still a viable machine for many people. I doubt the 2013 nMP will age as well when 2020 rolls around. In terms of value and longevity I think the cMP is certainly the better computer (and maybe that’s a bottom line problem Apple is trying to correct?). If was looking to buy something new today (wait, I am looking to buy something new today ;)) I’d have a hard time picking anything comfortably. I already have the ’09 cMP and I might just keep buffing it for a little while longer. The 5K iMac seems like the safest bet, but going with a single, mobile GPU just doesn’t sit right with me from a longevity standpoint. The nMP (as I’ve lamented many times) just isn’t a good value at this time (especially with ThB 3 and a new generation of GPUs hopefully finding their way into a new, nMP later this year).
I just think it’s disappointing that the in mid-2016 the nMP, an iMac and a cMP can even been mentioned in the same breath. Yes, Apple made dual GPUs standard yet an iMac with a mobile GPU, according to the barefeats tests I’ve seen, usually beats the D300 model, usually ties the D500 model and only typically loses to the D700 (but even the losing is close enough that it makes you think long and hard and price vs performance).
[Darren Roark] “My wild guess as to why the Mac Pro hasn’t been updated yet, aside from the fact that Moore’s law is slowing rapidly: “
I agree that Apple is probably waiting for milestone-type changes but there are still ways they could have buffed the nMP as opposed to keeping it stagnant. I mean, I can certainly buy a GPU today that’s better than the GPU I bought in 2013. That’s the main point of this being a bur under my saddle. If Apple made a user upgradeable machine I would be fine with longer durations between upgrades because I wouldn’t be solely dependent on Apple to when it came to improvements. If I am solely dependent on Apple when it comes to improvements then I’m not going to be happy with long durations between upgrades (especially if the price the same for years on end). As users, especially users that are in the market for Apple’s flag ship computer, I think we deserve better. Who knows, maybe with ThB 3 the external GPU performance will be at a ‘good enough’ point that going that route will meet the needs of majority of users that don’t need bleeding edge speed.
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[Jeremy Garchow] “If I bought a new MacPro and the price dropped in 12 months, why would I ever buy a new MacPro when I could get a year old one for cheaper?”
With that line of thinking you’d never buy a computer (or a car, or a TV or an video game system, or a smart phone, etc.,) because it will always be cheaper/faster/better ‘tomorrow’. My GF made fun of me for this because for like 5yrs I was aways ‘just about to buy’ an iPod but never did because I knew if I waited I’d get more bang for my buck. I never did buy an iPod, but the boss got everyone in the office got iPods for Christmas one year so I still managed to end up with one. Work computers are different though because I use them to generate income (as opposed to an iPod which was just frivolous).
People pull the trigger when the system gets features they need/want now. Or it’s already been years since their last upgrade and they can’t keep waiting ‘another year’ indefinitely. And Macs hold their resale value very well so even those trying to score a used one won’t save a ton of money. It’s only been recently that Apple’s desktops and laptops have drifted away from a 12 month-ish update cycle. The iDevices get update every year and Apple doesn’t seem to have much of a problem selling those.
Why would I pay top dollar for a 2013 nMP in mid-2016? A refresh is imminent or the product line is dead, either way it’s still top dollar for old tech. Let’s say Apple has moved the nMP to a three year product cycle. Why would anyone buy one in the ‘refresh year’ when it’s never seen a price drop? Now if there had been price drops then that keeps the value proposition of an aging system alive. Do I pay less now for older hardware or do I wait and pay more for upgraded hardware (this is of course assuming the next nMP won’t come with a price hike). Or do I save a fair amount of money and just get a 5K iMac. The price/performance on the 2013 nMP right now just doesn’t make sense to me.
Of course give the choice I’d much rather have annual refreshes at the same price point than annual price drops on aging hardware.
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[Jeremy Garchow] ” Apple to assemble the parts needed for a $25,000 MacPro, I just don’t see the point. The technology is going to change too fast to keep up, and as well as and for as long as Apple supports their machines, getting in to an endless matrix of user configurable parts wouldn’t make for easy reparability or customer service. “
Apple, king of desktop revolution, has never played in the realm of highest of high end computers and I don’t expect to start now. What would be nice though is if the Mac Pro wasn’t full of tech that was cutting edge in 2012 and if it could decisively outperform the computer line that is one tier below it. I don’t think that’s too much to ask of what’s supposed to be a flagship machine. A refresh, or at least a price drop, every 12 months or so would be nice too since the tech is changing fast and the ability to upgrade the newer Macs is much less than what you can do with a cMP.
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[Charlie Austin] “Now, I just email the developers and, if it’s a real problem and not me screwing something up, it get’s fixed pretty quickly.”
Good point. And I wonder if 3rd parties feel more comfortable developing for X than PPro since they are less likely to have Apple one up them with a first party feature. For example, I’m much less likely to use Colorista II now given what Adobe has done with the Lumetri Color feature inside PPro. Does that make Red Giant less likely to keep developing Colorista for PPro, or is it the normal push and pull where Red Giant will look to up it’s game/add some unique functionality to keep Colorista viable? Of course with that being said I was reminded by a dev the other day that FCP Legend had hundreds of 3rd party plugins so I guess even with first party upgrades there is still lots of room for 3rd parties to fill in niches.
For being so developer dependent you’d Apple would loosen up the reigns more on X to 3rd parties even more flexibility. For example, I’m loving the Frame.io panel in PPro but to the best of my layman-level knowledge it’s not currently possible to build the same functionality inside of X.
[Charlie Austin] “There was a real 3D environment available for FCP X long before 3D text. ;-)”
I did not realize that. What did Apple’s additions of 3D text bring to the table if a 3D environment was already available inside of X?
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[Jeremy Garchow] “I have no doubts that Apple hardware isn’t perfect. What hardware does not have a mtbf, especially ones that generate considerable heat?”
I think the rub with the nMP is the target audience is the least likely of Apple’s user base to say, “Hey, please nerf this thing to make it as small and quiet as possible because I’m more concerned about that than getting the most out of the dual GPUs you ship placed inside of it.” Yet for a machine with two “workstation class GPUs” (Apple’s words) the cooling seems to be subpar if you want to use as a workstation for no reason other than aesthetics (I’ve even read that the GPUs in the nMP are underclocked to try to keep heat in check).
[Jeremy Garchow] “I am certainly not absolving Apple of doing weird things. 10 blown out MacPros in a production would be enough to switch to a beefy PC, but the sky is not falling quite yet.”
In other threads I’ve read the glitchy Resolve renders were solved by running Windows instead of OS X which points to maybe a software/driver issue and instead of hardware. Along the same lines there are a number of people (including myself) that have/had issues in PPro when running certain versions of OS X (10.9.x and 10.10.x IIRC) with Nvidia GPUs with CUDA turned on (the problems go away when using OpenCL). Adobe says it’s a driver problem and Nvida says it’s an Apple problem. So far the only fix seems to be doing a clean install of OS X 10.11.x (which implies it’s an bad driver from Apple that doesn’t get replaced unless you do a ground up install of OS X).
There is also the manufacturing defect on all MBP from 2010-2013 (off the top of my head I think that’s the range) which eventually bricks them because the GPU fries from improperly applied thermal paste.
Overall I think the negative reaction is the other edge of Apple’s “we control it all in order to provide a better user experience” stance. When it works they get high fives for being awesome, when it doesn’t work they get all the blame (which usually is compounded by their silence/secrecy). For example, it took years for Apple to admit that the first gen cMP shipped a faulty GPU and by the time they issued a recall most of those faulty GPUs had already failed and been replaced (Apple just seems to have a history of GPU related problems for some reason).
And just to prove I’m not just ragging on Apple, in my personal experience Blackmagic typically over-promises and under-delivers with their hardware. Many times disabling BM Mini Monitor will resolve any ‘weirdness’ I might have in PPro and a friends BM Ultra Studio Express has new life as a paperweight.
[Jeremy Garchow] “The more interesting part of the Deadpool articles is the reliance of third parties to fix workflow holes, something that Apple gets tremendous sh*t for, for whatever reason. Adobe gets celebrated for having, nay, needing third party workflow helpers.”
IMO the difference stems in large part from differing approaches by Apple and Adobe. Adobe, like most of us are used it, applies a lot of first party changes to PPro where as Apple, in a departure from what most of us are used to, relies much more on third parties to expand functionality in X. For example, and since we are already talking about interchange between apps, Wes Plate goes to Adobe and helps create some solid round tripping between PPro, AE and SG. Wes then exists and creates Xsend-Motion which is a $100, third party plugin that gives users functionality similar to the Send to Motion feature that used to exist between FCP and Motion. 3D text is another example. Apple added rather basic functionality to X, but it was third parties that really leveraged it to its full potential.
As someone who is just starting to get into X, I think it’s harder to see the full scope of what X can do because you have to be much more in tune with the third party devs than you do for Adobe or Avid (or even FCP Legend). That leads to the feeling that Apple is disinterested in X but, disinterested or not, does it matter in the end as long as someone (first or third party) provides the functionality you are looking for at a reasonable price?
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[David Mathis] “I wish Apple would do that. I would rather build a custom desktop then wait for another expensive trash can model.”
Why would Apple license out its OS to another hardware maker that would most likely undercut Apple on price? That doesn’t sound like it would sell more Apple hardware and selling Apple hardware is why keeps the lights on up in Cupertino.
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Glad Apple finally changed some of its crappy App Store policies. Hopefully this will help curtail the race-to-the-bottom and make being a software maker a more viable than it currently is.
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[David Mathis] “They just updated Fusion as well and they came out with Fusion Connect for Avid users.”
I’m glad BM are keeping that feature. I was afraid they’d kill it after they bought Fusion.