[Rick Lang]

Pardon my stumble on the lack of knowledge ragarding 48bit graphics used with Windows! Back to the drawing board on that…

You’re not argumentative, you’re brilliant and enjoy a good discussion.

I need to run but the biggest innovation in workstations in the last decade or so has been their democratization. By that I mean generally lowering the entry point so that no longer are they the domain of a few universities as computing began and no longer a niche product requiring a mortgage on your home to equip your business (if we’re talking one workstation), with software that used to cost another mortgage and now is a year’s tuition at a junior college or even free (with limitations). It’s amazing how price and performance go in opposite directions and will continue to do so as the target audience widens. I think the high-end workstation technology of yesterday has become standard on an iPad or a phone. And what is targeted at the professional creative tomorrow will often impact the low end the day after tomorrow. That’s why it’s important that Apple remember the vision to serve the scientific and creative community: everyone benefits.

Rick Lang

iMac 27” 2.8GHz i7 16GB

[Rick Lang]

[Walter Soyka] “I think that the four defining characteristics of a workstation are performance, balance, reliability, and expansion capacity. “

Not sure what you mean by balance but I think utility (suitability to the tasks needed) is on the list. Off the top of my head:

Would it be disruptive to have Apple completely abandon the 8-bit graphics world they’ve clung to for so long and offer only 10bit and 12bit colour everywhere in hardware and software? And integrate with 3rd party or their own 10/12bit calibrated monitors produced by, say, Panasonic (no longer distracted by TVs) and Sharp for Apple? Too bad they didn’t begin with the 2012 27″ iMac but maybe in 2013/2014 after introduced by the next Mac Pro. And if they added scopes to the monitors?

Would it be disruptive for Apple to get ahead of the curve with 100Gbps optical Thunderbolt while others are still thinking if they should add 10Gbps copper Thunderbolt? Think that would make a difference in how everything interfaces and what can be done linking your components. But they need to take a greater role in ensuring there are things to connect to it, like they did with the Promise Pegasus RAIDs with 10Gbps TB.

Would it be disruptive if they reinvented the SSD in some fundamental way that addresses their current limitations for high-end use? Working with, say IBM or Sandisk, on new nano circuits (a way to make single-cell inexpensive?), new architectures, new intelligence/processors, to ensure huge densities with reliability and dependable speed across the unit whether new or well-used, in burst mode or streaming.

The biggest disruption I can think of doesn’t have a solution yet so not expecting that in 2013 of course, but it relates to how things are connected. We’ve had versions of hardware based implementations of increasing fast PCI interfaces for many years. Would it be disruptive if all that hardware, pins, logic was replaced by something else? If I was a young engineer, I’d be setting a goal to do this much differently, perhaps the ultimate triumph would be to do it wirelessly using spectrum that doesn’t exist today in communications and is harmless to life and can’t travel more than a few metres before its unintelligible (so Google can’t snoop it as they drive by) but I don’t know how to implement it or I’d be at MIT.

Well that was fun… you get the gist of how visionary either enhances something that exists beyond what is expected or bravely replaces what exists entirely.

Rick Lang

iMac 27” 2.8GHz i7 16GB

[Rick Lang]

True, visionary gets harder to do when you have so many products to update continually. Case in point is their hobby, Apple TV. It’s taken so long and become so difficult as the big media companies fear Apple and are playing hardball, that one wonders if anything will come to fruition let alone something that’s visionary. The big TV manufacturers are doing their best to emulate what vision they think Apple has for TV.

And I don’t know if Apple has drawn more engineers into the Mac Pro team or taken them away to work on something else. But the issues of the neglected professional creative community have got Tim Cook’s attention and commitment to do something in 2013. Quite a challenge but I think Apple won’t put any energy into fighting the Promax and those PC powerhouses. I think they’ll once again try to skate to where the puck is going. Any intelligent and thoughtful group (like we hace here) could bat around some ideas but I’m afraid to suggest anything concrete now or it might evaporate like the Apple TV as everyone moves to the open ice. There’s room for hardware/software/storage/network game-changing innovation but let’s hope Apple shares that desire too to think differently.

Rick Lang

iMac 27” 2.8GHz i7 16GB

[Rick Lang]

Oliver
“My guess is that it’s probably fine on an entirely new project.”

Makes sense. When Apple tweaks anything in the Aperture database with every minor revision then they completely rebuild affected components in the database. This isn’t what happens when FCPX is given a minor update–existing things (like compound clips) function in the same way which may be best considering the repurcussions of converting a video project, but new things adopt the new changes.

Rick Lang

iMac 27” 2.8GHz i7 16GB

[Rick Lang]

I’m hoping FCPX 10.0.6 supports reel, etc. from the metadata input from a menu on the Blackmagic Design Cinema Camera.

Rick Lang

iMac 27” 2.8GHz i7 16GB

[Rick Lang]

I think a few posts gave mentioned the Promise Pegasus R4 or R6. I think that’s your best prosumer option which us fine if you only have one user on the iMac at a time. But I’m concerned about that $4,000 limit in your budget, that’s why I suggested a fast raid may need to wait. You’ll be happier making sure you allocate enough funds to ensure you can buy an iMac with more memory and a Fusion drive now.

Rick Lang

iMac 27” 2.8GHz i7 16GB

[Rick Lang]

Walter:
“…now we want every single product release will be amazing, ground-breaking, and utterly transformative.”

Great description of the Mac Pro to be released in another year. I think it especially deserves that treatment.

But I agree the analysts are the most influential about what happens and they never seem happy since Tim Cook took over as CEO. However the stock seems to continue to recover as the consumers respond each time to the incrementally improved products. Speaking of hype, it seems to me Apple is shy to get into the details of improvements they do make. One example is the new screen on the iPad mini–it’s new and improved technology and I don’t think Apple mentioned it. They did mention the 5mm thick edge on the iMac but that’s obvious and also really not important at all to anyone (compared to dropping the optical drive–Apple is wrong to never point out what major features no longer are included). Of course Apple wants to stay away from technical features that might just confuse grandma and grandpa who just want something that looks pretty and “just works.” But grandma and grandpa likely own Apple stock and the youth market they pursue doesn’t. Apple wants to avoid a features war they’ll lose with PC makers of cheap but feature-laden products. Then once in a while they do bring an astounding feature to the fore such as Thunderbolt. They’ll do it again, perhaps it will be the 100Gbps optical TB the Mac Pro will support in 2013. And the stock will rise again.

Rick Lang

iMac 27” 2.8GHz i7 16GB

[Rick Lang]

Bernhard:
“Mixed with a kind of access management,
this app-compound would behave like a single app but access a single database.”

So changes from any program are immediately reflected in the other program and you could bounce back and forth easily to review the Logic change for example back in FCPX and then readjust in Logic or perhaps readjust Logic’s changes in FCPX the way Motion could be used today for some things.

Rick Lang

iMac 27” 2.8GHz i7 16GB

[Rick Lang]

[Margus Voll] “so we could speculate at least quadro 4000 performance for home users?”

Difficult to know until we see what it includes (still doesn’t exist on NVIDIA’s public web pages). Assuming the 608MX is better than the 680M, then we are comparing devices with at least 1344 CUDA cores tp 256 cores on the Quadro 4000. 680M bandwidth is 115 GB/s versus 4000’s 90 GB/s. 680M OpenGL version is 4.1; 4000 supports 4.3! No idea what Shader Model is on the 680M. NVIDIA’s web site is very strange, constant apples to oranges hyperbole so you supposedly get caught up in the enthusiastic claims for each product but impossible to compare between product families. And then there’s the reality of what Apple does to get the GPU into their iMac which may not reflect 100% of what NVIDI offers for a given product.

Best to wait a couple of months and Bare Feats will likely have it benchmarked!

Updated: Please look at this thread as the specs have been posted by NVIDIA today:
https://forums.creativecow.net/thread/364/1184

Rick Lang

iMac 27” 2.8GHz i7 16GB

[Rick Lang]

Someone sent me a link to NVIDIA’s page on the GTX 680MX which was loaded today. Caveat is Apple may not implement it quite as described by NVIDIA. Here’s the specs:

Specifications
Note: The below specifications represent this GPU as incorporated into NVIDIA’s reference graphics card design. Graphics card specifications may vary by OEM. Please refer to the OEM website for actual shipping specifications.

GPU Engine Specs:
1536CUDA Cores
720Processor Clock Tester(MHz)
92.2Texture Fill Rate (billion/sec)
Memory Specs:
2500 MHzMemory Clock
GDDR5Memory Interface
256-bitMemory Interface Width
160Memory Bandwidth (GB/sec)
Feature Support:
4.1OpenGL
PCI Express 3.0Bus Support
YesCertified for Windows 7
3D Vision, 3DTV Play, CUDA, DirectX 11, PhysX, SLI, TXAA, Adaptive VSync, FXAASupported Technologies
2-waySLI Options
Yes3D Vision Ready

Compare to the 650M:

Specifications
Note: The below specifications represent this GPU as incorporated into NVIDIA’s reference graphics card design. Graphics card specifications may vary by OEM. Please refer to the OEM website for actual shipping specifications.

GPU Engine Specs:
384 coresCUDA Cores
Up to 900 MHzGraphics Clock (MHz)
Up to 27.2Texture Fill Rate (billion/sec)
Memory Specs:
DDR3\GDDR5Memory Interface
128bitMemory Interface Width
Up to 80.0Memory Bandwidth (GB/sec)
Feature Support:
4.1OpenGL
PCI Express 2.0, PCI Express 3.0Bus Support
YesCertified for Windows 7
DirectX 11, Optimus, PhysX, OpenCL, DirectCompute, 3D Vision, CUDASupported Technologies
Display Support:
3840 x 2160Maximum Digital Resolution
Up to 2048x1536Maximum VGA Resolution
YesHDCP
YesHDMI
3D Vision Ready
Yes3D Blu-Ray

Rick Lang

iMac 27” 2.8GHz i7 16GB