New Mac Pro is a very unique design

[James]

It's very compelling. Despite it triggering all of my "PC" senses, such as ability to upgrade, etc. I am really, really ntrigued by the design.

I'm doubly impressed that it takes a standard C13 power cable (PSU is inside, even with such a tiny footprint).

http://www.anandtech.com/show/7057/u...he-new-mac-pro
http://www.engadget.com/2013/06/10/n...-at-wwdc-2013/


Image courtesy of Anandtech.com

[ImaNihilist]

It looks like they took a lot of inspiration from Dyson in terms of designing something with airflow in mind.

[Timman_24]

I love the unified heatsink. Its one of those things that when you see it, you wonder why no one has ever done it before. Its the concept of a water cooling loop using only air.

Looking at the hardware, its going to be VERY expensive. Dual Ivy-E CPU standard with dual GPU, $3999 is probably the starting point I'd think. The MacBooks Airs are great, 30 day standby with 14 hour light-load battery. I'll probably get one.

I'm trying out iOS7 right now on an iPhone 4. It looks snazzy. I like the swipe from the bottom settings menu. The transparencies aren't completed yet on the beta, but it still looks really good. Much better than the tired older design.

EDIT: Nice catch with the PSU James, it makes it even more incredible. Dual Ivy-E + Dual GPU has to be at least 650W.

[Vindir]

I remember back when you could upgrade at least one product in the Apple line-up. Yeah... good times.

[ImaNihilist]

I remember back when you could upgrade at least one product in the Apple line-up. Yeah... good times.

Ever since I've switched to a Mac I haven't cared. I'm on my 4th now. Every time I "upgrade" it means I sell my old machine for >50% of what I paid for it and get a brand new one. Everything is upgraded. Someone just bought a 3 year old 13" MacBook Pro I had in my closet for $800. Three. Years. Old. I **** you not. Some girl wanted a shiny MBP, and didn't give a damn about the specs. A PC of the same age is worth about $200, upgradability and all.

[ImaNihilist]

Looking at the hardware, its going to be VERY expensive. Dual Ivy-E CPU standard with dual GPU, $3999 is probably the starting point I'd think. The MacBooks Airs are great, 30 day standby with 14 hour light-load battery. I'll probably get one.

Once you move to a MBA it's hard to go back to anything else. The only problem I have with the MBA is the screen is really ****. Massive downgrade from the old MPB, let alone the new retina one.

[James]

I love the unified heatsink. Its one of those things that when you see it, you wonder why no one has ever done it before. Its the concept of a water cooling loop using only air.

Looking at the hardware, its going to be VERY expensive. Dual Ivy-E CPU standard with dual GPU, $3999 is probably the starting point I'd think.

EDIT: Nice catch with the PSU James, it makes it even more incredible. Dual Ivy-E + Dual GPU has to be at least 650W.

It is not Dual IB-E CPUs, just a single one. (E5-24xx or E5-16xx something I would imagine.).

Ivy Bridge-E. Single socket, 4-DIMMs.
2x AMD GPUs
Back of one AMD GPU has the PCIe SSD on it.

Ima, In my opinion workstations should be more upgradable than a laptop. I understand the whole "you sell your old laptop to fund your new one." I really do. But I don't think workstations should have a functional lifespan of a year or two.

[Timman_24]

It is not Dual IB-E CPUs, just a single one. (E5-24xx or E5-16xx something I would imagine.).

Ivy Bridge-E. Single socket, 4-DIMMs.
2x AMD GPUs
Back of one AMD GPU has the PCIe SSD on it.

Ima, In my opinion workstations should be more upgradable than a laptop. I understand the whole "you sell your old laptop to fund your new one." I really do. But I don't think workstations should have a functional lifespan of a year or two.

Ahhh, I was watching the Arstechnica live blog and Jacqui misspoke by saying "This is the first Mac that comes standard with dual workstation CPUs" instead of GPUs. Thanks for clearing that up. I'm wondering what Fire Pro's they are using. The specs show 384-bit memory bus and 528 GBps bandwidth which means these are very high end cards. The lowest end model with those specs is the W8000 which is a $3000 card. I'm guessing these are custom made for Apple or something to keep the cost down. I can't see the thing costing over $5000 to start. However, they did say "up to" in the Apple slides, so there may be a much lower end model. I'd like to see a GK110 offered.

[James]

Ahhh, I was watching the Arstechnica live blog and Jacqui misspoke by saying "This is the first Mac that comes standard with dual workstation CPUs" instead of GPUs.

lol The Verge had the same thing. The giant slide is up there saying "AMD GPU, AMD GPU" and it was followed by them typing the text: "First Mac to use dual AMD CPU's!". People can't type when they are excited I guess.

[JabberJaw]

It's a beautifully designed machine, although the cable management is rather curious... dragging all the cables by their plugs to access the I/O panel:

http://www.apple.com/mac-pro/

I/O •

"As you rotate Mac Pro to plug in a device, it senses the movement and automatically illuminates the I/O panel. So you can easily see the ports you need when you need them."

Given the 6.6" case diameter, all cables (including AC power cord) would need 1' of free play in order to rotate 180° with the machine. Unless I'm missing something, that's potentially expensive strain on data cables plugs and the machine's connectors.

[PCVSNotebook]

oh boy

The iCan ...

This thing is awful . this is what iMac is supposed to be , not a Workstation . I always wanted iMacs separated from that Expensive IPS monitor with 1600P resolution .

So what they did is , they made an iMac and just put a workstation GPU in it.

FAIL ! this is my dream iMac ! not the WORKSTATION. and it is not an iMac because will be expensive for the Workstation GPU inside lol .

Besides, they are using stupid Passive heat sink for the CPU+2GPU and a single CASE FAN to blow air out ... this is PASSIVE cooling guys ! and without heat pipes ! so dont expect at all a 150 WATT 3.5G 12 cores Xeon in that thing. so this thing is a downgrade not Upgrade , today Mac pro can have 12 cores running at 3.5G

And dont expect a W9000 Firepro in that thing Either at ALL ... it will be W7000 IF Lucky ...

next comes the lack of 2.5 SSD cage ... this is something unforgivable ! no Raid Option in a Work Station . and they give me what in return ? a PCIe stupid SSD with what? 1 G/s read write which is double expensive than 2xSSD in Raid 0 which will give the same or maybe better performance. oh and wait a year or so , SATA4 SSD will appear outperforming that stupid PCIe SSD and MAcpro will cry hard for not having an empty slot for a sata4 controller and big no those thunderbolt wont do , they will charge you 1000$ for a Sata4 Empty Thunderbolt Enclosure !

I made a Tiny Mac pro once and I still have the Design in 3D files , But I made sure there are 8x 2.5 bays , 4 slots , 2 CPU and good cooler . it measured around 20cmX30cmX30cm and still got all the juice inside.

My Opinion? if you want a Mac Pro , Buy the current one before it disappears , buy it with lowest CPU , and make it 12 cores 3.5 G from the market (dual 6 cores at 3.5 G). you will get a better machine.

oh and those Thunderbolt they are happy with ? they are 20G/s all the six of them . and I noticed a small "b" not a big "B" so thats only around 3 - 4 PCIe 3.0 lanes .. there will be no way to add an external box with Quadro card in there for Cuda demanding applications.

I really dont know what happened there .. but it seems Apple is going the route when Steve Job left them the first time...

oh and one more thing

PCI Express external ports exist for 2 years now , a full blown 16x PCIe 3.0 with CABLES .. why on earth Apple is using Thunderbolt ? I was looking forward to see Native PCIE ports on BOTH their notebooks and Desktops and Workstation .. no latency , no thunderbolt chip !!! Native lanes EXTERNAL ! it is even CHEAPER to make external GPU just pin to pin cabling ! and a box with empty slots and power. Especially the notebooks , you know half the PCIE lanes in notebooks CPU are WASTED and not USED !!! so put that external PCIE PORT!

oh and the 4 dimms ONLY !!! Xeons take upto 256G of Ram and is Quad channel , this means we will have to use ultra expensive 32G modules and will reach only 128G of ram .. not only that , it is quad channel , so all 4 must be used , so when ever you want more ram , you MUST Replace all the installed ones ... and they are Expensive ! Registered memory ! , Just make it 8 dimms slots DUMMIES.

and single CPU means 40 lanes LESS .. those at Apple are forgetting that the Lanes follow the CPU now ! what a mess !

and that power plug !!! it should be from BELOW .. not on the same i/o panel ... that i/o panel should be on front .

But I guess you will need Steve again Apple or some one like him

[ImaNihilist]

oh boy

The iCan ...

This thing is awful . this is what iMac is supposed to be , not a Workstation . I always wanted iMacs separated from that Expensive IPS monitor with 1600P resolution .

So what they did is , they made an iMac and just put a workstation GPU in it.

FAIL ! this is my dream iMac ! not the WORKSTATION. and it is not an iMac because will be expensive for the Workstation GPU inside lol .

Besides, they are using stupid Passive heat sink for the CPU+2GPU and a single CASE FAN to blow air out ... this is PASSIVE cooling guys ! and without heat pipes ! so dont expect at all a 150 WATT 3.5G 12 cores Xeon in that thing. so this thing is a downgrade not Upgrade , today Mac pro can have 12 cores running at 3.5G

And dont expect a W9000 Firepro in that thing Either at ALL ... it will be W7000 IF Lucky ...

next comes the lack of 2.5 SSD cage ... this is something unforgivable ! no Raid Option in a Work Station . and they give me what in return ? a PCIe stupid SSD with what? 1 G/s read write which is double expensive than 2xSSD in Raid 0 which will give the same or maybe better performance. oh and wait a year or so , SATA4 SSD will appear outperforming that stupid PCIe SSD and MAcpro will cry hard for not having an empty slot for a sata4 controller and big no those thunderbolt wont do , they will charge you 1000$ for a Sata4 Empty Thunderbolt Enclosure !

I made a Tiny Mac pro once and I still have the Design in 3D files , But I made sure there are 8x 2.5 bays , 4 slots , 2 CPU and good cooler . it measured around 20cmX30cmX30cm and still got all the juice inside.

My Opinion? if you want a Mac Pro , Buy the current one before it disappears , buy it with lowest CPU , and make it 12 cores 3.5 G from the market (dual 6 cores at 3.5 G). you will get a better machine.

oh and those Thunderbolt they are happy with ? they are 20G/s all the six of them . and I noticed a small "b" not a big "B" so thats only around 3 - 4 PCIe 3.0 lanes .. there will be no way to add an external box with Quadro card in there for Cuda demanding applications.

I really dont know what happened there .. but it seems Apple is going the route when Steve Job left them the first time...

oh and one more thing

PCI Express external ports exist for 2 years now , a full blown 16x PCIe 3.0 with CABLES .. why on earth Apple is using Thunderbolt ? I was looking forward to see Native PCIE ports on BOTH their notebooks and Desktops and Workstation .. no latency , no thunderbolt chip !!! Native lanes EXTERNAL ! it is even CHEAPER to make external GPU just pin to pin cabling ! and a box with empty slots and power. Especially the notebooks , you know half the PCIE lanes in notebooks CPU are WASTED and not USED !!! so put that external PCIE PORT!

oh and the 4 dimms ONLY !!! Xeons take upto 256G of Ram and is Quad channel , this means we will have to use ultra expensive 32G modules and will reach only 128G of ram .. not only that , it is quad channel , so all 4 must be used , so when ever you want more ram , you MUST Replace all the installed ones ... and they are Expensive ! Registered memory ! , Just make it 8 dimms slots DUMMIES.

and single CPU means 40 lanes LESS .. those at Apple are forgetting that the Lanes follow the CPU now ! what a mess !

and that power plug !!! it should be from BELOW .. not on the same i/o panel ... that i/o panel should be on front .

But I guess you will need Steve again Apple or some one like him

Sounds like a rant by someone who wants "the best" hardware on paper, but doesn't actually do anything with it. What is it that YOU do for which the new Mac Pro will be so woefully inadequate? What are you doing that requires 128GB of RAM? If I need 256GB of RAM and 88 cores I'm going to buy a cr1.8xlarge instance on AWS.

Unless you are the infrastructure guy at Pixar or sequencing genomes, no does mass compute in house anymore. I'd guess that even most genome sequencing is done on virtualized infrastructure nowadays.

[MrDigital]

I think it's pretty swank, and even better that it's made in the USA.

[Timman_24]

Sounds like a rant by someone who wants "the best" hardware on paper, but doesn't actually do anything with it. What is it that YOU do for which the new Mac Pro will be so woefully inadequate? What are you doing that requires 128GB of RAM? If I need 256GB of RAM and 88 cores I'm going to buy a cr1.8xlarge instance on AWS.

Unless you are the infrastructure guy at Pixar or sequencing genomes, no does mass compute in house anymore. I'd guess that even most genome sequencing is done on virtualized infrastructure nowadays.

Content creators either use GPU clusters or compute servers and scientists use super computers or purpose built servers. The Mac Pro is really only used for draft renders and debug runs, which it is more than capable of doing. Most companies run a workstation for 2-3 years and then throw it out for a new one. They usually don't have an IT guy running around pulling GPUs every year.

This thing is actually great for most people. You can even throw it in a suit case and plug in anything to it. It's great for shared spaces. Assign a RAID enclosure to the employee and they can simply plug in when they sit down.

I think this will be popular for businesses. The only people that miss out are the hobbyists or some very specific developers.

I may look into one. I'm using a hackintosh right now to develop and wouldn't mind moving to something with perfect stability.

[PCVSNotebook]

Sounds like a rant by someone who wants "the best" hardware on paper, but doesn't actually do anything with it. What is it that YOU do for which the new Mac Pro will be so woefully inadequate? What are you doing that requires 128GB of RAM? If I need 256GB of RAM and 88 cores I'm going to buy a cr1.8xlarge instance on AWS.

Unless you are the infrastructure guy at Pixar or sequencing genomes, no does mass compute in house anymore. I'd guess that even most genome sequencing is done on virtualized infrastructure nowadays.

lolz .. I was talking how Apple Lost their customers . I was talking about a Workstation. keep in mind , Dell and HP still offer the same old design of the old Mac-pro. why dont you ask them the same questions you are asking ME ?

for me ? I gladly love to have 128G CHEAP RAM using 16x8 non ECC Dimms (yes the xeons DO support non registered ram upto 128G , if you need MORE you will have to choose Registered expensive ones) , I will Gladly make 64G Ramdisk there.

now Imagine doing this using 4 dimms instead of 16 !!! how much is each 32G RDIMMS compared to dirt cheap 8G non Registered ?

Plus I need Quadro Card , I prefer them over Firepro ! and even if I want the high end Firepro , it is not Available for this trashcan.

and how about the coming Sata4 in near future ? no slots !!! buy that stupid $1000 Sata4 to thunderbolt Box RIGHT

you went too far suggesting 88 cores and 256G Ram ..

EVEN if you wanted 64 G ram on that thing you will need the Registered 16G modules that are Tripple price.

Apple Killed the Mac pro ! made it 6 times more expensive compared to PC workstation ..... I dont think Steve would Allowed this trashcan ...

Tim Cook is living on Steve reputation ...