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New Mac Pro..


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I cant wait to run Premiere Pro on it!         :P

Well you won't be very impressed.   Premiere Pro Mercury Graphics engine only works with nVidea Cuda core Graphics cards.

The new sewer pipe Mac Pro only comes with ATI graphics cards.  And they are proprietary interface.

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I was being snarky, but that is a great point. I wonder if Adobe will port their stuff that direction, eventually?

 

 

Well you won't be very impressed.   Premiere Pro Mercury Graphics engine only works with nVidea Cuda core Graphics cards.

The new sewer pipe Mac Pro only comes with ATI graphics cards.  And they are proprietary interface.

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Well you won't be very impressed.   Premiere Pro Mercury Graphics engine only works with nVidea Cuda core Graphics cards.

The new sewer pipe Mac Pro only comes with ATI graphics cards.  And they are proprietary interface.

 

 

http://blogs.adobe.com/premierepro/2013/05/improved-gpu-support-in-adobe-premiere-pro-cc.html

 

"Premiere Pro CC introduces support for both CUDA and OpenCL GPU architectures on both the Mac and Windows platforms, which results in a dramatically enhanced list of certified GPUs, the full list of which follows this post. (Please note that the list currently displayed on this page is out of date, and will be corrected soon.) Also, if you own a GPU that we haven’t officially tested, but which meets the minimum requirement of having 1GB of VRAM and appropriate drivers installed, you will be able to enable that GPU in Playback Settings. An alert warns you that your configuration isn’t officially certified, but you’ll still be able to turn it on to use it. All this means that more people than ever will be able to enjoy full, GPU-enhanced Mercury Playback Engine performance."

 

 

Add to that a comment from Grant Petty, CEO of BMD that. Well let me just quote him:

 

 

====

http://forum.blackmagicdesign.com/viewtopic.php?f=11&t=8898

 

Hi,

 

We have been testing with DaVinci Resolve 10 builds and this screams. Its amazing and those GPUs are incredible powerful. I am not sure what I can say as I am only going off what Apple has talked about publicly here in the keynote for what I can say right now, however there is a whole new OpenCL and DaVinci Resolve 10 has had a lot of performance work done to integrate it and its really really fast. Those GPUs are very powerful and have lots of GPU memory so this is the Mac we have been waiting for! We have lots of Thunderbolt products too so video in and out is taken care of.

 

We will have more details once the guys get back from WWDC and we get some more info from Apple on what we can talk about etc.

 

Overall we could not be happier!

 

Regards,

 

Grant Petty

Blackmagic Design

====

 

So I'm guessing with a few months to go, Adobe can decide how much work they want to do to optimize AE, Pr, etc for the new Mac Pro.

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If the fans are spinning, it might throw the trash right back at you!

I think that with all of your cables and such sticking out of it it may resemble an octopus or a squid. This might mean that there will be a glut of cheap iMacs on the market. I know several editors who purchased iMacs with the belief that apple had given up on the pro market and that a new Mac Pro would never come out.

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The new Mac Pro reminds me a little bit of the ill-fated Power Mac G4 Cube which was discontinued in less than a year:
http://apple-history.com/g4cube

 

Innovative design, and sure looks slick, but will enough people actually buy them?

 

The desktop market is much less vibrant then it used to be as the focus has switched more to laptops and tablets. It is cool that it'll be assembled in the US though.

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The failure of the Cube was probably the specs:price, and overestimating the market. It didn't have the performance of the G4 tower. It was slightly better than the iMac, but could use an external display. Some of the people I know that bought them new still have them squirreled away. Offhand people like graphic designers and web designers that didn't need the expandability of the tower, but needed a big external screen, were the people that gobbled them up. Similar crowd that appreciated the design were the ones that didn't need a computer 4 times as large. 

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My concern would be that from a business standpoint Apple is a very different company than they were back in 2000 when they introduced the G4 Cube.

 

In 2000 Apple was basically a niche computer company (with about 4% of the PC market) selling mostly desktops and some laptops:

http://gigapple.files.wordpress.com/2010/01/lapvsdesk_percentage.png?w=554&h=379

 

Now, Apple is much larger and much closer to being a mass market consumer electronics company. Most of their revenue these days comes from iPhones and iPads. Here's a graph of their revenue breakdown for the past 6 years: http://www.wingsofreason.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/Apple-Revenues-Slopegraph2.png

 

Desktops now only make up 3.7% of Apple's revenue, and I'm guessing most of that is from iMac and Mac Mini sales (actually that 3.7% was as of about a year ago, so it may be even lower now).

 

The question is, how long will Apple stay committed to a small volume product like the Mac Pro that barely moves the revenue needle?

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"The question is, how long will Apple stay committed to a small volume product like the Mac Pro that barely moves the revenue needle?"

 

 

How committed do they have to be, or rather how much of a worry is it that they may not pay a lot of attention to the Mac Pro? 

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"The question is, how long will Apple stay committed to a small volume product like the Mac Pro that barely moves the revenue needle?"

 

 

How committed do they have to be, or rather how much of a worry is it that they may not pay a lot of attention to the Mac Pro? 

I think the new Mac Pro is really more of a publicity Tool than a viable commercial product.  It is designed to create headlines.

The unusual design,  and all the publicity about the fact that this will be "assembled" in the USA is an attempt to divert all the bad press about Apple's Tax dodging practices and Off Shoring of all it's manufacturing.  Because of the costs of all the high-end components and the costs of Assembly in Austin TX, either it will be heinously expensive or will serve as a Loss Leader publicity tool. 

 

Since they probably won't sell a lot of them it won't be too big a loss and may be worth the cost to help recover their recently tarnished reputation.

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I think the new Mac Pro is really more of a publicity Tool than a viable commercial product.  It is designed to create headlines.

The unusual design,  and all the publicity about the fact that this will be "assembled" in the USA is an attempt to divert all the bad press about Apple's Tax dodging practices and Off Shoring of all it's manufacturing.  Because of the costs of all the high-end components and the costs of Assembly in Austin TX, either it will be heinously expensive or will serve as a Loss Leader publicity tool. 

 

Since they probably won't sell a lot of them it won't be too big a loss and may be worth the cost to help recover their recently tarnished reputation.

 

I don't remember where the G4 Cube was made, but at the point Apple was still making a lot (all?) G4 towers in California and Cork Ireland. My G4 tower was from 2000 and it was assembled in California. Apple was one of the last computer manufacturers to go to China. I *think* somebody said it was actually Tim Cooke that overhauled the manufacturing and moved everything to China, but I might be wrong there. 

As far as Apple's taxes and overseas manufacturing, it's the same thing everyone else is doing. Apple is actually LESS shady with their taxes than most big tech companies. They don't have a questionable Cayman Islands address. What the press likes to call "the iPod factory" is Foxconn, the same manufacturer that makes something like 75% of electronics sold in the USA. Not just that Dell laptop and non-Apple smartphone, but also your TV and home stereo and whatever else. 

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I think the new Mac Pro is really more of a publicity Tool than a viable commercial product.  It is designed to create headlines.

The unusual design,  and all the publicity about the fact that this will be "assembled" in the USA is an attempt to divert all the bad press...

 

Cook mentioned several months ago (perhaps late last year?) that they'd be building a computer in the US. So I'd guess there's a PR component (hey, they're a big corporation) but I don't think it's just a response to Apple's most recent PR problems.

 

And as you may imply by putting "assembled" in quotes... Apple didn't say the computer would be "manufactured" in the US. Perhaps most modules, the motherboard, and a lot of the other complex/expensive stuff will be manufactured overseas with just final assembly done in the US. 

 

No idea about pricing, but if priced right (ie- not too much higher then people want to pay), Apple could sell a bunch. 

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I'm not going to doubt that the Pro can be mostly assembled by robots. I don't know how many of the Pros they have been selling, but far lower numbers than iPads or iPhones. Out of Apple's lineup, the relatively large and heavy Pro makes sense to be assembled here and not have to ship.

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