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New Mac Pro Doubles As Trash Basket


nwstudios

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interesting to see a completely new form, but difficult to say whether this is going to be better or worse. Actually difficult to say if it is going to work in those situations where the form factor is important. the cube/cubiod form factor seems a more sensible way to utilising space in a general sense. 

 

-vin

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I have really impressed and I like the design of cooling system.

Thunderbolt 2 it is new for me because never heard before for this.

Also returned back to desktop philosophy.

 

The iOS 7 looks more and more attractive.

 

Am I the only one who believe that specifications have a base for Film/Broadcast industries?

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In 2006, I paid around 6k for my Mac Pro, and I've been very satisfied; not a single issue in almost 7 years. I'm not ready for a paradigm shift, and am going to ride forward with third party and DIY fixes and support as the Apple tent moves off into the sunset.

My dad was telling me that there are 100 year old Westinghouse transformers still operating in the LA area for the Department of Water and Power, and still serviceable...

...ah... I'm not going to rant about the digital age of consumerism anymore.

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Engadget posted a short video that gives a better look at the form factor of the new Mac Pro. I don't think it really matters that it is a totally new form (round) that breaks with the legacy of traditional towers --- I would abject if this was another instance of the classic criticism than many levy at Apple, the whole "form over function" thing, but in this case the Mac Pro is a screaming pro machine that will be welcomed by the pro community that is its intended audience. I will add that the decision to go with the unconventional round form factor has provided a unique way to dissipate heat (and as we all know, heat is the enemy for any of these devices).

 

 

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Small --- you've got that right, it's just a little under 10" tall! For those concerned with what it doesn't have, this from the Macworld website review:

 

"The most remarkable change with the Mac Pro is the elimination of expansion slots. The previous Mac Pro had a pair of 16-lane PCI Express 2.0 slots and a pair of 4-lane PCI Express 2.0 slots. For current owners who have filled their Mac Pro’s slots and still need to use their cards, you’ll have to invest in an external Thunderbolt expansion chassis that will house expansion cards and connect to the new Mac Pro via Thunderbolt."

 

post-1-0-14918400-1370906365_thumb.jpg

 

Look at this shot which shows the old Mac Pro (tower) with the new one sitting next to it:

 

post-1-0-87590800-1370906496_thumb.jpg

 

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> the Mac Pro is a screaming pro machine that will be welcomed by the pro community that is its intended audience. 

 

Initial response I'm seeing from true members of the target market isn't so positive. But that could just be cranks being cranky. I'm on the fence right now...my potential annoyance at the possible number of cables (and high cost of enclosed peripherals) & limited expansion may be moderated by enough out-of-the-box power for me to get most of my work done (ie- I don't need to color correct 4K stuff). Let's see how the Thunderbolt and USB3 ecosystem develops (glad I'm not AJA, BMD, Avid, or a bunch of other hardware companies).

 

Deciding factor on how much pain/hassle/enthusiasm I'll endure/exhibit will be price...and knowing Apple, they'll price it higher than I want but not so much higher that I dismiss it out of hand.

 

I could be swayed to buy a 6-core i7 iMac or even a Macbook Pro with dual GPUs (that can both be used simultaneously... :->).

 

Regardless, looks like a few months will pass before any of us will need to make a decision.

22sYp11.jpg

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Everything being external allows 3rd parties to compete with each other. Seems like better options of price and features. I think most people expected something like this in terms of a smaller machine with external expansion.

I bet SJ had at least seen sketches of this. He loved the simplicity of the Cube, and this seems clearly pro compared to the oddly configured Cube. I guess the downside of the new design is trying to rack mount it.

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I see a potential for it to be priced a bit lower.

The previous chassis being about 8 times bigger, incorporating PCI expansion slots, hard drive slots, fans to keep all that stuff cool etc.

I don't know JK, prices never seem to drop.

As for the new unit, I like what I see...

CrewC

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I see a potential for it to be priced a bit lower.

The previous chassis being about 8 times bigger, incorporating PCI expansion slots, hard drive slots, fans to keep all that stuff cool etc.

Xeon CPUs start at $1200

6GB ATI Fire HD GPUs cost around $2500 (x 2)

Flash Storage (HDD) is not cheap

 

Keep in mind that the graphics cards are specially designed for this chassis, and the flash HDD is proprietary.

Add the controllers for thunderbolt that Intel licence to vendors...

 

I'd be surprised if it's under $5k.

 

You then have to factor in the cost of expansion chassis for anyone running PCIe cards (Graphics, HD-SDI, Audio)...

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so..... do I just ram stuff like ProTools HDX into the middle of this trash basket? and do I just tie the firewire cables around it?

 

Some great sounding specs, but lack of pcie slots is a bit of a worry for me. not to mention lots of great firewire gear, pretty sure there'll be thunderbolt to firewire of sorts but that's just one more thing to add to the spaghetti of thunderbolt cables that'll be coming out of that thing.

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The toughest part for me is the fact that they choose ATI Graphics Processors. While that's great for Final Cut, the current setup for Premiere, After Effects, etc. works best with CUDA cores, which is an Nvidia Technology. Here's hoping that Adobe expands to cover the ATI processors like they've done before for the laptops.

 

While I wasn't thrilled about the form factor initially, it's growing on me. There may not be any room for expandability, but we recently got some sonnet racks in for a mac mini server setup at work, and that works great. The idea that I can keep my tower out and available to plug and unplug, but offload my hard drives into racks in soundproof boxes sounds great, and a lot better than what I hear now when my tower is running at full speed. Also just think about the fact that when you want to upgrade your system you just replace your tower, but you keep whatever expansion setup you already have. Depending on price, this could make it more affordable to stay up to date.

 

I hope someone comes out with a kind of thunderbolt snake for this. That would be awesome. One bundle of wires coming out the back to your rack mount gear with expansion slots. I'd be up for that.

 

In the end I think price will be the determinate. Here's hoping for something reasonable. 

 

Andrew Howard

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I think the machine looks goofy, and has the danger of being this year's version of the Mac Cube:

 

Power_Macintosh_G4cube.jpg

 

But I agree with Jeff that -- at least on paper -- the specs are screamingly fast. On the other hand, without CUDA graphics, it's not gonna work well with DaVinci Resolve (to name only one important pro software package). 

 

It's very telling that this thing is about twice the size of a Red camera, with a much faster processor, but makes about 1/10th the noise (if we believe the Apple propaganda). There was a good bit in the presentation on how they designed the Mac Pro fan, how they chose the number of blades, how they selected the shape and size of each one, and so on... clearly a lot of time and trouble went into making the thing run very quiet and cool. 

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the greatest specs in the world don't matter to me when I look at the form factor. 

 

-I can't rack mount it, and for a professional post house, this is important. It has been a pet peeve of many people not being able to rack mount the older Mac Pros like we could the G4's. 

 

-I hate...HATE.. the fact that all the connectivity is on the back. Go ahead and put the power cable in the back, but I want everything else up front..or at least do half and half.

 

-No expansion slots means I have to buy other stuff to take up all those ports, which means that's more things I have to plug into power and more things I need to find shelf space for. 

 

I would imagine this thing is going to be darn expensive. If I were going to buy a pro tools rig today and run it on a "desktop" machine I'd just go an build myself a PC at this point instead of using the new Mac Pro. It pains me to say it, because I love the mac OS, but a professional machine doesn't need to look all sexy and futuristic, and needs to work and it needs to be ergonomic.

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-I hate...HATE.. the fact that all the connectivity is on the back. Go ahead and put the power cable in the back, but I want everything else up front..or at least do half and half.

 

 

Hey, Dave, why not just call the BACK the FRONT. Turn it around so the back is facing you. Now you've got ALL your connections on the "front".

 

post-1-0-50607000-1370921990_thumb.jpg

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