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  • Hey all, just changed over the backend after 15 years I figured time to give it a bit of an update, its probably gonna be a bit weird for most of you and i am sure there is a few bugs to work out but it should kinda work the same as before... hopefully :)

The new Macbook Pros are out!

I know Apple and Adobe have had their differences, but abandoning Nvidia completely when it's the only thing that accelerates the CS5 Mercury Engine seems like a pretty low blow.

Maybe they're gearing up for FCS4's own hardware accelerated engine...
 
I know Apple and Adobe have had their differences, but abandoning Nvidia completely when it's the only thing that accelerates the CS5 Mercury Engine seems like a pretty low blow.

Maybe they're gearing up for FCS4's own hardware accelerated engine...

Or maybe it was simply a poor choice for Adobe to lock onto one specific technology instead of going with OpenCL (which is open).
 
Thought the same and checked. You can configure it with 1680x1050 option.

Ah, that's good - I was worried for a second there!

It seems like one has to choose between high speed I/O and using external monitor...

Nope, look here - http://www.apple.com/thunderbolt/. The RAID is plugged into the laptop and the display dasy-chained through the RAID.

Or maybe it was simply a poor choice for Adobe to lock onto one specific technology instead of going with OpenCL (which is open).

^ This. I think Adobe will have to use OpenCL as an option at least eventually...
 
I know Apple and Adobe have had their differences, but abandoning Nvidia completely when it's the only thing that accelerates the CS5 Mercury Engine seems like a pretty low blow.

Somewhat of a low blow to those who are currently using the software. Yep, I may just pass this generation because of the ATI GPUs. Overall, it's not that big of a hit. These new models have much faster quad-core CPUs. Adobe's Mercury Engine is still predominantly CPU-based for decompression and playback. The GPU only comes into play for color manipulation, scaling and transformations, and any of the FX that are marked as GPU-accelerated. No GPU acceleration in AE anyway. So overall, these systems should still provide a boost to those running Adobe CS5. I wouldn't stress it that much. Apple Stores will have the new models on display in the coming days, go take one for a test drive and see for yourself.

However, much of the blame falls back to Adobe though... They opted to use proprietary CUDA acceleration, locking themselves into nVidia GPUs rather than choosing OpenCL, which works on nVidia, ATI, PowerVR and others. OpenCL is arguably not as elegant as CUDA at this point, but it is equally capable in most regards.
 
There are expansion chassis devices that can use the Expresscard slot to add a full PC videocard (ie. nVidia) if you want Cuda. That's what I'd plan on doing if I went with a Macbook Pro. I like the new models, seems like we should have had these at the last refresh, but I'm going to wait and see how the iPad 2 event goes down before plunking down money on anything.
 
Am I missing something? I don't know much about Apple's website, but in terms of ordering options, I am not seeing anything more than 8GB RAM? Also, no eSATA, no Bluray, no USB 3.0, no second harddrive?

Is there some way to get eSATA?
 
I know Apple and Adobe have had their differences, but abandoning Nvidia completely when it's the only thing that accelerates the CS5 Mercury Engine seems like a pretty low blow.

Maybe they're gearing up for FCS4's own hardware accelerated engine...

Problem is Nvidia, not Adobe. Nvidia has been dragging their feet and just rebranding the same old crap. This new AMD GPU blows everything that Nvidia currently has... and it also uses less power.

It seems like one has to choose between high speed I/O and using external monitor...

Thunderbolt works in a daisy chain fashion (like the old SCSI ports) so you just daisy chain your display, storage, camera, etc.... up to 6 devices. Pretty awesome in my opinion... no need to worry about ordering or anything... it just works.
 
or, somebody will come out with a hub that connects to thunderbolt giving you tons of connections. with 10 g connection, there is plenty of bandwidth. that's just in the 15, 17 inch you'll get a double whammy of express card and thunderbolt.
 
that's just in the 15, 17 inch you'll get a double whammy of express card and thunderbolt.

That's just in the 17". The 15" model doesn't have the ExpressCard.

Can't say more as they haven't officially announced yet, but I know someone who's about to announce a couple Thunderbolt adapters. I just found out a few minutes ago. A couple of the goodies include a Thunderbolt to ExpressCard and Thunderbolt to eSATA.

One think to keep in mind is that a single Thunderbolt channel has the throughput of 4 ExpressCard-34 slots.
 
not seeing anything more than 8GB RAM? Also, no eSATA, no Bluray, no USB 3.0, no second harddrive?

Is there some way to get eSATA?


8Gb RAM... it's a notebook. That's how much mem you can cram into one. Get a Mac Pro if you want more.

eSATA = you can get a $30 ExpressCard with it.

Blu-ray = Apple doesn't care about it. It's all about streaming... that's where the industry's going. Netflix, Amazon, Apple, MS... it's all about streaming movies.

USB 3.0 = Intel won't support it in their motherboards until end of 2011... plus Thunderbolt has now made it obsolete. My guess is that USB2 + Thunderbolt are the only two ports that you'll need in the future.
 
I haven't been able to buy a MBP since they reintroduced the antiglare screens... because I can't make up my mind if I should get glossy or matte!
 
How is this (Thunderbolt) likely to effect direct from camera capture modes? Possibilities?
 
Okay, so I could get an eSATA Express Card adapter. How many Thunderbolt ports? I can convert one of the Thunderbolt ports to eSATA, potentially, and have two eSATA connections?

The lack of a second HDD kinda sucks, but at least they offer a large SSD.
 
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