New Mac Pro Announced at WWDC! - It's OFFICIAL!

[Craig W. Bickerstaff]

How can everyone be so certain that Thunderbolt 2 won't be enough for RED ROCKET, I'm looking at the numbers and they seem high enough to me, also you're all basing these assumptions on a standard which presumably isn't even available yet.

 

[shashbugu]

So did you think Apple was going to make a taller tower with 4 extra pice slots? What's the proof that a red rocket card need pcie2 to function? It's been working for many through thunderbolt. Has anyone with a thunderbolt rocket had subpar performance? If you shoot TV commercials and music Videos, do you really need a rocket? Almost every NLE is able to playback a clean 1/4 debayered R3d stream in real time. What's there not to love about native 4k output?just like DVD, then Hdv, then HD once upon a time 4k playback is hindered by software design not hardware. If an NLE maker can't take advantage of 12 core, with over 100GB of ram, 12GB of VRAM, and dual GPU's well....
It here its real

 

[shashbugu]

FCP was the standard then Apple made a blunder with FCPX, Adobe became the new standard, now adobe has shot itself in the foot FcPX will become the new standard. This new Mac Pro unfortunately will not become the new standard, Hp and pro max are competing with subpar hackintoshes for that position. Apple has just given hackintosh manufacturers new brilliant ideas

 

[spadrille]

I really don't understand why some people are defending this New MacProX. All their arguments is about finding or hoping for workarounds. There MIGHT be Nvidia cards in the future. Their MIGHT be Thunderbolt 2 boxes for RRX. You JUST have to buy external boxes for hard drives. Now third party companies will PROBABLY propose more thundernolt devices. You JUST have to buy thunderbolt to firewire adapters. You can JUST put all the parts in a regular chassis if you want internal expandability. The fact is that why would i have to bother with all this? The only answer is because they have built it wrong and it has absolutely no purposes than being pretty (which i don't care), smaller (which is false since everything i need to put outside will make it a lot bigger... and noisier) and above all faster obsolete. When the size of the old MacPro was ever a problem? When did some of you said "oh if ever i could have the equivalent of a box shoe size more in my room, i would work so much better"? I'm sorry but it's a big step behind one more time, like removing ethernet and firewire ports from the MacBook Pro, or removing their replaceable batteries, hard disk drives and ram. Please stop excusing them. They just made everything more complicated for us to spend more. There is no other purpose. Mac Pro previous design was great. Apple is not for pros anymore or really rich and forgiving ones.

 

[Victor MOREIRA]

4k playback is hindered by software design not hardware. If an NLE maker can't take advantage of 12 core, with over 100GB of ram, 12GB of VRAM, and dual GPU's well....

Can't wait for the new version of FCX

 

[Mark Orion]

I have a question. How would I connect an audio spdif in to the new Mac Pro?

Thanks!

 

[spadrille]

You JUST have to buy an external audio card with SPDIF.

 

[Ben Holmes]

I have a question. How would I connect an audio spdif in to the new Mac Pro?

Thanks!

How do you know the audio input port is not analogue/digital (like it is on many other macs)? Oh - that's right, YOU DON'T.

This entire thread reminds me why I rarely come to REDUser any more. Pages of uninformed and hysterical speculation on unreleased products. Just skimming the last 30 pages tells me I made the right choice.

 

[spadrille]

Yes, Apple will surprise us. There is in fact 4 PCIe, places for internal hard drives, and all the parts will be upgradables. We are just foolish persons with no faith. Repeat after me : "Apple is always right".

 

[Karim D. Ghantous]

Repeat after me : "Apple is always right".

Happily.

Thus Spake Zarathustra.

 

[Victor MOREIRA]

How do you know the audio input port is not analogue/digital (like it is on many other macs)? Oh - that's right, YOU DON'T.

This entire thread reminds me why I rarely come to REDUser any more. Pages of uninformed and hysterical speculation on unreleased products. Just skimming the last 30 pages tells me I made the right choice.

+1 here

 

[Victor MOREIRA]

You JUST have to buy an external audio card with SPDIF.

Buy me one. Lol

 

[Scott Crawley]

That's pretty funny, right there. I give clever points. It's a pretty close second to R2D2.

 

[Glen Powell]

Sorry Glenn, but last I checked, we used RED ROCKET cards that are PCIe form factor. Even Thunderbolt 2 will limit performance of these cards, if I understand correctly.

Also, I didn't mention the optical drive, but I agree with you, they're not needed for most things nowadays. However, for a "pro" solution, it's a nice option to have... so is internal storage so we don't accumulate the clutter of external drives on our desks or floors. Just sayin'

Yeah I use REDRocket cards too - I have one in my MacPro under my desk, and another in an external enclosure that I hook-up to a Macbook via TB1 when I do travel shoots. Guess what the Rocket over TB1 works just fine so TB2 should be better (yes?). As for not having external drives under my main workstation…

If I move to this 'new' cylinder my work station won't look much different than it does now:
-Cables for RAID boxes that are medium term storage for projects that clients haven't signed off on
-Cables for RAID boxes that store long term: footage that Use as 'stock' in my own productions
-Cables for boxes that transfer footage and projects to other shooters /editors that I'm collaborating on projects with
-Cables for boxes that arrive from the studio / location with RAW footage
-Cables for REDMag readers
-Cables for Printers

So I'm already managing all of that - I'll have to add 1 more box to hold the external drives for projects I'm actually cutting (to replace the internal drives that I'll be giving up) and since TB2 can be daisy chained I can replace the medium & long term storage RAIDs and get rid of some clutter.

In the end I'm pretty much done with the speculation - none of us knows what will arrive at the end of the year. I find it funny how quickly people jump up to judge something that they know nothing about.

 

[Scott Crawley]

There is no need to disparage insanely passionate speculation here. (or is that insane AND passionate?) It is what RedUser was built upon. Like it or not, it is 1/4 of RedUser DNA.

May I redirect those who despair to Nick's valuable wisdom:

...getting mad at Apple for being Apple is like getting mad at a dog for barking at the mailman. You may not like that your dog does that, but you didn't have to get a dog in the first place.

 

[Mike 'Fireman' Ross]

Actually there is ONE way for Apple to save this, even make it great.

You slip a cover off the base of this thing, revealing an internal PCIe bus connector and docking mechanism.

You plug the Jobsian Beer Can into the Apple Pro Expansion Chassis.

Four PCIe slots on one side, four drive bays on the other side - with an integrated RAID controller FTW. Or something very similar.

You now have your Real Mac Pro - but you can unplug the powerhouse heart of the thing, slip it in a baggy pocket, and take it on the road.

Best of both worlds; full-speed expansion, no mess of data and power cables, portability of the Mac Pro core. And no need to sell the expansion box to people who don't need the expansion but just want fast eye candy on their desk.

THAT I would get in line to buy.

Mike

 

[Jeff Kilgroe]

Although the modularity route was pretty logical as well as a radical switch, from a design standpoint this particular utilization of a cylinder concept is rather...dull IMO.

Just a black glossy cylinder, which has to stand on the working desk. A black glossy bucket to occupy the desk space, without adding to the visual experience if it's already in the field of view. No detail, no finesse...stripes, patterns, grooves, anything.
This seems as the lack of design and overdoing the "less is more" thing.

You do realize it's not black, right? It's polished aluminum, the only thing in that picture that's black is the background it's reflecting. Many of the internals, as well as the connector plate, are black, but that's not what you're looking at 99% of the time.

 

[Jeff Kilgroe]

A second processor is never wasted space. The better question is why didn't they? Isn't that kinda the whole point about Xeons?

Who says they didn't? While it shows a single CPU in the online images, there are configurations that scale to 12 cores, according to current info. They have not announced which Xeon CPUs they are using specifically and as of this time, Intel has not announced any 12-core single-CPU Xeon product. The upcoming Ivy Bridge E5 chips come in 6 and 8 core flavors. I'm guessing we'll be able to choose from single or dual 6-core for up to 12 cores or a single 8-core CPU. Probably won't hit 16-cores with this generation of Xeon, the 8-core chips consume more power and put out considerably more heat, they are definitely not a linear progression in that department.

 

[Eric Santiago]

You do realize it's not black, right? It's polished aluminum, the only thing in that picture that's black is the background it's reflecting. Many of the internals, as well as the connector plate, are black, but that's not what you're looking at 99% of the time.

Great if its reflective.

Animators wont need a small mirror for phonemes

 

[Scott Crawley]

You do realize it's not black, right? It's polished aluminum, the only thing in that picture that's black is the background it's reflecting. Many of the internals, as well as the connector plate, are black, but that's not what you're looking at 99% of the time.

Is it? It is hard to tell in any of the pictures I've seen. In Brandon's pic it looks black anodized or powder coated inside and out.

Edit:
Strike the powder coat... it looks anodized, and that seems more in keeping with Apple design.

Hmmm the top of the core appears to be covered with a shinier black material that I presume matches the exterior finish. That piece is definitely reflective AND black.