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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 :)

Did APPLE forget APRIL FOOLS?! Mac Pros?

Danny Murray said:
Hackintosh anyone? if you don't know what that is go visit Tonymacx86.com and you might not have to depend so much on when Apple MIGHT want to upgrade the Mac Pro!!
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Hackintoshes are great for those with way more spare time than me and many on this forum. I'd much rather pay in $$$ than lost sleep and missed deadlines.
 
Bob Gundu said:
How much validity is there in this macpro rant?

https://vimeo.com/35122338
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Carrey sums it up pretty darn well in that video. Only points I would add are that all the rumors of Apple disbanding the Mac Pro or the next refresh being the last, etc.. are just that. RUMORS. Oh, and not only is he right about the PCIe lane comparison for Thunderbolt, he forgot to mention two key points there. First of all, the Thunderbolt per-device bandwidth is capped on a per-channel limitation. So each device can only use one of the two 10Gbps channels in the port, meaning that a PCIe 2.0 X2 allocation is the most you will get for any single device on your Thunderbolt chain. At least as of the current specs. On top of that, a significant amount of latency is added with the Thunderbolt interface and cabling that you don't have when directly connecting a PCIe card into a slot. Thunderbolt is great for what it is and its intended purpose, but I think a lot of people are trying to make it into something its not... And what it's not is an external PCIe slot with adequate bandwidth for serious GPU cards or other massive-throughput devices. A RED Rocket would only run at half-speed in a Thunderbolt enclosure and would benchmark at noticeably less because of the latency of the interface and cabling.


To follow up my recommendation above and warnings about price, HP has placed the Z-series workstation pricing and customization options online. Holy schneikies! People who think the Mac Pro is expensive need another think on that. I have a Z820 coming soon, probably will ship by the end of this week. I have clients that are supplying this for me and have the connections to get me in with some of the earlier corporate purchases. Thankful I am for that. I'm saving a good bit of money over the HP option by building a couple of the other workstations myself. However, the only place I'm really saving over that expensive HP configuration is the CPUs and RAM. HP is charging a $1500 premium on each the 2687W and 2690 model CPUs. Ouch. Today I ordered 256GB RAM total for two other workstations direct from Micron. That's 128GB RAM at nearly $1900 per system. Not cheap, but these new modules are hard to come by at the moment.

128GB?? Yes. Really. There's 16 cores, 32 threads in this monster. That's 4GB per thread or independent process for when I'm rendering 3D animation frames or whatever. To cache 5KFF R3D at full quality for use in compositing or grading, etc.. it takes 1GB per second. If I'm scrubbing back and forth while grading and want to do it in real-time or as close as I can to real-time, even with the Rocket, that's 60GB of RAM used up for a minute of footage.

You have to pay to play... People who tell me how they can do everything on an iMac or Macbook Pro, or even a Mac Pro with only 12GB of RAM, are an enigma. Sure, editing and photoshop or working in 1080p ProRes, no problem. Compositing, grading R3D and motion graphics, 3D CGI, etc.. at 4K... Puh-leeeze.

128GB RAM today is what 16GB RAM was 5 years ago. A nice, good amount where you shouldn't be able to use it all up unless you really, really try. ;) Oh, and it's about the same price.

Rob Ruffo said:
Hackintoshes are great for those with way more spare time than me and many on this forum. I'd much rather pay in $$$ than lost sleep and missed deadlines.
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Pretty much. You're always at the risk of breaking everything any time you want to install new hardware / drivers or there's a new OSX update, etc.. Not worth the hassle, IMO. Fun for those who like to tinker and have the time.
 
Do people really do professional work on Hackintoshs?
I have been running a Scratch Finishing System with 5800/6000 Nvidia Cards on the best custom built PC money can buy for 4 years. It has been a horrible experience that I wouldn't wish upon anyone.
Now, for the last 3 months since Kona got with Assimilate I have been running a Scratch Finishing System on a 2008 3.2 8 core Mac with $700 Nvidia 4000 GPU and its speed, stability and reliability has been the best ever.
I hear Jarred and others talking about switching to and building a "Hi Powered" PC. I say good luck. Turn around before its too late.
The new MacPro is coming, Apple is not going to let the world start making media on PCs, that will only lead to people buying Tablets and Droids which will lead away from the App Store and Itunes. It would be company suicide IMO.
I really look forward to what Jeff said about Apple opening up to the new OpenEFI and letting the big time Nvidia Cards enter the Mac scene thats the true key to the castle. Gimme a beat up 2008 MacPro, with a 6000 card, and a Red Rocket I can wait forever for a new Mac Pro.
Ma
 
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