Apple talk dramatic 2018 Mac Pro update amidst multiple controversies

[longbow]

Interesting article on Macrumors - link...

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Apparently, the negative response to the MacBookPro with Touch Bar, which many complained was not oriented towards pro users, was a major factor. Apple saw a surge of orders for older MacBook Pros instead of the new model, and that, combined with the reaction to the LG 5K display and the "constant negativity" from professional users, led Apple to "double down on professional users." 
 

Also:

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The decision to go ahead and develop a modular Mac Pro replacement seems to have been made only in recent months, with development starting only a few weeks ago, which makes it clear why Apple said it won't ship this year.

Hmmm... Despite those fabulousIy amazing MacBookPro sales we were being lectured recently about by Schiller do I smell a hint of fear?

[MaxAperture Films]

On 4/5/2017 at 5:57 AM, cls105 said:

 I just built an amd ryzen 1700 system for cheap. 300 for CPU, $100 mobo, $225 64gb ddr4 ram. I'm using my old 980ti and ssds. Media componer doesn't run so well on ryzen it so I'm thinking of going kaby lake 7700k ($300), and $150 motherboard.  Apple is the only company in the world that has convinced idiots that a modular system is bad.  I like Wozniak (he was actually techy), but Steve jobs was a salesman who sold koolaid to millions of people. Think different my ass, you can't even chose your own hardware like a gpu. 

If i edit at a production company it's usually on a mac.  These companies just don't care about performance anymore. A lot of these places are using iMacs and editing media on gigabit. And of course they disable spotlight on the network so you can't search for shit.  I totally prefer to edit on my cuda enabled windows box off ssds where I scrub through media like butter.  Mac is good for 1 thing now, you can export prores from tons of software.

I just did the same thing but not quite as much RAM...  R7 CPU + mATX board + V21 cube case + DDR4 memory + 600W P/S for under $600.  I then paid off half the upgrade by eBaying my old 4790 and DDR3.  Even at a meager 3.6Ghz this system completely eviscerates the Haswell it has replaced.  Talk about a cheap performance boost!

[leeys]

9 hours ago, MaxAperture Films said:

I just did the same thing but not quite as much RAM...  R7 CPU + mATX board + V21 cube case + DDR4 memory + 600W P/S for under $600.  I then paid off half the upgrade by eBaying my old 4790 and DDR3.  Even at a meager 3.6Ghz this system completely eviscerates the Haswell it has replaced.  Talk about a cheap performance boost!

What software are you running on? Thinking of getting an upgrade this year or early next year.

[fuzzynormal]

On 4/5/2017 at 1:43 PM, karoliina said:

...better choice with components could have resulted in more reliable Hackintosh. But I did not try that.

Yeah, from what I understand, that's really the shortcut to it all.  Just build with the same components used by Apple and you're more or less good to go. 

[mkabi]

Here is a question for the ages...

Because a lot us believe that if you use the same components as MAC or better; a PC would be equally as good or better than a MAC.

Yes, certainly be better in terms of price.

But, suppose we used crappy components.... I'm sure most of us had a PC or 2 with mediocre to crappy specs... 

Which would survive longer? MAC or Windows? No crashing, no freezing, continuous - solid - semi-workhorse - thats put through its paces?

[webrunner5]

Other than gaming, I see nothing better on either unless you are into FCPX, good product, pretty easy to use, where you really Have to be using it on a Mac. Like others have said, it is just a tool to use to get to an end result. If you were a Mac person since high school, and can afford them, why would a person switch? I see no real benefit to doing so.

But i admit i do like the satisfaction of building my Own computers, and since Mac got away from selling the beautiful Mac Pro aluminum desktop cases, I have sort of given up on them. PC all the way for me now. But I would like one to be able to run FCPX, as it is a damn good product, and ProRes is the output I best like to use. So, hmm, not sure LoL.

[mkabi]

31 minutes ago, webrunner5 said:

But i admit i do like the satisfaction of building my Own computers, and since Mac got away from selling the beautiful Mac Pro aluminum desktop cases, I have sort of given up on them. PC all the way for me now. But I would like one to be able to run FCPX, as it is a damn good product, and ProRes is the output I best like to use. So, hmm, not sure LoL.

Do what I did... get the Mac Pro 2nd hand.... I got a 2006 Mac Pro.... I think version 1.1 for $300 barebones... and then I hacked the rest :D

[webrunner5]

4 minutes ago, mkabi said:

Do what I did... get the Mac Pro 2nd hand.... I got a 2006 Mac Pro.... I think version 1.1 for $300 barebones... and then I hacked the rest :D

Yes, but can you put really big Power Supplies in them? Say in the 750 Watt range or larger?

But i guess with SSD's now we probably don't Need 1,000 watt monsters anymore.

Well talk about neat looking computers. This is my favorite one.

 

[webrunner5]

Well if you want to make a old Pro Mac case a PC here is about the best video I have found to do it. But not for the faint of heart!!

http://build-its.blogspot.com/2011/04/how-to-fit-your-pc-in-power-mac-g5-case.html

[mkabi]

1 hour ago, webrunner5 said:

Well if you want to make a old Pro Mac case a PC here is about the best video I have found to do it. But not for the faint of heart!!

http://build-its.blogspot.com/2011/04/how-to-fit-your-pc-in-power-mac-g5-case.html

This will be my next hack.

 

[fuzzynormal]

3 hours ago, mkabi said:

Which would survive longer? Mac or Windows? No crashing, no freezing, continuous - solid - semi-workhorse - thats put through its paces?

If one is using the same components, there should be no assumption that a Mac would last longer than a PC or visa-vera.  Well, unless you are able to get some of that magic Apple pixie dust from a "Mac Genius" and sprinkle it on your computer.  That should keep it going longer. 

[MaxAperture Films]

On 4/8/2017 at 1:42 AM, leeys said:

What software are you running on? Thinking of getting an upgrade this year or early next year.

Most of my vid rendering work is with Vegas Pro14 these days.  I'm only running 16GB of memory at the moment but 4K previews and timeline scrubs are effortless, even when fed by slow USB drives.  Render times with the GPU are approximately 50% faster than what my i7 could pull off.  Lightroom also seems much faster at importing and exporting files.

I would recommend getting the cheapest 8 core chip (1700) and clocking it at 3.6 - 3.8 Ghz, above that the power consumption begins to become exponentially higher and delivers little tangible performance in trade.  The stock RGB cooler can handle 3.6 or 3.7 at sustained workloads (Prime 95, long renders, etc.).  Buying the 1700X or 1800X is a waste of money for a workstation build, IMO.  Better to put that savings toward DDR4 3000 or 3200 memory and see additional performance gains (the so-called "infinity fabric" wakes up at higher clock speeds).

Can't say enough good things about this $300 CPU... it is absolutely perfect for creators on a budget.  I hope a down-clocked version shows up in laptops this year, at 2.8 Ghz it only consumes around 45W of power.  It would be an incredibly responsive system for those of us who need to edit 4K while on the road.

[TwoScoops]

I finally stopped waiting for a Mac Pro upgrade and switched back to Windows with a HP Z840. The only real difference these days, honestly, is that it's not as pretty.

[leeys]

3 hours ago, MaxAperture Films said:

Most of my vid rendering work is with Vegas Pro14 these days.  I'm only running 16GB of memory at the moment but 4K previews and timeline scrubs are effortless, even when fed by slow USB drives.  Render times with the GPU are approximately 50% faster than what my i7 could pull off.  Lightroom also seems much faster at importing and exporting files.

I would recommend getting the cheapest 8 core chip (1700) and clocking it at 3.6 - 3.8 Ghz, above that the power consumption begins to become exponentially higher and delivers little tangible performance in trade.  The stock RGB cooler can handle 3.6 or 3.7 at sustained workloads (Prime 95, long renders, etc.).  Buying the 1700X or 1800X is a waste of money for a workstation build, IMO.  Better to put that savings toward DDR4 3000 or 3200 memory and see additional performance gains (the so-called "infinity fabric" wakes up at higher clock speeds).

Can't say enough good things about this $300 CPU... it is absolutely perfect for creators on a budget.  I hope a down-clocked version shows up in laptops this year, at 2.8 Ghz it only consumes around 45W of power.  It would be an incredibly responsive system for those of us who need to edit 4K while on the road.

Thanks! Yea, was leaning towards the 1700, it looks like the best buy in the R7 lineup. 

Not sure about the RAM, since Ryzen doesn't officially support those speeds, and will drop speeds once you use four sticks of memory. What GPU did you say you're on?

[webrunner5]

8 hours ago, mkabi said:

This will be my next hack.

 

I may give it a go also. Not going to get it done in one day that's for sure LoL. Hard to still find one of those cases that aren't scratch up.  I would only want one that looked like they did new.

I would like to keep the same look of the power supply though. Like one guy says, take the guts out of a new one stick in the old one. Might be a serious challenge to do it. 

[Damphousse]

On 4/7/2017 at 8:37 AM, longbow said:

Hmmm... Despite those fabulousIy amazing MacBookPro sales we were being lectured recently about by Schiller do I smell a hint of fear?

Apple shouldn't have any fear.  You see the number of rabid fanbois they have just by reading this thread.  And they f'ed up so badly all they need to do is put out a Mac Pro with a more traditional case that allows swapping or expanding HDD, SSD, M.2 drives, memory, graphics cards and other PCIE cards.  They do that with some semimodern specs and they will have a hit on their hands.  Apple is so extremely stupid that if they just evidence a hint of common sense they will do well.

Oh, by the way here is why Apple doesn't give a toss about desktops...

[MaxAperture Films]

18 hours ago, leeys said:

Thanks! Yea, was leaning towards the 1700, it looks like the best buy in the R7 lineup. 

Not sure about the RAM, since Ryzen doesn't officially support those speeds, and will drop speeds once you use four sticks of memory. What GPU did you say you're on?

I'm running an RX 480 GPU at the moment.  Regarding RAM, you can check out kit compatibility reported informally by some users here - http://rymem.vraith.com/basic/view_by_mobo .  If you want to see the BIOS version they were running at the time just click the embedded CPU-Z report.

My G.Skill DDR4 3000 is currently running at 2933 with the default XMP profile in Gigabyte BIOS (GA-AB350M-Gaming 3 Motherboard).  You're right - it may not hold if I scale up to 4 DIMMs.  Waiting to see how things shake out on the support side of things first.

It's worth noting, on some motherboards with early BIOS you actually had to overclock the R7 1700 higher than base clock in order to get it to post above the default 2133 memory speed.  I believe that issue has been resolved with the latest AMD microcode update.  Regardless, you can easily overclock to 3.6 Ghz without even touching voltage.  3.7 Ghz requires only another 0.06V added to the offset (1.248 V-Core).  At 3.8+ Ghz the stock cooler isn't really adequate for the resulting heat.  3.7 Ghz appears to be the sweet spot for price/performance with this chip.

[Trek of Joy]

6 hours ago, Damphousse said:

Apple shouldn't have any fear.  You see the number of rabid fanbois they have just by reading this thread.  And they f'ed up so badly all they need to do is put out a Mac Pro with a more traditional case that allows swapping or expanding HDD, SSD, M.2 drives, memory, graphics cards and other PCIE cards.  They do that with some semimodern specs and they will have a hit on their hands.  Apple is so extremely stupid that if they just evidence a hint of common sense they will do well.

Oh, by the way here is why Apple doesn't give a toss about desktops...

Yes the iPhone is a cash cow, but Mac sales have increased over the last decade as well. The Pro is the only real misstep. Like others, I've used PC's and Mac's, just prefer the Mac OS and FCPx and for me OS X has been much more stable than all recent versions of windows. Plus I'm virus free without running any system clogging anti-virus software. Just my preference and what works for me. YMMV.

Cheers

 

[Trek of Joy]

I paid $2500 for a 3/mo old iMac with the 4ghz processor, 4gb video card, 1th flash drive, 32gb ram and 3 years of AppleCare. To get a PC with a 10-bit 5k monitor and similar spec would not give me any real cost savings, and I wouldn't have the seamless software/hardware integration. So what if I can't update the graphics card or add a new processor, when my AppleCare expires I sell for about 50% of new price update to a "new" lightly used machine - so I'm on a 3-year cycle. My machine has no issues with scrubbing through 2 hours of 4k video (no proxies, hundreds of clips) and it renders/exports faster than high spec Pro's. In Lightroom it stitches 20 image/750mb panos in a couple seconds. And it has the best monitor I've seen. Part of my move to Mac was the constant issue of Windows/driver/software updates and issues with various components would pop up - like my sound card suddenly not working when editing video or audio. Those hassles were a regular occurrence with Windows because you're relying on multiple companies to update their products and that doesn't always happen in a timely manner.

I ran a program teaching media production to high school students for a large non-profit and keeping 25 lab computers working smoothly with the Adobe suite and high school students endlessly surfing the web required a full time staff member maintaining the system. The company IT guys would run the security updates overnight and we always had an issue that had to be sorted, which usually meant backtracking to a previous image to restore functionality. We switched to iMac's and all those issues disappeared while still running the shitty adobe suite. After moving to Mac apps - most notably FCPx and Logic - all of the Adobe crash issues disappeared as well. No viruses, no spyware - nothing but 25 smooth running computers. And we still ran Windows to connect with the rest of the company. I'm done dealing with drivers for all the components and the negative impact updates have on software/hardware crucial to my work, even if it means paying the Apple tax. Time is money and we lost a lot with PC's. Again YMMV.

[leeys]

13 hours ago, MaxAperture Films said:

I'm running an RX 480 GPU at the moment.  Regarding RAM, you can check out kit compatibility reported informally by some users here - http://rymem.vraith.com/basic/view_by_mobo .  If you want to see the BIOS version they were running at the time just click the embedded CPU-Z report.

My G.Skill DDR4 3000 is currently running at 2933 with the default XMP profile in Gigabyte BIOS (GA-AB350M-Gaming 3 Motherboard).  You're right - it may not hold if I scale up to 4 DIMMs.  Waiting to see how things shake out on the support side of things first.

It's worth noting, on some motherboards with early BIOS you actually had to overclock the R7 1700 higher than base clock in order to get it to post above the default 2133 memory speed.  I believe that issue has been resolved with the latest AMD microcode update.  Regardless, you can easily overclock to 3.6 Ghz without even touching voltage.  3.7 Ghz requires only another 0.06V added to the offset (1.248 V-Core).  At 3.8+ Ghz the stock cooler isn't really adequate for the resulting heat.  3.7 Ghz appears to be the sweet spot for price/performance with this chip.

Hey thanks, that was useful information. The new updates from both AMD and the motherboard manufacturers appear to have given a speed boost as well. As usual I won't be using the stock cooler, will be going for something nice like a Cryoig H5, so we will see. Overclocking is not always a good thing in 30C weather, but with a 65W TDP I hope I'll have some room to do so.