Mac Pro petition gains traction as pro users seek information - Page 2

Like Lord of the Rings for example CGI rendered on a farm of simple Linux PCs. Again my point stands. Mac Pro or not it doesn't really matter when you really need the juice (the real pro work) you will need some computer farm to do it.

While I'm not even close to being a power user (I'd be best served by an industrial-strength 9" AirBook), I would be disappointed if the Mac Pro were left to die. The Pro is like the Formula 1 cars that top auto manufacturers build. They're not just irreplacable for those few who need that kind of power (Grand Prix drivers), they're also a testing ground for future consumer technology, and a showcase for the brand. When Mercedes, BMW, or Jaguar win the Grand Prix, their sales go up, and more than make up for the R&D and other costs of racing. Apple is surely aware of this, so I don't believe they will discontinue the line.

I bow to you, sir.  You had me at...  er...  lost me at "geophycicsl."

 

It is a shame Apple has fallen so far behind with the Mac Pro, but I can understand at least part of why they may have.  So many of us former beast-buyers have moved on - not because we don't want Mac Pros, but because the technology has progressed to the point where we can do with less.  I'd been buying the biggest, baddest thing Apple made since the days of the Quadra.  It's been ten years since I bought a tower (9 and a half, actually, but who's counting?).

 

Just because I don't need one anymore certainly doesn't mean you don't.  I'm just pointing out how much demand may have dropped thanks to faster speeds and less need for internal storage and things like SCSI.  (Tangent: I remember thinking how huge yet physically tiny my external SCSI drives were.  2 gigs!  And I could fit one in my backpack!  WOO HOO!  ...oh, how time flies).

 

...anyway...

 

I don't think Apple will abandon the Mac Pro (not that *I* have a clue, really), but I do think the next will be nothing like the towers we've known.  I won't be surprised if the next beast looks more like a Mac Mini.  I could be wrong, but, I still have high hopes for thunderbolt.

 

What pros need isn't a new tower.  It's fast connectivity.  You need access to tons of memory, tons of storage, preferably tons of other Macs, and you need it fast.

 

The tower was awesome in its day, but that model is outdated.  I'm really hoping that Apple will soon deliver something better.  I'm hoping for some sort of Mega Mini.

I don't think anyone believes Apple must produce any particular product. It's a commercial decision they themselves will make. But Long-term customers are surely entitled to some kind of "road-map", in fact, if there will be a "road" at all. Many of us are making our living from owning many Apple Products, for which we are eternally grateful, but we need to make capital investments and keep up with advances in software. All we would like to know is if they intend to continue or discontinue.

 

While they're at it...it would be nice to know if they intend discontinuing Logic Pro or re-vamping. Again, a DAW is a primary piece of kit for Pro users and I know where I am, we are very, very tempted to leap over to Presonus Studio One, particularly with the complete lack of knowledge on Logic Pro X.

Your point is naive. Businesses have for many years committed big dollars to workflows (that includes hardware, Mac-only software, skills training and so forth) that rely upon the Mac Pro, so it's not as simple as simply "switching" to Linux or Windows. Or using an outside render farm - which is a laughable alternative, and you should know that there are many many feature films, TVCs, television shows that cut, graded and output for distribution by small post-houses. Your inability to consider the needs of design and productions professionals is, ironically, elitist.

 

 

From all of your comments here,  it seems you're mostly out to rile people up over this matter rather than to make constructive points. 

 

Your suggestion of doing tasks on other machines is an OBVIOUS alternative that many would rather not do for a variety of reasons.

 

In any case, the Macintosh from its inception has been for people with "crazy needs," which makes your comment absurd.  

 

And as long as Apple is adamant about OS X only running on its own machines,  there will always be demand for Apple to make very powerful desktops. 

 

So have fun following up the post of every person who has a legitimate desire to do powerful work on a powerful Mac, because all of your comments simply fall flat.  

(double post)

 

No your point does not really stand because you are not responding to my post. You are talking about "Lord of the Rings" but how a hell is it supposed to run my work? Are you saying that I should purchase a bunch of cheap Linux PCs to do my work? Let me tell you why I can't do that:

 

- I need OS X, I just can't use Linux for my daily work. As I said you, I am not only talking about some farm of machines. I am talking about workstations, needed also for visualization and so on, OS X has satisfied us for long time. we don't have any reason to switch to an OS that we don't want to use. It's like this.

 

- I need Xcode, period.

 

- I need the OS X Accelerate Framework, the vectorized and highly tuned version of the libraries BLAS and LAPACK which come with OS X by default. No way I give that up considering the speed up they bring. The closest thing to the Accelerate Framework is the libraries provided by Intel but they are expensive if we use them for non-prodit purpose.

 

- You are not understanding what we do. You are talking about some 3D rendering when indeed you can choose to run that on a farm of cheap pcs. We can't do that because we do science not entertainment, so we need reliable storage and ECC protected memory which is not available on a cheap simple pc. 

 

- I am repeating myself, but we want workstations not a farm of racked boxes.

 

For my "real pro work", I need reliable machines for the "juice". You could argue that I could buy a Dell workstations and put Linux on it, but then I would answer to you, no thanks I want OS X and Dell hardware sucks.

Edited by Hakime - 5/25/12 at 1:33am

"I bow to you, sir.  You had me at...  er...  lost me at "geophycicsl.""

 

Thanks, I corrected that!!!!

No worries :)

I am an iMac man, but do consider the Mac Pro, and have bought one in the past.

 

I suspect it is not dead. All the Macs will be updated at WWDC, in a first-of-a-kind whole lineup refresh. There are new Xeon and Core chips available that Apple has yet to utilise. SSDs were only kludged in to the last Mac Pro, there needs to be a case properly designed for SSDs. Also optical drives could be dropped from the whole lineup at once, in a bold move. And a new Retina monitor to top it all off.

 

Of course, the dev conference usually (logically) focusses on the OS's so I could be wrong.

Chill

Keep your pants on everyone. New processors are just out and Apple will be updating the Mac Pro as soon as all the components are ready and tested.

If you need one now, just go out and get one. The 2010 model has everything you need.

Keep your pants on everyone. New processors are just out and Apple will be updating the Mac Pro as soon as all the components are ready and tested.

If you need one now, just go out and get one. The 2010 model has everything you need.

You are fundamentally too kind in this post Tallest, the petition is fundamentally stupid, especially a couple of weeks before WWDC. It is especially stupid coming from someone calling themselves a professional as it rather sounds like a 13 year old whining. It is like a kid asking what he is going to get for Christmas two weeks before the 25th.

I'm leaning towards break through myself. I'm expecting a radical redesign. However I see Thunderbolt as only part of that new technology.

Distributed computation and ThunderBolt graphic card expansion/storage. iMac will allow for 32GB of RAM, not sure if it can handle 64GB or not. The world is changing, for the better.

 

For the record, I'm not saying your work isn't important, cutting edge or otherwise doing quite well with Mac Pro workflow. I'm also not saying that Mac Pro may not be around for a generation or two longer. I do believe that cloud computing and distributed computing will ultimately outweigh the need for dedicated work stations in virtually all scenarios.

Just give me a 30" iMac "pro" with antiglare glass, OLED Retina display, dual i7 quad chips, AMD FirePro M8900 GPU, 64GB RAM capacity, dual Thunderbolt ports, multiple USB 3.0 ports, an eSATAp port, dual Firewire 800 ports, 10GbE, 8G Fiber Channel, a BD-RE Superdrive, one of those new OCZ Octane 1TB SSD's, a 4TB 7200rpm HDD, an SDXC card slot, and an ExpressCard|54 slot.

 

Oh, and a new generation Airport card with 802.11ac, and certified wireless USB added to the mix.

 

That'd be fine with me for a high-end Mac.

 

I find this kind of arrogant FU pro users attitude very annoying. It's not just the Mac Pro - pro users also buy MBs, software, iPhones, iPads, etc, etc.

 

I don't think it's too much to ask for Apple to shed a little light on this subject. Pro users can't just switch back and forth - it's a very lengthy, complex and costly process to switch. And once you have switched there is less incentive to keep buying Apple kit. If you have a windows server and windows pro desktops then you might as well buy windows laptops, Android tablets, etc, etc.

 

Over the years I've seen a lot of tech companies rise to the top, become very aloof and alienate their core user base and subsequently come crashing back down again once their new fair weathered friends move on. I hope Apple doesn't follow this path.

If I wasn't on a job until mid July I would have switched to PC already.  

 

If there was a new Mac Pro out tomorrow, I would buy it tomorrow.

 

I know I'm not the only broadcast designer that needs new hardware to stay competitive.  

1. One of many available methods, although far from Apple.

2. It's not often that something isn't better than nothing.

3. Please tell me (and others) how Apple "will talk to its users thereof directly". Yes, they talk to you - product announcements and such. But you can't talk with them, or can you? No sarcasm here; I just want to know.

 

I've used Macs since 1986; all from a 128 upgraded to fat mac -> now I own 2 pros, iMacs, Macbooks... Have never known a way to talk with Apple so far. Was a developer for some time, and - if I remember correctly - had 1 free support incident available in the plan I paid for in case I got coding problems. That's it.

Don't Apple's own software engineers use Mac Pros? Wouldn't they want to keep using them?

And if so... why not continue to sell them to other people who need them?

Do we know for a fact Apple is losing money on every Mac Pro sold?

Nikon or Canon cannot do without their professional cameras for marketing reasons, though the numbers produced are small. Professional cameras are very visible in the media. Not so high-end computers. So, can Apple afford to leave their professional customers out in the desert? I'm afraid they can, because 95% of all Apple user don't care whether Apple produces any high-end computers or not. Purely economic reasons will decide. Still, I dream of a new MacPro, accompanied by a 40' Apple Retina Cinema display.

Except when it's an online petition. Skill is right, it means exactly 0.

I'm with you on the need for more power.  What if Apple released a Thunderbolt device that could host additional GPUs (PCIe slots)?  Could you chain them together to create the capacity you need?  It seems that the Thunderbolt port has the BW you need that is currently in the Mac Pro tower.  You just need an enclosure to attach to any Thunderbolt-capable machine to add in additional compute cycles (processor or GPU), right?

 

I think that the next-gen of the tower will be a cascading of enclosures using Thunderbolt.  I think you will like it once it is here!

 

Oh i consider. I work for broadcasting company (not that it really maters anyway) and we do our work on i7 iMac where we used to work on Mac Pros. So again my point stands. It's a tool and your inability to do the job with the tools you are given is ironically elitist.

Maybe all he watches is crappy reality programming which, to be honest, does look like it was done by a 16 year old on a laptop.

 

You're being redundant, and at any rate, NeXT pioneered Distributed Computing which is in OS X and his work is extremely relevant, not to mention I do FEA for Mechanical Engineering and I sure as hell won't be relying on The Cloud [Amazon or whatnot], but I will use Distributed Computing and connect other boxes for available cycles to help crunch and process what I need.

 

The HP Z2820 (http://shopping1.hp.com/is-bin/INTERSHOP.enfinity/WFS/WW-USSMBPublicStore-Site/en_US/-/USD/ViewStandardCatalog-Browse?CatalogCategoryID=mLkQ7habZDIAAAE217B1vOY6&jumpid=re_r295_shop_atlas_psg_wsgw_gen_off_6/psgpromo&psn=desktops_workstations/workstation)

 

Maximum RAM is 512 GB. I'd expect Apple to bump up the Mac Pro to 128 GB or even 256 GB.

 

The Dell Precision T7500 Fixed Workstation Maximum RAM is 192 GB.

 

I doubt Apple is taking this much time and not doing more than a CPU bump.

Windows ? Over my dead body ! Never ever will that happen.

I don't agree with you at all. If there won't be an update Apple should end this rediculous endless wait and pull the Mac Pro from the Apple Store. 5000 € for currents specs is theft.

I'll go even further. If the Mac Pro will be discontinued i'll put up my Canon 5DmkII and all my lenses up for sale and choose a different line of work completely. I just wont accept that slap in the face after so many loyal years towards Apple. And i surely won't work with a toy-computer like the iMac which is disguised as an expensive useless mirror !

Overreacted ? Don't think so. I need good stuff to get serious things done. And if i am forced to watch my mirror image all day, i'll QUIT !

I agree that it's been so long since the last update and not a single word from Apple. They are so happy with iOS and all this personal devices and its success that this kind of machines are being completely ignored, or at least that's what we are perceiving.

I don't know really what to think. On one side, Apple it's been more agressive than ever in trying to get a piece of the corporate business, but it seems that its efforts are towards iOS devices more that any other thing. On the other side, Apple has been more and more focused on devices that can get the job done, but that people also uses as they're personal partner, devices that people can't get out home without them.

Deep inside I think they are going to revamp the Mac Pro with something completely different, I really doubt that Apple wants to lose their influence in Movie and Music industries with Final Cut and Logic Pro.

Despite you having you the right to buy or not to buy an Apple product that fit your needs you adamantly feel that Apple, a private company in a free market, doesn't have the right to make products that best suit their needs. You feel so strongly about this that you'd hinder your life buy changing careers if they found the cost of producing a product wasn't worth what they gain from its existence.

You also feel Apple owes you something. That you have been doing Apple a favour all these years as a "loyal" customer buying the Mac Pro for their benefit more than yours (despite that contradicting your previous comment).

Saying you overacted would be an understatement.

Now I understand the desire for a certain machine — even ones that don't exist — to be created most of us will a use case that want fulfilled but it's juvenile to think you are owed anything and it's selfish to think your feelings on this matter outweigh all others for a product that doesn't belong to you. Bottom line: you owe Apple nothing and they owe you nothing.

PS: Taking a hard look in a mirror might not be the worst thing you could do.

PPS: I do hope there is a new Mac Pro model coming soon.

So, not the Mac Pro then as it doesn't use the most powerful CPUs or GPUs available.

I don't see why not. I understand there are situations that require over 32GB of RAM but very few.

In terms of processing, the 3770K for the iMac scores a 7.8 in Cinebench multi-core rendering. The current Mac Pro scores are here:

http://www.barefeats.com/wst10.html

The $3500 Mac Pro scores 8.7. The 12-core models are around 14-15 just now but cost $5000-6000. With an update, the top score will be 21 as they don't use the $2000 Xeons.

Of course 21 is better than 7.8, it's 2.7x faster. But, that 2.7x today doesn't mean being able to do a task and not, it just means faster or slower. Give an iMac 4K ProRes on fast storage and it will work with it no problem.

As for the GPU, the 6970M is a very fast GPU:

http://www.videocardbenchmark.net/high_end_gpus.html

Look where the 7970M is sitting, that's the latest one destined for the new iMac. 90% of the performance of a GTX 580. 2TFLOPs single precision, 136GFLOPs DP.

I'm not advocating that they get rid of the Mac Pro but I don't believe it's necessary for Apple to keep building them. When you look at the value in the iMac: 27" IPS display + equivalent performance to an 8-core 2010 Pro with a GTX 580 for $2k, why would you even consider paying over double for an equivalent Mac Pro setup?

The number of people who will spend over $3k on a computer box is insanely not-great.

Sandy Bridge Xeons only came out this year. All Apple neglected to do was to give Otellini a kick square in the nadgers.

 

You sound like an idiot...upgrading video cards and sound cards is a necessity for many professions.  And siting Thunderbolt as a replacement is laughable...maybe in 3 yrs, but not right now for sure.

Ok. So with their boatload of cash, is whatever the gains and loses that great, that it's not worth continuing with one of the products that made Apple the company it is today.

 

YES I know Apple is ALL about profits, BUT those profits come from Apple zealits just like you and me. And while the i series of products is good, why noy spend a little bit of time and money with the Pro-line of products. I'm sure that the folks at Autodesk would like to see them up-dated - now that they have brought their software BACK to the Mac.

 

So the numbers are small. But are those small numbers worth forgetting, when it's those same SMALL numbers that not only get Apple where they are today, but GOT Apple where they are today. Forgetting the little guy, is like saying "Thanks, but no thanks" or "Thanks, but WE don't need you anymore" 

 

Apple can fall just as fast as it climbed, just ask Apple.

 

Skip

 

There is an entire ecosystem built around high-end Macs...it's not just Apples bottom line...if 3rd party developers stop making professional-grade software for Macs, it would hurt Apple in many ways...and it would make their "migration to the enterprise" more difficult.  

 

The mac pro fills a much needed slot in their product line.  I'd be shocked if they discontinued it.

The iMac is more than good enough for anyone and cheaper. Stfu already.

People who need what apple cannot provide for home use should just build a hackintosh.

 

I have many Real Mac's  but built a macpro killer based around a Dual Quad Core i7 / SATA 6Gbps SSD / GTX 590 and 32Gb of ram all runs perfect and is a hell of a lot cheaper than a Mac Pro

Thanks to Apple Insider for covering this! Can't hurt. Over 7000 now.
Edited by xgman - 5/25/12 at 6:21am

Thank you so much. I am truly glad you cleared that up for everyone. What were we thinking . . . . . . ..

Two pages of replies, and I'm surprised nobody has mentioned what, to me, has always been one of the most compelling arguments for the towers: Cooling.

Nothing else in the line runs as efficiently from a heat perspective. My current setup (G5 tower pending MacPro upgrade and a G5 iMac) demonstrates this: under normal circumstances the tower runs about 20-30° cooler than the iMac. Even running both processors nonstop 24-7 doing encoding tasks doesn't get it as high as the iMac does just running iTunes and Safari.

Saying that MBPs are adequate replacements is silly, power issues aside they don't have the ventillation to run heavy duty processing tasks for extended periods (I've got experience crippling two of them trying to do video on them at various points in time and overheating the processors). With the iMac and Mini being built with the same parts and in cases that are just as tight on space, you're asking for the same kinds of issues.

Further, signal can only travel across a wire so fast, hence sending data out to external drives will necessarily slow things down compared to having everything connected to the local bus (especially when you start sharing that bandwidth with ultra high resolution displays). Thunderbolt is awesome, and I'm going to make sure it's in whatever machine I purchase next, but I don't consider it a substitute for being able to have more drives local, and being able to switch them out as my needs increase over time.

This article pretty much sums the state of Apple and pro users I think:

 

http://theworldaccordingtowagner.com/2012/05/22/if-you-want-proof-that-apple-is-abandoning-the-creative-pro-market-look-no-further-than-their-website/

Lol... this guy......

 

You have been put in your place in multiple posts in this thread, and yet you still keep wanting to tote your "authority".  Thanks for the laughs today (if that was your intent).

 

 

No doubt- my iMac does everything I need it to do- but even running Handbrake makes my iMac almost unbearably hot (to the point I have to turn my ceiling fan on).  I don't do any heavier lifting that photoshop and the occasional FCPX, but I also understand there are a ton of applications that are incredibly more taxing....