Also, Adobe Premiere uses lossy cache files for editing, and then creates the visually lossless (ProRes, DnXHD) on the final render out of your program. This is why they can accept almost any format of codec on ingest without transcoding. Their greatest advantage, most think, over other NLE's. The final render out can take a LONG, time, especially with an underpowered GPU or one that is not qualified for their CUDA acceleration. More effects and more layers equals even more time. Not fun with a client waiting to FedEx it.
The number of studios using Linux has only grown since then. I'd wager there are many times more jobs for Linux admins in Hollywood than OS X admin jobs.
So you're saying they would switch if Apple had the right server hardware? Possibly, but it can't be the same as the Mac Pro because the Mac Pro exists and they aren't buying them and they didn't buy the XServe either.
You can run two cards in the Mac Pro, the ideal setup for Resolve color correction is one high end NVidia combined with a GT120 for computer display and a Black Magic video card (required) for color critical video out to a Flanders or other critical (up to 4k now) display. 3 cards. Can't do that with an iMac.
You can run Da Vinci Resolve on the iMac no problem, they demo it on the iMac:
[VIDEO]
What you're saying is the Mac Pro is a more optimal solution, which is right but the iMac will do the job. The iMac has two GPUs in it too so potentially it can use both at once and Black Magic peripherals can run over Thunderbolt.
If you read Mac Performance Guide carefully, he has fully tested all forms of cache storage for Photoshop, and the OWC Accelsior is by far the fastest. His recommendation if, you can afford it, is two of them striped RAID 0.
His recommendation sounds like one card where he says:
Roughly 270 MB/sec realistically for internal drives on 3G (need current 6G). You can run one on Thunderbolt, but you have to admit, you are then cut out of Resolve
Why are you cut out of Resolve? The iMac has two Thunderbolt ports for one thing but if the storage has dual TB ports like the Helios, you can put display output over it. The iMac has 4 bi-directional 10Gbps channels, 2 for video, 2 for data.
Why all the resistance to the Mac Pro? Seems like envy.
Just resistance to the elitism that only a Mac Pro can do certain jobs. The Mac Pro can do certain jobs better but there are other machines that can do those jobs better than the Mac Pro. There's always a compromise made somewhere.
Apple doesn't make 4K displays either (yet). Is there an urgency for them to make one for the few people who need it? No. There's nothing wrong with buying non-Apple products if they do the job better.
Or perhaps people who don't need one don't like to admit that Apple is not the best at everything anymore.
They never offered the best hardware in terms of performance and expansion. They tend to have the best quality and design, which doesn't seem to have changed.
a lot of very dedicated video pros (sorry, I said pro again) who have to move to Windows to stay current.
Still hoping for an internally expandable Mac Pro type machine this year, along with about 19,000 other "Pros" on the Facebook page
Ah yes, Facebook, the hangout for all professionals. You know that 19,000 people represents under 2% of all the people who still buy a Mac Pro in a year? It's not a lot.
I think this year's Mac Pro will still have internal expansion but if they went the Thunderbolt route, it would still be a good option for a lot of people.
Also, Adobe Premiere uses lossy cache files for editing, and then creates the visually lossless (ProRes, DnXHD) on the final render out of your program. This is why they can accept almost any format of codec on ingest without transcoding. Their greatest advantage, most think, over other NLE's. The final render out can take a LONG, time, especially with an underpowered GPU or one that is not qualified for their CUDA acceleration. More effects and more layers equals even more time. Not fun with a client waiting to FedEx it.
Fortunately the iMac doesn't have an underpowered GPU:
Sorry, but the iMac display card doesn't come close to what is available in PCIe. NVidia has announced the Quadro K5000 for the Mac Pro. It is a blazing fast card, and one bright spot for the current Mac Pro. Check it out here http://www.nvidia.com/object/quadro-k5000-mac.html ; Black Magic recommends the Mac Pro or a PC workstation with a truly fast graphics card combine with a dedicated computer display card to get the most out of Resolve. Get over it, the iMac is not as well suited as the Mac Pro for video/animation use. Let alone HP workstations, which many have given up the Mac for as they run Adobe software better and have kept up with the latest technolgy. Adobe is taking over that space. And yes, that FB page is full of real video pros. The moderator has a very high end broadcast position in NYC. It has attracted high end people from all over the world. Walter Biscardi who is quoted here extensively posts often on Moving to Adobe Premiere Pro on FB. I'll wager there are far more true high end video pros on those sites than you will find on Apple Insider. I respect your opinions, but you don't have to be so smug. You might also want to take a look at the Creative Cow forums as well. Almost all video there. Dozens of forums not dedicated to Apple's stock price. More people come here for stock trends. You have excellent general knowledge, but just enough to be dangerous if I were to base my video facility purchases on your advice to turn everything I do over to the iMac. Maybe in a few years when the silicon catches up and heat isn't a problem, but you just cannot cram that much performance or storage into a skinny iMac. And I don't want my desk to covered with boxes connected by Thunderbolt when all of that tech should be in one machine with excellent cooling and power.
Sorry, but the iMac display card doesn't come close to what is available in PCIe. NVidia has announced the Quadro K5000 for the Mac Pro. It is a blazing fast card
Same processor spec as the GTX 680 but slightly lower memory bandwidth. The Mac Pro is a faster and more expandable and by those measures a better machine but the problem I have is when people keep using phrases like 'not even close'. The current iMacs are fast machines and perfectly suitable workstations.
Black Magic recommends the Mac Pro or a PC workstation with a truly fast graphics card combine with a dedicated computer display card to get the most out of Resolve.
And that's fine but it doesn't mean you can't use an iMac for color grading. You get people like here:
"I run Resolve on a 27? iMac with a quad core i5. I only have 4gb of ram and I’m able to handle basic grades in real time."
and you get people who reply with things like:
"your iMac is going to die soon… Hapenned to me when I thought it has being handled by my machine, and one day it just went off… Nothing possible to do to get it back…"
That seems to be what you get at with the anti-iMac comments. There's no need to look down on other solutions like that. Larry Jordan bought an iMac recently:
"Frankly, this 27? iMac blows the doors off my MacPro. It edits single camera projects easily. Its ability to edit multicam projects is limited only by the speed of your storage – with the caveat that optimizing media into ProRes is strongly encouraged.
If you are looking for a system that can handle whatever video format you throw at it, I am VERY impressed with this new iMac."
It doesn't mean everyone should run out and get one. It doesn't mean Apple should drop the Mac Pro because of it. It just means that high-resource workloads can be done on cheaper hardware now and there's no reason for people to dismiss that.
your advice to turn everything I do over to the iMac.
I didn't advise that. People are free to use what they want and Apple is free to sell what they want. My advice is to open up to the possibility that a Mac Pro isn't a minimum requirement for every creative professional.
Same processor spec as the GTX 680 but slightly lower memory bandwidth. The Mac Pro is a faster and more expandable and by those measures a better machine but the problem I have is when people keep using phrases like 'not even close'. The current iMacs are fast machines and perfectly suitable workstations.
And that's fine but it doesn't mean you can't use an iMac for color grading. You get people like here:
I'm just going to comment on this portion. You pay for drivers that are optimized differently and often additional vram. Workstation cards are sometimes clocked lower. Sometimes 10 bit display drivers are only released for workstation cards. They're actually slower if you're just gaming, but NVidia seems to have limited computation in the gaming cards this round. You may see significantly better performance in double precision math there and better optimized OpenGL once drivers stabilize. Quadro cards tend to be primarily aimed at 3d apps. You can use gaming cards too, but they can really choke on heavy scenes. Ram is a very precious resource when it comes to gpus, and they use DDR5. Just the extra 2GB alone is a huge deal if it's needed (otherwise worthless). It's a big deal with some of the 3d paint apps and gpu accelerated rendering in some cases due to the sheer amount of information that can be present. I know you're going to mention future designs where the gpu will have access to primary ram, but we aren't due for a shift away from DDR3 until at least 2014 to 2015. Even then I'm not sure what the performance difference will look like. I haven't actively poured over the details of OpenCL and CUDA APIs. Perhaps I need to do that. Your details about the mac pro and its pci power limits simply highlight the age of the design. Since then cpus of that class have gotten a little hotter. Mid to high end gpus from AMD and NVidia have definitely gotten hotter. I'm admittedly interested in what Apple will release, although hardware isn't my biggest irritation at the moment. Whenever I look at activity monitor and notice a failure to free up inactive ram, it fills me with rage. Better tuning of OSX would benefit me far more than getting everything I want in terms of hardware. I don't mean so much features either, but that is me personally.
6. Less focus on compute. All of Nvidia's changes have resulted in what is, overall, the fastest and the most electricity-bill-friendly single-GPU gaming video card we've yet seen. But this title hasn't come without one sacrifice: compute. Fermi GPUs were sold, at least partially, on their ability to perform mathematical calculations à la CPUs, and displayed impressive facility doing just that, but Nvidia stripped some of those abilities away in order to improve power efficiency. Using LuxMark 2.0, an application designed for testing OpenCL compute performance, we compared last generation's GeForce GTX 580 (based on an updated Fermi-style GPU) with the GTX 680, and the earlier card came out ahead in every test—and AMD's new cards, like the Radeon HD 7970, did even better. If you want a card that's every bit as good for work as play, Kepler-based GPUs may not be the way to go. But the GTX 680 is the runaway champs for playing 3D games on your PC.
The Mac Pro shows the creative community that Apple is committed to them. That is why it is called "Pro". We can talk about specs until we are blue in the face. Without a Pro machine you will see a movement from Mac to Windows. My fear is that it has already begun. And if you can't see the difference between a K 5000 that costs as much as an entire iMac, then there is something you must be missing. 4GB of VRAM for one. Download the manual for Resolve. They even recommend an expansion chassis for the Mac Pro for full blown systems. Get back to me when you are making your living doing video. I'm glad you are happy with your iMac. You are one of the lucky ones who has been able to get one. And regarding Barefeats,, comparing a basically 4 year old Mac Pro design to anything current is absurd, even though they still hold their own with outdated CPU, GPU, and bus speed. Imagine a Pro with current technology. That is what we want, and no one will talk us out of it. I'll finish my career with my 2010 or 2012 if I have to. No Windows here. But I have several hundred people here in Hawaii who were my clients when I was the exclusive Avid dealer, and Media 100 for that matter, when those systems cost between 50 and 125k. I am in touch with them, and they are not interested in iMacs.
Excellent, well thought out post, hmm. OSX does need work. I'm afraid that since 10.6.8 is going in the wrong direction. My fear is that the focus on the low to midrange hardware by Apple is also indicative of their lack of commitment to performance in the OS and professional applications. iOS rules. Not interested in more consumer oriented bling. Have to say it reminds me of Microsoft's current direction. They have been copying Apple for years. Latest attempt to leapfrog,
I was there. I was at the first showing of the Apple II at the Civic Center Auditorium in SF with Jobs and Wozniak running the booth. Had 16 color monitor output, people flipped. Bought one 2 weeks later. Apple IIe, still have four from a prototype video synthesizer it ran on that I helped develop. First Mac in 1984. FIrst Mac II (with slots) invested in first video output card, the Video Explorer, dealer. First Mac II controlled linear video editor, tape based, the Digital F/X , exclusive Hawaii dealership, then exclusive Avid dealer in Hawaii, then Media 100, etc. Remember the uproar surrounding release of OS 7. Apple sent reps to major cities, Honolulu included, to convince them the world wouldn't end. You could say I bleed rainbow when it comes to computers and video. Career, WTTW, producer, PBS Chicago, some of first docs shot on portable video in world, 1973. Then with TVTV, Belushi, Harold Ramis, et al first feature shot on video for PBS national in Hollywood, TD, 1976. 1977, One Pass Video, first films style video production company in the world, first one inch video facility in the US, before networks. Chronicle Productions, San Francisco, NBC, 1980 remote video technical director and cameraperson. Moved to Hawaii 1985. Then the dealerships and broadcast production work. Board member Film and Video Association of Hawaii. Enough? Some people could figure out who I am from this, but yes, I know Apple and video, and believe me, I still keep up. One thing I know, expandable computers are necessary for innovation.
Sorry if I got carried away, but I have bona fides...
I love that site. That guy is admirable. He's very kind, responsive to email and respects any feedback you give him.
I don't know what to make of 19k FB users in this, but yeah, if it gets Tim's attention than great. I never believed they would kill the Mac Pro anyhow, so to me FB doesn't mean anything. Heck, FB doesn't mean anything to me - period.
Given the scope of free software for large tasks and the commoditization of the hardware to run it, I support Apple's decision to abandon the server space so they can focus on more lucrative solutions.
Sorry if I got carried away, but I have bona fides...
Fantastic career! If I only had a fraction of your knowledge & experience. Man, I like video, editors, the technique, the possibilities. Gees, if I had time to get my hands dirty...so many things I want to read, try out. Why are there only 24 hours in a day??
You may see significantly better performance in double precision math there and better optimized OpenGL once drivers stabilize. Quadro cards tend to be primarily aimed at 3d apps. You can use gaming cards too, but they can really choke on heavy scenes.
But do those things actually happen? You seem to decide these problems exist without seeing that they exist. The compute tests that have been done with the CS suite in OpenCL don't really back up what you're saying. You seem to be happy to keep price out of the equation too. The starting price for the Quadro K5000 is said to be $2249. That's more than a whole iMac with a GTX 680M.
On the one hand people talk about reliability being more important than performance and then in the same breath suggest people put their work on a RAID 0 drive. People talk about this being ideal for one man shops but then suggest they buy a minimum 8-core $3800 workstation, minimum 64GB RAM ($590), Quadro K5000 ($2249), dual accelsior SSD cards (2x 480GB = $1520). Then you need your NEC or Eizo display at $1500 so $9500 total.
This is before you add a single PCI expansion card and the performance of that whole machine is still comparable to a $2200 iMac. The Mac Pro is better no question but not so much better to be worth a one man shop paying $7300 more.
And if you can't see the difference between a K 5000 that costs as much as an entire iMac, then there is something you must be missing. 4GB of VRAM for one.
Ok what else? You're not suggesting it's worth paying over $1700 more than a 680 for 2GB of memory?
"You can even color grade on set with UltraStudio 4K and DaVinci Resolve on your MacBook Pro while viewing a real time preview on a big screen TV or projector!"
The guys from Black Magic tested out the latest iMacs here:
"The NVIDIA GeForce GT650M would comfortably play 3 nodes with color correction and some blur at 24fps while decoding HD DNxHD and the NVIDIA GeForce GT680MX 9 nodes."
"People used to buy $20,000 machines to run Photoshop better. Now Photoshop (unless you're doing something very odd with it) just isn't that demanding; it runs quite well on pretty much any modern system. While it's not quite there yet, Resolve is well on its way to achieving that same status."
"I think 9 nodes on the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 680MX looks very respectable for a one man shop like mine.
IMHO, I don't think my client will care much whether it's running on an imac or macpro."
"9 nodes? I graded at least a dozen feature films on a 2008 Mac Pro GTX 285 + GT 120 combo with that sort of performance (perhaps even slightly worse). Sure, it would be a step down from the i7 3930K + GTX 580 Classified system I built for our larger suite, but... not much of one, in real-world use. At least the way I grade, there probably aren't more than a half-dozen shots in a feature-length project that actually need more than 9 nodes, and there's always render caching for those.
And what'll it be on next year's iMacs? 12 nodes? 15? Unless 4K finishing suddenly becomes the norm over the next 12 months, dual-socket Xeon workstations are bordering on being surplus to requirements for most work."
I'll finish my career with my 2010 or 2012 if I have to. No Windows here. But I have several hundred people here in Hawaii who were my clients when I was the exclusive Avid dealer, and Media 100 for that matter, when those systems cost between 50 and 125k. I am in touch with them, and they are not interested in iMacs.
Well if you can convince those 700 people in Hawaii to buy the next Mac Pro, that will help convince Apple to keep making them.
One thing I know, expandable computers are necessary for innovation.
But this is what Thunderbolt is. It's PCIe on the outside. I see people arguing that USB 3 is going to make Thunderbolt irrelevant and at the same time argue that PCIe is essential. High-end expansion is essential and that's why Thunderbolt is great because it means that a laptop can connect to BlackMagic's high-end devices. That's surely not a bad thing.
But but but the heavy lifting gets done on AWS because the iMac can't do it and they didn't want to invest 1M in the required hardware.
I know but the Mac Pro in a workstation setup can't do that heavy lifting either. It requires too much hardware. The point is that for the workstation part, loads of computer models are capable of it. There doesn't need to be some platinum members only club mentality.
I never believed they would kill the Mac Pro anyhow
This update will be nearly 3 years out. That's got to be the longest product refresh gap in the company history. The Mini only went 1.5 years without an update and people were saying it was dead before that. I think they must have seriously considered it.
If I'm not mistaken, Thunderbolt is the equivalent of one 16x PCIe 2 lane. Really hasn't been an issue for me and my setup. This is going to be a bottleneck for high end GPU plus Kona video card, plus say a Red Rocket, no? Using a Magma external chassis. As far as I know they only have 2 slots available. A workstation, such as the HP (or a new Mac Pro) can have many multiple lane slots. Plus plenty of power and cooling.
Also, if you get involved in threads on Adobe Premiere and After Effects, people are switching primarily to PC workstations, not iMacs. Adobe has been developing that software (esp Premiere) on Windows for years. They are now going after the people on Macs alienated by Final Cut X, which are many. But they have some work to do to get it up to parity with the PC version where it was for years when FCP 7 was dominant. Without a new Mac Pro, I only see that migration continuing. Hardware requirements for Premiere/After Effects are high when you get into complex work, which many shops do, even the one man facilities. Adobe seems to be benefiting the most from the migration from Final Cut 7. Avid as well, but mostly Hollywood and possibly NYC. Avid doesn't play as nice with many codecs, the main strength of Premiere. That and the tight integration with After Effects and Photoshop.
Comments
Also, Adobe Premiere uses lossy cache files for editing, and then creates the visually lossless (ProRes, DnXHD) on the final render out of your program. This is why they can accept almost any format of codec on ingest without transcoding. Their greatest advantage, most think, over other NLE's. The final render out can take a LONG, time, especially with an underpowered GPU or one that is not qualified for their CUDA acceleration. More effects and more layers equals even more time. Not fun with a client waiting to FedEx it.
Yes. That was actually in the pre-OS X days so they couldn't even use the Mac system on their network setup.
So you're saying they would switch if Apple had the right server hardware? Possibly, but it can't be the same as the Mac Pro because the Mac Pro exists and they aren't buying them and they didn't buy the XServe either.
You can run Da Vinci Resolve on the iMac no problem, they demo it on the iMac:
[VIDEO]
What you're saying is the Mac Pro is a more optimal solution, which is right but the iMac will do the job. The iMac has two GPUs in it too so potentially it can use both at once and Black Magic peripherals can run over Thunderbolt.
His recommendation sounds like one card where he says:
"Most users should just stick with one card"
He even talks about putting it in a TB enclosure:
http://macperformanceguide.com/Reviews-OWC-Mercury-Helios.html
Why are you cut out of Resolve? The iMac has two Thunderbolt ports for one thing but if the storage has dual TB ports like the Helios, you can put display output over it. The iMac has 4 bi-directional 10Gbps channels, 2 for video, 2 for data.
Just resistance to the elitism that only a Mac Pro can do certain jobs. The Mac Pro can do certain jobs better but there are other machines that can do those jobs better than the Mac Pro. There's always a compromise made somewhere.
Apple doesn't make 4K displays either (yet). Is there an urgency for them to make one for the few people who need it? No. There's nothing wrong with buying non-Apple products if they do the job better.
They never offered the best hardware in terms of performance and expansion. They tend to have the best quality and design, which doesn't seem to have changed.
Ah yes, Facebook, the hangout for all professionals. You know that 19,000 people represents under 2% of all the people who still buy a Mac Pro in a year? It's not a lot.
I think this year's Mac Pro will still have internal expansion but if they went the Thunderbolt route, it would still be a good option for a lot of people.
Fortunately the iMac doesn't have an underpowered GPU:
http://www.barefeats.com/imac12p2.html
Sorry, but the iMac display card doesn't come close to what is available in PCIe. NVidia has announced the Quadro K5000 for the Mac Pro. It is a blazing fast card, and one bright spot for the current Mac Pro. Check it out here http://www.nvidia.com/object/quadro-k5000-mac.html ; Black Magic recommends the Mac Pro or a PC workstation with a truly fast graphics card combine with a dedicated computer display card to get the most out of Resolve. Get over it, the iMac is not as well suited as the Mac Pro for video/animation use. Let alone HP workstations, which many have given up the Mac for as they run Adobe software better and have kept up with the latest technolgy. Adobe is taking over that space. And yes, that FB page is full of real video pros. The moderator has a very high end broadcast position in NYC. It has attracted high end people from all over the world. Walter Biscardi who is quoted here extensively posts often on Moving to Adobe Premiere Pro on FB. I'll wager there are far more true high end video pros on those sites than you will find on Apple Insider. I respect your opinions, but you don't have to be so smug. You might also want to take a look at the Creative Cow forums as well. Almost all video there. Dozens of forums not dedicated to Apple's stock price. More people come here for stock trends. You have excellent general knowledge, but just enough to be dangerous if I were to base my video facility purchases on your advice to turn everything I do over to the iMac. Maybe in a few years when the silicon catches up and heat isn't a problem, but you just cannot cram that much performance or storage into a skinny iMac. And I don't want my desk to covered with boxes connected by Thunderbolt when all of that tech should be in one machine with excellent cooling and power.
Link's broken and their site's search is broken. Have another?
Here is the one for the Mac it is working here http://www.nvidia.com/object/quadro-k5000-mac.html
Working here when I paste it in. Also just Google NVidia K5000 Mac 4GB of display RAM btw Thanks Phil
Same processor spec as the GTX 680 but slightly lower memory bandwidth. The Mac Pro is a faster and more expandable and by those measures a better machine but the problem I have is when people keep using phrases like 'not even close'. The current iMacs are fast machines and perfectly suitable workstations.
And that's fine but it doesn't mean you can't use an iMac for color grading. You get people like here:
http://nofilmschool.com/2012/08/colorists-perspective-practical-comparisons-davinci-resolve-apple-color/
who say:
"I run Resolve on a 27? iMac with a quad core i5. I only have 4gb of ram and I’m able to handle basic grades in real time."
and you get people who reply with things like:
"your iMac is going to die soon… Hapenned to me when I thought it has being handled by my machine, and one day it just went off… Nothing possible to do to get it back…"
That seems to be what you get at with the anti-iMac comments. There's no need to look down on other solutions like that. Larry Jordan bought an iMac recently:
http://www.larryjordan.biz/app_bin/wordpress/archives/2084
"Frankly, this 27? iMac blows the doors off my MacPro. It edits single camera projects easily. Its ability to edit multicam projects is limited only by the speed of your storage – with the caveat that optimizing media into ProRes is strongly encouraged.
If you are looking for a system that can handle whatever video format you throw at it, I am VERY impressed with this new iMac."
It doesn't mean everyone should run out and get one. It doesn't mean Apple should drop the Mac Pro because of it. It just means that high-resource workloads can be done on cheaper hardware now and there's no reason for people to dismiss that.
I didn't advise that. People are free to use what they want and Apple is free to sell what they want. My advice is to open up to the possibility that a Mac Pro isn't a minimum requirement for every creative professional.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Marvin
Same processor spec as the GTX 680 but slightly lower memory bandwidth. The Mac Pro is a faster and more expandable and by those measures a better machine but the problem I have is when people keep using phrases like 'not even close'. The current iMacs are fast machines and perfectly suitable workstations.
And that's fine but it doesn't mean you can't use an iMac for color grading. You get people like here:
I'm just going to comment on this portion. You pay for drivers that are optimized differently and often additional vram. Workstation cards are sometimes clocked lower. Sometimes 10 bit display drivers are only released for workstation cards. They're actually slower if you're just gaming, but NVidia seems to have limited computation in the gaming cards this round. You may see significantly better performance in double precision math there and better optimized OpenGL once drivers stabilize. Quadro cards tend to be primarily aimed at 3d apps. You can use gaming cards too, but they can really choke on heavy scenes. Ram is a very precious resource when it comes to gpus, and they use DDR5. Just the extra 2GB alone is a huge deal if it's needed (otherwise worthless). It's a big deal with some of the 3d paint apps and gpu accelerated rendering in some cases due to the sheer amount of information that can be present. I know you're going to mention future designs where the gpu will have access to primary ram, but we aren't due for a shift away from DDR3 until at least 2014 to 2015. Even then I'm not sure what the performance difference will look like. I haven't actively poured over the details of OpenCL and CUDA APIs. Perhaps I need to do that. Your details about the mac pro and its pci power limits simply highlight the age of the design. Since then cpus of that class have gotten a little hotter. Mid to high end gpus from AMD and NVidia have definitely gotten hotter. I'm admittedly interested in what Apple will release, although hardware isn't my biggest irritation at the moment. Whenever I look at activity monitor and notice a failure to free up inactive ram, it fills me with rage. Better tuning of OSX would benefit me far more than getting everything I want in terms of hardware. I don't mean so much features either, but that is me personally.
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2402021,00.asp
Quote:
6. Less focus on compute. All of Nvidia's changes have resulted in what is, overall, the fastest and the most electricity-bill-friendly single-GPU gaming video card we've yet seen. But this title hasn't come without one sacrifice: compute. Fermi GPUs were sold, at least partially, on their ability to perform mathematical calculations à la CPUs, and displayed impressive facility doing just that, but Nvidia stripped some of those abilities away in order to improve power efficiency. Using LuxMark 2.0, an application designed for testing OpenCL compute performance, we compared last generation's GeForce GTX 580 (based on an updated Fermi-style GPU) with the GTX 680, and the earlier card came out ahead in every test—and AMD's new cards, like the Radeon HD 7970, did even better. If you want a card that's every bit as good for work as play, Kepler-based GPUs may not be the way to go. But the GTX 680 is the runaway champs for playing 3D games on your PC.
The Mac Pro shows the creative community that Apple is committed to them. That is why it is called "Pro". We can talk about specs until we are blue in the face. Without a Pro machine you will see a movement from Mac to Windows. My fear is that it has already begun. And if you can't see the difference between a K 5000 that costs as much as an entire iMac, then there is something you must be missing. 4GB of VRAM for one. Download the manual for Resolve. They even recommend an expansion chassis for the Mac Pro for full blown systems. Get back to me when you are making your living doing video. I'm glad you are happy with your iMac. You are one of the lucky ones who has been able to get one. And regarding Barefeats,, comparing a basically 4 year old Mac Pro design to anything current is absurd, even though they still hold their own with outdated CPU, GPU, and bus speed. Imagine a Pro with current technology. That is what we want, and no one will talk us out of it. I'll finish my career with my 2010 or 2012 if I have to. No Windows here. But I have several hundred people here in Hawaii who were my clients when I was the exclusive Avid dealer, and Media 100 for that matter, when those systems cost between 50 and 125k. I am in touch with them, and they are not interested in iMacs.
Excellent, well thought out post, hmm. OSX does need work. I'm afraid that since 10.6.8 is going in the wrong direction. My fear is that the focus on the low to midrange hardware by Apple is also indicative of their lack of commitment to performance in the OS and professional applications. iOS rules. Not interested in more consumer oriented bling. Have to say it reminds me of Microsoft's current direction. They have been copying Apple for years. Latest attempt to leapfrog,
Windows 8 (anyone?)
Originally Posted by Jim W
I'm afraid that since 10.6.8 is going in the wrong direction.
People said that in 1976 and 1983. No one listens to them anymore.
I was there then, and welcomed the changes. I have to say , I don't welcome many of the changes is in Mt. Lion. Much less user control.
Originally Posted by Jim W
Much less user control.
Than the move from the Apple II to the Macintosh? Really?
I was there. I was at the first showing of the Apple II at the Civic Center Auditorium in SF with Jobs and Wozniak running the booth. Had 16 color monitor output, people flipped. Bought one 2 weeks later. Apple IIe, still have four from a prototype video synthesizer it ran on that I helped develop. First Mac in 1984. FIrst Mac II (with slots) invested in first video output card, the Video Explorer, dealer. First Mac II controlled linear video editor, tape based, the Digital F/X , exclusive Hawaii dealership, then exclusive Avid dealer in Hawaii, then Media 100, etc. Remember the uproar surrounding release of OS 7. Apple sent reps to major cities, Honolulu included, to convince them the world wouldn't end. You could say I bleed rainbow when it comes to computers and video. Career, WTTW, producer, PBS Chicago, some of first docs shot on portable video in world, 1973. Then with TVTV, Belushi, Harold Ramis, et al first feature shot on video for PBS national in Hollywood, TD, 1976. 1977, One Pass Video, first films style video production company in the world, first one inch video facility in the US, before networks. Chronicle Productions, San Francisco, NBC, 1980 remote video technical director and cameraperson. Moved to Hawaii 1985. Then the dealerships and broadcast production work. Board member Film and Video Association of Hawaii. Enough? Some people could figure out who I am from this, but yes, I know Apple and video, and believe me, I still keep up. One thing I know, expandable computers are necessary for innovation.
Sorry if I got carried away, but I have bona fides...
But but but the heavy lifting gets done on AWS because the iMac can't do it and they didn't want to invest 1M in the required hardware.
Still, thanks for the links; a good read.
I love that site. That guy is admirable. He's very kind, responsive to email and respects any feedback you give him.
I don't know what to make of 19k FB users in this, but yeah, if it gets Tim's attention than great. I never believed they would kill the Mac Pro anyhow, so to me FB doesn't mean anything. Heck, FB doesn't mean anything to me - period.
Good point. One taken to heart by them as well.
Fantastic career! If I only had a fraction of your knowledge & experience. Man, I like video, editors, the technique, the possibilities. Gees, if I had time to get my hands dirty...so many things I want to read, try out. Why are there only 24 hours in a day??
But do those things actually happen? You seem to decide these problems exist without seeing that they exist. The compute tests that have been done with the CS suite in OpenCL don't really back up what you're saying. You seem to be happy to keep price out of the equation too. The starting price for the Quadro K5000 is said to be $2249. That's more than a whole iMac with a GTX 680M.
On the one hand people talk about reliability being more important than performance and then in the same breath suggest people put their work on a RAID 0 drive. People talk about this being ideal for one man shops but then suggest they buy a minimum 8-core $3800 workstation, minimum 64GB RAM ($590), Quadro K5000 ($2249), dual accelsior SSD cards (2x 480GB = $1520). Then you need your NEC or Eizo display at $1500 so $9500 total.
This is before you add a single PCI expansion card and the performance of that whole machine is still comparable to a $2200 iMac. The Mac Pro is better no question but not so much better to be worth a one man shop paying $7300 more.
So are you saying the 2GB Quadro 4000 you previously decided would be your choice is no longer good enough?
Yes, it's very annoying. Having to type purge into the terminal regularly shouldn't be necessary.
As does the Retina Macbook "Pro" and of course the iMac as it's faster than the Macbook Pro.
I agree, without the Macbook Pro or iMac, people would definitely start switching to Windows PCs.
Ok what else? You're not suggesting it's worth paying over $1700 more than a 680 for 2GB of memory?
I couldn't find that part but they also recommend Linux on occasions. They also have things like this though:
http://www.blackmagicdesign.com/products/ultrastudio4k/features
"You can even color grade on set with UltraStudio 4K and DaVinci Resolve on your MacBook Pro while viewing a real time preview on a big screen TV or projector!"
The guys from Black Magic tested out the latest iMacs here:
http://forums.creativecow.net/thread/277/22630
"The NVIDIA GeForce GT650M would comfortably play 3 nodes with color correction and some blur at 24fps while decoding HD DNxHD and the NVIDIA GeForce GT680MX 9 nodes."
"People used to buy $20,000 machines to run Photoshop better. Now Photoshop (unless you're doing something very odd with it) just isn't that demanding; it runs quite well on pretty much any modern system. While it's not quite there yet, Resolve is well on its way to achieving that same status."
"I think 9 nodes on the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 680MX looks very respectable for a one man shop like mine.
IMHO, I don't think my client will care much whether it's running on an imac or macpro."
"9 nodes? I graded at least a dozen feature films on a 2008 Mac Pro GTX 285 + GT 120 combo with that sort of performance (perhaps even slightly worse). Sure, it would be a step down from the i7 3930K + GTX 580 Classified system I built for our larger suite, but... not much of one, in real-world use. At least the way I grade, there probably aren't more than a half-dozen shots in a feature-length project that actually need more than 9 nodes, and there's always render caching for those.
And what'll it be on next year's iMacs? 12 nodes? 15? Unless 4K finishing suddenly becomes the norm over the next 12 months, dual-socket Xeon workstations are bordering on being surplus to requirements for most work."
It's 3 years old and it had the same class GPU as the iMac. There isn't a faster card available for them to test with.
Well if you can convince those 700 people in Hawaii to buy the next Mac Pro, that will help convince Apple to keep making them.
But this is what Thunderbolt is. It's PCIe on the outside. I see people arguing that USB 3 is going to make Thunderbolt irrelevant and at the same time argue that PCIe is essential. High-end expansion is essential and that's why Thunderbolt is great because it means that a laptop can connect to BlackMagic's high-end devices. That's surely not a bad thing.
I know but the Mac Pro in a workstation setup can't do that heavy lifting either. It requires too much hardware. The point is that for the workstation part, loads of computer models are capable of it. There doesn't need to be some platinum members only club mentality.
This update will be nearly 3 years out. That's got to be the longest product refresh gap in the company history. The Mini only went 1.5 years without an update and people were saying it was dead before that. I think they must have seriously considered it.
If I'm not mistaken, Thunderbolt is the equivalent of one 16x PCIe 2 lane. Really hasn't been an issue for me and my setup. This is going to be a bottleneck for high end GPU plus Kona video card, plus say a Red Rocket, no? Using a Magma external chassis. As far as I know they only have 2 slots available. A workstation, such as the HP (or a new Mac Pro) can have many multiple lane slots. Plus plenty of power and cooling.
Also, if you get involved in threads on Adobe Premiere and After Effects, people are switching primarily to PC workstations, not iMacs. Adobe has been developing that software (esp Premiere) on Windows for years. They are now going after the people on Macs alienated by Final Cut X, which are many. But they have some work to do to get it up to parity with the PC version where it was for years when FCP 7 was dominant. Without a new Mac Pro, I only see that migration continuing. Hardware requirements for Premiere/After Effects are high when you get into complex work, which many shops do, even the one man facilities. Adobe seems to be benefiting the most from the migration from Final Cut 7. Avid as well, but mostly Hollywood and possibly NYC. Avid doesn't play as nice with many codecs, the main strength of Premiere. That and the tight integration with After Effects and Photoshop.