You forgot the iMac fan who keeps complaining about Apple's "unhealthy obsession with thinness" and lack of front facing USB ports and SD card slots.
It doesn't really matter to me because I'm not buying an iMac, but just playing Devil's Advocate, when they can't use 7200 rpm drives because the thin enclosure can't provide adequate cooling, that could be construed as taking thinness too far.
It would be fine if the BTO price for SSD were somewhere within visual range of anything approximating reasonable, but a buck a gig? Ouch. I'd just install my own… if I could get into the thing without having to melt glue with a hair dryer! Not an option for the majority of users.
As for the ports thing, it actually *IS* a PITA to get at rear-facing ports. I don't understand why that particular objection bothers you?
1) I'd say rarely are all features used. How many people use an external display with their notebook? I bet the percentage is very low.
2) Isn't one of the GPUs used for increasing the central processing with OpenCL or something like that?
No, both GPU's process OpenCL code simultaneously unless the code being used is purposely coded in such a way to just use utilize a single GPU or even a single core within the GPU. Though I have only seen this being done in Android, specifically for battery saving measures, on a workstation however it wouldn't bring any notable advantages.
As of right now though the amount of properly coded commercial apps that utilize OpenCL in OSX is still fairly small, nothing compared to what is available for Cuda on a Windows workstation but this is fastly changing and I hope to see many more apps this time next year. Here's some of the more popular OpenCL Apps.
Adobe PhotoShop CS6
Battlefield 3
Final Cut Pro X
GIMP
Handbrake
LuxMark
Mathematica 8
VLC media player
Mathematica 8
Motion 5
Compressor 4
Mari
Ah... better. I'm totally up on using a Mac Pro as a renderer/compiler, but more as an individual workstation, or maybe on the bigger side of say a science center where they link up a bunch of Mac Pros to do some serious modeling.
I think it would make a great VM server, running a bunch of Windows Server Instances, or whatever else. Sure, one can build a linux box, or whatever else, but one cannot beat Apple's hardware quality and support.
For general OSX server needs though, I think a Mac Mini would suffice just fine for the basics. I'd love to get a Mac Pro, but I just can't justify the expense for all that extreme horsepower. However, unlike other posters here, I'm okay with it and I don't expect Apple to cater to my unique needs when 99.9% of their market couldn't care any less about it. Some people here just don't give up.
I couldn't in good conscious ever use the new Mac Pro as a server, not only is it an absolute waste of an awesome workstation it's just too expensive for something that wouldn't do a better job than a machine half its cost, especially when it was built from the ground up to be a server. Not to mention that I just wouldnt use HFS+ nor something that didn't have a hot plugable raid system. There are Sun(Oracle) Netra systems with dual CPU, 8 core Sparc CPU's, 32GB, 4 1Gbs ethernet, 6 hot swabable hard drive enclosures and two hot swabable power supply's that can be had for less than 3,000 dollars on eBay, which use the ZFS file system. The Sun server setup software is very easy to use and these servers work fantastically with an all Mac office. If anything ever happened to a single component on the Mac Pro it would bring your entire network down until such a time you could send the Mac Pro in to have it repaired, a Netra's components are all replaceable in under 10 minutes, with the most likely to fail component's like the hard drives and power supply already having built in redundancy.
I am really sorry to hear that. This kind of illness is the worst that can happen in your life. How are you doing now? I know personally one woman that had it also many years ago. She was lucky to have it diagnosed in an early stage. She is fine today.
If we could get nVIDIA graphics in the new Mac Pro, I think there would be less complaining since people would have access to CUDA. I am not expecting TESLA cards but whatever nVIDIA could come up with using their new Maxwell architecture that would be equivalent to two GTX Titan Black GPUs would be nice, and appreciated, by Blender users.
If we could get nVIDIA graphics in the new Mac Pro, I think there would be less complaining since people would have access to CUDA. I am not expecting TESLA cards but whatever nVIDIA could come up with using their new Maxwell architecture that would be equivalent to two GTX Titan Black GPUs would be nice, and appreciated, by Blender users.
Nah, OpenCL is just fine, I just commented that their is more commercial software available for Cuda but that's just because it has been pushed by Nvidia for so long. I would much more like to see OpenCL being used as it's an open standard that both Nvidia and AMD support. Though I do have to admit, CUDA does have some pretty cool libraries and functions to call upon. You can still utilize a Tesla card with your Mac by buying one in an external GPU server, OpenCL is fully supported. Ebay sells the last generation of Tesla GPU servers fairly inexpensively which now makes them approachable to hobbies and pro-consumers.
...on a workstation however it wouldn't bring any notable advantages.
[...]
Adobe PhotoShop CS6
Battlefield 3
Final Cut Pro X
GIMP
Handbrake
LuxMark
Mathematica 8
VLC media player
Mathematica 8
Motion 5
Compressor 4
Mari
So despite listing apps that utilize OpenCL on Mac OS X you say there is no "notable advantage" in performance on the Mac Pro if OpenCL were to be stripped from these apps?
So despite listing apps that utilize OpenCL on Mac OS X you say there is no "notable advantage" in performance on the Mac Pro if OpenCL were to be stripped from these apps?
I think the notable advantage part was about restricting the code to fewer cores to save battery. There would be no advantage doing that on a workstation. I think you're right though that not all apps run OpenCL on both GPUs. Apps would have to create a compute context on each GPU as they don't run in CrossFire. Some apps do work on both as they are developed that way.
I think the notable advantage part was about restricting the code to fewer cores to save battery. There would be no advantage doing that on a workstation. I think you're right though that not all apps run OpenCL on both GPUs. Apps would have to create a compute context on each GPU as they don't run in CrossFire. Some apps do work on both as they are developed that way.
I had thought it was about maximizing the processing capabilities that are available, which only as a result of being able to compute the same workload over a much shorter timeframe would result in lower power usage.
I had thought it was about maximizing the processing capabilities that are available, which only as a result of being able to compute the same workload over a much shorter timeframe would result in lower power usage.
You wouldn't always want to use as much hardware capability as possible. Consider GPU accelerated video decoding. It's more about getting the best performance-per-watt in order to keep the battery life up. If you did H.264 decoding on the CPU, battery life drops. In that instance, there is a well-defined complexity that simply needs to be solved with the least power and disabling other compute units helps with that. This is apparently why Intel increased the EUs in Iris as it allows them to disable more of them when they aren't necessary.
In the case of a workstation, power saving is less of a consideration and using the GPUs wouldn't really save power as they use far more power than the CPU. Only using a single GPU there would just help avoid the UI lagging during computation, which tends to happen on single GPU systems.
You wouldn't always want to use as much hardware capability as possible. Consider GPU accelerated video decoding. It's more about getting the best performance-per-watt in order to keep the battery life up. If you did H.264 decoding on the CPU, battery life drops. In that instance, there is a well-defined complexity that simply needs to be solved with the least power and disabling other compute units helps with that. This is apparently why Intel increased the EUs in Iris as it allows them to disable more of them when they aren't necessary.
There are some interesting things in that area. I've been trying to make compute shaders perform ICC v4 compliant profile conversions. Sadly it has not gone as well as I would have liked, but I want ICC v4 support in iOS. I looked at trying to build littleCMS for iOS before, but I don't know their code base well enough and it's quite large due to the desire to be portable. It's also mostly written in C (note that prior to a year ago I had barely touched anything outside of scripting languages, but I have much more experience with the relevant ICC specifications). I guess that doesn't have as much in common with video or the mac pro. It's just that OpenCL doesn't extend to iOS.
I think the notable advantage part was about restricting the code to fewer cores to save battery. There would be no advantage doing that on a workstation. I think you're right though that not all apps run OpenCL on both GPUs. Apps would have to create a compute context on each GPU as they don't run in CrossFire. Some apps do work on both as they are developed that way.
Your absolutely right, after doing some research it looks like most programs use one GPU for the display and the other for computations. So it might be worth while to install a barebones Linux distro with your favorite rendering software for those larger rendering jobs. Why, well it looks like Crossfire is available on the hardware level, however OSX doesn't support it. Windows would also work. I'm pretty sure Apple will support Crossfire in OSX in the very near future though, they wouldn't have linked the two GPU's just for Linux and Windows.
Your absolutely right, after doing some research it looks like most programs use one GPU for the display and the other for computations. So it might be worth while to install a barebones Linux distro with your favorite rendering software for those larger rendering jobs. Why, well it looks like Crossfire is available on the hardware level, however OSX doesn't support it. Windows would also work. I'm pretty sure Apple will support Crossfire in OSX in the very near future though, they wouldn't have linked the two GPU's just for Linux and Windows.
Apps can use both if the developer chooses to. CrossFire is automatic but you don't always need to be using both together. Apple might add CrossFire to the drivers later though.
Comments
You forgot the iMac fan who keeps complaining about Apple's "unhealthy obsession with thinness" and lack of front facing USB ports and SD card slots.
It doesn't really matter to me because I'm not buying an iMac, but just playing Devil's Advocate, when they can't use 7200 rpm drives because the thin enclosure can't provide adequate cooling, that could be construed as taking thinness too far.
It would be fine if the BTO price for SSD were somewhere within visual range of anything approximating reasonable, but a buck a gig? Ouch. I'd just install my own… if I could get into the thing without having to melt glue with a hair dryer! Not an option for the majority of users.
As for the ports thing, it actually *IS* a PITA to get at rear-facing ports. I don't understand why that particular objection bothers you?
No, both GPU's process OpenCL code simultaneously unless the code being used is purposely coded in such a way to just use utilize a single GPU or even a single core within the GPU. Though I have only seen this being done in Android, specifically for battery saving measures, on a workstation however it wouldn't bring any notable advantages.
As of right now though the amount of properly coded commercial apps that utilize OpenCL in OSX is still fairly small, nothing compared to what is available for Cuda on a Windows workstation but this is fastly changing and I hope to see many more apps this time next year. Here's some of the more popular OpenCL Apps.
Adobe PhotoShop CS6
Battlefield 3
Final Cut Pro X
GIMP
Handbrake
LuxMark
Mathematica 8
VLC media player
Mathematica 8
Motion 5
Compressor 4
Mari
Especially when I've cost our family a small fortune in medical bills.
What happened? If you don't mind me asking.
I couldn't in good conscious ever use the new Mac Pro as a server, not only is it an absolute waste of an awesome workstation it's just too expensive for something that wouldn't do a better job than a machine half its cost, especially when it was built from the ground up to be a server. Not to mention that I just wouldnt use HFS+ nor something that didn't have a hot plugable raid system. There are Sun(Oracle) Netra systems with dual CPU, 8 core Sparc CPU's, 32GB, 4 1Gbs ethernet, 6 hot swabable hard drive enclosures and two hot swabable power supply's that can be had for less than 3,000 dollars on eBay, which use the ZFS file system. The Sun server setup software is very easy to use and these servers work fantastically with an all Mac office. If anything ever happened to a single component on the Mac Pro it would bring your entire network down until such a time you could send the Mac Pro in to have it repaired, a Netra's components are all replaceable in under 10 minutes, with the most likely to fail component's like the hard drives and power supply already having built in redundancy.
No, not at all, I have breast cancer.
I am really sorry to hear that. This kind of illness is the worst that can happen in your life. How are you doing now? I know personally one woman that had it also many years ago. She was lucky to have it diagnosed in an early stage. She is fine today.
Spellcheck AI???
Spellcheck? On AI??
Nah, OpenCL is just fine, I just commented that their is more commercial software available for Cuda but that's just because it has been pushed by Nvidia for so long. I would much more like to see OpenCL being used as it's an open standard that both Nvidia and AMD support. Though I do have to admit, CUDA does have some pretty cool libraries and functions to call upon. You can still utilize a Tesla card with your Mac by buying one in an external GPU server, OpenCL is fully supported. Ebay sells the last generation of Tesla GPU servers fairly inexpensively which now makes them approachable to hobbies and pro-consumers.
So despite listing apps that utilize OpenCL on Mac OS X you say there is no "notable advantage" in performance on the Mac Pro if OpenCL were to be stripped from these apps?
I think the notable advantage part was about restricting the code to fewer cores to save battery. There would be no advantage doing that on a workstation. I think you're right though that not all apps run OpenCL on both GPUs. Apps would have to create a compute context on each GPU as they don't run in CrossFire. Some apps do work on both as they are developed that way.
I had thought it was about maximizing the processing capabilities that are available, which only as a result of being able to compute the same workload over a much shorter timeframe would result in lower power usage.
You wouldn't always want to use as much hardware capability as possible. Consider GPU accelerated video decoding. It's more about getting the best performance-per-watt in order to keep the battery life up. If you did H.264 decoding on the CPU, battery life drops. In that instance, there is a well-defined complexity that simply needs to be solved with the least power and disabling other compute units helps with that. This is apparently why Intel increased the EUs in Iris as it allows them to disable more of them when they aren't necessary.
In the case of a workstation, power saving is less of a consideration and using the GPUs wouldn't really save power as they use far more power than the CPU. Only using a single GPU there would just help avoid the UI lagging during computation, which tends to happen on single GPU systems.
You wouldn't always want to use as much hardware capability as possible. Consider GPU accelerated video decoding. It's more about getting the best performance-per-watt in order to keep the battery life up. If you did H.264 decoding on the CPU, battery life drops. In that instance, there is a well-defined complexity that simply needs to be solved with the least power and disabling other compute units helps with that. This is apparently why Intel increased the EUs in Iris as it allows them to disable more of them when they aren't necessary.
There are some interesting things in that area. I've been trying to make compute shaders perform ICC v4 compliant profile conversions. Sadly it has not gone as well as I would have liked, but I want ICC v4 support in iOS. I looked at trying to build littleCMS for iOS before, but I don't know their code base well enough and it's quite large due to the desire to be portable. It's also mostly written in C (note that prior to a year ago I had barely touched anything outside of scripting languages, but I have much more experience with the relevant ICC specifications). I guess that doesn't have as much in common with video or the mac pro. It's just that OpenCL doesn't extend to iOS.
DUMB Crack!
Exactly. So why keep bitching about something you know won’t happen?
I just said I would hope they would do it but realized they would not.
Your absolutely right, after doing some research it looks like most programs use one GPU for the display and the other for computations. So it might be worth while to install a barebones Linux distro with your favorite rendering software for those larger rendering jobs. Why, well it looks like Crossfire is available on the hardware level, however OSX doesn't support it. Windows would also work. I'm pretty sure Apple will support Crossfire in OSX in the very near future though, they wouldn't have linked the two GPU's just for Linux and Windows.
Apps can use both if the developer chooses to. CrossFire is automatic but you don't always need to be using both together. Apple might add CrossFire to the drivers later though.