Editorial: What will Apple do with the Macintosh?

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  • Reply 61 of 198
    drblankdrblank Posts: 3,385member

    Quote:

    Originally Posted by isaidso View Post


    I don't think you're really familiar with the technology built into the new iMac displays (calibration system etc). Regardless, very few pros are using Eizos these days. Those that need 'em, buy 'em. Some need a CRT. But the Apple displays are pro grade. That's a fact.



     


    Has there been any comparisons for pro-grade monitors and comparing them to the new iMacs?  I recall that Apple has triple calibration for these things as they are being assembled and that the techniques they are using is supposed to result in top notch color accuracy.

  • Reply 62 of 198
    mdriftmeyermdriftmeyer Posts: 7,503member


    The NeXT Cube is nothing like the Apple G4 Cube.


     


    The NeXT Cube had a unified passive backplane akin to the DEC Alpha.


     


    In modern times it would be the equivalent of a Mac Pro with 4 motherboard equivalents hooked into a passive backplane. Each board supported 64MB of RAM at the time I had one.


     


    With the NeXTdimension add-on to deal with dedicated audio/video processing with 24bit RGB and 8 bit alpha 1990 was way ahead of its time.


     


    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NeXTdimension


     


    The size of the system today would allow for redundant power supplies each probably 1200-1500W range and much more.



    I don't see Apple reducing the footprint of the Mac Pro. That reduced footprint is already prevalent in their iMac and Mac Mini.


     


    Only if Apple actually creates another column on their matrix to offer 2 varieties do I see a reduced footprint. Otherwise,  see Apple modifying the case dimensions and expanding its capabilities.

  • Reply 63 of 198
    mdriftmeyermdriftmeyer Posts: 7,503member

    Quote:

    Originally Posted by drblank View Post


     


    Has there been any comparisons for pro-grade monitors and comparing them to the new iMacs?  I recall that Apple has triple calibration for these things as they are being assembled and that the techniques they are using is supposed to result in top notch color accuracy.



     


    For damn sure EIZO isn't living in CRT ville with the likes of this model:



    http://www.eizo.com/global/products/coloredge/cg276/index.html


     


    And for damn sure its capabilities are not built into an iMac, not to mention the 27" Thunderbolt Displays.


     


    It appears they've updated it to support 4K.



    http://www.tomshardware.com/news/4K-Eizo-ColorEdge-CG276-IPS,21879.html

  • Reply 64 of 198
    mstonemstone Posts: 11,510member

    Quote:

    Originally Posted by isaidso View Post




    I don't think you're really familiar with the technology built into the new iMac displays (calibration system etc). Regardless, very few pros are using Eizos these days. Those that need 'em, buy 'em. Some need a CRT. But the Apple displays are pro grade. That's a fact.



    We have Eizos in the X-ray suites and NEC in the prepress suite. I have an original 30" Cinema at my workstation that is way off on color but I use the eye dropper to sample the values and I know my numerical colors very well. Then we have a high end Epson proofing system which is the final authority on what a print job will look like. As far as digital video is concerned we output to Sony HDTV although I have had people tell me that we should be using Panasonic, Sharp or Samsung.

  • Reply 65 of 198
    milsf1milsf1 Posts: 27member
    [quote]
    Because Thunderbolt is essentially PCIe via a cable, Apple could conceptually use Thunderbolt rather than large open slots in a big enclosure to retain the Mac Pro's expansion potential.
    [/quote]

    Highly doubtful. That might work for ONE card, but not for 3 or 4 PCIe 3 cards (graphics, PCIe SSDs, etc.) PCie3 x16 tops out around 15GB/s in theory - even Thunderbolt 2 would be around 2GB/s. Take a look over at Tom's Hardware testing of the Echo Express Pro.

    Thunderbolt is a great way to get expansion for a MacBook, iMac, or macMini, but professional machines will need the fastest connections it can have - not just "good enough".
  • Reply 66 of 198
    isaidsoisaidso Posts: 750member

    Quote:

    Originally Posted by drblank View Post




    Quote:

    Originally Posted by isaidso View Post


    I don't think you're really familiar with the technology built into the new iMac displays (calibration system etc). Regardless, very few pros are using Eizos these days. Those that need 'em, buy 'em. Some need a CRT. But the Apple displays are pro grade. That's a fact.



     


    Has there been any comparisons for pro-grade monitors and comparing them to the new iMacs?  I recall that Apple has triple calibration for these things as they are being assembled and that the techniques they are using is supposed to result in top notch color accuracy.



    I haven't really seen a side by side smack down; but yes, these things are factory calibrated using, basically, a multi-million dollar color calibrator.

  • Reply 67 of 198
    isaidsoisaidso Posts: 750member

    Quote:

    Originally Posted by MilSF1 View Post




    Quote:

    Because Thunderbolt is essentially PCIe via a cable, Apple could conceptually use Thunderbolt rather than large open slots in a big enclosure to retain the Mac Pro's expansion potential.




    Highly doubtful. That might work for ONE card, but not for 3 or 4 PCIe 3 cards (graphics, PCIe SSDs, etc.) PCie3 x16 tops out around 15GB/s in theory - even Thunderbolt 2 would be around 2GB/s. Take a look over at Tom's Hardware testing of the Echo Express Pro.



    Thunderbolt is a great way to get expansion for a MacBook, iMac, or macMini, but professional machines will need the fastest connections it can have - not just "good enough".


    Well, you can be happy that you are wrong in this case.


    Pro is going Thunderbolt, all the way. (and it's early):


     


    http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/search?sts=ma&Ns=p_PRICE_2|1&N=0&srtclk=sort&Ntt=thunderbolt


     


    http://www.sonnettech.com/product/echoexpresschassis.html


    See "Partners" section at bottom of this page.

  • Reply 68 of 198


    I don't think the PC market is shrinking, just changing. Sales of the overall PC market have been dropping since the iPad was released, but I'd be more interested in seeing usage statistics (if they even exist). Upgrade cycles for PC's are getting longer as people can do the majority of work on 5+ year old PC's - half my company (S&P 500) is still running Windows XP. Design teams all use Macs but all of them are 3+ years old. The only new hardware for end users they are investing in are iPads (something about trying to reduce a $4M annual paper bill).


     


    So in short unless Apple are planning to revolutionize the PC (again - if you include the iPad as a PC), they should just plan for longer upgrade cycles, which from the last CC is what they are doing.

  • Reply 69 of 198
    tallest skiltallest skil Posts: 43,388member


    Originally Posted by Bloodshotrollin'red View Post

    Mac Pro's are the only Mac's I buy now as they are hardware configurable.


     


    Your implication—that the others aren't—is laughable. "Drop OS X"? Ha!

  • Reply 70 of 198
    bugsnwbugsnw Posts: 717member


    Toyota has their Lexus brand. I agree with DED on the trickle down theory. Bragging rights, trickle down, whatever - I'm all for the Mac Pro.


     


    Is it just me or has Intel slowed down on CPU innovation? I don't remember the last time I was excited for an upcoming processor. I thought we'd be up to 10 GHz by now.

  • Reply 71 of 198
    solipsismxsolipsismx Posts: 19,566member
    bugsnw wrote: »
    Is it just me or has Intel slowed down on CPU innovation? I don't remember the last time I was excited for an upcoming processor. I thought we'd be up to 10 GHz by now.

    Intel has slowed their releases, but only because they are so far ahead of the competition that it made no sense to keep releasing much better chips at breakneck speeds. The innovation is still there but don't look at cycle counts as a guide to know how well a processor performs.
  • Reply 72 of 198
    tallest skiltallest skil Posts: 43,388member


    Originally Posted by SolipsismX View Post

    Intel has slowed their releases, but only because they are so far ahead of the competition that it made no sense to keep releasing much better chips at breakneck speeds.


     


    It also gives them more breathing room for their successor plan once the current processor architecture hits the inevitable (and understood now to be very real) ceiling of Moore's Law. 


     


    Also to improve their iGPU program, which apparently they started caring about and which desperately needs work if they hope to compete with the major players in said industry proper.

  • Reply 73 of 198
    gwmac wrote: »
    People that don't own a Mac Pro just don't get it. And as far as those silly benchmarks, that means nothing it actual daily use. Try some some video rendering for example and compare the results when all 12 cores are being used in a Mac Pro. Finally we can also use off the shelf video cards. Apple are notorious about not offering the latest or fastest video cards as an option. I recently bought a new Nvidia for my Mac Pro and it screams. I will never be interested in an iMac and certainly not a Mini. I enjoy the speed and expansion possibilities a Mac pro affords and I also have two very nice 30" monitors. The iMac is a fine computer for people in that market but I have all 4 hard bays used with drives from 2 to 3TB in size and even that isn't enough space. I have an external quad bay Firewire 800 enclosure daisy chained to another dual bay enclosure. I realize I am not typical and most people don't need over 10TB of storage like me but for those of us that do the iMac is not a great option. 

    People that need a Mac Pro NEED a Mac Pro and the iMac will never be a good substitute for me. It is like asking Corvette owners to just make do with a Chevette instead since they are both Vettes after all. 

    Just curious... what app are you using to render video that uses all 12 cores?
  • Reply 74 of 198
    mdriftmeyermdriftmeyer Posts: 7,503member

    Quote:

    Originally Posted by Dick Applebaum View Post





    Just curious... what app are you using to render video that uses all 12 cores?


     


    Blender, make, ANSYS 14.5, CATIA, COMSOL 4.5, and of course any other OpenCL, SMP (GCD) aware application on OS X, like Pixelmator, VLC, Handbrake, never mind Maya, Autodesk, etc.


     


    I'd mention FCP X and Color, etc., but I haven't used them yet.

  • Reply 75 of 198
    mdriftmeyermdriftmeyer Posts: 7,503member

    Quote:

    Originally Posted by isaidso View Post


    Well, you can be happy that you are wrong in this case.


    Pro is going Thunderbolt, all the way. (and it's early):


     


    http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/search?sts=ma&Ns=p_PRICE_2|1&N=0&srtclk=sort&Ntt=thunderbolt


     


    http://www.sonnettech.com/product/echoexpresschassis.html


    See "Partners" section at bottom of this page.



     


    I would think the Mac Pro would be well served by hanving 3 separate Thunderbolt full bandwidth controllers on-board so that they aren't shared to match 3 PCI-E 3.0 full x16 slots support on the card to allow for a triple GPGPU or a dual and then a CAD based separate third card specifically for CAD/CAM.

  • Reply 76 of 198
    Just curious... what app are you using to render video that uses all 12 cores?

    Blender, make, ANSYS 14.5, CATIA, COMSOL 4.5, and of course any other OpenCL, SMP (GCD) aware application on OS X, like Pixelmator, VLC, Handbrake, never mind Maya, Autodesk, etc.

    I'd mention FCP X and Color, etc., but I haven't used them yet.

    Haven't tried Blender in a while... will give it a go!

    I don't have a Mac Pro, but FCPX exploits 8 cores (4 virtual) on my loaded early 2012 iMac 27 (3.4 GHz, 16 GB RAM, Radeon HD 6970 1024MB *)

    * I screwed up and didm't max out the VRAM

    Anyway, FCPX is wicked fast -- rendering, transcoding and analysis (camera shake, etc.) -- you should give it a try -- it take things like MultiCam and 2K, 3K, 4K video in stride
  • Reply 77 of 198
    aaarrrggghaaarrrgggh Posts: 1,609member
    jim w wrote: »
    Also, I don't want 5 or 10 boxes on my desk connected by cables. The tower may not be revolutionary, but it combines the necessary technology in one compact high speed enclosure.

    Fundamentally, it is hard for me to imagine that the tower concept will really survive long-term. The drive problem is solved with NAS; you can have a NAS box with whatever performance requirements are necessary for your task, and a price to match. You can also stick the NAS in a rack if need be. To me, it means that the pro box needs 10Gb networking or the ability to aggregate 2-4 interfaces.

    Does Apple really stand a chance in the $30k workstation arena?
  • Reply 78 of 198
    hmmhmm Posts: 3,405member


     


     


    Quote:

    Originally Posted by mdriftmeyer View Post


     


    I would think the Mac Pro would be well served by hanving 3 separate Thunderbolt full bandwidth controllers on-board so that they aren't shared to match 3 PCI-E 3.0 full x16 slots support on the card to allow for a triple GPGPU or a dual and then a CAD based separate third card specifically for CAD/CAM.



    Everything I've read so far suggests intel doesn't support multiple thunderbolt chips, and Apple has routed them through embedded graphics up to this point. I'm not sure what you mean by 3 x16 slots. If Apple used the same parts, it would translate to E5-16XX and E5-24XX. The 1600s would be way over-subscribed at that point. They have done that before, just not to that degree. Those support 40 lanes total from the cpu, and you have to account for other ports and things that eat some of those.


     


    Quote:


    Originally Posted by drblank View Post


     


    Has there been any comparisons for pro-grade monitors and comparing them to the new iMacs?  I recall that Apple has triple calibration for these things as they are being assembled and that the techniques they are using is supposed to result in top notch color accuracy.



     


    Saying they calibrate is partly marketing speech. I'm sure they have a good system in place, but the statement doesn't deliver much information. Dell calibrates their displays too, as does every other brand. Displays are not stable devices and saying they were calibrated and double checked still doesn't tell you everything. They take time to warm up in general, so when you wake your computer, you have 15 to 30 minutes prior to seeing things precisely as they are intended. It's a gradual change, so most people will never notice it. Some displays seem to warm up faster than others. It doesn't tell you how many regions they measured or their pass/fail tolerance on any metric. It doesn't mention their pass or fail standards for uniformity. When people see a bad one, they assume QA, but they really don't know what is considered passable at the factory. Even after all of that, displays are unstable devices. A year from now it will look different even if you don't notice it due to the gradual nature of its changes. Some offer tools to help minimize this. With Apple you are limited to profiling software, which helps. It's just really really limited in what it can do.


     


    None of this really tells you how well they are done. I mainly wanted to point out that these things lack some of the tools that other brands have used for years to maintain some consistency over time, but at the same time Apple doesn't really aim directly at specialized markets. It's more frequently good enough to work with than ideal when it comes to specialized use cases.


     


    Quote:

    Originally Posted by mstone View Post


    Well said especially about access to the memory. In the old days we had CPU cards and RAM cards on the Sun mainframe boxes but with the cpu/bus speeds of today that type of modular tiering is not possible. All CPU and memory needs to be directly on the mobo.



    Well yeah trying to place additional links in there with asynchronous frequencies and a greatly expanded distance doesn't sound like good system design. Beyond that intel developed the technology for thunderbolt. They wouldn't develop a solution to undercut their own higher margin chips. Much of the other hardware is available in external add-on form factors with the exception of gpus and a couple other pieces of dedicated specialty hardware. GPUs seem like the most likely candidate, but I still don't think it's that likely. Mobile gpus and IGPs keep getting better. Intel needs better drivers and Apple needs to offer better OpenGL support, but in terms of weighing options, how many people are going to pay easily $600-700 for a mid range gpu shoved into a case with a $50 cable just to retrofit the machine? I remember the Quadro 4000 Mac had severe driver issues for months after its release, and that wasn't taxed with being hot pluggable.


     


    Quote:

    Originally Posted by isaidso View Post


    I haven't really seen a side by side smack down; but yes, these things are factory calibrated using, basically, a multi-million dollar color calibrator.





    I'm not sure about multi million dollar. It might not be that high per unit, and they likely use more than one. When people accused Dell's U2410 of having an uneven pink cast a few years ago right when it debuted, it came out that they did calibrate them. They just only measured the center. Factory calibration is just part of assembly, and they delivered just enough information to sound good. If they went into the real detail, their audience would lose interest.

  • Reply 79 of 198
    charlitunacharlituna Posts: 7,217member
    sockrolid wrote: »

    Agree. Eventually, the Mac Pro could be composed of snap-together modules with Thunderbolt connectors. The basic Mac Pro would have one CPU module, one storage module, a power module, a Display Adapter module, plus an Apple Thunderbolt Display. (And maybe that would be the Mac mini configuration, come to think of it.)

    I see the new Mac Pro going something like this as well. Imagine an enclosure that is basically like 3-4 Mac Minis stacked on top of each other. Slide out pieces in the back would allow you to install more ram, GPUs etc. the base drive kit be a fusion drive and you could add more storage via TB connected drives.
  • Reply 80 of 198
    charlitunacharlituna Posts: 7,217member
    The only possible answer is "it's glossy". And that's not even an argument anymore.

    Never an argument for those that know how to properly position their lighting.
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