altivec88

I know Apple missed two upgrade cycles from our company.  We typically upgrade our MacPro's every two years.  We skipped the 2013 MacPro's because there was no improvement in cpu over our now 6 year old MacPro's.   We keep waiting....  If MacPro's are not part if this "stay tuned" refresh, Dell or HP will get our market share numbers for next quarter.  

I just wonder if this amazing pipeline Tim keeps talking about is clogged or something.   Seems like every other company is nimble enough to keep their computers refreshed, but the thousand day old MacPro that innovates out of Phil's ass is 2 generations behind on cpu, 3 generations behind on gpu, ports are outdated, low on ram and storage and is still priced as if it were new tech.   Man, I wonder why nobody is buying them.  As the article states, computer sales are trending away from consumers and more towards businesses and creative pros.  It would be nice if they showed some effort towards this market, otherwise don't be surprised to see their computer share continue to slide.

lkrupp said:

TurboPGT said:

altivec88 said:

I know that secrecy builds up suspense and stuff but for us Pro's, secrecy just means lack of communication with the company that is providing us with tools.

I just wish they would come out and tell us what is going on.  If they are planning an upgrade, can't they at least gives us an announcement to stay tuned and show us a grill or something.  If they have decided to get out of the pro market, can't they have the decency to just let us know.   I need to upgrade our systems.  Should I be switching to PC?  Should I be waiting a few more month?  I don't want to switch but I really can't operate my business like this anymore.  

Apple get your act together.

Just asking: how is it remotely possible that you "can't operate your business anymore" with a 2013 Mac Pro(s)? So much so that would consider a generic PC with presumably better specs-on-paper?

Yes, I’d also like to know why you “can’t operate your business anymore” with a 2013 Mac Pro? That’s a pretty laughable statement to make you know. 

Thanks for laughing at me. Please read my post above.

TurboPGT said:

altivec88 said:

TurboPGT said:

altivec88 said:

I know that secrecy builds up suspense and stuff but for us Pro's, secrecy just means lack of communication with the company that is providing us with tools.

I just wish they would come out and tell us what is going on.  If they are planning an upgrade, can't they at least gives us an announcement to stay tuned and show us a grill or something.  If they have decided to get out of the pro market, can't they have the decency to just let us know.   I need to upgrade our systems.  Should I be switching to PC?  Should I be waiting a few more month?  I don't want to switch but I really can't operate my business like this anymore.  

Apple get your act together.

Just asking: how is it remotely possible that you "can't operate your business anymore" with a 2013 Mac Pro(s)? So much so that would consider a generic PC with presumably better specs-on-paper?

Because we do 3D renderings and require as much CPU as possible. The 2013 design did not help us out at all because they cut out an entire processor. So our 2010 12 core machines are pretty equivollent to the current 2013 machines at 12 cores only the 2013 cost twice as much. So we haven't upgraded most of our systems for 6 years. Some are starting to fail now and there is no way I would pay what Apple is asking for to replace them (double the price for 6 year old speed). This would be fine if the industry was sitting still but my competitors are easily surpassing what my company can do. They are running 44 core machines from Dell and HP. In rendering terms, that means what we can do in 10 hours, they can do in 2.5 hours. or it means they can crank up the realism, or a little of both. It was fine before because with-in a year Apple would be slightly ahead, and then the PC would be slight ahead but its been 6 years with no improvement in CPU. Like I said, I don't really want to switch to PC but I keep waiting and waiting and waiting.

Sounds horribly inefficient.

What you're telling me is that your operation is a Core Whore, and you've yet find to find a more efficient way of accomplishing the tasks, or more efficient software that can do the same job with less horsepower. But let's not even get into that.

There are machines out there built for what it is you are trying to do...DELL is one of the makers of them. Why on earth would you even expect Apple to tackle that market? It's not that Apple once made computers for your task....they once made the fastest computers any money could buy. That changed as hardware changed and as other companies took on certain priorities.

Don't expect Apple to make any 44 core Mac Pros. If that is what you're waiting on, move on.

Gee thanks... 

So if you can please show me this magical software that does 3D renderings with out utilizing CPU cores and how I've been doing it wrong for 30 years, please enlighten me and the rest of the 3D community.  I'm not even sure what you mean by "more efficient".  If the software is utilizing every core of your machine at 100%, isn't that efficient?  or do you mean we should stop what we are doing and only use our Pro's for word processing.

Thanks again for letting me know that Dell and HP offer 44 core systems and that the door is that way ->   I knew that... I put it in my post.   I also said that for the first 25 years  of those 30, the Mac platform was viable to what we are doing because the Mac and PC would leap frog each other by small margins.  Now the gap has widened tremendously.  This is why, I need to know what's going on.

In a professional setting, switching to PC is not an easy proposition.  We have people here that only know the Mac.  We have a lot of other software that is Mac only,  the costs, training and down time makes it difficult.   We also chose MacOS when we started because of all the problems associated with Windows.  We don't want to give that up either.  So if I know a new MacPro is coming, its much better to wait then to switch.   If they decide to discontinue the Pro or make another lame update, I have no choice.  All I am saying that after 1000 days give us pros some respect and at least tell us what is going on.

rogifan_new said:

Sorry but no way Apple redesigns this device only to cancel it a few years later. Would never have redesigned it in the first place, and just retired it in back in 2013.

I can because the 2013 MacPro was a flop.

They worried about form over function and Pro's care about function over form.

The Pro market was already niche to begin with and they just killed off a bunch of markets with the 2013 Pro.  They got rid of an entire processor killing off people that need CPU, they got rid of PCI Bus killing off anybody requiring any kind of specialized boards.  They killed upgradability of graphics cards so that you need to buy a new machine, yet they failed to offer said machines.  But at least its cool looking.

I really really hope they learned their lesson and went back to the drawing board a completely redesigned the Mac Pro with what I mentioned above in mind, but I really wouldn't be surprised if they kill it off due to shear amount of Pro's they've already lost.  I just wish they would tell us which way they are going because people are jumping ship on a daily bases.

TurboPGT said:

altivec88 said:

I know that secrecy builds up suspense and stuff but for us Pro's, secrecy just means lack of communication with the company that is providing us with tools.

I just wish they would come out and tell us what is going on.  If they are planning an upgrade, can't they at least gives us an announcement to stay tuned and show us a grill or something.  If they have decided to get out of the pro market, can't they have the decency to just let us know.   I need to upgrade our systems.  Should I be switching to PC?  Should I be waiting a few more month?  I don't want to switch but I really can't operate my business like this anymore.  

Apple get your act together.

Just asking: how is it remotely possible that you "can't operate your business anymore" with a 2013 Mac Pro(s)? So much so that would consider a generic PC with presumably better specs-on-paper?

Because we do 3D renderings and require as much CPU as possible. The 2013 design did not help us out at all because they cut out an entire processor. So our 2010 12 core machines are pretty equivollent to the current 2013 machines at 12 cores only the 2013 cost twice as much. So we haven't upgraded most of our systems for 6 years. Some are starting to fail now and there is no way I would pay what Apple is asking for to replace them (double the price for 6 year old speed). This would be fine if the industry was sitting still but my competitors are easily surpassing what my company can do. They are running 44 core machines from Dell and HP. In rendering terms, that means what we can do in 10 hours, they can do in 2.5 hours. or it means they can crank up the realism, or a little of both. It was fine before because with-in a year Apple would be slightly ahead, and then the PC would be slight ahead but its been 6 years with no improvement in CPU. Like I said, I don't really want to switch to PC but I keep waiting and waiting and waiting.