NEW MAC PRO! Bout TIME

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  • evilproducerevilproducer Posts: 9,050
    edited December 1969

    That's pretty cool. I just hope it's innards are as accessible as the old aluminum case. That was a huge selling point for me. It would also be good to know if the graphics systems can be replaced.

  • WendyLuvsCatzWendyLuvsCatz Posts: 38,182
    edited December 1969

    congratulations on finding your next new love!
    hope she is not a bitch who does not play nice with your software, ie Carrara and others
    or leaves, costing you alimony

  • edited December 1969

    Like a beautiful girl it matters not what is inside till you tire of her! BUT it looks like everything is right there! You take the cover off and everything is like in a circle.

    My only question is am I gunna have to rob a bank or pimp out the sexy WENDY to afford it.

    What do you say Wendy. Might have top learn to drive on the CORRECT side of the road

  • Curved DesignCurved Design Posts: 61
    edited December 1969

    I can't wait! I need to know the price though! The AMD/ATI FirePro card that matches the specs on Apple's web site cost $2000.

    http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814105004

    And there are 2 of these cards in the new Mac Pro!

    I know Apple will be using custom Fire Pro cards so hopefully the price will be cheaper!

  • DartanbeckDartanbeck Posts: 21,522
    edited December 1969

    On the super plus side, is that the design is such a genius improvement that the system should last as long as you want it to. Cool parts just last longer and perform better. On the bad side is the cost will certainly be understandably high. It will really blow me away if they come anywhere near the current Mac Pro price of roughly three grand. But I'm sure that it will be about twice that.
    Sure would be neat to have one as a workstation and a couple more as nodes! LOL

  • DartanbeckDartanbeck Posts: 21,522
    edited December 1969

    ...and on the opposite end of the spectrum:
    http://www.adafruit.com/products/998

    Just plain cool!

    I love designing and building my own computers which, for some reason, disallows the use of the MacOS. Like they don't trust us to build a decent box. But Windows works good for me so far. One huge factor that I always design in, amongst many others, is the best air flow possible - so I filter the air on all intakes to keep the innards from accumulating dust - which causes heat and slow stuff down till it dies.

    All of that considered... I still want one of those new Mac Pros!

  • evilproducerevilproducer Posts: 9,050
    edited December 1969

    ...and on the opposite end of the spectrum:
    http://www.adafruit.com/products/998

    Just plain cool!

    I love designing and building my own computers which, for some reason, disallows the use of the MacOS. Like they don't trust us to build a decent box. But Windows works good for me so far. One huge factor that I always design in, amongst many others, is the best air flow possible - so I filter the air on all intakes to keep the innards from accumulating dust - which causes heat and slow stuff down till it dies.

    All of that considered... I still want one of those new Mac Pros!


    I would point out that PC manufacturers such as Sony also build their own custom mother boards and other components to their own specs, which means you can't "build" a Sony yourself either.

  • DartanbeckDartanbeck Posts: 21,522
    edited December 1969

    ...and on the opposite end of the spectrum:
    http://www.adafruit.com/products/998

    Just plain cool!

    I love designing and building my own computers which, for some reason, disallows the use of the MacOS. Like they don't trust us to build a decent box. But Windows works good for me so far. One huge factor that I always design in, amongst many others, is the best air flow possible - so I filter the air on all intakes to keep the innards from accumulating dust - which causes heat and slow stuff down till it dies.

    All of that considered... I still want one of those new Mac Pros!


    I would point out that PC manufacturers such as Sony also build their own custom mother boards and other components to their own specs, which means you can't "build" a Sony yourself either.You speak the truth, young Padawon. But you are not a Jedi yet!

  • edited December 1969

    One thing I want to say is MY NEW MACPRO has 13 cooling fans inside it! THIRTEEN!! That is 10 plus 3! it weighs 56 pounds! A 9 inch coffee cans thats twice as fast with one fan... BRING IT ON!

    I do not want to re-fan the embers of PC vs mac wars BUT COME on MAC has been and always will be the top innovator as far as it comes to production COOL "F" ing great SHEET! Even if it did take em 5 years I never saw PC remake anything in 15 years
    But know that ALL Computers are made in China by political prisoners ! I am Proud to be an amerikan who uses APPLE

  • Curved DesignCurved Design Posts: 61
    edited December 1969

    One thing I want to say is MY NEW MACPRO has 13 cooling fans inside it! THIRTEEN!! That is 10 plus 3! it weighs 56 pounds! A 9 inch coffee cans thats twice as fast with one fan... BRING IT ON!

    I do not want to re-fan the embers of PC vs mac wars BUT COME on MAC has been and always will be the top innovator as far as it comes to production COOL "F" ing great SHEET! Even if it did take em 5 years I never saw PC remake anything in 15 years
    But know that ALL Computers are made in China by political prisoners ! I am Proud to be an amerikan who uses APPLE

    I was thinking of buying a $1000 Nvidia Titan but it looks like I am going to be getting the Mac Pro instead.

    Only thing is along with DAZ I also use Blender and love the Cycles unbiased rendering engine and it primarily uses Nvidia's CUDA to assist the CPU but looks like AMD might actually be getting their act together when it comes to OpenCL so looks like Nvidia is going to be getting some competition.

    So it looks like the FirePros in the new Mac Pro will eventually be supported for Cycles rendering in Blender.

    So it is perfect timing!

  • DartanbeckDartanbeck Posts: 21,522
    edited December 1969

    One thing I want to say is MY NEW MACPRO has 13 cooling fans inside it! THIRTEEN!! That is 10 plus 3! it weighs 56 pounds! A 9 inch coffee cans thats twice as fast with one fan... BRING IT ON!

    I do not want to re-fan the embers of PC vs mac wars BUT COME on MAC has been and always will be the top innovator as far as it comes to production COOL "F" ing great SHEET! Even if it did take em 5 years I never saw PC remake anything in 15 years
    But know that ALL Computers are made in China by political prisoners ! I am Proud to be an amerikan who uses APPLE

    Ahhh... the thing of beauty in your link has One fan. Which is thirteen minus fifteen plus two. One incredibly quite freaking fan.
    I would love to own the one you have as well.

    CD, where's you find a Titan for a grand?

  • Curved DesignCurved Design Posts: 61
    edited December 1969

    One thing I want to say is MY NEW MACPRO has 13 cooling fans inside it! THIRTEEN!! That is 10 plus 3! it weighs 56 pounds! A 9 inch coffee cans thats twice as fast with one fan... BRING IT ON!

    I do not want to re-fan the embers of PC vs mac wars BUT COME on MAC has been and always will be the top innovator as far as it comes to production COOL "F" ing great SHEET! Even if it did take em 5 years I never saw PC remake anything in 15 years
    But know that ALL Computers are made in China by political prisoners ! I am Proud to be an amerikan who uses APPLE

    Ahhh... the thing of beauty in your link has One fan. Which is thirteen minus fifteen plus two. One incredibly quite freaking fan.
    I would love to own the one you have as well.

    CD, where's you find a Titan for a grand?

    Dartanbeck, isn't that the going price?

    http://www.bhphotovideo.com/bnh/controller/home?O=&sku=936377&Q=&is=REG&A=details

    It looks like the Nvidia GTX 780 at $649 is getting some good reviews too!

    http://www.extremetech.com/gaming/156588-nvidias-gtx-780-titan-like-performance-without-the-1000-price-tag

    But I don't want to get too excited about Nvidia GPUs since it looks like I am going to be getting 2 FirePros! LOL! The TITAN is not even Nvidia's pro like of GPUs, i.e. Nvidia Quadros.

  • DartanbeckDartanbeck Posts: 21,522
    edited December 1969

    My mistake - I was confusing "Titan" with an nVidia computer I saw a while back.

  • Curved DesignCurved Design Posts: 61
    edited December 1969

    My mistake - I was confusing "Titan" with an nVidia computer I saw a while back.

    I found this article interesting! Looks like AMD might be using the Mac Pro to get serious and to try to get back into the game!

    http://vr-zone.com/articles/why-amd-firepro-still-cannot-compete-against-nvidia-quadro-old-or-new/17074.html

  • DartanbeckDartanbeck Posts: 21,522
    edited December 1969

    Carrara doesn't see a whole lot of benefit in great video cards though. My workstation uses a Fermi based (but not Quadro) vs my laptop's GT260 stand-alone (not built into the MB) and the OpenGL performance is not that different. Of course other apps that you have may say something else, altogether, but that's my biggest reason for not going for a high-end card when I built this workstation. It relies fully on its eight core processor for rendering - and the Fermi does a great (smooth and responsive) job in my working view.

    I am still wondering if I would notice a change with a Quadro. And if that change would be significant enough to be worth the extra coin.

    The change from dual core to eight core processors, on the other hand, was enormous! I got the lower end AMD FX 8 Zambezi, and at the same time DAZ_Spooky got the high end chip from the same line. I paired mine with a Military Spec Motherboard capable of using 32 GB RAM, and I began with 16GB High performance RAM with nice, aggressive heat sinks.

    The plan is to continue working with this one and possibly upgrade the RAM to 32. Then in another year or so, build another, which will have the main responsibility of being a render node for this one. The dual core machine has become the browser for the internet and runs my Music Composing software. But this workstation weighed in at less than a grand, including the killer case with extra fans, Windows 7 and my Sony Movie HD Platinum suite. So I could build two more of these and still come in at less cost than the current Mac Pro server-class tower, but have a total of 24 core each running at over 3GHz!

    My other thought was to build my next one with a much higher budget - and use that new one as my workstation and my current one would become the render node. In that plan, I would be building more for the future - in the hopes of gaining GPU assistance for rendering with Carrara - as a server-class tower with two of the server-class, eight core chips and plenty of RAM to feed them. My buddy Garstor built one of those. Again... for what I do, the cost-saving desktop solution I've built is beautifully powerful for my animations rendering. So the first plan is nice in that I would continue to achieve amazing bang for very few bucks. By the time I have three in total, I could just stop there - as that will really crank out my clips. As technology grows and I find myself wanting to build anew, these would still be invaluable for rendering.

  • That Other PersonaThat Other Persona Posts: 381
    edited October 2013

    I'm also in the "should I buy a MacPro?" boat.

    My iMac is a 3.4 GHz quad-core, so I would be looking at a 6-core 3.5 GHz MacPro probably bumping the lower end model with D300 GPUs as opposed to getting the higher one with the D500s. I don't need 4K and will only probably have two displays.

    I know 6 cores will beat my current 4, but will Carrara 9 benefit from the GPUs? Or would I need LuxRender? If so, how easy is it to use? I am not a pro user but I want to make animations that are lengthy and thus time-consuming.

    Post edited by That Other Persona on
  • evilproducerevilproducer Posts: 9,050
    edited December 1969

    I'm also in the "should I buy a MacPro?" boat.

    My iMac is a 3.4 GHz quad-core, so I would be looking at a 6-core 3.5 GHz MacPro probably bumping the lower end model with D300 GPUs as opposed to getting the higher one with the D500s. I don't need 4K and will only probably have two displays.

    I know 6 cores will beat my current 4, but will Carrara 9 benefit from the GPUs? Or would I need LuxRender? If so, how easy is it to use? I am not a pro user but I want to make animations that are lengthy and thus time-consuming.

    Carrara's render engine is CPU only. You may get a boost in the Assembly room performance as that's OpenGL driven. I see there is a thread about an Octane Carrara plugin. Does that use the GPU?

  • That Other PersonaThat Other Persona Posts: 381
    edited October 2013

    I'm also in the "should I buy a MacPro?" boat.

    My iMac is a 3.4 GHz quad-core, so I would be looking at a 6-core 3.5 GHz MacPro probably bumping the lower end model with D300 GPUs as opposed to getting the higher one with the D500s. I don't need 4K and will only probably have two displays.

    I know 6 cores will beat my current 4, but will Carrara 9 benefit from the GPUs? Or would I need LuxRender? If so, how easy is it to use? I am not a pro user but I want to make animations that are lengthy and thus time-consuming.

    Carrara's render engine is CPU only. You may get a boost in the Assembly room performance as that's OpenGL driven. I see there is a thread about an Octane Carrara plugin. Does that use the GPU?


    It seems to work with Nvidia GPU cards and CUDA. [I profess ignorance of what that is]

    The new MacPro has AMD FirePro cards that use OpenCL. [Again, I profess ignorance; just seems one works with one, not the other and vice versa or something like that]

    Apple, on their webpage, do show a Luxmark score (LuxRender) for the MacPro comparing it to the previous MacPro (which of course I don't have, but I did have several models back but wasn't into 3D at the time; yes, I'm confused; why did't they just put a Luxmark score??)

    It would be really, really nice if it was all internal in Carrara, because I am not after anything that complicated...

    Post edited by That Other Persona on
  • DartanbeckDartanbeck Posts: 21,522
    edited December 1969

    I'm also in the "should I buy a MacPro?" boat.

    My iMac is a 3.4 GHz quad-core, so I would be looking at a 6-core 3.5 GHz MacPro probably bumping the lower end model with D300 GPUs as opposed to getting the higher one with the D500s. I don't need 4K and will only probably have two displays.

    I know 6 cores will beat my current 4, but will Carrara 9 benefit from the GPUs? Or would I need LuxRender? If so, how easy is it to use? I am not a pro user but I want to make animations that are lengthy and thus time-consuming.I went from two cores to eight, building my own Windows machine for less than a grand. The render times are not even close. But in this field, you just do more stuff to slow them down again. But now when I get onto my little two-core, the wait for simple tasks can feel overwhelming sometimes - just being used to my monster! My lower cost graphics card is on the list of ones that will work fine with Octane as well.

    Carrara's render engine is CPU only. You may get a boost in the Assembly room performance as that's OpenGL driven. I see there is a thread about an Octane Carrara plugin. Does that use the GPU?

    Yeah!
    Talk about adding a huge pile of coin onto the ol' Christmas wishlist, eh? Graphics card shopping, when you're looking to really get speed from a GPU cranking render engine, you're looking for something that costs some serious coin. Then Octane ain't cheap, either!

    Beyond all of that, I still think that, if you can at all afford to, always go for more CPU cores if you're going for a serious Carrara machine. I want another 8! I was originally planning on making another 8 core as a render node. But instead, maybe I'll just network them anyways but build the new one to have two eight core chips. AMD made one sweet rendering chip when they developed Zambezi Eight core cpu! Spooky and I both bought them around the same time - but he got the high-end one... I went the other way to save several hundred - I had to at the time.

  • SpacelandSpaceland Posts: 132
    edited December 1969

    I find that the Mac Pro got a nice new update and the design is cool.

    But at that price, I find it too much for a computer like that.

  • DartanbeckDartanbeck Posts: 21,522
    edited December 1969

    Spaceland said:
    I find that the Mac Pro got a nice new update and the design is cool.

    But at that price, I find it too much for a computer like that.

    I'm with you on this. While I applaud the amazing design, the price for something that the company gives me no-to-very little say in how I can upgrade as the times dictate is just not the answer. The way technology is absolutely flying right now, I find it a better answer to build my own stuff. I get what I want at a much lower price, as I can dictate in my own way which technology is fresh and which is following on it's heels by going with yesterday's best. While I think it's a very cool design, it's at least twice the cost, and a twelve-core powerhouse, to what I can build, myself, as a sixteen-core monster. Since every core counts, when it comes to Carrara, I'll go with the cheaper sixteen. Or if I'm on a tight budget, like I am now... I'll take the eight over the six.
    The other huge consideration, especially if you're considering the addition of Octane, is the idea of being locked into only a few choices of graphics upgrades compared to having everything made in the industry at your disposal. I can see Apple's take, I guess. They want nothing but the best of the best - so that they have less issues in customer service. But that removes me from their system entirely. I need my choices. My darn phone has a dual core proc in it now. Why would I want to spend so much on a six-core as a Carrara render machine? Truth is... I don't.
  • Three WishesThree Wishes Posts: 471
    edited December 1969

    Spaceland said:
    I find that the Mac Pro got a nice new update and the design is cool.

    But at that price, I find it too much for a computer like that.

    I'm with you on this. While I applaud the amazing design, the price for something that the company gives me no-to-very little say in how I can upgrade as the times dictate is just not the answer. The way technology is absolutely flying right now, I find it a better answer to build my own stuff. I get what I want at a much lower price, as I can dictate in my own way which technology is fresh and which is following on it's heels by going with yesterday's best. While I think it's a very cool design, it's at least twice the cost, and a twelve-core powerhouse, to what I can build, myself, as a sixteen-core monster. Since every core counts, when it comes to Carrara, I'll go with the cheaper sixteen. Or if I'm on a tight budget, like I am now... I'll take the eight over the six.
    The other huge consideration, especially if you're considering the addition of Octane, is the idea of being locked into only a few choices of graphics upgrades compared to having everything made in the industry at your disposal. I can see Apple's take, I guess. They want nothing but the best of the best - so that they have less issues in customer service. But that removes me from their system entirely. I need my choices. My darn phone has a dual core proc in it now. Why would I want to spend so much on a six-core as a Carrara render machine? Truth is... I don't.

    Same here. I would love to have one, but on my current budget...not gonna happen. Not for the build I'd want. I hope to retire my 5-year-old iMac early next year. If my choice is a baseline Mac Pro or a completely blown-out iMac for $3300-ish, the iMac wins.

  • Curved DesignCurved Design Posts: 61
    edited December 1969

    dhtapp said:
    Spaceland said:
    I find that the Mac Pro got a nice new update and the design is cool.

    But at that price, I find it too much for a computer like that.

    I'm with you on this. While I applaud the amazing design, the price for something that the company gives me no-to-very little say in how I can upgrade as the times dictate is just not the answer. The way technology is absolutely flying right now, I find it a better answer to build my own stuff. I get what I want at a much lower price, as I can dictate in my own way which technology is fresh and which is following on it's heels by going with yesterday's best. While I think it's a very cool design, it's at least twice the cost, and a twelve-core powerhouse, to what I can build, myself, as a sixteen-core monster. Since every core counts, when it comes to Carrara, I'll go with the cheaper sixteen. Or if I'm on a tight budget, like I am now... I'll take the eight over the six.
    The other huge consideration, especially if you're considering the addition of Octane, is the idea of being locked into only a few choices of graphics upgrades compared to having everything made in the industry at your disposal. I can see Apple's take, I guess. They want nothing but the best of the best - so that they have less issues in customer service. But that removes me from their system entirely. I need my choices. My darn phone has a dual core proc in it now. Why would I want to spend so much on a six-core as a Carrara render machine? Truth is... I don't.

    Same here. I would love to have one, but on my current budget...not gonna happen. Not for the build I'd want. I hope to retire my 5-year-old iMac early next year. If my choice is a baseline Mac Pro or a completely blown-out iMac for $3300-ish, the iMac wins.

    I am 90% sure I am getting the new 2013 Mac Pro! But the question is which configuration? The new AMD/ATI FirePro GPUs are sort of a mystery. I am not sure if the comparisons are accurate but everyone is trying to figure out what a FirePro D300, FirePro D500, and FirePro D700 are?

    Here is a question and answer that I got on macrumors.com.

    > Quote:

    > I can't find any info on these GPUs on AMD/ATI's web site?

    > Are these totally new cards or reincarnations of AMD/ATI's existing cards?

    Not so much "new" as "custom"/"proprietary". Apple designed and makes these cards not AMD. Apple has licensed some stuff and buys a few basic components from AMD but it Apple's card.

    > Quote:

    > Anyone find anything on the web? My google search yielded nothing.

    It will show up once macrumors and other rumors sites get indexed.

    roughly

    D300 approximately a W7000 ( less VRAM 2 versus 4 ) [ approximately AMD HD 7870 ]

    D500 approximately a W8000 ( less VRAM and fewer cores and tweaked memory width ) [ approximatel AMD HD 7950 or AMD HD 7870 XT ]

    D700 approximately a W9000 [ approximately AMD HD 7970 ]

    I know Apple is really going to push OpenCL and with the abundance and volume of the dual FirePro GPUs that are going to be out there I can see a lot of products taking advantage of them via OpenCL.

  • DartanbeckDartanbeck Posts: 21,522
    edited December 1969

    I am 90% sure I am getting the new 2013 Mac Pro!

    Congrats!
    Whichever the choice, it'll likely be sweet and fast!
    Happy for you already. ;)
  • That Other PersonaThat Other Persona Posts: 381
    edited December 1969

    Has anybody gotten a new Mac Pro? It would be awesome to hear how it performs with Carrara / Daz3D.

  • Curved DesignCurved Design Posts: 61
    edited December 1969

    Has anybody gotten a new Mac Pro? It would be awesome to hear how it performs with Carrara / Daz3D.

    I am getting one but the Build To Order (BTO) configurations are sold out until February!

    I am thinking of getting the 3.7 Ghz Quad Core Xeon E5 with Dual Fire Pro 700s?

    1. In another thread it was mentioned that DAZ Studio does not use the GPU for rendering. That does not sound right?

    http://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/34277/

    Does DAZ Studio 4.6 even use the GPU for rendering?

    2. Luxus add on Renderer... I think it uses OpenCL which I think would be a great fit for the new 2013 Mac Pro but I am not sure?

    3. Not sure about Carrara? I have Carrara 8.5 beta but never upgraded to the final version...

    4. I am also getting it for Final Cut Pro X and also Blender 3D. Although the Bender Cycles unbiased render engine does not work with the AMD/ATI FirePro GPUs yet? It looks like AMD and Apple are working on drivers and support in the yet unrelease of Maverics 10.9.2 OS.

  • That Other PersonaThat Other Persona Posts: 381
    edited December 1969

    Neither Daz nor Carrara uses the GPU for rendering.

  • DartanbeckDartanbeck Posts: 21,522
    edited December 1969

    The main thing that will help you in rendering is the number of cores in the cpu. The only Mac Pro that I've seen that I really liked was the 12 core. Perhaps the 8. But I built my eight core Windows machine for less than $1,000.00 USD, which still makes me shy away from Mac OS.

  • That Other PersonaThat Other Persona Posts: 381
    edited January 2014

    He said he also uses Final Cut Pro X, which is only on Mac and is a dream to work with.

    Post edited by That Other Persona on
  • DartanbeckDartanbeck Posts: 21,522
    edited December 1969

    Love to try Mac and Final Cut Pro some day.

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