The new Mac Pro Desktop

[Andy Peters]

MOTU PCI people need slots, and theirs don't work in expansion chassis.  A fair number of PCI cards appear to not work in expansion chassis.

My guess is that's a failure in the design of the PCI card. Back when I did that sort of thing, I learned that it was quite the pain in the ass. Lots of details to get right. Having a PCI bus analyzer was absolutely necessary, and those things were expensive, so I can imagine that it was an expense some companies would forgo. Then you'd have the issue of certain motherboards not working with certain cards.

Oh, and drivers.

-a

 

[Andy Peters]

what's REALLY the pros agains an iMac? more power, speed, sure... my bet is though that the mac pro is going to be between 4-5000 if you want to have a decent sized hd + memory AND a display to that. you still have to get a thunderbolt expansion chassis to get things going, same thing with the iMac. how much is the iMac again?

Well, for one thing the iMac has limited memory and supports only one quad-core processor. The Mac Pro has always supported multiple multi-core processors, much more memory and better graphics.

We recently bought the latest-model Mac mini for my wife. It didn't make sense to buy Yet Another Monitor, and the mini takes up to 16 GB and is a quad-core i7, so it's a screaming little box.

-a

 

[dandeurloo]

I wanted to like this but I think I'm gonna stick with my Hackintosh or build a newer one. 

 

[emrr]

With the MOTU cards everyone is saying drivers.  If they release a thunderbolt version there's no reason they'd extend the life of legacy PCI. 

 

[shot]

New MacPro surely looks cool, and I'm sure it will outperform most computers. But...
I believe in a year or so this will push PC manufacturers to step more into the game with dual processor motherboards and double Xeons. And that will probably be cheaper without annoying hardware restrictions. Maybe even new hackintosh pro will be created on such config.

It's true that thunderbolt is faster and in every way better. But manufacturers of peripherals didn't accept it like FW or USB were accepted instantly. Just look at how many manufacturers jumped to implement USB 3. And how many of them did implement thunderbolt? It's very risky to push thunderbolt, leave only one usb3 and drop firewire.

Abandoning PCI(x)? Well that's brave decision. That's abandoning all the professions that depend on many external devices designed for their field of work. That's practically abandoning audio industry! They are like focusing on designers and video professionals. And they made it look good for enthusiasts.

In my mind Pro means powerful, ready for profession-specific external hardware and flexible. This is more consumer. Nice looking with lots of power but mostly limited to photo and video work that don't need external hardware much. But considering how many folks nowadays have DSLR cameras, I bet they'll sell without problem. But is it really Pro computer? Or it's semi-pro, advanced-enthusiast?

I'm shocked, surprised (in a good way) and disappointed (in a bad way)...

 

[Fubard]

EXPANDABILITY in drives, cards, exc is exactly why I got my mac pro instead of an Imac or the mini. this to me is more like a real cool minipro or pro-mini. but a suitable replacement? NO SIR.

Maybe if they had a latch on PCI base that connects via FW or TB...

sometimes smaller isn't better.

 

[Andy Peters]

It's true that thunderbolt is faster and in every way better. But manufacturers of peripherals didn't accept it like FW or USB were accepted instantly. Just look at how many manufacturers jumped to implement USB 3. And how many of them did implement thunderbolt? It's very risky to push thunderbolt, leave only one usb3 and drop firewire.

That's a bit of revisionist history there.

We should remember that FireWire was never really accepted on Windows at all. There were serious problems with FireWire on 2K and XP, as I remember. And very few desktop Windows boxes had FireWire built in and I can't think of any that had FireWire 800. I also can't think of any Windows laptops with FireWire.

Sure, one can buy a PCI or PCIe card to add FireWire to a Windows desktop, but that is added cost to the user.

And USB wasn't accepted instantly by Microsoft, either. Apple adopted it first, replacing the old ADB stuff. And it took quite awhile for it to show up on Windows machines. Notably, Windows NT, which was the "professional" Windows OS at the time, did not support USB. Microsoft told Windows users to install Windows 98 (the second version of that OS) or wait until Windows 2K arrived if they wanted USB support.

(I should also note that Apple was the first to provide Gigabit Ethernet in all of their machines, well ahead of the Windows box providers.)

As for USB 3, the box manufacturers jumped to it because it is included in the Intel chipset, not because it's a good/bad/indifferent interface. It remains to be seen whether device manufacturers (such as the audio guys) start supporting USB 3, and I think that really depends on whether a good USB 3 PHY, or better, a device-controller chip shows up and if it's cheap enough. (And if fscking Microsoft decides to actually provide a native USB Audio Class v2.0 driver so the peripherals guys don't have to write one! Let's see, Apple's supported USB Audio Class v2.0 since Tiger!)

-a

 

[Andy Peters]

With the MOTU cards everyone is saying drivers.  If they release a thunderbolt version there's no reason they'd extend the life of legacy PCI.

If the device includes a Thunderbolt-to-PCI(e) bridge (which is the likely scenario), then to the OS it looks like a PCI(e) device and no special driver is necessary.

The larger issue is that when Windows 7 came out, Microsoft started requiring signed drivers. This meant a payment to Microsoft for the privilege of allowing one's hardware to work with Windows. Plus the driver model changed which meant a rewrite. Supporting a 64-bit OS also required a driver rewrite. Writing drivers is non-trivial.

That MOTU chooses to not support a PCI device for a newer OS is a decision they make based on whatever criteria/priorities they have.

-a

 

[emrr]

Well, the MOTU devices work on all Mac OS, that's not the issue.  It's well documented they don't work in external Thunderbolt-to-PCI(e) bridge chassis to date.  Other PCI(e) cards do.  I don't know more than that. 

 

[[silent:arts]]

Apple is known to set new standards, and cutting old ones in one step.
Thinking about NuBus to PCI.
Think about ADB to USB etc.
It will take one or two hard years, for developers and customers.
However, it will work out fine.

I like the cut! It is a (the only) way to speed up new developments.

 

[Matador]

Keep in mind that audio use was never in the plan for this device:  it's a niche product geared towards video editing on FCP. 

An audio guy wants CPU power, not $1000 worth of GPU's soaking up 250W+ of the limited thermal headroom.  An audio-oriented revision of the MAc Pro would have been the previous chassis, with the addition of USB 3, Thunderbolt, and dual-CPU 12-core Haswell support.

Not *that* would have been a machine to behold...as it stands now, your dollar is much better spent on an iMac, or better yet, 4 Mac Mini's stacked on top of each other.  ;D

 

[fazer]

Just go native on protools and you seem to have a lot of power with the Protools Thunderbolt Native interface.  HD is great but its over when it comes to memory cashe  and HDX for most of us is more than you needed. Native on this new Macpro with thunderbolt might be all you need anyway.

The audio lives in cache ram memory on the mac pro not hard drives.  My sessions,  (when I back-up)  are usually living in 16gig or less.  With 32 gig of memory in a machine, you have more than enough to loose the internal drives.  You just back up to a thunderbolt drive array but play out of ram and go native (if you have the extra ram).  It makes the session move very fast when its setup right.  All those cores will get you your native processing.    Its a change that might be running away from PCI E internal.  And if you want HDX,  you only need 1 card for now anyway right.  Use a Thunderbolt Chassie to PCIe , (1 or 2 slots). 

If I was MOTU I would move to a thunderbolt supported card or USB 3 or both.  It should become I need less hardware somewhere in this equation.  All you need is a super clean I/0 with a daisy chained Thunderbolt interface.  The Macpro could do the rest with ethernet storage drives.  Come September I figure there is 1 year of getting stuff to run right on a new system like that.  2 years ahead might be a planned change to something that goes with your laptop anywhere.  Are flies hard on the Macpro at the Office/Studio.   

One last thing,  the plugIn people seem to be writing mostly native versions and not HDX versions but thats an assumption I'm making and could be a bit subjective.     

 

[sr1200]

We should remember that FireWire was never really accepted on Windows at all. There were serious problems with FireWire on 2K and XP, as I remember. And very few desktop Windows boxes had FireWire built in and I can't think of any that had FireWire 800. I also can't think of any Windows laptops with FireWire.

Gonna have to disagree with this BIG time.  Yes, at first firewire was almost taboo on a PC, but that changed (and quite rapidly).
Every laptop in my house except ONE has firewire (mini 400 port). And 2 of my shop PC's have firewire 800 ports via PCIe card and they all have onboard firewire 400 ports.

I think mac failed at their attempt to redesign the new "pro" and turned it into a hipster barista expensive toy.  TB chassis are not acceptable solution for a "pro" machine.  That's what you use when you run out of the slots that are IN the machine, or you're using an iMac or mac mini or laptop. 

That Dyson comment was the best Mike....

 

[audiomixer]

If you carefully look at the specs you must come to the conclusion that the mac pro has only been reedited only considering one customer base - the graphics guys, renderer, animations and so on. the photo people have log been satisfied with the large screen MacIntegrate, enough horsepower for them anyway and finally everyone has started to put as much storage as required on networked HDDs. 
Audio as a separate application has just totally fallen out of the design team focus. adding additional audio interfaces or dsp cards through hyperwire or whatever the new cool is called just has to be enough apparently. hope we will get functional PCIe boxes...

get over it guys - you just dropped out of the preferred costumer group....

- Michael

 

[Andy Peters]

We should remember that FireWire was never really accepted on Windows at all. There were serious problems with FireWire on 2K and XP, as I remember. And very few desktop Windows boxes had FireWire built in and I can't think of any that had FireWire 800. I also can't think of any Windows laptops with FireWire.

Gonna have to disagree with this BIG time.  Yes, at first firewire was almost taboo on a PC, but that changed (and quite rapidly).
Every laptop in my house except ONE has firewire (mini 400 port). And 2 of my shop PC's have firewire 800 ports via PCIe card and they all have onboard firewire 400 ports.

Then you're the exception, because none of the PC laptops my friends and co-workers own have FireWire, and only one Dell series seems to have FW 400 out of the hundred or so machines we have around the office.

Certainly, if you're looking for FW on a PC, you can find it, but it's not on most machines that I've seen. YMMV.

I think mac failed at their attempt to redesign the new "pro" and turned it into a hipster barista expensive toy.  TB chassis are not acceptable solution for a "pro" machine.  That's what you use when you run out of the slots that are IN the machine, or you're using an iMac or mac mini or laptop. 

My guess is that Apple has a narrow definition of "pro," in that the professionals they're targeting are the video render guys.

Because if I was designing a computer to be used as a DAW, I wouldn't bother with all of the video/graphics hardware they put into the new Mac Pro. I wouldn't bother with the multiple HDMI outputs or whatever else.

All the DAW really needs is the ability to drive a couple of monitors at high res (3D rendering not necessary), a boatload of RAM so you don't need to hit the disks as often, and a couple of quad-core processors for the processing. Would eight cores suffice? The point is that the requirements are not as extreme as for 4k video rendering.

For your audio interfaces, a single Thunderbolt wire daisy chained through your devices should be sufficient. Of course, that's looking at the future, but I would be VERY surprised if MOTU and Apogee and Avid weren't already designing updates to their products which use a Thunderbolt to FireWire bridge chip in front of the DICE or whatever they use. That way they don't have to wait for or design a custom Thunderbolt device controller chip.

But, as JR says, I could be wrong.

-a

 

[JohnRoberts]

But, as JR says, I could be wrong.

-a

The good thing about making predictions about the future is that by definition you can't be wrong, until some point in the future. Never if you don't predict when.

I routinely caveat my comments about governance and things political since opinions vary so much, it saves time to say I may be wrong up front..  8)

JR

 

[Matador]

My guess is that Apple has a narrow definition of "pro," in that the professionals they're targeting are the video render guys.

Because if I was designing a computer to be used as a DAW, I wouldn't bother with all of the video/graphics hardware they put into the new Mac Pro. I wouldn't bother with the multiple HDMI outputs or whatever else.

This.  An "audio oriented" Mac Pro would have been designed around dual 8-core Haswell-based Xeon cores (the current tubular Mac Pro Ivybridge-based Xeon's are over a year old now!).  That 200W of GPU thermal's could have been traded for CPU power and made a kick-ass audio machine (excluding Thunderbolt, of course).

I really wished they would have kept the old design, and just re-spun the motherboard(s) to bring the CPU cores up to date while adding Thunderbolt and keeping the internal storage option(s).  If they wanted to do a new small-form-factor video editing machine, it should have been done in parallel.

 

[sr1200]

Dont underestimate or underpower your graphics card just because youre doing audio.  Theres a lot of graphical stuff going on with PT specifically, and if you're running dual monitors, the older mac pro's with the 512Mb video card will have a REALLY hard time keeping up with protools 10 (and i would imagine 11) which can actually cause metering and workflow issues.  I upgraded the video card in my machine and it was like working on a brand new box again.

 

[Andy Peters]

Dont underestimate or underpower your graphics card just because youre doing audio.  Theres a lot of graphical stuff going on with PT specifically, and if you're running dual monitors, the older mac pro's with the 512Mb video card will have a REALLY hard time keeping up with protools 10 (and i would imagine 11) which can actually cause metering and workflow issues.  I upgraded the video card in my machine and it was like working on a brand new box again.

What would be REALLY cool would be if they could program the GPU to run the plug-ins.

-a

 

[ruairioflaherty]

Dont underestimate or underpower your graphics card just because youre doing audio.

That's interesting.  I've been laboring under the myth that our computers have had way to much graphics power for audio users for years.  Thanks!

I use mac precisely because I'm not all that interested in computers, I just need to make records.