The new Mac Pro Desktop

[benqbasic]

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.

Every higher end/business HP laptop I have owned has had firewire. Far less desktops have onboard firewire though.
But the way apple is going Im sure the only way to get an onboard firewire port will be PC's soon. 

For audio I have a mac pro. But I think my next upgrade will be a the mini.

 

[mulletchuck]

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

-a

I think people did some tests with the NVidia CUDA system (which lets you run generic math processing on the GPU instead of the CPU) involving audio, and determined that the CUDA system was a poor substitute for a CPU when it comes to audio processing.  the GPUs were just not designed for audio processing, they were designed and optimized for triangle manipulation and OpenGL calculations, or somethin' like that.  But yeah, the NVidia CUDA cards are the ones that allow offloading of CPU cycles onto the GPU.  A lot of work has been put into the system for generic processing.  I think they use it with some medical applications currently.  it's worth googling.. 

 

[Mbira]

I've been doing more video and audio work together.  I'm super excited.  I think moving to all external devices makes sense (to me) as I prefer to keep all my projects separate and external anyway because otherwise I just fill my drives with crap that I don't need.  Keeps me more efficient.  I can't wait, and plan to sell my car to be able to afford this (haha)...

 

[Pip]

Well first let me qualify. I am a PC guy in my world. Wasn't always and have gone back and forth over the years. My first computer was a Commodore 64 then Atari 520 and 1040 I think I have a MegaSt around still. Ran CLabs Notator which morphed into Logic. I now run Cubase on a PC Running Windows 8 64Bit and have been 64Bit since Cubase made it work with Windows 7. I have Steinberg and ART interfaces (which will run on Thunderbolt) as they interface well with Cubase. And I am happy. All of my drives are Glyph or LacIe both Firewire 400 and 800 I do have one drive that is SATA for back-up and I recently got a SSD for my system drive (FAST). I also use Macs all the time in other peoples work spaces as Cubase runs on both.

I have been using Firewire on both my laptops and desktops for well over 10 years. All PC's by the way. Mac designed and was the first to add Firewire to a computer and the first to drop it I might add. In the beginning yes I had to add a card to my desktop but that didn't last long. All my laptops since my Centrino based machine have had it.

Who needs PCI and PCIe slots you ask? I do! I also need firewire and oh yes an express 34 slot ( HP still makes one) on my lap top. Why? I run UAD plugin cards and still use my UAD Solo on my laptop. Why? Because I have invested thousands and I am doing fine all I need is more horsepower for what I already have and I am happy!

I think we were all waiting for the new Mac Pro. Both PC and Mac people were waiting. It looks way cool and the fan I have heard is quiet. So I guess the message is Thunderbolt is the future and thats OK with me. I am sure over time someone will make a box that works with PCIe cards and uses the Thunderbolt interface. Or I will buy something like the new UAD Appolo that uses Thunderbolt and comprises both an audio interface and a plug-in card option. It does work better with a proprietary Thunderbolt PCIe card but I am sure the next version will make the move on this.

The new Mac Pro is ahead of its time no doubt. But it also boasts it knows what is ahead in time with its expansion concepts. It is a radical departure and it may or may not be the next evolution in computing. Time and my guess a fair amount of money (the sole reason I'm a PC guy) will tell.

Here in lies the rub! Why would you buy a new Mac Pro over a Mac Mini if the answer is use no slots use Thunderbolt? The new Mac Pro says it is made in America that is a strong consideration for me as I believe in jobs in America first.

EDIT: Hey wait a minute! I have been doing a little research since I wrote this and I have come to the conclusion that this new offering has made the distinct decision to not address the audio community at all and is targeted at the video community first. We in the audio community do not need PCIe gen 3 speeds video does. Video is also not reliant on expansion slots as much as audio people. That being said it does look cool. Inside and out.

I now come to the end of my statement.

 

[Matador]

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

-a

Unfortunately two different solutions to two different problems.

GPU's are HEAVILY pipelined, and are meant to be filled with a working set, which then performs dozens of passes on that same working set (even more when dealing with anti-aliasing, etc).  Once the gun is loaded with bullets, the throughput is staggering.  However end-to-end latency suffers since the pipeline is so very deep:  it can take many frames (e.g. multiples of the refresh rate of display) before cooked data starts to emerge.

Unfortunately audio processing lives and dies by latency, not throughput.  The new/processed samples have to be ready by the time the next sample exits the buffer, or the entire stream grinds to a halt.  Most audio processing frameworks weren't meant to adapt to this, and depend on the samples returning with a worst case latency that is a small fraction of the overall bit rate.

 

[0dbfs]

I've read a little about hackintosh. Are these fidgity? How about running HD or HDX cards, UAD2's, powercore's, and these types of things? I certainly don't mind getting a mobo or two and building it up into a case.

Would be nice to have a racked mobo full of slots and fast CPU.

Really needs to be mission critical solid in my opinion with the capability to re-image the machine using clonezilla or ghost or something..

All that said the expansion chassis thing is also pretty alluring because you can theoretically "take it with you in a simple rack" and use your laptop to drive it, or the installed/racked machine in the studio....

HackinThoughts?

Cheers,
j

 

[Matador]

A modern Mac is nothing more than a bunch of commercially available parts housed in a fancy case.  You can buy motherboard designs based on the exact same chipsets and they are essentially identical from the OS's perspective.

Aside from the legality issues, the biggest issues comes in from device driver support.  You need to make sure that you're peripheral devices (like Firewire, WiFi/networking, and USB controllers) are the same as those already supported on the Mac (most likely they are)...otherwise, getting the HW working can be a PITA.

 

[sr1200]

Biggest issue with mac drivers are in the video department (ok, and USB3...) they only support VERY SPECIFIC chipsets.  Makes no sense from a video standpoint since most of their videocards are like 3 years behind PC standards.

 

[warpie]

I'm a mac user for many years but I can't see myself getting the new mac pro. Is it illegal using mackintosh in a commercial studio?

 

[Spidouz]

Hackintosh by definition is illegal. Even in Europe (where laws are a little bit different), the last OS X version you can legally run on a Hackintosh is Snow Leopard. Do some search on legal apple page, read the freaking 60 pages long contract we "agree" to access to App Store and so on, and you'll discover Hackintosh can legally run on OS X Lion and higher (including coming soon Mavericks).

In the US, it's even worst, because you can't even run legally Snow Leopard. So in the end, the question about using Hackintosh in a commercial facilities would be the same as using cracked software/plugins. Would you do it?

Personally I'm waiting on this new Mac Pro and would definitely buy some. I'm really glad Apple did change it that way and it's just what I was waiting for. IMHO, it's definitely the future of Pro Desktop. I'm glad I did wait for it and didn't go the Hackintosh road.

 

[Andy Peters]

I'm a mac user for many years but I can't see myself getting the new mac pro. Is it illegal using mackintosh on a commercial studio?

It doesn't matter where it's used. The license agreement states that the software is to run only on Apple hardware.

Now, it's not likely that Apple will send their lawyers after you if you build a Hackintosh and use it in a studio.

But everyone I know who's tried to keep a Hackintosh running reliably enough to use as a DAW has given up.

(Of course, I don't even bother building Windows machines any more. It's too much of a pain in the ass. It's easier to ring up Dell and say, "send a computer that works out of the box, please." And they do.)

-a

 

[[silent:arts]]

(Of course, I don't even bother building Windows machines any more. It's too much of a pain in the ass. It's easier to ring up Dell and say, "send a computer that works out of the box, please." And they do.)

Are you sure, with Dell?
The Digas department (low end DAW for cutting interviews) told me last week: 25% of 250 Dells (one order) failed ...

 

[sr1200]

My office gets about 3000 dells every other year.  There was one model that we got in that had over a 40% failure after 9mo. And over 20% out of the box.  Think about those numbers. Fail!!!

 

[rainton]

I think the new Mac Pro design is great inside and out.

I was expecting apple to be the first to drop internal PCIe cards ever since they came up with thunderbolt...

...I used to own an 8-core Mac Pro until a couple of months ago and it was only used at the studio. But then I bought a Retina MacBook Pro last year and found out that it was indeed faster than my 2008 Mac Pro in many ways - especially rendering video!!

After using both machines in parallel I decided it makes no sense to keep both - the MacBook consumes less energy - is more silent and also faster (and also portable)

So I figured IF Apple is coming with new Mac Pro I will
a) get more money for my old Mac Pro if I sold ASAP
b) be future proof  if I invested the money in an external thunderbolt solution
    for my PCI cards and a RAID array

So I did - and I'm glad about it! I have daisy-chained those devices, stowed it outside of the control room where it doesn't bother me and with plugging in only one TB cable I have most of the studio up-and-running
Works flawlessly...and when I'll go for a new Mac Pro at some point in the future
I only have to plug this TB cable into it and I'm ready to roll

So I'm really excited about what's gonna come...

 

[Pip]

OK.

 

[EEMO1]

But everyone I know who's tried to keep a Hackintosh running reliably enough to use as a DAW has given up.

I've had no problems whatsoever. running over a year now.

 

[dfuruta]

I've used a hackintosh as my daw for more than three years with no real problems.  still running 10.6.8;  if it works, why change?

 

[Kingston]

 

[0dbfs]

... Less is more.... And so is more...

Cheers,
jb

 

[iomegaman]

Ahhh the Achilles heel...one friggin fan...to hack quote Tolkien:

"One fan to rule them all, one fan to bind them, one fan to break a blade and in the darkbox grind them..."

thunder -whatever the new firewire is is already porting the next version and very few, minuscule audio manf. have developed the first version...

@pple is definitely NOT concerned with the audio industry, but then only the RIAA and homeland security care much anyway.

SSD and memory seem to be tripping over one another. competing for real estate...doesn't seem like wifi/upload speeds are moving forward much which seems rather deconstructive with all the cloud emphasis...

The price point will determine the success...with all those blades cooling down the thermal drift you'd think you could at least grind some coffee beans and make espresso...