2013 Mac Pro Review

[Heinz68]

"Apple?s New Desktop Boasts Dramatic Redesign, Dramatic Performance"



Read the review plus pictures & video at TechCrunch News

[Tim]

I'm not a huge fan of the look, but it's some impressive engineering and for that I give it a thumbs up.

[PatRaceTin]

..... with dramatic price

[zalbard]

I would be curious to see temperature and noise readings.

[ZX2Slow]

I think its interesting how it was packaged. It seems like a gimmick but Apple just cant release a PC in a cube box that barely differentiates their PC hardware from all other PC hardware.

[kuroikenshi]

that would mean its just a pc with a different OS.......but we all know that apple arent pc's to begin with...lmao

[tajoh111]

I think they should have made it a little bigger and given it a beefier power supply and probably a larger heatsink to go along with it.

The max continuous power this thing provides is 450 watts.

https://www.apple.com/ca/mac-pro/specs/

Considering the dual CF and 12 cores processor, everything has to be clocked conservatively.

http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=1688128

625mhz with a 850mhz boost. Considering the power supply and that it has fully unlocked double precision, I would expect it to sit nearer to 625mhz more than 850mhz considering the TDP of the w9000 is 274 watts. And the TDP of the d700 is 108watts.

I guess this allows AMD to still sell w9000s at a relatively high price in comparison to the d700's in the mac pro.

But the mac pro considering the power supply seems like something as powerful as a high performance desktop replacement laptop. Its mostly style for substance.

[Sparky]

Looks like a fancy bean can.

Waste of money for just a unique chassis and inferior OS IMO. But whatever.

[docwhom]

that would mean its just a pc with a different OS.......but we all know that apple arent pc's to begin with...lmao

That's for sure. You are buying a LEGEND in the making here. This is like the 20th Anniversary Macintosh or even the Lampshade iMac, this baby will become like those models - unique and rare.

Mac's where always a fashion item and if you can't afford it, stick with ordinary PC's. I wish I had the money to buy this thing, just so beautiful and sexy to look at constantly. It's virtually a modern piece of sculpture designed for the filthy rich. Who said Steve Jobs was dead, I think he's moved in with Elvis across the road?

[AliG]

I think they should have made it a little bigger and given it a beefier power supply and probably a larger heatsink to go along with it.

The max continuous power this thing provides is 450 watts.

Mac's where always a fashion item and if you can't afford it, stick with ordinary PC's. I wish I had the money to buy this thing, just so beautiful and sexy to look at constantly. It's virtually a modern piece of sculpture designed for the filthy rich. Who said Steve Jobs was dead, I think he's moved in with Elvis across the road?

I think tajoh nailed it, even with the enormous price ($4000 for the 6-core), you don't even get the performance you pay for. I know that Apple is known for underclocking their laptops, phones etc to increase the battery life, but this is supposed to be their work horse. This is truly just a fashion item as you said, there's seriously no point to buying it unless if you just plan on only looking at it or you don't need the performance (which brings up the whole issue of why shell out the money in the first place).

[tajoh111]

I think tajoh nailed it, even with the enormous price ($4000 for the 6-core), you don't even get the performance you pay for. I know that Apple is known for underclocking their laptops, phones etc to increase the battery life, but this is supposed to be their work horse. This is truly just a fashion item as you said, there's seriously no point to buying it unless if you just plan on only looking at it or you don't need the performance (which brings up the whole issue of why shell out the money in the first place).

People doing reviews of mac pro's saying it would cost the same to make a PC version of it are not doing a valid comparison.

Putting a single w9000 and the same processor along with the rest of the components that mac up the mac pro is already going to put it at 450watts.

a 625 mhz tahiti chip produces 2.56TF which is 5.1TF in CF.

There isn't going to many situations of the MAC pro actually churning out the advertised 7TF due to the power supply. I think apple is getting a bit ridiculous using AMD top boost speed for its advertised compute output. It would be better to give at the very least, the range of the TF the user is going to get.

IF one were to get a real desktop version with w9000's, you would be getting somewhere along the lines of 8TF constantly in CF mode which is almost 60% more performance.

[kuroikenshi]

I think tajoh nailed it, even with the enormous price ($4000 for the 6-core), you don't even get the performance you pay for. I know that Apple is known for underclocking their laptops, phones etc to increase the battery life, but this is supposed to be their work horse. This is truly just a fashion item as you said, there's seriously no point to buying it unless if you just plan on only looking at it or you don't need the performance (which brings up the whole issue of why shell out the money in the first place).

beautiful trash can??

[Buckeye]

You guys are so harsh about this computer.

Here it is all broken down
http://www.cultofmac.com/260048/user...roof-mac-ever/

[xytrius]

You guys are so harsh about this computer.

Here it is all broken down
http://www.cultofmac.com/260048/user...roof-mac-ever/

Wait, your link points to skewed assertions.

Excerpts from the New York Times:

My friend said he was impressed by the importing speeds and real-time preview, but felt the editing and playback hiccups were similar to what he encountered with his older quad-core Mac Pro tower, to which he has added memory and additional graphics cards for about $2,000. In other words, he didn?t notice a $6,000 difference.
Therein lies another concern. Professionals will wince at the Mac Pro?s lack of internal expandability after they?re done weeping over the prices. There?s no space for additional hard drives inside, as there was in the original Mac Pro tower, and although the graphics cards are theoretically swappable, no cards currently exist that fit in the Mac Pro?s custom slots.

Apple says its use of Thunderbolt ports mean external storage or graphics cards add-ons are easy and fast. Thunderbolt uses one cable to connect up to six devices, and supports extremely fast data transferring. The Mac Pro has six Thunderbolt 2 ports, plus four USB 3.0 ports for more commonly used hard drives and peripherals.

But Thunderbolt devices are still a new technology and therefore rare, plus expensive. For small shops and prosumers, replaceable parts mean extending the life of a computer instead of replacing it. And if they buy the new Mac Pro, they may have to replace it within a couple of years, and replacing an $8,000 computer is no joke.

Prosumers may like the simplicity of Thunderbolt and the sleek compact nature of the Mac Pro, but in anything but minimum configurations, the price is far more ?pro? than ?sumer.?

In car terms, the new Mac Pro is like a Ferrari or a Maserati. It?s gorgeous, sexy and powerful, and a few rich people will probably buy one in order to go fast. But that doesn?t mean it could cut it in Formula One.

Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/26/te...-computer.html

[Buckeye]

What ??

It just showed this thing torn down and a few comments about how its upgradeable.

[Yeroon]

Considering the form factor and power limits, I'm guessing the d700 chips are probably from 7990/S10000 bins or close to it, bringing the total for both closer to the 375w of the dual gpu cards.

[cx-ray]

Makes for a great HTPC.

[tajoh111]

Considering the form factor and power limits, I'm guessing the d700 chips are probably from 7990/S10000 bins or close to it, bringing the total for both closer to the 375w of the dual gpu cards.

The problem is two fold. It doesn't have 375watts to work with considering the CPU and secondly, power consumption during compute heavy workloads actually reaches there maximum rated power usage. Gaming is actually light on graphics cards compared to computing tasks. The W9000 clocked at 975mhz uses 275watts and is a highly binned part.

Looking at the earlier link I showed showing the power rating of the d700. 108watts, it has the same power envelope given to top end laptop part. It makes sense because if you look at the heater core in the mac air, it actually doesn't have that much surface area considering its cooling two GPU,s, potentially a 12 core processor and a power supply.

The old Mac's had a 1000 watt power supply and with the right configuration you could actually get to where it was necessary. Power consumption of parts haven't magically fallen to the point where we can fit everything on a 450watt power supply. Power consumption on parts have stayed the same actually aside from the slight savings from SSD parts vs spinning harddrives.

[zalbard]

Makes for a great HTPC.

If you are willing to buy one at 5-10 times the price, sure...

[AliG]

Makes for a great HTPC.

Why would you spend $4k on a system with workstation graphics cards for an HTPC? You could literally build one for less than $500 and just buy the case off ebay (someone is bound to fry their system, last I checked apple users aren't the most knowledgeable about their computer internals)

[Yeroon]

The problem is two fold. It doesn't have 375watts to work with considering the CPU and secondly, power consumption during compute heavy workloads actually reaches there maximum rated power usage. Gaming is actually light on graphics cards compared to computing tasks. The W9000 clocked at 975mhz uses 275watts and is a highly binned part.

Looking at the earlier link I showed showing the power rating of the d700. 108watts, it has the same power envelope given to top end laptop part. It makes sense because if you look at the heater core in the mac air, it actually doesn't have that much surface area considering its cooling two GPU,s, potentially a 12 core processor and a power supply.

The s10000 uses 375w between two tahiti's clocked at 825mhz. Also, full tahiti (d700) has to clock to 775mhz to meet w8000 specs, which makes the d700 closer to w8000 than w9000 if it doesn't always boost to 850mhz. And using 2xw8000 makes it possible to make a comparable product within the pricing of a mac pro, although the form factor and probably noise are going to suffer in comparison.
EDIT: two w8000 are still higher than a single S10000/7990 TDP wise, by a decent margin. AMD did also stop making 7990's iirc....

[i found nemo]

put win 7 ult 64 on it and it's a good performing computer.. but for this price? and i'd ask apple r&d if they can can the can look. :p

[trans am]

imagine the rig you could make for $4k

[[XC] Lead Head]

What ??

It just showed this thing torn down and a few comments about how its upgradeable.

It's upgradeable in the sense that not all the parts are soldered down, but everything but the ram and CPU is proprietary. SSD? Upgradeable, but you need to buy an Apple-specific one. GPUs? Completely custom boards, unlikely that anyone besides Apple will sell them, plus the 450 watt PSU is limiting. I don't think we'll be seeing R9-class Hawaii cards in these any time soon.

[tajoh111]

The s10000 uses 375w between two tahiti's clocked at 825mhz. Also, full tahiti (d700) has to clock to 775mhz to meet w8000 specs, which makes the d700 closer to w8000 than w9000 if it doesn't always boost to 850mhz. And using 2xw8000 makes it possible to make a comparable product within the pricing of a mac pro, although the form factor and probably noise are going to suffer in comparison.
EDIT: two w8000 are still higher than a single S10000/7990 TDP wise, by a decent margin. AMD did also stop making 7990's iirc....

Someone extracted the bios of the mac pro and found that the d700 has a base clock of 625mhz with a boost of 850mhz.

Why does this have to be clocked to meet w8000 specs? Look at the price to upgrade these things and it becomes apparent that these do not need to meet w8000 and w9000 specs considering the low upgrade price. What is more important is it fit into a certain power and thermal envelope. Even the W8000 have a max rating of 225w. Too high for this type of form factor.

So with a heavy workload, its likely going to be near that 625mhz base clock.