From: Stephen van Vuuren <stephen@sv2studios.com>
To: After Effects Mail List <AE-List@media-motion.tv>
Subject: RE: [AE] (OT) New Mac Pro - Who's getting it?
Thread-Topic: [AE] (OT) New Mac Pro - Who's getting it?
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Date: Thu, 26 Dec 2013 15:33:36 +0000
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> Here's an interesting article on the value proposition of the new Mac Pro=
. Turns out it's tough to build a comparable machine for the price. -

Unfortunately, that's a lazy and poorly researched article. The new Mac Pro=
 is an intriguing mystery of parts.

I'm currently researching parts for a new build to help finish my film and =
was curious about the Mac Pro parts (FirePro GPUs, PCI SSD etc.). The huge =
dollar issue with the MacPro is GPU and getting good information about exac=
tly what they has not been easy.=20

But I found this published a couple of days ago: http://wccftech.com/genera=
tion-amd-professional-gpu-arrives-firepro-d700-leads-pack-35-teraflops-comp=
ute/=20

They claim this is confirmed but I would still not say this is 100%. But it=
 does further open up the mystery of the GPU parts. They appear to be cut d=
own, TDP reduced parts to work in the new case. The focus on dual parts als=
o appears part of the heat/power management issue to balance thermal thrott=
ling that invariably would be part of such a design.

Apple appears to have made some deal possibly including custom manufacturin=
g that may allow them to get parts that don't spec out for higher TDP use (=
like Intel does with hex vs. quad core parts) and using them here to give t=
he Mac Pro a GPU price advantage you can't match on off-the-shelf parts - o=
f course OpenCL performance will need to be part of question as CUDA is not=
 an option.

So they are not exactly like any parts you can buy. Additionally, they like=
ly will have a unique set of drivers, so until someone can actually careful=
ly benchmark their OpenCL performance, it's near impossible to price compar=
ison a Mac Pro right now. And it appears for any configuration an "apple to=
 apple" :) price/build comparison is not possible even with just the GPU.

The PCI SSD is also a benchmark test waiting to be done to see if it fact d=
oes deliver the performance difference claimed - but given the impossibilit=
y of putting in a variety of parts for testing in a the new Mac Pro, this a=
lso will likely be somewhat inaccurate. But I'm not sure PCI SSD vs current=
 SSD options, including a RAID 1 SSD ,offers that much boost. And the limit=
ations of the storage design in the new Mac Pro introduce a number of other=
 issues related to expandability, flexibility etc.

Plus the article does not actually build anything nor benchmark either the =
DIY system or the Mac Pro - so all the valuations are essentially meaningle=
ss. It's just an internet shopping cart article. The one published Geekbenc=
h benchmark that was out there is not exactly blazing - and the only thing =
that should matter is actual application performance. Until that is tested =
- an article like this does not tell you anything other than Apple used a l=
ot of custom, proprietary parts that you can't buy off the shelf.=20

Throwing money at the effort to mimic the Mac Pro parts list to "prove" the=
 MacPro is a "value" seems like a waste of time - if you did this with an i=
Phone, you would get a similar result. The real question is what Mac Pro's =
real world performance in various configs are and what parts are required t=
o match it.

My DIY builds are set to give real world performance that matches or exceed=
 Xenon based setups at half the price. That's perfectly doable on the CPU s=
ide. The Mac Pro may have GPU advantage based on essentially cutting down w=
orkstation cards that we've always expected were overpriced  - but that inf=
ormation has not been tested and 100% proved yet.

stephen van vuuren
336.202.4777

http://www.insaturnsrings.com/
http://www.sv2dcp.com/
http://www.sv2studios.com/

A film is - or should be - more like music than like fiction. It should be =
a progression of moods and feelings. The theme, what's behind the emotion, =
the meaning, all that comes later.
-Stanley Kubrick

-----Original Message-----
From: After Effects Mail List [mailto:AE-List@media-motion.tv] On Behalf Of=
 Dave Bittner
Sent: Thursday, December 26, 2013 9:46 AM
To: After Effects Mail List
Subject: Re: [AE] (OT) New Mac Pro - Who's getting it?

Here's an interesting article on the value proposition of the new Mac Pro. =
Turns out it's tough to build a comparable machine for the price. -=20

<http://www.electronista.com/articles/13/12/24/does.better.in.some.areas.bu=
t.cant.compete.on.cost.or.specs/>


On Dec 23, 2013, at 1:20PM, Dave Bittner <dave@pixelworkshop.com> wrote:

> I've switched our main edit suite system to a 27" i7 iMac after realizing=
 that it renders about three times faster than the 2008 Mac Pro it's replac=
ing. I've got a 30" monitor hooked up to it, and a fast external RAID via a=
 cheap Thunderbolt to SATA adapter. We're running AE, FCPX and Maya on it, =
primarily, and for what we do it's plenty fast. (We are rarely under tight =
delivery deadlines where rendering speed would make or break us. In fact, t=
he biggest bottleneck these days seems to be h.264 encoding for delivery.)
>=20
> As for the new Mac Pro, if you need the speed it doesn't seem the price s=
hould make all that much difference. Even if you replace it after two years=
, a couple of grand difference in price shouldn't break the bank for an act=
ive shop with a decent number of projects coming through. It's amazing to m=
e that after all these years people are still shocked - Shocked! - that the=
re's a premium for Mac OS workstations. For our small shop it's worth it, s=
ince we know the Mac OS and know how to troubleshoot it.=20
>=20
> Interesting times, with all of these incredibly fast machines for choose =
from. Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go play Marathon on my Quadra 7=
00...
>=20


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