The New Cheese Grater... Finally!

  • As musicians this is a poor choice. The Xeon chips are a poor choice regarding price/performance, they need Error correcting memory, again not that useful for audio and again extra expense. An i9 cpu with regular ram will perform equally as well which means for a DAW you CAN build a better performing machine(than the lower end models) that will be just as quiet for half that price that will have TB's of M.2 and SSD drives. The $6k model comes with a single..... 256G hard drive....that's it....Also for $999.00 you could buy a nice new guitar or microphone instead of a 'STAND' .


    8 years ago, Apple told us we didn't need PCI as it was dead and forced a poorly implemented TB1 on us all. The rest of the sane world carried on with PCI. Apple will now tell us 'look, we've got PCI, see how much better it is than the old MAc pro' ... A Complete U turn...same thing they did when they went to Intel CPU's. :D


    Huge companies like Disney/Pixar stopped using Apple hardware a few years ago because of all this and went to HP Z workstations, they also offer on site warranty for 5 years in the price.


    If you're a video guy, AMD threadripper will soon be coming with the 7nm die V3, the V2 32 core/64 thread CPU blasted to the top of the cinebench, beating anything out there. Thsi 32 core/64 thread CPU costs the same as the 10 core intel i9 and leaves it for dust with video rendering, so things have moved on with Windows /Linux. The 32/64 MAc pro will likely cost about $30K. $5k will get you there , silently and reliably with AMD threadripper if you use windows/Linux.


    Things have moved on and Apple are playing catch up.


    I think the return of PCIe is a good thing all round, keeping the T2 chip worries me as it's caused problems with audio this past year or so since introduced, Also the new machine will launch with the new OS which may render pro tools HDX and other software unusable without who knows what to upgrade..again.....


    I would imagine most people here, like myself who are pro musicians/engineers/producers have been feeling the recession over the last few years and the drop in revenue from a lack of physical sales, at times like this making smart choices on what to put your money in becomes very pertinent.


    my long winded point : The new Mac pro is NOT a good choice as a DAW platform unless you have money to burn, so think wisely folks before dropping $10k on an Apple made computer.



    M

  • I'm just always questioning the marketing blabber, for example in this case (literally :) ) the term "360° access". There's nothing you can do on the front and back side. so this already cuts it down for me by half.

    Then what do you plan to do on either of the 2 sides left? Access the drive bays? Oops, there are none it seems while I have 13 internal ones and 4 external ones. Want to add RAM? It's enough to open one side.


    The entire "let me extend my workstation the way I want" is totally crippled again by the "modular" design. And the "heat zones" topic doesn't help either. In a modern workstation, there's basically 3 components that generate a relevant amount of heat. The first one being the north bridge, the second one the CPU and the third one the GPU(s). All of these components are passively cooled in the new Mac Pro which basically means that the case fans do all the work of cooling the system. (Have we talked about dust filtering and how to clean highly "isolated" components?)

    Whether this actually works while performing high workload tasks is yet to be seen. All I can say for now is that my GPU (nVidia GTX 1080 Ti) remains passive pretty much all day and its fans only start spinning when I perform GPU accelerated tasks like rendering or encoding. If you have a heat producing component highly "isolated", then you require a constant airflow specifically for this component. Even if someone finds a way to use nVidia GPUs in the Mac Pro, you'd either have to wait for the ones that adhere to Apple's "isolated" cooling strategy … or be screwed.


    Last but not least, the new Xeon CPUs provide an amazing 64 PCIe lanes. The problem here is that Apple proudly announces up to 4 GPUs (up to 16 PCIe lanes each) and up to 12 Thunderbolt 3 ports (up to 4 PCIe lanes each) and the Afterburner option (up to 16 PCIe lanes) for video decoding. If someone seriously considers making use of all this, then this exceeds the number of available PCIe lanes by far which results in e.g. a 16x PCIe capable GPU being throttled down to 8x. If you have to strip down the individual component's use of PCIe lanes, then what's the point of using extremely expensive (and way too much) HBM2 GPU memory in the first place? What's the point of extreme GPU memory bandwidth if the PCIe can't keep up with it?


    Bottomline:

    Even if I was gifted the upcoming Mac Pro … rest assured I would sell it immediately. There's NO way I would live with the "Cripple Mac Pro", ever. ;)

  • you CAN build a better performing machine(than the lower end models) that will be just as quiet for half that price

    Honestly Marcus, you think you can build a 10dB machine that outperforms it? Really? :/

    Also for $999.00 you could buy a nice new guitar or microphone instead of a 'STAND' .

    This has nothing to do with the Mac Pro. The new monitors are roughly 30% cheaper than the competition in that space, but of course the stand price is a joke. Somehow I think Apple will have to review it before it drops; nobody's happy with that. :huh:

    8 years ago, Apple told us we didn't need PCI as it was dead and forced a poorly implemented TB1 on us all. The rest of the sane world carried on with PCI. Apple will now tell us 'look, we've got PCI, see how much better it is than the old MAc pro' ... A Complete U turn...same thing they did when they went to Intel CPU's. :D

    ... and the company's had the balls to at least admit that it got it wrong. I for one am stoked that it's re-embraced PCI.

    Huge companies like Disney/Pixar stopped using Apple hardware a few years ago because of all this and went to HP Z workstations, they also offer on site warranty for 5 years in the price.

    The HP Z's are 25%+ more-expensive, and Pixar has recently indicated that it's going to go with Apple now, even partnering with it in development. So has a bunch of other high-end-graphics studios.

    I'm just always questioning the marketing blabber, for example in this case (literally :) ) the term "360° access". There's nothing you can do on the front and back side. so this already cuts it down for me by half.

    Well, I've always been frustrated by having to poke my hands into cavities and having my finger "strength" compromised by the awkward angles I've been forced to employ when swapping out components. The so-called 360º access at the very least will free my arms up to approach from more-comfortable angles, something I'd appreciate, Martin. Some may not care about this, but my compromised finger strength going back to a disaster suffered during my late teens as always made gripping, twisting, turning, pulling and pushing components in and out of housings tricky, if not impossible sometimes.

    Then what do you plan to do on either of the 2 sides left? Access the drive bays? Oops, there are none it seems...

    Good news: 3rd-party internal chassis have already been announced, with more to follow. One will still be able to add up to 4 spinners at least.


    Hey, I get you guys. Just attempting to tame some of what I perceive as hyperbole. Many of the points you both made are good ones and TBH fall way above my pay grade. Thanks guys. <3

  • Nicky,


    :D all good points :D No i can't build a 10db machine, but i doubt in reality that's needed. My studio machines are no where near 10db but they're silent to intents and purposes sat here in the control room with me. My points really were to make people aware there are very viable alternatives for a DAW or a Video machine that will cost a LOT less all round and can outperform the low/mid level mac pro. The AMD threadripper current gen 32 core is 50% faster in Cinebench that the best Intel chip( 18 core) and costs the same as an the INTEL 8 core CPU for example. the equivalent XEON chip costs about $3000 alone for the same performance hence the fully loaded Mac is $35,000


    For a DAW, INTEL still hold the higher ground if low latency is important. You can build an i9 10 core machine though that will give you more power than you'll need for $3-4000 fully loaded with M2-SSD drives etc the equivalent Mac will be $10,000 as it will use the XEON Cpu's and EEC ram which will instantly double the price for no performance gain with Audio.



    I'm glad PCIe is back too, and it's a beautifully engineered machine as always , but like the trash can mac pro still a poor choice for audio professionals .


    I feel for you guys in Australia though as the currency manipulation makes Apple products the most expensive in the world i think :D


    M


    p/.s. i' ve just returned from Australia :D still a great place to be :D my brother is in Palm cove :D

  • Dayum, sorry I missed you mate. If you're ever down in Melbourne...


    Yeah, the Aussie "mark-ups" are huge; that baseline machine'll be close to 10 grand. I feel for the South Africans 'though; the value of the Rand fell so much since apartheid was dismantled that I think a Kemper is over 10 grand.


    Of course I agree with you in terms of bang-for-buck, raw performance and the AMD vs Intel thing. Only problem with that is that for those who're Mac peeps, a Hackintosh would be the only way to take advantage of that, besides switching to PC, and that's a rabbit hole I hope we don't go down in this thread 'cause it's got a gravity of its own.


    So, for the Mac-for-lifers, it's Mac mini, iMac or iMac Pro, MacBook or this new Mac Pro. The trash cans won't be available for too long after the new cheese grater drops, you'd think. Those who like to plunk everything into one box refuse to go the Mac mini, iMac and laptop routes and have been waiting around for, well, forever(!) for a new desktop tower to drop (yeah this is me).


    Now that this has finally happened, I s'pose I and many others are hoping for an intermediate model or options to dumb down the baseline model. A much-cheaper graphics card and no SSD spring to mind (we already have SSD's we can plunk in there by now)...


    Anyway, thank you for chiming in, bud. 8)

  • No i can't build a 10db machine, but i doubt in reality that's needed.

    Exactly. Just like nobody needed the "newer" and "better" and "thinest ever" butterfly keys on the MacBooks. And look where that got Apple.


    Sometimes Apple gets all myopic in their design goals and forgets that just because they CAN, doesn't mean they should.

  • At work, I recently switched from a 2011 cheese grater to a Hackintosh that far outspecs the current trash cans, though at a fraction of the price. I’m lucky that there are a load of young tech nerds working for our IT department, so I didn’t have to do any of the investigative work or testing myself. It’s a lovely machine, though it’s very gamer-like aesthetically. Blinding fast, though I’m still not on Mojave. Our VFX, motion graphic artists and colourists have had nothing but trouble with the trash cans. Apple finally admitted that there was a manufacturing fault on the graphics cards that caused render errors to be burned in, though strategically only once the warranties had run out. X(

    I’m sure we’ll get one of the new Mac Pros for testing at some point, but I’m not expecting us all to jump all over them. The Hackintosh in our 4K suite will take some beating.

  • No i can't build a 10db machine, but i doubt in reality that's needed.

    I hate to be "that guy", but I would really appreciate a machine that was that quiet, Marcus.


    Every model I've owned since the G3 has been audible even across the room, which is a combined monitoring-and-recording space; all have generated between 30 and 50 dB. Even 'though I've housed them all in a thick wooden rack with a front door, the rear has by necessity been left open for ventilation purposes, and the sound escapes therethrough.


    10dB would be simply-amazing... and to be frank, astonishing to me. I can dream... :/

  • all have generated between 30 and 50 dB

    … which can be reduced considerably once you place the workstation in the next room and run the cables through a small hole in the wall. You can stick plenty of foam into the hole to properly isolate it. You'll be surprised to see that you can reduce the workstation noise to less than 10dB by doing this and it will probably cost you less than 10% of the Mac Pro monitor stand :D


    My workstation only produces 15dB of noise in tracking and mixing mode. And even if I track acoustic guitars or vocals in the mixing room, the mics will not pickup any noticeable noise at 3-4m distance. This is because my tower sports some nice acoustic foam that reduces the higher frequencies of the large, low rpm fans a lot. For critical recordings, I can even switch off all fans but one on the backside and the power supply fan for hours without any issues just because the case is huge and the heat will easily find its way up and out of the box.

  • That's great, Martin.


    As I said, I only have one room for both mixing and recording. The adjacent room is the kitchen and isn't an option, unfortunately.


    I'll live with what I have, but should I ever happen upon one of the 10dB Mac Towers, it'll be silent Heaven for sure.

  • Mac user here, and have been for the last 20+ years. Love them, but the fact that its $999 just for the monitor stands makes me think that somehow, apple are taking the pi55! No doubt all the 'emperor's new clothes', must have the latest tech, money no object types will be rushing out to buy it, but us commercial users have just been priced out of the marketplace! Lets see how much it is in 6 months to a year! >>> reaches for the latest PC catalogue<<<

  • I think $999 for a monitor stand kind of underlines Apple's "logic" that its fans will pay obscene amount of money for their products.


    It's despicable really, they probably make the stands in China for $40-100 a pop. Can't see them costing more to manufacture really.


    Then again, I don't see these machines targeted at regular users. They are far too expensive for most homes, even the base model.

  • I think $999 for a monitor stand kind of underlines Apple's "logic" that its fans will pay obscene amount of money for their products.


    It's despicable really, they probably make the stands in China for $40-100 a pop. Can't see them costing more to manufacture really.


    Then again, I don't see these machines targeted at regular users. They are far too expensive for most homes, even the base model.

    To be fair, the stand's an anomaly price-wise, AJ. An elephant-in-the-room-style anomaly, for sure. :D That said, I think you'll find it's world-class, if not the best. There's more to it than meets the eye, and no, I don't think you'd be able to manufacture it for $40-100 in any country, let alone the US.

    Mac user here, and have been for the last 20+ years. Love them, but the fact that its $999 just for the monitor stands makes me think that somehow, apple are taking the pi55! No doubt all the 'emperor's new clothes', must have the latest tech, money no object types will be rushing out to buy it, but us commercial users have just been priced out of the marketplace! Lets see how much it is in 6 months to a year! >>> reaches for the latest PC catalogue<<<

    The monitor is roughly 30% cheaper than comparable models from other manufacturers. The tower is 25%+ cheaper than equivalent builds from Dell et al.


    The only thing missing is that mid-tier level we long-term Mac Pro users are accustomed to as a means of getting into the model line, upgrading CPU's and RAM as time goes on. That's what hurts we lowly audio types, and we can only hope that Apple hears our loud, persistent voices to this effect and offers something more real-world for us. Not another iMac or Mac mini, but a tower we can stuff our goodies into as we always have... IMHO :/


    I hear a lot about "blindness", but folks seem to keep using the stand as a straw man. Not only has it got nothing to do with the new Cheese Grater™, but it (and the monitor) aren't what this thread's about. A lot of things were announced at the conference and the only one the thread's concerned with is the Mac Pro. I don't know about you guys, but I've never automatically updated a monitor when I switched to a newer-model Mac Pro. I've been running the same old Dell monitor for about 17 years.

  • I think for most music producers the mac pro is overkill, and a "regular" imac will be more than sufficient. Larger studios is another matter, and studios where they work with television etc.


    Regarding the monitor - I don't think it's intended for music production at all. You could of course use it no problem, but I don't see why anyone would want to buy it simply to use with a DAW.


    In any case, the functionality of the stand would make the production price WAY more than 40-100 dollars.

  • The tower is 25%+ cheaper than equivalent builds from Dell et al.

    Wow, no idea how you got this figure. :o

    The CPU's initial price will be USD 749 when it hits the market. The ridiculously underwhelming GPU, RAM and SSD configuration of the base model would lead me to believe that the upcoming Mac Pro is more like 100%+ more expensive than an equivalent Windows PC build.

    The monitor is roughly 30% cheaper than comparable models from other manufacturers.

    The question here is, what exactly you want to compare to. If you refer to computer screens, then there's cheaper ones and more expensive ones. If you refer to calibrated class 1 monitors, then it's more like 70% cheaper (for a reason).

    I'll give you an example why this monitor would be a pretty bad investment for post production facilities:


    1. If you need a calibrated reference monitor, you really want to make sure it plays nice with e.g. 12G-SDI. Thunderbolt is not an option in pro post-production or broadcast facilities. So in terms of connectivity the monitor already fails to meet pro requirements. It might do the trick for an indie filmmaker or smaller production facilities where video is just one of many daily tasks.


    2. If you do pro-level compositing, keying, color grading with secondaries, you really want to make sure you have 1:1 pixel full-screen mapping so you actually see every single detail of what's going on. 6K has never been and will likely never be a commonly used production format. While 4K/UHD is kind of the common standard for most of the business today, 8K will gain traction pretty soon.

    Yes, you could just run your 4K video in a 1:1 pixel mapped window but this would make the "usable" screen size more like a 20" equivalent. That's nothing you want to use for pixel peeping work. :)


    Again, I wish people would not believe so much of a company's marketing claims. It's not a crime if someone isn't familiar with pro workflows or with technical details of computer systems (like the PCIe lanes topic). But just try to be a touch more critical about the colorful claims of an entity whose only intention is to grab your money. ;)

  • I don’t think we’ll be seeing 8K masters as the norm for a good few years yet, though shooting 8K has a ton of advantages for options in post, but I have to agree on the screen specs, if what you say is accurate, lightbox

    It seems it may fit Apple’s thinking when they introduced Final Cut X; a kind of semi-pro intermediary, that was a dumbed-down, cut down version of Final Cut Pro, though in this case, it would be their first foray into the world of calibrated monitors, rather than being one of the industry standards.

    Hmmm...

  • … I have to agree on the screen specs, if what you say is accurate

    Even if this might be going even further off-topic, I felt like I should provide some insight into the reason why Thunderbolt based monitoring isn't an option in pro workflows, especially on Mac computers. Those who don't want more detail, please skip this post. :)


    I guess everyone who has done a bit of video editing (especially on Mac) will have used Apple ProRes wrapped in a Quicktime container. While Apple ProRes can and will store and provide the full range of luminance and color values, the tricky part starts when you playback those files through the Quicktime decoder pipeline (e.g. to a TB3 connected computer screen). Quicktime happens to clip the luminance and color values to the "legal" limits (on a Mac). So it's impossible to actually see what's stored in the file. This doesn't happen when you monitor the same files / projects through e.g. a 12G-SDI output card like AJA's or Blackmagic's (or others') products.

    A screen that receives automatic and unavoidable clipping when played back can't be considered a reference screen, no matter how fancy the tech specs look. There's no way to do proper reference monitoring on a Mac system other than using a proper 12G-SDI pipeline.


    While some people still consider the Mac to be the better platform for image and video based applications, I think the above paragraph and the past 1.8 Gamma decision by Apple (1985 - 2009) that was only corrected after many years of ignorance shows how little of this is actually true, sorry.

  • Wow, no idea how you got this figure. :o

    The CPU's initial price will be USD 749 when it hits the market. The ridiculously underwhelming GPU, RAM and SSD configuration of the base model would lead me to believe that the upcoming Mac Pro is more like 100%+ more expensive than an equivalent Windows PC build.

    It has been discussed several times in the GearSlutz thread, Martin. HP and Dell systems (not "home builds") of a similar spec were compared. Both came in at decently over 8 grand.


    All this stuff's way over my pay grade, so I think I might have to bow out on discussing the finer points 'cause all I've done so far is parrot what I've read over there, where some apparently-knowledgeable folks have chimed in.


    As for the monitor, as I said previously, it's not the subject of this thread, and yes, I also parroted what I'd read over at GS on this.

    If you refer to calibrated class 1 monitors, then it's more like 70% cheaper (for a reason).

    It's obviously not intended to compete with $12000 models based on the price alone. 30% cheaper, I can swallow, but 70% just doesn't seem realistic, even to a luddite like me. The only comparisons I've seen were with $7000+ models that it's claimed it's a direct competitor to.


    Once again, I'm way out of my depth here, so I'll respectfully bow out of that one for good. I was excited to see that a tower had finally dropped and that Apple had thereby confirmed for real that it hadn't abandoned the desktop market as has been feared by a great number of musicians for some years, hence the thread.


    Your knowledge of "graphics stuff" (my luddite term) is impressive from my lowly perspective, Martin. :huh:


    Cheers mate.