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OSX 10.9 Mavericks . . . and ranting about the new Mac Pro because Van said so!!!

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Having read this thread I don't understand why there is such disappointment with the Mac Pro range. It has followed the same path as the Macbook Pro Retina's in a large and somewhat unsurprising way. Apple is a business after all. Cater to the high end and machines will become largely disposable. Not because they no longer work but because technology advances at such a phenomenally high rate that such machines will be obsolete. Catering for the professionals at the top of the game would require the best and latest equipment available. Whats the point in upgradeable hard drives when cloud storage is available? Whats the point in upgradeable RAM when the processor would be obsolete before a RAM upgrade would be needed. Tinkering and upgrading of machines is very much a lower end user than a premium high end user. The high end user can afford the best and will often want the best (if not so required from a hardware needs point of view then from a status point of view). Thus the machines aimed at the high end user will put upgradeability below form factor. And people who hark on about the lack of disk drive I don't get it. In 4 years of having my current MBP I have used my disk drive about 3 times. Indeed the last time I tried using it it didn't read a disk because of the dust that had accumulated on the laser. Just my two cents.
 
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Having read this thread I don't understand why there is such disappointment with the Mac Pro range. It has followed the same path as the Macbook Pro Retina's in a large and somewhat unsurprising way. Apple is a business after all. Cater to the high end and machines will become largely disposable. Not because they no longer work but because technology advances at such a phenomenally high rate that such machines will be obsolete. Catering for the professionals at the top of the game would require the best and latest equipment available. Whats the point in upgradeable hard drives when cloud storage is available? Whats the point in upgradeable RAM when the processor would be obsolete before a RAM upgrade would be needed. Tinkering and upgrading of machines is very much a lower end user than a premium high end user. The high end user can afford the best and will often want the best (if not so required from a hardware needs point of view then from a status point of view). Thus the machines aimed at the high end user will put upgradeability below form factor. And people who hark on about the lack of disk drive I don't get it. In 4 years of having my current MBP I have used my disk drive about 3 times. Indeed the last time I tried using it it didn't read a disk because of the dust that had accumulated on the laser. Just my two cents.

Wow! You really don't understand this market segment at all.
 
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I agree

Dan hits the nail on the head. Who uses an optical drive anymore? for the vast majority of software and games its all digital now.
 
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One thing that would make me upgrade to Mavericks immediately...

... FONT SCALING ...

So I can use my 27" hi res screen at it's native resolution without needing a lookup glass to see those darned small letters..

Amen. But tinker tools helps some.

Can you imagine system fonts on a 4k monitor?
 
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Dan hits the nail on the head. Who uses an optical drive anymore? for the vast majority of software and games its all digital now.


The lack of an optical is one of the least complaints about the pro I've heard anywhere.
 

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I doubt pro users or tinkerers are concerned about the lack of optical drives. Heck they probably have a few spare external drives around at any given point in time.

I think they are more concerned about the lack of options in other areas. At the moment the biggest problem is probably the graphics card. While the existing cards appear to be monsters that will chew up anything thrown at them many pro users rely on software that is optimized for NVIDIA's cards. Hopefully I am not misunderstanding things.

Attention forum brain trust: Feel free to correct me if I am wrong. I do not like being wrong but unfortunately it happens from time to time.
 

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While the existing cards appear to be monsters that will chew up anything thrown at them many pro users rely on software that is optimized for NVIDIA's cards. Hopefully I am not misunderstanding things.
You might like Nvidia section of this piece.
 

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Thanks that clarifies things a bit. Not being a pro user this machine would be far and away more than I need. I will be curious to see the graphics performance in real world tests. I am also curious how well it will dissipate heat under load.

As I say I am not a pro user but I tend to buy machines like the Pro and push them for a long time. Most of the software I use doesn't seem to make as good a use of the power as they could.
 
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Who uses an optical drive anymore?

Answer: Those of us who do not have a fast, reliable or, on some days, existing internet connection. No fibre (nor any plans to provide) in this part or Yorkshire so iCloud is a non starter.
 

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I am also curious how well it will dissipate heat under load.
This should be incredibly interesting. It's a brand new design and Apple's internal testing (as with any company's) can only account for so much. So, it should be interesting to see the creative ways in which people push that machine and the consequences for cooling.
 

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I think they are more concerned about the lack of options in other areas. At the moment the biggest problem is probably the graphics card. While the existing cards appear to be monsters that will chew up anything thrown at them many pro users rely on software that is optimized for NVIDIA's cards. Hopefully I am not misunderstanding things.

Attention forum brain trust: Feel free to correct me if I am wrong. I do not like being wrong but unfortunately it happens from time to time.

Just to back up what you mentioned. At the WWDC it was stated that the "New Mac Pro" is designed to last 10 years.

I think at one time the advances in cpu technology (speed/processing power) would have made a statement like this pretty darn silly...but these days it seems like the norm is to just throw more cpu cores at a problem to speed things up. So if someone gets a 12-core "New Mac Pro"...yeah...they may get 10 years out of a New Mac Pro (from a cpu/# of cores standpoint). Of course graphics/video professionals will see a slowly degrading performance curve as time goes on & things get more advanced.

But when it comes to video/graphics hardware...hmmm...this is where I would also have concerns. Video/graphics hardware improvement seems to the "hottest" area at the moment when it comes to performance advances. Heck...with every new model MacBook Pro or iMac (every 12-18 months) we see new graphics hardware...which usually has a pretty decent increase in performance.

So for the non-upgradeable graphics hardware in the "New Mac Pro" (to last 10 years)...it would have to have one heck of a performance improvement over ANYTHING currently on the market. Because again...each subsequent year (of those 10 years)...the graphics performance of the new Mac Pro will slowly "degrade" comparatively speaking vs. the graphics hardware that will be included in new Apple computers (iMac's/MacBook Pro's) of the future.

Just think how if someone (Apple) back in 2003...predicted that they built a computer that would last 10 years (till 2013). Sure...you could use a 2003 computer in 2013...but not many folks would want to for their everyday needs (work/play).

So I guess we will have to see. The new Mac Pro's with up to 12-cores and 2 video cards (up to 12gig of vram) sounds pretty awesome!:)

- Nick
 

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Just to back up what you mentioned. At the WWDC it was stated that the "New Mac Pro" is designed to last 10 years.
At best, that's a pipe dream. There's no way that machine will last ten years. Use the current MP as a metric - that's five (five?) years old now and it looks ancient.

I think at one time the advances in cpu technology (speed/processing power) would have made a statement like this pretty darn silly...but these days it seems like the norm is to just throw more cpu cores at a problem to speed things up.
It's the new modified version of the Ghz race - instead of speed, you ram in more cores unaware of the fact that a significant amount of software isn't multicore aware.

So if someone gets a 12-core "New Mac Pro"...yeah...they may get 10 years out of a New Mac Pro (from a cpu/# of cores standpoint). Of course graphics/video professionals will see a slowly degrading performance curve as time goes on & things get more advanced.
This is my issue - how do you predict an area of research and development that, if history is anything to go by, is utterly unpredictable?

But when it comes to video/graphics hardware...hmmm...this is where I would also have concerns. Video/graphics hardware improvement seems to the "hottest" area at the moment when it comes to performance advances. Heck...with every new model MacBook Pro or iMac (every 12-18 months) we see new graphics hardware...which usually has a pretty decent increase in performance.
I think this is for two reasons. One, more and more people are using languages and libraries to create hardware accelerated applications (the Linux world is notorious for this). Second, GPUs are considerably faster than CPUs at certain tasks and I think this is an attempt to leverage that. Then again, I admit that graphics hardware falls beyond the bounds of what I know.

Just think how if someone (Apple) back in 2003...predicted that they built a computer that would last 10 years (till 2013). Sure...you could use a 2003 computer in 2013...but not many folks would want to for their everyday needs (work/play).
Ignoring the architecture change in that time period, a 2003 computer would be painfully slow. If I had to use the first notebook that I got today (got it in 2004), I'd go insane.

So I guess we will have to see. The new Mac Pro's with up to 12-cores and 2 video cards (up to 12gig of vram) sounds pretty awesome!:)
It certainly is and if anyone would like to send me one, my address is...
 
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I thought this thread was about Mavericks, not the new Mac Pro. ;P
 

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I am glad we're touched on software that isn't multi-core aware. I am not a graphics pro by any means but I do spend some energy from time to time editing/transcoding video and a handful of other tasks that would benefit from being multi-core aware.

Back in the day when I had both a G5 and the Mac Pro the G5 was relatively idle much of the time. The thought occurred to me to make use of XGRID. In the long run I didm't do it because so little of the software I had made use of this feature.
 

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I am glad we're touched on software that isn't multi-core aware. I am not a graphics pro by any means but I do spend some energy from time to time editing/transcoding video and a handful of other tasks that would benefit from being multi-core aware.

Back in the day when I had both a G5 and the Mac Pro the G5 was relatively idle much of the time. The thought occurred to me to make use of XGRID. In the long run I didm't do it because so little of the software I had made use of this feature.

Here comes the Apple computer historian in me again!;) I seem to remember the first multi-processor Apple computer was something like a Powermac 9500 from back in the mid-1990's. The reviews of the computer (of course) were glowing...with the caveat that all we needed now was for software developers to rewrite (or write) software applications that were multi-cpu capable.

Here we are in 2013...and we (sadly) still have very few apps. that are multi-cpu/multi-core aware. And...some of those few apps that are multi-core aware...don't necessarily do a great job at it.

- Nick
 

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I had forgotten that the multi-processor machines went back that far. Most of the software that I am aware of which is multi-processor aware is either something that I either don't need or cannot afford.

Now if our forum leaders could see fit to up the stipend for MoTM perhaps I could afford the new Mac Pro and ofcourse the software to make full use of it.:D
 

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I had forgotten that the multi-processor machines went back that far. Most of the software that I am aware of which is multi-processor aware is either something that I either don't need or cannot afford.

I was "quoting" (from memory) what I posted above. So just to satisfy my curiosity...I did a quick search...and came across this article from 1996:

Apple releases multiprocessor Power Mac line | ZDNet

So I guess (for the moment) my memory is still (mostly) not letting me down!;)

- Nick
 

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Wow! You really don't understand this market segment at all.

Perhaps not, but I figure Apple do.

The machine to me looks phenomenal with the power to run 3 4k displays and 7 teraflops of computing power. Nobody knows what the future holds and what technology will be available in 10 years time but given the power of this machine I'd wager it would still be pretty useful. I understand why people might not be overjoyed at the lack of upgradability but to me Apple is all about the symbiotic relationship between the hardware and the software. That of course comes from designing and building both. Adding new hardware into the mix would ruin this symbiotic relationship to some extent. To me if you want to install new hardware in the machines then buy a PC. Lets face it; it would be a lot cheaper.
 

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