New Apple Mac Pro

[esquire53]

Advertisement (gone after registration)

just saw on the Apple Store web site that the delivery of the new Mac Pro is now March.

[jaapv]

I just found out a minus: It seems the hardware is not upgradeable…

 

I think I’ll just give my trusty mid-2010 model a new system SSD and 4x8 RAM and a handful of extra Terabytes. There is plenty of life left in the old lady…

Edited January 23, 2014 by jaapv

[Advertisement]

The Leica Q3 is available for pre-order at B&H Photo Video and Adorama

[sanyasi]

Reports indicate that on some Adobe software (I think Lightroom was mentioned), may actually perform better when run on a less expensive mac computer because the software has not yet caught up to the hardware in the Mac Pro. Presumably at some point, the software will be redesigned to take advantage of all that the Mac Pro has to offer, but anyone thinking about an upgrade may not need to rush.

[esquire53]

I just found out a minus: It seems the hardware is not upgradeable…

 

I think I’ll just give my trusty mid-2010 model a new system SSD and 4x8 RAM and a handful of extra Terabytes. There is plenty of life left in the old lady…

 

yes, you're right.

I did the same with my first intel CPU Mac version.

unfortunately, the RAM for the "old boy" are no longer available.

I purchased some RAM module from ebay, but they crash and they get really hot, so I removed them again. The SSDs are working fine.

So far I have not upgraded to Maverick, not sure if it will work, so I ordered the new Mac.

 

the advantage of the PCI bus is the upload time from the PCI SSD into the RAM/CPU.

if the data are kept on the external Thunderbolt drive, the TB bus or HDD will be bottleneck.

I think LR and CR1 are only marginally faster with the new MAC.

I wonder how Aperture 4 will perform.

 

I'll keep you posted

Edited January 23, 2014 by esquire53

[earleygallery]

just saw on the Apple Store web site that the delivery of the new Mac Pro is now March.

 

Clearly the Apple / Leica liaison is working, Leica get an Apple M, and Apple get product delays

[zeitz]

I don't understand the Mac Pro at all. Maybe someone could explain the attraction of a closed architecture system. Do you guys even consider PCs, such as the Dell T7610? The performance is equivalent, the architecture is totally open (particularly to graphics cards), and there is really nothing wrong with Windows 7. Every time I think about changing to a Mac, I fail to find the advantages.

[sanyasi]

Advertisement (gone after registration)

I was a longtime Windows user until Vista. And I was out of there after that debacle. At first, I ran Parallels, but I no longer have a need for it. One answer to your question is quite simple: For me, Microsoft created bad will with a lousy operating system and I looked elsewhere.

 

The more practical reason: Now that I am in the Apple mode, I have the iPhone, the iPad, the macMini, and AppleTV. All are designed to work as an integrated system. Still not as tightly integrated as I would like, but close. So were I in the market for that much horsepower, I would go with the Apple Pro even at a premium because it integrates with all my other hardware. Moreover (and not to knock Dell, which I used for years), the Apple support is integrated in terms of software and hardware.

 

In my mind, Mac just works and Windows is more of a corporate world system, with those individuals who continue to use it being interested in the homebrew aspects of it. I am no longer interested in configuring systems.

 

As for the MacPro, I looked at it, but I think unless you are doing video, the Mac mini probably is sufficient, at least for what I do with Photoshop. The biggest selling point for the Mac Pro in my book is all the extra ports for peripherals. If I could redesign the macMini, I would have it double its vertical size, add more ports, and more power to support the ports. With 4 hard drives on my desk, a Watcom tablet, a keyboard, a fax machine, two printers, a camera for Skype, a DVD burner, a photo reader, and a dongle for ImagePrint, I could use more ports.

[leica dream]

I am in the process of changing from Windows to MAC and the difference is amazing.....good though. PC is still my base machine but soon I shall swap making MAC my base with PC as secondary. It does take time to change one's mind set between systems but I am convinced already that it will be worth it.

Richard

[zeitz]

Leica Dream, can you give some examples of why the switch is worth it? That's what I keep looking for and what I can't find.

 

I can see why people with lots of Apple products like to stick with Apple. That is very rational. And Vista was awful, with Windows 8 going in the same direction as Vista.

 

I use the Mac OS on my wife's Mac Book. There are a things I want to do with file management that seem inflexible. I guess it's a matter of familiarity.

 

My take on Windows is that it is designed for gamers and grandmas. In the end Windows can be tailored to what you want it to be.

 

My main complaint about the Mac Pro is the closed architecture. I just don't get why that is attractive when more powerful open architecture PCs are available.

[farnz]

... Every time I think about changing to a Mac, I fail to find the advantages.

They just work as expected. And elegantly.

 

I grew tired of forever having to clean and tweak my PC to convince it to do the stuff that it should be doing de rigeur and it growing ever slower under the burden of antivirus software and anti-malware sniffers and more and more processes that I couldn't identify sucking the processor's blood. Until 2 years ago I was running XP loaded to the hilt with fast RAM, no gaming, no streaming and yet it crawled along. For example it would take over 5 minutes to reboot, 3 or 4 minutes to load Photoshop, and 20 to 30 seconds to complete a Photoshop raster of a dng in 8-bit space for anything remotely processor-intensive such as Surface Blur in LAB. The hardware was 2.8 GHz quad-core and imo it had no excuse for getting noticeably slower week by week despite my clearing out all but the necessary processes and some which were impenetrable using a handful of specialised software tools. I consider myself to be reasonably computer savvy but neither I nor any of the fly-by-night computer whizzes on the 'net could fathom what the trouble was despite posting 'Hijack This' reports.

 

I eventually bit the bullet and turned to an iMac and I couldn't be happier despite it being closed architecture. I really don't want to be tinkering round under the bonnet if I don't have to so this suits me fine. Software updates etc load quickly and seamlessly without the continual bug-you screens that festoon Windows updates and force you to continually keep watch as the software loads or stalls. And updates actually work as they should straight 'out of the box'. Applications open in the blink of an eye, rebooting is under 10 seconds, and Photoshop is a joy to use again. I will not return to Windows at home although I have to suffer its temperamentalness at work.

 

Pete.

[zeitz]

Thanks, Franz. Your experience is interesting and I'm sure your PC was frustrating.

 

I use a Dell 670 (two 3.6 GHz Xeon processors) that is over nine years old. I have upgraded several times due to the open architecture. I currently use two internal SSD hard drives, two external eSATA hard drives, 10 GB of RAM, an updated nVidia video card for two monitors, and Windows 8. The performance is still very fast with 30 sec boots (if no updated are installing) and Photoshop CC opening in 15 sec.

 

I have used both my wife's Mac Book and my company-provided Dell Latitude. I can't see any difference in performance.

 

I do appreciate your responses because I am considering upgrading to a state of the art workstation - either a Mac Pro or a Dell T5610 or T7610. But I need to get 10 years out of the new system too to justify the high costs.

[zeitz]

Based on your responses and reading specs I have found three reasons why Macs are better than PCs.

- The annoying quirkiness of Windows OS is intolerable. PC users endured (or skipped) Vista; Windows 8 has the same fate. Who knows what Windows 9 will be.

- The Mac OS is much more stable over time. And Mac OS upgrades have insignificant cost. The Windows OS upgrades for full versions as needed to maintain system performance are too expensive. PC owners can expect major maintenance every 3 to 5 years.

- The average Mac has better hardware than the average PC. As a result Macs normally don't need major hardware upgrades. So a closed architecture is not a big limitation.

 

Initially for comparably equipped machines there is no difference between a Mac and a PC in terms of performance. But on the whole I think Macs are a better value because of enduring performance rather than degrading performance.

[leica dream]

Zeitz

In answer to your question, I suppose that, once one gets to grips with the architecture, it is the logical simplicity of my Mac compared with my PC. I am still on WIN XP and have found my way around that over the years for what I need rather by accident most of the time. I acquired my MAC by accident. A professional photographer who runs my classes wanted change of his 18 month old machine to take advantage of a new Retina based display so I did a deal. I upgraded to Mountain Lion and bought the "missing manual" which has been invaluable. That, along with the MAC Switchers forum have helped lots. The advantage on the forum is that a response comes back usually within the hour whereas getting help on WIN is like pulling teeth.

I had a bit of a battle with Adobe about transferring my CS5 but they insisted that I must upgrade before transfer at £+++..........I lost, of course, but considering that I am a casual amateur I re-evaluated my options and went for Elements 11 instead which does RAW and all I need these days.

I do not own any other Apple gadgets, but now I am in the Mac mindset I find most actions intuitive. Speed is not an issue for me and because I keep my PC "clean" they are much the same. I would not normally buy a secondhand machine but when this came available I took stock that my PC was 8 years old and will not live for ever so took the plunge as it was a good price from a known source. I deleted/reformatted the entire machine then re-loaded. Amazed at the more reasonable cost of software.

Richard

[esquire53]

so, I finally got the new Mac Pro.

A fine computer and thanks to my pre work with the external drives, the transition is very smooth and didn't took too long, most time spent to confirm all extra programs are working fine ....

so far the only thing I really don't like is the position of the power switch.

It's an odd location.

[Jan W. Tromp]

I received my MacPro last week. I ordered it half december last year...

 

I selected the "ProPhoto-model" (3.0GHz 8-core Intel Xeon E5 with 1TB PCie Flash drive and the dual AMD FirePro D500) and added to that a Promise Pegasus R6. Of course I did spend too much money but I did the same with my Leica's:-)

 

If you can afford one (from the cheapest model), buy it. It is fast and (to me important) I got rid of many many cables from various Hard Drives etc. etc. this machine works with Thunderbolt which is great as you can connect almost anything with it.

 

The only minor point I have is the display (I bought the 27" Thunderbolt display which is (to me) not the right size. I did not buy a 4K Ultra HD television/monitor as the Sharp one is another € 4.000,-. They expect these prices to drop.

 

Jan

[jaapv]

Have a look at the NEC Spectraview line. They are superior anyway (and Eizo)

[Jeff S]

If you get NEC with SpectraView, be sure the SpectraView software is compatible with the Mac software you're using. I once made the mistake of upgrading Mac OS, only to realize that Apple needed another 6 months or more before getting around to a compatible SpectraView version. When this display goes, I'll get an Eizo.

 

Jeff

[Jan W. Tromp]

It seems NEC has issued only a 24 inch K4 monitor, so I will go for the Sharp. I read some reviews and they showed that the cheaper K4 monitors all had a reason to be cheaper. Dell is such a brand. The Sharp comes with a mini display port which you can put in a thunderbolt port. Thanks to Jaap for the tip!!

 

Jan

[mydarkroom]

Jan,

 

Congrats on your new machine. I am considering exactly the same specs for a MacPro. Would not be able to get the Promise Pegasus R6 to start but eventually that's what I would use for storage (looking at a LaCie 6Gb TB external drive).

 

Would you mind sharing your first impressions with your machine and how does it compare to your previous set-up? Also, do you use Lightroom or Aperture as DAM?

 

Cheers

 

Rafael

 

 

It seems NEC has issued only a 24 inch K4 monitor, so I will go for the Sharp. I read some reviews and they showed that the cheaper K4 monitors all had a reason to be cheaper. Dell is such a brand. The Sharp comes with a mini display port which you can put in a thunderbolt port. Thanks to Jaap for the tip!!

 

Jan

[Advertisement]

Hallo,

Look here: Interesting Leica gear

[Jan W. Tromp]

Jan,

 

Congrats on your new machine. I am considering exactly the same specs for a MacPro. Would not be able to get the Promise Pegasus R6 to start but eventually that's what I would use for storage (looking at a LaCie 6Gb TB external drive).

 

Would you mind sharing your first impressions with your machine and how does it compare to your previous set-up? Also, do you use Lightroom or Aperture as DAM?

 

Cheers

 

Rafael

 

Hi Rafael,

 

My first impression was when I had it out of the box, so small and so beautiful. Setting it up is very easy, or I choose to do it the easy way. Connecting a patch cable (Ethernet) and connecting the new mac to my old. No other connection to a network (I turned WiFi off.

 

After the first startup I skipped internet etc. and after that I used the migration software to copy all my programs, settings and documents to the new Mac. That worked fine (it takes time)

 

I then had to copy my 2 external disks where I have my photo files and music files. They all were copied to the new Pegasus.

 

I then noticed that the display monitor I bought (the Apple thunderbolt 27" is NOT my display (I used a 30" Cinema before). I now have the Sharp (see later)

 

Connecting USB equipment worked smooth. I use the new Belkin USB3 hubs.

 

Connecting a LaCie optical drive with FireWire was done using the Apple FW to Thunderbolt adapter and worked.

 

Then came a problem I still have not solved. My NIKON Super Coolscan 9000ED that worked fine with my old mac (all on Maverick) was not even recognized by the System Profiler. I am in contact with Silverfast (software) but until now no solution. I knew NIKON is not supporting the scanner (which is a shame!!). I am afraid I will have to invest in a "Plustek scanner OptikFilm 120" and that will cost another € 2.000,-.

 

Using this Mac is like driving at the fastest AUDI A6/8. Startup is fast and the Pegasus is as fast as they say he is. The Sharp monitor is a great monitor. It is a bit special as it produces in fact two screens that are stitched to one. You can see it when you start the mac. You can change the hight which is an improvement over any Mac.

 

I use Lightroom but I may change to Aperture because of "Adobe cloud subscription (which is forced on us for Photoshop etc.)

 

All software worked as i expected.

 

Would I do this again, knowing what I know now? Yes I would. Future buyers must realize that FireWire is problems (like it always was...) Best is to get rid of all FW things you use. This is in fact a bigger thing in the Professional MusicProduction Studio's where most equipment is FW.

 

On the display I must add that new thunderbolt displays are coming from all monitor producers. So do not just check the Apple Store as usually non Apple brand equipment can be bought for much less elsewhere. We all know this with RAM. (Kingston RAM is fine and much cheaper then Apple's)

 

On Monitor you can also check with Jaap here who pointed me to NEC.

 

Best,

 

Jan