Mac Pro Late 2013 Teardown(ifixit.com) |
Mac Pro Late 2013 Teardown(ifixit.com) |
My lust for this machine is only growing. It looks like a cross between Darth Vader and R2D2. Love it.
Or that he's insightful enough to recognize that the Mac Pro is an anomaly in the Apple product line.
It also looks like the current form factor also limits internal storage to a single drive - i.e. it's a workstation that does not provide for an internal RAID configuration. It also does not provide any way to back data up without using a network connection or external device.
None of these may be deal breakers, of course, but the trend is definitely away from upgradability. Then again, a shared heat sink and limited air volume combined with a 450w power supply and a single fan design probably give Apple business reasons to move in that direction.
It is impressive how modular they have made it in such as small package, but the inability to expand without thunderbolt is a turnoff to me personally. Maybe once thunderbolt becomes more ubiquitous and cheaper it won't be as big of a deal. Apple wants $30 for a half meter cable http://store.apple.com/us/product/MD861ZM/A/apple-thunderbol...
psedit: I didn't see the can / macpro picture the first time (slow DSL today) psedit2: this level of custom hardware reminds me of the ~70s era, on IBM machines, every piece was as specific as it could get. Beautiful to see, maybe less fun when in need for parts.
http://www.electronista.com/articles/11/06/29/thunderbolt.ca...
Edit: It may still be worth buying the base model now and upgrading immediately if the Apple markup is large.
[1] http://www.scan.co.uk/products/intel-xeon-e5-2697-v2-s-2011-...
I'm currently looking into a hackintosh that'll set me back about $1700:
http://pcpartpicker.com/user/envoy510/saved/3dCe
I just can't justify the $5400 vs $1700, even though I really do love the design of the new Mac Pro. Also, mine has 32GB of RAM instead of 12GB.
I could upgrade the storage (just 256GB seems small) but I don't really need to... I have all the music I want in the "cloud" (Spotify, Rdio, Pandora) and I keep my video on my home server on an external enclosure I can mount anytime through SSH or watch via Plex.
I could upgrade the video card, but I never have before in a laptop; if I wanted to do things like that, I'd get a desktop.
I could upgrade the memory, but I maxxed it out at 16GB anyway and it won't fit any more.
I could open it to fix things, but there are few moving parts and nothing seems to break.
I might someday need to replace the battery, but on both my rMBPs so far (one owned 1 year, one owned 6 months) the battery has not notably declined in capacity. Even at the end of its life, a reduced 4 hour battery life will be plenty sufficient, and when it finally kicks the bucket, I'm happy to have Apple service it.
In my original 2008 aluminum macbook pro, I replaced the hard drive once, upgraded the memory, and replaced the battery; but none of these things are as relevant or limited as they were in 2009. I have no need for the equivalent upgrades anymore. The machine just works, exactly how I want it to.
Maybe an aftermarket clear case will show up?
I really hope a similar form factor takes off for custom computer builders.
Artisan borosilicate glass, naturally.
And Apple already owns triangles http://www.theverge.com/policy/2012/6/7/3068355/Apple-design... ...
This is what I have done for years now, and however much I might like to just for the design... I imagine sticking with it.
Not really, all you need are a motherboard supporting (fake) hardware RAID (that's almost any over $100) and a couple of good 240GB SSDs. A RAID 0 will far outperform the MacPro in random access (e.g. OS drive) and in the worst case - sequential reading - will be no more than 10% slower.
The hard to replicate part is the OS, but IMHO Linux and Windows with some UI configuration are superior.
Unfortunately for me though, I both can't justify one and can't afford one anyway.
I wish they improved soon. As for mac pro, I love design.
1) You've picked an i7. The Mac Pro uses a Xeon. They're way more expensive. 2) The Mac Pro has ECC RAM which is more expensive. 3) You picked one video card, and it's probably a gamers card (not a GP-GPU like the FirePros, again, MUCH cheaper) 4) OCZ SSDs which have dodgy reliability and are SATA, not PCI-E 5) No Thunderbolt controllers 6) A 750-watt power supply - The mac pro gets by with 450w.
If you assemble a list of parts that are actually similar to what's in the Mac Pro, you'd probably end up closer to $5,400.
And none of that counting the desk space you save, the noise characteristics, the expandability (PCI-E speed and 6 hot-pluggable devices for each thunderbolt 2 port).
Where you're more likely to save money generally with Apple products is with upgrades, as some have pointed out with the Xeons.
Apple has recently redesigned every computer they have except for the Mac Pro, which hasn't been significantly redesigned in something like a decade.
Call me old school, but I would rather have a bigger chassis with internal expansion than the "small for the sake of being small" design of the new Mac Pro. In my opinion, having external devices (requiring their own power cables) creating clutter around the new Mac Pro somewhat nullifies the advantage of its tiny footprint.
With 100m optical thunderbolt cables coming, if I has the $$ for a Mac Pro, I'd be building a kickass solution out of sight.
http://www.anandtech.com/show/6293/ngff-ssds-putting-an-end-...
The M.2 form-factor is available for both SATA and PCIe cards. PCIe versions are becoming the new normal, due to the speed increases - http://www.tested.com/tech/pcs/456464-why-ssds-are-transitio...
http://pcpartpicker.com/user/envoy510/saved/3iHB
I'm looking into mobo's that support ECC and are Hackintosh ready.
Mind you the I didn't select the hardware with the intention of putting Mac OS on it. Doing system updates is pretty easy process. The only issues I have are with sound kexts but it's an easy fix. Most updates pose no problems.
The process is much much easier than I used to be.
I think AmVess is just trolling. Over at the forums on tonymacx86.com, there are a lot of happy people.
How much would a MacPro comparable to this Dell cost?
Dell Precision T7600
$12,697.60
Two Intel® Xeon® Processors E5-2687W (Eight Core, 3.1GHz, 20M, 8.0 GT/s, Turbo+)
128GB, DDR3 RDIMM Memory,1600MHz, ECC (8 x 16GB DIMMs)
Dual 4.0GB NVIDIA® Quadro® K5000, Dual MON, 2 DP & 1 DVI
PERC H310 for Dell Precision, SATA/SAS 6Gb/s, RAID 0/1/5/10 (8 ports)
Dual 512GB, 2.5" SATA 6Gb/s Solid State Drive
6X Blu-ray Disc (BD-RE) Burner
Speakers Dell AX210 Speakers
3 Year ProSupport Service with 3 Year NBD Onsite Service after Remote Diagnosis
3 Year Accidental Damage Service
It's awkward to match the Apple machine exactly because of the non-standard graphics hardware. The D300/500 are approximately cut-down versions of W7000/8000 with reduced VRAM.
I specced up a machine on newegg and other sources for the CPU. E5-1660 V2 (3.7Ghz with 15M cache), LGA 2011 motherboard, 64G ECC RAM, 2xW7000 graphics, 480G PCIe SSD (2x240G), and a CPU cooler / case / power supply to round it out (not looking to buy the most expensive options here). Came to about $4800.
An Apple.com Mac Pro machine with 3.5Ghz / 12M cache CPU (worse), 64G memory, dual D500 GPU (worse) and 256G PCIe (worse) comes to $5200.
On the pro Apple side, you get a very nice case and a lot of integrated wireless stuff, Thunderbolt etc. On the anti Apple side, you get much better expandability (the option to go dual socket in particular) and upgradability, and an overall more powerful system for nearly 10% less.
The D700 is equivelant to the AMD FirePro W9000 which is listed at $3,399.99 on Amazon.com: http://www.amazon.com/AMD-FirePro-Retail-Graphics-100-505632...
AMD really wanted their cards in this machine I guess..
Base system options:
3.7GHz quad-core with 10MB of L3 cache
3.5GHz 6-core with 12MB of L3 cache [Add $500.00]
3.0GHz 8-core with 25MB of L3 cache [Add $2,000.00]
2.7GHz 12-core with 30MB of L3 cache [Add $3,500.00]
[1] http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819116...
It takes time to ensure the components are supported and work well together, and supported by the OS drivers.
So cost comparisons should either take into account integration-testing and driver support, or compare against a vendor that provides that (i.e., Dell, HP, etc).
I've tried the hackintosh route and it was fun for the first few weeks, but got tiresome after that. Windows or Linux with randomly chosen componentry is better, but not without it's pitfalls.
The MacPro does not provide the capability for an internal RAID configuration,
The MacPro does not offer the ability to backup to an internal device such as a DVD drive.
I really don't understand the importance of the distinction between internal and external. It's sitting on your desk for pete's sake, just plug stuff in.
> The video cards in the last generation of MacPro's could only be upgraded to the cards offered directly from Apple or the handful Mac-specific parts offered by third parties. With it's unusual form factors, the new MacPro will probably offer even fewer options.
Since OSX 10.7-ish a lot of cards have "just worked". Before then using a PC card was a bit of a crap shoot, but not impossible, usually OK if the card was the same as the reference design.
If you'd like to know more, check here: http://netkas.org
It might well prove quicker to use an ordinary backup program (my 2 x 2TB RAID1 system takes about 10-15 hours to rebuild, while Acronis will back up the 1.2TB of used data in about 5 hours). And there's a bit of inconvenience, in that you have to shut your computer down and swap the drives. But in exchange, the backup is guaranteed to be atomically that of your computer in its shut-down state - at least on Windows, I think this is difficult to guarantee otherwise.
The 300 - 500 dollar range consumer cards seem to crush all over the $4,000 cards for anything I might use. Are there popular apps that are locked to the Pro series cards or something? Vegas rendering, Autocad, Folding@Home, Unity Dev, etc.
Why would I want the >$3,000 D700 in the Mac over a 290x, even if the 290x wasn't 1/6th the price, since the 290x is faster? What's the market for these cards?
• Enough VRAM to load their entire dataset on the GPU (yes, the Mac Pro skimps on this)
• Hardware optimized for pro-level GPGPU (e.g. ECC RAM, but the Mac Pro skimps on this)
• Dedicated pro-level support from AMD and a pro-level expectation of QA before you buy it; think of those proprietary in-house tools here (you're not likely to get AMD support for the D300 since it is custom to the Mac Pro)
If none of those seem that important to you (you're just mining altcoins or playing BF4), you really _don't_ benefit from a $4,000 card. AMD knows that.
For the guys that need it every day to get their work done, $4,000 is a pittance for what they get in return.
Obviously, I concluded that the Mac Pro GPUs fail in all respects to compete at the pro level.
One could say your comparison is apples and... nevermind.