“Details about ARM’s chip roadmap… could enable Apple to introduce new breeds of ARM-powered Mac/iPad/hybrid devices,” Jonny Evans writes for Apple Must. “The Cortex-A73 is faster than the Nvidia GeForce GTX 740M used in some laptops in 2013.”
“Processors using this design should deliver double the performance of a 20nm 1.9GHz A57 ARM design that powered the 64-bit 2014 iPhone,” Evans writes. “They will also deliver 1.3 times the performance of the 16nm 2.5GHz A72 reference design that powers the current Apple A-series iOS chips.”
“Where these processors will really change the game is the iPad Pro, future iterations of which will become capable of increasingly complex computing tasks currently handled by traditional desktop and notebook computers,” Evans writes. “In other words, iPad Pro will be the only Mac you ever need.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Like most things, Steve Jobs saw what was coming:
When we were an agrarian nation, all cars were trucks, because that’s what you needed on the farm. But as vehicles started to be used in the urban centers, cars got more popular. Innovations like automatic transmission and power steering and things that you didn’t care about in a truck as much started to become paramount in cars… PCs are going to be like trucks. They’re still going to be around, they’re still going to have a lot of value, but they’re going to be used by one out of X people. – Steve Jobs, June 1, 2010
No thanks I’d rather stick with my mac.
I know how you feel. I’ve been locked in the basement with this mainframe for the last 20 years, but IT’S MINE.
Hey if you got the skills and it’s working then roll on! Lol
Until it hosts 16GB of RAM, several TB of disk space, has better performance than a current Core i7 system, has expandable ports, supports USB, firewire and thunderbolt natively, comes with a 27″ display and the ability to run one or more 27″ displays, runs all of the latest DAWs effectively, (Pro Tools, Studio One Pro 3, Live 9, Logic Pro X, etc.), can host multiple AUs concurrently with ease, then …. it’s nowhere *near* close to being the only Mac that an existing desktop music producer will ever need.
Don’t get me wrong – I am a strong proponent of professional music creation with the iPad and I use multiple iPads for music production in-house, stand-alone (and integrated with desktop systems), for end-to-end creation, from tracking to mastering, but it’s not a *replacement* for (nor even is a proposed souped up iPad Pro a replacement for), a desktop system.
For example. While I use Notion on the iPad to produce complete rendered tracks, and Notion is a *great* program, I’m limited by the samples available. I’m in the process currently of loading 194GB of orchestral samples (just orchestral samples) on a desktop system. I’d *love* to use those on the iPad, but it’s not even close to being able to support doing so nor likely to be any time soon.
I could multiply such examples.
I *love* using the iPad. (I don’t have a Pro, I work mainly with minis presently), and I make extensive use of them as I say in music creation with the wonderful apps (over 750 of them) that are available for music creation that work wonderfully together. I love Auria Pro, Animoog, iMini, Moog Model 15, etc. etc. Many many more, but I can’t run LuSH on the iPad, nor Reaktor, nor Pro Tools etc.
They’re not *equivalent* but complementary devices and no sign of that changing. One use case does not fit all use cases.
Ditto. I find it humorous those who think all computing needs can be filled with an iPad, much as I love mine. Many people might be able to get by but you can’t deny the continued wonderfulness of sitting in front of a large monitor with a cup of tea or coffee and getting your work, and social media, needs done on a large comfortable canvas. There is simply a system or way of working that’s always existed since the 70’s that is simply more ergonomic, and doubtful it will ever go away. Huddling around tiny devices for long lengths of time, however capable, doesn’t work for me and I suspect many – much as we may also use and love them for what they are.
The whole debate seems stupid to me.
Even if an iPad were just as powerful and had all the same software — I’m going to switch from my 27″ screen to 12″!!!!!!!!!! I don’t think so.
Exactly my point. Large monitor – comfy chair – oodles of computing capability = Mac. Why would you ever give that up completely? Maybe someday when midair projection hologram technology & OS’s are invented.
Ye of so little imagination.
It’s already an iPad world, you’re just living in it.
I get it, cold dead hands and all, but one morning you’re going to wake up and pick your iPad off the floor, walk over to your desk, drop it in the cradle and start work on your 27″ display without even thinking about it.
I recently had a client FINALLY upgrade a bunch of circa 2007 white iMacs to current ones. I told them that there is a strong possibility this will be the last Mac they purchase.
If they take about 7 years to upgrade, it will be 2023 when they think about it again, if not further. By that time the evolution will be complete and the revolution will have taken place without you noticing.
Your iPad will be the standard for general purpose computers.
Every day you pass by and read MDN. Note how much “Mac” news there is on a Mac website vs. iPHones and iPads.
Apple is an iOS company.
don’t know what type of computing you do or what type of clients you have ( “white iMacs to current ones. I told them that there is a strong possibility this will be the last Mac they purchase.”)
but note:
A SIX YEAR old previous generation “cheese grater” Mac Pro with upgraded video card has in some tests more than 2 TIMES the GPU performance of a NEW 5K Retina iMac.
(Barefeats.com shows that the cheese grater runs Diablo at 181 fps , the Retina iMac at 74 fps. I know that games probably don’t need that kind of fps but it’s just an indication of GPU power. This in spite of the fact the six year old mac has a lower powered subsystem, processor etc. Imagine the difference between the iMac and a CURRENT PC workstation with the latest subsystems etc ).
there is whole segment of high end users which Apple is neglecting.
Mac Observer and writer John Kheit understands the pro situation.
The ‘New’ Mac Pro Is a Failure:
http://www.macobserver.com/tmo/article/the-new-mac-pro-is-a-failure
Apple Needs to Reimagine a New and Improved Mac Pro:
http://www.macobserver.com/tmo/article/the-new-mac-pro-is-a-failure/page2
yes
MacObserver has got many of the points right.
—–
I would add for the budget pro, hobbyists a Mid Tower priced between the Mac Mini and the Pro with one muliti-core Workstation processor, upgradeable Ram, Video & HD and perhaps one or two slots and Thunderbolt 3 would also be desirable.
From your text to the Apple god’s ears. 🙂
The hard part to get used to is just how much of a minority so called “pro” users are. Apple is basically giving those people to Windows. Right now you can build far more powerful Windows machines with all the expansion and flexibility you want for a fraction of the cost of a Mac. And if you want to go above and beyond what the average “pro” needs, you can go way beyond.
Just ordered my new 10 Core Intel i7 today. Mac users are not likely to see this chip or new GTX 1080 GPUs for quite some time.
http://www.engadget.com/2016/05/31/intel-debuts-its-first-10-core-cpu-the-core-i7-extreme-edition/
If you’re holding your breath waiting for Apple to start building “TRUCKS,” better to exhale and re-evaluate.
Businesses take 7 years to update because at a certain point, way back when, computers became “fast enough” for most people. Apple only has to create mediocre Macs to satisfy the majority of Mac users.
The need for high-performance computing is becoming rare because even the slowest of new computers is faster than what most people require.
Now consider what happens when the iPad becomes so fast that the bottleneck is the user. This is the sweet spot that caused the shift from the mainframe to desktop computers. It will happen again when the iPad becomes so fast (it pretty much is already) that you don’t notice a significant difference in using it vs a conventional computer. iPads do what most people require pretty much as fast as conventional computers do.
This will certainly happen with tablets and phones in 7 years I guarantee you. Hince someone buying a new Mac today, could very well be purchasing the last Mac/Conventional computer they ever will.
In fact, the iPad will leapfrog high-performance gaming machines of today, which are well beyond the needs of the majority of computer users.
This is why, when this client decides to upgrade again, it is very likely that they won’t be choosing Macs, they will be choosing mobile devices i.e. tablets and phones.
Not in my studio setup I’m not. 🙂
Until iOS is opened up to be more like Mac OS – or other open UNIX – it’s restrictive. Again, remember, I *love* working with iPads, and in the same field as I use desktops, but the restrictions aren’t going away (soon enough) for that to be a reality.
I and others working in this field are constantly having to work *around* the increasing restrictions that Apple place on iOS and it’s becoming more unhelpful in each major release.
If the trend is actually for Mac OS to become more like iOS, then it’s a very poor trend indeed that does not support common existing open workflows that have been in place for a very long time.
A very simple example is file management. iOS’s file management is so locked down that it’s virtually unusable and where it is usable between apps it’s very clumsy compared to the ease of use of the command line on Mac OS (I’m a UNIX programmer too – *far* faster and more productive to use the CLI in many circumstances).
Cloud services are most definitely not the answer. Studio machines are often not permanently connected to the Internet in any case for a variety of reasons: optimal speed, security, local storage.
Not being able to selectively turn off (kill) unwanted processes / services is another issue in iOS that was even further locked down post iOS 8 because of the removal of sysctl() functionality – unhelpfully.
Again, external access to the file system was *further* reduced in iOS 8 which prevented applications like iFunbox being as usable as they had been to manage iOS app contents.
Sure, *some* of these things will evolve and get better I don’t doubt, but the trend of moving things into a more locked down, controlled and inaccessible setup is contrary to usability – it’s the dumbing down trend that shoehorns users into one way of working. The world is bigger than that. That’s why jailbreaks exist for iOS… (and now of course they’re legal again for iPads).
I use Linux and Windows systems as well. I’m not locked in to the Apple ecosystem. I use Macs because they give the most flexible options in the studio setups I use but if they move toward being more iOS like it would take away the ease of use and functionality. I like Macs. I like iOS. I like Linux (I don’t like Windows – at least not past 7, at all! 🙂 ).
My work involves imagination. I like to imagine scenarios where the tools I want and need to perform the things I need to do continue to be available without top-down control. Linux provides that flexibility to some extent, but doesn’t provide the *features* I need for audio work. (I can’t run PT, S1 Pro, Live, Logic etc. on Linux (and I’m a member of the Linux audio community as well – aware of what’s happening there but it’s a small (very small) part of what can be done on Mac OS or Windows currently)).
So, resepectfully, overall I don’t envisage what you are suggesting being valid even 7 years from now. Maybe, maybe not. I doubt it. Let’s come back in 7 years and see 😀
I wish Apple senior management will read posts like yours and some of the others on this forum.
TC and Apple SVPs spend so much time attending award ceremonies (not related to Apple), social work, fashion shows, celebrity parties (all perhaps OK except Mac Pros are six times slower than PC workstations) I wish they would ALSO
visit high end Mac using Studios, Labs, institutions and other businesses etc, talk to Mac User Groups, attend PC using centres like Game conventions etc.
when is the last time anybody has read SVPs doing this vs the fashion shows, social work etc. ?
I think apple senior management has lost touch with certain segments of Mac users.
Jony Ive has time to design furniture for charities, perhaps another ‘good deed’ BUT the Mac Pro hasn’t been updated for 3 years.
That would be the equivalent of a truck. No one reasonable is saying that Macs will go away. Just that they will be used by 1 out of x people. No one knows what the value of X is right now.
I looked at a Pro last week. Great machine. My problem is that backup is via the cloud. I want Time Machine. I am simply not going to trust my backup to another company even Apple. I have a great little Seagate hard drive and I also use a 64 GB Flash drive
Yup, Evans is referring to your average schlub content viewer who trolls the internet … somewhat like Jony.
Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!!!!!!
Damn, I just spit out my coffee. To freak’in hilarious.
iPads are toys. Macs do work. It’s not even remotely possible to do half of what I do on my Mac on some toy iPad.
Eventually tablets will replace laptops but not quite yet. The pieces are coming together and will need improved processors, OS and peripheral support to provide the total package.
What amazes me is that there are still many functions that tablets can offer but these lack the software support. Tons of games are available but not much in productivity. That in my mind is what is holding back adoption.
Only maybe for consumers with relatively simple needs. Tablets and phones, even though we are most grateful to have them, are for mobile convenience and that’s how most will use them for some time to come.
I don’t know what the Speed Benchmarks are for the stuff Evans is talking about but if it’s more than SIX times faster than the current cylinder Mac Pro (like some PC workstations already are)
… can open several CPU/GPU intensive programs like Lightwave, Zbrush, Adobe suite (Photoshop, Illustrator etc) simultaneously, can power three large monitors (two large high rez and a Cintiq) AND
beat competitors using PCs with 24 or more cores, twin 12 GB video cards and 512 GB of Ram (the current Mac Pro apple sells maxed at two 3 GB cards, 64 GB ram)
( In tests a HP workstation can render a file in 2 hrs it takes a cylinder Pro 12 hrs… )
and is upgradable for Video, Ram, HD
OK fine, otherwise as much as I love my iPad,
PLEASE apple build a SERIOUS Pro Mac ….
you know something which is actually faster than the hackintosh people build in their basements which are way faster than the Cylinder Pro…
I don’t think Evans is saying every task a Mac does can be done by an iPad Pro — I think he is saying that the processor road map makes it obvious that the list of things an iPad pro cannot do will inevitably shrink as time moves forward.
“I don’t think Evans is saying every task a Mac does can be done by an iPad Pro ”
what does:
“iPad Pro will be the only Mac you ever need”
like ” ONLY ” Mac sound like to you?
look at my post, I’m saying if the road map Evan’s is touting can match even current PCs (i. e SIX times faster than the cylinder) and put the chip etc into a device that is upgradable and that can power 3 monitors with a bunch o high end apps running etc GO AHEAD, otherwise build a real pro mac…
i think you are meant to
1. read those words after the title
2. put them into context
Or is that too much for you?
maybe you should re read my posts?
1. Evans IS saying that the iPad can replace a Mac (albeit eventually in time)
2. I’m saying (look at my first post) GO AHEAD (“it’s fine”) IF the iPad can do all the stuff I say PCs can do .
or is that too much for you?
Why Dave you sound just a little miffed at Apple letting the Mac Pro languish and no word of anything newer anytime soon. Well, ditto.
Not long now at WWDC before I find out if I can buy a new 2016 Mac Pro, or be forced into a PC Workstation solution. My patience has come at last to an end.
why is it that Apple is striving so hard to make money like hiring thousands of engineers to work on new stuff (i.e money is important to them) YET don’t build Macs people have been clamouring to buy for years (like a proper Mac Pro and a Mid Tower between the Mac Mini and the Pro)?
My finger has been poised on the buy button for years waiting.
(and flamers note : Macs made more money than iPads last quarter, probably sold 2-3 times the Apple Watch, has lower marketshare than iPhones , is a larger business in profit than Dell, or Acer or Lenovo… )
letting Apple fans like PBllood go ” or be forced into a PC Workstation solution. My patience has come at last to an end” is a WASTE.
—–
Me: Mac nut for years and Aapl investor.
We’re both in the same boat of frustration. And other pro friends of mine feel the same who are also Mac afficionado’s. You like to think Apple feels the pulse of a market and overrides Jonny Ives design impulses for the good of a market segment as special as the pro one is.
And yes there’s no way I WANT to switch platforms. I just WANT what the pro market NEEDS, and it doesn’t come in a tidy little minimalist minimally upgradeable incomplete package.
—-
Me Too: Mac nut since ’92 and longtime AAPL investor.
slip up:
the max pro maxes out at twin 6 not 3 GB cards.
apple sells max 64 GB ram which is correct but it’s possible to get 128 GB outside (OWC I believe) which I’ve stated before but didn’t write here. .
regardless:
it’s possible to get PCs with 44 – 48 cores etc, 12 GB cards, 512 Ram etc.
which is unfortunate for there is a certain segment Mac user segment who need power.
This is one of the unrealistic (at this time, anyway) memes of the year. As such: *yawn*
BUT: I can entirely believe in the gradual migration of both Apple software and third party software over to the Apple A-Series ARM processors. But it would have to be a FULL migration, including deep down to full CLI access with ALL the accompanying UNIX tools. iOS would have to become an honest to goodness NeXT incarnation of Mac OS X on ARM.
That’s going to take time. No way is it going to happen this year, or next year. It would be an evolutionary process.
Yes, an emulator for current Mac OS X could be created to run on iOS. But it would require extensive licensing of CPU level code owned by Intel, x86 APIs owned by Intel, advancement of iOS device hardware to professional Mac equivalent 64-bit hardware, etc. There would be NO virtualization as ARM CPUs do NOT support it. That would be a GRAVE decline in the speed of x86, Intel Mac native code, a massive bump in the road that would deter Windows victims from switching over to Mac.
I’ll stop there. I think the above gives a good idea of the challenges. If there are those who disagree with the above, go study the processors involved. Start by studying CISC processors versus RISC processors, figure out which is which in this situation and the innate limitations of both processor types. That way you can begin to know what you’re talking about.
Sounds impressive.
Have you read this?
https://www.arm.com/products/processors/technologies/virtualization-extensions.php
Thank you. I have no idea when the virtualization extensions article was written. But I’d imagine Apple would be following the progress of that tech. I know Apple has not integrated it into the A9, at least in public documentation. Maybe they will in special A-Series chips for the iPad Pros.
We’ve been through this virtualisation before. When Mac ran on PPC chips, there was VirtualPC (from Connectix, later acquired by MS), which allowed virtualisation of Intel x86 architecture inside System 9 on a PPC Mac. It was running at roughly 10% of the speed of the Mac processor (i.e. if you had a PPC G5 chip running at 1.2Ghz, VirtualPC behaved like a 120MHz Pentium II), but it (mostly) worked.
As far as emulation of Mac software for Intel, we’ve been through a similar process before, with Rosetta, allowing PPC code to run on Intel.
Apple has been known to do these kinds of 180-degree turns, which required developers to scrap old codebase and rebuild their apps practically from the ground up, for the new hardware. From 68k to PPC, from System 9 to OS X, from PPC to Intel, from 32-bit to 64-bit. And in all cases, most developers (certainly, the important ones) went along (kicking and screaming).
If Mac were to transition back to RISC processors, I can’t think of a reason why the same thing wouldn’t happen again. And once Mac and iOS are running on the same or similar chipset, final consolidation of UI and OS can begin.
You confused virtualization with emulation. Therefore, I’m not going to address the rest of your post. I’ve pointed out the DIFFERENCE between virtualization and emulation many times already here at MDN. Do your homework kids!
I’m not going to go into the semantics here. Runing Intel software on Intel hardware is trivial; whether it is Windows software on Windows OS, or Windows OS virtualised inside a Mac OS, but on Intel hardware, it is never a major issue.
To avoid leaving nits to pick, I’ll clarify here that I’m talking about EMULATION. Apple has already done that. The migration from PPC to Intel had an emulation layer (Rosetta), which did exactly that — emulated RISC PPC architecture on an OS running on Intel architecture. And it worked remarkably well. It was obviously much slower, but it worked — significantly better than the commercial emulators, such as VirtualPC worked on PPC (emulating Intel). Reasons are various and a bit technical, but the point is, it allowed Apple to buy people (users and developers) some time during the migration.
As I said above, Apple has done these large-scale migrations before. Some were more painful than the others, but most of them required developers to rebuild their code for the new architecture. Nothing prevents Apple from doing this again.
Emulation is slow and unacceptable in this day and age. jonnyr23 sent me a comment with a link to information about a virtualization extension that is underway over at ARM. THAT looks promising and would wipe out my concerns about virtualization on Apple A-Series chips WHEN Apple decides to build virtualization into A-Series chips, which they have NOT thus far.
Well, I don’t know which way Apple will go. They’ve done emulation before, and it was a success (with respect to its intended purpose). If they can actually virtualise a CISC architecture on a RISC machine, that would make the transition even more transparent.
In the end, there is another important factor to consider. Efficient virtualisation that has minimal performance penalty may lower the developer motivation to migrate the code to the new architecture. Why bother if it works reasonably well?
Here is the link jonnyr23 provided that sounds very promising:
https://www.arm.com/products/processors/technologies/virtualization-extensions.php
I think Derek has explained in the past that emulation is when you place a layer/manager to translate the physical architecture to what the ‘guest’ OS needs to run. Usually this means either a different architecture altogether or earlier versions of the underlying architecture. Virtualization on the other hand manages OSes made for the underlying hardware, sort of time-sharing in a way, and is a much ‘thinner’ layer than emulation. It is unfortunate that in most marketing the terms seem to be used interchangeably.
I guess they’ll have to change their stance on allowing emulators for iOS in the App Store in the future then. 😛
Bullshit!
Only if the iPad has full OS X on it. Not hobbled and has 1TB. I would ditch my MBP for that.
is that macOS?
Technically, all Apple devices are running OS X. Macs are running Mac OS X, while iPhones and iPads are running iOS, but both these OSes are versions of OS X.
The comments here are rather amusing, but not surprising. The readership of this forum looks like a truck stop on Interstate 80, somewhere in Ohio… But because you guys drive trucks, it doesn’t mean that the rest of America (or the world) can’t move themselves around in cars.
Steve’s metaphor was right on the money. I work in a large office building. Some 6,000 people work there. I am absolutely certain that the processing power, memory and storage capacity, as well as currently available software for the iPad Pro would meet all the demands of about 5,800 of those office people. Word, PowerPoint, Excel, Lotus Notes — those are their tools. Most of corporate ERP is now web-based and easily accessible via Safari.
As for home users, the situation there is probably even more pronounced, when likely 49 out of 50 users could meet all of their computing requirements with an iPad Pro.
Just like you aren’t using an IBM S-390 for your music / video production business, so doesn’t the rest of the world need to use a full-blown Mac in order to sort out their recipes, manage their gardening club, edit occasional birthday video, update their social media or create invitations for their children’s birthdays.
way too many people are still using Macs (and Windows PCs) for nothing more than very simple tasks. They simply don’t need anything better than an iPad.
You’re totally correct. In our office we have mix of Mac pro’s and 27″ iMacs for drafting and production, and a few MacBook Pro’s for people who work on the go. But we do use the iPad Pro (both 12.9 & 9.7) for drawing and mobile work, and for most of our office who aren’t draftsmen or heavy animators they can do 99.9% of what they need done.
The general computing public basically checks email, goes on Facebook, YouTube, browses the Internet, etc… The base iPad mini can replace their computer.
the problem with your argument is that for the percentage for people who need higher end macs Apple is not keeping pace with competitors.
MARKET SHARE stats (“5,800 of those office people” don’t need ” etc) : well 80% of the world uses Android phones many of them low powered junk, does that mean that high end iPhones are not needed?
when Apple does not upgrade the iPod often, at least you can use an iPhone (which is a full iPod replacement) but there really isn’t an iOS replacement for a true high end PC.
as I’ve stated elsewhere an HP workstation in tests can render a file in 2 hrs it takes a current Mac Pro 12 hrs. You can’t ‘work around ‘ these limitations if you are in business fighting head to head against a competitor using those superior devices. All your sales staff armed with iPads aren’t going to help you if your production staff are not effective ….
people who naysay apple users who need high end Macs are like people who like small iPhones and say big iPhones are not needed…
(the other thing to note is that Mac towers are not hard to build or requires a lot of R&D $$, as Hackintosh users can build faster machines than current Mac Pros and Macs made more money last quarter than iPads)
What file type and size is rendering in 2 hours, how many cores are thrown at it, and what’s the graphics configuration of that workstation?
I’m asking because we have 12 core Mac Pro’s with the dual 6GB D700 cards (you stated earlier that you couldn’t have 12GB of graphics memory, but you in fact do get that with this configuration)
In general a 30 min 1080p production video renders in less than real time, a 4K video of he same length takes about 2.4x when done locally, if we’re not using our in house render farm.
What system is taking 12 hours to render something? What’s the length of the project, how many cores, etc…?
you can argue it until you are blue in the face but the facts remain that the mac pro is way slower than current PCs in some tasks, you can put more cores, and a lot more powerful video cards in them (than the non upgradable Mac Pro or iMac)
saying workarounds like you mentioned last time (if I remember correctly) that your company has a RENDER FARM of XSERVES (that apple does not even make anymore) is like saying “I don’t care if the Mac is slower’ because you with YOUR setup you are OK with what YOU do.
it’s like others arguing with me that fast macs are not needed as :
YOU can:
break the video up in parts and use multiple macs
hire guys to work at night
get a render farm of 200 mac minis
etc
this are work arounds, saying that VIDEOS that YOU do are fine with with you have does not mean I am satisfied with it for MY needs invalidate tests that show that HP workstations can render video much faster or that others do not need the speed.
if you don’t care for the PC workstation stats what about Barefeats.com where like I mentioned in other posts; a SIX YEAR OLD Mac pro with upgraded video card is several times faster than than a current iMac, Macbook Pro and cylinder Mac Pro?
Six year old Cheese grater is 181 fps for diablo vs 74 for the Retina 5K iMac, 130 for the current cylinder and 27 for the current Macbook pro.
(and it’s not just about games where super high fps might not be needed but an INDICATION of GPU performance. and GPU performance is needed in some pro tasks).
are you arguing that the 128 GB mac pro max ram (like you wrote) is BETTER in ALL situations (like running several high end apps) than a PC with 512 GB of RAM? seriously?
I got in the same stupid arguments with people a few years ago when iMacs had only small screens, I said my set up with Mac pros with big screens are more effective people called me idiot and like you have arguments based on their OWN needs: “MY workflow is good enough with 21 inch screens , ALL my company uses small screenes… ETC ETC ETC” until Apple came out with giant iMacs, now lots of people say extra real estate is wonderful…
SAME type of arguments form people with iPad STYLUS, some years ago I had argued that I can draw better with my PRESSURE SENSITIVE Cintiq stylus than I could with a finger or then current third party foam tipped iPad pencils and I was called ‘idiot’ and people said FINGERS are the best drawing tools out there and pressure sensitivity was USLESS (I actually had a debate with one guy who had all kinds of stats saying that , the the iPad’s ability to judge SQUARE AREA of the finger = better than Pressure sensitivity) …. UNTIL ONCE AGAIN APPLE MADE THE IPAD pressure sensitive PENCIL…
then pressure sensitive pencils are wonderful…
SAME with small vs big iPhones, before they came out people slapped anyone who said big phones are good for some uses…
wait until (if) apple upgrades the Mac Pro or mac mini, then everyone will say the POWER IF WONDERFUL
PEOPLE LIKE KEEP TELLING ME THAT I YOU KNOW MY (my!) NEEDS MORE THAN I DO, seriously … ? Me I’m not denying that the current lineup is great for some, but for others it is lacking.
“in general a 30 min 1080p production video renders in less than real time, a 4K video of he same length takes about 2.4x when done locally, if we’re not using our in house render farm.”
hey genius:
reddit.com (rendering animated movies)
“Big Hero 6 (199 Million Core Hours). The render farm used on this production was able to produce 1.1 Million core hours a day. I am guessing there are using 55,000 Intel Xeon Core Server farm to render that movie.
I would boil that down to 200 days on a super expensive render farm/cloud to make current AAA animated movie.”
(I’m not sure the guy above is 100% correct but it gives an indication… )
TECHRADAR:
“To create an animated film such as Rise of the Guardians, DreamWorks might render as much as 65 million hours of footage”
DAZ 3D forum from home user:
“I have an NVIDIA GeForce GTX 770 GPU, I am using DAZ Studio 4.9, on Render Settings > Advanced, I have:
Photoreal Devices: GeForce GTX 770 (checked)
OptiX Prime Acceleration (checked)
Interactive Devices: GeForce GTX 770 (checked)
and it takes 8 or more hours to render 120 frames”
ARE ALL NEEDS LIKE YOURS?
Yeah and you’re just yelling like last time, and not really giving the specific example of what you’re talking about…
I have always said our needs are not the same as others, and I was asking for the specific use case in which one machine with the same configuration would take 12 hours to render something while another one would take 2….
If you can give me that SPECIFIC answer to my question , I will concede all points and say you’re smarter and know more about everything than I do…. Deal?
“specific use case in which one machine with the same configuration would take 12 hours to render something ”
what SAME configuration are talking about?
I was talking about a maxed out PC vs a Mac.
look at my examples cut and paste examples of 65 million render hrs for a 2 hr movie vs your “30 min 1080p production video renders in less than real time, a 4K video of he same length takes about 2.4x when done locally, if we’re not using our in house render farm”
like I said you are basing your stuff on YOUR own work and thinking you know it all,
Why would you compare a 24 or 48 core machine to a 12 core? If you’re doing that then you have to use the same processors to do the comparison. So would twin pros do the same job? Again, you’re not answering the question, and your examples have no relevance to the discussion, since they used render farms for those projects. Be specific, tell me the configuration you’re using to produce those results and I will completely concede
what are you talking about?
“Why would you compare a 24 or 48 core machine to a 12 core?”
I am comparing it because I’m saying that Macs for certain uses are underpowered vs PCs. (all my posts are pointing to that and you obsessed with your weird ” same processor ” test., show me that , show me that… huh? )
I’m saying I want more powerful macs. (are you arguing that EVERYONE does NOT need more power than a 3 year old machine?)
I know those examples I used are using render farms, I’m using it as an extreme example to show you that NOT all videos render ” less than real time etc” on a Mac like you state.
Also look at the DAZ home user example, it took him 8 hrs to render 120 frames on his PC (what I’m getting here is not comparing his PC to a Mac Pro but pointing out that for some uses you need power, the more the better. ).
seriously if I was to render a short 3D movie for a client, say business to business use, a faster more powerful mac isn’t an advantage? If I don’t want a render farm but just more powerful processors and more powerful GPU cards is wrong?
are you stating that a Mac 3D studio with Macs that have 48 cores, 512 GB Ram, 12 GB cards are NOT better than current cylinder Mac Pros for SOME uses?
maybe a small studio for their own specific use would rather have more powerful workstations than work stations and a render farm?
where I live the median house price is over $600,000 canadian , business property valued even more, in neighbouring Vancouver average house price if you don’t count apartments is over a million , maybe I want to save REAL ESTATE from having a render farm of many lower powered machines for my small studio? ever think of that?
like I said you are basing all your arguments on your OWN use.
Arguing with you is difficult because you constantly avoid simple questions and move goalposts. Originally you a “maxed out” pc could render something in 2 hours while a maxed out mac took 12… So what is the configuration of that machine, and how much does it cost?
For example a “maxed out” hp z840 workstation costs ~$29,000.00 US. For one system. That system has 44 cores of E-5 Xeons and twin quadro 6000 cards. So if you have 29,000 for one system like that, you could buy 3 mac pros and daisy chain them together with thunderbolt and produce the same results, and it would cost less to run overall since the hp system runs Windows, and you have to waste cpu cycles on security software.
And no, I don’t know everything, but neither do you. And I don’t know your use case, but if you’re trying to produce a movie like big hero 6 you would never do that on one computer. And when you’re talking about all the core hours used to render footage for a film, it’s not like it gets edited and they just hit “export” and it renders the file linearly. You do it scene by scene and then stitch them together.
Before I started my own business, I worked for an animation studio. Granted this was back in the late 90’s and hardware wasn’t as advanced as it is today but it’s all relative. So figure out the cost and configuration of the system that will do that and I’ll show you the equivalent or concede it’s not possible.
And you left out how wrong you were about the graphics configuration of the cylinder pro…
I concede this point:
the base is twin 3 GB configurable to twin 6,
Oh and you can put in 128GB of ram in the Mac Pro, it’s slower 1333 ram though so there’s a trade off with the faster 1866 memory. High density 1866/2133 memory is still pretty expensive but does give a nice speed benefit.
Maybe for people who just use Facebook all day. Some people actually need a powerful computer, and sadly even Macs can’t do that job lately (Apple hasn’t updated anything but the low end ones in years).
When Apple forces me to switch entirely from my Mac to my iPad Pro is when I switch to Windows 10.
NEVER — Nitch product. I find no value in the iPad. I have my iMac retina and a MacBook which I happen to love for its purpose. The MacBook is extremely portable. For me, I’ll never buy an iPad
Hmmm… depends what your needs are.
Artist David Hockney loves his iPad, just as I do, for creating quick sketches without waiting for the ink to dry.
The iPad Pro and Pencil are great for creating art – and for watching TV and YouTube.
It sure interests me that these days when I take a look at forum comments across all the bigger Mac sites i see the same thing, loads of people moaning and slating apple. And yet, Apple remains rather popular, so these commenters just can’t be representative. I do sometimes wonder if there’s something to this — if there’s some rascally competitors paying people to post this stuff.
Give me a Mac with this:
http://www.pcworld.com/article/3075433/hardware/intel-broadwell-e-core-i7-6950x-review-the-first-10-core-enthusiast-cpu-is-a-monster.html
And, just for hoots, let’s benchmark the Apple A-series chips against this.
I have thought a lot about why I always go back to my Mac after playing with iPads. We have four in the household including an iPad pro.
Having bought many tools that require significant investment has caused me to look at their value as lying in the most breakable, expiring or frustrating part. After trying to select text with my finger for the 15th time the other day I realized why I love my Mac. I am sure the Pencil is good at this, but there again is the lowest denominator, I would have already lost the Pencil by now.
Contentious headline.
Mac, iPad, iPhone all have their place – one does not preclude the others.
What a load of nonsense. The iPad is a complete zero for content creation, I don’t care how many pencils Sir Ive throws at it. Cook’s utter neglect of the pro hardware and OS X (or is it Ive’s incompetence?) needs to be addressed by the Board. Shakeup time — the spaceship needs a new command deck crew.
My next Mac is going to be a custom PC running hackintosh.
And here’s why:
Musicians: Garageband. Logic Pro.
Videographers: iMovie. Final Cut Pro X.
Photographers: Photos. . .
You guessed it, former Aperture here, stuck on Lightroom because Apple simply couldn’t be bothered to update the software or even let professionals know that they had lost interest.
You poor sods clinging to the idea that the Mac ‘Pro’ will get a cool update at WWDC need to understand one thing:
This is Cook’s Apple now.
Lower your expectations.
Actually, it is Jobs’s Apple, down to a T.
When asked about the Mac, he said “…milk the Macintosh for all it’s worth — and get busy on the next great thing”.
By now, the Mac has been milked way more than what it’s worth. The next big thing is already here (iPhone), and even that one is by now in the milking mode, and Apple is more than likely working on yet another next great thing (perhaps the car…?).
The point is, technology moves on, companies emerge, succeed, then fail and die, and the ones that remain are the ones that know how to pivot.
Intel just released the new i7 extreme 10 core chip it will be in the updated mac pros in the WWDC I’m sure of it 😉