New Mac Pro advice

[HDXSound]

Hi,

I'd like to hear your opinion on the new Mac Pro.
I run a HDX rig on an old Mac Pro and want to buy new Mac Pro.
Use a lot of Altiverb and some VI's like Kontakt.
Sounddesign on feature films (5.1) is my main workload.
I'm considering the 3,5 Ghz 6 core or the 3.0GHz 8-core.
Witgh 32Gb internal memory.
Which would be the best investment without buying an overpowered mac?
Or do i need even more power?
Thanks!

[Drew Mazurek]

Originally Posted by HDXSound

Hi,

I'd like to hear your opinion on the new Mac Pro.
I run a HDX rig on an old Mac Pro and want to buy new Mac Pro.
Use a lot of Altiverb and some VI's like Kontakt.
Sounddesign on feature films (5.1) is my main workload.
I'm considering the 3,5 Ghz 6 core or the 3.0GHz 8-core.
Witgh 32Gb internal memory.
Which would be the best investment without buying an overpowered mac?
Or do i need even more power?
Thanks!

My advice? Wait.

No one really knows yet. I'm waiting to hear first hand reports.

One could argue that anyone buying a nMP that isn't working with video is wasting their money. Apple has spec'ed TWO very expensive video cards (even in the base machine) that cost $500 EACH, adding approx $700 to cost of this machine that NO audio professional will ever need.

Just my opinion.

Having said all this, if the real world reports are good, I still may buy begrudgingly.

[JFreak]

Not just your opinion. My opinion is that so far it appears to be glorified Mac Mini as far as audio work is concerned

[garnoil]

I am also waiting to see what happens but, if the new MP is not a good option for post audio, what are the choices: Mac Mini? or I mac?. Both these still require the expansion chassis to host the PCIe (expensive waste of money because of the chassis).

[ianmiller]

We will have to see how those video cards get used. Today GPU's are being used for processing as well as graphics and so I would not be surprised to see Logic use the Mac Pro GPU as a "TDM" like resource for plug ins. Pure speculation but in the same way FCP was optimized there is potential for other apps too.

I am moving to the new Pro and, while I love the Pro itself, am really bummed at the lack of truly "quiet" devices to connect to it. I have a one room music studio and so value quiet operation (my 2006 Mac Pro was really just about bearable) and so bought the OWC Helios for my PCI HD card. It is irritatingly loud and I am very surprised, given how many Pro users will need to make these migrations, that there isn't a vendor who has come up with a box you can stick your disks and cards in that is genuinely quiet.

Maybe they will come but so far I am disappointed. I don't even have my Pro yet but am doing pre-testing on a thunderbolt Mac Mini to see what it will be like.

[Frank Kruse]

One bummer I heard of is that when you use DVI adapters to drive your screens or DVI extenders you can only attach 2 screens max. whatsoever.

As soon as you connect an additional TB to HDMI adapter to 2xTB-DVI-screens one will me turned off.

So regardless of the 6 TB ports you can only attach 2 adapted screens.

Which is quite a show-stopper for all users that use remote machine-rooms.

I haven't checked what happens when you use a BM-TB hardware to drive your picture screen plus have 2 DVI screens attached. maybe BM knows.

If that doesn't work your are forced to place the trash-can on your desktop with your super-loud expansion-chassis. Or lose one data-screen entirely in order to be able to view 24P HD video.

So you end up with the same situation you have with a macmini (only one monitor when you want attach a TB video-card) but for twice the cost.

I'd actually wait or go for a used 12-core "old" mac for about the same cost. The 12 core is still faster in terms of benchmark than the small trash-can and you neither need a chassis, you get 4 drive bays, all connectors without a 'forest' of adaptors and it should serve you well for another 3-4 years.

Frank.

[Drew Mazurek]

Originally Posted by ianmiller

We will have to see how those video cards get used. Today GPU's are being used for processing as well as graphics and so I would not be surprised to see Logic use the Mac Pro GPU as a "TDM" like resource for plug ins. Pure speculation but in the same way FCP was optimized there is potential for other apps too.

Currently FCP is the only app to use them that I know of. Logic may also in a future update. Both of these of course are Apple apps.

The likelihood that Avid, Steinberg etc will spend the time and R&D resources needed to program their apps to offload processes to GPUs is certainly unknown at this point and IMO very unlikely to happen before these machines are already obsolete. So for the foreseeable future, the nMP will have all these "gigaflops" sitting there doing NOTHING. Bummer.

[Drew Mazurek]

Originally Posted by Frank Kruse

One bummer I heard of is that when you use DVI adapters to drive your screens or DVI extenders you can only attach 2 screens max. whatsoever.

As soon as you connect an additional TB to HDMI adapter to 2xTB-DVI-screens one will me turned off.

So regardless of the 6 TB ports you can only attach 2 adapted screens.

Frank,
can I ask where you got this info from? Link?

Thanks.

[P_J]

Originally Posted by Drew Mazurek

Frank,
can I ask where you got this info from? Link? .

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT5918
You can use two DVI displays with your Mac Pro. If you connect a third display via HDMI, it will cause one of the three displays to become inactive. To avoid this, consider using Thunderbolt, Mini DisplayPort, or VGA for connecting additional displays if you are already using two DVI displays.

[Frank Kruse]

Originally Posted by P_J

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT5918
You can use two DVI displays with your Mac Pro. If you connect a third display via HDMI, it will cause one of the three displays to become inactive. To avoid this, consider using Thunderbolt, Mini DisplayPort, or VGA for connecting additional displays if you are already using two DVI displays.

yep, thanks.