# Cheesegrater mac is back!



## gsilbers

edit: link up
https://www.apple.com/mac/



features so far:

up to 28 cores. 

1.5tb of ram!?

8 pcie slots

(some video stuff i dont care about)

1.4kw power supply

Wheels :/


6hd pro tools card can be installed.

logic pro presentation with 1000 audio + 1000 sample instruments playing at the same time within logic.
on 58 cores.


price: TBD


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## bryla

Holy moly!!! Me wants!!!


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## Soundhound

Waiting for price...

Edit: Entry model 8 core, 256g ssd (really?!?) - $6k


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## gsilbers

starting at $6k (made a jab at similar pc components in HP being 8k for similar intro configuration. )
intro config is 8 core and 32 gb ram.
( i guess context benchamrks would be needed to confirm but cool so far)_


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## gsilbers

available in fall.


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## DivingInSpace

Got any links?


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## gsilbers

mac OS catalina


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## gsilbers

DivingInSpace said:


> Got any links?



its live strreaming now.


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## gsilbers

iTunes RIP.....

poking fun at itunes 1st.


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## MarcelM

does it still use intel cpus? ive been reading apple wanted to ditch intel and use own cpus. would be bad for my hackintosh


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## gsilbers

the logic presention was interesting with so many tracks all inside logic all playing fine. benchmark seems through the roof. 


and the pro tools cards... basically post prodcution audio studios can mix a movie like avengers with one computer.


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## Soundhound

xeon cpus


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## OleJoergensen

Holly Molly!


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## Jeremy Gillam

$1000 for a computer monitor stand


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## gsilbers

MarcelM said:


> does it still use intel cpus? ive been reading apple wanted to ditch intel and use own cpus. would be bad for my hackintosh



u kknow... they didnt touch on that.. yet. i guess. but they said a similar HP computer would be $8k so they knew poeple would think the old "in pc is cheaper" we wont know for sure until benchmarks come in though.


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## Dewdman42

I'm extremely happy they put PCIe slots back. That means I can commit to OSX for another decade. I can't afford this new MacPro anytime soon though...sheesh..starting at $6k and I'm sure a fully configured unit is going to be $10k, plus if you want the new display...well do the math. It will be a while for me... but at least I know Apple is back on the PCIe train, which for me is really a major thing...well done Apple.

I couldn't afford the 5,1 MacPro when it came out either..hehe.


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## VinRice

Sweet Jesus. I love the fact that it is unashamedly, eye-waveringly expensive. Means that no compromises have been made (still cheaper than an equivalent bitsa PC though I suspect). 30" high-NIT HDR display for $5K is actually a bargain.


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## gsilbers

oh man.. i think i my old 5,1 mac was about 5k back in the day and then added memory and upgraded cpu ... yet i still have it and its pretty good still even after 10 years...


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## VinRice

Rack-mount version! They are not fucking around.


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## gsilbers

screentime now on mac OS. .... 

im sure VI-control will appear there


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## gsilbers

project catalyst will enable ipad apps work in mac catalina.


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## gsilbers

VinRice said:


> Rack-mount version! They are not fucking around.



they seemed to have actaully listen to what pro's wanted...


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## VinRice

Logic looks to be getting an update...1000 tracks running in the demo.


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## Soundhound

Wonder how long it will be before we can see Geekbench Mac scores for the Mac Pro...?


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## bvaughn0402

VinRice said:


> Logic looks to be getting an update...1000 tracks running in the demo.



Instrument tracks at that!


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## Delio Roman

Ya beat me to it! Haha


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## MrZarlton

bvaughn0402 said:


> Instrument tracks at that!


1000 instrument tracks and 1000 audio tracks AND 1000 Aux tracks


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## gsilbers

well.. i think thats about it. now they went into augmented reality and more catalina.

pretty impressive so far. even though it would of been cool to have this a few years ago. i thought they would of gone with a new CPU.


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## InLight-Tone

Looking good, who needs a house?!?


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## Damarus

woww, they seem to have nailed it so far. Completely unexpected givin their recent track history. Curious to see the youtube reviews start rolling in..


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## bvaughn0402

I'll save up for it and eventually get it. Like someone said, I'm super happy they didn't go for some "cheap" options on it. I'm guessing it is user upgradeable on many things, although I don't hear them saying that specifically (seemed to be implied a lot though).


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## Dewdman42

anyone know if the demo of the MacPro and Logic is archived somewhere? I missed the live stream


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## gsilbers

bvaughn0402 said:


> I'll save up for it and eventually get it. Like someone said, I'm super happy they didn't go for some "cheap" options on it. I'm guessing it is user upgradeable on many things, although I don't hear them saying that specifically (seemed to be implied a lot though).



the ram was def upgradable. not sure the cpu. and heavy emphasis on the video upgrades.


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## bvaughn0402

Dewdman42 said:


> anyone know if the demo of the MacPro and Logic is archived somewhere? I missed the live stream



I bet you'll see a replay as soon as they finish the live event (still going on).


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## gsilbers

Dewdman42 said:


> anyone know if the demo of the MacPro and Logic is archived somewhere? I missed the live stream



its still going but they add it later in the main website.


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## IFM

gsilbers said:


> u kknow... they didnt touch on that.. yet. i guess. but they said a similar HP computer would be $8k so they knew poeple would think the old "in pc is cheaper" we wont know for sure until benchmarks come in though.


Yes they said it uses a Xeon chip.


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## Virtuoso

Dewdman42 said:


> I can't afford this new MacPro anytime soon though...sheesh..starting at $6k and I'm sure a fully configured unit is going to be $10k


It's going to be a LOT more than that. A fully specced iMac Pro is $16k and 256GB of RAM is already a >$5k upgrade. With up to 1.5TB of RAM, multiple GFX cards, Afterburner and who knows how much SSD storage, it's going to cost an eye watering amount - comfortably into TENS of thousands!


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## KMA

Good LORD that is powerful.
Good LORD that is expensive.


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## gsilbers

IFM said:


> Yes they said it uses a Xeon chip.


doh' they did. 

here is the video. its half way thorugh it

https://www.apple.com/apple-events/


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## Dewdman42

Most likely this will be a 2025 refurbished item for me. hehe. My cheese grater will live on quite a while yet.


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## Mr. Ha

Here is the product page: https://www.apple.com/mac-pro/


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## gsilbers

well.. in context price will be in line with what pros need. the mac mini can do a lot if thats all one needs.
if you need to mix a whole movie then investing in spec'ed out mac will pay it off in a couple of movies.
if you have to get two + hard core pcs and link them together with VEP or with audio/midi interfaces then price between that and one new mac pro might not be too far off.
but most likley the ram from apple will cost the fortune. and the extra price of mac+ hardware to get a nice solutions for those who don't like windows. if tech doesn't change in a major way, 1.5 tb of ram with 28 core intel xeon i think will last like 10+ years. 

also keep in mind if they specifically called out HP price and for that specific model, apple is really going after high end video editors, who dont mind at all those prices if they can have a no issue system. (ive worked in post and that HP was the main one used and it was expensive when it was spec'ed out). 


https://www.apple.com/mac/


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## gsilbers

its very simple design without components.


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## gsilbers

the fine print says the tests vs other iMac/pc etc was using this config:
"2.5GHz 28-core Intel Xeon W-based Mac Pro systems with 384GB of RAM"


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## Dewdman42

The tech specs of this new macPro are truly staggering. Most people, including many pros simply do not yet need this much power. I'm happy to see many things they decided to do with this, but it will be a long process as applications choose to make use of all that power more and more until many of us will feel compelled to get it in order to use LogicPro12 or whatever that uses physical modeling for all aspects of mixing, etc.. or whatever. IMHO. 

I was just looking through all the tech spec details on their site...and it truly is just an amazing machine. As far as I'm concerned this sets a new high bar for desktop computer, but it will be a while before I will be able to even remotely think about it myself.

I'm just happy that the modular mac pro concept that was put forth a few months back by people who obviously had no idea whatsoever was nothing but a hoax.


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## Greg

Having SF logic ninja up there was by far my favorite part.


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## GtrString

So now we can run 8 DAW's with 1000 track templates each.. on the same maschine!


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## LinusW

Track folders come in handy!


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## kenose

my god


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## Daniel James




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## Virtuoso

Odd choice of Logic benchmark on the product page - the 28 core monster will apparently enable "5.1x more Amp Designer plug-ins!" than the old cheesegrater. 

Disapointed that there's only 4TB max of internal storage in 2x 2TB slots. Not sure if it will be user upgradeable when larger SSDs are available. Not much room for those multiple streams of 8k ProRes RAW!

I waited a long time for this, but I'm probably going to go for the next iMac Pro instead.


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## BezO

Crazy!



Virtuoso said:


> ...I waited a long time for this, but I'm probably going to go for the next iMac Pro instead.


Same processor as the current iMac Pros with the base models pretty similar. I'm likely going with a new, regular iMac as the Pro line is overkill for my needs. But good to see I wouldn't be that far behind with a current iMac Pro.


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## gsilbers

i dont think many here understand who the new mac pro is being target to...
yes you can probably get a good enough pc for what you need for less but here is a spec'ed out HP which is what this new apple mac pro is trying to compete with






so that new mac pro will probabbly will look like this when really max'ed out. 
its obviously more than anyone would ever need , i think. 
but refelct more apple's target on this new mac pro. 

i checked the configuration with the basic that was mentioned on the video and its true. the hp is higher priced. 

also keep in mind that for video editors, musicians etc, building their own PC is not really a thing in their mind. im sure there are 1000 ways to confirgure better and cheaper components but most editors and graphics render use a pre config like these.


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## gsilbers

also, there was a huge push in the video for the rendering... since now disney owns fox, and disney, netflix use pro res, a computer like this will be used all thorughout los angeles.


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## sinkd

Blessed are the cheesegraters.


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## Hans-Peter

What a piece of **** ...

Seriously, people prefer this overpriced cooking utility over the vader helmet? 

Looks like I’m leaving MacOS for good! 

Just my 2 cents ... and yes, it’s beyond me in so many ways. Perhaps better so.


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## Virtuoso

gsilbers said:


> also, there was a huge push in the video for the rendering... since now disney owns fox, and disney, netflix use pro res, a computer like this will be used all thorughout los angeles.


But still no Nvidia options, which means no acceleration in apps that are optimized for CUDA.


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## gsilbers

Virtuoso said:


> But still no Nvidia options, which means no acceleration in apps that are optimized for CUDA.



interesting. did see plentea of the randeon. they where also promoting somehting else in terms of accelerating rendering. so not sure if its the competition and therefore want to keep nvidia out?


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## KMA

Dewdman42 said:


> The tech specs of this new macPro are truly staggering. Most people, including many pros simply do not yet need this much power.



I just need to decide if I'm "most people". 

I still find myself running up into CPU problems when using too many processor-hungry instruments, and I'd consider paying money to solve that problem.

If I had a machine that could run as many instances of Omnisphere as I actually *wanted* to run, I would probably never buy another synth.


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## Dewdman42

please don't talk me into spending money yet...


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## mscp

In theory it all looks great. I would personally wait a year before making a decision though (if I was still a Mac person)


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## artomatic

Wish it was available now. Will go for 16 core/128 ram using Pro Tools HDX. Looking forward to having more VIs without using a slave for once.


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## JEPA

oh i want to know the price!


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## kenose

I can't wait to feel the excitement of configuring it to the maximum spec, and then closing the tab and returning to reality.


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## gsilbers

artomatic said:


> Wish it was available now. Will go for 16 core/128 ram using Pro Tools HDX. Looking forward to having more VIs without using a slave for once.



nice


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## benmrx

Damn! Configurable with up to 1.5TB of ram...., yes that's terabytes of ram!!!! This will be THEEE machine for modern PTHDX systems. Price seems about right relatively speaking..., in fact makes me feel not so bad about my recent iMac Pro purchase as I knew these Mac Pros were coming soon.


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## gsilbers

Daniel James said:


>




i was looking for my cheesegreater for a lol pix.. but this is hilarious


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## Daniel James

In reality I wont be able to afford one of these for years. But my trash can is still going strong with zero issues getting in the way of my writing.

The best cure for GAS is a silly price point 

-DJ


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## sinkd

https://tenor.com/6Uzf.gif


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## Kent

I'm calling it the Cheese Greater


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## gsilbers

well, the price i think will be the same as a similar config PC. but then again, why would you need an amazing video card for logic or pro tools.


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## gsilbers

im thinking the real issue we wil have is the new mac catalina and dropping support for old cheesegrater somehow (besides metal gpu). or not being able to have the new apps/features.


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## gsilbers

kmaster said:


> I'm calling it the Cheese Greater



yes!!!!!


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## gsilbers

so its like going to the dealership and the only fast car is a porsche.. which costs way too much but its great. the next one is the imac which is lexus and then the mac mini which will be the sedan i might be buying at the end.... 
but thats the deal with macs... there is only one dealership so pricing is always an issue


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## gsilbers

benmrx said:


> Damn! Configurable with up to 1.5TB of ram...., yes that's terabytes of ram!!!! This will be THEEE machine for modern PTHDX systems. Price seems about right relatively speaking..., in fact makes me feel not so bad about my recent iMac Pro purchase as I knew these Mac Pros were coming soon.



the avid PT forums are going gaga over them... 

its trully one desktop solution these poeple have been wating for a decade.


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## bvaughn0402

I wonder when the new Logic will drop? Wish they had more details on that ...


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## Dewdman42

with enough money you could build a truly state of the art audio recording setup no doubt about that. I think there are a few studios that will do just that. I think in 5 years we'll all be benefiting from trickle down effect. hehe


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## gsilbers

bvaughn0402 said:


> I wonder when the new Logic will drop? Wish they had more details on that ...



apple normally does it around winter namm. maybe summer namm ( july 17th) this time?


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## Greg

Dewdman42 said:


> with enough money you could build a truly state of the art audio recording setup no doubt about that. I think there are a few studios that will do just that. I think in 5 years we'll all be benefiting from trickle down effect. hehe



I think in 3 days we will benefit from the trickle of trash cans flocking to ebay


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## NoamL

Full support for increasing Logic's capabilities is the big news item here for me at least.


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## gsilbers

Greg said:


> I think in 3 days we will benefit from the trickle of trash cans flocking to ebay



oh man.... 
tempting. 
i was thinking of an mac mini which seems great but if a better mac pro trashcan comes around at a similar price id go for that. 

i think the new mac pro is a bit much for me now. but i can see many here going crazy about 1000+ tracks inside a daw with no VEP or slave pc. like in the demo. that was quite something.


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## Michael Antrum

Virtuoso said:


> Disapointed that there's only 4TB max of internal storage in 2x 2TB slots. Not sure if it will be user upgradeable when larger SSDs are available. Not much room for those multiple streams of 8k ProRes RAW!
> 
> I waited a long time for this, but I'm probably going to go for the next iMac Pro instead.




That's what PCI Slots are for. A Highpoint Raid card with 4 x 2TB NVMe SSD's fitted would give you 8 TB plus what's on board. And there are 8 slots total.

This is an epic piece of kit. That's Mac Pro with a capital 'P'.


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## maestro2be

Wow. Just wow. I am a PC guy all the way but this machine has me droooooooling with sexiness! Do the processor, memory and internal drive all offer future upgrade paths?


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## Jack Weaver

If one instance of Omnisphere can't choke Logic, then I'd consider a reasonable version of this.

Core overload is not my friend. 

.


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## Rasmus Hartvig

NoamL said:


> Full support for increasing Logic's capabilities is the big news item here for me at least.



1000 instrument tracks. Still only one CC lane visible at a time


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## SomeGuy

Are there hard drive bays or are you stuck buying all your disk space from Apple? Is the ram user upgradeable as well? Assuming so, but with Apple you never know!


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## gsilbers

maestro2be said:


> Wow. Just wow. I am a PC guy all the way but this machine has me droooooooling with sexiness! Do the processor, memory and internal drive all offer future upgrade paths?



the video in the presentation showed a big space for ram. im guessing hard drive as well. 
im not sure about the cpu. 
we who waited a year after the old cheesegrater mac got to be able to replace the old cpu. so im guessing this one might be betterwait and see for that.


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## gsilbers

SomeGuy said:


> Are there hard drive bays or are you stuck buying all your disk space from Apple? Is the ram user upgradeable as well? Assuming so, but with Apple you never know!



it all looked user expandable. (not sure about the cpu though). but i could be wrong.


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## ptram

1000 tracks! And this comes in the middle of the neo-romantic era!

Paolo


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## Soundhound

I'm thinking the CPU isn't upgradable. If it is, that could push me from a new iMac or mac mini to one of these beasts....



gsilbers said:


> it all looked user expandable. (not sure about the cpu though). but i could be wrong.


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## VinRice

Soundhound said:


> I'm thinking the CPU isn't upgradable. If it is, that could push me from a new iMac or mac mini to one of these beasts....



I think it unlikely. I suspect the cooling on these things is super-critical (they are guaranteeing no thermal throttling) and closely engineered. Apple are unlikely to encourage people to take that particular assembly apart.


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## kenose

That would be surprising, even the trashcans had an accessible CPU socket.


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## Delio Roman

I strongly believe the CPU will be socketed. Wouldn't make sense for Apple to solder it in place; Not for a computer with modularity at mind.


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## Delio Roman

Here's from the Mac Pro page. The animation shows the CPU falling into place into the socket. More than likely socketed. Meaning upgradable once we find out the SKUs.


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## JEPA

gsilbers said:


> like in the demo


do you have a link from this demo? thanks


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## gsilbers

Delio Roman said:


> Here's from the Mac Pro page. The animation shows the CPU falling into place into the socket. More than likely socketed. Meaning upgradable once we find out the SKUs.




nice. 

im sure the 1st user will chime in into design issues related to thermal problems. seems it was a problem with the MacBooks.


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## gsilbers

JEPA said:


> do you have a link from this demo? thanks



it was in the keynote in the apple site but i cannot find it. its there somewhere though. and you scroll until half way and the mac pro and logic pro videos are there.


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## KMA

Jack Weaver said:


> If one instance of Omnisphere can't choke Logic, then I'd consider a reasonable version of this.
> 
> Core overload is not my friend.
> 
> .



I would use Omnisphere on everything, were it not for the heavy CPU load.

I've been waiting for this MacPro for ages.


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## gsilbers

spectrasonics should have a chat with apple.... 
have eric be on the next keynote


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## colony nofi

Someone was asking for the "design" video / demo. Its here :


This is the Apple equivalent of the most excellent HP workstations... and (without getting too detailed) looks competitive for price. 
Not for the majority of home users. But for 50% of creative professionals creating content (video, AR, VR, Audio, CAD, Animation etc etc) this is excellent. 

The idea for storage is simple. Small (ish) extremely fast OS drive - similar (but faster) than the current darth vader box. Then you use TB3 or PCIe storage for projects. OR connect to a 10GBe based (shared) storage unit. 
Storage very rarely wants to be part of a workstation inside a business with more than one workstation. Projects need to be transportable between rooms / workstations. Footage gets thrown around all over the place. The days of TB upon TB of internal storage is an old paradigm that doesn't fit the workstation mode - which is clearly what this machine is designed for. (And if you like the old mode, just get yourself a large TB3 connected storage unit and never move it from beside the machine!)

Does this fit everyone's use case? Surely not. But it most certainly is catering for the facility based crowd who need tonnes of processing power, modularity and upgradability. Will many composers working on their own use it? I don't think so. Maybe the top of the mac crowd. Given the new mac mini's are so capable, ditto imacs (pro and otherwise... oh - the pro's use the same xeon family so similar power cpu wise!) then these machines are designed for a purpose, and by the looks of it (I'll reserve my complete judgement till I'm able to sit in front of one) they'll be awesome.


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## Nick Batzdorf

MrZarlton said:


> 1000 instrument tracks and 1000 audio tracks AND 1000 Aux tracks



That's God's way of telling you you're an idiot.


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## colony nofi

MIDI Kinetics said:


> Extremely impressed by this machine. 1.5TB RAM is amazing. Unfortunately though, that doesn't solve one of our main problems which is having to wait for all those samples to load. I think I'd still rather have a dedicated sample slave that never shuts down.
> 
> Hmmm...or maybe buy 2!?
> 
> MOH


Disabled instrument tracks in cubase work a treat for this. Aside from the slow saving (which really only effects when you get up over 800+ tracks) its an awesome/powerful way of working. No wait for samples to load aside from those which are being used. On fast drives, this means opening most projects in 30 seconds for me - even very big cues.

Or sure. Buy two .


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## CT

I'm still using an iMac from 2011. God help me. AND I just realized that means I can't go to Mojave. Crap.


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## Alex Fraser

miket said:


> I'm still using an iMac from 2011. God help me.


Don't worry, me too. Whilst everyone else saves for a MacPro, we'll gaze at our fuzzy, non retina screens (whilst freezing tracks) for the rest of eternity. 

Apple have also sidelined my elderly iOS devices come the fall. So, I'm stuck in some sort of weird apple tech purgatory.


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## CT

Fortunately, if I'm able to work as smoothly as I can now on this machine (a minor miracle), a decently spec'd Mini should do fine for me once I get the cash together.


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## charlieclouser

MIDI Kinetics said:


> Extremely impressed by this machine. 1.5TB RAM is amazing. Unfortunately though, that doesn't solve one of our main problems which is having to wait for all those samples to load. I think I'd still rather have a dedicated sample slave that never shuts down.
> 
> Hmmm...or maybe buy 2!?
> 
> MOH



Or, you know... just run VEPro on the same machine as your DAW. No chance of Ethernet bottlenecks, and with the Cheese Greater's massive RAM, fast storage, and ability to run at full steam 24/7, you can just leave your template loaded for years at a time.

On those rare occasions when I need to resort to VEPro that's how I use it and then the CPU usage in Logic goes down to one or two flickering bars on the meter.

Or, if you use EXS-24 (as I do) then Logic already has "preserve but not decoupled" operation (and has for nearly 15 years). Samples stay loaded as you switch between Logic projects, but incoming projects DO recall all of their saved front-panel tweaks - so song A can have different ADSR / filter / mod routings than song B does, across hundreds of instances - but save and load times are still usually under 10 seconds. None of the horrific load/save times I see when I use VEPro in "preserve but not decoupled" mode in Cubase or even Logic, since the DAW doesn't have to poll all VEPro instances for their front-panel tweaks and save them back to the project.

Of course, "preserve and decoupled" mode in VEPro does give quicker save times but then you're not allowed to touch the front panel of any VEPro-hosted instruments or you'll run the risk of changing a setting that a different project needs in order to sound right. I guess this method can work for some parts of a big orchestral template, where it's "load, set, and forget", but as soon as you're hosting Omnisphere or any of the Heavyocity or Sample Logic synth-style instruments, it's not practical to be in decoupled mode.

I'll be quite happy to stay on one machine, and with the new Cheese Greater it should be even quicker than ever.


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## Andrew Aversa

Considering how bad Logic's multicore support is, and the fact that this processor likely isn't capable of high boost speeds, is this really going to be ideal for audio unless you're 100% samples with few synths/FX? I'd think one of Intel's 18-core monsters in the 9xxx family would be a lot better with speeds likely ~1.5 to 2ghz higher than this.


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## bvaughn0402

zircon_st said:


> Considering how bad Logic's multicore support is, and the fact that this processor likely isn't capable of high boost speeds, is this really going to be ideal for audio unless you're 100% samples with few synths/FX? I'd think one of Intel's 18-core monsters in the 9xxx family would be a lot better with speeds likely ~1.5 to 2ghz higher than this.



One of the things they seemed to brag about in that demo was massive number of Logic tracks and the CPU hit.


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## InLight-Tone

MIDI Kinetics said:


> Extremely impressed by this machine. 1.5TB RAM is amazing. Unfortunately though, that doesn't solve one of our main problems which is having to wait for all those samples to load. I think I'd still rather have a dedicated sample slave that never shuts down.
> 
> Hmmm...or maybe buy 2!?
> 
> MOH


What about fast NVMe drives?


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## Greg

zircon_st said:


> Considering how bad Logic's multicore support is, and the fact that this processor likely isn't capable of high boost speeds, is this really going to be ideal for audio unless you're 100% samples with few synths/FX? I'd think one of Intel's 18-core monsters in the 9xxx family would be a lot better with speeds likely ~1.5 to 2ghz higher than this.



Yeah unless Logic addresses that with the new update this is a tiny upgrade in clock speed for us. Single core spikes from intense libraries, synths, or big effect chains when playing with a low buffer have always been the bottleneck. There are enough workarounds with raising the buffer, or freezing tracks to deal with playback of large sessions but this does nothing to help real time recording at low latency. Pretty massive fail for Logic users imo.


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## mscp

Greg said:


> Yeah unless Logic addresses that with the new update this is a tiny upgrade in clock speed for us. Single core spikes from intense libraries, synths, or big effect chains when playing with a low buffer have always been the bottleneck. There are enough workarounds with raising the buffer, or freezing tracks to deal with playback of large sessions but this does nothing to help real time recording at low latency. Pretty massive fail for Logic users imo.



This is not a Mac issue. It’s a computer issue. It happens on Win PCs too. It’s a hardware-level comm limitation. That is why I love ASIO guard on Cubase. I can have any unarmed track running at stupid-high latencies while playing the armed one at stupid-low latencies.


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## Greg

Phil81 said:


> This is not a Mac issue. It’s a computer issue. It happens on Win PCs too. It’s a hardware-level comm limitation. That is why I love ASIO guard on Cubase. I can have any unarmed track running at stupid-high latencies while playing the armed one at stupid-low latencies.



Its definitely a Logic issue to some extent too though. Libraries that cause spikes in Logic run considerably better through VEpro on the same rig.


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## VinRice

Perhaps wait and and see before declaring it a 'massive fail'.


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## dgburns

Man, this is the mac I was hoping they’d build.


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## Jeremy Gillam

Why is the baseline version of this machine $1000 more than the base iMac Pro, which comes with a screen and I believe 1TB of storage rather than 256GB on the new Mac Pro?


----------



## EvilDragon

zircon_st said:


> Considering how bad Logic's multicore support is, and the fact that this processor likely isn't capable of high boost speeds, is this really going to be ideal for audio unless you're 100% samples with few synths/FX? I'd think one of Intel's 18-core monsters in the 9xxx family would be a lot better with speeds likely ~1.5 to 2ghz higher than this.



Very much true, Andrew. Very much true.



VinRice said:


> Perhaps wait and and see before declaring it a 'massive fail'.



Turbo speeds at 4.4 GHz, BUT this is not an all-core turbo, but a single core turbo (IIRC).

This is definitely a fail for CPU hungry virtual instruments and heavy sample libraries (think OT).



bvaughn0402 said:


> One of the things they seemed to brag about in that demo was massive number of Logic tracks and the CPU hit.



But they didn't run a bajillion Kontakt instances with OT libraries in there, were they? Or a decked out Omnisphere multi? Or some really really heavy Alchemy patches?


The highest tiered 28-core Xeon has a base frequency of *2.5 GHz.* That is absolutely not gonna cut it for heavy instruments. Sure it can turbo boost to 4.4 but again, not over all cores, and not for extended periods of time for sure.

EDIT: This is a bit weird, they cite 28-core but that's W-3175, which runs at 3.1 base frequency, not 2.5. 2.5 GHz base freq is W-2175. Hmmm.


Might wanna curb everyone's enthusiasm, please. Let me reiterate things one more time: *single-core frequency* is still the most important factor for audio DAW performance! It's great to have many cores, but it's also more important to have all those cores with as high frequency as possible. All those cores, not one!



https://www.anandtech.com/show/13748/the-intel-xeon-w-3175x-review-28-unlocked-cores-2999-usd/3

Max 3.8 GHz for an all-core turbo on the top-tier $3k Xeon W CPU. These are not the droids audio DAW users are looking for.


ED out.


----------



## gpax

The keynote video is now up. I don’t know, @EvilDragon , but seeing David Earl showing this system with the upcoming (yet to be released) version of Logic seemed more than capable to me.


----------



## EvilDragon

I guess when it's really out we'll see. But there are clear limitations to single-core frequencies that those Xeons have. It's just (sic) logic. I'm sure that new cheesegrater is going to choke on some heavy instruments (a more complex Reaktor Blocks patch, say, or aforementioned decked out Omni multi or OT libraries in Kontakt...) that a cheaper i9-9900K will be able to swallow like nothing, this is just par for course, because 9900K can run at 5 GHz across all its 8 cores.

Remember: when the main realtime audio thread saturates, even if you have a bunch of cores that are not at all being used, you will get dropouts and crackles. If a plugin/track is relegated to one core and it demands more than that core can process, you will get dropouts and crackles. You cannot split one track's (+ its sends) processing chain across multiple cores.


----------



## MrZarlton

Nick Batzdorf said:


> That's God's way of telling you you're an idiot.


?


----------



## Maxime Luft

Looking forward for that one!
All in one place, no slave / master setup and the ability to load a big template with lots of mic positions...


----------



## will_m

That base spec for 6k is terrible, maybe the higher configurations will make more sense?

I think even the iMac pro is going to outperform the base spec for less money and it comes with a screen as well.


----------



## W Ackerman

Although this machine is not for me, I am thrilled that Apple with this announcement and the PC manufacturers with the recent RTX studio announcement are paying attention to content creators. For the past several years, I have been feeling that crumbs from the gaming market would be the best we could expect. I hope we are entering a golden age of powerful machines for video and audio creators.


----------



## ridgero

zircon_st said:


> Considering how bad Logic's multicore support is, and the fact that this processor likely isn't capable of high boost speeds, is this really going to be ideal for audio unless you're 100% samples with few synths/FX? I'd think one of Intel's 18-core monsters in the 9xxx family would be a lot better with speeds likely ~1.5 to 2ghz higher than this.


They talked about a new Logic X version.


----------



## gsilbers

ill be interested to see the benchmarks against what most poeple do with their builds at $1200 or so. 
sure looks expensive for the base price but several times there have been comparisons using the same components and its about the same. the mac pro is def going after the high end video market dominated by HP for creative user not doing their own builds. but if you can load 28 cores at 3.5 and 1.tb ram then im thinking building something similar might get to about the same price. then again, those poeple doing builds only need enough for gaming, which more than 32gb of ram is unnecessary. and since thats such a big market, components for those type of builds have come down in price a lot since they can apply economy of scale.


----------



## Soundhound

It's $6k for 8 cores base, minimum ram/ssd, with 28 cores... $10k? $12k?



gsilbers said:


> ill be interested to see the benchmarks against what most poeple do with their builds at $1200 or so.
> sure looks expensive for the base price but several times there have been comparisons using the same components and its about the same. the mac pro is def going after the high end video market dominated by HP for creative user not doing their own builds. but if you can load 28 cores at 3.5 and 1.tb ram then im thinking building something similar might get to about the same price. then again, those poeple doing builds only need enough for gaming, which more than 32gb of ram is unnecessary. and since thats such a big market, components for those type of builds have come down in price a lot since they can apply economy of scale.


----------



## Simon Ravn

Its a ridiculous price for what it is. They are shutting out a lot of Pros/prosumers here. A 749$ CPU in a $6.000 machine. I think I’ll wait and see if they keep it updated regularly and where it goes. Hopefully more bang for the buck in 2nd gen.


----------



## bvaughn0402

EvilDragon said:


> But they didn't run a bajillion Kontakt instances with OT libraries in there, were they? Or a decked out Omnisphere multi? Or some really really heavy Alchemy patches?



It was hard to see on the video, but I saw a lot of Omnisphere (multis I believe) and some Play instances. I'm assuming Kontakt as well but I don't recall seeing it.


----------



## Prockamanisc

I specced out my future computer:

Base: $6,000

Upgrade to 16 core processor: $2,000 (estimated based on iMac Pro's processor pricing)
(16 cores seems to be the sweet spot between clock speed and core count for this computer)

Upgrade to 64gb RAM: $400
(I can always throw in more RAM, but I'd like to start with 64)

Upgrade to 1TB SSD: $600
(I only need 500GB, but I'd rather be able to never have to think about this in the future)

*Apple Total: $9,000 + tax*

Additional:
PCIe card for NVMe drives: $400
(this is what this is really about for me...and a faster OS drive)

8TB in NVMe drives (4x 2TB): $500 x 4 = $2,000

Additional USB ports: $100
(isn't it ridiculous that I'm excited to just have extra USB A ports for dongles and keyboards?)

Dedicated UPS just to match the power requirements for this computer: $200

*Total Total: $11,700 + tax + very long fight with the wife*

And imagine, all this money just to run 6 simultaneous instances of Omnisphere.


----------



## gsilbers




----------



## azeteg

Delio Roman said:


> Here's from the Mac Pro page. The animation shows the CPU falling into place into the socket. More than likely socketed. Meaning upgradable once we find out the SKUs.


28-core
https://ark.intel.com/content/www/u...on-w-3275-processor-38-5m-cache-2-50-ghz.html

24-core
https://ark.intel.com/content/www/u...xeon-w-3265-processor-33m-cache-2-70-ghz.html

16-core
https://ark.intel.com/content/www/us/en/ark/products/193753/intel-xeon-w-3245-processor-22m-cache-3-20-ghz.html

12-core
https://ark.intel.com/content/www/u...n-w-3235-processor-19-25m-cache-3-30-ghz.html

8-core
https://ark.intel.com/content/www/u...on-w-3223-processor-16-5m-cache-3-50-ghz.html


----------



## Nick Batzdorf

MrZarlton said:


> ?



3000 tracks = you’re an idiot.


----------



## Jeremy Spencer

Prockamanisc said:


> I specced out my future computer:
> 
> Base: $6,000
> 
> Upgrade to 16 core processor: $2,000 (estimated based on iMac Pro's processor pricing)
> (16 cores seems to be the sweet spot between clock speed and core count for this computer)
> 
> Upgrade to 64gb RAM: $400
> (I can always throw in more RAM, but I'd like to start with 64)
> 
> Upgrade to 1TB SSD: $600
> (I only need 500GB, but I'd rather be able to never have to think about this in the future)
> 
> *Apple Total: $9,000 + tax*



Yikes! What's worse is that's in USD, that would be $12,000 Canadian.


----------



## gsilbers

azeteg said:


> 28-core
> https://ark.intel.com/content/www/u...on-w-3275-processor-38-5m-cache-2-50-ghz.html
> 
> 24-core
> https://ark.intel.com/content/www/u...xeon-w-3265-processor-33m-cache-2-70-ghz.html
> 
> 16-core
> https://ark.intel.com/content/www/us/en/ark/products/193753/intel-xeon-w-3245-processor-22m-cache-3-20-ghz.html
> 
> 12-core
> https://ark.intel.com/content/www/u...n-w-3235-processor-19-25m-cache-3-30-ghz.html
> 
> 8-core
> https://ark.intel.com/content/www/u...on-w-3223-processor-16-5m-cache-3-50-ghz.html



ufff... i didnt see the price of those intel chips individually. thats crazy. im guessing powerful though. 


i guess its the apple brand is so big. all the news is on mac now. 
funny how no one is crying about HP desktops being crazy expensive after customizing
https://store.hp.com/us/en/Configur...Id=&catEntryId=3074457345618619819&quantity=1


----------



## Prockamanisc

Wolfie2112 said:


> Yikes! What's worse is that's in USD, that would be $12,000 Canadian.


I'd take a $12,000 Mac and universal healthcare any day.


----------



## will_m

gsilbers said:


> funny how no one is crying about HP desktops being crazy expensive after customizing



Both systems offer poor value at the lower spec though because they are Xeon based and everything is more expensive. You'd be better of with a higher end i7/i9 system in that range.

The Xeon chips make much more sense in the higher configurations though where you can get crazy core counts, although the clock speeds on the mac pro takes a nosedive, which I don't know how that will work for pro audio.

I still think the imac pro might end up outperforming the base level mac pro here for less money and with a screen attached. In the higher configurations the mac pro will come into its own but the price at that point will only really be an option for bigger businesses who have the money to fill it full of GPU's.

I still think there's a big gap in Apple's line-up here, people who want power and expansion possibilities in a desktop format but aren't going to drop 6-10k or more on a computer.

From what I've seen most of this market has switched to a PC, are they going to return to Apple for an 8-core, 32Gb RAM, 256GB of storage machine that costs 6 grand?


----------



## mscp

So, in summary: 

Mac Pro = Video
iMac = Music (?)
PC = Freedom

Haha.


----------



## WaveRider

Phil81 said:


> So, in summary:
> Mac Pro = Video
> iMac = Music (?)
> PC = Freedom
> Haha.



Not if the PCI slots still work with current PCI audio cards. That will definitely be attractive for people not wanting to change their interface(s).


----------



## Dewdman42

if Apple took the motherboard of the iMac Pro, added PCI slots and put it into a cheesegrater case for under $5k, I would buy it this afternoon.


----------



## gsilbers

Dewdman42 said:


> if Apple took the motherboard of the iMac Pro, added PCI slots and put it into a cheesegrater case for under $5k, I would buy it this afternoon.



woudlnt that be a cheaper new maac pro cheesegrater?


----------



## Dewdman42

with i7/i9 cpu...but yes...


----------



## azeteg

will_m said:


> Both systems offer poor value at the lower spec though because they are Xeon based and everything is more expensive. You'd be better of with a higher end i7/i9 system in that range.
> 
> The Xeon chips make much more sense in the higher configurations though where you can get crazy core counts, although the clock speeds on the mac pro takes a nosedive, which I don't know how that will work for pro audio.
> 
> I still think the imac pro might end up outperforming the base level mac pro here for less money and with a screen attached. In the higher configurations the mac pro will come into its own but the price at that point will only really be an option for bigger businesses who have the money to fill it full of GPU's.
> 
> I still think there's a big gap in Apple's line-up here, people who want power and expansion possibilities in a desktop format but aren't going to drop 6-10k or more on a computer.
> 
> From what I've seen most of this market has switched to a PC, are they going to return to Apple for an 8-core, 32Gb RAM, 256GB of storage machine that costs 6 grand?


The only problem with the Core chips would be the lack of PCIe lanes. 16 lanes is just enough for a GPU and two NVMe drives, really. Unless you’re ok with 1x or 2x.


----------



## gsilbers

will_m said:


> Both systems offer poor value at the lower spec though because they are Xeon based and everything is more expensive. You'd be better of with a higher end i7/i9 system in that range.
> 
> The Xeon chips make much more sense in the higher configurations though where you can get crazy core counts, although the clock speeds on the mac pro takes a nosedive, which I don't know how that will work for pro audio.
> 
> I still think the imac pro might end up outperforming the base level mac pro here for less money and with a screen attached. In the higher configurations the mac pro will come into its own but the price at that point will only really be an option for bigger businesses who have the money to fill it full of GPU's.
> 
> I still think there's a big gap in Apple's line-up here, people who want power and expansion possibilities in a desktop format but aren't going to drop 6-10k or more on a computer.
> 
> From what I've seen most of this market has switched to a PC, are they going to return to Apple for an 8-core, 32Gb RAM, 256GB of storage machine that costs 6 grand?



agree... but i think the i7/i9 type of builds are mostly geared towards gamers and beat music production. (large scale overview, no orchestral) so apple decided to skip that and offer two solutions... the very high end like HP w crazy xeon cpu and for gamers... not xbox type gaming but getting iPhone casual games for the mac w that new project catalyst. so even a mac mini, mac book airs etc can play them.
but yes, something like photoshop, guitarists/beat music and others dont really need the mac pro. and even imac pro is still a bit pricey, mac mini kind of fills that space as well as laptops. defintly there are plenty of other options and alternatives that couldbe made but their road map is not intended for that imo. and no reason to compete in a crowded market.
plus what i mentioned earlier, they seem to be really pushing pro res and pro res rendering since apple will be doing their own content, disney used pro res for their own content and netflix uses pro res for their own content. so even if the mac pro is only used for pros, there are several facilities in LA who will be buying dozens of these new mac pros. and apple be pushing it on the back end of the film industry.


----------



## Dewdman42

The new MacPro has slow Cpu's with many cores. It will support many track counts, but its going to struggle a bit with the same problem as my 5,1 MacPro in terms of playing live into omnispheres or any other CPU hungry synth. The i7/i9 can achieve much higher single core performance which is needed for playing cpu intensive instruments, especially at low latency. The high multicore scores are great for large track counts...but mainly the video world they can easily make use of that, they don't care as much about low latency performance like musicians do.

the i7/i9 is probably a better platform for music.

But more importantly, whatever they are doing on the new MacPro is just way overkill, and the base $6k model will be horribly underpowered for music production IMHO. Apple needs a mid tier model and one with high single core scores..like they did with the iMac's and Mini's and MBP's...but with Friggin PCI slots already... and internal bays to put my SSD's


----------



## Andrew Aversa

Dewdman42 said:


> The new MacPro has slow Cpu's with many cores. It will support many track counts, but its going to struggle a bit with the same problem as my 5,1 MacPro in terms of playing live into omnispheres or any other CPU hungry synth. The i7/i9 can achieve much higher single core performance which is needed for playing cpu intensive instruments, especially at low latency. The high multicore scores are great for large track counts...but mainly the video world they can easily make use of that, they don't care as much about low latency performance like musicians do.
> 
> the i7/i9 is probably a better platform for music.
> 
> But more importantly, whatever they are doing on the new MacPro is just way overkill, and the base $6k model will be horribly underpowered for music production IMHO. Apple needs a mid tier model and one with high single core scores..like they did with the iMac's and Mini's and MBP's...but with Friggin PCI slots already... and internal bays to put my SSD's



You're right. If you're not using Logic there is very little reason to even consider this, unless you are that married to OSX. If you are in the US and anywhere close to a Fry's or Micro Center you have support that easily rivals an Apple Store, too.


----------



## will_m

gsilbers said:


> agree... but i think the i7/i9 type of builds are mostly geared towards gamers and beat music production. (large scale overview, no orchestral)



I'd disagree here, I can't see anything suggesting that i7 and i9 CPU's are geared towards gamers and "beat makers", CPU's really aren't that picky. If anything i7/9's are better for music making in general, in that they tend to have better clock speeds than Xeons, which is very important for VI's and Plug-ins.

The biggest area of focus for Apple with the Mac Pro seems to be video work, the standout features like afterburner etc are all geared towards video. All the other specs and features you can get elsewhere and for much less money.


----------



## Nick Batzdorf

Dewdman42 said:


> its going to struggle a bit with the same problem as my 5,1 MacPro in terms of playing live into omnispheres or any other CPU hungry synth



Why am I not having problems playing live into Omnispheres or any other CPU-hungry synths on my 5,1? What's wrong with me?


----------



## Dewdman42

Must be because you're such a nice guy


----------



## Nick Batzdorf

Dewdman42 said:


> Must be because you're such a nice guy



I'm not pissing in your Wheaties, I'm actually asking a serious question in a silly way.

What are you doing with Omnisphere that's leading you to obsess over your computer so much? Obviously it's not working for you, but I don't understand how it's possible to bring a 12-core 5,1 to its knees. I've tried, and I simply haven't been able to.

And that's running Logic at a 128K buffer, including using Omnisphere and whatever else strikes my fancy.

Now, if I loaded multiple mic positions of every orchestral instrument in my template, okay, but without that I haven't even been able to run out of 64GB of memory, let alone spike the CPU.


----------



## EvilDragon

It'd all depend how elaborate the Omnisphere patch is. Is it a single patch or a multi, how many FX are loaded, how is Harmonia used or if at all, etc.


----------



## Dewdman42

@nik: I didn't say anything about bringing anything to its knees, you are nit picking for the sake of creating an argument and yes you are deliberately pissing in my wheaties as usual.. 

Just making a general comment about single core vs multicore performance. We generally need decent single core performance in order to have low latency without dropouts with some plugins; and some instruments are tougher then others. Some people have complained recently about Omnispheres, its the only reason I mentioned it as an example, but there are many others...and in the future there will undoubtedly be other instruments that are even more cpu intensive.... In that case a machine with higher clock frequency will be better for musical work. The large core counts come into play for mixing large track counts. This is very well understood, why would you argue this basic fact that everyone except perhaps you understands?

The new MacPro is using a slow clock speed with many cores. Will be great for mixing 1000 tracks apparently, but will probably not be any better then you're 5,1 MacPro for playing cpu intensive instruments at low latency. But since you don't have any problems ever I guess you shouldn't worry about it.


----------



## gsilbers

will_m said:


> I'd disagree here, I can't see anything suggesting that i7 and i9 CPU's are geared towards gamers and "beat makers", CPU's really aren't that picky. If anything i7/9's are better for music making in general, in that they tend to have better clock speeds than Xeons, which is very important for VI's and Plug-ins.
> 
> The biggest area of focus for Apple with the Mac Pro seems to be video work, the standout features like afterburner etc are all geared towards video. All the other specs and features you can get elsewhere and for much less money.



we might be sayign the same thing... thats what i was saying but i might focused too much on the cpu. the main goal with the mac pro is for high end video work and high end rendering etc. and post audio. basically competing against the HP they mentioned in the presentation. no one is arguming the HP Z station is too expensive for gamers and beat makers. almost no one knows about it. Or that the builds that poeple do for music and gaming is at a much lower price point and also usable for composing. those builds are made with the idea in mind that they will sell ten times more and this lower prices.


----------



## gsilbers

Nick Batzdorf said:


> I'm not pissing in your Wheaties, I'm actually asking a serious question in a silly way.
> 
> What are you doing with Omnisphere that's leading you to obsess over your computer so much? Obviously it's not working for you, but I don't understand how it's possible to bring a 12-core 5,1 to its knees. I've tried, and I simply haven't been able to.
> 
> And that's running Logic at a 128K buffer, including using Omnisphere and whatever else strikes my fancy.
> 
> Now, if I loaded multiple mic positions of every orchestral instrument in my template, okay, but without that I haven't even been able to run out of 64GB of memory, let alone spike the CPU.



how many omnisphere can you load? i have also the same system


----------



## Symfoniq

I think we've reached the point where the "established wisdom" about high core count CPUs is becoming dated. When Xeons with 56 threads can still turbo boost up to 4.4 GHz, how much are you really leaving on the table to "enthusiast/gaming" CPUs in single-threaded scenarios? The answer is "not much."


----------



## EvilDragon

Only one core (+its hyperthreaded twin) turbo boosts to 4.4 GHz on that Xeon! Maximum all-core turbo-boost is 3.8 GHz. Not a small difference, actually - especially in the case where you run a lot of heavy synths. They WILL want those extra clocks.


----------



## Andrew Aversa

But how long can it sustain a turbo boost of 4.4 GHz? Many recent Macs have had severe thermal issues w/ sustained workloads. Also, is that a single core or multi-core boost? My 9900k for example can hit 5ghz on all cores. As @EvilDragon said, you need high speeds _on multiple cores_ or else you will get pops and clicks.


----------



## EvilDragon

That's a single-core boost on Xeons. But it can be sustained simply because of the gigantic cooling that cheesegrater will have.

https://www.anandtech.com/show/13748/the-intel-xeon-w-3175x-review-28-unlocked-cores-2999-usd/3

(That's not the CPU that's gonna be in the highest tier Mac Pro, but it's close enough. See "Per Core Turbos" table. It's going to be relevant for W-3275 that's going to be in that highest tier Mac Pro, too.)


----------



## Jeremy Gillam

I think this will probably end up being a good-to-great machine in spite of the valid potential shortcomings that others have pointed out. But the price point really gets me. The baseline spec of the previous Mac Pro was $3000 USD. They have doubled that. And by the time those of us who require it add a terabyte of storage (or even 500GB) and 64GB or more of RAM it will probably be in the $7000-$8000 range.

Many people who use Macs and who enjoy using Macs (and I consider myself in that number) have waited a long time for them to come out with a computer that fits their needs. One that is expandable, can handle the heat generated by pro workloads, that doesn't come with an attached screen, etc. etc. Apple fucked these users over by taking 6-7 years to update their pro line. They should've had this new design, which is nothing groundbreaking, for sale in 2015-16 after it became clear the trash bin was a flop. In my opinion they have amends to make, especially given their huge cash pile and the fact that they don't even need to make money off this thing. And despite the fact that they've designed something that likely will meet a lot of those criteria, the cost of entry just seems like another "fuck you" to those loyal customers who, for example, want a great DAW computer that happens to be a Mac.

I'm sure there are many who would say Apple has always been an arrogant company, and that's probably true, but to me this really seems like new heights.


----------



## Nick Batzdorf

gsilbers said:


> how many omnisphere can you load? i have also the same system



Man, I have no idea, but I've never needed to load more than a few.

The subtext is that the days my running out of computer as soon as I get into a project are ancient history.

I'm still trying to understand why that's not true with other people who have the same machine.


----------



## Nick Batzdorf

EvilDragon said:


> It'd all depend how elaborate the Omnisphere patch is. Is it a single patch or a multi, how many FX are loaded, how is Harmonia used or if at all, etc.



What's Harmonia? Is that in v.2? I still have the old one.

But yeah, I don't stuff it full of fx or use lots of multis. Too much synth makes Jack a dull boy.


----------



## EvilDragon

Harmonia is basically unison, multiplies the voices played and you can offset parameters between them. That was in the old one IIRC as well. It's basically stacking voices, so the whole voice is duplicated, and with it, CPU load as well.



Nick Batzdorf said:


> But yeah, I don't stuff it full of fx or use lots of multis.



That explains it.


----------



## Prockamanisc

I thought Apple's Pro App team was working with John Powell to create something that was truly great. Based on the results of this machine, he probably said "Remember the cheesegrater? Just give it Thunderbolt and make it as powerful as it would have been if you hadn't abandoned it." I was really expecting something special, like ~0 latency, ~0 buffer size, and touch-editing via iPad. All of the major innovations went to the video side of things. Here's what the audio Pro App people said:

Avid
“Avid’s Pro Tools team is blown away by the unprecedented processing power of the new Mac Pro, and thanks to its internal expansion capabilities, up to six Pro Tools HDX cards can be installed within the system – a first for Avid’s flagship audio workstation. We’re now able to deliver never-before-seen performance and capabilities for audio production in a single system and deliver a platform that professional users in music and post have been eagerly awaiting.” — Francois Quereuil, director of Product Management, Avid

Universal Audio
“The new Mac Pro is a breakthrough in recording and mixing performance. Thunderbolt 3 and the numerous PCIe slots for installing UAD plug-in co-processors pair perfectly with our Apollo X series of audio interfaces. Combined with the sheer processing power of the Mac Pro, our most demanding users will be able to track and mix the largest sessions effortlessly.” – Bill Putnam Jr., CEO, Universal Audio

Link: https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2019...react-to-the-new-mac-pro-and-pro-display-xdr/


----------



## Symfoniq

EvilDragon said:


> Only one core (+its hyperthreaded twin) turbo boosts to 4.4 GHz on that Xeon! Maximum all-core turbo-boost is 3.8 GHz. Not a small difference, actually - especially in the case where you run a lot of heavy synths. They WILL want those extra clocks.



The enthusiast CPUs don't hit their max turbo boost speed on all cores, either. Not until the i9-9900KS is released, anyway.

I don't care if the all-core turbo boost is "only" 3.8 GHz if I still have twice as many cores than an enthusiast CPU. Back when using a high core count Xeon would have meant 2.0 or 2.3 GHz, then sure, they weren't ideal. But that's not the case anymore, and 3.8 GHz is plenty of clock speed for my audio purposes, especially when that's the worst-case scenario.


----------



## Andrew Aversa

3.8 compared to 4.8+ is a big difference though. I'm running a 9900k with 4.7ghz all core right now. A SINGLE instance of Diva playing a 4 note chord with the default patch (set to "Great" accuracy, not even the highest!) is 20% of one core. 

3.8ghz is about 20% slower, so the CPU usage of the same patch at 3.8ghz would probably be about 24%. Also, this is at 256 samples - if you run lower, then the CPU usage will be that much higher.

Or, with the Fluid Shorts library, loading the full string section and just playing some basic arpeggios hits up to 30% CPU (again, on a single core.) That's ~200-250 voices.

Personally, I would rather have more CPU headroom per core to stream more voices, more mic positions, higher-accuracy synth parts, more FX (etc) as opposed to more cores, considering if ONE core fails the whole thing will pop and click


----------



## InLight-Tone

Nick Batzdorf said:


> Why am I not having problems playing live into Omnispheres or any other CPU-hungry synths on my 5,1? What's wrong with me?


I'm playing a bunch of them in Logic on my i7 Hackintosh without a glitch too...


----------



## mscp

Recap:

Mac Pro is not for music, guys/girls. It's for video. Why? Real-time performance = Clock speed. If anyone has missed this, please watch: 

If a Mac Pro is what will make you sleep better at night, get one. I really don't understand why some Apple users put a tiresome amount of effort trying to justify keeping up with Apple's business mentality, even though they're not working for you. This is now a 9-pages long thread, with quite some valuable content, yet...

I moved from a Mac to a PC and have yet to experience issues that make me rethink my choice (and I'm not trying to be a 'douche' here - I'm just really trying to understand the psychology behind it.). Please enlighten me if I'm failing to realise something. I'm honestly curious.

Addendum: My PC machine costs as much as a Mac Pro, so it goes beyond price point.


----------



## Dewdman42

That video is excellent, it kind of hints at the issue here. But note that he eventually arrives at the conclusion that dpc latency is a major contributor to real time performance loss. Macs do not have dpc latency problems at all, so that is actually an argument in favor of using a Mac. PC’s can be carefully configured with the right hardware to avoid dpc problems but it’s a difficult problem for some on windows platform to solve. Latencies in the whole system definitely can contribute to real time performance issues, as pointed out well in that video.

What the main problem is here with slow cores is that there can be cpu spikes during playback and if they temporarily exceed what a core can do, then you get dropouts. Typically a single plugin needs to be processed on a single core so if it has to do a lot of crunching during some moment and the core isn’t fast enough then you will get dropout, even if 11 other cores are barely breathing hard.

More cores helps with large track counts and handles them more efficiently then less cores would, but if any one plugin decides to crush the cpu in a spike then it will be drop out city if the cores are slow. You’d have to use a larger buffer to accommodate it, etc

If you tend to just samplers with low cpu overhead then slow but plentiful cores might very well be the ideal solution. If you tend to use cpu hungry plugins, you better seek higher clock speeds, even if less cores


----------



## samphony

Prockamanisc said:


> I specced out my future computer:
> 
> Base: $6,000
> 
> Upgrade to 16 core processor: $2,000 (estimated based on iMac Pro's processor pricing)
> (16 cores seems to be the sweet spot between clock speed and core count for this computer)
> 
> Upgrade to 64gb RAM: $400
> (I can always throw in more RAM, but I'd like to start with 64)
> 
> Upgrade to 1TB SSD: $600
> (I only need 500GB, but I'd rather be able to never have to think about this in the future)
> 
> *Apple Total: $9,000 + tax*
> 
> Additional:
> PCIe card for NVMe drives: $400
> (this is what this is really about for me...and a faster OS drive)
> 
> 8TB in NVMe drives (4x 2TB): $500 x 4 = $2,000
> 
> Additional USB ports: $100
> (isn't it ridiculous that I'm excited to just have extra USB A ports for dongles and keyboards?)
> 
> Dedicated UPS just to match the power requirements for this computer: $200
> 
> *Total Total: $11,700 + tax + very long fight with the wife*
> 
> And imagine, all this money just to run 6 simultaneous instances of Omnisphere.


You should lease it instead of buying.


----------



## mscp

Dewdman42 said:


> But note that he eventually arrives at the conclusion that dpc latency is a major contributor to real time performance loss. Macs do not have dpc latency problems at all, so that is actually an argument in favor of using a Mac. PC’s can be carefully configured with the right hardware to avoid dpc problems but it’s a difficult problem for some on windows platform to solve. Latencies in the whole system definitely can contribute to real time performance issues, as pointed out well in that video.
> 
> What the main problem is here with slow cores is that there can be cpu spikes during playback and if they temporarily exceed what a core can do, then you get dropouts. Typically a single plugin needs to be processed on a single core so if it has to do a lot of crunching during some moment and the core isn’t fast enough then you will get dropout, even if 11 other cores are barely breathing hard.
> 
> More cores helps with large track counts and handles them more efficiently then less cores would, but if any one plugin decides to crush the cpu in a spike then it will be drop out city if the cores are slow. You’d have to use a larger buffer to accommodate it, etc
> 
> If you tend to just samplers with low cpu overhead then slow but plentiful cores might very well be the ideal solution. If you tend to use cpu hungry plugins, you better seek higher clock speeds, even if less cores



My PC dpc latency reaches 115us and I'm yet to see any performance differences on 64 samples buffer size (while tracking) on both machines (Mac/PC) - With ASIO Guard ON on all other tracks except the one I'm playing live. Odd? Yes. How? Not sure. Using RME over here. I also feel that Pro Tools runs slicker on my PC than on my Mac.


----------



## gjelul

First time in a very long time that Apple has impressed -- about time!


----------



## Nick Batzdorf

EvilDragon said:


> Harmonia is basically unison, multiplies the voices played and you can offset parameters between them. That was in the old one IIRC as well. It's basically stacking voices, so the whole voice is duplicated, and with it, CPU load as well.
> 
> 
> 
> That explains it.



I use plug-in effects on the channel strip, just not a lot of built-in ones.


----------



## Jeremy Spencer

Phil81 said:


> I moved from a Mac to a PC and have yet to experience issues that make me rethink my choice (and I'm not trying to be a 'douche' here - I'm just really trying to understand the psychology behind it.). Please enlighten me if I'm failing to realise something. I'm honestly curious.



Well, for me it's the whole allure to the Apple world. I switched to Mac in 2013 and love it. I think it's that allure that creates a false sense of security, as I feel I'll be somewhat "downgrading" by switching back to PC. I have said I'd never go back, but the future looks damn expensive if I stay in the Apple camp. Luckily, I still use Cubase along side Logic, so when I go back, it will be a smooth transition. Deep down I know I'll be switching, but that will depend on how long my MacBook holds out....and that may take a while!


----------



## mscp

Wolfie2112 said:


> Well, for me it's the whole allure to the Apple world. I switched to Mac in 2013 and love it. I think it's that allure that creates a false sense of security, as I feel I'll be somewhat "downgrading" by switching back to PC. I have said I'd never go back, but the future looks damn expensive if I stay in the Apple camp. Luckily, I still use Cubase along side Logic, so when I go back, it will be a smooth transition. Deep down I know I'll be switching, but that will depend on how long my MacBook holds out....and that may take a while!



Am I the only one who found benefits of running a PC machine without thinking about overall costs?


----------



## Jeremy Spencer

Phil81 said:


> Am I the only one who found benefits of running a PC machine without thinking about overall costs?



I doubt it. At least you'll be future proof with Windows, and your upgrade/configuration options are bountiful.


----------



## Dewdman42

I do love my 5,1 and will continue using it 2-3 more years, no doubt. Unless I fall in love with Cubase then I may run Windows on it.

We're really talking long term here. And without question Windows provides orders of magnitude more hardware options and more assurance that it will be able to run windows down the road without being exiled.

for me the main benefit of a PC is being able to build a mid tier machine with PCI slots and internal storage inside the case. That is what Apple doesn't offer and probably never will.


----------



## mscp

Wolfie2112 said:


> I doubt it. At least you'll be future proof with Windows, and your upgrade/configuration options are bountiful.



The primary reason why I switched was mainly because PT and Cubase are visibly more efficient on my Windows machine. In terms of the OS itself, I've been getting more and more upset with each MacOS iteration to the point I told myself..ah, sc*** it, can't be bothered.


----------



## EvilDragon

Wolfie2112 said:


> At least you'll be future proof with Windows



Don't forget backwards compatible, as well. Sometimes even more important.


----------



## Dewdman42

seriously. MS takes care of that WAYYYYY better then Apple ever will. 

MacOS Catalina is going to be 64bit only. I'm running Mojave and there are quite a lot of applications that popped up a little warning message the first time I ran them saying that this app won't be able to run on the next version of MacOS(Catalina). It reminds me of the PPC changeover. Maybe not quite as extreme, but for a lot of companies, they will not be able to easily port to 64bit, so a lot of software is going to break on Catalina, IMHO. 

Apple has done this before, they don't mind. Issue warnings, try to force everyone to deal with it and hang on while everyone runs around trying to update their stuff to Apple's newest software requirements. So many developers have expressed frustration about having to constantly update their software to run on the latest version of OSX. This is a hard fact about Apple that has been true for decades and will not change.

Mind you, I love UNIX way more than Windows and the windows registry makes my head want to explode... but in terms of forward AND BACKWARDS compatibility...Apples loses and Microsoft wins...hands down. 

And then we have this new SwiftUI thing.. Just wait...iOS on the desktop...where is that going? How many apps is that going to break eventually?

Yes I do still love using OSX more though...


----------



## mscp

Dewdman42 said:


> seriously. MS takes care of that WAYYYYY better then Apple ever will.
> 
> MacOS Catalina is going to be 64bit only. I'm running Mojave and there are quite a lot of applications that popped up a little warning message the first time I ran them saying that this app won't be able to run on the next version of MacOS(Catalina). It reminds me of the PPC changeover. Maybe not quite as extreme, but for a lot of companies, they will not be able to easily port to 64bit, so a lot of software is going to break on Catalina, IMHO.
> 
> Apple has done this before, they don't mind. Issue warnings, try to force everyone to deal with it and hang on while everyone runs around trying to update their stuff to Apple's newest software requirements. So many developers have expressed frustration about having to constantly update their software to run on the latest version of OSX. This is a hard fact about Apple that has been true for decades and will not change.
> 
> Mind you, I love UNIX way more than Windows and the windows registry makes my head want to explode... but in terms of forward AND BACKWARDS compatibility...Apples loses and Microsoft wins...hands down.
> 
> And then we have this new SwiftUI thing.. Just wait...iOS on the desktop...where is that going? How many apps is that going to break eventually?
> 
> Yes I do still love using OSX more though...



I have never touched Windows Registry and hope to never have to. 

You've just mentioned one of the reasons why I left the Mac realm.


----------



## Dewdman42

Main problem with the Registry, regardless of whether you actually open up RegEdit or not, is that many companies stuff all kinds of stuff in there and don't clean it up afterwards and if it gets corrupted in any way, you are pretty much SOL.

With the Mac, you have a directory full of pref files, which you can generally just delete at any time and be back in business if something gets corrupted...or you have Application Support folders...which same as above, can be deleted on demand without issue. Its orders of magnitude easier to understand and is not this big monolithic database like the windows registry is. Inside the Registry are endless forms of redirection and serial codes to reference things, rather then by name, etc.. Most people in fact SHOULD NOT ever open RegEdit and touch it. But if your registry gets messed up...and it can happen...then guess what your only real option is reinstall windows. I know because over the years I have had to reinstall Windows so many times I lost count and I have never once had to reinstall OSX.


----------



## Dewdman42

another example... this year I installed windows 10 on a machine. it worked fine until there was a power outage while running. Ok. After reboot, the search bar would not work anymore. At all. I tried everything and googled all over the place searching for solutions none of which solved the problem. Tried recovering and everything else...nope. Only final solution recommendation...reinstall windows. Well i didn't reinstall windows...and thankfully some major windows update somehow magically fixed it again a few months later. So whew lucked out, I got my search bar back...but aside from that...the only way to apparently get it working properly again after a power outage was to reinstall windows.

That is the kind of headache that always bothered me about windows and continues to this day and I expect to be a problem for years to come if I decide to go the PC windows route again. Things are fine on Windows until they're not.....

I have found OSX to be way way more resilient to those kinds of issues.


----------



## Dewdman42

Then you have the whole DPC latency nightmare for some people....


----------



## ManBitesSound

pricey


----------



## Nick Batzdorf

EvilDragon said:


> Don't forget backwards compatible, as well. Sometimes even more important.



Exactly. More important to me, because I have no interest in updating 50 billion programs.


----------



## EvilDragon

Dewdman42 said:


> Main problem with the Registry, regardless of whether you actually open up RegEdit or not, is that many companies stuff all kinds of stuff in there and don't clean it up afterwards and if it gets corrupted in any way, you are pretty much SOL.



I haven't had a registry corruption ever in my 20+ years of using Windows...

Removing things from registry is not obligatory. Some programs store various settings in there. So in case you uninstall the program then reinstall back, you're back with your original settings. Of course, it's usually a better idea to just store this in a settings file somewhere (and a great deal of programs do exactly that), but I'm sure there are very good reasons why certain things get stored to registry and certain other things not. Same thing is valid with plist files on macOS.



Dewdman42 said:


> Most people in fact SHOULD NOT ever open RegEdit and touch it.



Of course, it's not really for regular users, it's for powerusers. Just like the terminal in *nix and macOS.



Dewdman42 said:


> But if your registry gets messed up...and it can happen...then guess what your only real option is reinstall windows.



Another option is backing up the registry regularly then replacing it if something goes awry.


----------



## Nick Batzdorf

Dewdman42 said:


> I have found OSX to be way way more resilient to those kinds of issues.



That's been my experience too; I don't think I've ever encountered a problem on a Mac that I couldn't recover from pretty easily.

Part of it is that I know what I'm doing on Macs from having worked on them all day long for many years. But it's also that there's always someone who has seen the same obscure issue, whereas I've had issues with my Windows slaves that stymied even legitimate experts.

Of course, that's the tradeoff: Windows works on generic hardware, so you can put together machines with generic components to do exactly what you need and nothing more; macOS is tied to Macs, so there are fewer variables.


----------



## Nick Batzdorf

EvilDragon said:


> Another option is backing up the registry regularly then replacing it if something goes awry



That's the thing - you have to know to do that. I wouldn't have had a clue, and - excuse me if this sounds arrogant, but if I don't know something then you can be sure that the vast majority of people using the computer don't.


----------



## Dewdman42

anyone who says they have never had a problem with windows in 20 years is lying...haha that's hilarious. If you remember to ghost your machine before every change...sure..I eventually figured out to to do that. Never had to worry about it on mac. That is the truth. Let's just be honest there are pros and cons both ways. Windows wins in compatibility and hardware options..it loses badly in the way we are talking about now and OSX is very much victoriously wonderful.


----------



## Nick Batzdorf

EvilDragon said:


> Harmonia is basically unison, multiplies the voices played and you can offset parameters between them. That was in the old one IIRC as well. It's basically stacking voices, so the whole voice is duplicated, and with it, CPU load as well.
> 
> That explains it.



Yo ED, can you give me an example of an Omnisphere patch or patches that will bring my machine to its knees?

I see what Harmonia is now - what I thought of as "the Mult button."  Yeah, it's in the original version too.


----------



## EvilDragon

Dewdman42 said:


> anyone who says they have never had a problem with windows in 20 years is lying...haha that's hilarious.



Please read what I wrote. I said _specifically_ that I never had registry corrupting itself on me in those 20 years. That there were other issues, sure. But W10 has been absolutely the lowest amount of issues for me out of all versions of Windows ever (I go back to W3.11 times). I think I had a total of 3 issues ever since I upgraded to W10 (and they're all resolved now) and they weren't dealbreakers. I had many more issues in W7.


----------



## Geoff Grace

It's probably worth pointing out that there have long been rumors that Apple is preparing to dump Intel. While we're busy projecting what the new Mac Pro tells us about the future, it's possible that the answer is very little.

After all, the first cheese grater was a G5. The next was Intel inside. 

Best,

Geoff


----------



## Nick Batzdorf

Geoff Grace said:


> It's probably worth pointing out that there have long been rumors that Apple is preparing to dump Intel. While we're busy projecting what the new Mac Pro tells us about the future, it's possible that the answer is very little.
> 
> After all, the first cheese grater was a G5. The next was Intel inside.
> 
> Best,
> 
> Geoff



Yeah, I thought the reason for the long development was that they were waiting for the new chips.


----------



## Dewdman42

we don't know that they are doing to "dump" intel. We know they are thinking about making some devices with their own chips. The fact that they have committed to the Xeon's for the new MacPro i think indicates we don't need to worry about them dumping intel completely. Now, whether you'll be able to get a mini or iMac with intel in the future, yet to be seen...


----------



## mscp

Whoa. I didn’t want to be a fire starter over here. My apologies?

I was just curious why some Apple users hate Windows SO MUCH since I kind of love it. My DAWs behave the exact same way on Windows as they do on Macs (which is all I really care) and the latency issues are practically the same on both rigs...so that’s why I was confused. I’ve even heard stories where clients would walk away from studios because windows was used lol. So that’s why my silly curiosity.


----------



## bvaughn0402

Phil81 said:


> Whoa. I didn’t want to be a fire starter over here. My apologies?
> 
> I was just curious why some Apple users hate Windows SO MUCH since I kind of love it. My DAWs behave the exact same way on Windows as they do on Macs (which is all I really care) and the latency issues are practically the same on both rigs...so that’s why I was confused. I’ve even heard stories where clients would walk away from studios because windows was used lol. So that’s why my silly curiosity.



I wouldn't say I hate it. I was a Windows user for decades before switching Mac. 

I guess for me, when I was on Windows I would think about hardware and the OS once a week. On a Mac, I rarely think about that. I just do music. I guess customization bothers a lot of people ... but for me it brings simplicity and allows me to focus more on music.

But that's just me ...


----------



## EvilDragon

That's interesting. I didn't think about my hardware ever since I put my machine together (about 3 years now). Everything "just works" (minus those 3 issues that I had - which were in order: iLok refusing to work at all, which was fixed somehow by Anniversary Update, then my webcam not initializing its driver correctly, which was fixed in Logitech's driver update, and actually, I can't remember the 3rd one, it may have been really something minor)!


----------



## Geoff Grace

EvilDragon said:


> That's interesting. I didn't think about my hardware ever since I put my machine together (about 3 years now). Everything "just works" (minus those 3 issues that I had - which were in order: iLok refusing to work at all, which was fixed somehow by Anniversary Update, then my webcam not initializing its driver correctly, which was fixed in Logitech's driver update, and actually, I can't remember the 3rd one, it may have been really something minor)!


Considering your level of experience, mind for detail, and your technical abilities, I imagine you did a great job setting it up in the first place, *Mario*!

I have nearly three decades of working with Macs (starting with System 6), and they're a breeze for me to use and setup; but I've made a mess of my wife's PC. Within minutes of booting up, I have to dismiss virus protection apps trying to uninstall one another, an old version of Office trying to reinstall itself, and other updates trying to install themselves. I'm pretty sure if I were to take the time, I could figure out how to stop all of these automatic processes; but at this point, I only have to deal with this a few times per year, as I've mostly migrated her back to Mac.

Best,

Geoff


----------



## azeteg

Some comparable PC/Hackintosh configurations for reference:


----------



## Prockamanisc

Dewdman42 said:


> we don't know that they are doing to "dump" intel. We know they are thinking about making some devices with their own chips. The fact that they have committed to the Xeon's for the new MacPro i think indicates we don't need to worry about them dumping intel completely. Now, whether you'll be able to get a mini or iMac with intel in the future, yet to be seen...


I'm reasonably certain that we will be able to update the processor in the future, as long as it's supported by the Mac OS. So we'll have to see if they keep any Intel chips in future machines, because then we'd be able to use them.


----------



## samphony

Im pretty confident that the CPU is upgradeable. A friend of mine upgraded my 6core Vader helmet to 12core within 20min.


----------



## Van

You’re all saying cheese grater but I think they’re being quite consistent. . .


----------



## Saxer

Make cheese greater!


----------



## Andrew Souter

...again.


----------



## Andrew Souter

I would have loved to see a Dual-Socket MOBO allowing Xeon-SP, but that would certainly get extremely expensive -- simply do to the pricing of these CPUs. That is the true high-end of the workstation market. As a single socket workstation, this thing is as capable as anything else out there. It's not revolutionary per-say, but it is quite capable as a base for the next 5 years at least. The form factor is what everyone wanted more or less, so great.

I wonder if they allow overclocking of the CPU base clocks since they claim their heatsink can dissipate 300 watts and the top standard Xeons only reach 205watts at the moment. That would be interesting. If they can overclock such as

https://www.asus.com/us/Motherboards/ROG-Dominus-Extreme/

..then it could be quite interesting even in comparison to dual socket workstations.

The MPX format is semi interesting. I suppose it exists mostly to avoid cables and to have a proprietary format to "assist" pricing justifications. But it is very cool of them that they also included standard power cables on the MOBO to use standard high end GPUs if desired. Now where are the Nvidia options? It will be interesting to see how 3rd parties use the MPX format for non-GPU things, like the Promise RAID expansion.

The pricing for the base specs are as others have already commented. The case, mobo, fans, PSU, heatsink, and general engineering of all of this into an impeccably designed coherent package with the ability to run OSX without risk/headache has definite non-trivial value though. I'd almost like to see a barebones option WITHOUT CPU, RAM, SSD, GPU etc since none of that is Apple-made anyway. Just give the Apple parts and let customers put in exactly what they want, since it is commodity anyway. It'd be interesting to see the pricing of such a barebones option. I think it would be quite fair to charge a premium for such a thing, the question is how much of a premium.

If you are buying this, you should put the 28-core CPU in it IMHO. (It has a $4500 retail cost -- will be interesting to see the Apple upgrade price.) A machine like this is NOT meant for 8-cores... It's silly to even offer it IMHO.

As a software developer, and as the first audio company to offer AVX-512 optimization, I am quite pleased to see Intel Xeons at the center of the Apple Pro machines for what I must assume must be at least a 5-10 year plan. Thank god there was not a switch to ARM! This generation of Intel CPUs are ridiculously fast! (I have the old cheesegrater, the trashcan, a Wintel 7980xe i9 machine, and a dual Xeon SP machine for comparison. There is no comparison whatsoever to the earlier Mac Pros, the 18-core 7980xe is almost 4x as fast as the 12-core Mac Pro trashcan -- to say nothing of 28 cores, or even dual 28-cores as is possible with Xeon-SP. Intel Skylake and later CPUs are insanely great! So a Mac Pro based around them is certainly VERY great news! Exciting times to be able to write software for such power!)


----------



## EvilDragon

Do note that there are definitive limitations in the performance of those Xeons considering their base clocks and meager turbo boost capabilities, compared to something like i9-9980XE which can be pushed closer to 5 GHz on all cores with proper OC (whereas Xeon's turbo boost of 4.4 GHz is valid for a single core only).


----------



## mauriziodececco

EvilDragon said:


> Do note that there are definitive limitations in the performance of those Xeons considering their base clocks and meager turbo boost capabilities, compared to something like i9-9980XE which can be pushed closer to 5 GHz on all cores with proper OC (whereas Xeon's turbo boost of 4.4 GHz is valid for a single core only).



Can you do that 24/24 7/7 for a year keeping good reliability ? 
It is a real question, not polemic, i am a software guy and not familiar with the different CPUs :->


----------



## EvilDragon

Absolutely, all that's needed is a (very) decent cooling solution. Yes, OC will raise the temperatures, but I see people have managed to do a 4.9 GHz OC on 9980XE, so... it's definitely possible.


----------



## Andrew Souter

EvilDragon said:


> Do note that there are definitive limitations in the performance of those Xeons considering their base clocks and meager turbo boost capabilities, compared to something like i9-9980XE which can be pushed closer to 5 GHz on all cores with proper OC (whereas Xeon's turbo boost of 4.4 GHz is valid for a single core only).



on Xeon SP, yes.

The single-socket Xeon W-3175X (shown last summer, released in January), is overclockable though meant for extreme overclocked, water-cooled systems designed around a mobo like the ROG Dominus Extreme above. But it draws quite a lot of power as I have read. This is the part Intel ran at 5Ghz on all 28-cores last summer (using a huge water chiller).

It is not clear yet AFAIK, if the new Cascade Lake Xeon-W version is a direct descendant of that and is overclockable also, or if it is locked. And/or if Apple has a custom part. If it was unlocked and Apple allowed it to use say 300 watts, and somehow kept it cool semi-passively, that would indeed be rather cool (pun intended) and novel.

The i9-9980XE is indeed the best bang for the buck though, agree, and is crazy powerful already. Whatever will come next replacing that this fall will be quite interesting too. It's great to have competition in CPUs once again!

I am always curious though what the best performance is period, regardless of economics too, as I like to explore extreme DSP algorithms that can use whatever they can get. (though we also make reasonable options too of course.) Extreme performance on things like Xeon-SP systems trickles down and can be used to guesstimate what might be possible on consumer machines in a few years.


----------



## InLight-Tone

Dewdman42 said:


> anyone who says they have never had a problem with windows in 20 years is lying...haha that's hilarious. If you remember to ghost your machine before every change...sure..I eventually figured out to to do that. Never had to worry about it on mac. That is the truth. Let's just be honest there are pros and cons both ways. Windows wins in compatibility and hardware options..it loses badly in the way we are talking about now and OSX is very much victoriously wonderful.


Can I give you a double Like!?


----------



## EvilDragon

Andrew Souter said:


> The single-socket Xeon W-3175X (shown last summer, released in January), is overclockable though meant for extreme overclocked, water-cooled systems designed around a mobo like the ROG Dominus Extreme above. But it draws quite a lot of power as I have read.



Yeah, 1400W thermal solution was required... Quite frankly ridiculous and impractical. Also, I am pretty sure running that CPU at those freqs dramatically shortens its lifespan.

Now if they finally get their ducks in the row and make 10 nm work for them, maybe there could be some improvements in their thermals as well...


----------



## Andrew Souter

I am sure they will not stop making progress on whatever path they decide. I am sure Apple has Intel Roadmap info and probably samples the rest of use don't have too, and for one reason or another they stuck with Intel instead of say, AMD Rome etc. (which seems to be quite a beast on paper) or something even more extreme like a switch to ARM. I take this as another strong win for Intel. I am sure they will get over their 10nm hurdle. I hear they are working already on accelerating their 7nm process as well. (And Intel 10nm ~= AMD/TMSC/Samsung 7nm in terms of real-world units of measuring these things, and Intel 7nm is more like 5nm for the rest if we measure in scientific terms, not marketing numbers.) I'm sure they have learned from whatever it was that caused the delay to their 10nm process. And for the record, I'm not bashing AMD here -- as I said their latest gen looks quite nice too. It's great to have competition in CPU hardware! Especially if you are software developer or power user like most everyone here.

Anyway 2013 Mac Pro users, and earlier Mac Pro users are in for a real treat on these CPUs in the 2019 Mac Pros. They are crazy fast. If you are in, and only in the Mac Universe, and didn't already have the 18-core iMac Pro, this is a very big jump in performance.


----------



## EvilDragon

Oh don't worry, ARM switch is going to happen. They may have just delayed it by a year. But it's very much happening.



Andrew Souter said:


> And Intel 10nm ~= AMD/TMSC/Samsung 7nm in terms of real-world units of measuring these things



Not really after seeing what AMD showed at Computex, matching performance of 9900K at half the price and much lower TDP... but we'll see benchmarks when they're out, in July. I think doing such generalized comparisons between process nodes is not really valid in any case. Intel is severely struggling with 10nm still, plus they have all those security issues as well that definitely didn't help them along the way. They're on their way down, from the look of things.

There are rumours that Zen 3 cores will have 3 threads per core (so hyper-hyperthreading?). I can see this very likely happening. Let that soak in a bit.


----------



## Andrew Souter

We'll see... IMHO, it would seem odd to introduce a machine like this and then immediately switch the CPU platform... If anything I might guess such a hypothetical switch might start with low power laptops, where the iPadPro becomes more and more like a laptop anyway... but who knows, none of us here work at Apple AFAIK...


----------



## Dewdman42

nobody knows what Apple is going to do, they keep surprising me, and not usually for the better. I think Apple makes a *LOT* more money on their consumer gear....iphones, iPads, iMacs and MBP's. I think they want to go to ARM for those platforms for sure. The new MacPro they designed around Intel and I don't think they are going to change that, which is good news for hackintosh aficionados and for continuing intel support in the future. The new MacPro definitely will be a powerful machine and I'm happy they went back to PCI slots and for certain they are attempting to come up with a big and powerful system..but the price is simply stratosphere for most people. Relatively few will be buying that thing. 

Apple has released other interesting things in the past that looked great on paper at first and then never sold much and died on the vine. We can speculate all day long, but the truth is that Apple's main consumer base and source of revenue simply does not need that much power. And power users are fully capable to build PC beasts with any configuration they want. I personally think there are very few that can and will pay that much money just to have the biggest and baddest OSX machine ever (excluding a hackintosh possibility). There is an army of 5,1 users out there that are now feeling like they have a limited lifespan left on their cheesegrater, but as one of them I can say with conviction that I can't afford or justify the new MacPro. Not even close.

A lot of us will continue to milk our 5,1 along regardless of what Apple does even if means we're stuck on LogicPro 10.6 for years in the future. Some will pickup mini's and ImacPros, but I think relatively few will buy the intel MacPro.

In order to acquire affordable refurbished 7,1 macs in the future, first you need a groundswell of people that actually buy that thing new and use it for a few years and then sell it off, in order to create buying opportunities for the rest of us peasants that can't afford it now. But will that groundswell happen with it priced the way it is now? I'm not sure it will. The 5,1 was much more of an obvious choice for a lot of prosumers. The 7,1 is not. So we shall see what happens with that thing, we won't know anything until the next few years goes by.


----------



## EvilDragon

Andrew Souter said:


> IMHO, it would seem odd to introduce a machine like this and then immediately switch the CPU platform...



Well, not for Mac Pro straight away, but I can easily see ARM in Minis, MacBooks and iMacs...

The next generation of Mac Pro could also very well be ARM, in some 4-5 years.


BTW, slightly off-topic. Can somebody explain to me what's the reasoning behind that 4, 1; 5, 1 etc. numbering?


----------



## Symfoniq

EvilDragon said:


> BTW, slightly off-topic. Can somebody explain to me what's the reasoning behind that 4, 1; 5, 1 etc. numbering?



It's the "model identifier." A MacPro5,1 would be the "fifth generation" Mac Pro. The second number indicates a variant of some kind, and is more commonly seen on the laptops where there can be different sizes.


----------



## EvilDragon

Thanks! So I assume first generation is one of Power PC-based Macs.


----------



## Zero&One

EvilDragon said:


> BTW, slightly off-topic. Can somebody explain to me what's the reasoning behind that 4, 1; 5, 1 etc. numbering?



My 2009 Mac pro was 4,1 so I had to firmware hack it to 5,1 to install Mavericks or whatever it's called


----------



## Nick Batzdorf

EvilDragon said:


> Thanks! So I assume first generation is one of Power PC-based Macs.



https://everymac.com/ultimate-mac-lookup/?search_keywords=MacPro1,1*


----------



## EvilDragon

Hah. I was way off mark.


----------



## Nick Batzdorf

Yes, by several months!


----------



## EvilDragon

Pretty good breakdown by good ol' Linus. Some excellent points on cooling and PCIe expansion slots depending on how you configure the machine.


----------



## Nick Batzdorf

EvilDragon said:


> Harmonia is basically unison, multiplies the voices played and you can offset parameters between them. That was in the old one IIRC as well. It's basically stacking voices, so the whole voice is duplicated, and with it, CPU load as well.
> 
> 
> 
> That explains it.



Okay, just because I have no life I set up a sequence in Logic: eight instances of Omnisphere, loaded random patches, turned on Harmonia on one of the voices, added a Pro Reverb and a Spring Reverb to both A and B (in addition to what was already there). Then I drew in some MIDI notes and copied the track to each of the Omnispheres.

That's a ludicrous amount of Omnisphere for a human.

So why is my machine laughing at me?

More importantly, what do I need to buy so my machine will start messing up? Maybe an m.2 adapter so I can achieve more throughput and gain some benchmark shit?


----------



## Nick Batzdorf

I WANT TO BUY SOME COMPUTER STUFF!


----------



## EvilDragon

Nick Batzdorf said:


> Okay, just because I have no life I set up a sequence in Logic: eight instances of Omnisphere, loaded random patches, turned on Harmonia on one of the voices, added a Pro Reverb and a Spring Reverb to both A and B (in addition to what was already there). Then I drew in some MIDI notes and copied the track to each of the Omnispheres.
> 
> That's a ludicrous amount of Omnisphere for a human.
> 
> So why is my machine laughing at me?



Should've loaded multis for starters (all from One Finger Wonders category, say), then turned on harmonia, FM, ringmod and WS on all the patches and all the layers, then add Innerspace everywhere 


It might still not tip it over, but consider that there is a TON of things in Omnisphere (you can load up to 176 effects in there, IIRC), there's always potential to kill just about any machine.


----------



## Nick Batzdorf

By the way, when I said I turned on Harmonia for one of the voices, I meant one of the layers.



EvilDragon said:


> Should've loaded multis for starters



As far as I can see there aren't any multis with the original Omnisphere. I didn't find One Finger Wonders.

In any case, I do believe you that you can break a 12-core 5,1 if you really try. I could also run out of memory if I loaded every mic position of every single Hollywood Strings articulation (in addition to everything else in my big template).

But to use the obligatory car analogy, if your car cruises at over 100 MPH fully loaded with five passengers and all their heavy luggage without breaking a sweat, and it can hit a top speed of 150 MPH - i.e. it has no problems performing much harder than you'll ever push it on actual roads - does it make sense to worry about the size of its engine compared to a new one?

Or something like that. 

Some people like computer specs for their own sake, and I guess there's nothing wrong with that. 

My point is that mortal musicians are unlikely to run out of computer resources on even a $1400 10-year-old machine (albeit one that's been upgraded with faster processors, more memory, and SSDs on a SATA 2 bus). And if they do, a cheap 10-year-old sample slave can handle the overflow.


----------



## Cinebient

Omnisphere is low on cpu 
Try to run Kaleidoscope or B2 reverb at 4X oversampling in realtime at 64 buffer.
Or my favorite synth P900 with 8 voices and 8X oversampling. I cannot run one instance with 1024 buffer.
But i can run 200 ES2 instances :D


----------



## Soundhound

I bring my 2012 iMac i7 3.46ghz to its knees so much, I'm using Vienna Enseble Pro on anything that's even vaguely taxing. Poor thing has been begging to be put out to pasture for a while now, and now that the Mac Pro mystery has been revealed it may soon get its wish. (not with a $6k mac)



Nick Batzdorf said:


> By the way, when I said I turned on Harmonia for one of the voices, I meant one of the layers.
> 
> 
> 
> As far as I can see there aren't any multis with the original Omnisphere. I didn't find One Finger Wonders.
> 
> In any case, I do believe you that you can break a 12-core 5,1 if you really try. I could also run out of memory if I loaded every mic position of every single Hollywood Strings articulation (in addition to everything else in my big template).
> 
> But to use the obligatory car analogy, if your car cruises at over 100 MPH fully loaded with five passengers and all their heavy luggage without breaking a sweat, and it can hit a top speed of 150 MPH - i.e. it has no problems performing much harder than you'll ever push it on actual roads - does it make sense to worry about the size of its engine compared to a new one?
> 
> Or something like that.
> 
> Some people like computer specs for their own sake, and I guess there's nothing wrong with that.
> 
> My point is that mortal musicians are unlikely to run out of computer resources on even a $1400 10-year-old machine (albeit one that's been upgraded with faster processors, more memory, and SSDs on a SATA 2 bus). And if they do, a cheap 10-year-old sample slave can handle the overflow.


----------



## Nick Batzdorf

Soundhound said:


> I bring my 2012 iMac i7 3.46ghz to its knees so much, I'm using Vienna Enseble Pro on anything that's even vaguely taxing. Poor thing has been begging to be put out to pasture for a while now, and now that the Mac Pro mystery has been revealed it may soon get its wish. (not with a $6k mac)



Can you post a picture of a session that does that?

I’m quite serious when I say that I don’t even think about the computer - I just use it.


----------



## Geoff Grace

I don't think one can conclude that subsequent versions of the Mac Pro won't be ARM-based just because the upcoming one will run Intel. After all, the first cheese grater was a Motorola Power Mac G5. The second was an Intel Mac Pro.

Best,

Geoff


----------



## mat1

Nick Batzdorf said:


> My point is that mortal musicians are unlikely to run out of computer resources on even a $1400 10-year-old machine (albeit one that's been upgraded with faster processors, more memory, and SSDs on a SATA 2 bus). And if they do, a cheap 10-year-old sample slave can handle the overflow.



Yeah but if you want to work at low buffers it's a different story. Especially once you've got a bit of processing going on.


----------



## EvilDragon

Correct on the above.


----------



## Soundhound

Sure! I'll dig some up. I think it's generally single core spikes that do it, from heavily scripted kontakt instruments, etc. Will put a few up here....

I would love to not think about my computer. I'm really tired of that...



Nick Batzdorf said:


> Can you post a picture of a session that does that?
> 
> I’m quite serious when I say that I don’t even think about the computer - I just use it.


----------



## Nick Batzdorf

mat1 said:


> Yeah but if you want to work at low buffers it's a different story. Especially once you've got a bit of processing going on.



128 samples here.


----------



## FriFlo

The more I read and think about it, the more get inclined to leave Apple behind me although I prefer Mac OS over windows. More then price and ridiculous upgrade costs (for memory and internal storage) this video gives me a lot of reasons to do it:

I clrearly remember Tim Cook mentioning many times, that environment was important to Apple. That is not believable at all with all the proof that Apple Genius bars lying to their customers about repair cost and at the same time deliberately shutting down third party repairs. While the new Mac Pro looks a lot more serviceable than the 2013 model, it's got the t2 chip! While that doesn't have to be that way, it might likely prevent all sort sind of replacements nad third party refer. If I would consider to dump as much cash for an underspecced Mac Pro, then this would surely only make sense for a long time investment and with the ability to replace nearly everything on this computer! And in case of mainboard malefunction in the future, I would also want to rely on a third party repair Center doing that for me vs. being faced with Apple telling me that I should rather buy the new 2024 Mac Pro Model, because fixing it would be several thousand bucks ...


----------



## Dewdman42

Soundhound said:


> Sure! I'll dig some up. I think it's generally single core spikes that do it, from heavily scripted kontakt instruments, etc. Will put a few up here....



I've also noticed that LPX has issues with dense midi through a channel. You won't necessarily see the CPU meters max out, but you'll get dropped events. Would a faster CPU help? Not sure since I don't have one to compare. Logic may have architectural issues in that area frankly. 

The 5,1(with upgraded CPU) is still very much a very capable and relevant piece of hardware. Apple is trying to make it irrelevant by blocking it from running Catlina forward. Shame on them for such tactics. 

But aside from that, its still to this day a very capable and relevant machine and really there are few situations where the mediocre single core performance would be an issue, perhaps never for many people. The exception would be for when you are using some particular Plugin or situation that does need stronger single core performance, in which case more modern offerings, including lowly Mac mini's have up to 2.5x the single core performance, which could be useful, especially when going for the lowest latency on cpu-hungry plugin chains. But with less cores, some of those lowly modern macs probably will would not keep up with the 5,1 in terms of high track counts, because of few cores.

I'm more annoyed that Apple is not continuing to support the 5,1 when its still a perfectly sufficient machine for an awful lot of people. If they want us to buy new hardware what they should be doing is coming out with something that is so outrageously good for a price we can't refuse that we all sell our 5,1's on Ebay for a bargain to people that could easily use it for another 10 years doing typical home desktop tasks; and run to the nearest Apple store to get that new thing. Failing that, they are now attempting to compel us to do so by dropping support of a completely adequate machine. They've been doing this kind of thing for decades so it shouldn't surprise me, but still it disgusts me. 

Fortunately, there is a hackintosh community out there that has been figuring out for over a decade how to hack the kext's to get all kinds of hardware to work. I am fairly confident that 5,1 owners will be able to run Catalina and the next one after that too, and maybe more, for quite some time.. People will hack the kext's or the firmware or whatever it takes and get it done, because the hardware itself is still perfectly viable for years to come. I plan to keep using mine for a few more years, and unless Apple comes out with something that makes sense for me, I will probably build a hackintosh next time, but its too early to predict what Apple is going to do in 2-3 years.

The discussion about Xeon vs i9 is really more interesting in terms of what will Apple do next. The new MacPro uses the many-core Xeon's and I think for video work or perhaps scientific application where you need many threads crunching as much data as possible, yet not necessarily in realtime, it will be great. The discussion about whether stronger single core performance for audio production is still relevant. An i9 based solution for a new MacPro would have been better for audio production IMHO, because of the stronger single core performance, however I think Apple was able to go for the Xeon's as a way to have a 28core monster that would be useful for video houses and other situations where real time performance doesn't matter so much. So they based it on that, but truthfully, looking forward, I do not think that will be the best platform for audio production. Audio production needs strong real time performance, so a true improvement, and something that would be of interest to audio folks would be something based on i9 in my opinion, but I think that would have been too limiting for the markets that are going after, video, scientific, etc... We'll see new CPU's in the next few years and we'll see what Apple does...there are so many potential directions everything could go, but what I can say is that the new MacPro was not designed for optimal audio use, though some people would probably love it. But especially for the price... Its not what we need, in terms of a 5,1/6,1 replacement. We needed an i9 monster with PCI slots, storage bays and a $69 monitor stand.


----------



## artomatic

September release date.


----------



## Nick Batzdorf

Dewdman42 said:


> They've been doing this kind of thing for decades so it shouldn't surprise me, but still it disgusts me.



Usually there's a hardware incompatibility when a machine won't run a new OS version, or for it not supporting all the new features (e.g. Handoff etc. due to the 5,1's Bluetooth chips).

The one that irritates me is that my iPhone 6 Plus won't run the next iOS version, but the 6S Plus will. There's nothing wrong with the phone - on the contrary, it's great - and I can't imagine the hardware has anything to do with it.


----------



## Dewdman42

apparently they are hardware incompatibilities that a hacker is usually able to get around most of the time also. Apple chooses not too. It is a *choice* they make to not support the hardware. Using hardware incompatibility is a cheap excuse.


----------



## Nick Batzdorf

^ That assumes the beta compatibility list is the same as the release one will be.

I'm not going to put the next macOS on my 5,1 anyway, because it doesn't support 32-bit programs. Too expensive to update them all, and not worth it.

But with iPhones it's different, because most server-based apps (my bank, DirecTV, etc.) require constant updates to work, and they often break when you don't have the latest iOS. You can't just freeze the system, or create different startup partitions with older OS versions.


----------



## dbudde

Nick Batzdorf said:


> and I can't imagine the hardware has anything to do with it.



iPhone 6s is the first phone with 2GB RAM (instead of 1GB).


----------



## Nick Batzdorf

dbudde said:


> iPhone 6s is the first phone with 2GB RAM (instead of 1GB).



Ah, okay.


----------



## Dewdman42

Nick Batzdorf said:


> ^ That assumes the beta compatibility list is the same as the release one will be.
> 
> I'm not going to put the next macOS on my 5,1 anyway, because it doesn't support 32-bit programs. Too expensive to update them all, and not worth it.
> 
> But with iPhones it's different, because most server-based apps (my bank, DirecTV, etc.) require constant updates to work, and they often break when you don't have the latest iOS. You can't just freeze the system, or create different startup partitions with older OS versions.



definitely some folks are hoping that the final release will allow the 5,1. But I think that is highly unlikely. Official statements have been made about it. I don't think Apple will back away from this, but I hope I'm wrong!

I also don't plan to update past Mojave either. At least any time soon. I have some apps that I like using which are a bit obscure and may NEVER get to 64bit frankly. Eventually though, it will come down to whether I want the latest LogicPro update or not..and I will have to update my OS version to get it. That will be the moment of truth.


----------



## Nick Batzdorf

Dewdman42 said:


> Eventually though, it will come down to whether I want the latest LogicPro update or not



Have you seen announcements saying the latest Logic will require the next macOS?


----------



## Dewdman42

No I didn't say that. I said "eventually". Next Logic is supposed to require High Sierra.


----------



## michaelrohanek

Rasmus Hartvig said:


> 1000 instrument tracks. Still only one CC lane visible at a time


Yeah what’s with that??? That missing feature alone is what made me start using cubase.


----------



## azeteg

Dewdman42 said:


> I've also noticed that LPX has issues with dense midi through a channel. You won't necessarily see the CPU meters max out, but you'll get dropped events. Would a faster CPU help? Not sure since I don't have one to compare. Logic may have architectural issues in that area frankly.



Last time I checked into this, there was a limit of 127 events per buffer and track in Logic. Perhaps you're running into this?


----------



## Dewdman42

Where do you get your information about 127 events per buffer? I hrard similar rumors. I also hear a rumor it was increased to a much larger value. But anyway midi can be subject to dropouts just like audio if the cpu can’t keep up


----------



## azeteg

Dewdman42 said:


> Where do you get your information about 127 events per buffer? I hrard similar rumors. I also hear a rumor it was increased to a much larger value. But anyway midi can be subject to dropouts just like audio if the cpu can’t keep up



I tested it, filed an Apple bug report and also confirmed it with Apple engineers. They ended up adding a workaround to increase the buffer for VEPro plug-ins. (Since we use more MIDI ports, the number of MIDI events can really add up).

I recall something about the buffer being increased in general with some revision, but I haven't tested this yet.


----------



## gsilbers

Nick Batzdorf said:


> ^ That assumes the beta compatibility list is the same as the release one will be.
> 
> I'm not going to put the next macOS on my 5,1 anyway, because it doesn't support 32-bit programs. Too expensive to update them all, and not worth it.
> 
> But with iPhones it's different, because most server-based apps (my bank, DirecTV, etc.) require constant updates to work, and they often break when you don't have the latest iOS. You can't just freeze the system, or create different startup partitions with older OS versions.



i lost my Soul Calibur game on one of the iOs updates... im still very resentfull about it


----------



## Nick Batzdorf

gsilbers said:


> i lost my Soul Calibur game on one of the iOs updates... im still very resentfull about it



The one that I resent is DirecTV requiring an update that didn't support the original iPad I'd bought brand new at full price in the Apple Store only six months before.

As I said, with desktop/laptop computers the old saw about your not being forced to update is true - you just freeze your system and everything still works. Not true with apps that talk to a server.


----------



## JEPA




----------



## fiction

So, production finally started and I’m thinking about getting one. I can’t really go back to windows after so many years working with macOS and the new Mac mini doesn’t seem like a future-proof option to me.. is anyone considering upgrading to this machine also?

I’m wondering what CPU model will be best for Logic Pro/pro tools. I have no experience with Xeon processors but I see many studios using the iMac pro with great success. I'm wondering the difference between the 8/12 core versions in terms of performance...


----------



## Prockamanisc

Think long-game. This computer is an investment for at least 5-8 years, hopefully more like 10. By the time it's been 10 years, many more processors will be coming out that we can put into this machine, and off the shelf, they'll cost something like 70% of what Apple would charge us for them. So assume that in 2027 you'll buy a 48-core processor for like $3K. What will hold you over until then? 

If you buy an 8-core, and then spend $1K on a 12-core in 2 years, then $2K on a 24-core, then that's $3K right there. I would put those future spendings into your first purchase, and just own the results for the next 5 years, and be content that you have a beast.

So I would push the limits as far as processors are concerned. I'm waiting to see the prices on all of them, but I'll likely go up to the 16-core. I think that will be a good compromise between cores and clock speed.


----------



## Patrick.K

Mmm, I do not want to criticize Apple, because they produce beautiful machines reliable and friendly, and that last a long time.
But I think that if Steve Jobs was still in this world, he might not accept the path that Apple has taken for some time.
Apple has always priced quite high (even if they give a lot of satisfaction too), but here I think the designers were pleased, because this new MacPro is surely a great machine, but who can buy it, because with the essential options, it will far exceed $ 15,000 and more, so apart from the big structures or the few artists who manage to live comfortably their music .... and they are not so many, but I may be wrong ?.
They have already set the bar very high with the IMac Pro, which with a minimum of options (Indispensables) go up to more than 6000/7000 $, but there ...
I think that old models still have a bright future ahead of them, and my faithful IMac too, unless he lets me go!.
The worst thing is that I will not be able to do without osx and Logic x, I already thought about going back into the world of pc, but no, now it's too late, I became addict, Apple me holds chained !. 

PS: Maybe an Imac Pro, but I will not be able to buy more, unless I find oil digging in my garden.


----------



## gsilbers

Patrick9152 said:


> Mmm, I do not want to criticize Apple, because they produce beautiful machines reliable and friendly, and that last a long time.
> But I think that if Steve Jobs was still in this world, he might not accept the path that Apple has taken for some time.
> Apple has always priced quite high (even if they give a lot of satisfaction too), but here I think the designers were pleased, because this new MacPro is surely a great machine, but who can buy it, because with the essential options, it will far exceed $ 15,000 and more, so apart from the big structures or the few artists who manage to live comfortably their music .... and they are not so many, but I may be wrong ?.
> They have already set the bar very high with the IMac Pro, which with a minimum of options (Indispensables) go up to more than 6000/7000 $, but there ...
> I think that old models still have a bright future ahead of them, and my faithful IMac too, unless he lets me go!.
> The worst thing is that I will not be able to do without osx and Logic x, I already thought about going back into the world of pc, but no, now it's too late, I became addict, Apple me holds chained !.
> 
> PS: Maybe an Imac Pro, but I will not be able to buy more, unless I find oil digging in my
> 
> 
> Patrick9152 said:
> 
> 
> 
> Mmm, I do not want to criticize Apple, because they produce beautiful machines reliable and friendly, and that last a long time.
> But I think that if Steve Jobs was still in this world, he might not accept the path that Apple has taken for some time.
> Apple has always priced quite high (even if they give a lot of satisfaction too), but here I think the designers were pleased, because this new MacPro is surely a great machine, but who can buy it, because with the essential options, it will far exceed $ 15,000 and more, so apart from the big structures or the few artists who manage to live comfortably their music .... and they are not so many, but I may be wrong ?.
> They have already set the bar very high with the IMac Pro, which with a minimum of options (Indispensables) go up to more than 6000/7000 $, but there ...
> I think that old models still have a bright future ahead of them, and my faithful IMac too, unless he lets me go!.
> The worst thing is that I will not be able to do without osx and Logic x, I already thought about going back into the world of pc, but no, now it's too late, I became addict, Apple me holds chained !.
> 
> PS: Maybe an Imac Pro, but I will not be able to buy more, unless I find oil digging in my garden.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> garden.
Click to expand...


who can buy?

the answer lies in the big picture. They are getting into services. They are getting into televisión filmaking. They have the number one file deliverable for big entertainment studios which’s is also the same file sent to broadcasters around the world.
Who can buy it? Well, the same guys buying hp z series which costs about the same or more with Xeon processors. Who are editing in avid the top shows.
who can buy it? Every technicolor /deluxe studio that have to make a gazillion files using really expensive encoder machine from digital rapids and amberfin. And they use monitors way more expensive than what they have. And the studio I worked at bought 30 older Mac Pros when they announced the non pcie trashcan. Yep 30 at once to have it because that’s what they used and kept using for 10 years later. $6k-10k is basically about two movie files or about 4 tv episodes In that world and that’s just one day worth of work!
Why sell to those guys? If you see Micheal bay using it then every tv producer will use it. And every studio in Los Angeles will use it and every mastering video studio will use it and ripple into Europe’s high end market. see junkie xl using it loading 265gb of sample in ram then every tv composer will use it. 
So this is not for the gaming crowd and guys who buy a bunch of components and make their own big rig. It’s not for composers fretting for budgets and prices. But having pro tools hd and load all that session shown in the keynote is enough for most stages in LA to buy it with the top specs.
we see it from our point of view... sometimes we forgot how massive other industries are. We are way more than comfortable with one of those iMacs and even the new MacBook Pro which already blows my macpro 2009 out the water.
We wish these where less expensive but keep in mind that I have my Mac Pro for over a decade and paid the same. So if you are making money out of your computer, paying $6k with $150 a month payments that’ll take 3-6 years to pay depending on the situation, then it’s not that much. Some cable bills are about that price


----------



## Wunderhorn

If what you are doing is sit in front of a computer and making money with it all this discussion is futile. Get the best you can possibly afford and let it work FOR you. Some people may think their car is more important but consider where you spend most of your time!


----------



## Jeremy Spencer

Wunderhorn said:


> If what you are doing is sit in front of a computer and making money with it all this discussion is futile. Get the best you can possibly afford and let it work FOR you. Some people may think their car is more important but consider where you spend most of your time!



That's right. Many people finance a $40K new car that depreciates like crazy. If I spend (of finance) a $7K MacPro that earns me, say, $10K in the first year of owning it....it already paid for itself and owes me nothing.


----------



## Wunderhorn

Wolfie2112 said:


> That's right. Many people finance a $40K new car that depreciates like crazy. If I spend (of finance) a $7K MacPro that earns me, say, $10K in the first year of owning it....it already paid for itself and owes me nothing.



Exactly. Even if I have to take out a loan at the moment, I will get a new Mac Pro. It makes me money every month and since I sit in front of it all day long I am just worth it... plus, in comparison all these iMacs etc are aging so badly... a cheesegrater lasts so much longer with all the expandability


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## Dewdman42

Like the video post by JEPA above, I will absolutely not be buying one of the new macpros as currently priced. The words "don't be a schmuck", come to mind. Apple is out of their mind. We shall see how many working pros fork over the money. Some of you seem to be able to justify the price, but I most definitely cannot, and just like stated in that video, if it comes down to it I will switch to PC...(or perhaps Hackintosh for a while). 

It is true that a lot of us lose more per year on our car's depreciation then the cost of that new MacPro, but still its just too out of line with the rest of the market. I do think there are many pros that will justify this expenditure. I think there are many others that will switch to PC to continue or make due with minis and iMacs.

As always, Apple is doing something a bit controversial and we shall see how it shakes out.


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## Prockamanisc

Dewdman42 said:


> Like the video post by JEPA above, I will absolutely not be buying one of the new macpros as currently priced. The words "don't be a schmuck", come to mind. Apple is out of their mind. We shall see how many working pros fork over the money. Some of you seem to be able to justify the price, but I most definitely cannot, and just like stated in that video, if it comes down to it I will switch to PC...(or perhaps Hackintosh for a while).
> 
> It is true that a lot of us lose more per year on our car's depreciation then the cost of that new MacPro, but still its just too out of line with the rest of the market. I do think there are many pros that will justify this expenditure. I think there are many others that will switch to PC to continue to make due with minis and iMacs.
> 
> As always, Apple is doing something a bit controversial and we shall see how it shakes out.


This was my exact attitude when the last Mac Pro came out. "Eff them, they're screwing me on price". So I ended up spending an equivalent amount of money on a PC and ended up hating it and selling it, and buying a Mac Pro anyway. This time I'm going to just suck it up, pay the extra $1000 above what I was hoping to spend, and thoroughly, thoroughly enjoy my computer for years and years and years.


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## Jeremy Spencer

Prockamanisc said:


> This was my exact attitude when the last Mac Pro came out. "Eff them, they're screwing me on price". So I ended up spending an equivalent amount of money on a PC and ended up hating it and selling it, and buying a Mac Pro anyway. This time I'm going to just suck it up, pay the extra $1000 above what I was hoping to spend, and thoroughly, thoroughly enjoy my computer for years and years and years.



This. The peace of mind is worth it. To each his own, but I'm not going back to PC just save money. And really, a comparable custom-built PC, with similar specs, isn't really that much cheaper.


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## VinRice

Dewdman42 said:


> It is true that a lot of us lose more per year on our car's depreciation then the cost of that new MacPro, but still its just too out of line with the rest of the market. I do think there are many pros that will justify this expenditure. I think there are many others that will switch to PC to continue or make due with minis and iMacs.



It's not in any way out of line with the rest of the market. A PC with the equivalent pieces would cost almost exactly same, probably more if purchased from HP or Dell. You could put one together by yourself of course (if you don't value your time or mental health) but who the hell wants to do that? Many, many pros will purchase this computer and will have no problem justifying it. For photo/video work even the monitor at $6K is an absolute bargain compared to equivalent Panasonic or Sony HDR monitors.


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## Dewdman42

I agree, you're just arguing and agreeing with something I already stated. Some pros will do exactly that. But I'm not a full time pro and I will not. Many others will not too. (shrug). I say enjoy your new overpriced Mac Pro and I will be watching carefully to see how it goes for you pros.


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## VinRice

Dewdman42 said:


> I say enjoy your new overpriced Mac Pro



Why do you say it's overpriced? Compared to what?


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## Dewdman42

First of all I am not going to pay $6k for a computer. Period. And that is the starting price for the lowest configuration of MacPro. What I like/love about my 5,1 is that is has PCI slots and drive bays and things like that. I would actually be fine with that lowest performance configuration compared to my 5,1, just to get AVX, but not for $6k good god. 

I'm not interested in debates about what it costs to build some trick PC, etc.. there are already threads in existence arguing all that round and round in circles. $6k is too much, pure and simple and that's not even a loaded up macPro. If and when its $4k or less I'll think about it, but more likely I will wait until one of you pros just has to have the newest things and sells me your used MacPro for much much less then you paid.

This converstation is going nowhere fast. I'm entitled to my opinion just as you are. As I said, enjoy your expensive MacPro and let us know how it goes, I am will surely be following those conversations as they come down.


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## tmhuud

I’ll get one but I learned my lesson with the trash can. I ended up upgrading it like crazy. Processor, ram , internal drive, etc. That slowed down productivity so I think I’ll just get exactly what I think I’ll need when I first buy.

I could be wrong in this approach though as I also upgraded the original cheese grater with all kinds of crazy things and this nMac Pro looks like it might be more like IT than the trash can so there me be many more third party goodies coming to the table and I’ll end up getting those and having to upgrade anyways.


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## Damarus

The Mac pro is an expensive video rendering machine. These threads will continue until people realize it was not geared for audio work.


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## VinRice

Damarus said:


> The Mac pro is an expensive video rendering machine. These threads will continue until people realize it was not geared for audio work.



I think it will probably do just fine.


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## VinRice

Dewdman42 said:


> $6k is too much, pure and simple



Priceless...


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## mscp

Being the owner of both a Mac and a PC, I still don't get why people have so much trouble with Windows. The reason why I use a PC is not to save money but because it is:

- 100% customizable;
- Cubase.

I personally don't mind a Mac desktop because it's not REALLY customizable. Can I, for instance, change the CPU/Mobo whenever I want it? I don't think so.

I do love the beauty behind the design though.


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## Dewdman42

Windows vs OSX and Mac vs PC.. are two entirely separate issues.


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## Jeremy Spencer

Phil81 said:


> I personally don't mind a Mac desktop because it's not REALLY customizable. Can I, for instance, change the CPU/Mobo whenever I want it? I don't think so.



Mac Pro...yes.


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## artomatic

'Been a Mac user since Mac IIci.
Still using my reliable trashcan but so looking forward to upgrading this to the new and powerful cheese grater!
A bit pricey but me thinks it's gonna be so worth it!


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## Jeremy Spencer

Dewdman42 said:


> First of all I am not going to pay $6k for a computer.



What about $3k for a Mac laptop? I know you may not earn Money from composing, but since 2013 my $3k MB Pro has never, ever let me down.....in fact, paid for itself immediately after purchasing. For someone who does professional work, this is invaluable. Perhaps a similar spec'd PC is just as good, but they are hit and miss since there are just too many factors with a custom build; Hackintosh included.


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## Dewdman42

I bought a loaded up MBP in 2010 and it turned out to have serious hardware problems a few years later. Not buying another Apple laptop, maybe never. As I already said, I want something with PCI slots and drive bays. The 5,1 will continue working just fine for now.

Make no mistake I would rather have a reasonably priced Mac Pro then a PC (regardless of whether its hackintosh or Windows), but I am simply not willing to spend 6-10k to have it. 

Also, for audio work we kind of need Apple to come out with a version that has higher single core speeds, rather then so many cores. The new stuff they are releasing now is well suited for multi-core tasks, but my ancient 5,1 is already more then enough multi-core performance to do everything I need to do with making music. Faster single-core would be helpful, perhaps more ram if price is no object, I think we would all benefit from faster project load times if they can accomplish that, but I don't expect this new 6-10k computer to improve substantially on that. The new one will be great for people cranking out video rendering and stuff like that which does not run real time, uses all the cores, etc. It is not the most ideal setup for what we do. 

The only reason its interesting to some of you is because it is new. So it will be supported by Apple for Catalina. Those of us on 3,1 and 4,1 macpros are a little more desperate for something new then those of us on 5,1 and 6,1, for no other reason really then the ability to run the latest version of OSX. Wow, $10k just so you can run Catalina? Not me.

We shall see how it all shakes out, but I think this model will undersell and Apple will do something to increase sales, hopefully with a model that uses different CPU's with higher single core performance, 8 cores would be perfectly fine honestly. Fastest ram possible. NVMe m.2 or whatever is the latest. PCI slots.. great. make it under $5k and I might get it.


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## mscp

Wolfie2112 said:


> Mac Pro...yes.



Which MOBO did the Mac Pro (cheese grater) use and where could I buy it then? Because I couldn't find it.


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## fiction

How can it be under 5k considering the iMac pro starting price? This Mac Pro pricing is no surprise. 
The 2013 Mac Pro with 12/8 core Xeon processor is still the Mac that is seen in most composers/audio engineers studios. How is this new Mac Pro not suited for audio? It’s a development of that machine. 
Apple is also trying to improve the Logic Pro multi core performance in the last updates, I think it will get better with time.


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## Dewdman42

iMac includes a retina display.

That's what it will take for Apple to get my money.


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## Dewdman42

Phil81 said:


> Which MOBO did the Mac Pro (cheese grater) use and where could I buy it then? Because I couldn't find it.



I'm not sure that the actual mobo can be upgraded so much, there were basically single core and dual core, and its possible you could have obtained one of a small set of changed mobos that were being released for that particular model. The CPU's however were easy to change. Incredibly easy to change, at least to whatever was compatible with the mobos available.

I bought my 5,1 in a later round where third party people were loading them up with CPU's that were never available from Apple, but still compatible with the motherboard. My used and hot rodded 5,1 was under $2k. 

nobody can predict what apple will do in terms of allowing or supporting upgrades to their future hardware. They are constantly changing directions and its a moving target. But if its anything like the cheese graters, then it will be significantly more upgradable then anything else they have had since 2012.


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## mscp

Dewdman42 said:


> I'm not sure that the actual mobo can be upgraded so much, there were basically single core and dual core, and its possible you could have obtained one of a small set of changed mobos that were being released for that particular model. The CPU's however were easy to change. Incredibly easy to change, at least to whatever was compatible with the mobos available.
> 
> I bought my 5,1 in a later round where third party people were loading them up with CPU's that were never available from Apple, but still compatible with the motherboard. My used and hot rodded 5,1 was under $2k.
> 
> nobody can predict what apple will do in terms of allowing or supporting upgrades to their future hardware. They are constantly changing directions and its a moving target. But if its anything like the cheese graters, then it will be significantly more upgradable then anything else they have had since 2012.



I'll keep working on PCs then. I like MacOS but not THAT much.


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## Dewdman42

That's what it really comes down to. I feel you get way better hardware with PC's and many applicable options that are far more affordable. Apple always corners us into buying more hardware then we really need or the wrong hardware or hardware missing expandability or whatever...just to have the luxury of running OSX on it. 

That being said, the 5,1 MacPro has been, IMHO the best desktop PC ever made. Its really unfortunate that Apple has deprecated it after only 7 years when its still now perfectly viable, even for power users. that's what apple does though.

(shrug).

Myself I do love OSX enough that I will try a hackintosh before I give up on OSX. But if hackintoshing turns into a problem, I will readily move to windows and run Cubase, S1 or Reaper and not look back. I feel my 5,1 is still perfectly good enough for now, its at least a few years until I really need to worry about it. Maybe Apple will pull their head out between now and then.


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## jcrosby

Dewdman42 said:


> That being said, the 5,1 MacPro has been, IMHO the best desktop PC ever made. Its really unfortunate that Apple has deprecated it after only 7 years when its still now perfectly viable, even for power users. that's what apple does though.


Best machine I've ever owned hands down... I don't think we'll see Apple release a truly common sense desktop like 4,1/5,1 for quite some time... 

Even though this machine isn't all-in-one, seems like Apple's overall judgment's still clouded by getting away with selling soldered down all-in-one machines for the past 6 years or so, not to mention them being _spoiled_ by getting away with customers putting up with their _obsolescent machines_ policy...


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## Patrick.K

gsilbers said:


> who can buy?
> 
> the answer lies in the big picture. They are getting into services. They are getting into televisión filmaking. They have the number one file deliverable for big entertainment studios which’s is also the same file sent to broadcasters around the world.
> Who can buy it? Well, the same guys buying hp z series which costs about the same or more with Xeon processors. Who are editing in avid the top shows.
> who can buy it? Every technicolor /deluxe studio that have to make a gazillion files using really expensive encoder machine from digital rapids and amberfin. And they use monitors way more expensive than what they have. And the studio I worked at bought 30 older Mac Pros when they announced the non pcie trashcan. Yep 30 at once to have it because that’s what they used and kept using for 10 years later. $6k-10k is basically about two movie files or about 4 tv episodes In that world and that’s just one day worth of work!
> Why sell to those guys? If you see Micheal bay using it then every tv producer will use it. And every studio in Los Angeles will use it and every mastering video studio will use it and ripple into Europe’s high end market. see junkie xl using it loading 265gb of sample in ram then every tv composer will use it.
> So this is not for the gaming crowd and guys who buy a bunch of components and make their own big rig. It’s not for composers fretting for budgets and prices. But having pro tools hd and load all that session shown in the keynote is enough for most stages in LA to buy it with the top specs.
> we see it from our point of view... sometimes we forgot how massive other industries are. We are way more than comfortable with one of those iMacs and even the new MacBook Pro which already blows my macpro 2009 out the water.
> We wish these where less expensive but keep in mind that I have my Mac Pro for over a decade and paid the same. So if you are making money out of your computer, paying $6k with $150 a month payments that’ll take 3-6 years to pay depending on the situation, then it’s not that much. Some cable bills are about that price



I totally agree with what you just said, there is a strong demand and a large market for high-performance machines, even for passionate amateurs like me, for sure.
In my case, I would also end up buying this kind of machine, because I do not want to be slowed in my creativity, it's the price to pay to work in serenity, with an OS that is of exemplary stability .
There is a lot of criticism of Apple, especially from those who work on PCs, and I can understand some of the frustrations.
But it is true, and you're right to point this out, and that's what I also think, investment is not that important, considering the life of a Mac, especially if we spread the purchase price by paying each month, Apples are easier to digest if you reason in this way ! 
As far as I'm concerned, mine does not bring me any money, I've had it for almost 9 years now, and it's a faithful work companion that never let me down, despite the big sessions that I gave him subjected to it.
I am grateful every day to the founders Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak, but you had to be American, young, passionate, and a little crazy, to dare to do it, especially at that time, but they managed to impose their visions of what was to be a computer.
I'll be quick to finish saying that they have made life more beautiful for musicians and creative artists ...

PS : This year, I had the chance to go on vacation to the US, and I spent some time to stroll around San José and Los Altos to see the childhood home of Steve Jobs, and this famous garage ... When we think that everything started there, what a great adventure !.


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## redlester

Given that winter solstice is two weeks on Sunday, they are stretching the definition of "Coming This Autumn". Unless you're one of those who defines winter as starting on the solstice, in which case they have a couple of weeks.


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