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| Apples New Mac Pro |
To say it is a radical design is an understatement, it moves away from all of the typical properties of a workstation, particularly in terms of upgradability.
Apples decision is to fix the CPU and GPU options whilst providing six Thunderbolt 2 ports for expansion.
Thunderbolt 2 will allow for storage, monitors, Video I/O and coprocessors to be easily attached but unless there is a change from Thunderbolt 1 there will not be the option to add external GPUs.
Apple have chosen two of AMDs Firepro GPUs to power the graphics. Although these are very high performance chips I'm surprised that Apple didn't go with Nvidia, I'd have loved to see a pair of Titans in there. This means there is no support for CUDA, only OpenGL and OpenCL.
Some software has been rewritten to use the AMD chips instead of CUDA, Blackmagic Resolve 10 apparently screams on the new Mac Pro, but I'm curious to see what will happen with Adobes software which relies heavily on CUDA.
I'm also sad to see the end of the old Mac Pro tower, still one of the most beautiful workstations ever made in my opinion. At least this should bring down the second hand prices :-)
I would love to get my hands on a new Mac Pro and try it out, even if it does look like it escaped from the Death Star. :-)
Let me know if you've managed to get your hands on one,
All the best,
Neil
hi do think it's still good or too risky to buy a 660ti now after that new ? I'm wondering which graphic card model it use, to check the value of an amd fire pro VS 660ti...
ReplyDeleteHi there,
ReplyDeleteI still think the GTX660ti is a great option for the current Mac Pro.
The New Mac Pro will not have upgradable graphics, you will have to buy the system with the GPU you prefer. I am waiting to hear what the options will be.
The AMD FirePro is in the same class as the Nvidia Quadro cards. High performance but High prices too.
Hope this helps,
Neil