
2019 Mac Pro (28-core) Review - bluedino
http://hrtapps.com/blogs/20200204/
======
Symbiote
> Now, ordinarily these computations are run on a supercomputer and cost
> thousands of dollars per solution, or you’d need to build a cluster for
> $15-20K or more. But with 28 cores and the ability to handle up to 1.5TB of
> memory, the Mac Pro is a competitive alternative.

If a desktop is being considered, aren't desktops with similar performance
from Dell, HP or whoever just as competitive?

(Also, that cluster is cheaper than this Mac.)

~~~
freepor
A high spec Mac Pro isn't much more expensive than a similarly spec'd HP/Dell
workstation.

~~~
ChuckNorris89
For the base config with the pitiful 256GB SSD maybe, but once you start
loading it up to usable workstation grade configs the difference becomes wider
and wider. And with DELL/HP you can also go the AMD route with even better
performance/bang for your buck.

IIRC the Mac Pro is mostly aimed at music/graphic professionals for whom the
software is Mac only.

~~~
mdemare
I couldn't find any dell or hp workstations that go over 64GB in RAM. The Mac
Pro goes up to 1.5TB. Apples and oranges.

~~~
MrUnderhill
It looks like you can configure the Dell Precision 7920 [1] and the HP Z8 [2]
both with 3TB if you want (admittedly at an absolutely bonkers price point).

[1] [https://www.dell.com/en-us/work/shop/workstations-isv-
certif...](https://www.dell.com/en-us/work/shop/workstations-isv-
certified/precision-7920-tower-
workstation/spd/precision-7920-workstation/xctopt7920us_4?view=configurations)

[2] [https://store.hp.com/us/en/pdp/hp-z8-g4-workstation-
customiz...](https://store.hp.com/us/en/pdp/hp-z8-g4-workstation-
customizable-z3z16av-1)

~~~
ChuckNorris89
More bonkers than what Apple is charging?

~~~
bluedino
Yes, Dell actually wants a little bit more for RAM than Apple does. Not by
much though.

------
OrangeMango
I had one of those original G4 PowerMacs. It was my first Apple computer and
I've used Apple as my primary machine since that day. For a similar price as
the Microsoft/Intel machines, you got the far better performance (though Intel
caught up quite quickly) and a case that was fairly stylish (at the time) yet
was amazing for its flexibility and ease of access.

The new one: it doesn't appear to offer any performance advantage at its price
point. The case appears to be great for flexibility and ease of access, but it
is clearly overstyled for the purpose of being as expensive as possible.

It really isn't as impressive as the original.

------
woofie11
How are the AMD Radeon Pro Vega II Duo for GPGPU?

If I'm running numpy, pytorch, TensorFlow, etc. does AMD now just work? Last I
looked maybe a half-decade ago, everything did CUDA smoothly and seamlessly.
Support for OpenCL was a bit limited. I see a bunch more things from AMD now
(ROCm, etc.), but I don't really now if they're first class citizens yet or
still playing catchup.

Often, GPU performance is more important than CPU.

~~~
phero_cnstrcts
I use Blender and GPU rendering isn’t supported because Apple recently took
away OpenCL support in favor of their Metal implementation. Maybe something to
be aware of.

------
tqkxzugoaupvwqr
Would be interesting to see the same benchmarks for an AMD Threadripper or
Epyc with 64 cores.

------
pdimitar
As an iMac Pro user I can relate to this review a lot.

\- The iMac Pro is _beautiful_. Really. The space grey and black around the
screen are both discrete and stylish. I absolutely despise bright colors on my
computers and this machine ticked all boxes for me.

\- Insanely _quiet_. A month ago I was working at about 4:00 AM and everything
around was absolutely quiet. Then I heard a slight humming noise and I thought
this might be the time I actually hear the iMac Pro. But no, it turned out to
be my external HDD. To this day, after owning the iMac Pro for ~4.5 months, I
haven't heard its fans, not even once.

\- It's of course powerful. Haven't seen it glitch or lag once. And the rare
cases I did it was definitely a software issue (like the Mac AppStore
mysteriously refusing input for some odd 5 seconds sometimes). Anything that
can actually use the hardware works _fast_. I am little worried about the SSD
promised performance though; it says it should support 3.3GB/s writing speed
but the very best PostgreSQL `pg_restore` performance was 1.6GB/s; I am
guessing it's the quad-memory channel that might be the bottleneck, as several
reviewers in the past claimed. Overall, everything just works fast.

\- The iMac Pro's power highlights how flawed are so many software packages.
They simply can't make use of the 10 cores I have, or that much RAM, or the
insanely fast SSD. We finally arrived at a point when hardware is more than
capable but software is stuck in the past. Having the iMac Pro really did
drive this point home for me.

\- macOS however leaves something to be desired in terms of stability. One of
my external HDDs practically ruins the sleep of the iMac Pro and I often found
it shut down in the morning. And one dual-rack box where I keep two old SSDs
in RAID 6 configuration is always disconnected after I wake up the computer.
It's weird. One time I even had to do safe mode reboot. But hey, this might be
hardware vendors not fully complying to specs. Wouldn't be the first time.

\---

Overall, I am extremely satisfied with the iMac Pro. But I do wonder if I
should be buying a Linux workstation with the 64-core Threadripper in 1-2
years; practically only very specialised software packages can make use of
such monstrous hardware.

We the programmers have to start using multicore-friendly technologies like
Elixir or Rust's rayon library. We can't slack any longer. Powerful machines
which will sit idle because of our crappy technologies and programming
languages are coming.

~~~
pixel_fcker
If the biggest negative you have with macOS is unreliable sleep, you’re not
going to enjoy linux.

source: i use linux

~~~
pdimitar
Yep, I've heard a lot about it. Usual advice is to make a thorough research on
all your hardware and it playing well with Linux and sleep modes -- which I
wouldn't mind if I fully invest myself in a beastly Linux workstation by the
way.

However, with the advent of the really good AMD CPUs lately, and their
attached motherboards and recommended RAM sticks, I am not really sure a
proper research on what plays well with Linux and sleeping will be viable for
a while. The community has to catch up with the new hardware first and whoever
buys a Threadripper 3990x for Linux (together with its recommended high-end
motherboard) is basically taking one for the team until proper drivers (or
upstream Linux kernel support) is added and stabilised for the sleep modes of
the newer AMD hardware.

So even if I had $25k laying around I'd still not spend them on a TR 3990x
Linux workstation right now. I'll wait and see how the Linux community deals
with potential issues with the motherboard chipsets first.

