
Apple's aging Mac Pro is falling behind Windows rivals - pier25
http://www.computerworld.com/article/3052871/computer-hardware/apples-aging-mac-pro-is-falling-far-behind-windows-rivals.html
======
emdog4
Apple is waiting for the successor to the aging X99 Intel chipset. Intel has
released the 100 series chipset but there are only max 20 PCIe lanes compared
to the 40 max PCIe lanes possible with X99. this means the only possible
configurations with the 100 series chipsets is x16,x4 or x8,x8,x4. With PCIe
being the central bus with the Mac Pro it doesn't make sense for Apple to have
released a new Mac Pro yet. The chipset technology in the current Mac Pro is
still top of the line. Sure, you can get new processors with more cores and
DDR4, but the number of PCIe lanes and memory speed/latency is optimal for the
Mac Pro as as of now there is no better option for them to build a successor.

~~~
bryanlarsen
Intel's newest Xeon processors no longer work with the consumer chipsets such
as X99, a Xeon class chipset must be used. If Intel was going to release a new
chipset for Xeon, they would have released it with the E5 v4 last week.

It's quite possible Apple was waiting for E5 v4 and is still waiting for AMD
Polaris or nVidia Pascal, though.

~~~
walshemj
Some people actually prefer the workstation class mb and there ones designed
for use in place of x99

------
jwr
It is worth mentioning that many developers were left out in the cold even
when the cylindrical Mac Pro was originally announced. I care about CPU speeds
and storage, not so much about the GPU, so the form factor and dual-GPU
architecture of the new Mac Pro was a set of bad tradeoffs. I never wanted to
pay for an extra GPU, and the cost of attached Thunderbolt drive arrays is
astronomical.

I hope Apple will release a "developer machine": something with tons of CPU
power, easily expandable internal storage, and a mid-range single GPU. And for
heaven's sake, don't try to make it small, thin, or round. I'd buy it in an
instant.

~~~
lallysingh
What does a modern developer do now? Bear with this or an MBP? Cross compile?

~~~
joeld42
I am primarily a Mac/iOS developer, but occasionally have to do CPU or GPU
intensive stuff. I use a macbook for most of my work but have a windows
desktop machine for when I need it. (Ironically, the beefy windows machine was
cheaper). For example: lightmap baking.

Switching between the two is annoying.

~~~
coldtea
> _Ironically, the beefy windows machine was cheaper_

That's logical, since Apple focuses on all other aspects of a machine than raw
specs first (construction, size, weight, battery life, trackpad, screen, etc).

------
lucaspiller
The same is true for notebooks too. Compare the top models of the Dell XPS 15
[0] with the 15" Macbook Pro (Retina) ranges [1]:

6th generation Quad-core i7 vs 5th generation Quad-core i7

32GB DDR4 vs 16GB DDR3

GTX 960M vs R9 M370X

3840x2160 4K display vs 2880x1800 'Retina' display

Thunderbolt 3 vs Thunderbolt 2

Both 1TB SSD

1.78kg vs 2.04kg

$3049 vs $3199

It's kind of sad that a few years ago Apple was the one leading notebook
technology, but now they are just playing catch up and don't even seem to be
trying.

[0]
[http://www.dell.com/us/business/p/xps-15-9550-laptop/pd?oc=c...](http://www.dell.com/us/business/p/xps-15-9550-laptop/pd?oc=cax15w10s1631&model_id=xps-15-9550-laptop)

[1] [http://www.apple.com/shop/buy-mac/macbook-
pro?product=MJLT2L...](http://www.apple.com/shop/buy-mac/macbook-
pro?product=MJLT2LL/A&step=config#)

~~~
eludwig
I think it's worth mentioning that Windows really still isn't ready for
"retina" prime time. Setting a > 100% scaling results in all kinds of GUI
horror all over the place, especially in 3rd party apps. Things are better now
than they were 2 years ago, true, but still not a good situation.

On the other hand, there is pretty much no problem anywhere on the Mac. Apple
just handled it. Pretty much all 3rd party apps were updated within a few
months and most just "worked" without modification. A remarkable feat, at
least to me.

The Mac is still the only way to go if you want a 100% retina desktop
experience without glitches.

That said, I have no clue if linux is better in this regard.

So I guess my point is that the 4K on a Windows laptop is largely wasted. The
GPU is not up to driving it for games and the GUI is not up to driving it for
daily use. A shame, truly.

Disclaimer: I have a 2013 MacPro (with 2 4K Dell monitors) and love it. I use
it for Photoshop and software dev.

~~~
Amezarak
I have 150% scaling on Windows 10 and I haven't noticed anything strange.

------
jmnicolas
Bla bla bla ... it should be understood by now that Apple don't care about
these niche markets and will do whatever they want.

The only people using Apple workstations are because they either really want
to use a MAC or because the software they use is not available on PC. In both
cases they won't buy a cheaper and faster PC.

I'm a disgruntled Apple NON-customer : they never created the desktop I wanted
(basically an affordable version of the old MAC pro line) or a phone I could
afford without having to sell a kidney on the black market. So I use Windows
and Android with the satisfaction of knowing that I use both of the bests
keyloggers disguised as an OS on the market.

------
touchofevil
Apple has been steadily been abandoning the "creative pro" market for a long
time. The two most recent indicators were dropping Final Cut Pro 7 for Final
Cut Pro X, which was not ready for professional editing at release. The new
Mac Pro confirmed the move away from the pro market, since it only supported
one CPU. For compressing feature films, dual CPUs are a must.

~~~
derefr
> which was not ready for professional editing at release

Some would argue that that sounds more like a project management failure than
a change in market strategy—that they shipped a beta product as done, that
someone screwed up somewhere, etc.

I don't think so, though; I think Apple just made a correct call in shipping
the "core" of the product early (in the same way most enterprise products get
'Early Access' releases) to allow actual professionals to start evaluating the
_architecture_ of the software and tailoring their pipelines to fit it.
Professional-use software doesn't get used on day 1 of release; it gets played
with by an internal pipeline infrastructure team for six months while the
working craftspeople continue to use the stable pipeline.

Handing out something that would be "patched into usefulness" at right about
the same time it would actually be put into use makes sense, in strictly
consequentialist terms, for both Apple and the professional studios—although
Apple latching onto that release to do a bunch of marketing of their product
as if it was usable for indies already, could be seen as a bit scummy.

> since it only supported one CPU. For compressing feature films, dual CPUs
> are a must.

This might not be the case right now (I don't know much about video encoding),
but encoded video has keyframes, and effectively you can "chunk out" a set of
raw frames to become a keyframe plus its successor interstitial frames, and
then parallelize on those chunks, right?

In which case, I'd expect Apple figured that even if CPU-based compression is
currently _en vogue_ for this use-case, it'd be obviated by GPU-based highly-
parallel compression soon enough, making the dual GPUs a much more significant
benefit and the single CPU a much less significant drawback.

Tell me if I'm getting that wrong; I honestly have no idea.

~~~
TheOtherHobbes
When FCP X shipped there were _howls out of outrage_ from the video community.

FCP 7 had made a name for itself as a solid professional solution. Then they
changed it. Completely. And they didn't ship it as a beta for review. They
shipped it as a finished product.

The professional reaction was best summarised as "WTF is this shit?"

It's kind of settled down now, but a lot of pro users have either moved
elsewhere or continued with FCP 7. Meanwhile support software like Motion
hasn't had a proper update since forever.

New users have come on board, but they're mostly students, semipros, small-
time boutiques, and YouTube dabblers. FCP X is certainly usable for pro work,
but it has some incredibly obvious and annoying shortcomings that make it
really hard to integrate into a commercial workflow.

It's hard not to get the impression that Apple is trying to become a blingy
toy factory, and not a cool computer company that makes cool tools for cool
professionals.

This is unfortunate, because by losing the cool Apple is also becoming less
bling. It's starting to look like a middle-aged guy trying to dance with
teenagers at a party - and nothing about that is good in any way.

So - MacPro? Maybe not. It looks an update would push the cost over five
figures. Considering that many pros are using standard software (i.e. Adobe
CS) it's much easier and cheaper to get better and faster PC hardware.

This is why killing FCP loyalty was a bad idea. If FCP had kept its user base,
a MacPro would have sold itself. Nuking a strong software user base also
killed demand for the hardware.

MacPro sales are rumoured to be unspectacular - and this was easily
preventable.

~~~
protomyth
> New users have come on board, but they're mostly students, semipros, small-
> time boutiques, and YouTube dabblers.

True, but the new users might not be as great in number because the FCP X
outrage had another effect. You noted the pros leaving it, but that also
included a fair number of schools. FCP X is most definitely not FCP 7 so all
the teaching material gets thrown. Also, FCP X is not really a pro app. If the
school is going to buy all new books and build new class material why not go
with software made by a pro company. They are already teaching other Adobe
products so its not much of a jump to add Premiere. Its popular and integrates
well.

So, I'm not sure the up and coming student is really going to use FCP X.

Once you switch to Premiere, your dependance on OS X starts to leave and the
hardware on the Windows side is a whole lot better. I had a lifelong die-hard
Mac user ask me about building a PC.

------
wstrange
What I'd like to see is a new 15" MacBook Pro - with USB C

~~~
tartuffe78
But not only 1 USB C.

------
fblp
The Mac Pro has not been updated in 841 days (av 449) The Retina Macbook Pro
has not been updated in 325 days (average 214).

Although chipset cycles could be part of the delay, I wonder if virtual
reality hardware and software support could also be part of the plan too.

further reading:
[http://buyersguide.macrumors.com/](http://buyersguide.macrumors.com/)
[http://www.macrumors.com/roundup/apple-vr-
project/](http://www.macrumors.com/roundup/apple-vr-project/)

------
satysin
Considering all the fuss Apple made about the new design of the Mac Pro it is
strange they have not kept it top of the line. I guess they care more about
the 5K iMac and MacBook being super thin and pretty.

~~~
pier25
It's really strange. A lot of effort was put into that Mac Pro and it's
components. Maybe sales were not as high as Apple expected?

------
spicklove
Apple is really starting to suck in the enterprise, windows desktop OS is
coming along but still has flaws, android is the future of computing. this is
coming from and industry certified apple tech who has been certified on every
major make of PC as well. Most dip shots don't need a real computer for
surfing the interwebs. google chrome does fine for most stuff out there.
Virtualization and web platforms like vision and AWS give low powered devices
infinite hardware and software capabilities. Where does a desktop even fit in
this world any more, besides the IT office or possibly the accounting offices.
I had an apple rep to tell me to drop Open Directory in favor of Active
Directory. I am not sure they even care about enterprise customers any more
and just want to sell stupid IOS devices they can brick whenever they want you
to buy a new one and release an update to kill it. Who would ever want to try
and manage mac OS with Active Directory, that is really dumb. I might as well
get Windows OS or google chrome OS and manage it with native tools for the OS.

~~~
darreld
I almost see what you see. In our large enterprise Android is not really even
a player. Macs do kind of suck especially for some of our multifactor security
requirements(CAC/PIV cards). Windows rules the desktop and iOS is the
preferred mobile platform.

------
hartator
They will probably be updated at the coming WWDC in june alongside the macbook
and macbook pro.

------
danhon
There's an argument to be made for Apple selling a go-to workstation for
making VR content. They might not care about consumer VR (for now), but in
terms of their history, it feels a bit weird for them not to support the
nascent VR content field.

~~~
joeld42
What history? Apple was never very big in the 3D content creation biz. Their
3D support has always lagged a few years behind windows.

------
qihqi
Basically saying that Apple's release cycle is slower for desktop and laptops
than the PC counterparts.

Nothing really new here. Because there are several PC makers. Even if all of
them releases new hardware in the same rate as Apple (say 2 year generation),
having 3 of them can easily interscale release dates and make it look like PCs
are releasing new stuff much faster.

~~~
derefr
I think, also, that Apple is serving an entirely different _market_ with the
Mac Pro than the PC makers are (mostly) serving on the high end.

PC makers can get a continuous incremental revenue stream from gamers and
independent professionals. But most Mac Pros are likely sold to companies
(even if just tiny one-man companies) that refresh them on a set schedule
rather than whenever a shiny new thing comes out.

------
edanuff
I've got one of these and love it and I know a few other developers who do
too. The main negatives I've seen are from people who want to stick PC GPU
cards in for gaming. As a developer desktop computer it's a joy to use,
virtually silent and can power multiple 4K displays. It's a shame Apple hasn't
done an update though.

------
outworlder
What about the Thunderbolt display? It is much older and still being offered.
At the same launch price.

------
Animats
But the Mac Pro is round. That's the important thing. Other lame computers are
square. The cool Apple computer is round. That's what's important.

Half the people who buy that thing probably never use more than the browser
and some music/video play apps.

------
eldavido
Apple earned only 6-7billion last quarter selling Macs, in a quarter with
50-60 billion in overall sales. [1]

I think there's a real possibility Apple will stop selling computers. They
already don't care about the "high-end creative" market. OTOH I don't know
what people would use to develop for iOS/Watch, but...you heard it here first.

[1] [http://www.statista.com/statistics/263428/apples-revenue-
fro...](http://www.statista.com/statistics/263428/apples-revenue-from-
macintosh-computers-since-first-quarter-2006/)

~~~
pier25
I find it hard to believe. iOS is not ready for prime time and Apple refuses
to create a Surface like device and merging iOS with OSX.

~~~
eldavido
> not ready for prime time

I'm not sure what counts as "prime time" if 75 million phones sold in one
quarter doesn't?

[http://www.wired.com/2016/01/apple-sold-a-record-number-
of-i...](http://www.wired.com/2016/01/apple-sold-a-record-number-of-iphones-
but-just-barely/)

~~~
pier25
Prime time, as in being your main OS.

