The first Mac we bought at work was the Mac II. We got it with the 16 bit color card, 2MB RAM, a 40MB hard drive, and a 12" CRT monitor. It was $7999.95. The PCs we were buying at that time were approximately the same power for about $1150.

That's because when you edit on a Mac you are a true professional, and true professionals can afford to pay such prices > : 0

Hah! And i was always taught that "professional" was all about attitude towards the job, not money.

What that article didnt't say that this article does is interesting news for FCP users who have been feeling abandoned (emphasis added by me).

At a special event held today in San Francisco, Apple reiterated that the Mac Pro will be accompanied by a "new generation" version of Final Cut Pro and said filmmaker Dean Devlin has been a beta user of the software Devlin offered this endorsement: "The Mac Pro makes real-time 4K video editing a reality. It's more powerful than I ever imagined, and it will change the way I make movies."

Mike

>>>Dean Devlin has been a beta user of the software Devlin offered this endorsement: "The Mac Pro makes real-time 4K video editing a reality. It's more powerful than I ever imagined, and it will change the way I make movies.<<<

There are at least 3 blatant lies in that statement, probably more, but I can't count accurately, I'm too stunned by the level of bull$hit contained in just a couple of lines of text, it's almost as if papa Steve had been resurrected to come up with this.

Macs are for people who don't like computers. Fortunately most of us love them.

This is a ridiculous piece of junk. you have one disk, an SSD, which you probably should not use for video stuff since the tear and wear on the disk would probably shorten its life span significantly. The tube is basically non-upgradeable, so video cards, more disks etc. Fugheddaboutit. We all love that we have to have ALL of our disks externally right?

Apple has officially abandoned the professional segment except for the religious nuts who'll go Apple no matter what.

> Posted by: GeeBax "Something that would blow the Mac out of the water."

Not likely since the new Mac Pro uses technology that is not available on PC motherboards yet. That's the advantage of designing your own hardware. The SSD uses PCIe-based flash storage instead of SATA. The motherboard has 4 lanes for memory bandwidth instead of 2, the dual GPU's have up to 528GB/s of memory bandwidth. WiFi is 802.11ac instead on 802.11n. PC's don't even have Thunderbolt 1 yet and the Mac Pro has Thunderbolt 2 connections for external storage. PC's will catch up but the Mac Pro is using the latest technology that Intel has to offer right now and it's integrated by the engineers who built it and tested it so there's no confusion about which parts are causing things not to work like when you build your own PC. That's what I hate the most about building my own PC... the specs look great on paper but the parts don't always work well together. :(

> Posted by: Kimberly " That's because when you edit on a Mac you are a true professional, and true professionals can afford to pay such prices"

Actually that's not true about price. I priced the old Mac Pro 12 core against both HP and BOXX and they were both at least $1,000 more expensive for the exact same parts at the time it first came out. So the Mac Pro was cheaper than competitive PC's. Sure you could build one cheaper, but I'm comparing what the major professional retailers are offering and Apple was cheaper by 20%.

The new Mac Pro's base model has two AMD FirePro D300's which are the same as the FirePro W7000 cards retailing at $649 USD on Amazon.com. Apple is providing essentially two of these or approximately $1,300 in GPU value in the baseline Mac Pro that starts at $2999. So subtract the $1,300 and the rest of the computer is only $1,699! That's not a lot of money for what you get. I just spent $1,800 to upgrade my PC and I didn't buy a new graphics card so that was just motherboard, memory, cpu, etc. I could have gotten a new Mac Pro cheaper!!! :(

> Posted by: Terje "This is a ridiculous piece of junk. you have one disk, an SSD, which you probably should not use for video stuff since the tear and wear on the disk would probably shorten its life span significantly. The tube is basically non-upgradeable, so video cards, more disks etc. Fugheddaboutit. We all love that we have to have ALL of our disks externally right?"

My current PC has only one 256GB SSD drive and it's not a piece of junk. I have 5 disk JBOD and a 9TB RAID 5 connected via eSATA for my video work. The Thunderbolt 2 connections on the Mac Pro are 10x faster!!! (not twice. not three times, but 10 times faster!!!) What does it matter if I have 2 or three disks inside my computer when the majority of disks are outside of it anyway? External storage is the only way to keep up with the growing demands of a tapeless workflow. I have a lot of external storage and the Mac Pro has more bandwidth to handle it better than any PC can right now. I agree the Mac Pro is not expandable but I've always found it hard to upgrade one part of the system without having to upgrade all of the others to not cause a bottleneck so it's not as bad as it sounds.

WOW!

I can't believe that none of you can appreciate the incredible power that Apple has packed into this little tube and how competitive the price is. To prove the point that I made earlier is still true, I just configured a new BOXX workstation as closely to the new Mac Pro as I could get it and here's what it looks like:

The BOXX 4925 GPU Extreme with Xeon E5 (3.7Ghz) CPU (4 cores), 16GB DDR3-1600, 256Gb SSD SATA, Dual AMD FirePro W7000 GPU's, MS Windows 7 Pro and it cost: $6096

The Mac Pro has Intel Xeon E5 (3.7GHz) CPU (4 core), 12GB DDR3-1866, 256GB PCIe-based flash storage, Dual AMD FirePro D300 GPU's, OS X Mavericks, and it cost: $2,999

So how can anyone say that Apple is expensive or not worth the money? That's 1/2 the price of the competition. Most people agree that the AMD FirePro D300 in the base model is equivalent to the W7000 but even if you used the cheaper W5000, the BOXX is still $5373 compared to $2999.

You have to stop comparing Mac's to the PC you can build cheaply yourself because it's not the same thing. I can build a PC from a $50 motherboard or a $500 motherboard and they are NOT the same thing. I can use a $200 CPU or a $1,000 CPU, they are not the same. ECC memory is not like regular memory. PCIe-based flash storage is not like SATA based flash storage. A $150 GeForce card is not like an $800 Quadro. You can always select cheaper parts. Like I said, I just spent $1,800 up upgrade my PC not counting a graphics card and I could have gotten a Mac Pro for less had I waited (more with the GPU's but I don't have dual GPU's anyway but you get the point).

I have always found that on the high end, Mac's are very competitively priced when compared with major professional suppliers like HP and BOXX. I know that none of you would pay for a BOXX or HP Workstation either but this is what post houses would be buying if they weren't buying a Mac Pro so Apple is very competitive in the professional market.

I guess I'm the only one here who likes the new Mac Pro. If I didn't just sink $1,800 into refurbishing my current PC I'd consider getting one this year but I'm probably going to wait until next year. (...although it is very, very tempting) ;-)

~jr

Do you work for Apple?

Whatever the comparison, I am sick of Apple software trying to tell me I don't need to know about the inner workings of my computer and treating me like a baby. I used to design and build computer systems for a living, I know how they work and don't need to be 'handled' by some person designing software who thinks they have to dumb down to deal with me.

I repeat what I said earlier, Apple is for people who don't like computers.

The only Apple product I own is an iPad, and it has some of the most appalling software I have ever seen.

@JohnnyRoy

I agree with most everything on the value of the Mac Pro, but your first paragraph is not quite true. Pretty much everything is possible except perhaps Thunderbolt ports. There are a few Thunderbolt motherboards and Asus has announced a Thunderbolt 2.0 MB, but It is still rare which seems strange considering that it's an Intel technology.

Regardless, all the rest can be done easily. OCZ has been making PCIe hard drives for a few years, Sandy Bridge-E and Ivy Bridge-E have 4 lane memory (for a few years now). Last I checked most high end GPU cards had around 280GB/s memory, and does match the memory bandwidth on the Mac Pro (you incorrectly said 528GB/s)

I agree that the price for that amount of computing power is really good. I doubt one could build an equally performing PC for much cheaper. The bad thing they seem to have done is "iMac" the Mac Pro. In other words virtualy eliminate any upgrades later down the road. If nVidia or ATI comes out with faster GPUs next year, I'll bet the Mac Pro can't be upgraded. One would just have to buy an all new system (probably).

Interestingly I sent a suggestion to Xi3 Corporation after the Mac Pro was first revealed that they should build one to match. Basically Apple took their design ideas and souped it up to a high class work station. Their sales team commented back stupidly that the X7 already matched (which is really only like half of the Mac Pro). Maybe they'll get a clue one day.

Also, I wouldn't really compare to BOXX. Those guys basically double the price of a hand built PC. They offer pretty good support and well tested systems, but it's not cheap and they are much smaller than Dell, HP and Apple so economy of scale doesn't come into play. In fact I'm not sure Dell and HP have much economy of scale at the very high end.

I would like to apologize to everyone on the Forum for my snarky comment. I meant it in jest, but it was unprofessional and I always strive to behave in a professional manner.

A Mac is a tool, just like a PC is a tool. I don't much care which tool a person uses as long as it gets the job done. Buy what you can afford and use what gets the job done best for you.

and anyone fervently arguing the case that one is superior to the other is also a tool.

what ever gets the job done is my preferred computer...

Thanks for your detailed spec analysis, JohnnyRoy!

That's very informative on why the unit price is higher... and maybe a bit surprise for some, who may 'not prepared yet to hear' a desktop in such a high-price.

Agree, everything is just a tool... even I'm pretty sure you can still do Vegas via bootcamp in it...

Set

(*I didn't meant to led this topic into Mac-hating. Let's keep this topic as for our general knowledge only.)

JohnnyRoy, with a new computer planned in the next few months, you've almost got me convinced. But I would have to invest significantly in external storage, a new external sound card (XLR etc.), and probably other bits and bobs such as hubs to make it work with my other peripherals. It's lacking lots of things I use, such as >4 USB sockets and >1 monitor socket.

The key question for me, as a complete Mac ignoramus, is how much of its power and stability would likely be compromised by running whatever has to be run on it to make Vegas work?

>>>I have always found that on the high end, Mac's are very competitively priced<<<

There is no high end with macs, only low and mid end priced as the high end.

The case looks like a trash can. Even Apple is telling you that you are getting a $3000+ polished turd with crippled ATI GPUs ( like they weren't already crippled enough by ATI's crappy drivers ).

Seen above:
"> Posted by: GeeBax "Something that would blow the Mac out of the water."

Well, well, well - lets get real: I have just finished building a PC for mortals - and actually planned using a PCIe based "disk" for it - but as the newest SSDs from Samsung and OCZ actually often are faster when using the Intel integrated disk interface, I ended up having 2 such SSDs (256 and 512 GB) for system and for open projects connected to the 2 Intel integrated disk interfaces available - and the other HDDs connected to the "normal" disk interfaces.
External discs connected via a USB 3 connection or a cheap external PCI card will be far fast enough for editing.

More seen above:
"The motherboard has 4 lanes for memory bandwidth instead of 2"
Well, well, well - lets get real again: if you buy a high spec'ed mobo you will get 4 lanes as well. That what I have in my newly built machine - and several other motherboards available-for-mortals do have 4 lanes too.

... and so on.

Having used a Mac Pro 2 x Xeons Quad for 5 years I was very, very happy with it.
I bought it then because it was a little cheaper than a comparable home built machine.
But now it was time again to get a newer and faster machine - and of course I considered and waited for the upcoming Mac Pro - but with comparable specifications it would have cost me more than twice as much as my new home built...
... and with my new PC I finally again am master of my BIOS - and I have a USB that works (USB did never work reliably with the Mac Pro - always had to read larger amounts of SD-card media via a laptop and the house net)

> Posted by: GeeBax "Do you work for Apple?"

No. In fact, I work for IBM. I've had an IBM PC for 30 years! I was hired as a PC Guru 30 years ago next February. I've built my last 4 PC workstations myself. I only switched to Mac a little over a year ago after buying an iPad and while setting up my email, all it asked me for was my email address and password and the next thing I knew I was in my email! Why didn't it ask me for my POP3 or SMTP server like Windows does? Because the Apple engineers could infer this from my email address domain so why ask the customer a questions that they probably don't know the answer to, and the program could probably figure out itself? That's when I realized that Apple software was built with a different philosophy that I liked and I later bought an iPhone and then a Mac Mini and finally a MacBook Pro.

> Posted by: GeeBax "Whatever the comparison, I am sick of Apple software trying to tell me I don't need to know about the inner workings of my computer and treating me like a baby."

Actually I am quite the opposite these days. I am sick and tired of being the system administrator for my computer. I just want the darn thing to work and my Mac's just work. I don't have to baby sit them like my PC and it leaves me more time to be creative. If you really want to micro manage your system then you are correct, the Mac is not the computer for you and I respect that. After switching my wife and kids over to Macs they no longer hound me to fix their computers. They just keep working, they are all centrally backed up to my Time Capsule, and I don't have to worry about them anymore and I'm really happy that I switched. I understand that you like to tweak... I'm old and tired of tweaking. ;-) lol

> Posted by: PixelStuff "Regardless, all the rest can be done easily. OCZ has been making PCIe hard drives for a few years, Sandy Bridge-E and Ivy Bridge-E have 4 lane memory (for a few years now). Last I checked most high end GPU cards had around 280GB/s memory, and does match the memory bandwidth on the Mac Pro (you incorrectly said 528GB/s)"

Yea, I've got 4 lanes of memory on my Sandy Bridge motherboard but then Ivy Bridge went back to 2 lanes and Apple is using 4 lanes again with Haswell. I don't know if all Haswell motherboards will have 4 lanes but I know Ivy Bridge doesn't. I didn't realize that there were motherboards available with PCIe hard drives. I haven't seen any. The GPU bandwidth I quoted was double because there are 2 GPU's in the Mac Pro and software like FCP will be designed to take advantage of both of them. That's another great thing about Macs. The hardware is limited so the software can be finely tuned to work extremely well. Anyone who has tried to get the GPU working with Vegas Pro can surely appreciate that Mac users have none of those problems with FCP. That's gotta be worth something. And it's not about FCP. If Vegas Pro was ported to the Mac, it would be just as stable using the GPU becasue Sony would only have to worry about getting one GPU to work, not 100's. Limited hardware choices means a limited number of things to go wrong.

> Reply by: Kimberly "I would like to apologize to everyone on the Forum for my snarky comment. I meant it in jest, but it was unprofessional and I always strive to behave in a professional manner. "

I don't think there is any need to apologize. PC users love to bash Mac's. Mac users love to bash PC's. I used a PC for 30 years before switching to Mac. I also thought Apple's hardware was overpriced before I started using it. Then after experiencing it first hand, I realize the quality and decided it was worth it. Your mileage may vary. ;-)

You could have said the same thing about GeForce vs Quadro. We would be having the same discussion. Some people don't believe that Quadro is worth it and it is listed as the "professionals" choice. (hint: I bought a Quadro too)

> Reply by: Kimberly "A Mac is a tool, just like a PC is a tool. I don't much care which tool a person uses as long as it gets the job done. Buy what you can afford and use what gets the job done best for you."

And that is the bottom line isn't it. I don't see why PC users can't appreciate the brilliance in taking a flat motherboard that we have blow air across for years to keep it cool, and folding it into a triangle and blowing air through the middle which is filled with cooling fins. That blows away my water cooler with it's noisy fans IMHO. They say it's as quiet as my Mac Mini (which I can't even hear my Mac Mini). The design of the Mac Pro is radical and refreshing. I realize it's not upgradable except for the memory and I don't like that part either but you gotta appreciate the power that they packed into that small tower.

> Reply by: Nick Hope "JohnnyRoy, with a new computer planned in the next few months, you've almost got me convinced. But I would have to invest significantly in external storage, a new external sound card (XLR etc.), and probably other bits and bobs such as hubs to make it work with my other peripherals. It's lacking lots of things I use, such as >4 USB sockets and >1 monitor socket."

So why do you use >4 USB sockets? 1 for your keyboard? That's Bluetooth on the Mac so no need. 1 for your mouse? That's Bluetooth too on the Mac so no need. That means you need 2 less USB ports. The 1 monitor socket is for HDMI. Your computer monitors plug into the 6 Thunderbolt ports. Apple has Thunderbolt to DVI connectors ($29) so no need to buy a new display. I use one of these to connect my MacBook Pro to a 24" monitor when I'm in the office. It looks like you can connect two displays plus the HDMI for video preview for 3 displays total. You just need to buy a Thunderbolt hard drive enclosure for your current internal drives and you're all set. I already have an M-Audio Fast Track Pro USB audio device with XLR/Phantom power and those can be picked up cheap. I don't think it's that big a switch.

> Posted by: ritsmer "Well, well, well - lets get real again: if you buy a high spec'ed mobo you will get 4 lanes as well. That what I have in my newly built machine - and several other motherboards available-for-mortals do have 4 lanes too."

Yea, sorry I wasn't trying to say that 4 lanes didn't exist. I have 4 lanes on my motherboard too but I distinctly used the older Sandy Bridge instead of the new Ivy Bridge to get it. I don't know if all Haswell boards will have 4 lanes but Ivy Bridge does not. I was glad that Apple went back to 4 lanes since video editing needs high bandwidth to memory.

The point is, Apple has taken the latest technology that Intel has to offer and placed it into a design that has never been seen before (and I think is brilliant with respect to keeping the whole thing quiet and cool) and it really appeals to me. It is revolutionary, not evolutionary so not everyone will get it at first. If Apple would have made the GPU and SSD upgradable like the memory, it would have been better but they are options when you configure it so maybe someone will figure out how to do it. For me that is the only down side but it's not a deal breaker.

~jr

Wow!

A cylindrical MAC.

I have a more innovative shape for a MAC.

John

Thanks for the replies JR. I remember you were always well on top of PC configuration so I'm taking your enthusiasm for this very seriously.

"So why do you use >4 USB sockets?"

Bluetooth keyboard would be OK but I "need" a mouse that has 2 thumb buttons so I can program one as <ENTER> and the other as <DEL> (would be very hard to wean me off that set up now), so I guess that would have to be USB #1.

Then there are...

#2 Contour Shuttle Pro
#3 printer
#4 scanner
#5 webcam
#6 temp stuff such as external 2.5" drive / USB memory stick

So that's 6, so I'd probably be needing a USB hub unless I just did a lot of plug switching as needed.

Two things really appeal to me about making the switch. One is being able to carry it in hand luggage so I can work on 2 sides of the planet with the same computer. The other is no longer having to guess how my Windows-rendered files behave on Macs. Native rendering of ProRes is pretty appealing too. Can't imagine becoming a full Mac OS X convert though. There are just too many Windows-only programs in my workflow.

Here's a further noob question... Assuming Bootcamp is the current preferred way to run Windows, what drivers are used for all those peripherals and other hardware? Mac or Windows?

>>>placed it into a design that has never been seen before<<<<

You've never seen a cylinder?


>>>>If you really want to micro manage your system<<<<

Who the hell still thinks PCs require more managing than macs. I don't manage anything. There must be some alternate reality where people use some different version of windows.

Here in this universe, I just install programs I want to use and a couple of minutes later I'm using them.

>>>>>One is being able to carry it in hand luggage so I can work on 2 sides of the planet with the same computer.<<<<<

Have you heard of something called a laptop? It even comes with a screen so you don't have to carry that separately ( as you'd have to with a mac ).

They even make laptops which take desktop CPUs and everything is upgradeable. In fact they have been making them for years. To cut a long story short, if you know where to look you can get a laptop that's just as fast as this new mac, dual nVidia or ATI GPUs and the whole deal. And you can install Vegas, 3dSmax, Fusion, Samplitude, softimage, all good things to have and no need for bull$hit like bootcamp.

"Have you heard of something called a laptop?"

Obviously a laptop is an option too. I used my 17" Dell Precision as my main editing computer for the whole of 2010 with a 24" screen alongside it for Vegas video preview, but I prefer working at a pair of big, standalone, monitors with a smaller third above for scopes and Media Manager. Maybe 3 external monitors is even an option on a laptop these days, I don't know. Any tips on "where to look"?

And obviously I'm not going to carry external monitors across the planet on a regular basis, and would have to invest in one or more monitors at my secondary base if I went the Mac Pro route.

"You've never seen a cylinder?"

LOL!
I just love hearing of the incredible leaps and bounds Apple has made over its competitors when coming from the mouth of an Apple fanatic. if nothing else it makes for really great entertainment.

The mac pro is just a machine. There are some pluses and some minuses Personally speaking I think the design although very pretty, makes a real awkward and ineffective base for additions, add ons, and upgrades, and that's what I would look at first with any pro level machine. I think they have done a great disservice to those on the upper pro end who depend on a reliable and universal machine, by turning pro into eye candy I can't fathom the reason behind this. I can't believe people who rely on these machines to make a living would care about how pretty they are vs the universality being given up. Unless of course they don't care about that end of the spectrum anymore and are aiming at the consumer-ish yuppie type.

Sorry, I just don't get it. I can see them doing this on the consumer level machines, but on the pro end? Nah... they must be slowly changing their marketing aim here.