Generic Mac Pro 2013 chatter.

[LividPanda]

Socket 2011 has 40 PCIe lanes to use, and Ivybridge-E is supposed to have native PCIe 3.0, ergo it will have 40 x 985MB/s of PCIe bandwidth, which is 394GB/s or 3152Gb/s total PCIe bandwidth. Let's say the GPUs are using 16 lanes each total (which is pretty generous tbh), the speeds quoted by Apple for the PCIe SSD use just over 1 lane (so call it 2), and then for the thunderbolt ports you have 6 x 20Gb/s = 120Gb/s = 15GB/s which is barely even worth using a single PCIe 3.0 lane for. All in all, Apple have roughly 35 lanes of PCIe in use, with 5 spare by my reckoning.

As far as I know, all 40 of the lanes on socket 2011 are from the same PCIe bus.

I see what you are saying, didn't know LGA 2011 had a total of 40 lanes. But 40 x 985 megabytes is 39400 megabytes which is 38.47 gigabytes of total bandwidth between all 40 PCI-e lanes.

 

As you said each Thunderbolt 2 port is 20 gigabits which translates to 2.5 gigabytes. Multiply that by 6 for each port equals 15 gigabytes from all the Thunderbolt 2 ports.

 

Assuming each graphics card uses a more reasonable 8 lanes, that is a total of 16 lanes being used by both GPU's. 16 x 985 megabytes equals 15.39 gigabytes. If they are using 16 lanes each I don't think the math would work.

 

If the PCI-e SSD uses a generous 2 lanes; 2 times 985 megabytes equals 1.92 gigabytes.

 

Total: 33085.44 megabytes or 32.31 gigabytes of used bandwidth. Using 34 PCI-e lanes rounding up. Checks out...

 

Thanks, you are a scholar and a gentlemen.

 

Sidenote: LGA 2011 also has 8 PCI-e 2.0 lanes as well. I don't know if these are used or if  they would allow the GPU's to run at x16 somehow.

[Aphexx]

in a land of squares and rectangles it is nice to see a company pushing the boundaries and exploring a new form factor.

upgradability? negligible, a company will purchase this and the accountants will write it off the taxes or apply steep depreciation to them over x years if I remember correctly you don't touch sunk costs by throwing more money at it or upgrading it.

either way a company doesn't view a computer as a consumer does. it is a machine that depreciates over time then you purchase another.

and in the end the longer this thread continues and grows apple wins. the mere fact that people are talking about it is a win for them. love it or hate it you noticed it and are talking about it and thinking about it

they won

[mr moose]

in a land of squares and rectangles it is nice to see a company pushing the boundaries and exploring a new form factor.

upgradability? negligible, a company will purchase this and the accountants will write it off the taxes or apply steep depreciation to them over x years if I remember correctly you don't touch sunk costs by throwing more money at it or upgrading it.

either way a company doesn't view a computer as a consumer does. it is a machine that depreciates over time then you purchase another.

and in the end the longer this thread continues and grows apple wins. the mere fact that people are talking about it is a win for them. love it or hate it you noticed it and are talking about it and thinking about it

they won

 

That's something that I am starting to hear quite frequently. Big companies that are using apples, I hear it on random forums that design companies prefer mac. But the statistics tell a completely different story, only 6% of the world market share is apple so were does this idea come from?  My personal experience here in Australia is when I spend a day in the city going from office to office (once a year trip to get all my s**t sorted as I hate the city) and I have only seen three macs in business use, A small building firm in Mornington had one, a social studies professor at uni had one and Brady Harron (youtube producer) has one.  Shed some light on my world people.

[KaareKanin]

a company will purchase this and the accountants will write it off the taxes or apply steep depreciation to them over x years if I remember correctly you don't touch sunk costs by throwing more money at it or upgrading it.

either way a company doesn't view a computer as a consumer does. it is a machine that depreciates over time then you purchase another.

Finally! Someone explained how it actually is! Thank you good sir!

That's something that I am starting to hear quite frequently. Big companies that are using apples, I hear it on random forums that design companies prefer mac. But the statistics tell a completely different story, only 6% of the world market share is apple so were does this idea come from?  My personal experience here in Australia is when I spend a day in the city going from office to office (once a year trip to get all my s**t sorted as I hate the city) and I have only seen three macs in business use, A small building firm in Mornington had one, a social studies professor at uni had one and Brady Harron (youtube producer) has one.  Shed some light on my world people.

Most people doing real work, financial stuff, inventory and logistics stuff and general office stuff use windows. Mac is more geared towards entertainment creation.

[SMURG]

I see what you are saying, didn't know LGA 2011 had a total of 40 lanes. But 40 x 985 megabytes is 39400 megabytes which is 38.47 gigabytes of total bandwidth between all 40 PCI-e lanes.

 

As you said each Thunderbolt 2 port is 20 gigabits which translates to 2.5 gigabytes. Multiply that by 6 for each port equals 15 gigabytes from all the Thunderbolt 2 ports.

 

Assuming each graphics card uses a more reasonable 8 lanes, that is a total of 16 lanes being used by both GPU's. 16 x 985 megabytes equals 15.39 gigabytes. If they are using 16 lanes each I don't think the math would work.

 

If the PCI-e SSD uses a generous 2 lanes; 2 times 985 megabytes equals 1.92 gigabytes.

 

Total: 33085.44 megabytes or 32.31 gigabytes of used bandwidth. Using 34 PCI-e lanes rounding up. Checks out...

 

Thanks, you are a scholar and a gentlemen.

 

Sidenote: LGA 2011 also has 8 PCI-e 2.0 lanes as well. I don't know if these are used or if  they would allow the GPU's to run at x16 somehow.

Yeah my maths was a bit off with the total PCIe bandwidth (missed a decimal point, divided by 1000 not 1024), but glad to see you got the point of what I was saying XD

I assumed the PCIe 2.0 lanes were just omitted or wasted along with the remaining PCIe 3.0 lanes, since afaik the PCIe 2.0 lanes on LGA 2011 boards come from the X79 chipset not from the CPU itself, and the mac pro is not using X79 so it may not even get them at all (idk if the C206/whatever the xeon chipset is called gets them or not).

[mr moose]

Finally! Someone explained how it actually is! Thank you good sir!

Most people doing real work, financial stuff, inventory and logistics stuff and general office stuff use windows. Mac is more geared towards entertainment creation.

That's another thing I have also heard "macs are better for multi-media/content creation" don't they use the same cross platform programs like adobe, vegas, etc? how are they more geared?

[Migals]

Exactly. Apple have created a market of people that want the brand and looks of a computer over the performance and functionality of it. There isn't exactly a problem with that, its just those people are stupid and being blindly lead and scammed by Apple.

 

Yeah, if they don't know about the tech side of computers then they don't need a $2000 computer. 

There are people in the world that are plenty skilled with computers that do not want to be bothered with "upgrading and replacing parts".  They are involved in things like CAD and post production. People like this tend to have money and would rather drop 2k on a new machine that be bothered with upgrades.  As both a Mac and PC user, I will never understand why this concept is so hard to grasp.

[Hyydrah]

on apples website is says "new-generation Xeon processors, s

showing that it has 2 6 cores

They're probably referring to how many cores it has, not how many CPUs.  :unsure:

 

I'd be a bit impressed if they weren't, though.

[SuperOwnJK]

There are people in the world that are plenty skilled with computers that do not want to be bothered with "upgrading and replacing parts".  They are involved in things like CAD and post production. People like this tend to have money and would rather drop 2k on a new machine that be bothered with upgrades.  As both a Mac and PC user, I will never understand why this concept is so hard to grasp.

My point is that if they are professional, they should need the height of tech, and buying an unupgraddable machine is mental as it is out dated almost the day they get it. 

[Migals]

My point is that if they are professional, they should need the height of tech, and buying an unupgraddable machine is mental as it is out dated almost the day they get it. 

I don't see how it would be out of date the day someone buys it?  I respect your opinion but understand, the world does not revolve around the TINY percentage of people like us that enjoy playing with out computers.  Some people just want to buy a high performance machine that they can do professional work on.  I dont know about you but I am a fairly skilled "techy" and from time to time, I have small problems that can be frustrating.  To make a long story short, If someone needs a performance machine and does not find enjoyment out of building their own.. Why not buy something pre-built? The fact that it is a mac is insignificant.  It just so happens that the kind of person that is going to drop 2000 dollars on a computer today, is most likely not going to be afraid of replacing it next time apple refreshes the line up.  If we were having this conversation a few months ago when the only mac pro was still rocking xeons from the x58 era and radeon 5000 series gpus then I would have to lean twords the DIY side of things, but the new mac pro is quite a capable little machine.  Sometimes, that is all someone wants. :)   

[SuperOwnJK]

I don't see how it would be out of date the day someone buys it?  I respect your opinion but understand, the world does not revolve around the TINY percentage of people like us that enjoy playing with out computers.  Some people just want to buy a high performance machine that they can do professional work on.  I dont know about you but I am a fairly skilled "techy" and from time to time, I have small problems that can be frustrating.  To make a long story short, If someone needs a performance machine and does not find enjoyment out of building their own.. Why not buy something pre-built? The fact that it is a mac is insignificant.  It just so happens that the kind of person that is going to drop 2000 dollars on a computer today, is most likely not going to be afraid of replacing it next time apple refreshes the line up.  If we were having this conversation a few months ago when the only mac pro was still rocking xeons from the x58 era and radeon 5000 series gpus then I would have to lean twords the DIY side of things, but the new mac pro is quite a capable little machine.  Sometimes, that is all someone wants. :)   

I completely agree, the new mac Pro is a very capable machine, at the minute. I understand that most people do not want to build their own PCs, but they should still have the opportunity to upgrade it, or even buy parts and get a computer shop to install the parts; but its the fact that Apple don't give them this option. If you want to upgrade it, you HAVE to go through Apple I presume, or buy external components to upgrade things like the storage. Apple would even make money on external third party hard drive as most people would buy ones with  a Mac Compatible sticker on, that manufactures would have had to pay Apple to have that sticker. 

[KaareKanin]

I suppose one could think of it a little bit like with laptops, people buy them to use them and replace them when they don't cut it anymore.

In most laptops today you can replace ram and storage, but there's a fair share of them where you can't. I'm yet to see someone backing away from a laptop because that particular one was locked down. There are/were even were modular laptops where cpu and graphics can be switched, but I don't see them being very popular either... So Mac Pro, maybe not for the enthusiast, but for the majority of W's users

[SMURG]

I suppose one could think of it a little bit like with laptops, people buy them to use them and replace them when they don't cut it anymore.

In most laptops today you can replace ram and storage, but there's a fair share of them where you can't. I'm yet to see someone backing away from a laptop because that particular one was locked down. There are/were even were modular laptops where cpu and graphics can be switched, but I don't see them being very popular either... So Mac Pro, maybe not for the enthusiast, but for the majority of W's users

With laptops people accept their locked-down nature as part of the things you need to sacrifice to make them that small. People don't back away from laptops for being locked down because A: there aren't really any totally modular or upgradeable laptops available on the market anyway, B: laptop parts are so expensive that it wouldn't make much sense to upgrade one and C: any laptop which was/is upgradeable is going to be bigger and probably heavier than one which is completely soldered.

With desktop machines like the mac pro, people do start to back away from them if they're made intentionally unupgradeable because A: there are fully upgradeable alternatives available, B: desktop parts are cheap enough that upgrading internals makes sense, and C: with a desktop machine size and weight are less of an issue since you shouldn't need to move it around a lot.

Comparing laptops to desktops is like comparing apples to oranges.

[KaareKanin]

With laptops people accept their locked-down nature as part of the things you need to sacrifice to make them that small. People don't back away from laptops for being locked down because A: there aren't really any totally modular or upgradeable laptops available on the market anyway, B: laptop parts are so expensive that it wouldn't make much sense to upgrade one and C: any laptop which was/is upgradeable is going to be bigger and probably heavier than one which is completely soldered.

With desktop machines like the mac pro, people do start to back away from them if they're made intentionally unupgradeable because A: there are fully upgradeable alternatives available, B: desktop parts are cheap enough that upgrading internals makes sense, and C: with a desktop machine size and weight are less of an issue since you shouldn't need to move it around a lot.

Comparing laptops to desktops is like comparing apples to oranges.

I'm not comparing anything, I'm saying you could relate the train of thought from the one to the other. Anyways, a lot of people is happy to reduce their workstation to a docked laptop. A lot of the people who is going for a work station will think in the same ways as with a laptop; get a machine that is good now, replace it when it's needed.

Anyways: A - yes, there at least was not that long ago. B - Not much more than with desktops and C - yes, in some instances this is true.