Apple's New Flagship: Wow, That's a Lot of Power!

[aliaze1]

What u guys think of Apple's new flagship? I think its awesome, but honestly that's a lot of power...

check out this link for specs and info:

http://www.apple.com/macpro"

 

[russ_watters]

At $12k for that configuration, I don't really think it is targeted at the consumer market...

 

[aliaze1]

true...but it is still available to any consumer who wants it...perhaps for those moviemakers out there...

 

[Crosson]

At $12k for that configuration, I don't really think it is targeted at the consumer market...

That's what I thought at first, but then I remember how Mac enthusiasts are usually pretty wealthy, and I decided that this will be a commercial success.

 

[graphic7]

For my purposes, the Sun Ultra 40 workstation is more suited. I would consider Apple's spec'd out Mac Pro not to be a bad system, but its still not a UNIX workstation, and Apple is not a UNIX vendor. The Ultra 40 seems to be far more expandable (up to 8 internal disks) and Sun is offering some fairly high-end workstation-class level graphics with it (note workstation-class, not PC game workloads, which are texture intensive rather than programmed IO). On top of that, you get HyperTransport, as its AMD-based.

So, if you're in the market for a decent UNIX workstation, rather than a graphics workstation, you might take a look Sun's Ultra 20 and Ultra 40 AMD64 workstations.

http://www.sun.com/desktop/workstation/ultra40/

 

[BoredNL]

I think it's interesting how mac is using intel processors now..

 

[oldtobor]

For my purposes, the Sun Ultra 40 workstation is more suited. I would consider Apple's spec'd out Mac Pro not to be a bad system, but its still not a UNIX workstation, and Apple is not a UNIX vendor. The Ultra 40 seems to be far more expandable (up to 8 internal disks) and Sun is offering some fairly high-end workstation-class level graphics with it (note workstation-class, not PC game workloads, which are texture intensive rather than programmed IO). On top of that, you get HyperTransport, as its AMD-based.

So, if you're in the market for a decent UNIX workstation, rather than a graphics workstation, you might take a look Sun's Ultra 20 and Ultra 40 AMD64 workstations.

http://www.sun.com/desktop/workstation/ultra40/

Does that MAC offer the newest Microsoft DirectX3D, the one the came out just a month ago or so ? the one that has I think only one graphics card available and can only be powered by MS Vista ultimate ?

Also, I imagine that even the highest level unix workstation can't compete against the very latest MS Vista, DirectX3D, graphic card combination.

I have the impression that the MS solution with vista, 3D etc. is the best available, but I may be wrong, anyone know how it should compare to unix workstations and the top line MAC, graphics wise ?

 

[MeJennifer]

I would consider Apple's spec'd out Mac Pro not to be a bad system, but its still not a UNIX workstation, and Apple is not a UNIX vendor. The Ultra 40 seems to be far more expandable (up to 8 internal disks) and Sun is offering some fairly high-end workstation-class level graphics with it (note workstation-class, not PC game workloads, which are texture intensive rather than programmed IO). On top of that, you get HyperTransport, as its AMD-based.

There is no way that two AMD 2.6GHz Opteron cores can even get close to the processing power of eight Intel 3.0GHz Xeon cores.

Both the Sun and the Apple support 4 PCI express slots for graphics so I fail to see how the Apple is any worse than the Sun in that respect.

What is the issue that the Sun supports 8 instead of 4 internal disks for the Apple? That does not mean you cannot connect more disks to the Apple. If you need more just throw in a fibre channel card.

The only place where the Sun is ahead is maximum internal memory, 32GB instead of 16GB for the Apple.

I would not hesitate for a moment to recommend this Apple over the Sun for high end professional graphics or audio applications.

 

[oldtobor]

But the very latest MS Vista, DirectX3D, graphic card combination is still the best and top of the line right ?

I know that they have just come out only very recently but according to the theory it seems that that should be much better than anything else on the market, but if I am wrong, correct me.

 

[graphic7]

There is no way that two AMD 2.6GHz Opteron cores can even get close to the processing power of eight Intel 3.0GHz Xeon cores.

Both the Sun and the Apple support 4 PCI express slots for graphics so I fail to see how the Apple is any worse than the Sun in that respect.

What is the issue that the Sun supports 8 instead of 4 internal disks for the Apple? That does not mean you cannot connect more disks to the Apple. If you need more just throw in a fibre channel card.

The only place where the Sun is ahead is maximum internal memory, 32GB instead of 16GB for the Apple.

I would not hesitate for a moment to recommend this Apple over the Sun for high end professional graphics or audio applications.

I never said I would recommend the Sun Ultra 40 for graphics or audio work. Solaris certainly isn't the best environment for that kind of workload (mostly because of the limited amount of audio and video editing tools available). What I would recommend the Sun for is a UNIX workstation that requires high IO capabilities, and with AMD you get HyperTransport.

Do you know if the TLB on the Intel Xeons has the same limitations the AMD one has re: large page sizes? (not only the various page sizes supported, but the number of pages that can be large pages) This could be one area Intel has more going for it.

I'm also highly skeptical of OS X's only recently developed multi-threading capabilities, and thus, its ability to utilize those 8 cores in a meaningful way.

 

[AlephZero]

I would not hesitate for a moment to recommend this Apple over the Sun for high end professional graphics or audio applications.

Except for one thing: the software industry hasn't caught up with Intel Macs yet. For audio applications, the Rosetta emulator just isn't powerful enough.

From what I see on other forums, the audio guys who rushed off and bought Intel macs on day one are now mostly running Windows on them, while they wait for audio software developers to sort out the bugs in Apple's software conversion toolkit. The smarter ones are beginning to work out there's a better way of running Windows than buying a proprietary non-Windows machine from a single source supplier, and then buying another OS so you can do some real work.

Of course MS has just levelled the playing field by bringing out its own set of compatibility problems, called Vista.

 

[MeJennifer]

Except for one thing: the software industry hasn't caught up with Intel Macs yet. For audio applications, the Rosetta emulator just isn't powerful enough.

Good point!

 

[Stevedye56]

Even though Macs have come down considerably in price over the past few years, they are still a bit overpriced in my opinion. I think what killed them was not going 3rd party. If they went 3rd party I think they may have come closer in competition with Microsoft.

 

[Stevedye56]

There is no way that two AMD 2.6GHz Opteron cores can even get close to the processing power of eight Intel 3.0GHz Xeon cores.

Both the Sun and the Apple support 4 PCI express slots for graphics so I fail to see how the Apple is any worse than the Sun in that respect.

What is the issue that the Sun supports 8 instead of 4 internal disks for the Apple? That does not mean you cannot connect more disks to the Apple. If you need more just throw in a fibre channel card.

The only place where the Sun is ahead is maximum internal memory, 32GB instead of 16GB for the Apple.

I would not hesitate for a moment to recommend this Apple over the Sun for high end professional graphics or audio applications.

Most computer boards support a max of 16gb now though. It seems a little overkill to have a support of 32Gb unless it is a server board. My 4 slot DIMM board supports 16. Where as some server boards support 16gb with 8DIMM.

 

[FulhamFan3]

My main problem with Apple is that it doesn't offer anything in between. It's either entry-level iMacs or high performance MacPro. I just want something like an iMac where it's not impossible to swap out the hard drive or upgrade the ram without madd haxx0r5 skiilz!

 

[Stevedye56]

My main problem with Apple is that it doesn't offer anything in between. It's either entry-level iMacs or high performance MacPro. I just want something like an iMac where it's not impossible to swap out the hard drive or upgrade the ram without madd haxx0r5 skiilz!

It isn't impossible, but you do have a point. Changing parts in Macs are significantly more difficult than in a P.C. I also agree with you on the fact that there is not really a mid range mac. The Mac Mini is just too slow and isn't very good compared to the others. The best bet is the iMac but they take up more room because they are widescreen. BUT they do not have the tower like most P.C.'s. Although, I do wish all of their computers were in a tower form just becasue it is infinately easier to swap out parts.

 

[-Job-]

As a comparison i just purchased a server with two 2.66Ghz quad core CPUs with a 1333Ghz FSB, 8Gb FB RAM and a 15 RPM 150Gb RAID 1 drive configuration and it's considerably less than half of the $12,000 for the Mac Pro. (minimal graphics card though)

 

[Stevedye56]

-Job- was the server for your business or yourself? I was thinking about building a server for myself. Did you custom build it or did you buy it pre-assembled? If it was custom, how does it compare to building a desktop? Thanks in advance!

-Steve

 

[-Job-]

For myself and it's pre-assembled. But i imagine building a tower server is the same as building a desktop. The difference is that servers are usually very expandable (8+ hard drives, 16-32 Gb RAM, multiple CPUs, etc), so they have large motherboards, power supplies, the occasional RAID controller, good multiple NICs, and basic video cards and cd drive, no floppy, no monitor, no keyboard/mouse.

Of course, servers can get as large as you them to be, up to 30+ CPUs and Terabytes of RAM. I wanted to get a server rack and server blades instead of a tower server, but the rack has to be in a properly cooled room such as a data center.

 

[Stevedye56]

Allright cool. Did you get SCSI HDD's or SATAs? I've looked into building one for a while and wasn't sure if it was worth the undertaking. I was thinking about getting a rackmount server, which might be stupid considering it would just be for a house, althought I would only have 1 rack not a full rack. One final question; did you use Microsoft or Linux or some other OS for your server? I'm sorry to flood you with these questions.

-Steve

 

[MeJennifer]

As a comparison i just purchased a server with two 2.66Ghz quad core CPUs with a 1333Ghz FSB, 8Gb FB RAM and a 15 RPM 150Gb RAID 1 drive configuration and it's considerably less than half of the $12,000 for the Mac Pro. (minimal graphics card though)

Non Xeons? If so, which motherboard?

 

[-Job-]

They are Xeon CPUs, X5355s.

 

[MeJennifer]

They are Xeon CPUs, X5355s.

I thought so, I am waiting for motherboards that can handle dual Quad Core 2's. Much faster inter-processor communications.

 

[-Job-]

I decided to not compromise on the remaining components this time. I'm excited about the front-side bus, fully buffered dimms, NICs and the RAID configuration. Hopefully no bottleneck and considerably faster than my previous "server".

 

[Stevedye56]

I'm getting more and more impatient waiting for the SLI mATX boards...

 

[-Job-]

Allright cool. Did you get SCSI HDD's or SATAs? I've looked into building one for a while and wasn't sure if it was worth the undertaking. I was thinking about getting a rack mount server, which might be stupid considering it would just be for a house, although I would only have 1 rack not a full rack. One final question; did you use Microsoft or Linux or some other OS for your server? I'm sorry to flood you with these questions.

-Steve

They're Serial Attached SCSI. I'm going to use the server for virtualization (with VMWare under Win 2003 x64). Initially it'll host a Microsoft web server and a LAMP server running Debian.

 

[graphic7]

As a comparison i just purchased a server with two 2.66Ghz quad core CPUs with a 1333Ghz FSB, 8Gb FB RAM and a 15 RPM 150Gb RAID 1 drive configuration and it's considerably less than half of the $12,000 for the Mac Pro. (minimal graphics card though)

ECC memory, I presume?

 

[-Job-]

ECC memory, I presume?

That's right.

 

[graphic7]

That's right.

Excellent. You'd be surprised how many users underestimate the advantages of ECC memory, especially in "server-grade" hardware just to save a few bucks. Not having ECC memory practically kills the usefulness of the ECC caches modern x86 processors may have (I don't know, given I'm not an x86 user). Given the high-speed buses in peecees, nowadays, its important to have ECC (or at least parity-checks) at each point in the data path -- from the memory, to the external cache, to the data/instruction cache, etc, as bits will occasionally flip on such buses.

For example, my Sun Ultra 2 from 1997 (2x300MHz UltraSPARC-II procs /w 2MB of L2 cache per proc, 1.5GB of memory, and 2x36GB internal disks) has ECC memory, but parity-checked caches only. Occasionally, Solaris will panic because it gets a parity mismatch when data from memory hits the cache. This is because bit(s) have flipped on the bus, and at the risk of getting bad data, Solaris chooses to panic, which is reasonable, considering most environments would rather have downtime than bad data. (Compare this to x86 processors at the time which didn't even have parity-checked caches -- of course, the buses on those systems were much slower than the UPA interconnect in the Ultra 2, which was capable of achieving roughly 2GB/s in 1996)

 

[-Job-]

I did take a look at some Sun servers since you're always raving about them, but they were fairly expensive and I'm not familiar with a Sparc architecture, and i didn't want to be surprised. I heard that Solaris 10 supports virtualization out of the box though.

 

[graphic7]

I did take a look at some Sun servers since you're always raving about them, but they were fairly expensive and I'm not familiar with a Sparc architecture, and i didn't want to be surprised. I heard that Solaris 10 supports virtualization out of the box though.

You can buy used hardware from 7-10 years ago off eBay relatively cheaply, nowadays. Last year, I purchased a Sun E4500 /w 8x400MHz UltraSPARC-II procs (8MB of cache/proc for a total of 64MB of cache) and 8GB of memory for $600, along with a Sun StorEdge A5200 (22x18GB 10,000RPM 1Gb/s fibre-channel disks) /w 4x onboard fibre-channel interfaces for an additional $500. Nowadays, you can get a workstation, like a Sun Blade 1000 (2x750MHz UltraSPARC-IIIs) or an Ultra 80 (4x450MHz UltraSPARC-IIs) for pennies. (Here's a few pics -- http://www.flickr.com/photos/85894987@N00/sets/)

And yes, Solaris supports software virtualization out of the box. These are called 'zones' (or 'containers' if you're a marketer) and effectively use the same kernel throughout the system, but offer enough privilege separation between each zone so a user in one zone can't 'peek in' the other zone. This gives zones a high level of performance. Couple this with Solaris's resource management capabilities, like the Fair Share Scheduler, processor sets, and projects, and you can do massive consolidation.

Edit: The E4500 is expandable to 14 procs and 14GB of memory.

 

[-Job-]

Sadly, i need to run at least one Windows server environment for .NET development (Mono is not there yet).
This E4500 is $1,700 without CPUs, RAM and disks. Yours must've been a rare deal.
http://cgi.ebay.com/Sun-Microsystems-E4500-Base-Machine_W0QQitemZ3056921379QQihZ011QQcategoryZ51238QQrdZ1QQssPageNameZWD1VQQcmdZViewItem

 

[graphic7]

Sadly, i need to run at least one Windows server environment for .NET development (Mono is not there yet).
This E4500 is $1,700 without CPUs, RAM and disks. Yours must've been a rare deal.
http://cgi.ebay.com/Sun-Microsystems-E4500-Base-Machine_W0QQitemZ3056921379QQihZ011QQcategoryZ51238QQrdZ1QQssPageNameZWD1VQQcmdZViewItem

http://cgi.ebay.com/Sun-Enterprise-4500-w-8x400Mhz-CPU-8-GB-RAM_W0QQitemZ170118128982QQihZ007QQcategoryZ51238QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

You must not do a lot of eBaying.

You won't find one with internal disks, as E4500s are meant to be used with external storage, like my StorEdge A5200. Each IO board supports up to 2 onboard GBICs.

(There are disk boards that you can buy, but these are sleazy, and require the use of one CPU/IO board slot)

Edit: E4500s also have dynamic reconfiguration abilities. You can replace individual CPUs and DIMMs while the system is online.

 

[-Job-]

What do you use yours for? How's performance? What Solaris version are you running? That's cheap enough that I'm considering buying it just because.

 

[graphic7]

What do you use yours for? How's performance? What Solaris version are you running? That's cheap enough that I'm considering buying it just because.

I'm currently using mine as a Sun Ray server (Sun Rays are thin clients sold by Sun which are solid-state devices that have no moving parts -- not even a fan) and an Oracle development server (most of the work I do on the side involves DBA and PL/SQL development). It also serves as my build system for OpenSolaris ON sources (the consolidation of OpenSolaris that contains the kernel, drivers, and the bulk of the userland), as I'm currently improving support for my Tadpole SPARCbook 6500, which requires that I have a build environment that's capable of building ON in a realistic amount of time.

In terms of performance, a single UltraSPARC-II processor will be blown away by any modern x86 processor; however, given a sufficiently multi-threaded workload, my E4500 would compare to any modern x86 processor. I can do an MPlayer build in roughly 2 minutes, as this is important, given I'm also an MPlayer developer (you'll see my name in the AUTHORS and MAINTAINERS files in the MPlayer source tree, because I maintain the MPlayer Solaris and AIX ports). A modern x86 system compiles MPlayer in anywhere from 3-5 minutes.

I'm currently running Solaris Nevada 64a (this is an Alpha release of Solaris 11).

I would hold off on purchasing an E4500 and A5200, unless you're in an area where power is sufficiently cheap. Given I live in Tennessee, which has some of the cheapest power in the entire country, the E4500 and A5200 only add $50 to my power bill/month. You'll also need to worry about cooling, which is very important, especially if you live in a hot and humid region.

If you're still interested in purchasing a SPARC system, I would recommend an Ultra 80 or Blade 1000. These systems can both be purchased for $200-$500 off eBay in loaded configurations. For example, an Ultra 80 /w 4x450MHz UltraSPARC-II procs (4MB cache /proc), 4GB of memory, and at least 2x36.6GB disks or 2x73GB disks should be in this price range.

 

[-Job-]

I'll settle for a Solaris VM to host J2EE apps under Websphere. My current "server" is overheating as it is.

 

[graphic7]

I'll settle for a Solaris VM to host J2EE apps under Websphere. My current "server" is overheating as it is.

You shouldn't have any problem running Solaris 10 or Nevada in VMware; however, I can't guarantee what level of performance you'll receive. As for your current server overheating, I'd make sure you have your fans placed properly throughout the chassis. I have a peecee that tends to run anywhere between 50-60C, but my E4500 rarely gets above 40C (anything about 50C on an E4500 is considered dangerous). This is because the E4500 has its fans placed properly, but its also placed properly in the room, so that air can be sucked in from the right, blown over the CPU heatsinks and memory DIMMs, and then blown out the left side of the chassis.

 

[FulhamFan3]

As a comparison i just purchased a server with two 2.66Ghz quad core CPUs with a 1333Ghz FSB, 8Gb FB RAM and a 15 RPM 150Gb RAID 1 drive configuration and it's considerably less than half of the $12,000 for the Mac Pro. (minimal graphics card though)

Where are you getting that price from? I just went to the apple website and put the same specs as you and it comes up with $5,700.

 

[-Job-]

Someone else in the thread mentioned $12,000. I guess i just took their word for it.

 

[-Job-]

You shouldn't have any problem running Solaris 10 or Nevada in VMware; however, I can't guarantee what level of performance you'll receive. As for your current server overheating, I'd make sure you have your fans placed properly throughout the chassis. I have a peecee that tends to run anywhere between 50-60C, but my E4500 rarely gets above 40C (anything about 50C on an E4500 is considered dangerous). This is because the E4500 has its fans placed properly, but its also placed properly in the room, so that air can be sucked in from the right, blown over the CPU heatsinks and memory DIMMs, and then blown out the left side of the chassis.

I'm having some issues configuring the shorewall firewall in my Solaris installation. I think the Solaris 10 version i installed, which i got a while back, is a desktop version. I don't see the point of having Solaris as anything else other than a server to be honest.

 

[aliaze1]

For my purposes, the Sun Ultra 40 workstation is more suited. I would consider Apple's spec'd out Mac Pro not to be a bad system, but its still not a UNIX workstation, and Apple is not a UNIX vendor. The Ultra 40 seems to be far more expandable (up to 8 internal disks) and Sun is offering some fairly high-end workstation-class level graphics with it (note workstation-class, not PC game workloads, which are texture intensive rather than programmed IO). On top of that, you get HyperTransport, as its AMD-based.

So, if you're in the market for a decent UNIX workstation, rather than a graphics workstation, you might take a look Sun's Ultra 20 and Ultra 40 AMD64 workstations.

http://www.sun.com/desktop/workstation/ultra40/

Mac OS X is UNIX based, so perhaps a knowledgeable person could tweak the MAC Pro to run UNIX?

 

[Aquafire]

Mac OS X is UNIX based, so perhaps a knowledgeable person could tweak the MAC Pro to run UNIX?

Dead easy.

Aquafire.

 

[las3rjock]

Dead easy.

Agreed, especially since the Open Group has already certified Mac OS X Version 10.5 ("Leopard") as meeting the UNIX 03 standard. The other UNIX 03 certified operating systems are Solaris 10, HP-UX 11i V3, and AIX 5L.

 

[Aquafire]

Agreed, especially since the Open Group has already certified Mac OS X Version 10.5 ("Leopard") as meeting the UNIX 03 standard. The other UNIX 03 certified operating systems are Solaris 10, HP-UX 11i V3, and AIX 5L.

Speaking of which...

For a while there, Sun was offering free copies of its Solaris 10 system.

This link might still work...

http://www.sun.com/software/solaris/solaris-express/get.jsp

I installed it onto an older x86 machine of mine...

Not bad...considering..

( who said there's no such thing as a free lunch ? )

Aquafire

 

[aliaze1]

There is no way that two AMD 2.6GHz Opteron cores can even get close to the processing power of eight Intel 3.0GHz Xeon cores.

lol!