Appleinsider has a rumor of 2GB SSD’s from Apple for the new MacPro

Appleinsider has heard rumors of Apple working on 2 GB SSD’s for the new MacPro with a standard SATA connector.

And while that would be awesome, at least for a boot drive, the cost would be so prohibitively expensive that it would be useless! And the fusion drives scare me as if one drive goes you lose everything (though you should be backing it up anyway). Still the most hopefully thing out of this is that maybe we will be getting a new MacPro soon. I SURE HOP SO!!!

I Am Film Guy on Moving from Mac to HP

I AM FILM GUY has a good article on moving from Mac to HP.

I still worry about articles like this as it seems like they may be payed or getting gear for free (you can never tell), and they never go into the OS differences of moving from Mac to Windows, but you never know. I have been seriously considering the switch because Windows machines are so much newer and CUDA support so much better.

I thought about a Puget Systems custom system though.

Who knows, maybe the next MacPro will change my mind, if it ever comes out.

MacPro no longer available in Europe

As Apple Insider says, the Mac Pro is no longer available in Europe due to recycling regulations.

At this point Apple just needs to announce the next itineration even if it has a while before it comes out, or many people will be moving to windows machines in the near term, and yes the new iMac’s are nice, but they really don’t replace a MacPro!

New MacPro in the spring?

Appleinsider has a report that a French retailer, who has been forced to stop selling MacPro’s in March due to a new EU law, has said that they have word on Apple that new MacPro’s will arrive this spring.

Now that is all second hand, but with the current MacPro being banned in the EU, maybe Apple would try and re-assure it’s retailers, though why not just make an announcement. I guess they need to clear their current stock.

Still, lets hope this is true, and it gets releases at the WWDC. The current MacPro is quite old in the tooth and we need a thunderbolt equipped MacPro with PCI slots and power to spare including graphics power!

MacPro no longer for sale in Europe as of March 1st

Ars Technica has this note, and it isn’t an apple choice, it is a new ruling about safety on fans, but I still find it ominous.

Apple should be pushing out a new update as fast as they can, as they want the line to still exist if they are planning on having it in the future, but maybe their pans have changed. And who knows what Tim Cooke was actually talking about.

StudioDaily on Dells over MacPros

StudioDaily has an article on editors picking Dell Computers over MacPro’s for editing, which may in fact be true (though the article is written by someone working for Dell), as the MacPro has basically stagnated for years now, but I also hate how they never bother upgrading a MacPro with more modern technology for speed tests. Like putting in a PC NVIDIA Geforce 675 GTX with 4GB of RAM. That will make a huge difference in speed, especially with CUDA compliant software like Premiere Pro or Black Magic’s DaVinci Resolve! It may not be a TESLA, but it also doesn’t come with the price, which could set you back well over $6000 for a QUADRO and a TESLA, vs under $500 for a GTX 675 which works with the Mac’s current power supply and can really upgrade your existing MacPro.

Now of course their is still the question of what Apple’s next MacPro will be like and if it will be a worthy and powerful successor to the current MacPro, but we won’t know till it comes out, hopefully at this years WWDC.

FCP.co on new MacPro’s

FCP.Co has 2 articles from 3D designer Peter Zigich on possible, though pretty out there designs for a new MacPro which Tim Cook has promised we will get this year (hopefully at WWDC).

The first is on a modular tower, and the second a smaller design using low powered AMD chips (wouldn’t that require a new OS and apps?).

Interesting ideas, though I doubt either will happen. I am hoping for something really powerful, and better would be the ability to use PC videos cards without Mac supplies firmware as long as you have drivers, and releasing the 2 GB of video ram limit, NVIDIA TESLA support would be great too, as well as many hard drives as you can stuff in there!

Review of NVIDIA Geforce GTX 680m Graphics Card

I have been interested in the new top of the line Graphics Card for the new 2012 iMac, which is an NVIDIA Geforce GTX 680mx, and was wondering how it faired against my Desktop GTX 670. Everyone has been claiming it makes the iMac the most powerful Mac Editing machine out there, but I doubted it, as I have not seen any speed test against equivalent graphics cards. The 680m is actually a 680 slowed down.

I found a EuroGamer review of the GTX 680m, which tells me what I wanted to know about a 680M, but not a 680MX, but I found a review of that at Notebook Check.

Here is some of what they have to say:

Compared to the GeForce GTX 680M, the GTX 680MX features 1536 instead of 1344 CUDA cores and higher memory clocks (720/2500MHz vs 720/1800 MHz)


the graphics performance of the GeForce GTX 680MX should be 15 – 25 percent above the GTX 680M and similar to the Desktop GTX 580.

And specs on the GTX 680mx from NVIDIA’s site.

CUDA Cores – 1536
Core Speed – 720 Mhz
Memory Speed – 2500 Mhz
Texture Fill Rate (Billions per second) – 92.2
Max RAM – 2GB



And as for the GTX 670 from NVIDIA’s site.

CUDA Cores – 1344
Core Speed – 915 Mhz
Memory Speed – 2500 Mhz
Texture Fill Rate (Billions per second) – 102.5
Max RAM – 4GB

So the iMac has more CUDA cores, but it’s speed is not as fast, and it’s memory speed is less than half the speed.

So basically the 680MX it is a really powerful mobile graphics chip, but not as powerful as it’s equivalent Desktop GPU the GTX 670, and is more in line to a last generation GTX 580.

And yes it is not the easiest thing in the world getting a new generation NVIDIA card running in your MacPro, but it is not that hard, but should put your speed above that of the top of the line iMac GPU, and have more processing power, making it still champion, even though it is such dated technology at this point. Have to love expandability though as an old machine can still hold a performance edge, which is something the iMac will never have.

Lets just hope Apple makes a really good new MacPro this year.

2012 iMac faster than Mac Pro with Radeon HD 5870 in DaVinci Resolve and Premiere Pro CS6

Bare Feats has run the tests, and the 2012 iMac 27″ 3.4GHz Core iMac with 32GB of RAM and the GeForce GTX 680MX GPU actually does beat the MacPro in Resolve and Premiere Pro, but that is a MacPro with the Radeon HD 5870 GPU. Not really a fair test unless you have an NVIDIA CUDA card in the MacPro. As the MacPro still beats the iMac in 2 out of 3 CPU tests.

I have a feeling my non Mobile NVIDIA GeForce GTX 670 4096 MB would slaughter the iMac in anything CUDA aware, which would be Premiere Pro, After Effects or DaVinci Resolve.

HD Magazine on the MacPro

HD Magazine has an excellent article on the lack of a new MacPro.

It basically is how I feel. Many in the industry love Macs, but the MacPro is just not as fast as PC’s right now and there are great options from HP and Dell that just have the Speed advantage. Companies are waiting to see what Tim Cook was talking about, but we are not holding our breath, and if Apple does not release a new MacPro that really can compete with high end PC’s, people will start moving to PC’s for their computers, possibly with a Mac laptop for personal stuff.

It really is so sad, but the MacPro’s just don’t make enough as compared to Apple’s consumer products (even though they do make money), so Apple is abandoning the people who kept the company afloat all those years when Apple was doing so badly with everyone else.

The consumerizing of Final Cut Pro is further proof of their changing focus, and I don’t think that they realize the damage they will be doing to themselves in the long run as all professionals move away from Macs.

And that doesn’t even delve into the fact that Windows 8 is such a dud, after Windows 7 being such a good OS.