Apple has updated it’s Mac Mini. For $599 or $799 you either get a dual core i5 or a quad core i, though with only the intel Graphics HD 4000 for graphics. And for $999 you get the server version with 2 hard drives and Mountain Lion Server.
Still a very powerful desktop computer in a very small size, though not for CUDA unless you added a thunderbolt expansion chasis for way too much.
Impressively this can also be built with a Fusion drive for added speed.
Apple today released the 13″ MacBookPro with Retina Display. And unlike it’s 15″ Cousing which sports an NVIDIA Geforce GT 650m and a Intel HD Graphics 4000, the 13 model only has the Intel HD Graphics 4000, which means no CUDA support for Premiere Pro editing, and certainly not as good graphics.
It is still an impressive little machine, but not really a solution for editors.
It starts at $1699 and is shipping today.
I wouldn’t want one, as the 15″ would be much more conducive to editing.
Apple has updated it’s iMac and it is thinner and more powerful, and now sans a CD rom drive.
Most impressive for editing are NVIDIA Mobile processors across the line, so they should all be great for CUDA in Premiere Pro. The low end has a GT 640M with 512MB of RAM, the second has a GT 650M with 512MB, the 3rd has a GTX 660m with 512MB and the high end has a GTX 675 with 1GB of RAM (best for editing right there). Even better the high end is configurable to a Geforce GTX 680MX with 2GB of RAM!
Too bad ll the stock models have i5 processors, but you can upgrade to an i7 that is 3.4Ghz. The high end also has user addable RAM, though the smaller model is soldered, but comes with 8GB to start.
Another exciting upgrade is the Fusion Drive you can get in BTO. It has 128GB of Flash Ram tied to 1 or 3 TB of regular hard drive, so your system can be on the fast Fusion, but you seamlessly get FLASH speeds for your system.
Starting at $1299-$1999 and available in November to December.
You have to configure it, but it really could be a great editing machine, especially with Thunderbolt, though I would prefer a non-mobile video card personally.
Wow, 6 months out and Apple has upgraded the iPad from the new iPad to the iPad with Retina Display (iPad 4). It is basically an iPad 3 with an A6x instead of A5x processor, which is supposedly twice as fast. It has a 720p Facetime camera, and a lightning connector and is the same price as the last model, which is no longer available.
Very cool, and a damn fast update!
Apple has announced the iPad mini started at $329 for 16GB Wifi and up to $659 for 4G Celular with 64 GB. A smaller upgraded iPad 2 (same pixel density display). 7.9 Inch display versus 9.7 for full iPad, but thinner and lighter.
Pretty cool, but overpriced I think. Still bet it will sell very well.
ArsTechnica has an excellent hands on.
So Apple is busy making announcements, but they have a new 13″ MacBook Pro (Sans NVDIA graphics card), a new thinner iMac with a better NVIDIA 660m graphics cards (Hurray CUDA) and improved Mac Mini, the new iPad 4 (or iPad with Retina Display which is faster, with lightning connector for same price after only 6 months) and the overpriced iPad mini starting at $329 for WIFI 16GB.
FCP.Co has an article on installing a PC GTX570 in a MacPro to get better OpenCL performance in FCP X, but it will also increase your CUDA power for Premiere Pro and After Effects CS6.
Still you can score over 1000 on Luxmark if you go for a GTX670 instead (which has a huge amount more of CUDA cores, and can still draw it’s power from the internal power supply instead of say a 680, which would require an external power source to run), but they are not as well supported on the Mac. Either way you will need to go to Netkas to get some instruction and some help (though some of the help can be rather surly, but it is worth it if can really beef up using your MacPro). Someone at Netkas has also figure out how to Firmware update recent MacPro’s to the latest firmware for the newest itineration, allowing beefier XEON’s into your old MacPro.
The instructions are pretty easy, but I have found that they don’t always work, so think about re-installing your NVIDIA drivers once you are done, as that did it for me.
You will also need to do some hacking to Premiere Pro and After Effects to get them working with the CUDA cores on a new video card.
Managed to fix it though. I carbon copy cloned my main hard drive to make a new, then did a clean install of Mountain Lion. This took a download of Mountain Lion from the app store and Lion Diskmaker 2, which installed a full version onto a USB stick. I then did a clean install. This is of course after de-activating Adobe CS6, Final Draft and AVID Media Composer.
Just to try it, I had it import my User and Applications from my carbon copy cloner version (thinking this would bring over the problems, whatever they were), but after the import I had a system that was working fine, with all of my applications installed. Sure I had re-install a few, but overall everything worked just fine and my computer is back to speed!
I am glad there is still a way to do a clean system install, since Apple removed the Archive and Install option a while back. Still it should be easier than it is (IE the option given from Apple). Glad it is working though.
Now just really need a bigger hard drive so I can get my Time Machine going again (had to do a bunch of moving of files to get an extra drive for the Clone procedure).
StudioDaily has an awesome article on how they are using Adobe Premiere Pro CS6 on SNL. They were in Final Cut Pro and decided to move to Premiere Pro, especially because of the workflow with After Effects.
Still I am surprised it is all Mac, but they obviously had Macs for Final Cut. So far I am impressed with CS6, but there have been some stability issues for me, especially with CUDA, though hopefully that last NVIDIA update fixed that. I would think PC’s would be faster and more stable, though I do still love my Mac. They had just better make a really kick ass MacPro really damn soon!
If you have experienced crashes in Premiere Pro CS6 or later when using a qualified NVIDIA GPU, we strongly recommend you update to this new driver version, which should improve stability. The crashes were mostly seen when switching from OpenCL to CUDA or when tabbing from other applications back to Premiere Pro (most notably Safari).
It doesn’t mention all the crashes I was having for other reasons, and general premiere pro instability, but hopefully this will cover it. And hopefully I can move back to my GeForce GTX275 from my Quadro 4800 as the 4800 just isn’t fast.
Wonder if this improves Kepler card support? That would be awesome, though I doubt it.
You can download from NVIDIA here.