Apple announces new 6K Monitor!!!

SantaFeJoe wrote:Interesting take on the MacPro:

https://fstoppers.com/video-editing/mac ... -it-379610

Joe

E.J. what is your take on Craig's recommendation of the new AMD processors and video cards coming out in July?

signgrap wrote:

SantaFeJoe wrote:Interesting take on the MacPro:

https://fstoppers.com/video-editing/mac ... -it-379610

Joe

E.J. what is your take on Craig's recommendation of the new AMD processors and video cards coming out in July?

Before I answer that I have to say that I worked for Intel Corp. for 27 years and was involved with products all the way from the 8088 through the 4th generation of i7 so I probably have some inherent bias.  I retired from the company at the beginning of 2010.

AMD has from time to time, about every 12 - 15 years, taken a quick temporary lead in overall performance but it has never lasted very long.  They do not manufacture their own processors but rather have them built in a third party foundry (granted, at least one of those foundries they used to own before it spun off as a separate and completely independent company - very few people that were in senior positions at AMD when that occurred are employed by either company today).  Similarly, their ATI branch which they acquired some time ago from the original Canadian company takes the lead from nVidia at times but never seems to be able to hang onto it.  Intel has an inherent advantage in that they can much more quickly address any issues immediately in the manufacturing operations since it is a fully integrated company.  As for the linked video, I found it to pretty much be an advertisement for AMD where they compared the performance of a product that does not yet exist in the marketplace to one that has existed for over a year from Intel.  Note that the processors that Apple is using are workstation class processors that as yet are not available and he is touting PCIE 4 which is likely at least 6 to 12 months away before you see it readily available.  So basically he is comparing tomorrow to yesterday - tomorrow always wins when talking about computers.  I found the whole thing disingenuous and he basically used an AMD press event (which are always full of hyperbole) to make his point.  You could easily substitute an Intel press event and make the opposite point.  In fairness, AMD does have one significant advantage - they design both the CPU and the GPU (via their ATI division) and can therefore optimize both to work with each other.  Intel does not do discrete graphics despite having tried and miserably failed on numerous occasions - their processors do have integrated graphics but they are not at the performance level of an ATI or nVidia discrete graphics card.  Of course the Apple system uses ATI cards with Intel processors but in my experience, in general, nVidia cards have usually (not always) provided better performance with Intel processors.  In the end, the new MacPro will most certainly be an awesome computer but you will be able to buy an equal performing machine for 50 to 75% of the Apple price even if you have it built by a premium builder like Puget Systems (who build all my systems to my specifications at this stage of my life).

One last point, I feel that currently AMD is a more well managed company than Intel is and it has a clearer direction and vision where Intel keeps probing for new things to get beyond the CPU and keeps failing at virtually every business other than CPUs and related ICs that they try.

OK, I tried to keep that as unbiased as possible and just wrote my reaction to the video which seemed like it was paid for by AMD.

As far as video cards go, AMD and nVidia are like Nikon and Canon in the sense that sometimes one is better - in terms of performance - than the other, and in other time it's the other way round. Throughout the years I've used cards from both companies and so I have no preference to either of them. Get the best one you can afford I'd say. You're not going to use the card for a very long term anyway.

As for CPU, Intel is the only one I use since day one. But I know for a fact that in the past, many also used AMD when price was a concern.

E.J. Peiker wrote:

Mike in O wrote:Can any software use all those cores in the cpu?

Yes, lots can.  Even the latest incarnations of Adobe software makes use of multiple core (although inefficiently).   Even if S/W can't it allows you to run multiple programs on different cores improving the performance of all of them when multitasking.

Adobe handles CPU cores fairly well but GPU's hardly at all.  For video editing in particular PP hardly uses the GPU and instead almost all the work is done by the CPU.  I don't know that image editing would be as impacted by lack of GPU support, but with video it's a big thing with all manor of effects. 



Brian

Brian Stirling wrote:

E.J. Peiker wrote:

Mike in O wrote:Can any software use all those cores in the cpu?

Yes, lots can.  Even the latest incarnations of Adobe software makes use of multiple core (although inefficiently).   Even if S/W can't it allows you to run multiple programs on different cores improving the performance of all of them when multitasking.

Adobe handles CPU cores fairly well but GPU's hardly at all.  For video editing in particular PP hardly uses the GPU and instead almost all the work is done by the CPU.  I don't know that image editing would be as impacted by lack of GPU support, but with video it's a big thing with all manor of effects. 



Brian

The GPU makes a massive difference in many still photo applications - just see our Topaz Labs discussion where a stabilize function in their Sharpen AI goes from 17 minutes to 25 seconds between using the CPU and an nVidia 1060 GPU.  Capture One's layer masks are almost unusable without a decent GPU.  

E.J. Peiker wrote:
....................  In the end, the new MacPro will most certainly be an awesome computer but you will be able to buy an equal performing machine for 50 to 75% of the Apple price even if you have it built by a premium builder like Puget Systems (who build all my systems to my specifications at this stage of my life).

I switched to Apple over 15 yrs ago but prior to that I used to build my own computers. There is no way I am going back to Windows, although I do use it at work as there is no other choice.

For better or for worse I am therefore stuck with the Mac ecosystem. Despite all its warts, it seems to work, since I have the iPhone, the Macbook Pro, Mac Pro and the iPad for travel.

My wife uses an iMac but I just cannot see myself using it with my other monitors, hard drives etc. Ditto for the macbook.

Hence the reliance on the Mac Pro (2013) for pretty much everything I do. I believe I have a mid-level system with plenty of RAM but it becomes a dog whenever I run adjustments especially using third party filters. 

My 2018 MacBook Pro with a 2.4GHz CPU and 32G RAM is much faster, has a 1TB SSD, but LR and everything runs off it.

So the problem is that I've been waiting for a long while  for a new Mac Pro. What  Apple has come up with maybe great, but also has a monster price-tag attached.

IIRC, I paid around $6K for the Mac Pro in 2013, thought I was getting a top of the line machine then.

I think I am either going to have to keep the status quo or bite the bullet once more. I know people are using Mac Mini in various configurations to run external monitors and external video cards etc, that just seems to be a very cumbersome approach to me.

What I would like is a system that works mainly for still images especially LR since 80% of my work does not require PS. I have all the storage I need on external drives, so just a fast CPU with lots of RAM and a fast GPUs maybe the ticket where I am concerned.

Don't know how much that will cost.

EJ, thanks for your summary above and also for your thoughts on the machine that may best work for people like me. $12K is a heck of a lot though

Pradeep

Pradeep, have you considered an iMac?  A really competent iMac with 3.6Ghz 8 core i9 processor and 32GB of RAM is about $3300 USD.

E.J. Peiker wrote:Pradeep, have you considered an iMac?  A really competent iMac with 3.6Ghz 8 core i9 processor and 32GB of RAM is about $3300 USD.

Yes, I did. My wife has a two year old iMac (can't remember the specs now), which is slower than molasses. She complains all the time, even routine work is too slow (mail, web browsing, Word etc). I have formatted the hard drive, upgraded all the OS, and other software, has about 16G RAM I think and yet she is frustrated at how slow it is. I agree I could get another one which is maxed out but somehow I am not keen on doing it.

Another reason is I have already invested in two 32" 4K monitors from NEC which I use with my Mac Pro. I have a NAS, several external drives in OWC Thunder Bays, an external sound system, it is all set up on and around a  large work desk. I am not sure the iMac would work for me. I have had a Mac Pro ever since I switched to the Mac all those years ago. My old tower was great as I could pretty much upgrade anything except the CPU. I made it last until I bought the 'trash can', by expanding the RAM, switching to SSDs and swapping out the video cards for faster ones as the need increased.

Even when I was in the Windows world, I kept 'upgrading' the system by replacing all the parts every 3-4 yrs, the computer somehow became a resource hog over time. 

In the end we are all victims of our own ambitions I guess.....

Pradeep

The resource thing in Windows is very easy to address. Same thing happens on Apple systems but in a different way. As for a slow as molasses iMac, there's probably something not quite right but the system I mentioned above would not have that problem. Base configuration iMacs are relatively poor performers and I have never found i5 processors or less to perform adequately in the Mac world, especially for photo stuff - they WAY under-perform a similar configuration in the Windows world. This is true for the i7 as well but much less so - it's mostly due to some of the other hardware choices that Apple makes and the constant thermal throttling due to the poorly vented iMac case under heavy loads. High spec ones can be very good though.

E.J. Peiker wrote:

Brian Stirling wrote:

E.J. Peiker wrote:

Mike in O wrote:Can any software use all those cores in the cpu?

Yes, lots can.  Even the latest incarnations of Adobe software makes use of multiple core (although inefficiently).   Even if S/W can't it allows you to run multiple programs on different cores improving the performance of all of them when multitasking.

Adobe handles CPU cores fairly well but GPU's hardly at all.  For video editing in particular PP hardly uses the GPU and instead almost all the work is done by the CPU.  I don't know that image editing would be as impacted by lack of GPU support, but with video it's a big thing with all manor of effects. 



Brian

The GPU makes a massive difference in many still photo applications - just see our Topaz Labs discussion where a stabilize function in their Sharpen AI goes from 17 minutes to 25 seconds between using the CPU and an nVidia 1060 GPU.  Capture One's layer masks are almost unusable without a decent GPU.  

Not surprised that some third party apps would rely heavily on GPU's, but I'm not aware of much of PS or LR that does.  Stitching a 500MP image from twenty 36MP images would seem to be ripe for GPU usage as well as lens corrections.  And it makes sense that working with multiple layers would benefit from a decent GPU.  I don't have any Topaz Laps apps and have never used Capture One, though I may switch to it if and when I dump Adobe altogether.  Adobe is really slow to incorporate performance improvements using a GPU and instead seem more interested in marketing a new feature.  That a much smaller company like Blackmagic can make better use of the available technology really highlights this fact.  


Brian

And the special $1000 glass requires a special cloth to clean it! I wonder how much that cloth will cost!

https://www.dpreview.com/news/6202032704/apple-pro-display-xdr-monitors-with-optional-nano-texture-glass-require-special-cleaning-cloth

Joe