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You are here: MacNN Forums > Hardware - Troubleshooting and Discussion > Mac Desktops > MacPro - Still No Thunderbolt (COME ON ALREADY)

MacPro - Still No Thunderbolt (COME ON ALREADY) (Page 5)
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Don Pickett
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Jun 13, 2012, 12:12 PM
 
Originally Posted by BLAZE_MkIV View Post
That's because no one has bought a Mac Pro in a fiscal year.
Nope: they're still selling. But, at most, the make up 5% or 6% of Apple's computer sales. The desktop is dying, boys and girls.
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Don Pickett
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Jun 13, 2012, 12:13 PM
 
Originally Posted by Spheric Harlot View Post
To the public, a "Mac Pro" is a silver laptop.
This.
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BLAZE_MkIV
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Jun 13, 2012, 12:16 PM
 
If they want to get rid of the Mac Pro they need to do allot of work on how the OS interacts with remote file systems. The new Mac Book Pro has no HD and leaving a laptop sitting on a desk plugged into a storage array is backwards.
     
Don Pickett
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Jun 13, 2012, 12:29 PM
 
Originally Posted by BLAZE_MkIV View Post
If they want to get rid of the Mac Pro they need to do allot of work on how the OS interacts with remote file systems. The new Mac Book Pro has no HD and leaving a laptop sitting on a desk plugged into a storage array is backwards.
We don't know they want to get rid of it. Cook is quoted as saying they're working on something for the pro users for next year. This may be a new Map Pro. It may be something else we can't imagine. We'll have to wait to find out.
The era of anthropomorphizing hardware is over.
     
izajeenyus
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Jun 13, 2012, 01:26 PM
 
Originally Posted by Don Pickett View Post
Nope: they're still selling. But, at most, the make up 5% or 6% of Apple's computer sales. The desktop is dying, boys and girls.
except the current lineup really doesn't fit for a majority of pro's using mac hardware. The iMac has a *consumer* monitor - while pretty it isn't very calibratable, and too reflective. The Mini is too slow for heavy processing like pro video and today's high resolution digital photos...

I need something fast that I can hook my Eizo monitors to, and has a decent video card, and multiple storage options (trying to copy thousands of hi res files over even a fast wireless network just takes too long, and some software, like Lightroom, won't work with files on a network). I could work with esata or thunderbolt storage but the new desktop doesn't have that (and I'm sorry, but even a mac mini was redesigned to have the thunderbolt). So where does that leave me? Now I have to wait ANOTHER year to buy new machines because they apparently are going to leave us hanging until then.

I think we should all boycott the current "refresh" and urge then to actually release something current...
     
Don Pickett
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Jun 13, 2012, 01:34 PM
 
Originally Posted by izajeenyus View Post
except the current lineup really doesn't fit for a majority of pro's using mac hardware.
I don't know about a majority. Except for using older processors, the current MPs meet all your criteria.

I think we should all boycott the current "refresh" and urge then to actually release something current...
Apple. Won't. Care. Cook says they're working on something. They're not going to suddenly change plans because some people are pissed.
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izajeenyus
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Jun 13, 2012, 01:38 PM
 
yea I know they won't care. but it will make me feel better haha...

I don't know that the current lineup totally meets my criteria- one of which is spending an investment on something that isn't already yesterday's technology. It may work on (for me) images shot with a 20megapixel camera, but when I bought it they didn't have a camera that shot 80megapixels like they do now. And in another few years that pixel count can double. Buying something that only works *now* seems like a bit of a bad investment, no? (and for the pro video guys doing 4K, I'm sure they are in the same boat)
     
Don Pickett
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Jun 13, 2012, 01:40 PM
 
Originally Posted by izajeenyus View Post
yea I know they won't care. but it will make me feel better haha...

I don't know that the current lineup totally meets my criteria- one of which is spending an investment on something that isn't already yesterday's technology. It may work on (for me) images shot with a 20megapixel camera, but when I bought it they didn't have a camera that shot 80megapixels like they do now. And in another few years that pixel count can double. Buying something that only works *now* seems like a bit of a bad investment, no? (and for the pro video guys doing 4K, I'm sure they are in the same boat)
Oh, I know the current MP has some problems. I just don't know if those problems affect the majority of pro users. But, then again, I could be wrong.
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Jun 13, 2012, 02:38 PM
 
Originally Posted by Don Pickett View Post
Sorry, but this sounds like wishful thinking on your part. I've already seen a lot of press coverage of the new MBPs, with comments about overdue MP updates limited to tech sites.
It made them respond to the concerns. Those concerns have been rather public before, and inside a day they have two carefully orchestrated "soothing" comments: One of Tim "doubling down on secrecy" Cook revealing that something will be coming "later next year", and one on-the record comment to Pogue stating more or less the same thing. You don't think noone has sent email to Cook before asking about the Mac Pro?
Originally Posted by Don Pickett View Post
Let's be honest: Apple could completely dump the MP and not even see a hit to their bottom line.
Yes, and I think they will do so, for all intents and purposes, with the revamp in 2013.
The new Mac Pro has up to 30 MB of cache inside the processor itself. That's more than the HD in my first Mac. Somehow I'm still running out of space.
     
Big Mac
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Jun 13, 2012, 04:40 PM
 
Why bother with a revamp then? Just dump it now. It's the perfect time since the market for the Mac Pro has been almost entirely alienated.

"The natural progress of things is for liberty to yield and government to gain ground." TJ
     
Spheric Harlot
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Jun 13, 2012, 05:03 PM
 
Originally Posted by izajeenyus View Post
I need something fast that I can hook my Eizo monitors to, and has a decent video card, and multiple storage options (trying to copy thousands of hi res files over even a fast wireless network just takes too long, and some software, like Lightroom, won't work with files on a network). I could work with esata or thunderbolt storage but the new desktop doesn't have that (and I'm sorry, but even a mac mini was redesigned to have the thunderbolt). So where does that leave me? Now I have to wait ANOTHER year to buy new machines because they apparently are going to leave us hanging until then.
My apologies, but this is so simple:

If you need one now, buy one now.

If you can afford to wait another year, wait another year.

If you can neither afford to wait, nor buy now because the current machine doesn't do what you need, look around at alternatives. If switching platforms is more expensive than waiting, you can afford to wait.
     
subego
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Jun 13, 2012, 05:27 PM
 
I'm looking around at alternatives.

WHICH SUCKS, AND I SHOULDN'T HAVE TO DO.

Simple.
     
Don Pickett
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Jun 13, 2012, 05:41 PM
 
Originally Posted by Big Mac View Post
. . .the market for the Mac Pro has been almost entirely alienated.

Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof.
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reader50
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Jun 13, 2012, 06:03 PM
 
Extraordinary proof achieved, but there's not enough room to scribble it down here. Sorry.
     
Don Pickett
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Jun 13, 2012, 06:05 PM
 
Originally Posted by reader50 View Post
Extraordinary proof achieved, but there's not enough room to scribble it down here. Sorry.
You'd better have sales figures showing a steep decline in MP sales in the last two quarters.
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mduell
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Jun 13, 2012, 11:49 PM
 
One thing making Thunderbolt more difficult in a Mac Pro is none of the Xeon chips have onboard graphics, which as a side effect provides the signal routing mechanism. So like some of the PC motherboards do, you'd have an external loopback cable you connect from the GPU to a DP sink on the logic board, which then adds the PCIe and has the TB port.

Originally Posted by Eug View Post
Yeah but how loud is it? Remember, these would actually be used as towers. I figured we weren't just talking about pure rack servers.
Datacenter-grade loud. A 2U Mac Pro would have half as many PCIe slots, or less given the capabilities of Thunderbolt.
     
Waragainstsleep
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Jun 14, 2012, 06:14 AM
 
I have wondered how thunderbolt would be implemented in a Mac Pro. Its not like Apple could just take a reference GPU and flash the ROM right?

Plus it would be weird to me to have an external RAID box running through my graphics card.
I have plenty of more important things to do, if only I could bring myself to do them....
     
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Jun 14, 2012, 06:27 AM
 
Originally Posted by Waragainstsleep View Post
I have wondered how thunderbolt would be implemented in a Mac Pro. Its not like Apple could just take a reference GPU and flash the ROM right?
Carve off a couple of PCIe channels out of the 16 that the GPU gets, and only expose 14 to the GPU, or just run an internal cable to the GPU from the motherboard and have a chip that muxes in the DisplayPort and Thunderbolt signals. Not too hard.
The new Mac Pro has up to 30 MB of cache inside the processor itself. That's more than the HD in my first Mac. Somehow I'm still running out of space.
     
Eden Aurora  (op)
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Jun 14, 2012, 11:16 AM
 
Apple will announce the new MacPro on 12/31/13 consistant with Tim's recent promise and then it won't be available until 3/31/14
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Waragainstsleep
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Jun 14, 2012, 11:34 AM
 
Originally Posted by P View Post
Carve off a couple of PCIe channels out of the 16 that the GPU gets, and only expose 14 to the GPU, or just run an internal cable to the GPU from the motherboard and have a chip that muxes in the DisplayPort and Thunderbolt signals. Not too hard.
It would put a further damper on flashing PC cards. Its still weird plugging a hard drive into your video port.
I have plenty of more important things to do, if only I could bring myself to do them....
     
anthology123
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Jun 14, 2012, 02:33 PM
 
It sounds like Apple will have to convince companies like AMD and NVIDIA to make video cards that will work with Thunderbolt? More reasons for the Mac Pro community to complain because that will limit the total selection of video cards out there, and these card makers are not going to build a wide selection of cards that work in only one computer (Mac Pro) that does not amount to much in total sales for Apple. I would guess Apple may have to go it alone to make a video card good enough for Pro work that incorporates TB and be priced even higher. Apple likes total control over its own product and does not like people futzing with it, so in a way, the Mac Pro represents the opposite of Apple's current philosophy.
     
subego
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Jun 14, 2012, 02:45 PM
 
Pretty sure TB uses PCIe, just like it uses USB and FireWire, So Nvidia and AMD don't have to do anything (other than write drivers, which they had to do anyway). The problem is there are no PCIe to TB adaptors.
     
Waragainstsleep
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Jun 14, 2012, 07:03 PM
 
Surely some kind of TB controller(s) would be necessary on the card. The display port is on the graphics card so all the TB signals have to run through it. That sounds like more than just drivers to me.
I have plenty of more important things to do, if only I could bring myself to do them....
     
subego
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Jun 14, 2012, 07:10 PM
 
Conceptually, what's the difference between running USB or FireWire through TB? Those have data going in both directions, and are just plug and play.

Not to mention if you can't plug a PCIe card into it without some BS custom controller on the card, you really can't call it PCIe anymore.
     
subego
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Jun 14, 2012, 07:12 PM
 
Sonnet is making a 1U setup which fits a Mini on the right side and has a PCIe slot on the left, connected via TB.

http://www.sonnettech.com/product/xmacminiserver.html


Edit: holy shit. It's $1,300! There's your TB problem in a gold-plated nutshell. Jesus. That's insane.
     
Spheric Harlot
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Jun 14, 2012, 07:16 PM
 
Originally Posted by subego View Post
Sonnet is making a 1U setup which fits a Mini on the right side and has a PCIe slot on the left, connected via TB.

Sonnet - xMac mini Server: PCIe 2.0 Expansion System/1U Rackmount Enclosure
This.

Exactly this.

Not a replacement for a Mac Pro, mind you.
     
subego
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Jun 14, 2012, 07:26 PM
 
I'm used to this stuff to being expensive. When I saw it was shipping I would have dropped $800 on one without even thinking about it. Hell. I'd buy two.

Not $1,300. That's almost a fully tricked out Mini server for a frigging dock.
     
Spheric Harlot
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Jun 14, 2012, 07:46 PM
 
That's significantly cheaper than the Magma expansion chassis used to be.

I have to wonder why hardly any of the audio cards will work in there, according to their compatibility table.

WTF?

I thought it's just PCIe, with effectively no latency?
     
Waragainstsleep
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Jun 15, 2012, 05:04 AM
 
Originally Posted by subego View Post
Conceptually, what's the difference between running USB or FireWire through TB? Those have data going in both directions, and are just plug and play.

Not to mention if you can't plug a PCIe card into it without some BS custom controller on the card, you really can't call it PCIe anymore.
I think we might be on different wavelengths here. I meant a graphics card would need a TB controller of some kind in order to route the signals through the graphics card and back to the logic board TB controller. At the very least it would require something to integrate and separate TB signals with the display port.
Obviously Apple have done USB through a GPU before with ADC but USB controllers were simple and cheap and only dealing with 1.1Mb. I never saw firewire through a graphics card.
I have plenty of more important things to do, if only I could bring myself to do them....
     
Waragainstsleep
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Jun 15, 2012, 05:07 AM
 
Prices are going to drop pretty drastically as more become available. The Apple TB to gigabit ethernet adaptor released this week was £25. Last week you had to get TB to express card 34 and then a gigabit Expresscard for more like £200 or an Atto TB to ethernet which was about the same price. Ludicrous.

For those interested, the TB -> Gigabit adaptor lists compatibility as "Any TB equipped Mac". There were concerns it would only work on the brand new ones but it seems they were unfounded.
I have plenty of more important things to do, if only I could bring myself to do them....
     
angelmb
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Jun 15, 2012, 06:18 AM
 
Originally Posted by Waragainstsleep View Post
For those interested, the TB -> Gigabit adaptor lists compatibility as "Any TB equipped Mac". There were concerns it would only work on the brand new ones but it seems they were unfounded.
Concerns were not unfounded, far from it. "MacBook Air with Thunderbolt" and "MacBook Pro with Retina display" were the only systems previously listed as compatible systems. Glad it's been 'fixed'.
     
Waragainstsleep
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Jun 15, 2012, 01:59 PM
 
Maybe unfounded was not the correct word. 'Wrong' would have been better.
I have plenty of more important things to do, if only I could bring myself to do them....
     
subego
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Jun 15, 2012, 02:13 PM
 
Originally Posted by Waragainstsleep View Post
At the very least it would require something to integrate and separate TB signals with the display port.
Well, this is prolly one of the reasons the Sonnet costs more than a grand.
     
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Jun 15, 2012, 02:22 PM
 
Originally Posted by Eden Aurora View Post
Apple will announce the new MacPro on 12/31/13 consistant with Tim's recent promise and then it won't be available until 3/31/14
Apple always likes to announce HW then wait until it's obsolete before shipping it.
     
Eden Aurora  (op)
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Jun 19, 2012, 08:58 PM
 
By the time the new MacPro comes out, Thunderbolt version 2 will be available.
of couse, Apple would only put version 1 in the machine.
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Spheric Harlot
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Jun 20, 2012, 03:40 AM
 
     
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Jun 20, 2012, 06:52 PM
 
Originally Posted by Eden Aurora View Post
By the time the new MacPro comes out, Thunderbolt version 2 will be available.
of couse, Apple would only put version 1 in the machine.
And those extra nVidia 7300 GTs they have lying around.
     
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Jun 25, 2012, 04:00 PM
 
Well, instead of waiting, bitching and/or complaining, I decided to roll my own temporary solution. Bought all the components for a "silent" Ivy Bridge system (i3770k overclocked). Was tempted to go with a 6 core Sandy, but I can always change my mind for the cost of a Mini. Best $900 I've spent all year. Hopefully the (Late 2013) Mac Pro will be worth the wait.

New, Improved and Legal in 50 States
     
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Jun 26, 2012, 03:57 AM
 
Best of luck with your Hackintosh.

I don't think you should read that Cook statement as there being a 2013 Mac Pro, though - personally I suspect that the current MP are the last of the traditional towers.
The new Mac Pro has up to 30 MB of cache inside the processor itself. That's more than the HD in my first Mac. Somehow I'm still running out of space.
     
Eden Aurora  (op)
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Jun 26, 2012, 09:43 PM
 
Hackintosh. Good old days. Life was simple back then.
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Don Pickett
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Jun 27, 2012, 11:22 AM
 
Originally Posted by P View Post
Best of luck with your Hackintosh.

I don't think you should read that Cook statement as there being a 2013 Mac Pro, though - personally I suspect that the current MP are the last of the traditional towers.
I'm not willing to go that far, but I also wouldn't be surprised.
The era of anthropomorphizing hardware is over.
     
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Jun 27, 2012, 11:35 AM
 
So what do you see in the MP future, then? My guess is that we will get a new top-of-the-line iMac with limited serviceability (removing the entire back panel, like the old iMac G5) and no glass front. Possibly also a desktop-grade GPU, although to be honest this is just the GK104 (GTX680M) with the video RAM clocked to a desktop level. Pair this with a TB chassis with a number of HD/optical bays and call it a day.
The new Mac Pro has up to 30 MB of cache inside the processor itself. That's more than the HD in my first Mac. Somehow I'm still running out of space.
     
BLAZE_MkIV
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Jun 27, 2012, 12:21 PM
 
Originally Posted by P View Post
So what do you see in the MP future, then? My guess is that we will get a new top-of-the-line iMac with limited serviceability (removing the entire back panel, like the old iMac G5) and no glass front. Possibly also a desktop-grade GPU, although to be honest this is just the GK104 (GTX680M) with the video RAM clocked to a desktop level. Pair this with a TB chassis with a number of HD/optical bays and call it a day.
That would be a mac pro that would be an iMacPro. At that point I'd switch to a Hackintosh or a MacBookPro. Probably a hackintosh since the video on the MacBookPro is not really suited to gaming.
     
SierraDragon
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Jun 27, 2012, 01:00 PM
 
The existing tower design has proven to be so good I see no reason for Apple to give up the MP tower as is, unless to move forward with an even better design. Giving up towers entirely makes no sense to me.
     
BLAZE_MkIV
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Jun 27, 2012, 01:17 PM
 
If you look at the minimum to qualify as a workstation: 2 Xeons, at least 4 preferably 8 memort slots, 2 3.5 bays and 2 PCIe slots. I don't think you can cram that it the iMac form factor without it sounding like an U server. That's what it would be a 1U server on edge with a display stuck on the face.

Big news would be working with / strong arming a couple off third party video card makers to make the MacPro and the video card conform to some PC compatible PCIe + eufi so that Apple can decouple their video card support from their hardware release cycle and support dedicated CUDA hardware.
     
gangster
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Jun 28, 2012, 08:44 PM
 
any1 actually buy one of these yet? just wondering what the hands on reaction is compared to the old model(s).

thanks in advance
     
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Jun 29, 2012, 04:59 AM
 
Originally Posted by BLAZE_MkIV View Post
If you look at the minimum to qualify as a workstation: 2 Xeons, at least 4 preferably 8 memort slots, 2 3.5 bays and 2 PCIe slots. I don't think you can cram that it the iMac form factor without it sounding like an U server. That's what it would be a 1U server on edge with a display stuck on the face.
Right - but I don't think Apple cares about what would qualify as a workstation. They'll put a regular Core i7 in there and offer a breakout box for the slots and drive bays. It already has 4 DIMM slots (and anyway DDR4 is moving to a single slot per channel), so what is needed is at least some semblance of accessibility and a more powerful GPU. That last could be handled by simply including higher-clocked video RAM with the current batch of mobile GPUs.

Originally Posted by BLAZE_MkIV View Post
Big news would be working with / strong arming a couple off third party video card makers to make the MacPro and the video card conform to some PC compatible PCIe + eufi so that Apple can decouple their video card support from their hardware release cycle and support dedicated CUDA hardware.
AMD video cards are already like this and have been for a couple of generations. The issue is that Apple makes the drivers, and they don't make drivers for cards they don't ship.
The new Mac Pro has up to 30 MB of cache inside the processor itself. That's more than the HD in my first Mac. Somehow I'm still running out of space.
     
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Jun 29, 2012, 10:05 AM
 
Originally Posted by P View Post
AMD video cards are already like this and have been for a couple of generations. The issue is that Apple makes the drivers, and they don't make drivers for cards they don't ship.
You would have thought someone would have written Mac drivers for their PC compatible GPUs by now. I guess its an indicator just how many people don't buy Mac Pros. Or don't ever upgrade the GPUs in them.
I have plenty of more important things to do, if only I could bring myself to do them....
     
Eug
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Jul 2, 2012, 02:16 PM
 
You can buy PC GPUs that have been flashed to work on Mac Pros, and they work well apparently.

I have two GeForce 6200 cards and they work well in my Cubes. The main problem for my Cube is the lack of a custom bracket so people dremel other brackets to make them fit with the Cube.

P.S. Here is my favourite hacked GPU of all time. I had a Geforce 2 MX which was a flashed PC GPU for a Power Mac, but it wouldn't fit in my Cube. My Cube's GPU died, so I all of a sudden I had no more Quartz Extreme... so I took matters into my own hands and made that thing fit... with a hacksaw...



     
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Jul 2, 2012, 02:58 PM
 
Nice.
     
 
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