Clearly you just aren't enlightened enough to understand it's "OBVIOUS" engineering magnificence.
Seriously I remember the flash site they had when it was announced. I had tears in my eyes it was so hilarious. They wrote two paragraphs about the "engineering breakthrough" of mounting the fan. Because obviously the decision of where to put a circular fan within a cylindrical case requires a vast wealth of engineering background.
When you think about it, Capacitors are known for catching fire when they fail. And so are Apple products, so the fact that it sort of looks like a giant capacitor sort of fits.
“Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I'm not sure about the universe.” — Albert Einstein
"Never try to teach a pig to sing; it wastes your time and it annoys the pig." — Robert Heinlein
I wonder how they cut prices. In particular, I wonder how reliable their PCIe SSD is compared to other PCIe and 2.5" SATA SSDs.
PCI-e SSDs aren't horribly reliable from what I've seen in general (power fluctuations can cause major data loss), but given this isn't full PCI-e and is mini (or at least seems to be) it might be fine.
I found a PCIe SSD. I also found a cheaper mobo (SUPERMICRO X9SRA), which is $290, supports ECC, 2x 3.0 slots, dual gigabit ethernet, etc etc. I think it's technically better than the $350 mobo I had found. So, let's redo the list...
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You can get the E5-1620 v2 for $300 at superbiiz.
The equivalent GPU is a W7000. Almost the same specs, twice the memory, $700 each at Newegg.
A 2011 socket mobo that supports 1866 RAM is $290 from Supermicro via Amazon.
2x8GB sticks of registered 1866 ECC RAM (AX31866R13Z) is $270 at Amazon.
For the PSU... Let's assume this draws maybe 850W. Probably more, possibly as much as 1000W, but whatever. A RM850 is decent enough, and around $150.
$100 for $generic_workstation_case
Grand total is $2840
A Mac Pro is $2999. A Mac Pro with the same amount of RAM is $3099.
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I did some more research, and found out a few interesting things. Updated MP vs custom workstation below.
Mac Pro advantages: A very slightly faster/larger SSD (something that no sane person would ever notice in the real world), Thunderbolt, and a smaller form factor.
Custom workstation advantages: Way better expandability, twice the VRAM, slightly faster GPUs (the D300 is a bit slower than the W7000), mobo RAID support.
(and of course, the #1 benefit of building a custom workstation is being able to choose something a bit less beefy than dual W7000/D300 GPUs if you don't need that much power)
Thunderbolt could be argued a pro or a con. The W7000 GPUs have DisplayPort outputs, so display support isn't important. The main uses of thunderbolt would be either external PCI cards, external adapters, or external drive arrays. Between the large quantity of USB ports/headers, the numerous SATA ports, and the multiple PCIe slots, I don't think there are any reasonable ways to argue having Thunderbolt is superior.
“Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I'm not sure about the universe.” — Albert Einstein
"Never try to teach a pig to sing; it wastes your time and it annoys the pig." — Robert Heinlein
Plus, at full load it draws ~463 watts. It has a 450 watt power brick.
I love how Anand was so Apple biased in his review he tried to say that some people may require the form factor (???) and that this is the direction PCs need to go to stay alive (?????)
I love how Anand was so Apple biased in his review he tried to say that some people may require the form factor (???) and that this is the direction PCs need to go to stay alive (?????)
I would agree that most computer users would love to have readily available mini-itx computers to choose from. Minimizing the footprint of devices in general is always a good idea and the average computer user doesn't need the ability to upgrade that comes with an ATX tower. Apple's problem here is that they've made a computer for professional use that has no room to upgrade. The old Mac Pro worked well for those that used it because there was enough room to add pretty much whatever they needed. Now they've switched to a flawed design that couldn't be upgraded if you wanted to because it can't even handle the hardware that's already installed!
AnandTech has also always been biased towards Apple so I disregard everything but the numbers in their reviews. It's actually kind of amusing seeing them try to put such a fail of a computer up on a pedestal.
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So amazing!
It supposedly does 900MB/s in the real world.
I wonder how they cut prices. In particular, I wonder how reliable their PCIe SSD is compared to other PCIe and 2.5" SATA SSDs.
"Never try to teach a pig to sing; it wastes your time and it annoys the pig." — Robert Heinlein
----
You can get the E5-1620 v2 for $300 at superbiiz.
The equivalent GPU is a W7000. Almost the same specs, twice the memory, $700 each at Newegg.
A 2011 socket mobo that supports 1866 RAM is $290 from Supermicro via Amazon.
2x8GB sticks of registered 1866 ECC RAM (AX31866R13Z) is $270 at Amazon.
http://www.newegg.co...N82E16820226453 - $330, 800MB/s+. Realistically only 100MB/s behind the Mac Pro in speed, plus 16GB less storage.
For the PSU... Let's assume this draws maybe 850W. Probably more, possibly as much as 1000W, but whatever. A RM850 is decent enough, and around $150.
$100 for $generic_workstation_case
Grand total is $2840
A Mac Pro is $2999. A Mac Pro with the same amount of RAM is $3099.
----
I did some more research, and found out a few interesting things. Updated MP vs custom workstation below.
Mac Pro advantages: A very slightly faster/larger SSD (something that no sane person would ever notice in the real world), Thunderbolt, and a smaller form factor.
Custom workstation advantages: Way better expandability, twice the VRAM, slightly faster GPUs (the D300 is a bit slower than the W7000), mobo RAID support.
(and of course, the #1 benefit of building a custom workstation is being able to choose something a bit less beefy than dual W7000/D300 GPUs if you don't need that much power)
Thunderbolt could be argued a pro or a con. The W7000 GPUs have DisplayPort outputs, so display support isn't important. The main uses of thunderbolt would be either external PCI cards, external adapters, or external drive arrays. Between the large quantity of USB ports/headers, the numerous SATA ports, and the multiple PCIe slots, I don't think there are any reasonable ways to argue having Thunderbolt is superior.
"Never try to teach a pig to sing; it wastes your time and it annoys the pig." — Robert Heinlein
http://www.anandtech.com/show/7603/mac-pro-review-late-2013/14
Plus, at full load it draws ~463 watts. It has a 450 watt power brick.
fm87!How does something so tiny........ What.......
Also hot damn 95C constant at load?
fm87!I think the engineers where away on they day they did heat limiting at flawless engineering school.
This is a legacy account, meaning it is no longer active
I see what you did there.
I love how Anand was so Apple biased in his review he tried to say that some people may require the form factor (???) and that this is the direction PCs need to go to stay alive (?????)
I would agree that most computer users would love to have readily available mini-itx computers to choose from. Minimizing the footprint of devices in general is always a good idea and the average computer user doesn't need the ability to upgrade that comes with an ATX tower. Apple's problem here is that they've made a computer for professional use that has no room to upgrade. The old Mac Pro worked well for those that used it because there was enough room to add pretty much whatever they needed. Now they've switched to a flawed design that couldn't be upgraded if you wanted to because it can't even handle the hardware that's already installed!
AnandTech has also always been biased towards Apple so I disregard everything but the numbers in their reviews. It's actually kind of amusing seeing them try to put such a fail of a computer up on a pedestal.
Form factor is generally used as a reference to size when talking about computers, not the shape. That's what made me misinterpret the statement.