Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2014/03/09
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]I?m looking at the same kind of decision you are. I?m going to MacWorld to ask a series of pointed questions for Drobo etc since the only way to expand the new Mac Pro is via Thunderbolt. Right now, at the given state of software, the new iMac can be faster than the new Mac Pro. It has to do with clock speed, heat dissipation, and how Adobe software uses multiple cores and doesn?t use the GPU. There?s a lot to read out there and some of it is conflicting, but it?s clear the sweet spot for Photoshop and Lightroom would use a CPU combination that Apple doesn?t currently offer. Go figure. But it?s not a surprise, really, the Mac Pro is first and foremost a video machine at which it performs brilliantly. If your software can make good use of those two GPUs you?re going to be in great shape. Unfortunately Adobe doesn?t make good use of them, at least not in ways that photographers really want. That can change. It might be changing now. What I understand is that Adobe?s approach to GPU use isn?t optimum for the Mac world, better for the Windows space. Plus many of their GPU accelerated features just aren?t that big for us. I mean, when was the last time you used Liquify? But the wealth of sharpening features use only the CPU, not the GPU. And there are, by accounts, a lot of places where multi-threading isn?t used. So you are stuck with the throughput of a single core. It gets complicated. Real complicated and I?m on the road, I?ve had a beer and I?m working on a glass of wine, maybe two, and we were nearly run over tonight so all my wits aren?t about me. I think we need an iteration of Apple hardware/software and Adobe software to make the Mac Pro do what it can. Apple needs to give us more CPU?s (not just cores) at a better sustainable clock speed. And Adobe needs to get religion, serious religion, about multi-threading. Please note: writing multi-threaded code is NOT trivial - it?s like managing one guy or splitting up things in a team and sending them off to different islands to work on their assignments, fitting it all together and making sure one person?s work doesn?t impinge on anthers. And did I mention that the project specs were just changed and you need to call some or all of them back to redo it? Or one of them? Non-trivial. That said, on the hardware side, I?m hearing no issues with the FireWire - Thunderbolt stuff. Finding the right peripherals will take a while. Treat it as fun. I?m hoping that Drobo?s product is good so I can just take my current Drobo disks and plug them into the new housing and things will get MUCH faster. Sorry to be long-winded. Adam