First off. What’s the deal with ATI GPU. I know it’s a constant back and forth between ATI and Nvidia. One year we are sold on Nvidia Cuda and the next it’s all about ATI. Frankly I’ve felt that Nvidia has been the most dominant in recent years and the likely choice. ATI seems a bit distant and little to no information or very much talk about how well it’s working for the Media and Entertainment industry. My guess is Apple is writing their code around these new GPUs. How that will effect the apps you use outside of Apple Pro Apps is something I guess we’ll just have to wait to be able to start benchmarking it..!

 

On the topic of GPU. This all in one solution is actually pretty interesting. My first gripe is the GPUs though actually. I feel that the bare minimum these days it’s 2. I’d love to see more like 4. So many apps, plugins, you name it is leaning on the GPUs. So why only one option. I feel like FCPX came on to change the game and it’s yet to really move users over to apple. In fact many have moved away from Apple to Avid or Adobe. In fact I just attended the AEPDX.org user group meeting with some of the folks at Adobe like Steve Forde(who also mentioned that Premiere Pro is now the #1 used NLE)and Paul President/CEO from Maxon. Adobe already utilizes the GPUs heavily(Maxon is looking into adding GPU but for now it’s all CPUs). It seems more and more important these days and to make us choose just one is not the best idea in my opinion. If this was redone I’d love to have a box similar to this but housed my GPUs(or mobile ones that could just slide in and out and be updated over time, allowed me to update the ram(with off the shelf options). The lack of hard drives is fine because I’d just have my root drive/sdd(or card of ram)and an external box for my Raid. Remember hard drives take very little power but GPUs on the other hand…a ton..! And they just keep getting bigger, better, faster, cheaper. 

 

I think something many don’t consider is how much it cost the manufacturer to adopt Thunderbolt..! I’ve overheard somewhere in the neighborhood of $50k. So what happens with TB v2.0? Is it an additional cost. Don’t forget all the new money you’ll need to spend on the new external hardware. I really never liked the idea of having to attach a host card and cubix expander for anywhere from $2-3k. Remember if your base machine already has internal expansion like my Z820 then that is just a cost I have to spend that I wouldn’t normally have to. So consider even a $1k external expansion box to hold the cards that would typically just plug and play. Are you following me. So if everything is now an external option…that means just that. I have to buy a bunch of new hard drives, raids, i/o, Gpu boxes. So take that into consideration. Basic math can probably give you a ball park number on what this new MacPro might cost…then add all the additional Thunderbold v1 & now v2.

 

As far as all the other amazing specs. I dig it…bring it…we love the speed and convenience…but just looked how iPhone and iDevices changed the game. So much so it’s has put us Media and Entertainment folks in my opinion on the back burner. My guess is this new box will be a welcome update…but there will be so many different ways to use it that v2 of this new design might need more updates to better suite all our needs. 

 

Again this is a totally new design and concept. I don’t doubt many other manufactures will adopt similar cause just think about it. It really simplies the system. It’s leaves all these 3rd party companies we must rely on now to build hopefully dependable expansion. Like anything this is all new. Time will only tell how it will all play out…will it completely change the game. Is apple doing us all a favor by doing a total redesign or are they opening up a can of worms..?!

 

All the i/o is great. I can see this lil box becoming the lil power house portable I could have runnin off battery power, generator etc…even edit out the back of my car. There will indeed be many possibilities. I look forward to seeing how many users attempt to hack this box to more suite their needs(if that is even possible…but trust me if it is they will:)!

 

For me this is not the machine for me..! I do think it’s innovative and cute…but I’m still down for a true workstaion. Shoot my power supply could easily be the size of this whole box..! That is something to be desired. Will this thing get hot, will it be unstable, or is it the revolution in size vs. cooling and so on.

 

I also love to hear more products being made in the USA(from apple.com):