Posted on 12/16/2019 11:34:38 AM PST by Swordmaker
Part of it. Running and compiling 3-D code for all those pretty images takes a fair amount of horsepower.
Unthinkable and unbelievable!
I’m grateful for them.
That question is probably insoluble to either man or machine.
Might as well as the ultimate computer “why?”.
Try editing a full streaming 8k movie, or doing a full sized magazine quality photograph photo spread in photoshop with full color in real time in memory in the computer, or rendering high definition FX realistic light ray tracing in real time. Then you’ll know why you might need 1.5TB of RAM.
Other things that need that much is calculating chaotic air flow over aircraft wings in reasonable time. Recall also, we are talking about a computer that has 18 cores, all of which can allocate dedicated RAM to their own uses with 64 channels.
This is a workstation grade computer. . . Not a home computer. There are many reasons someone would max out the RAM on such a computer.
The $53,000 might get you a down payment for your Cray. Crays start at about $500,000.
If you want it to, it can do both. My last Mac Pro was running nine operating systems simultaneously, including a version of Microsoft DOS 6. The processor is, after all, an Intel processor.
No Pro users would be doing this work without a robust uninterruptible battery backup system, probably redundantly backed up itself. We did that at my office so we would not have to subject patients to additional radiation in case the power failed in the middle of radiography.
Professionals cannot afford to lose work product.
It would definitely be overkill for that target audience. . . Unless you have money to burn and want to impress your ultra rich buddies. Ostentatious waste would be what that would be. However if you REALLY want to impress them by surfing eight different website simultaneously on eight different 32” 6K reference grade monitors, then this is the machine that can do it for you. . . Or play 8 different high frame rate games simultaneously on the same screens, it can do that.
Of, if you have delusions of evilness, wanting to be James Bond’s next nemesis, you can move down to 4K screens and have an entire wall of monitors and keep track of all of your henchmen simultaneously with this computer.
Ya. A little pricey for my tastes.
Might be the way to justify the cost as a video rendering server; to send rendering jobs to.
It’s not exactly what I would consider a “portable” computer, but once you’ve maxed it out, it does tend to get heavy. Maybe $400 for a set of wheels is understandable to move it out for servicing, but not necessary. I would not think one is going to take it very far. If one was, handtrucks are inexpensive at Harbor Freight.
On the other hand, I can actually see the $1000 price for the monitor stand for the 32” XDS Reference Grade Monitor. It is designed to hold a very heavy large screen monitor in multiple positions while still being easy to move, rotates 90º into a portrait mode, also easy to do, and allows the monitor to be easily mounted and dismounted with a magnetic connector. Attaching it is as easy as holding the monitor up to it and it automatically mounts itself. I was amazed when I saw how easy it was compared to how difficult it is to mount other monitors and TVs to such mounts.
The Apple XDS Reference 6K monitor itself sells for $4999 ($5999 with the stand), but it competes against other Reference Monitors such as the Sony 31” Reference Monitor which retails for $36,495 (often discounted to as low as $28,000), and is only 4K, compared to Apple’s 6K. A 27” Sony Reference Monitor is available for around $25,000. These are, of course, professional grade monitors, used in studio and production settings, which guarantee accurate color reproduction. The Sony’s do not come with stands.
I do agree it’s a bit disingenuous.
However, the $400 wheels are optional, the OS is mandatory and the $400 is the price for Windows 10 Workstation. You can’t get by with Windows 10 Pro or Windows 10 Home, which are less expensive. The OS on the Mac is included in the price of the Mac Pro, not an extra expense.
Try porn in 6K at 40 or 60 frames per second. They say your mind cannot tell it from reality at those frame rates.
Where’d you find that bargain? When we turned in our 2015 Stingray on lease, they were wanting us to lease a 2019 Stingray and the lowest price model they could get then was over $111,000. We were wondering what in hell they had added that was worth $26k more! Of course, that was in California. . . And loaded, like our previous $85,000 sticker price 2015 ‘Vette, but still, $67.5k is a heck of a good price. They were going to sell our ‘15 trade-in, with less than 15k miles on it for $49,950. . . (We actually negotiated the lease price down to under $70k when we got the lease). It was fun while we had it, but won’t buy another, not with our old bodies. It’s getting too hard to get in and out of that low of a car. I’ll keep driving my Lincoln.
I believe this configuration has an 8TB SSD for long term storage. . . You can also have more internal storage on spinning hard drives as there are still open HD bays.
Not Apples, especially the Mac Pros. Twelve year old Mac Pros are still bringing 30% to 50% of their new prices depending on their configuration. . . and even lower end Macs hold a lot of their original value.
You could pay a good amount of money for an Amiga with a Video Toaster, and many TV Studios did, especially Cable companies who ran their channel listings with one, or their weather displays. It was a lot cheaper than the $150,000 options the others were selling for the same purposes.
Add in Inflation from the 1990s time frame and you’d be looking at quite a chunk of change for that same setup.
We’ve been using a 2013 MacPro to compile 3D radiography for years, does it pretty fast at 1.5 Teraflops, this one would be done before it started at 53 Teraflops.
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