6 ms·

The Mac Pro – A Year in the Studio

62 points by ArmandGrillet 6y ago

hedora 6y ago
The text on this site is unreadable in portrait mode on my giant phone. Turning to landscape keeps the text the same size, but makes the lines wider. I usually don’t complain about website design, but this is illegible.
- dragonshed 6y ago
  The behavior and aesthetics of this site reminds me of designs of artists who typically design for print. Fully constrained width, zero use of content reflow, yet theres a 'finished' look to the design (multiple columns, alternating figure placement).
- nikisweeting 6y ago
  +1 to this I had to change it quite a bit to read it comfortably on my MacBook, and I have 20/20 vision. Applying these CSS changes fixed it for me: #siteWrapper { font-size: 16px; letter-spacing: 0px; font-weight: 600; }
- latexr 6y ago
  It’s not better on a computer. Tiny grey text on a dark background, without padding (touching the edges of the browser’s window unless I make it wider).
- airpoint 6y ago
  I switched straight into Reader View on iPad. Typography on that site is a joke of course.
  - gumby 6y ago
    I have reader on by default. Simply makes life easier in most cases.
    - dredmorbius 6y ago
      "Web design isn't the solution. Web design is the problem." Me, a while back: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9041142 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9041142
ericlewis 6y ago
The 27 inch layout looks a lot like my typical Xcode layout & the XDR looks a lot like my Xcode layout with my own pro display (except instead of a char its simulator). The XDR is truly a wonderful monitor. It’s size is perfect and resolution decent. Multiple monitors become tiring to move my neck to look at, and the curved monitors only get utilized in the middle (nothing really on the sides for me)
- pram 6y ago
  Agreed, I love mine. The color and brightness is also so good it makes my Wacom screen look like total garbage in comparison haha. It’s crazy how bad most monitors are, and how I didn’t even notice until using something that’s actually decent. Blows my mind.
  - wooger 6y ago
    It'd better be more than decent for 10k! Like a lot of Apple's pro stuff, they've included tons of stuff that 90% of people don't care about, and a cost that retains profitability. But there's no good alternative for any apple user who wants a monitor to use for programming / home use. If they at least sold their 5K 27" iMac screen as a monitor for a sane price I'd be there in a second. But you look across the average office of programmers and you will see nothing but Dell screens regardless of what machines they're using.
    - greedo 6y ago
      Pro Display XDR is $6K with stand, $7K with nano texture. Still an insane price, but you're off by over 50%.
matchbok 6y ago
What a terribly designed website.
- nikisweeting 6y ago
  It's really just the font spacing, size, and weight, once you fix those it looks decent imo. The colors, layout, navigation, etc. aren't necessarily what I would choose but but they seem reasonable.
ASpaceCowboi 6y ago
This is so wonderful to read! Thank you so much for sharing!! I'm trying to get more in the 3D world myself. I do plenty of 2D/graphic design professionally and I bought the mac pro (base version*) thinking I can upgrade it later. The main problem I ran into for Maya was the Arnold Render. I will have to come back to this document and research how they render real time using their GPUs and not their CPUs. I see they're using RedShift. I'll have to learn about that! Maya's Arnold render doesn't support rendering with AMD's GPU (AMD Radeon Pro W5700X 16 GB) so I tried the RadeonRender Plugin but it's a pain trying to apply the textures to be the same. Are their Maya tutorials that anyone recommends on this?
clarkmoreno 6y ago
Apologies if a bit off-topic, but the piece is quite challenging to read. Base font size on their blog is 11px... one cannot even ⌘+ zoom to victory. Compelling article packaged in poor accessibility.
- PhantomGremlin 6y ago
  Safari reader mode helped a lot, without that the website is very very bad. Within reader mode I used Accessibility to zoom in. Too bad about the horrible presentation, I learned a lot from the article.
jiggawatts 6y ago
The problem I have with Mac Pro reviews is that they all seem to be written by people that live in a world without AMD Threadrippers and NVIDIA GPUs. A much, much cheaper Windows or Linux workstation will run circles around a Mac Pro. Many more threads, much more memory, much faster I/O, much better video cards. The latter is especially key for modern real-time raytracing workflows that utilise either the RTX or CUDA APIs. This is a bit like reviewing a Leica camera, going on and on about how good the image quality is for a "mere" $40K USD, and failing to point out that a $5K Nikon or Canon has not only has better image quality, but also more features, more choice, and better ergonomics.
- vagrantJin 6y ago
  Because you are assuming people buy Apple or Lecia for practical reasons.
  - runawaybottle 6y ago
    I’d almost say the guy bought it so his desk looks nice.
- danlugo92 6y ago
  > better ergonomics Wrong. I would argue this is the main reason people prefer Leica/Apple over competitors.
  - K0balt 6y ago
    It probably a big reason... But mine is different. I was windows up through windows 7, at which time I transitioned to Linux. I Loved Linux. A little clunky sometimes, but I don't mind futzing with the command line, rather like it. Started getting much heavier into dev work. Accidently got a MacBook air, it was small and handy (ergonomics) but relatively capable and fast... And the 'nix environment was familiar. Fast forward a few years, and the better tools are on windows and Mac and don't work so good on Linux. I start using my now old Macbook air for serious work... And it compiles as fast my coworkers windows machines that have 4x the ram and way more powerful processors. I am amazed. I need a new machine. I think about getting a nice powerful laptop and going back to Linux, but I'm just too damn lazy. I buy a maxed out m1 air. It runs circles around my coworkers windows machines that they spent 2x on. I'm talking project complies in 45-50 seconds on mine and 3 minutes on theirs. My emulated Rosetta stuff runs at about the same speed as their windows compiles do. There are warts, with corner case incompatibilities for the M1 still in the dev space, but overall my experience has been good. Then I started using the iwork stuff for documents and affinity for images and screw it im sold. I hate it because it gives me a rash in my open source, but I spend half the time making docs that look twice as good. The interface plus the ecosystem, with all the top shelf templates, themes, images, etc is impossible to beat for someone who doesn't want to invest a couple thousand hours to become a software-x jedi. It's impossible to compare it with the tools I had on Linux. It makes me look competent at desktop publishing, which arguably I am not. Overall, while I don't doubt that for really high compute tasks there is no substitute for threads, ram, and cycles. But For my work flow as a dev using vscode and node.js based tools, I spent half the money and got way better performance and insane battery life. And I got access to an application ecosystem that let's me produce competent work products in areas that I really don't have competence. For me, being drug into the Mac ecosystem has been a win, albeit a begrudging one.
Liquid_Fire 6y ago
Amusingly, the final video embedded on the page seems to have be taken down for copyright reasons: > This video contains content from UFC, who has blocked it on copyright grounds.

62 points by ArmandGrillet 6y ago

The text on this site is unreadable in portrait mode on my giant phone. Turning to landscape keeps the text the same size, but makes the lines wider. I usually don’t complain about website design, but this is illegible.

dragonshed 6y ago
The behavior and aesthetics of this site reminds me of designs of artists who typically design for print. Fully constrained width, zero use of content reflow, yet theres a 'finished' look to the design (multiple columns, alternating figure placement).
nikisweeting 6y ago
+1 to this I had to change it quite a bit to read it comfortably on my MacBook, and I have 20/20 vision. Applying these CSS changes fixed it for me: #siteWrapper { font-size: 16px; letter-spacing: 0px; font-weight: 600; }
latexr 6y ago
It’s not better on a computer. Tiny grey text on a dark background, without padding (touching the edges of the browser’s window unless I make it wider).
airpoint 6y ago
I switched straight into Reader View on iPad. Typography on that site is a joke of course.
- gumby 6y ago
  I have reader on by default. Simply makes life easier in most cases.
  - dredmorbius 6y ago
    "Web design isn't the solution. Web design is the problem." Me, a while back: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9041142 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9041142

ericlewis 6y ago

The 27 inch layout looks a lot like my typical Xcode layout & the XDR looks a lot like my Xcode layout with my own pro display (except instead of a char its simulator). The XDR is truly a wonderful monitor. It’s size is perfect and resolution decent. Multiple monitors become tiring to move my neck to look at, and the curved monitors only get utilized in the middle (nothing really on the sides for me)

pram 6y ago
Agreed, I love mine. The color and brightness is also so good it makes my Wacom screen look like total garbage in comparison haha. It’s crazy how bad most monitors are, and how I didn’t even notice until using something that’s actually decent. Blows my mind.
- wooger 6y ago
  It'd better be more than decent for 10k! Like a lot of Apple's pro stuff, they've included tons of stuff that 90% of people don't care about, and a cost that retains profitability. But there's no good alternative for any apple user who wants a monitor to use for programming / home use. If they at least sold their 5K 27" iMac screen as a monitor for a sane price I'd be there in a second. But you look across the average office of programmers and you will see nothing but Dell screens regardless of what machines they're using.
  - greedo 6y ago
    Pro Display XDR is $6K with stand, $7K with nano texture. Still an insane price, but you're off by over 50%.

matchbok 6y ago

What a terribly designed website.

nikisweeting 6y ago
It's really just the font spacing, size, and weight, once you fix those it looks decent imo. The colors, layout, navigation, etc. aren't necessarily what I would choose but but they seem reasonable.

ASpaceCowboi 6y ago

This is so wonderful to read! Thank you so much for sharing!! I'm trying to get more in the 3D world myself. I do plenty of 2D/graphic design professionally and I bought the mac pro (base version*) thinking I can upgrade it later. The main problem I ran into for Maya was the Arnold Render. I will have to come back to this document and research how they render real time using their GPUs and not their CPUs. I see they're using RedShift. I'll have to learn about that! Maya's Arnold render doesn't support rendering with AMD's GPU (AMD Radeon Pro W5700X 16 GB) so I tried the RadeonRender Plugin but it's a pain trying to apply the textures to be the same. Are their Maya tutorials that anyone recommends on this?

clarkmoreno 6y ago

Apologies if a bit off-topic, but the piece is quite challenging to read. Base font size on their blog is 11px... one cannot even ⌘+ zoom to victory. Compelling article packaged in poor accessibility.

PhantomGremlin 6y ago
Safari reader mode helped a lot, without that the website is very very bad. Within reader mode I used Accessibility to zoom in. Too bad about the horrible presentation, I learned a lot from the article.

jiggawatts 6y ago

The problem I have with Mac Pro reviews is that they all seem to be written by people that live in a world without AMD Threadrippers and NVIDIA GPUs. A much, much cheaper Windows or Linux workstation will run circles around a Mac Pro. Many more threads, much more memory, much faster I/O, much better video cards. The latter is especially key for modern real-time raytracing workflows that utilise either the RTX or CUDA APIs. This is a bit like reviewing a Leica camera, going on and on about how good the image quality is for a "mere" $40K USD, and failing to point out that a $5K Nikon or Canon has not only has better image quality, but also more features, more choice, and better ergonomics.

vagrantJin 6y ago
Because you are assuming people buy Apple or Lecia for practical reasons.
- runawaybottle 6y ago
  I’d almost say the guy bought it so his desk looks nice.
danlugo92 6y ago
> better ergonomics Wrong. I would argue this is the main reason people prefer Leica/Apple over competitors.
- K0balt 6y ago
  It probably a big reason... But mine is different. I was windows up through windows 7, at which time I transitioned to Linux. I Loved Linux. A little clunky sometimes, but I don't mind futzing with the command line, rather like it. Started getting much heavier into dev work. Accidently got a MacBook air, it was small and handy (ergonomics) but relatively capable and fast... And the 'nix environment was familiar. Fast forward a few years, and the better tools are on windows and Mac and don't work so good on Linux. I start using my now old Macbook air for serious work... And it compiles as fast my coworkers windows machines that have 4x the ram and way more powerful processors. I am amazed. I need a new machine. I think about getting a nice powerful laptop and going back to Linux, but I'm just too damn lazy. I buy a maxed out m1 air. It runs circles around my coworkers windows machines that they spent 2x on. I'm talking project complies in 45-50 seconds on mine and 3 minutes on theirs. My emulated Rosetta stuff runs at about the same speed as their windows compiles do. There are warts, with corner case incompatibilities for the M1 still in the dev space, but overall my experience has been good. Then I started using the iwork stuff for documents and affinity for images and screw it im sold. I hate it because it gives me a rash in my open source, but I spend half the time making docs that look twice as good. The interface plus the ecosystem, with all the top shelf templates, themes, images, etc is impossible to beat for someone who doesn't want to invest a couple thousand hours to become a software-x jedi. It's impossible to compare it with the tools I had on Linux. It makes me look competent at desktop publishing, which arguably I am not. Overall, while I don't doubt that for really high compute tasks there is no substitute for threads, ram, and cycles. But For my work flow as a dev using vscode and node.js based tools, I spent half the money and got way better performance and insane battery life. And I got access to an application ecosystem that let's me produce competent work products in areas that I really don't have competence. For me, being drug into the Mac ecosystem has been a win, albeit a begrudging one.

Liquid_Fire 6y ago

Amusingly, the final video embedded on the page seems to have be taken down for copyright reasons: > This video contains content from UFC, who has blocked it on copyright grounds.