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Mac Hardware and Software |OT| - All things Macintosh
- Thread starter 3N16MA
- Start date
The thing with storage and time is that it's cumulative, but mostly that file sizes are increasing with time. SD->HD->soon, 4k. Higher bit rate music files, higher megapixel cameras, RAW images etc. apps contain compatibility modes for convenience.
Snapping! Thanks.
smokeandmirrors
Banned
Discovered the iphone headphones that come supplied can also control my Air when plugged in.
I should have realized but damnit this blew my mind.
I should have realized but damnit this blew my mind.
My music collection is big (80GB mostly ALAC), but my biggest hit is my stock library of textures, sounds, footage and projects I've done. That totals 4TB alone, and I've still got discs of it lying around somewhere I haven't added.
I'm really interested in seeing if the Mavericks labeling actually does speed up organization beyond my old standby of labels.
Anyone else remember people talking about the "death of the Finder" when Spotlight appeared? I get a kick thinking about it...
The Real Abed
Perma-Junior
I haven't even started doing any sort of categorization with tags yet. I hate that they don't let you use the color picker to colorize custom tags any color other than the default rainbow colors. Such a stupid oversight. They're useless if I can't tell at a glance what the circles mean. Plus it only shows three at once on the icon. I liked labels with the whole line being colored in list view. Now it's just a small circle.
I'm waiting for Hazel to be updated to support Tags too.
Autumn Wind
Member
I like that they at least stopped being greedy with video memory and made 1 GB standard instead of the 512 MB available from last year's models. However what would you have wanted in the say the base 27" model? 765M?
Yeah this is questionable and hopefully they finally begin to do this next year.
I can understand the problems people have with the iMacs and no doubt there are a few negatives though I was overall pretty happy with the update. I feel though where things will really shine is when nVidia introduces the Maxwell line or whatever AMD uses if they go the AMD route for 2014.
Do a lot of people even buy iMacs anymore? It seems more viable to just get a MBA or MBP or even the Mac mini and use an external monitor unless you want to get the Fusion Drive and/or game on them.
Yes but what's in stock is pretty random. It just depends on what Apple gets to fix/refurb.
The Real Abed
Perma-Junior
And this isn't a problem for you because you have a backup.... right?
Yeah, of course.
Just a bother that they don't seem to believe me regarding the issues I've been having / that their diagnostic tools don't show any problems when industry-standard ones show extensive issues.
I'm not taking it back until it passes tests with zero errors in the store, though.
CrudeDiatribe
Member
Running memtest off USB? If so then wiping the SSD wouldn't have been my suggestion, but I am not a Genius.
Www.refurb.me is your new best friend.
Thanks for the link but it's missing the spec I'm looking for. I'm looking for a 13" i5, 8GB, and 128/256GB. I'll just have to keep checking.
Yeah refurb's are always going to be spotty, you just have to be patient and jump when you find what you're looking for.
The Real Abed
Perma-Junior
Well you'd probably want to reformat and reinstall the OS anyway. Then restore from your backup via Migration Assistant just to be safe. Especially with all those errors.
Hmmm. Sometimes watching some video files, my left speaker just suddenly drops. If I unplug and replug my stereo into the headphone socket it rights itself.
Damn. Now I'm not sure if it's my sound on the iMac, hardware or software, the headphone socket or my stereo system.
It's intermittent so it's going to be hard to diagnose.
Damn. Now I'm not sure if it's my sound on the iMac, hardware or software, the headphone socket or my stereo system.
It's intermittent so it's going to be hard to diagnose.
Rather than more performance, I would have liked to see an Intel Iris 5100 and a dual-core CPU in the base model. That's plenty for run-of-the-mill office work and non-gaming, non-specialized home use. Apple's problem isn't just that they fail to offer a high performance option, but also that they make useless gestures of "performance" in their low end where the only thing it does is keep the entry price sky-high.
As for the high end, I don't think it would be feasible for Apple to put anything more than the 780M in the current iMac chassis, and that is the problem.
The 780M's thermal envelope is 100W while a nice desktop GPU like the 770 (maybe 30% faster, also cheaper) is 230W. Up to a certain point, higher TDP budget means more performance at lower cost. This is a matter of physics, and is not going to change in the next GPU generation or the one after that. GPUs on the iMac will always be weak and ridiculously overpriced as long as their #1 design priority is obsessing over chassis thickness.
I was surprised to read over the weekend a rumor that Apple may ditch a discrete graphics card in the new rMBP as Intel's integrated graphics in Haswell (Iris Pro) are very close to matching the card currently used in the rMBP (GeForce GT 650M).
isn't this an issue though as most thnk the 650M isn't powerful enough fo the retina display?
also the 650M has 1 GB of memory. What does something like the Iris Pro do for RAM? does it pool the system memory?
I'm thinking of getting the new rMBP if the graphics are a nice leap over the current model.
Otherwise... I may actually get one of the updated iMacs. I currently use a 2-year old iMac and do animation, so getting a fusion drive, leaping 2 gens of Intel processors and going from my current AMD Radeon HD 6770M w/ 512MB GDDR5 ------> NVIDIA GeForce GTX 780M 4GB GDDR5 would probably be insane!
isn't this an issue though as most thnk the 650M isn't powerful enough fo the retina display?
also the 650M has 1 GB of memory. What does something like the Iris Pro do for RAM? does it pool the system memory?
I'm thinking of getting the new rMBP if the graphics are a nice leap over the current model.
Otherwise... I may actually get one of the updated iMacs. I currently use a 2-year old iMac and do animation, so getting a fusion drive, leaping 2 gens of Intel processors and going from my current AMD Radeon HD 6770M w/ 512MB GDDR5 ------> NVIDIA GeForce GTX 780M 4GB GDDR5 would probably be insane!
The upgrade to a Mac Pro would be insane
are those supposed to release this year? (the new ones)
Well technically Fall 2013 goes to December 20...
My question is whether what they demoed is set or they will fiddle with the configuration any.
The sensible thing to do would be to launch it along with Mavericks, which is supposed to be late October.
I assume that as well, but who knows what goes on in their head sometimes.
Think we'll see first party 4K displays?
They only mentioned a few things to begin with, and most of them were "up to" configurations. The only things apparently set in stone from the wording seemed to be E5 Xeons (which range from $200 to $2600) and dual FirePros (around $400 to $3500 each for the W series). The big questions are which parts they'll be using for lower end configs and what kind of prices they're getting from AMD, and I guess the possibility of a GPU delete or second SSD options (the latter might be limited by available PCIe lanes though).
From Geekbench results leaked so far it looks like there's going to be the E5-2697v2 (12 core, $2600) and E5-1680v2 (8 core, $1700), which are the highest end E5 parts for those two lines. I'm hoping for lower end E5-16xx configurations with the more reasonably priced parts.
I think most 4K displays are $3500ish, and they've come out with $3000+ displays before (...once) so it's not out of the question. They did specifically mention connecting to third party 4K displays which could've been read any number of ways, so who knows.
I'm hoping that you can do a card swap for internal storage if you want, or there are some gaming card options down the line, because I'd rather keep a setup similar to my current one (a Radeon 5770 for displays and games and then a Quadro 4000 for CUDA and DaVinci) rather than exclusively workstation cards.
Hey NeoGAFFers,
is it worth it for $200 to go from i5 3.4 GHz to i7 3.5 GHz??
is the only difference a 0.1 clock speed increase? or does i7 mean other upgrades?
I do a lot of rendering, compositing and animation in AE, so I do want FAST FAST FAST, but not sure if this is worth it?
is it worth it for $200 to go from i5 3.4 GHz to i7 3.5 GHz??
is the only difference a 0.1 clock speed increase? or does i7 mean other upgrades?
I do a lot of rendering, compositing and animation in AE, so I do want FAST FAST FAST, but not sure if this is worth it?
Autumn Wind
Member
The i7 has hyperthreading so if you use applications where it is necessary, you may want to go that route. If you have the money, I say go for it.
Water said:
Yeesh! No no no. That might be acceptable for the education model but not a model that costs $1,299. Unless you are in favor of making the base model $999.
Frankly, AE renders horribly, so if you want more bang for your buck you might want to plunk down the coin for BGRenderer instead. http://aescripts.com/bg-renderer/
You'll see faster renders no matter what; even with enough RAm to dedicate per core AE usually doesn't fully saturate your available horsepower.
Beyond that an i7 should give you a boost, but I would think about a better graphics card or RAM in most instances first.
As for your used Mac check eBay.
well I just bought it!
core i7, 8 GB RAM (will upgrade to 16 or 32 soon), 1 TB Fusion, NVIDIA GeForce GTX 780M 4GB GDDR5.
Magic Mouse for sell!
Do you guys think $900 is fair to sell my old 27" to a friend? (27", 16 GB, AMD 6770M 512 MB, i5, 1 TB).
thanks Fuchsdh.... I will check out BGRenderer.
core i7, 8 GB RAM (will upgrade to 16 or 32 soon), 1 TB Fusion, NVIDIA GeForce GTX 780M 4GB GDDR5.
Magic Mouse for sell!
Do you guys think $900 is fair to sell my old 27" to a friend? (27", 16 GB, AMD 6770M 512 MB, i5, 1 TB).
thanks Fuchsdh.... I will check out BGRenderer.
I was expecting this to be $500 or something. I guess I'll buy it if it improved rendering time.
More than fair, considering the monitor alone is $999
Also congrats, I'm soooo jealous! 780, omg. Hell of a card (even if it is just the mobile version)
Haha no it's remarkably cheap, especially if you don't care about phone notifications, and the advantage of being able to work on the same machine is worth the price anyhow.
Obviously the limitation is that for the speed boost to kick in you're going to need to use image sequences rather than render out footage, but you usually want to do that with huge renders anyhow in case of errors.
Tutsplus runs down the specific settings you want to use here: http://ae.tutsplus.com/tutorials/workflow/significantly-speed-up-your-renders-from-after-effects/
Ok, so here's a question: I really want to upgrade my mini's HDD. I figure if I swap out its 500GB 5400rpm HDD for a decently spacious SSD, I can just use it as a dedicated video capture setup controlled by Screen Sharing like I'm using now (except just for SD home video conversion since it doesn't have the bandwidth to cap anything else.)
The ifixit guide is pretty damn crazy... anyone have any experience with OWC's mini pro installation? I figure $99 is a fairly low price to prevent myself from nuking a $400 + RAM upgrade cost purchase... http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/mac-mini/install/
The ifixit guide is pretty damn crazy... anyone have any experience with OWC's mini pro installation? I figure $99 is a fairly low price to prevent myself from nuking a $400 + RAM upgrade cost purchase... http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/mac-mini/install/
Crazymoogle
Member
AFAIK most/all recent Mac Minis have slots for two drives, even if they only have the cable for one. So you could roll with both. That's what I did when I updated mine. You could also turn it into an unofficial fusion drive, though then you would be reliant on both drives to be working instead of just one.
I think that's a pretty fair price when all is said and done. To upgrade mine I had to buy their upgrade kit (not the drive, but the tool and components to add it) then watch the video and read the notes and spent about an hour struggling to rebuild the thing. There are two spots where yeah, a wrong move and you need to order new parts to make your Mac work again. $100 for the upgrade and 72 hour turnaround time seems like a pretty cheap price for my time, if you ask me. (But it is achievable by yourself, if you have the gumption)
I'm a bit scarred from my experience with my iPod video when I was a kid. I had to hustle across the street and it popped out of my hoodie pocket and hit pavement. It worked fine but somehow the click wheel's tabs popped out-so the only way to fix it was to open the entire thing up. It died on the operating table :\
Crazymoogle
Member
Then go with the service option, if you're in the US. The process is more tedious than hard, but there are two steps where you need a light touch because you have to pull things that you can't entirely see.
$100 aint bad for guaranteeing success.
At $400, are you looking at a 512GB SSD? Keeping the 500GB drive around could be useful as a nightly backup clone.
I think the $100 seems reasonable considering it includes shipping and fast turnaround time. Another option might be local Mac specialist shops, I guess just search around for ones in your area and check for reviews where possible. They'll hopefully charge less, and if they're a low volume shop they should be able to get it done pretty quickly...unless it's for the newer mini and you go with two drives.
A single drive swap isn't too hard, but for the second drive you need to dismantle the whole thing. It's possible to ghetto mount it without doing that though, I didn't really have a choice for mine cause I didn't have the second drive mounting parts. And I just remembered another part about doing it yourself, if you don't have the right screwdrivers that'll be another $10-20 to spend.
Need some advice.
I ordered my iMac yesterday with a 1 TB Fusion Drive.
but now I'm thinking... maybe I should just get a 1 TB Thunderbolt external drive? It looks like they go for around $180 which is the upgrade price of the Fusion.
would a thunderbolt HDD be similar in performance to an SSD?
I ordered my iMac yesterday with a 1 TB Fusion Drive.
but now I'm thinking... maybe I should just get a 1 TB Thunderbolt external drive? It looks like they go for around $180 which is the upgrade price of the Fusion.
would a thunderbolt HDD be similar in performance to an SSD?
polyh3dron
Banned
No a Thunderbolt HDD will not be anywhere near as fast as an SSD.
Maybe an external Thunderbolt SSD interests you?
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B009LJM6DK/?tag=neogaf0e-20
Seriously though, I'd recommend going with the 3TB Fusion Drive.
The Real Abed
Perma-Junior
Yeah, the HDD part is the bottleneck. Thunderbolt may be fast, but HDD is slow. You wouldn't get anywhere near the speed of the port.
Then again, you're still replacing a HDD with a HDD. The only thing is it's replacing an internal direct connection HDD with a port-based external connection HDD. So either get the TB SSD above or just keep the internal 1TB HDD for storage.
Then again, you're still replacing a HDD with a HDD. The only thing is it's replacing an internal direct connection HDD with a port-based external connection HDD. So either get the TB SSD above or just keep the internal 1TB HDD for storage.
Autumn Wind
Member
I replaced the HDD in my Mac Mini with an SSD although next time I'll be going with one through Apple. Despite following OWC's directions I could not get it to snap in perfectly so I cannot reassemble my Mac mini and thus the bottom of the case sits on top of the computer rather than snaps over it. The SSD is connected securely to the SATA port or else I wouldn't be typing this as I am now.
There's no reason why it shouldn't fit in correctly. I've put many SSDs into Mac Minis with no issues.
What part is actually sticking up? Can you not get the "lovely" metal part to slide back in with the big plastic wireless part on it?
The Real Abed
Perma-Junior
Take a picture.
I'd love to replace my mini's HDD with an SSD but all the steps keep me from attempting it.
I'd love to replace my mini's HDD with an SSD but all the steps keep me from attempting it.
Autumn Wind
Member
No, it will not snap the drive in to the back and have it lay flat, and after numerous attempts I just left it alone. The only reason I decided to do it myself is because back in 2011, only the $799 model offered an SSD and it was $600 to upgrade. In 2012, the cost dropped to $300 on the same model. Now if I buy one, it's only $200 to upgrade.
In 2011, I spent $200 ($170 + an extended warranty for $30 off of NewEgg which was a waste) to buy a 128 GB Samsung 470 and I love it.
I would love for the mini to have an SSD included by default though wouldn't expect it in the base model. Then again, Apple isn't including them in the iMacs so why would they do so in the minis.
My priorities for the 2013 (or if it should be 2014 which I hope it isn't)
1. SSD (perhaps even a PCIe)
2. Quad-core processor with Iris Pro - I don't use my computer for anything demanding but I want a quad-core processor
3. At least 8 GB of memory in $799 or $999 model