It’s official…. just ordered and paid everything…..pfffff

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Exciting times…..
My trusty and fast MacPro is going to be replaced by something we decided to call…. Project Goliath (key heavy metal music riff).

Now this doesn’t mean I’m MacFanBoy Off…. love their products. But in all honesty I’m afraid I won’t be able to afford the MacPro that I need when/if Apple is going to release it.

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Also the machine like I build it now (going to build) is easily upgradable and not even at full capacity. So you probably want to know what we got right?

Well we will also show everything in our vlog, but here are some key elements.

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Asus X99-Rog mainboard with USB-c
Intel i7 8 core 6900 CPU 4Ghz
32GB Corsair memory DDR4 Vengeance
Plextor SSD 512GB promising 2300/1300 read write.
Asus GTX1080 Turbo video
HX1200i Pro Platinum power supply Corsair
Corsair tower with airflow

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Keyboard will be the Mac keyboard and the magic touchpad from Apple with custom drivers which promise to work great, so I’m curious to see this.

I will be using Paragons HFS+ to keep full compatibility with the rest of the Macs here and …. well the rest we will see.

By the way… don’t you just love this case 😀

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Ok so why?
As stated before I’m very afraid that with the way Apple is going we are not going to see another MacPro that is affordable, and at the moment my MacPro still works like a charm and is even fast enough for multicam 4K (so glad I got the 6 core with D700’s) but things change, we edit a LOT of video and most of it now a days is 4K that has to be downresed for internet or downloads and that takes some time, now for an occasional video that’s not really a problem but in all honesty I just want more speed in that department (rending, not working on the timeline that screams).

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My whole review on the mobile studio pro actually pushed this towards the end of THIS year instead of the summer (and it’s better to spend money now than in the new year :-)).

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Now the reasons are simple.

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1. Upgradability
With the MacPro I’m a bit stuck, I can add memory and with a LOT of money and effort the CPU but that’s about it, everything else is… well fixed. And adding drives is also a bit of a hassle with external casings over TB2 which are pretty expensive to buy (we have one but that one is full with a E-SATA card and a SSD drive)

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2. Price
I always make the joke “hey I’m Dutch” but in reality I’m more than willing to spend money, but I do want to see something in return and with Apple with all due respect I have the feeling I’m more and more paying for design and lightweight stuff and emoticons etc. than raw power and usability and that’s a part where I don’t want to spend money.

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Stability and looks
I will hear a lot of people telling me I will be running back to MacOs within months… and who knows maybe I will. But I’m prepared.
First of all I love the look of Apple products and finding something similar in PC land well….. it can be done but it’s not Apple so why try. I did spend a fair amount of money however on the case and the gear for the reason that I believe that if you compare a high-end MacPro with a PC you should do it right and not get the cheaper components. a VITAL part of the stability of a system is of course the stability of the components and the way they work together and especially in a PC/Windows environment this is vital and will make or break your experience.

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As mentioned in previous blogposts I got my Wacom mobile studio Pro app looking the way I’m used to from the Mac, the Mail client leaves something to be desired in looks but does give me more flexibility than Apple mail and up until last night I really missed Final Cut Pro X, don’t get me wrong Adobe Premiere is GREAT but it’s not Final Cut Pro X. However also this has changed and actually pushed me forwards to take the dive with my production machine. The missing “link” for me was Black Magics Davinci Resolve. A (I still can’t believe it) free video editing software package that gives Premiere and Final Cut Pro X in some instances a run for their money. It looks MUCH better than premiere although Premiere wins on features like titles and effects but Resolve has a Kick @ss color grading part and is blazingly fast to edit in (almost as fast as the magnetic time line from FCPx)

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In essence EVERYTHING I use on my mac I now have alternatives for on the PC except MacPhun… but although I love MacPhun it doesn’t make any sense to keep using a Mac just for MacPhun. Now I don’t leave the Mac because I don’t like the OS let’s make that 100% clear, I think MacOs is superior in smoothness and stability to Windows and it’s much more work to maintain the Windows OS, I’m purely testing this new machine to see if the speed increase brings me more productivity and “comfort”, in essence I’m not working in the OS but in the Adobe suite and other programs and those are the same on both systems.

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I’m excited to see the first benchmarks we’re gonna do tomorrow or end of the week (depending on the mailservice and how rusty my PC building skills are) and if you like we’ll keep you updated.

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Oh and before you wonder… that image on top…. while looking for a case we found this one, it’s not my case but I absolutely loved it.