2013 Mac Pro timeframe

[derbothaus]

I actually rather like the Magic Mouse for pro work. Multiple virtual buttons is enough for me, and the scroll is better than any mechanical mouse.

Wouldn't touch it for gaming though.

MM is fine. The name not so much. I meant their lucite see through white and black pucks from circa 2001-2004? The ones with just the tension adjustment. Nice but unjustifiably simple and the company explanation, in a nutshell, was that their customers were idiots.
I wouldn't touch any wireless mouse for gaming. Razer had one that was supposed to be OK but I never tried it as I am not a fan of Razer in principle and in general. Build quality is suspect.

 

[JLopez]

hi,
someone has what month in 2013 to commercialize the new Mac Pro?! or simply all just "show off" and Apple simply abandoned the Mac Pro!! since sales of the new iMac are running high, thus not justifying the development and sale of the new mac pro!! it starts getting complicad!! (with these uncertainties by Apple, can equate abandonment pursuant to another workstation platform (HP / Dell). Hopefully Apple has some attention with the business sector and the official date of sale or otherwise of the new Mac Pro in the first months of this year.

 

[kitkat99333]

There is a very good reason a 'new' Mac Pro wasn't released in 2012, because the Xeon Chipsets can't use thunderbolt.

Thunderbolt hasn't been integrated into the chipset yet. It multiplexes a digital video signal and a PCIe signal into one stream which is then demultiplexed at each drop. This requires both a source for the digital video, and 4 second generation PCIe 2.0 lanes. Chipsets which have Intel's FDI can provide the video straight from the chipset (hence why the chipsets with integrated graphics can support thunderbolt) and theoretically it could be pulled out from almost any video card that has a DisplayPort or HDMI output without much difficulty. The PCIe lanes can be tapped from the chipset itself as most have 4-8 spare lanes which are usually fanned out into 1x and 4x slots. These lanes aren't multiplexed which means they'd have to be fed into an add-in Thunderbolt controller instead of a slot on the motherboard. This cannibalizes the user's ability to use add-in PCIe cards.

As soon as Thunderbolt is added natively it will most likely receive its own dedicated PCIe lanes which are multiplexed on chip. This doesn't cannibalize other PCIe expansion slots and reduces the complexity of the traces on the board.

In simple terms, until thunderbolt is added natively to the chipset ( presumably will be in the ivybridge-E and server grade processors line up) Apple won't release a 'new' generation Mac as they want there entire lineup to carry thunderbolt.

 

[Lesser Evets]

There is a very good reason a 'new' Mac Pro wasn't released in 2012, because the Xeon Chipsets can't use thunderbolt.

In simple terms, until thunderbolt is added natively to the chipset ( presumably will be in the ivybridge-E and server grade processors line up) Apple won't release a 'new' generation Mac as they want there entire lineup to carry thunderbolt.

Exactly. And WHEN do the Ivy Bridge-E sets come out? Slated for Q3 '13. Which means you'll be lucky to see a new Mac Pro in July. More likely to see the new Pro out in Aug-Nov '13.

They'll be here, and they will probably be nothing more than a slight redesign with TB added. The only questions are WHEN does it arrive and HOW FAST is it in processing and overall benchmarks. Everything else is almost certainly nothing paradigm changing.

 

[kitkat99333]

Exactly. And WHEN do the Ivy Bridge-E sets come out? Slated for Q3 '13. Which means you'll be lucky to see a new Mac Pro in July. More likely to see the new Pro out in Aug-Nov '13.

They'll be here, and they will probably be nothing more than a slight redesign with TB added. The only questions are WHEN does it arrive and HOW FAST is it in processing and overall benchmarks. Everything else is almost certainly nothing paradigm changing.

We still have to assume, Ivybridge-E will have native thunderbolt support. The company I work with works close with intel and nothing has suggested so yet.

The company I work for has managed to design a non-refernce board for the X79 chipset with thunderbolt, so it is entirely possible Apple could do the same.

If a new model does come out, I would expect no re-design, but PCIe-3/USB-3/Thunderbolt added as-well as a CPU and GPU update.

 

[Lesser Evets]

If a new model does come out, I would expect no re-design, but PCIe-3/USB-3/Thunderbolt added as-well as a CPU and GPU update.

I excluded USB3 and PCI3 because I figured that was obvious to a new Pro. It would be odd if they made a new Pro sans TB, but it could be done.

My intuition is that they will redesign the interior a little and they will compress a lot of the boards down to something compact. It would follow the overall Apple design m.o. these days.

 

[xgman]

Maybe it's the "Mac Pro Math"

----------

Exactly.
They'll be here, and they will probably be nothing more than a slight redesign with TB added.

You're probably right.

 

[SnowLeopard2008]

Is there even a remote chance that Apple could go with AMD processors for the 2013 Pro Mac?

I remember when AMD was kicking Intel's rear end.

No. Intel has better performance at a better price. That said, AMD did ship the first multi-core processor on a single die and first 64-bit processor. But those times are long gone. Before, performance is what made the most different. Now, it's power consumption. AMD's current crop of processors are cheaper than Intel but the power consumption is significantly higher. The only competitive "weapon" they have is their APU technology which combines GPU and CPU into a single die. But the problem is, their CPU part is basically Core i3 level of performance and Intel's graphics technology is steadily improving, just look at Ivy Bridge.

 

[Phrygian]

MM is fine. The name not so much. I meant their lucite see through white and black pucks from circa 2001-2004? The ones with just the tension adjustment. Nice but unjustifiably simple and the company explanation, in a nutshell, was that their customers were idiots.
I wouldn't touch any wireless mouse for gaming. Razer had one that was supposed to be OK but I never tried it as I am not a fan of Razer in principle and in general. Build quality is suspect.

magic mouse is by far the worst, most non ergonomic mouse i have ever purchased. Whoever designed that thing either had some ****ed up hands or was a sadist.

Razer mouses are solid. Build quality is fine from my experiences with the naga. Sure steelseries is nice, but they don't produce a good multibutton mouse. As for the wireless vs wired gaming, the wireless razers are perfectly fine to use, but if the .01 second is actually going to make a difference, razer wirless mice can be used wired via usb anyway.

 

[derbothaus]

magic mouse is by far the worst, most non ergonomic mouse i have ever purchased. Whoever designed that thing either had some ****ed up hands or was a sadist.

Razer mouses are solid. Build quality is fine from my experiences with the naga. Sure steelseries is nice, but they don't produce a good multibutton mouse. As for the wireless vs wired gaming, the wireless razers are perfectly fine to use, but if the .01 second is actually going to make a difference, razer wirless mice can be used wired via usb anyway.

I don't use MM either.
I'm just too old school, I guess. Can't take the flashiness. IME 3.0 with 500Hz polling USB hack. No drivers. Win 6/11 setting. Perfect for me. Don't need any of that DPI sales garbage. 400DPI at 1920x1080 still a-ok. I could see the need for 800DPI at 27-30" screens but freakin 3200DPI? Almost as crazy as the other Razor's. 3 blades? 5 blades? How many blades you need to shave a face?

 

[JavaTheHut]

I'm just too old school, I guess.

Hey if you were old school you'd be on a Trackball

 

[goMac]

magic mouse is by far the worst, most non ergonomic mouse i have ever purchased. Whoever designed that thing either had some ****ed up hands or was a sadist.

Razer mouses are solid. Build quality is fine from my experiences with the naga. Sure steelseries is nice, but they don't produce a good multibutton mouse. As for the wireless vs wired gaming, the wireless razers are perfectly fine to use, but if the .01 second is actually going to make a difference, razer wirless mice can be used wired via usb anyway.

MM is better for me ergonomically because I'm not flicking that scroll wheel as much. You can't hold it like a normal mouse (i.e. it's better if you don't try to rest your hand on it), but once you get over that, it's much better for things like coding than a traditional mouse.

I've got a Naga. I like it, but I actually have complaints about the build quality. Wireless seems flakey, it also feels like I have to charge it far too often, and I'm not sure it's also charging reliably.

 

[d-m-a-x]

MM is better for me ergonomically because I'm not flicking that scroll wheel as much. You can't hold it like a normal mouse (i.e. it's better if you don't try to rest your hand on it), but once you get over that, it's much better for things like coding than a traditional mouse.

I've got a Naga. I like it, but I actually have complaints about the build quality. Wireless seems flakey, it also feels like I have to charge it far too often, and I'm not sure it's also charging reliably.

The sideways scrolling drives me crazy in photoshop. Always preferred a Wacom 9x12. Good mappimg size for dual monitors

 

[thekev]

As soon as Thunderbolt is added natively it will most likely receive its own dedicated PCIe lanes which are multiplexed on chip. This doesn't cannibalize other PCIe expansion slots and reduces the complexity of the traces on the board.

In simple terms, until thunderbolt is added natively to the chipset ( presumably will be in the ivybridge-E and server grade processors line up) Apple won't release a 'new' generation Mac as they want there entire lineup to carry thunderbolt.

I think you're looking for reasoning in the wrong places. I doubt thunderbolt is any kind of priority in these, especially as they won't want to risk an extended development cycle on Ivy.

We still have to assume, Ivybridge-E will have native thunderbolt support. The company I work with works close with intel and nothing has suggested so yet.

Why would you assume that? It seems more likely that no new chipset will come with ivy. It's very common for workstation board designs to last for two cycles, meaning I don't expect thunderbolt or usb3 to be chipset native.

I don't use MM either.
I'm just too old school, I guess. Can't take the flashiness. IME 3.0 with 500Hz polling USB hack. No drivers. Win 6/11 setting. Perfect for me. Don't need any of that DPI sales garbage. 400DPI at 1920x1080 still a-ok. I could see the need for 800DPI at 27-30" screens but freakin 3200DPI? Almost as crazy as the other Razor's. 3 blades? 5 blades? How many blades you need to shave a face?

The razor blade conundrum is a simple one. Whenever sales slow by more than 5%, it's time to add another blade before everyone just decides to grow a beard. With mice much like other consumer marketing, I wonder if they're being realistic with their numbers.

The sideways scrolling drives me crazy in photoshop. Always preferred a Wacom 9x12. Good mappimg size for dual monitors

I disagree. They were designed for an era of 21" crt displays. Stretched across a couple larger displays, they feel way too jumpy at tha size. I wish I had a 24HD.

 

[d-m-a-x]

I think you're looking for reasoning in the wrong places. I doubt thunderbolt is any kind of priority in these, especially as they won't want to risk an extended development cycle on Ivy.



Why would you assume that? It seems more likely that no new chipset will come with ivy. It's very common for workstation board designs to last for two cycles, meaning I don't expect thunderbolt or usb3 to be chipset native.



The razor blade conundrum is a simple one. Whenever sales slow by more than 5%, it's time to add another blade before everyone just decides to grow a beard. With mice much like other consumer marketing, I wonder if they're being realistic with their numbers.



I disagree. They were designed for an era of 21" crt displays. Stretched across a couple larger displays, they feel way too jumpy at tha size. I wish I had a 24HD.

The 9x12 is pretty good actually. i have (2) 24" HPZR's. One of them is turned vertical as a pallette monitor, so the desktop space is not too wide.
At least it's not a track ball

 

[goMac]

There is a very good reason a 'new' Mac Pro wasn't released in 2012, because the Xeon Chipsets can't use thunderbolt.

I don't think the chipset is related to the ability to include Thunderbolt. The only dependencies Thunderbolt has as far as I'm aware is a GPU and available PCIe lanes.

Thunderbolt logically acts as a PCI card to the computer.

 

[GermanyChris]

Hey if you were old school you'd be on a Trackball

Hey thats what I use but I'm not old school..

 

[numbersyx]

Given that 6,1 Mac Pro references have been found in bootcamp for a while now and that 10.8.3 has support for 7XXX graphic cards I'd say that the extended testing of 10.8.3 coupled with it's new card support which can't be for Mac Mini, iMac etc - it's new Mac Pro time. I think we'll see it in February.

I wish.....

I suspect much later. Didn't Tim Cook say later in 2013 at one point???

 

[deconstruct60]

I suspect much later. Didn't Tim Cook say later in 2013 at one point???

relative to the timeframe of the comments, June 2012, now is later in 2013. It was later to the reference point present in the context of the original statement.

Can throw on top 10.8.2 updates for discrete USB 3.0 controller. Not only a Thunderbolt docking station (display) would need one but the Mac Pro also.

 

[kitkat99333]

I don't think the chipset is related to the ability to include Thunderbolt. The only dependencies Thunderbolt has as far as I'm aware is a GPU and available PCIe lanes.

Thunderbolt logically acts as a PCI card to the computer.

No it doesn't, I suggest you read my technical explanation of thunderbolt as this is the kind of thing I do for a living.

TB currently must have a CPU with integrated graphics in order for it to work ( explained in my post above), even if this is then passed onto a discrete card, it must come through integrated graphics.

 

[GermanyChris]

No it doesn't, I suggest you read my technical explanation of thunderbolt as this is the kind of thing I do for a living.

TB currently must have a CPU with integrated graphics in order for it to work ( explained in my post above), even if this is then passed onto a discrete card, it must come through integrated graphics.

You're going to be fun to have around here

 

[goMac]

TB currently must have a CPU with integrated graphics in order for it to work ( explained in my post above), even if this is then passed onto a discrete card, it must come through integrated graphics.

Your explanation only says that discrete graphics must be somehow multiplexed back into the chipset. Unless I'm missing something from your explanation, the integrated graphics still have nothing to do with that. All you need to do is route the DP back to the GPU.

I agree that's not a trivial issue, but it still doesn't have much to do with the chipset. Apple's Thunderbolt Macs don't have any special support in the chipset, they're using the same chipset any PC has. The lack of presence of Thunderbolt in the chipset is why there is an entirely different processor for Thunderbolt.

Again, sorry if I missed something, but I read your explanation and didn't see any dependencies on the chipset beyond the most ideal implementation (which I agree with, what you're talking about is ideal.)

 

[deconstruct60]

Ivy Bridge is not a "magic wand" that solves the Thunderbolt issue.

There is a very good reason a 'new' Mac Pro wasn't released in 2012, because the Xeon Chipsets can't use thunderbolt.

Funny how the X79 ( as derivative of the C600 chipset used with the Xeon E5 1600/2600 series ) manages to be a viable solution in your post less than an hour after this one (post #55 where your company composes a x79 solution to the problem that isn't a reference board. )

Thunderbolt hasn't been integrated into the chipset yet.

Thunderbolt is unlikely to be integrated into the chipset (I/O hub). Two major reasons.

A. Need to be at the edge of the system. There is a max distance you can put the controller from the physical port. So inttegrating would drag an I/O or CPU package closer to the edge. That isn't a option for larger and hotter chips.

B. The GPU output probably won't go into the I/O hub chipset over time. The two necessariy ingredients for integrations are PCI-e lanes and displayPort signals. Both of those are present in more CPU packages than I/O hubs (old southbridge ) chipsets. Likewise if Thunderbolt tries to go faster PCI-e v3.0 would be a necessity which chipsets won't necessarily follow as fast with ( I/O relatively just got to v2.0 lanes).

Chipsets which have Intel's FDI can provide the video straight from the chipset (hence why the chipsets with integrated graphics can support thunderbolt) and theoretically it could be pulled out from almost any video card that has a DisplayPort

Pretty sure on Intel's roadmap the CPU packages would be able to output Display Port directly. It was a stopgap to run the display through the I/O Hub.

Besides the ingrated GPU isn't material. A embedded discrete GPU can just as easily be hooked up (e.g., iMac and MBP 15" models. ). There is no need to get the signal off of a "video card".

The PCIe lanes can be tapped from the chipset itself as most have 4-8 spare lanes which are usually fanned out into 1x and 4x slots.

In generic PC board designs. Not in mac ones. The recent Mac Pro's slots are hooked to the Northbridge chipset. The I/O Hub is not used small slots (i.e, bluetooth, eithernet, ) at all. It is hooked to embedded controllers but not sltots in the connotation you are getting at.

These lanes aren't multiplexed which means they'd have to be fed into an add-in Thunderbolt controller instead of a slot on the motherboard. This cannibalizes the user's ability to use add-in PCIe cards.

Not. There is no slot limitation here in a Mac Pro design context.

What was formerly the Northbridge, high bandwidth PCI-e lanes , connection is subsummed into the Sandy Bridge (and Ivy Bridge same limitations) Xeon E5 design. There are 40 lanes per CPU package.
A 16, 16, 4, 4 ( the current mac pro PCI-e socket set up) could be fully realized just with CPU connections. That leaves the C600 series's x8 PCI-e lanes fully available for Thunderbolt controller use after zero slot use. That is the same limitation (use I/O Hub's lanes) the rest of the 2012 Mac line up labors under and they all manage to get a discrete Thunderbolt controller into the system solution.


Even if Apple went with a 16 , 8 , 8 , 4/4 , 4 set up where an x8 lane got assigned to the embedded GPU , the two x4 slots share a switched connection (like they do now on the current Mac Pro with a 36 lane limitation), and 4 got assigned to Thunderbolt it *still* wouldn't be a PCI-e limit to impair slots.

The much larger pressure to loose a slot is indirectly through the allocating x16 to an embedded GPU.

In simple terms, until thunderbolt is added natively to the chipset ( presumably will be in the ivybridge-E and server grade processors line up) Apple won't release a 'new' generation Mac as they want there entire lineup to carry thunderbolt.

Ivy Bridge Xeon is extremely unlikely to bring anything to the solutions that Sandy Bridge doesn't already have. The I/O chipset isn't likely to change. The CPU packages are socket compatible so nothing there either (in terms of PCI-e lanes).

Apple's work for a Mac Pro oriented design would be a bit easier for the single CPU package model if there was an integrated GPU. The dual package configuration with 80 PCI-e lanes is hardly even close to being limited in PCI-e lane availability if Apple sticks to just 4 physical slots.
It wouldn't be surprising if there were Haswell or Broadwell versions of the E5 1600 series with integrated GPUs. The core count kept to the same 4-6 (maybe 8) core range and some additional transistor budget allocated to a substantially more GPGPU capable integrated option ( HD4500 or HD5000 derivative).



The C600 I/O chipset has x8 lanes which can be set x4 , ,x1 , x1, x1, x1 . It is really controllers battling for those limited x1 lanes than the x4 bundle if they choose to route Thunderbolt that way.

Ethernet , Bluetooth , Firewire , audio I/O, and system-management I think are the current 5 or so usages. USB 3.0 would probably cause two of those to be bumped to a shared switched connection (e.g., audio and system-management). Or Apple could swap USB 3.0 for Firewire (not like they haven't booted it from other 2012 revisions).

In short, in most Apple designs over the last 6-9 years there has always been a couple "left over" lower bandwidth PCI-e lanes left unused.

 

[deconstruct60]

TB currently must have a CPU with integrated graphics in order for it to work ( explained in my post above), even if this is then passed onto a discrete card, it must come through integrated graphics.

Only if you have hooked the TB's controllers DisplayPort inputs solely to the I/O Hub's DisplayPort's outputs. There is no technical requirement that the PCI-e and DisplayPort have to be delivered by the same physical source chip.

It is easier to do ( routing of the signals can be easier). Certainly can slavishly copy from the Intel reference design (so very little design thought processes involved. )

 

[scottrichardson]

Only if you have hooked the TB's controllers DisplayPort inputs solely to the I/O Hub's DisplayPort's outputs. There is no technical requirement that the PCI-e and DisplayPort have to be delivered by the same physical source chip.

It is easier to do ( routing of the signals can be easier). Certainly can slavishly copy from the Intel reference design (so very little design thought processes involved. )

Hey there. In simple terms, how do you see the Thunderbolt working on a new mac pro with dedicated graphics cards? Will TB Cables be plugged into the MDP ports on the GPUs? Or will they be connected to the I/O panel with the other ports and somehow have video being sent back to that port too?