MP 7,1 2019 Mac Pro might be worth it for me if ...

[layzarc]

... there is an NVIDIA GPU option since I depend on a couple of CUDA applications.
... it runs my multi-threaded engineering application ~10x faster than my current 12-core 5,1.

The latter might be possible with twice as many cores at the same clock rate, 3x faster RAM, and ability to recompile to make use of the AVX-512 instructions.

What do you think? Are either of these in the realm of possibilities?

Al

 

[orph]

run windows on it?

 

[Alex Sanders74]

I'd wager that there is no option for Nvidia GPUs for the new towers. I'd love to see that as well as I'm running a GTX970 in my 5.1. It's been a fantastic card. The driver issue with Nvidia still isn't fixed and there's been no word from anyone as to when that will, if ever, get rectified.

From a horsepower perspective, I'd say the 7.1 would definitely run circles around our 5.1's but until it's actually released with some benchmarks, we can speculate all we want. I'd wait until it's in the market before pressing the button on a purchase.

It looks to be a massively impressive piece of hardware and would love to buy one myself... Price is a bit out of scope for me right now.

 

[layzarc]

Forgot one other if ...

... pre-Catalina versions of MacOS are supported on it since I also depend on some old 32-bit apps.

Sadlly, running Windows instead suggestion is sounding better and better.

 

[seek3r]

I'd wager that there is no option for Nvidia GPUs for the new towers. I'd love to see that as well as I'm running a GTX970 in my 5.1. It's been a fantastic card. The driver issue with Nvidia still isn't fixed and there's been no word from anyone as to when that will, if ever, get rectified.

From a horsepower perspective, I'd say the 7.1 would definitely run circles around our 5.1's but until it's actually released with some benchmarks, we can speculate all we want. I'd wait until it's in the market before pressing the button on a purchase.

It looks to be a massively impressive piece of hardware and would love to buy one myself... Price is a bit out of scope for me right now.

I mean, the general assumption seems to be that nvidia has drivers but apple won't sign them. And whether they have finalized drivers or not, it's a spat between the two companies, not a technical issue, that's driving this problem, so we all have to hope they make up... :/

 

[velocityg4]

Sounds like Windows may be a better solution for your use case. You could run a Dual Socket AMD Epyc (64 core coming soon) or Intel Xeon Motherboard. Plus run GeForce or Quadro GPU. As far as I can find. Windows 10 Pro can run dual CPU's. I'm not finding a core limit. I don't think you'll have to get Windows 10 Pro for Workstations.

With OS X you are stuck with an older OS due to your application needs. Unless they ever release a 64 bit update. As it stands you are also stuck with High Sierra due to nVidia driver availability. It's highly unlikely the Mac Pro will support anything under Mojave. Depending on release it may be limited to Catalina.

Is Linux an option for your software?

 

[orph]

the computer is not out yet (is it? not been keeping up) but if the cost compares well i can't see why you can't just run windows for your needs.

eGPU is also an option if you want internal AMD cards for osx and external cards for windows

there is also the option of running linux and doing it all in VM's to run OSX and windows at the same time (you will need dedicated GPU for each OS) which will let you run both AMD and nvidia cards at the same time for fun and hay intel will have a GPU out soon so the option of 3 brands of GPU with a OS for each is there.

 

[layzarc]

The newest Mac I have is a 2014 MacBook Pro with a quad-core Haswell CPU and was the last Mac to come with a discrete NVIDIA GPU. My engineering application benchmark took 17 seconds (forcing my 5,1 to use only 2 of its 12 cores). On the MBP with twice as many cores at the same clockrate, 2X RAM speed, and AVX2 instructions, the same benchmark took 5 seconds, a 3.4x speedup. From this I would expect a 24-core 2019 Mac Pro 7,1 with AVX512 and even faster RAM to yield at least a 4x speedup over the 12-core 5,1. How much faster and the cost of this new Mac Pro will determine if its bang-per-buck is reasonable.