I decided I want to get the new Mac Pro to replace my loud and noisy i9 iMac. I should be able to get it in about 6 months. Should I get it now, or wait for the ARM transition to occur? I want to have a system that will last 5+ years that I can expand and enhance over time, like the old 2010 Mac Pro lasted until 2017 for me.
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MP 7,1 2019 Mac Pro Now (as in 6 months) or wait?
- Thread starter Ethosik
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i think it will take at least 3 -4 years until there will be a macpro with apple silicon
IndioX is correct. You will be waiting a couple of years at least for the ARM MacPro. Is this a personal use machine or for your company?
THey said 2 years during the keynote, and they said the same during the Intel trassision, which turned out to be 9 months.
Getting 5+ years of usage out of it seems doable as long as you don't expect to have full compatibility with whatever Apple is going to put into the OS in the future. You'll be on the platform that is by then an afterthought. When you look at what Apple promises will be included in their silicon, those features won't apply to your system.
The longevity of the old cheesegrater is an anomaly, not the rule IMO.
The longevity of the old cheesegrater is an anomaly, not the rule IMO.
the current apple silicon has no PCIe support and some other interfaces are missing, like thunderbolt, which will be replaced by USB4.0 when it becomes available.
see also the developer mini > no thunderbolt
apple will first deliver the books, the mini and maybe afterwards the imac with its silicon.
therefore a pro desktop is not expected before 3 years
The bottom line is that a workstation-like Mac (Mac Pro) is going to be the last thing that gets an ARM makeover. The big win is in high-sales-volume and especially compact and low-power. Laptops first, iMac...look how long it took them to even make a new Mac Pro, not a lot of urgency.
Also, while many laptop and iMac users won't mind the Rosetta 2 bandaid to old software for a while, anyone who shells out the bucks a Mac Pro commands is not going to be happy with that unless it's a stunningly efficient emulation. Again, the priority to hurry the Intel Mac Pro out of the lineup is lowest.
Also, while many laptop and iMac users won't mind the Rosetta 2 bandaid to old software for a while, anyone who shells out the bucks a Mac Pro commands is not going to be happy with that unless it's a stunningly efficient emulation. Again, the priority to hurry the Intel Mac Pro out of the lineup is lowest.
Adobe has a typical policy of supporting three OS versions for the latest products. Right now it's 10.15, 10.14, and 10.13. Products under 10.12 are being phased out, but do still work in some capacity. No guarantees on features or limitations as some are OS dependent.
FCP will likely support as long as MP7,1 is supported and not EOL'd.
MS 365 will support, no idea about older versions.
All those assumptions are based on A12.
The A14 is coming this fall and is likely to have those interfaces. Besides, Intel and others can supply Thunderbolt and USB controllers.
Apple promised a two year transition and analysts with visibility in the supply chain predict 12-18 months.
For wanting a system to last at least 5 years, would you find it advisable to wait until the Apple Silicon Mac Pro is released to get one? Or is now a good time? I also want to bootcamp and game on this system on the side. So that MIGHT not be possible with Apple Silicon.
iPhones and iPads already use PCIe for storage since the A9 actually so that's already covered...
I think that's assuming they're just starting to make the ARM Mac Pro now. They've definitely been working on this in the background for a while and probably have partially Thunderbolt figured out.
When they said full transition last time they meant it so no reason to assume they aren't including the Mac Pro this time around.
If you NEED a MacPro7,1 for business and it will give you an ROI in the next 2-3 years, go for it. If you can wait a few weeks, you’ll see some people selling theirs out of spite to recoup partial investment. B&H likely will have a sale this summer to move some more units. At a $2K+ discount for entry model, it would be enticing, but it all depends on your workflows and budget. Personally would not buy an MP7,1 for gaming.
Many people have turned to iMacs in the last few months with stay at home and work from home for COVID19. A lot of people also disappointed there was not a new model released to match the XDR or MBP16,1 display styling. The 27” without a Tx chip, using an SSD, upgrading to Core i9, and swappable RAM modules makes it appealing to many. Might be my last Mac purchase, we’ll see.
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BTW, no Boot Camp with Apple Silicon:
Boot Camp Is Dead on New Macs and 8 Other Things Apple Didn't Say at WWDC
You’d be forgiven for missing every change to iOS, macOS, and more that Apple execs speed-talked through during Monday’s Worldwide Developers Conference
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Apple implemented PCIe with the A9, iPhone 6s back in 2015, without it they can't use NVMe as storage.
Another report that might be worth looking at for those using Windows and making decisions:
www.macrumors.com
Rosetta Won't Support x86 Virtualization Apps Running Windows
Apple yesterday announced plans to build future Macs with its own custom silicon chips, and to ease the transition away from Intel processors, Apple...
www.macrumors.com
There will not be a Mac Pro (2019) on Apple Silicon in the next 3 to 5y. The iMac Pro and eventually, the regular iMac will have to outperform the 7,1 first before a need for a new Mac Pro could be warranted.
I'm on Mac since 95, so I underwent those great transitions: 680x0 to PowerPC, PPC to Intel and Os9 to X (who remembers "os9forever.com"? 
). As I remember, all transformations were fast and merciless. Don't delude yourself, parallel worlds (Intel and ARM Macs) will not last long, Apple has long record in abandoning their followers
But it's your move, your money, your decision.
). As I remember, all transformations were fast and merciless. Don't delude yourself, parallel worlds (Intel and ARM Macs) will not last long, Apple has long record in abandoning their followers But it's your move, your money, your decision.
^^^^ I've been on since '84, same transitions (and still have to fire up my Mac Pro G5 Quad here and there, for one thing—dang that thing is loud and warm).
But don't forget that in the previous two changes, the Mac's CPU had fallen behind the competition, PCs. More precisely, in the first case, purely behind in processing power, and for the second it was a processing power per watt issue—G5 was a great floating point machine for the time. But especially Apple's lucrative laptop business. Apple absolutely had to ditch those processors quickly, across the board. A time frame like 2-3 years could have been fatal, as they'd be so far behind the market in that time.
This is a little different in that the processor Apple's moving away from is shared by the competition, and they aren't going anywhere. (Someone might bring up AMD, but you know what I'm saying—you don't quickly fall behind the market staying on Intel.)
We'll see how fast Apple moves, but I'm just saying the motivation is a little different this time. I expect Apple to move aggressively for lower-end laptops to start, iMac—the higher unit sales items first, to a lower-end market that will tolerate the typical applications and not miss the high-end ones. By the time they get to the high end units, the high-end, specialized applications will be there.
BTW, I did say Apple would absolutely have to have a "Rosetta" for ARM, so I got that right at least.
But don't forget that in the previous two changes, the Mac's CPU had fallen behind the competition, PCs. More precisely, in the first case, purely behind in processing power, and for the second it was a processing power per watt issue—G5 was a great floating point machine for the time. But especially Apple's lucrative laptop business. Apple absolutely had to ditch those processors quickly, across the board. A time frame like 2-3 years could have been fatal, as they'd be so far behind the market in that time.
This is a little different in that the processor Apple's moving away from is shared by the competition, and they aren't going anywhere. (Someone might bring up AMD, but you know what I'm saying—you don't quickly fall behind the market staying on Intel.)
We'll see how fast Apple moves, but I'm just saying the motivation is a little different this time. I expect Apple to move aggressively for lower-end laptops to start, iMac—the higher unit sales items first, to a lower-end market that will tolerate the typical applications and not miss the high-end ones. By the time they get to the high end units, the high-end, specialized applications will be there.
BTW, I did say Apple would absolutely have to have a "Rosetta" for ARM, so I got that right at least.
This is like asking if you should buy a Power Mac G5 after Apple announced the Intel transition... Apple said the transition will take 2 years so I'd count on there being some high end Mac based on Apple Silicone within that timeframe. You could probably get a good solid 5 years out of a 7,1, but do you really want to buy expensive hardware that will soon be deprecated? If you need the power and capability the 7,1 provides to get the job done then you don't have a choice, but if you can get buy without it I think it would be best to wait.
Its mostly an annoyance of dealing with my maxed out i9 iMac. If you sneeze next to it, the fans kick in full blast. I need the i9 performance, but I need a system with better cooling for my needs. Trying to record some stuff with a blasting fan is not very good.
The Mac Pro 6,1 is pretty quiet. Those are going to hold me over until the Apple Silicon Macs arrive. 1/3rd the price of a 7,1. If I needed the power of the 7,1 I would have bought one, but I’m glad I don’t, especially now with the transition. I know the iMac Pro has a better cooling system than the regular iMac so you might want to test one of those out if you like the iMac design.
I had yet to watch the last 20 minutes of WWDC (the Mac part) when I replied before. The vision is pretty impressive. I still suppose the last thing will be a Mac Pro replacement—we already know how keen they were on the current one. And it was interesting Cook said there are still Intel machines in the pipeline (what are we due for, iMac? or will there be more laptops). Another info hole filled in was that I'd already seen that VMware/Parallels would be a no-go, but hadn't heard they will be supporting virtualization directly, that was interesting. Also I wondered where they were on FCP, so that was good news it's running now.
Overall, if they can get the performance towards the upper end in a cooler package at a decent price, it will be huge for Apple. But I don't feel bad about getting my 2019 Mac Pro, because I was long suffering with my 2009 (6,1 didn't do it for me, and I just could not bring myself to do iMac Pro). I figure I'll have a solid four years on this if I want it, and given the choice of waiting another couple of years for a new design, I wouldn't have.
(To be clear, I think that's the worst-cost scenario, and it's acceptable—but it's probably a lot better than that. Cook made it clear it would be easy to compile for both architectures, and they would continue to support Intel processors with Mac OS for some time. They aren't going to orphan their installed base any time soon. This level-headed approach is what I expected from them, so it was good to hear out the plan.)
Overall, if they can get the performance towards the upper end in a cooler package at a decent price, it will be huge for Apple. But I don't feel bad about getting my 2019 Mac Pro, because I was long suffering with my 2009 (6,1 didn't do it for me, and I just could not bring myself to do iMac Pro). I figure I'll have a solid four years on this if I want it, and given the choice of waiting another couple of years for a new design, I wouldn't have.
(To be clear, I think that's the worst-cost scenario, and it's acceptable—but it's probably a lot better than that. Cook made it clear it would be easy to compile for both architectures, and they would continue to support Intel processors with Mac OS for some time. They aren't going to orphan their installed base any time soon. This level-headed approach is what I expected from them, so it was good to hear out the plan.)
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I think I will try an apple silicon mac mini with integrated GPU .... I am looking forward to the speed tests, however I do not need to render video. It will be interesting to compare that with the mac Pro 7,1 ...
I think I will go ahead and plan to get one in the next 6 months. We do not know if Bootcamp will be supported in the new systems so having the 2019 Mac Pro available for bootcamp is very desirable. Does anyone think the 2019 Mac Pro will get updated with new Intel chips one more time before Apple Silicon?
Zero chance for a CPU update as the current generation is EOL. The most you can expect is new MPX modules.