Not really true. Mac OS 10.15.2 offered drivers for the Radeon 5700 series and was released on 12/10/2019. The Apple Radeon Pro W5700X didn't make its appearance until 4/17/2020.
Lou
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MP All Models AMD Radeon RX 6800 XT / 6900 XT for macOS?
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Lou
But didn't Apple release the Navi-5000s based MacBook Pros around that time? Maybe Nov 2019?
The way I see it, they developed drivers for a new generation of Navi based products and then as a consequence that driver bundle opened up the door for early adoption of something like a PC 5700-card.
My guess is that when the first Navi 6000s Apple product launches, there will be drivers to go with it. Only the future will show if that is correct, or if Apple will launch—as a previous poster seemed to think—new hardware without drivers.
And when new hardware releases are imminent, it makes sense to me that the drivers come first via the OS update that precedes the hardware launch.
heh that’s malarkey. I found and read hundreds of comments on this forum, Nvidia forum and Adobe forum that the Nvidia web drivers were buggy and crashy and never even properly supported by Nvidia. If they couldn’t get a final stable supported driver out then Apple didn’t have to give them green light to damage Macs.
For Radeon, if they release a driver months before they release a product that means they have to provide you tech support. GTFO with that man. AMD doesn’t even want to provide you tech support for your third party GPU installed in a Mac.
I don’t even care anymore. I sold my GPU for nearly double the price I paid for it. I got more money now for the next 16” MacBook Pro.
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I have been thinking about this for some while now as well as i wanted to upgrade my system and it sounds quite understandable to me that apple only intends to publish drivers, when they have a chance to make money out of it. That being said, it obviously won't make sense for them to publish the drivers now, as this would allow people to get cheaper gpu's for their pro line of 7,1s or even 5,1s. And if margins are the reason for this wait, then it makes much more sense to publish 6000 series drivers with their new line of mini mac pro's, which are expected in Q2 i beleieve. And that's the timeframe we are talking about i am afraid. It could become even autumn, looking at their release-cycles. Super sad but understandable, that more and more pro users are leaving the ship.
Mini Mac Pro is for Apple Silicon though, and rumors have Apple offering 64-core & 128-core Apple Silicon-based add-in GPUs (GPGPUs?) with a compact variant of the MPX module (I like to call it MPXc)...?
With current full-size Mac Pro (Cheesegrater 2.0) the mobo (socket really) has no upgrade path (thanks Intel), best Apple could do is to spec shuffle (more cores, lower cost), this would be where they might offer Apple custom MPX module 6000-series GPUs...
EDIT TO ADD:
With the lack of any real upgrade path with an Intel Xeon based Mac Pro, Apple may be confident about their Apple Silicon based Pro desktop / workstation solution to forgo any further development of the 2019 Mac Pro platform... They will still sell it for another year or so & support it in OS software for many more years, just don't expect anything more than MAYBE a 6000-series based MPX module for "sale" on the Apple Store...
And with the latest rumors, it no longer looks like there will be a scaled-down CG 2.0 Mac Pro...?
I just want to see the new Mac Pro Cube...!
With current full-size Mac Pro (Cheesegrater 2.0) the mobo (socket really) has no upgrade path (thanks Intel), best Apple could do is to spec shuffle (more cores, lower cost), this would be where they might offer Apple custom MPX module 6000-series GPUs...
EDIT TO ADD:
With the lack of any real upgrade path with an Intel Xeon based Mac Pro, Apple may be confident about their Apple Silicon based Pro desktop / workstation solution to forgo any further development of the 2019 Mac Pro platform... They will still sell it for another year or so & support it in OS software for many more years, just don't expect anything more than MAYBE a 6000-series based MPX module for "sale" on the Apple Store...
And with the latest rumors, it no longer looks like there will be a scaled-down CG 2.0 Mac Pro...?
I just want to see the new Mac Pro Cube...!
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According to the rumors, the Mac Pro full size tower will continue, possibly with new Intel CPUs.
Which is weird. But that's what the more reputable sources are saying.
”reputable sources” can tell what they want but IMO there is 0 chance we will see new Intel Macs(pro or other).
-Intel PR started to market his products against Apple SoC, this won’t have happened if they planned to supply new CPU models for Mac.
-Intel still have no CPU alternative, even if a replacement for the 3275M existed it will be still a 28core with a slight clock increase, too little to justify a socket/motherboard upgrade for the MacPro.
-When Intel have a 3275M alternative Apple will already have his MBP and iMac equipped with M? SoC that will be close in performance to the top Xeon CPU.
-MacPro have the lowest priority, it was demonstrated many time that Pro machine upgrade cycle can take years, the current MP is essentially an early 2020 product so users can easily wait a couple years for a 2022 M?? MacPro.
Of course I can be wrong, time will tell.
-Intel PR started to market his products against Apple SoC, this won’t have happened if they planned to supply new CPU models for Mac.
-Intel still have no CPU alternative, even if a replacement for the 3275M existed it will be still a 28core with a slight clock increase, too little to justify a socket/motherboard upgrade for the MacPro.
-When Intel have a 3275M alternative Apple will already have his MBP and iMac equipped with M? SoC that will be close in performance to the top Xeon CPU.
-MacPro have the lowest priority, it was demonstrated many time that Pro machine upgrade cycle can take years, the current MP is essentially an early 2020 product so users can easily wait a couple years for a 2022 M?? MacPro.
Of course I can be wrong, time will tell.
goMac, how hard is it to understand there is no upgrade path for the 2019 Mac Pro...?
And (as sirio76 states above) with Intel now trash-talking Apple & their new Apple Silicon based products, doubtful Apple is going to continue doing "new business" with Intel...
As I said above, best the 2019 (Cheesegrater 2.0) Mac Pro can hope for is a spec shuffle / price drop on the CPU options & RAM, and maybe a few 6000-series based MPX module GPU options...?
Only reason I can see Apple doing a "cut-down" CG 2.0 is to retain PCIe slots for the audio folks...!
Me, I am more interested in a new Apple Cube, a perfect entry-level (and beyond with an upgrade or two, RAM & GPU) workstation...!
All I'm doing is quoting the rumor mill. I agree it's strange, but it's what Mark Gurman says, who has a really good track record for rumors.
Mark Gurman is also the source of the initial Apple Silicon Mac Pro rumor. So if you believe the Mini Mac Pro stuff, you can't ignore what he also said below. He's also the source of the whole Apple Silicon transition rumors to begin with.
Apple Plans First iMac Desktop Redesign in Nearly a Decade
Company is also working on two new Mac Pro high-end desktops and a cheaper external monitor.
www.bloomberg.com
It's not my personal speculation or rumor. It's coming straight from the same rumor about the Mac Pro Mini.
The issue might be that they're not going to have a version of Apple Silicon ready that supports expansion or upgrades. So they'd need to keep the existing tower running on Intel, while the closed box Mini version could use Apple Silicon.
The existence of 6800 XT drivers also points to an an Intel Mac Pro update coming. The AMD drivers don't work at all on Apple Silicon, and AMD GPUs don't work on Apple Silicon Macs. So if we're talking about AMD GPU updates, we're probably talking about an Intel revision.
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I'm ready for 6000 series MPX module. Perhaps it'll be released during the next wave of Apple Silicon products to show some level of commitment to 2019 Mac Pro customers.
I'm not expecting to be wined and dined for years, but some kind of upgrades would be good considering it's upgradability.
I'm not expecting to be wined and dined for years, but some kind of upgrades would be good considering it's upgradability.
Which is what I have been saying...
Apple will add in the option for various 6000-series AMD MPX module GPUs for the 2019 Mac Pro...
Apple might "spec bump" the whole options list...
By this I mean, just go to the Apple Store, pull up the 2019 Mac Pro; then just imagine the stock low-end price, but with the next tier up in options...
$5,999 = 8-core CPU / 32GB RAM / 580X GPU with 8GB GDDR5 / 256GB SSD
$7,899 = 10-core CPU / 48GB RAM / W5500X GPU with 8GB GDDR6 / 1TB SSD
So if Apple wants to sell near end-of-life (hardware-wise) 2019 Mac Pro units, they could incentivize buy offering that "next tier up" for the base $5,999 pricing...?
But it is Apple, so the best we will probably see is the CPU itself getting "spec shuffled" & the option of 6000-series MPX module GPUs...!
my two cent is :
not until they clear the inventory of radeon vega pro duo... an vega pro mpx modules.
the 6000 series mpx cannot be priced well above the 2000€ for performance better than a vega 2 pro.
if they have a large inventory of vega, they must first old those.
so far if you run a business, and make money of 7.1 , most company wont buy pc parts.... they will just order the machine they need with what is available with very little plan to upgrade anything else than memory.
and with the new imac and the new desktop based on AS, they dont need to sale serie 6000.... they already have something as powerful with vega 2 pro duo. even if you put two 6900 in your mac your not going to see a time 2 performance upgrade compared to two vega pro 2 duo...
and apple don’t care if you dont have 13000€ for a dual gpu setup.
for my self I have resold all my rx580 and just bought a bunch of used bmd rx580 egpu that i got for dirt cheap laying around for the laptops and wait to see what happen...
not until they clear the inventory of radeon vega pro duo... an vega pro mpx modules.
the 6000 series mpx cannot be priced well above the 2000€ for performance better than a vega 2 pro.
if they have a large inventory of vega, they must first old those.
so far if you run a business, and make money of 7.1 , most company wont buy pc parts.... they will just order the machine they need with what is available with very little plan to upgrade anything else than memory.
and with the new imac and the new desktop based on AS, they dont need to sale serie 6000.... they already have something as powerful with vega 2 pro duo. even if you put two 6900 in your mac your not going to see a time 2 performance upgrade compared to two vega pro 2 duo...
and apple don’t care if you dont have 13000€ for a dual gpu setup.
for my self I have resold all my rx580 and just bought a bunch of used bmd rx580 egpu that i got for dirt cheap laying around for the laptops and wait to see what happen...
Tom over at Moore's Law Is Dead has some testing showing that RDNA2 is more gaming (raster) oriented rather than workstation (compute) oriented, with lower editing & rendering performance than the Vega20 based Radeon VII GPU...?
Which would be at odds with the "professional" market the 2019 Mac Pro is supposed to be targeting...?
Come on high performance Mac Pro Cube...! ;^p
DISCLAIMER: The Sapphire Nitro+ 6800 XT SE is the card I am wanting to pair with my 3900X CPU & Crosshair VIII Impact mDTX mobo...
Weird is right and dumb as s[-]!T.
Who’d be so stupid, when the Ryzen 9 5950X smashes the p!$$ out of that absurdly over priced 28 core Intel 3275M for $800. That Mac Pro with a Ryzen shouldn’t be anything more than $3k and still have huge profit margin.
And all these people pooing themselves over the M1 whatever...That silicon would need roughly double the cores to match the Ryzen multicore benchmarks.
For instance, the Ryzen with 8 cores has double the multicore rating of the 8 core M1. In reality Apple are going to need a 32 core M whatever to rival the Ryzen 5950X. Maybe that power rating of 15W in the M1 needs to be doubled and up the clock speed, IDK how they are going to do it but that M1 chip isn’t going to cut it in a real desktop...ok in the toys they put it in now though.
For instance, the Ryzen with 8 cores has double the multicore rating of the 8 core M1. In reality Apple are going to need a 32 core M whatever to rival the Ryzen 5950X. Maybe that power rating of 15W in the M1 needs to be doubled and up the clock speed, IDK how they are going to do it but that M1 chip isn’t going to cut it in a real desktop...ok in the toys they put it in now though.
Time will tell, yes. No sense quoting all your points because they are all logical and likely.
Got to wonder what Intel was thinking in that PR thing, is it a ‘cry now’ after loosing the deal? Who knows, seems pointless to even mention it, they’d surely have been concerned Apple would transition to their own Silicon as everyone else has been expecting them to. Apple probably waited until after Intel sold them the mobile modem chip IP, once in the bag then later declare their abandonment of Intel.
Maybe Apple have had a deal with AMD for Ryzens or ThreadRippers for the Mac Pro refresh, or maybe they are further along with their Desktop Silicon pieces than they are letting on, they must be confident either way.
That’s all most people need, that is the rest of people that are wise enough not to have the 28 core Hollywood tossers machine on their list...
A small little machine, Ryzen 9 5950X, 3 PCIe slots, upgradable RAM, 4 NVMe slots and a few SATA ports, 3 grand would kill it.
Trying to sell us a machine that costs 10k that has half the performance of a machine that could be build for 3K! That is dumb both Apple for not able to understand the market, again after failing in 2013 and now a again with a machine that’s only affordable and useful to a handful of elites failing to recognise a larger market of people in between a useless iMac and that thing thats basically a piece of crap polished to look like a gold bar.
The other Dumb thing is, Apple have been criticising Intel for years about their CPU products, too hot, too expensive, lack of development yet they still keep building machines and having Intel supply them when there are alternatives and have been for several years.
The other Dumb thing is, Apple have been criticising Intel for years about their CPU products, too hot, too expensive, lack of development yet they still keep building machines and having Intel supply them when there are alternatives and have been for several years.
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I think Intel's 10 nm Xeons are on the way. Maybe.
But with the trash talking Intel is doing about Apple... If Apple wants to keep the tower Mac Pro on x86 I'd assume AMD is an option. AMD did comment recently that Apple is still an active partner.
I think Apple should just build Apple Silicon for the full size Mac Pro. But they may not want to custom design a Xeon competitor for such a low volume. They'd have to add a number of PCIe lanes, support a high amount of addressable RAM, etc.
If you were a well informed person you would know that the M1 have just 4 performance core CPU, the 4 efficiency core gives about the same boost you would get from the hyper threading on Intel/AMD CPU.
You should then compare a 4core M1 system vs a 4core/8thread x86 system, comparing it to a 8 or 16core CPU is pointless.
You should compare the M1 to an entry level ultraportable Intel/AMD CPU, comparing it to a desktop CPU is pointless.
You should compare the M1 to a CPU in the same power envelope, comparing it to CPU that consume 10x the watt is pointless.
You should compare the M1 to something that small(remember that the SoC includes also GPU, RAM and much more) comparing that to a CPU with 10x the surface area is pointless.
You should compare the M1 with something that can be passively cooled, comparing it to something that needs huge active coolers is pointless.
You should compare the M1 to something with the same clock speed, the 5950 runs all the core at 4.2ghz compared to the 3.2ghz of the M1.
You should compare the M1 to something within the same price, a 5950 alone costs about a whole M1 system.
I can keep posting facts but your reasoning is flawed in so many ways that I think it will be a waste of my time.
Ah, you’re right, I wasn’t well informed, what I had read didn’t mention anything about different cores, thanks for pointing that out. I’m now a bit more informed eh eh after reading some more detailed articles. So yes seems the numbers on single threaded 4 core are about on par with the AMD/Intel. Looking forward to seeing something with 8+ Firestorm cores.
to me it is very important that the machine I invest in is at least capable (if i need to) run another operating system... w32xx is a 2 year old platform, and apple can’t do nothing to prevent us to upgrade in the future if we want to. the 2021 mac pro will probably just gain pcie 4.0 speed and call it a day... appart from the 2013 trashcan macpro generation always had a real hardware upgrade only every two generation 1.1 can be flashed to 2.1, duno about 3.1 because at this time intel had the same socket for ever, and then 4.1 could be flashed to 5.1....
From a industrial standpoint the 7.1 chassis is not going anywhere anytime soon, and I am almost sure that the 8,1, will have the new xeon 10nm and pcie 4.0 just by minor hardware changes, and probably just a firmware update. they don’t sale enough machines to totally overhaul the 7,1.
vega20 is pcie 4.0 compatible, and i am quite sure that the mobo is gen 4 compatible... as soon as you drop a new 2021 xeon in that support pcie it will be compatible... the only change is that they will probably be able to lock cpu upgrade via firmware and the t2 chip... or they will just change the plx and t2 chip to pcie4.
I own a 7.1 and sure there’s a lot of pc out there more powerful for 1/3 of the price... but none cant run 2 massive gpu , 4xm2 ssd , 8x2,5 »ssd, a raid card and a black magic 8k capture card at the same time flawlessly and without making any noise.
From a industrial standpoint the 7.1 chassis is not going anywhere anytime soon, and I am almost sure that the 8,1, will have the new xeon 10nm and pcie 4.0 just by minor hardware changes, and probably just a firmware update. they don’t sale enough machines to totally overhaul the 7,1.
vega20 is pcie 4.0 compatible, and i am quite sure that the mobo is gen 4 compatible... as soon as you drop a new 2021 xeon in that support pcie it will be compatible... the only change is that they will probably be able to lock cpu upgrade via firmware and the t2 chip... or they will just change the plx and t2 chip to pcie4.
I own a 7.1 and sure there’s a lot of pc out there more powerful for 1/3 of the price... but none cant run 2 massive gpu , 4xm2 ssd , 8x2,5 »ssd, a raid card and a black magic 8k capture card at the same time flawlessly and without making any noise.