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Not when the reason to look away IS Ram capacity amongst others
My two main laptops have 20 GiB on one and 32 GiB on the other. Running out of RAM is a continual headache.

I think that 128 GiB would be adequate for a laptop for the near future.

Also meant MBPs. Sorry for the confusion.
No problem - but it was a funny typo.
 
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I'm outsider looking on. I recall apple stating a modular Mac Pro is coming, I thought they said 2019. I think many people were hoping for 2018, but apple takes there time. The issue is many people who resisted the trash can Mac Pro need something sooner then later. Its my opinion that Apple is in a self made bind right now

Consider the lay of the land for Macs.
Mac mini 1,337 days since its last refresh
MacBook Air 337 days, but that was a minor spec bump. It needs so much more, that machine is woefully behind other laptops, i.e., no retina
MacBook Pro 374 days but in this case the keyboard has an extremely poor reputation, there's three class action lawsuits, the TouchBar is much derided.
Macbook 374 days, its probably the most stable of Macs at this point.
iMac 374 days - People are waiting for a redesign, current model does not have current ports
iMac Pro 182 days

So Apple's Macintosh line is in rough shape, every model (with the exception of the MacBook and iMac Pro). While some of that work isn't rocket surgery, i.e., update the Mini, I think line up is in such bad shape and require so much attention its impacting Apple's timeline with the Mac Pro.

Are people sitting on the sidelines or moving on and buying windows based products? I'd say as weeks turned into months, that turn into years, they're moving on to other products. I myself am considering a windows based laptop. Apple didn't update the MBP and given the keyboard issues and high price of the MBP it appears I'll be better off with a windows machine. Just consider the budget. I can spend 3,000 on a MacBook Pro that has a suspect keyboard, and its on last year's chipset, or I can spend 2,000 dollars (plus tax) on a Coffee Lake hex core machine and I'll not have to worry about the keyboard. I raise that issue because its a microcosm of what people are facing with Macs, whether its the MBA, Mini or the Mac Pro.

The Modular Mac Pro is slated for 2019. As we are seeing with Air Power, though, specifying a year for Apple means that they have until December 31 to have it show up. The 2013 Mac Pro did that too.

In the Tech Crunch article Tom Boger, senior director of Mac Hardware Product Marketing, says:

“We want to be transparent and communicate openly with our pro community, so we want them to know that the Mac Pro is a 2019 product. It’s not something for this year.” In addition to transparency for pro customers, there’s also a larger fiscal reason behind it.

“We know that there’s a lot of customers today that are making purchase decisions on the iMac Pro and whether or not they should wait for the Mac Pro,” says Boger.

And Matthew Panzarino of TechCrunch adds:

This is why Apple wants to be as explicit as possible now, so that if institutional buyers or other large customers are waiting to spend budget on, say iMac Pros or other machines, they should pull the trigger without worry that a Mac Pro might appear late in the purchasing year.

But there have been some other very interesting things going on at Apple since our last Mac Pro update, and they’re shaping the future of all of its pro products.


This is Apple asking professionals who know Apple well enough too understand what's been going on to hold on till 2019, perhaps the end of 2019 at that. But in asking this favour of those folks who will wait Apple are making an almighty gamble. They are promising jam tomorrow without making specific claims about the hardware. Some professionals won't wait - they will be gone - but Apple are hoping that enough stick around to buy the modular Mac Pro. They know that by making even a vague promise and messing that up, they could well be burning their business as far as many professionals are concerned.

Now to the existing hardware:

I would say that the current 2017 iMac has Thunderbolt 3 ports and up to date (for 2017) hardware. I don't think there's anything new that an update would add and, besides, the updated design is here - it's the iMac Pro - with better cooling system but sealed in RAM.

Let's not forget that the Mac Pro from 2013 is still on sale and looking like a liability compared to current iMacs and the iMac Pro. I'm not sure if keeping it offered like that remains a good idea.

The Retina MacBook has only one port which you would use to charge it but then couldn't insert a memory stick or card reader if you needed to work also - that's a massive downfall for the MacBook which currently doesn't look like it's getting a CPU update any time soon from Intel.

The fact that developers are now being so vocal in denouncing the quality of the MBP keyboard/lack of ports or lack of updates to the Mini or Pro (or a proper update to the MBA) is becoming a PR problem for Apple aside from anything else. There's now several threads linking to articles from respected journalists as well as the developers regarding the lack of decent updates and Apple have delayed over a year since the last update in 2017.

Coffee Lake updates for extra cores will make updates, when they come, very good value. But will Apple update everything or will the MBA, Mini, and Retina MacBook get overlooked?

I myself am curious about where the modular Mac Pro fits into this scheme. I'm not desperate to buy at the moment but another professional misstep by Apple could mean the safer place to put money is back in the Windows ecosystem in the long run.
 
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The Retina MacBook has only one port which you would use to charge it but then couldn't insert a memory stick or card reader if you needed to work also - that's a massive downfall for the MacBook which currently doesn't look like it's getting a CPU update any time soon from Intel.

Spent all of yesterday moving files from a PC VR Station, to a Mac with Maya for model checking and to the little HP laptops that run the 3D printers, all via thumbdrive... struck constantly by just how utterly irrelevant Apple made the MBP by not including standard usb.
 
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Mr. Praline: I'll tell you what's wrong with it, my lad. 'E's dead, that's what's wrong with it!

Owner: No, no, 'e's uh,...he's resting.

In a wait and see. Bought a Dell server a little while back to handle the 'heavy lifting' portion of my workflow. If the 2019 Macpro is a dud in my eyes, that will be it for me. Will move everything over to some flavour of nix and windows ( I still gag at the thought ). Apple may have made all the right business decisions as pointed out by many ( many many times over ), but those decisions also seem to remove their products from my consideration. Its not a question of hope, its just a matter of not knowing.
 
Hope was abandoned once in the mid-90s. Then it levitated for a short while.
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Mr. Praline: I'll tell you what's wrong with it, my lad. 'E's dead, that's what's wrong with it!

Owner: No, no, 'e's uh,...he's resting.

In a wait and see. Bought a Dell server a little while back to handle the 'heavy lifting' portion of my workflow. If the 2019 Macpro is a dud in my eyes, that will be it for me. Will move everything over to some flavour of nix and windows ( I still gag at the thought ). Apple may have made all the right business decisions as pointed out by many ( many many times over ), but those decisions also seem to remove their products from my consideration. Its not a question of hope, its just a matter of not knowing.
More effective using a single monster or 2-3 units of quad processor board from SM distributed utilizing older Xeons on your network?
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nix and windows ( I still gag at the thought
Windows 10 Pro is surpisingly good once you do some minor and very easy tweaking. You can delay updates for 14-18 months (major) and let security ones come through. Though it's simpler to use a software solution that does this for you and rearms it upon login. The makers of O&O have a very nice free kit to do this, but many like it exist. I've been using W10 Pro here and there on VM and on a spare SSD and haven't faced issues using it because of those simple steps. There's going to be a point where MS will slow down the feature creep and work on stability. They're basically doing what Apple does or rather did years ago when they switched their software model.

The fact these two have a close working relationship speaks volumes. I wouldn't be surprised if they asked Apple how to do things the right way. I'd probably hold off until TR 3 or Epyc 2 before making a workstation move if I were you. AMD is likely going to improve IPC considerably and improve single thread performance to match or beat Intel at their own game. Intel is 2-3 years out from bringing a new processor with a whole new architecture out and beating AMD, presuming that's why Keller is working for Intel ATM.
 
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Windows 10 Pro is surpisingly good once you do some minor and very easy tweaking. You can delay updates for 14-18 months (major) and let security ones come through. Though it's simpler to use a software solution that does this for you and rearms it upon login. The makers of O&O have a very nice free kit to do this, but many like it exist. I've been using W10 Pro here and there on VM and on a spare SSD and haven't faced issues using it because of those simple steps. There's going to be a point where MS will slow down the feature creep and work on stability. They're basically doing what Apple does or rather did years ago when they switched their software model.

The fact these two have a close working relationship speaks volumes. I wouldn't be surprised if they asked Apple how to do things the right way. I'd probably hold off until TR 3 or Epyc 2 before making a workstation move if I were you. AMD is likely going to improve IPC considerably and improve single thread performance to match or beat Intel at their own game. Intel is 2-3 years out from bringing a new processor with a whole new architecture out and beating AMD, presuming that's why Keller is working for Intel ATM.

With osx i get a tool, that I do not have to do much maintenance with. With win10 or linux I have a tool that requires rather immense amounts of maintenance. This is for an isolated lab instance. If this were any public facing production type scenario, wipe windows right off the table.

The tradeoff is with windows, I can get my regular application stack. But will have to wrap everything in several layers of prophylactics, disable all the snooping, be content there are probably DRM systems in place chewing performance away in background, not to mention metrics and usage gathering, and that nagging knowledge that any information gathered on me is probably sold to anyone, without scruples, from marketeers to surveillance agencies. Having grown up listening to stories about my grandpa being imprisoned for his political beliefs by the KGB, and first hand experiencing their data collection expertise when I went in for a passport, i'm a bit sensitive to issues of privacy. Not to say Apple doesn't do this, but at least Apple has demonstrated some kind of backbone in this regard.

Reminds me that I need to migrate off of gitlab :mad:

The tradeoff with linux, is that I will have to find alternatives to my application stack ( although native bash console is huge head start over any windows bash-inclusion abortion ), probably spend more time configuring things initially, and knowing that often driver support will not be optimized for the latest and greatest. Not being entirely purpose specific, means quite often time will be spent experimenting with workarounds. Bonus is when I parse a packet dump, chances are I won't be surprised or recoil in horror.

I'm actually looking forward to the next generation zen2 architecture. Competition is good, Intel is getting away with a lot of BS at the moment because there is no challenger. If the 2019 macpro is a dud, I will most likely be looking at a zen2 station of some sort.
 
I've been using Windows in one flavor or another for close to 30 years, and I've never had much trouble with it. I had some minor niggles in the early days with NT 4.0 and 2000, but for the latter, most of those issues went away as the OS matured. I never used ME, but I've read the horror stories. From an outward perspective, I can respect that Apple strives for user privacy. I simply don't buy it.
 
The difference between then and now is, Steve Jobs is not walking though that door.
He's levitating because he's a ghost, duh. Actually, my post was meant to be humorous. I didn't think anyone would get the joke and it served a dual purpose. Hope was the name of some daytime television character who levitated on a bed due to some evil spirits. It was all the rage in the press at the time. At around the same time, according to my memory, Jobs returned to Apple.

There won't be another Steve Jobs. No one can be like Steve Jobs. The sooner people understand and process that information, the sooner they'll be able to move on with their lives.

It's funny you quoted me. Not completely related, but before my powernap earlier, I watched the Snazzy Labs video on upgrading the processor in the iMac Pro, the 10 core one. Seems Apple gets lower binned chips from Intel for whatever reason. Apple as of the last eight years has gone above and beyond to serve old products in new casing and take more than what would be considered as a healthy margin on upgrades during the ordering phase.

Phones are simply more lucrative at this point given the speed and efficiency improvements year over year, whereas computers have been relatively stagnant for the last 10 years. Something like a 40% overall increase in IPC from 2010 to 2018.
 
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It's funny you quoted me. Not completely related, but before my powernap earlier, I watched the Snazzy Labs video on upgrading the processor in the iMac Pro, the 10 core one. Seems Apple gets lower binned chips from Intel for whatever reason. Apple as of the last eight years has gone above and beyond to serve old products in new casing and take more than what would be considered as a healthy margin on upgrades during the ordering phase.


it is worth mentioning that the iMac Pros Custom CPUs have a TDP of 120W verses the 140W TDP of Most of the Xeon W CPUs intel sells. which is why the Lower Base clocks most likely (TDP of an intel CPU is rated at base Clock not turbo modes)

sadly Mr Snazzy does not know that (I did tweet it at him when the vid went live tho)
 
it is worth mentioning that the iMac Pros Custom CPUs have a TDP of 120W verses the 140W TDP of Most of the Xeon W CPUs intel sells. which is why the Lower Base clocks most likely (TDP of an intel CPU is rated at base Clock not turbo modes)

sadly Mr Snazzy does not know that (I did tweet it at him when the vid went live tho)
Except his one example was true. Despite TDP not being the max draw ability, it does raise questions why Apple chooses to order lower TDP processors as per his own questions that remained unanswered. In another thread, someone brought up the forthcoming TR 2 and its TDP of 250 watts versus the 8180's 205 watt TDP. While these are high and we're not aware of the actual draw at load of a TR 2 yet, we need to back away from the notion that a professional use computer or workstation should use as little power while performing 2-3x that of a regular consumer processor.

You either invest in a large rad setup with possible push pull or a DH15, for example. All I got from his video is that Apple prefers a slightly slower processor than what Intel offers that uses less power while still charging the same or more. I understand margins, but even when high end DDR3 was dirt cheap, Apple was charging out the nose for regular and ECC.

I'm not complaining about Apple's slow adoption rate of newer hardware. In fact, I embrace it. How else can I sell off Apple shipped RAM from the cMP for 3x the price I paid for them?

In case you're curious, look for bank liquidation sales. Wherein a bank takes over a company unable to pay their dues and the bank comes in an auctions or sells on the spot at a very reduced rate. If the economy takes another hit, expect quite a few of them. Banks don't know much about tech and can't be bothered to hire specialists because that costs money. VFX companies are the first to die off and they always bite more than they can chew when it comes to debt against revenue.

I learned about them back in 2009 or 2010 and was able to score some nice stuff at a fraction of the cost. I've gotten to know people who were able to buy "brand new" year old graters for a third or less of what the VFX company paid for them. The cMP OEM RAM is hard to come by most of the time due to the hassle of swapping or adding to it. If you see it on sale for cheap, buy it. Sit on it and sell it once the prices doubles again. Very easy stuff.
[doublepost=1529192180][/doublepost]And, honestly, I found the excessive use of paste and the handling of the page in his video incredibly distressing. Excess paste isn't good for heat transfer even if simple logic would imply it would be 2-3x more effective. Though I'm willing to say that it's probably only the iMac Pro lineup that gets a hands on treatment due to it being a very low volume seller compared to other Apple computers including the cMP. Thus it wouldn't require special robotic machinery like the other lines.
 
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Are they? Can't see what the point is. Breaks and they can't be used in a professional environment where money changes hands.
 
He's levitating because he's a ghost, duh. Actually, my post was meant to be humorous. I didn't think anyone would get the joke and it served a dual purpose. Hope was the name of some daytime television character who levitated on a bed due to some evil spirits. It was all the rage in the press at the time. At around the same time, according to my memory, Jobs returned to Apple.

There won't be another Steve Jobs. No one can be like Steve Jobs. The sooner people understand and process that information, the sooner they'll be able to move on with their lives.

It's funny you quoted me. Not completely related, but before my powernap earlier, I watched the Snazzy Labs video on upgrading the processor in the iMac Pro, the 10 core one. Seems Apple gets lower binned chips from Intel for whatever reason. Apple as of the last eight years has gone above and beyond to serve old products in new casing and take more than what would be considered as a healthy margin on upgrades during the ordering phase.

Phones are simply more lucrative at this point given the speed and efficiency improvements year over year, whereas computers have been relatively stagnant for the last 10 years. Something like a 40% overall increase in IPC from 2010 to 2018.
 
I'm outsider looking on. I recall apple stating a modular Mac Pro is coming, I thought they said 2019.
2019 is indeed the official statement from Apple. Hopefully that means early 2019, since they've really had quite a few years to come up with something now, and there's something completely wrong at Apple, if they had to do Mac Pro research from the bottom up at this point.
 
Have y'all noticed that since the MacWorld SF 2018 event last week that didn't have even a peep about the mMP 2021 - there has been very little activity on the various "MP 7,1" threads?

Have people simply given up hope?

I think Apple is kind of stuck in a dilemma with the all new MP 7.1 because of its programmed product obsolescence politics. In fact I have the feeling they lost its values completely and only care about money. Keeping this in mind, it is crystal clear why they phased out any upgradability on their entire product lines during the last 5 years in order to shorten the usefulness for the enduser to have a more frequent buyer cycle. With one word, Apple is sick. Its called Greed. They hate upgrades and enhancements.
Upgrades for a new Mac Pro on the other hand, shoots completely in the wrong direction, because it delays purchases for new computers by the endusers for years. Hence, Upgrades are bad for business, especially if those do come from non Apple third parties.
The only way out in the greed game would be to control every upgrade by exclusively sub-contracting every third party out there in the entire universe. Since this is strategic in nature, my guess is, they are very late in the game. Most likely the Project Manager for the 7.1 get grilled every single day. Since the WWDC is never about hardware, sure they gave that poor PM some air to breath. However, since 4 month is nothing in Project management time frames, there will be a 7.1 RED Edition for sure... one covered with the still warm heart blood of wasted Project managers for the 7.1... and maybe just maybe that was the reason for the 6.1 red edition as well...

RIP 6.1 & 7.1 Projectmanagers @Apple ..time is ticking..

But hey, just put out a net like Foxcon does.

 
I think Apple is kind of stuck in a dilemma with the all new MP 7.1 because of its programmed product obsolescence politics. In fact I have the feeling they lost its values completely and only care about money. Keeping this in mind, it is crystal clear why they phased out any upgradability on their entire product lines during the last 5 years in order to shorten the usefulness for the enduser to have a more frequent buyer cycle. With one word, Apple is sick. Its called Greed. They hate upgrades and enhancements.
Upgrades for a new Mac Pro on the other hand, shoots completely in the wrong direction, because it delays purchases for new computers by the endusers for years. Hence, Upgrades are bad for business, especially if those do come from non Apple third parties.
Apple may have lost more sales due to the lack of upgradability of the Mac Pro than if they had released one which could be upgraded. We continually see posters stating they've avoided the nMP due to its lack of upgradability and how they would have bought a new one if Apple had just upgraded the internals of the cMP.
 
It makes me really sad...Apple used to make the finest computers. Now they make consumer gadgets. Great ones, sure, but the Macintosh is no longer Apple's focus, and will likely never be again. What's frustrating is that there is are very compelling reasons why the Macintosh enthusiast should be a target market for Apple - including that small developers and hobbyists' programs are some of the most popular programs on iOS and Mac. And enthusiasts absolutely find benefit in, and would pay a premium for, a modular system.
 
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It makes me really sad...Apple used to make the finest computers. Now they make consumer gadgets. Great ones, sure, but the Macintosh is no longer Apple's focus, and will likely never be again. What's frustrating is that there is are very compelling reasons why the Macintosh enthusiast should be a target market for Apple - including that small developers and hobbyists' programs are some of the most popular programs on iOS and Mac. And enthusiasts absolutely find benefit in, and would pay a premium for, a modular system.
The Macintosh doesn't need to be Apple's focus. But it shouldn't be neglected either.
 
The Macintosh doesn't need to be Apple's focus. But it shouldn't be neglected either.
Apple should have a team focused on low end desktops (for gord's sake do something about the neglected mini), on low end laptops (for gord's sake save the Air), on higher end laptops (for gord's sake fix the ***** MBP keyboard), and on workstations (for gord's sake get off your butts and do something).

Other teams can work on the iToys - it doesn't have to be "iOS or macOS", it can be both.
 
I just send a ( well mannered ) but highly critical email to Tim.

I wonder what the reaction would be if several thousand Mac Pro users sent a petition or individual emails with a subject such as .. .

" Is Apple abandoning HARDWARE Macs in favour of $1,000 iPhones ? "

 
Not sure "hope" should be the operative term here. If one abandons emotional attachments to hardware, he/she is free to choose the machine that best addresses needs. I like mac OS, and my 12 core 5,1 is serving my (audio) needs very nicely at present. But when the day arrives the 5,1 no longer works for me, I will consider the options available at that time. Although a shift to a new OS isn't something I relish, I have a much stronger allegiance to the applications I use day in and out in my studio than the OS under which they run.

Those whose comments concern Apple's loss of share of the pro market, and the resultant loss of foundational support for the Apple ecosystem, are on to something. As the weeks, months and years pass without new hardware, the shifting river of users erodes the sands underpinning Apple's current consumer successes.

When the mMP finally arrives, it will be interesting to see what path Apple chooses... proprietary or open, and how much the 7,1 hardware costs. At present, it appears I may very well have a PC in my future.

Time will tell.
 
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My workplace didn't give up hope, it gave up Apple because Apple gave up on the Mac. They also gave up on the Apple ecosystem because Apple shifted the ecosystem toward gadgets that make Apple seem like the next Sharper Image gadget store.

The HP-Zseries workstations are performing better than expected, money well spent.
 
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