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MP 7,1 Is it worth it to buy the Mac Pro now (considering ARM is coming soon)?
- Thread starter dapa0s
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Don't know why people use the word 'fear' when buying computer Mac Pro. It's just a computer - it not a god.
Just sit on the floor and do your workflow.
What to fear?
Last week ~
Assistant director yell out - Where memory cards for all day filming on Minna Island?
[crickets of the no sound]
Now you know real fear.
Fear is not buying a desktop computer for work.
If causing stress to buy a computer - entertainment industry not for you.
Most people don't fear it. It's just that not everyone is a computer nerd and understand what EXACTLY they need, and, believe it or not, some people don't like to spend money on everything, even if they have millions to spend.
Fineas, the guy that made Billie Eilish's album that won so many Grammys for both of them, used a regular iMac.
Almost all music producers in the industry don't use a Mac Pro. Some do, but most don't. I spend tens of thousands of dollars on just audio software, and the prices of the audio hardware in my circles are often ten times more than the Mac Pro.
People here are very, very antagonistic when asked for simple advice.
Well, not everyone KNOWS whether to buy something and a lot of people definitely don't KNOW what exact PC would be the best for them. Not everyone understands everything perfectly. That's why people come to forums and ask for concrete advice, and not something akin to "just follow your feelings".
This elitist attitude of "you don't need it, it's not for you" is getting really, really boring.
I have often thought this. Its an odd use of words.
I am 'scared' etc. My favourite is "Is everyone ok on Catalina as I am scared to update", like it destroys your computer and life.........
I don't agree tbh, as you know if you need a powerful machine made for heavy workflows.
And not many people at all know exactly what machine is right for them. I get it wrong a lot of times, but would probably be advised to get an iMac based on the description of my use, but I do know that is the wrong computer for me.
Really this forum is to get broad advice only and take everything with a pinch of salt, as everyone has a different opinion on speed, heat, fan noise, aesthetics, OS etc. It is their opinion of course, but doesn't mean it aligns with your own.
So my advice is buy it if you have the money and resource and test it out. If it meets your needs and are happy then great. If not, for what ever reason, find out what will. Its all simple.
For me the concern is because I bought the MP6.1 D300. While I got some good use from it, especially in 2014, it did end up disappointing because the D300 were not that great for HPC and there were no upgrades. And that is even with it having the ideal form factor for me (I travelled frequently in South America, Europe and US during 2013-2017).
I do not expect to travel frequently in the future. I like Macs and OS X, and I will surely upgrade my MBP13 (2017) in a year or two (might wait for Arm there). But should I get an MP7.1? Or suck it up and go for some Linux box which would probably work better in any case (Nvidia).
I do not expect to travel frequently in the future. I like Macs and OS X, and I will surely upgrade my MBP13 (2017) in a year or two (might wait for Arm there). But should I get an MP7.1? Or suck it up and go for some Linux box which would probably work better in any case (Nvidia).
I'm also about to pull the trigger on a 7,1 box. Probably 16 core, minimum RAM to be upgraded elsewhere, etc.
My question is does anyone expect Apple will make a few tweaks and upgrades this winter to keep the Mac Pro "fresh"? I don't expect they can do much with the CPUs, but maybe work out any kinks to the rev. 1 mainboard or backplane, or even ensure it will be compatible with Apple SoC/ARM for a future processor upgrade. Based on their history, they don't tend to do upgrades, but they do at times over engineer stuff so it lasts longer than anyone expected.
I had a maxed out 5,1 for studio work that was stolen, need to get a (modern) replacement, but don't need it immediately as my i7 laptop does pretty well, up to a certain track count.
Are there any indications that Apple will be announcing any sort of bump or refresh before the end of this year?
Will be running Nuendo and Davinci Resolve primarily.
My question is does anyone expect Apple will make a few tweaks and upgrades this winter to keep the Mac Pro "fresh"? I don't expect they can do much with the CPUs, but maybe work out any kinks to the rev. 1 mainboard or backplane, or even ensure it will be compatible with Apple SoC/ARM for a future processor upgrade. Based on their history, they don't tend to do upgrades, but they do at times over engineer stuff so it lasts longer than anyone expected.
I had a maxed out 5,1 for studio work that was stolen, need to get a (modern) replacement, but don't need it immediately as my i7 laptop does pretty well, up to a certain track count.
Are there any indications that Apple will be announcing any sort of bump or refresh before the end of this year?
Will be running Nuendo and Davinci Resolve primarily.
The Cascade Lake W-series Xeons may be the latest from Intel, but they aren’t the greatest anymore, AMD Ryzen 9 5950X FTW! (being a fanboy, your point that Apple has no reason to update the current Mac Pro as there are no newer Intel processors to upgrade to is valid.)
The fact that Arm Macs are coming may be the best reason TO buy a Mac Pro now, it will be the greatest Intel Mac ever made. You probably won’t be able to install Windows on a spare drive on ARM Macs for example.
I think I can give you another perspective. you might think this investment is massive and have uncertainty. but for the road map of professional grade computer, assuming that apple will create Mac Pro 8,1 which it won't surpass 7,1 too much. cause the benchmark will completely dispute the whole apple computer lineup from iMac to iMac Pro and MacBook Pro), and from cost perspective it will directly impact apple's margin so I think you can buy this current 7,1. but I also debt that apple will change the design of Mac Pro 7,1 cause R&D is part of the cost and the money they invest for the Factory in the states and CN; engineering is also big part of it too.
We all don't know that the plan that Apple is planning, maybe apple can offer a programme for Mac Pro 7,1 to switch Apple CPU or create an PCIe card that embedded Apple CPU, for example.
Also, this is a big 'IF' - the new Apple CPU on Mac Pro is as powerful as Xeon 28 cores then what's next? Apple is not the company which blindly chases for latest tech, whereas Apple is chasing 'the balance' instead. 56 cores? number of cores is just a number if the number of cores already had reached at 28 .
We all don't know that the plan that Apple is planning, maybe apple can offer a programme for Mac Pro 7,1 to switch Apple CPU or create an PCIe card that embedded Apple CPU, for example.
Also, this is a big 'IF' - the new Apple CPU on Mac Pro is as powerful as Xeon 28 cores then what's next? Apple is not the company which blindly chases for latest tech, whereas Apple is chasing 'the balance' instead. 56 cores? number of cores is just a number if the number of cores already had reached at 28 .
I suspect that Apple won’t update the Mac Pro except possibly the GPU until at least 2022, so if you need one between now and then, it’s probably best to get one now.
As far as Apple updating the Mac Pro to Arm, we don’t yet know what the strategy is or how the Mac Arm processors will differ from their iOS counterparts so the first question will be answered November 17th. Even then we probably won’t know much because the laptop Arm chips will still look a lot like the iOS ones, but Apple did say that they were going to make a new line of processors for Macs at WWDC and they won’t ship a regular iPhone A14 in a Mac, it might be an A14M, but we still don’t know what exactly that means (and Apple already used the M prefix for the motion coprocessor.)
Past that Apple is either secretly developing a massively multi-core Arm chip that will go into future desktop Macs or they will put mobile chips in the iMac and either discontinue the iMac Pro and Mac Pro or continue to sell the current models for years to come just as they are. We will have to wait until Apple ships an Arm iMac to find out.
If the iMac ships with a chip similar to the current A14 then we’ll be able to reason that Apple isn’t going to make a multi-core Arm chip for the Mac Pro, but let’s say Apple creates a 16-core Arm processor for iMac, then we can assume Apple will do something similar in the new Mac Pro, perhaps they will make a 32 core version for iMac Pro and Mac Pro.
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Bets on the next (ARM) Mac Pro pricing will be just as, if not more expensive than the current one, and the savings Apple makes up in processor costs (if any) will be ploughed into putting more processor in the machine.
You get twice the computer, for the same price, never the same amount of computer for half the price.
As far as I can tell the way Apple prices their computers is they take the BOM cost, multiply it by 3 and round up to the next nice looking number.
Yeah, but now they've developed the market for the Mac Pro as being an AU$10k entry price, they'll build to that market segment.
Apropos of discussions that have been had recently about the 2013's secondhand value, here at least 5,1s are generally fetching higher secondhand prices than 6,1s.
I won't be adopting any ARM based Mac in the next 2 years basically because I need Bootcamp and my work is very critical, not ready to be a beta tester.
Without bootcamp I won't even buy any Apple computer.
Without bootcamp I won't even buy any Apple computer.
Sometime in early 2021 there is decent change they will do something with a new MPX module. But you could buy one of those in the future if it made enough substantial difference and the costs were reasonable.
The is nothing on the CPU front.
Highly likely not. Apple has known there was a hole in the T2 for over a year. Did diddly in 2020 to replace it. So there is nothing major wrong with the mainboard or backplane apple isn't going to do much on an Intel design base.
The logic board for the Intel system is not going to get a SoC/ARM upgrade later. There is zero rational reason Apple would want to couple its SoC to the pin outs of the Intel Xeon W 3200 series. Even less rational reaons why they'd couple it to the Intel I/O PCH controller . The whole logic board is a 'dead end' .
Will Apple slavishly build a new SoC/ARM logic board to the exact same dimensions of the Intel logic boards ( there is an I/O board to the power button and two top/front I/O ports)? Pretty likely no. Apple hasn't largely has not done that with the Mac Pro in the past.
Apple is not in the logic board selling business at all. So highly likely not interested at all in selling "raw" boards to end users for "do it yourself" projects. They wouldn't have to change the case much to move a couple of mount points 1-2 inches to fit the newest ARM targeting board. Or tweak the integration for the 'back side' blower. Or ... something else.
Over engineered more so that the product can coast in a fixed design for a long time. That is a different dimension to commodity part replacement with future generations for main system boards. I suspect the MPX modules will be reusable in future systems but that isn't guaranteed . ( the PCI-e connect part will be. The second custom MPX connector part might get tweaked for the next Mac Pro. )
Intel has nothing coming in the Xeon W class that fixes the Mac Pro socket at all. Even in context of changed socket ... nothing until substantively into 2021.
AMD has 'big Navi' but pretty doubtful those making it into MPX modules before largely into 2021 with production quality and stable driver(s).
The real question should be why did they make this Mac Pro with an all new design when they full well knew there'd be a platform switch.
Selling your userbase a computer that is to be superseded by newer, faster hardware, that's not unexpected. But releasing an already dead ended machine? Or rather, selling it as the latest and greatest and fastest they ever made - and six months later announce that you are moving to a different platform, timeline for the switch already set? Thanks, aaaand sorry about your soon to be incompatible purchase.
Don't think many companies would dare to pull this stunt.
In other news Lenovo has announced a singleCPU Threadripper workstation that apparently beats dual Xeon-equipped Intel machines in CPU-intensive tasks.
Selling your userbase a computer that is to be superseded by newer, faster hardware, that's not unexpected. But releasing an already dead ended machine? Or rather, selling it as the latest and greatest and fastest they ever made - and six months later announce that you are moving to a different platform, timeline for the switch already set? Thanks, aaaand sorry about your soon to be incompatible purchase.
Don't think many companies would dare to pull this stunt.In other news Lenovo has announced a singleCPU Threadripper workstation that apparently beats dual Xeon-equipped Intel machines in CPU-intensive tasks.
The real question should be why did they make this Mac Pro with an all new design when they full well knew there'd be a platform switch.
Selling your userbase a computer that is to be superseded by newer, faster hardware, that's not unexpected. But releasing an already dead ended machine? Or rather, selling it as the latest and greatest and fastest they ever made - and six months later announce that you are moving to a different platform, timeline for the switch already set? Thanks, aaaand sorry about your soon to be incompatible purchase.
In other news Lenovo has announced a singleCPU Threadripper workstation that apparently beats dual Xeon-equipped Intel machines in CPU-intensive tasks.
Basically because they were under pressure to release a modular design and they were on contract with Intel.
To think of it, they started working on the 7,1 years ago and I doubt the ARM transition will touch the Mac Pro lineup.
It's a machine for professionals. Not saying that ARM is lagging behind whatsoever, but who wants to jump into a new architecture as soon as it's released?
I'm making profit, I can't afford to migrate; I'd be harsh and say early adopters are going to be beta-testers.
The instruction set switch is really completely immaterial to the new design. If Apple has moved to a AMD Threadripper solution they still would have needed a new case design. Even if were going to eventually switch to Intel Xeon W with a new socket design. Across all viable paths they still needed a new overall system design in 2018.
Apple had been completely comatose on Mac Pro design since 2013. By Spring 2017 all Apple had was a "dog ate my homework" excuse as to why they didn't have anything. The Mac Pro 2013 was more than somewhat "humours" offering for Apple in 2017. What were they suppose to do... ride that until 2022. Almost 9 years in Rip van Winkle mode? Would there be any substantive Mac Pro customers left in 2021-22 if Apple hit the snooze button that long? Probably not. Lots of folks left in 2015-2017. Longer was only digging a deeper hole. The Mac Pro 5,1 was due to be pushed completely on the Vintage/Obsolete list in 2019. That was a huge driver to get "something" out the door by late 2018- mid 2019.
Fundamental fact is that the basic current Mac Pro system and case design is more than viable for an Apple ARM SoC as the CPU. If the Apple SoC is lower TDP it isn't like the current case cooling won't work. The power consumption of the GPU probably isn't going down. ( betting on GPU TDP staying constant and/or going down was the corner they painted themselves into with the Mac Pro 2013 design. It is extremely doubtful they are going to try to go back there. The "dog ate my homework" session in 2017 clearly laid out they were not interested in repeating that. ) . There is exceeding little about the current case and system objectives that inhibits an Apple SoC.
The main design constraint the current overall system design puts on a future Apple SoC is a requirement to dramatically "up the game" in the I/O function. It needs to be orders of magintude better than what the A-series does on a broader front. The die needs to be substantively bigger. For the high end compute GPUs Apple has nothing viable at the moment at all. What AMD/Intel/Nvidia thermal paths they are one is still going to be a pressing system design constraint. Apple doesn't have any 'magic bullets' there at all in the intermediate term of time. ( dubious that they'll want to cover that space anyway).
and yet that is exactly what every workstation vendor has done at the logicboard level. Dell , HP , Lenovo , etc. They all introduced Xeon W 2200 , 3200 , 1200 series workstations that were not going to get any more socket updates later. All those products had "dead end" product logic boards .
1- and six months later announce that you are moving to a different platform, timeline for the switch already set? Thanks, aaaand sorry about your soon to be incompatible purchase.
This part is just pure hand waving with no facts in hand. Apple probably isn't going to come out with a new Apple Silicon (ASi) Mac Pro in the next 12 months ( or more). If Apple releases a ASi model in Q1-Q2 2022 then the current Mac Pro would have a had a 2+ year reign as the latest Mac Pro. Apple went from 2010 to 2013 with not much of a real new Mac Pro. Going from 2019 to 2022 wouldn't be all that unusual. Nor would they be updating faster than the mainstream workstation vendors.
The timeline that Apple set is important and is grossly being glossed over above. If Apple says they are going to spend multiple years transitioning then that means the late 2019 - 2020 Macs may not necessarily be swapped out in the short term.
Apple also announced that they were turning back on "fat binaries" so future software will still run on the current systems. There is nothing in Apple's statements that outlines that support and development for the current systems will drop dead in 2022 or 2023.
If Intel had an Xeon W Ice Lake CPU ready at the end of 2019 then Apple probably would have used it. The Mac Pro could have launched in late 2018 if
i. Apple would have started work on Mac Pro sooner ( 2016).
ii. AMD could have delivered the Vega II Pro in sufficient quantity. ( MI60/MI50 were announced in November 2018).
iii. Intel had pulled down the LGA3047 with expanded PCI-e lanes sooner. It was 'there' , just not offered.
Instead Apple threw more effort into the iMac Pro earlier on.
What Apple is shipping now is actually Intel's latest. In 2016-2017 AMD didn't have an established track record.
Apple targeting where their ASi transition start time was not going to be driven by the top end desktop processor. The vast majority of Macs sold are laptop processors. So when there were laptop viable ASi SoC ready that is when they could start. When the top end ASi SoC could be ready that could be marked as an end point. Apple doesn't need to have all of those all at once.
I suspect Apple probably wanted to see what Mac Pro 2019 sales were going to actually come out as anyway before getting to the 'point of no return" on the top end ASi SoC development cycle anyway. If the Mac Pro had bombed in sales they could just cut the losses and move on ( or at beast tone it down to more specially an iMac Pro like system ). [ Similarly first year ASi macOS version being non-committal on 3rd party GPUs. Another "do it if we need to" deferred work option. ]
If too many folks hem-and-haw over buying a new Mac Pro like system from Apple at some point Apple could just cancel the product. There is no rock solid commitment there will be a ASi Mac Pro. If it is interesting to Apple ( makes lots of money) they'll probably do it. But there is no "has to" there for Apple for the Mac Pro in order for there to be a viable macOS ecosystem. macOS could continue without a Mac Pro.
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Seems doubtful that Apple has some contract that binded them to be required to buying only from Intel . Apple probalby had contract(s) to buy what they wanted , but that is different than "have to buy Intel stuff".
CPU development typically takes 3-4 years. So yeah timeline wise some Mac Applie Silicon work would have started about 2017 ( when Apple was doing their "dog ate my homework" sessions and starting on a new Mac Pro requirements. ) The Mac Pro Applle Silicon design work may not have started to a deep stage but the stuff coming out by the end of this year would have been in flight. The Mac Pro SoC would have started before the Mac Pro shipped though. ( Even if stretching out to 2022 there would be some start time in 2019 even if reusing large chunks of the baseline targeted 2020- 1H21 core design. )
Apple gave themselves a 2 year window to transition the Macs over. They didn't explicitly bind to a Mac Pro product. ( If they think it doesn't work in the line up anymore they can drop it. Again not explicitly contractually binding themselves for specific future products. ) . If starts the transitions in Dec 2020 and gets to the Mac Pro in October 2022 then that won't be anywhere close to "as soon as" Apple Silicon is released at all . macOS 11.1 or 11.2 would be the second (or third) generation on ARM.
If Apple as trying to do the whole ecosystem before June-August 2021 then yeah... that is quite likely very problematical. Stretched over two years should be substantively less of a problem quality and stability wise.
Sure, so going by that logic what they have done now is to show their customers that the left hand in their corp really does not know or care what the right hand does (spending all that time on a new design when the general push is for a new platform and releasing it just before that announcement - wouldn't a simple update to the iMac Pro have served as a stop-gap measure? Instead they made custom GPU modules and an all new design that seems to put expandability at its core.
What they have shown me as a Mac Pro customer is that there's no way to rely on any of what they have been doing since 2012. No apparent roadmap, no overall strategy, just flapping around from one concept to another like a teenager with mood swings.
With them you don't know if there's even still a workstation product line going to stick around a few years from purchase date and if that would be the kind of box you'd expect or some new crazy concept they'll just pull out of thin air.
Very different from the laptop and iMac situation. And definitely the opposite of what I can expect from Boxx, HP, Lenovo and so on.
To be fair, the 14nm architecture that Intel is suck with put Apple in a very difficult position. AMD took the lead and Intel clearly confirmed that need couple of years before releasing a new architecture.
You have no idea how detrimental that was to all Apple pcs. Clearly moving to AMD was not an option, more like a workaround. They don't want to depend on either anymore so they're moving to ARM.
Yes Apple is greedy and yes it's taking them forever to update some products but just like the transition to x86, things change.
My Mac pro will serve me at least 4 years ( Maxed out 2013 iMac served me for well over 7 years and it was still going strong)
I'll be glad to sell my Mac pro in 2024 and buy whatever ARM Mac will be available; I expect it to be widely adopted and accepted and I believe Microsoft will join the club.