I think most of us imagine all the cool stuff that Apple could do with a Pro machine but in likelihood won't invest in. If Apple were a much smaller company, this would still be a very viable niche market.
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"Little Bird" MacPro Specs
- Thread starter JesterJJZ
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I think most of us imagine all the cool stuff that Apple could do with a Pro machine but in likelihood won't invest in. If Apple were a much smaller company, this would still be a very viable niche market.
What i'd expect from the next Mac Pro is something along the lines of this
4 Core / 6 Core
3.6 Quad, BTO 3.2 & 3.3 Hex (Xeon E5 - 1620, 1650, 1660)
4GB RAM (Four 1GB 1333)
2TB HD
SuperDrive
AMD 7850 2GB, BTO AMD 7970 3GB
$2,499 - £1,999
12 Core
2.3 Hex (x2) (Xeon E5 - 2630)
8GB RAM (Eight 1GB 1333)
2TB HD
SuperDrive
AMD 7850 2GB, BTO AMD 7970 3GB
$3,499 - £2,799
16 Core
2.6 Octo (x2), BTO 2.9 Octo (Xeon E5 - 2670, 2690)
8GB RAM (Eight 1GB 1600)
2TB HD
SuperDrive
AMD 7850 2GB, BTO AMD 7970 3GB
$4,999 - £3,799
Probably 3 or 4 ThunderBolt ports on each graphics card and all USB ports updated to 3.0 if they put a 3rd party chip in for it.
Probably updated in May, possibly at the same time as the iMacs
4 Core / 6 Core
3.6 Quad, BTO 3.2 & 3.3 Hex (Xeon E5 - 1620, 1650, 1660)
4GB RAM (Four 1GB 1333)
2TB HD
SuperDrive
AMD 7850 2GB, BTO AMD 7970 3GB
$2,499 - £1,999
12 Core
2.3 Hex (x2) (Xeon E5 - 2630)
8GB RAM (Eight 1GB 1333)
2TB HD
SuperDrive
AMD 7850 2GB, BTO AMD 7970 3GB
$3,499 - £2,799
16 Core
2.6 Octo (x2), BTO 2.9 Octo (Xeon E5 - 2670, 2690)
8GB RAM (Eight 1GB 1600)
2TB HD
SuperDrive
AMD 7850 2GB, BTO AMD 7970 3GB
$4,999 - £3,799
Probably 3 or 4 ThunderBolt ports on each graphics card and all USB ports updated to 3.0 if they put a 3rd party chip in for it.
Probably updated in May, possibly at the same time as the iMacs
Very reasonable... Didn't think about the 3rd party chip to add USB3. If they add in USB3, i might get the BTO 6 core MP over the top of the line BTO iMac
Reasonable but i think 16 core model must be slightly expensive than 4999.
'cause 2.6 will cost $1552 per chip. that means just cpu it will cost $3104.
Reasonable but i think 16 core model must be slightly expensive than 4999.
'cause 2.6 will cost $1552 per chip. that means just cpu it will cost $3104.
Very true, the Sandy Bridge E5's are expensive, on the current Mac Pros the cost of the rest of the machine is around $2000-$3000 depending on what model you buy.
Keeping the same price is a hope of that the components in the rest of the machine will have come down in price, since the machine was released 2 years ago.
I'd be very doubtful of this. I'm not sure there are at all enough PCI Express lanes to make this happen, even in PCI-E 3.0.
Plus the Thunderbolt controllers necessary would significantly fatten up the card.
Perhaps because "all PC GPUs" are moving to EFI (technically UEFI) capable motherboards? In other words Apple doesn't have to do very much at all, the PCs are moving toward them. Not the other way around. BIOS's days are numbered.
If they want their cards to run with various TB equipped Mac PCI-e card sidecar expansion boxes they might be motivated into doing that with some minor assistance (and motivation) from Apple.
With TB sidecar boxes the market for GPU PCI-e cards is going to expand. Not "print money in new profits", but expand. The slacker who is caught flat-footed is going to loose out. Intel is already the largest graphics provider. It is not like those in the PCI-e card business can let business slip through their fingers at this point.
The tweaker crowd is probably going to be over-represented in that potential customer market anyway. The probably will blow past the lack of support. ( but moan in groan in various forums around the net when it doesn't work. )
Judging from the design of the iMac the Thunderbolt Controller will be on the motherboard and the graphics processor on the PCI-E card.
As for enough PCI-E lanes in PCI-E 3.0 there should be enough since ThunderBolt uses 4 lanes of PCI-E 2.0 and version 3.0 is nearly double the speed of version 2.0, 8 GT/s vs 5 GT/s and also removes some of the overhead so should run faster without this too. As for the current generation of graphics cards they don't use the full bandwidth of PCI-E 2.0
So there should be enough space for up to 4 ThunderBolt ports on the card itself, but as for this it all depends on how Apple implement ThunderBolt in the Mac Pro
Doubtful since Apple has habitually put a DIMM into each slot hooked to a memory controller. So previous Mac Pros had 3 1GB DIMMs (corresponding to the three controllers. Double that one the dual package models). The Xeon E5's have 4 controllers. So there will probably be 4 DIMMs.
It would be kind of nice if Apple when 4 x2 and came standard with 8GB. Makes alot more sense if running a 64-bit kernel , 64-bit Finder , 64-bit drivers , and a couple of large memory footprint 64-bit apps to have more than 4GB in the box. It would make more folks not grumble as much at the box price. [ You'd think if 2GB DIMMs were standard on the rest of the line the Mac Pro could at least be aligned. ] However, Scrooge McDuck seems to carry alot of influence at Apple.
Perhaps but I wouldn't count on it.
Dubious. This report at
at extreme tech puts the cost of the GTX 680 at $500. No way that is the entry level card on a Mac Pro.
One of the options .... perhaps. If it is the power hungry beastie it looks like it is ... not so much. I think Nvidia is going to draw more power to beat AMD at benchmarks. If so I think they'll loose the bake-off against AMD for being the default card options.
I could see them not offering the 1660. I know the extra 100MHz and 5MB extra cache are nice, but at Apple's current pricing it would be $800 more for that over the 1650. They skipped the top end in 2009 and on the dual system in 2010.
The single processor systems should have DDR3 1600MHz speeds . Apple have only ever sold one speed of memory with Mac Pros, the current models all shipping with 1333MHz DDR3 and speed only limited by the processor.
Still wouldn't count on a 2TB HD as standard as 1TB capacity is still very common. 2TB would be nice, but it isn't a selling point due to such varied storage needs by professional users.
I also think that a $250 base video card in the 7850 is expecting too much from Apple and would be quite the step up from the $150 cards they've used before when they also have to add thunderbolt to it somehow.
Would love to see the dual processor options and perhaps if Apple need to make this Mac Pro shine we will, but I think it's being hopeful looking at the cost of the current ones and what they come with.
Just food for thought.
I don't think you can do that. The Thunderbolt controller has to be between the GPU and the output port. Means it has to go on the card unless you want to have dongles (which Apple might do.)
Both the iMac and Macbook Pro have it in this configuration. GPU->Thunderbolt controller->Display or external port.
Right, but we're talking about 3-4 Thunderbolt ports at 4 lanes each, and then the bandwidth the card itself needs. Not pretty.
What is discounted here is the current Mac Pro is oversubscribed on the 4 PCI-e slots. TB effectively adds another slot of pressure. The E5's expand the number of lanes but only out to 40 (***)
16 , 16 , 4 , 4 ====> 40 lanes. ( there are not "extras" )
If throw TB on top.
16, 16 , 4 , 4 , 4(TB) ===> 44 lanes.
They could go back to over committing on the on the last slot. If there is a version 3-to-2 expander switch could go
16 , 16, 4 , 4(v2) , 4 (v2 TB) ===> 40 lanes
The quirky part is how do you hook up the display port output from the GPU if it is on a discrete card. There is a reasonable chance Apple will punt on this until there is a better embedded solution for this in a Mac Pro.
As purely video cards yes (most of the time). As GPGPU engines no. There is exceedingly little reason to handicap the GPGPU market potential of a Mac Pro. That market tends not to have problems paying for a $2,499+ box.
The problem is the TB controller can only drive two physical ports. You'd need two controllers for 4. In the chart here just divide by 2 to see how many video channels you get.
http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/news...lt-controller-could-broaden-reach-of-spec.ars
There are no 4 video ( 8 TB channel ) controllers. You might get two TB ports and two real DP v1.2 ports for four of the same physical form factor but it would not be 4 electric TB ports. More than two TB ports is a bit of overkill anyway with daisy chaining. (e.g., the current Mac Pro has two Firewire (rear) and two 1Gb Ethernet ports.) Not sure why TB needs, or even wants, a flatter tree.
With two controllers you are up to 8x PCI-e lanes of consumption. It is already oversubscribed with one.
Nevermind, that the graphics card is a flawed place to put a TB controller. Additionally, most users are going to be using non-Apple monitors for the normal, mainstream connectors should be present on the card. ( IMHO they all so be normal, mainstream connectors. There isn't a good reason to lock the card into the Mac market. )
(***) With two E5's there are 80 lanes. At that point there are "more than enough" lanes for lots of stuff (e.g., 4 16x electrical slots ). However, that isn't an option for single socket set-ups.
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Reasonable but i think 16 core model must be slightly expensive than 4999.
'cause 2.6 will cost $1552 per chip. that means just cpu it will cost $3104.
The current 2x 6 core 2.66 was $1000 per processor the Mac Pro using it is $4999, which is about $3000 over the processor cost. To keep the same rough price point Apple would need to use the 8 core 2.0 E5-2650 ($1099). The Mac pro using the 2.93 hex core is $6199, and the processors add up to $2880, which is about $3300 for the rest of the package. So if Apple used the E5-2690 at $2000 a piece, you could expect the Mac Pro to cost about $7500. With tax (~$700), monitor (say $500), RAM (64 GB would be ~$700), HDs (say another $700 for 3 2TB + a decent sized SSD), and what ever else, the total machine is now up close to $10K. At this point you should really just be buying a small cluster instead.
For the top processor in the Mac Pro, I believe the sweat spot price/performance wise is going to be with the E5-2670 8 core 2.6 GHz with turbo to 3.3, at $1540. Anything more simply costs too much and the $100/processor you save with the 2665 (2.4 GHz 8 core) seems rather pointless when for the total machine you're already spending north of $6K, or more like $7500+ once you add RAM/HD/monitor.
Actually, a Thunderbolt controller can only drive one port because it's two Thunderbolt devices per port.
So that said, a video card may only need one Thunderbolt port. The other ports could be DVI or MDP.
It is not 4x each. It is 4x lanes per controller. The ports share the PCI-e bandwidth. More physical doesn't get you more throughput. Just like two FW ports don't necessarily get you twice the bandwidth on the Mac Pro.
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No. You seem to be confusing DP displays with TB devices. TB supports 7 devices on a whatever tree forms the network. It can one or two roots from a computer driving the network set up.
I don't think at this point you can have one controller for two ports. There wouldn't be much point in since Thunderbolt can daisy chain, and at this point the fastest Thunderbolt controllers can only drive two devices.
I'm pretty sure the fastest Thunderbolt controller can only handle assembling packets for two devices at once regardless of total bandwidth, but I could be wrong. I'm also not sure what the Thunderbolt spec says about dropping below the spec's bandwidth.
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My "little bird" (read: my own crazy mind) says there will not be a single-processor Mac Pro offered this next round. It will only be dual CPU, so that they have enough lanes (80) to run Thunderbolt. They will let iMac and others fill the gap for single processors.
I doubt it, simply because a fair number of prospective buyers only want a single processor option. If the 2010-gen was dual processor only, Apple would miss out on lots of sales (quad and hex core models)
Well, that's my crazy guess, and I'm sticking to it, haha!
I hear many people say, "The iMac is as good as a Mac Pro." I don't agree with that statement, mind you. Leaving the iMac or Mac Mini for single processor types, and Mac Pros for dual processor types could be seen as filling all the gaps, perhaps... especially since they'd all have Thunderbolt, which seems to be touted as the great equalizer.
I hear many people say, "The iMac is as good as a Mac Pro." I don't agree with that statement, mind you. Leaving the iMac or Mac Mini for single processor types, and Mac Pros for dual processor types could be seen as filling all the gaps, perhaps... especially since they'd all have Thunderbolt, which seems to be touted as the great equalizer.
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What do you think is in the upper end iMac?????? There is only one TB controller in there. There are two physical ports on the outside.
The current larger controller that Intel is already shipping has
-- a 4x PCI-e input pins.
-- two Display port inputs.
that means you can hook two of the DP outputs from your GPU to the controller. Those two outputs can go out on the DP reserved channels (e.g., one on each port or two encoded onto one. ) . The 4x PCI-e data goes out on the PCI-e channels (which ever is appropriate because the TB controller is a defato PCI-e switch. )
that's why the controller is rather large now and that "shrinking" is in part is throwing some of that capability out the window. There are some implementation process shrinks in the new ones too.
This all matches Intel's docs they are distributed all along. Even back with it was Lightpeak there were two physical connector interfaces for every one controller.
".... Figure 4. Host- side Thunderbolt controllers have one or more DisplayPort input interfaces, a PCI Express interface along with one or more Thunderbolt technology interface. By integrating all the features necessary to implement Thunderbolt into a single chip, the host-side controller enables system vendors to easily incorporate Thunderbolt technology into their designs. ..."
https://thunderbolttechnology.net/tech/how-it-works
( I think the PDF version at the Intel site actually has the figure. )
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Technically, Apple could still sell a single processor option. In fact, that is how HP gets the "entry" price of the Z820 down to around $2,300; they just fill one of the two process slots. Ta-da single processor package box to sell. I think Dell does the same thing. A single E5 2600 will work by itself.
The "problem" is there is a bunch of wasted space and sockets. You know that is going to drive the OCD Apple design folks loopy.
You are also almost inviting people to slap in their own CPU into that extra slot. Which again isn't very Apple-like. The issue is single processor options at the prices folks want them. Most single processor folks are on a tighter budget. The E5 1600 will fit those budgets better.
Eh? First there are only three models in Intel's posted line up right now
http://ark.intel.com/products/series/63197
Second, at the 2010 launch there was only one 3600 model around
http://ark.intel.com/products/47917...W3680-(12M-Cache-3_33-GHz-6_40-GTs-Intel-QPI)
and it was approximately the same price as the current 1660. Intel dribbled out some more top end 3600's after the 2010 Mac Pro launch but with only one choice they had to have taken the top end since it was the same as the bottom.
For the dual package ready models? No. They have consistently avoided the top end there the last couple of rounds. Mainly cause there are very hot and "crazy stupid for the desperate" priced.
Post flood pricing is still a bit higher also. It is costs they would bump this.
They don't "have to add" TB.
This issue though is that they were charging $250 for those $150 cards. If the cards don't really need an engineering "EFI tax" then $250 cards could be $250 for Macs too. I'm not sure why Apple wouldn't want to get to that state. It is yet another impediment for Mac Pro sales when there is always an extra "tax" on top for GPUs . At best it only encourages folks to put hack-cards into the Mac Pro. At worse people just don't buy the box because of the extra mark up. [ and yet another reason driving up card cost with some custom Display export kludge for TB doesn't make alot sense. ]
The 7850 would fit into Apple marketing machine because it is basically better than the "old" top end card. So they cold have graphs on the product's web page that showed "low end is now faster than top end old" .
For the current page:
http://www.apple.com/macpro/performance.html
The standard graphics benchmark is a 6x from the previous version. The "upgrade" was a 1.6-1.7x . It seems likely they will be looking to post similar jumps....( well perhaps not 6x but certainly something like 1.5-2.5x )
The other problem is that while the 7770 (perhaps at $250) is better than the 5770 (at the current Apple $250) is it really going to bettter than the AMD/Nvidia Windows models at $250? Comparing to the Mac past is one thing. Comparing cross platforms is another.
In 2009 they only used the $300 and $600 price points for the single processor system. Later adding the 3.33x4 in December 09. Also on the dual model for both years they skipped the top processor options. I merely mentioned this to show they have history of not offering the top processor options.
The 1660 is a poor value for money upgrade, especially if Apple maintain their current upgrade prices, let alone bump it to $1,300 as the 1660 is $1,080 rather than $999. Any normal workstation vendor would give all choices, but this is Apple.
