I’ll get some numbers for you when I get back to LA. Currently enroute to Ohio (sandusky for a long weekend at Cedar Point with my family) and texting from the sky thanks to Delta and T-Mobiles partnership 😂😂😂. Good morning to everyone btw.
Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
MP 7,1 Mac Pro 8.1 - WHAT IF...
- Thread starter maikerukun
- Start date
-
- Tags
- 7.1 mac pro next generation
- Sort by reaction score
I am really hoping this is an indication that apple is working on one more MPX module based on the W7000 cards.
Wow, thats a nice deal. Wish it would drive 8k display, I would have gotten one. But at this point, I'll just wait.
Oh wow that's beautiful to see
That would be great! Although the rumors out today about the new Mac Pro were pretty awesome
Yep that's the main issue for it now, and the only one
So the latest rumors are we were all generally correct on what the Mac Pro 8.1 is going to be. Apparently, as of now, there will be slot modules with a certain number of undisclosed GPU cores on it that can be added to the new Mac Pro which will be running either the M3 chips or 2 M2 Ultra chips "which if you can slot 5 40 GPU core fitted extra cards into, we are now looking at the new champ in the Apple realm for GPU power...but let's see what happens next week
Oh wow that's beautiful to see
So the latest rumors are we were all generally correct on what the Mac Pro 8.1 is going to be. Apparently, as of now, there will be slot modules with a certain number of undisclosed GPU cores on it that can be added to the new Mac Pro which will be running either the M3 chips or 2 M2 Ultra chips "which if you can slot 5 40 GPU core fitted extra cards into, we are now looking at the new champ in the Apple realm for GPU power...but let's see what happens next week
I feel I missed something somewhere, you got a link to these new rumors...?
Edit To Add - So I am guessing the latest "rumors" are from a Max Tech video released a few days ago...?
Because that just seems a rehash of all the old rumors, the Max Tech variant of the MacRumors "What We Know So Far" type article...?
Last edited:
So the latest rumors are we were all generally correct on what the Mac Pro 8.1 is going to be. Apparently, as of now, there will be slot modules with a certain number of undisclosed GPU cores on it that can be added to the new Mac Pro which will be running either the M3 chips or 2 M2 Ultra chips "which if you can slot 5 40 GPU core fitted extra cards into, we are now looking at the new champ in the Apple realm for GPU power...but let's see what happens next week
If those GPUs don't / can't add a corresponding number of monitors to the system, not interested.
This was tempting, but found they won't ship to Australia - I suppose geo-blocking.
I'm now not confident that any new GPUs are on the horizon for us with Intel 7,1 Mac Pro machines.
You want a NeXT cube.
Yeah those are what I was talking about. These things were touched on previously but the rumors are starting to be spoke on with a bit of clarity which is when I finally tend to take them a bit more serious. When they're still just fuzzy guesses not so much but when spoken with a little authority it usually indicates someone heard something kind of solid.
Or they're dumping them in advance of discontinuing MPX GPUs...
Is it possible to purchase it then have a friend send it as private mail Fedex overnight and say it costs less than $1,000 which will keep it from having to pass through any kind of red tape?
Yeah, you can have your friend declare it whatever value you want, but probably best for them to make you an invoice that they sold it to you for that declared value and put it in the box in case customs opens it.
I had to say I lived in 90210 then Amazon shows heaps of them in stock! It’s tempting. I do have friends over in the USA.
It’s showing up at a higher price now. I think the W7800 is a better buy. I’d wait a little longer to see if Apple releases drivers and new MPX cards.
The W6800X Duo is about 30 TFs (FP32 combined). The W7800 is 45 TFs. So a W7800X Duo should be 80-90 TFs.
Last edited:
If Apple released drivers for the AMD 7000-series GPUs, folks would just buy the cheaper third-party options; and I would think Apple would rather have folks spending the money a W7900 MPX card would cost on a shiny new ASi Mac Pro...?
About 5-6 days later and have gone from 9 in stock to 6 in stock while carrying about a $2K discount from normal price. Decent chance these are being dumped by Amazon because they don't sell at a unit/year rate that is interesting to Amazon. [ Apple 'made them' sell a block allocation of the modules in order to sell other Apple stuff and Amazon just wants to unload them. )
The other major problem is that the crypto craze from 2-3 years ago is over. ( it is the ChatGPT craze now ).
Street price for a non 6800 ( no InfinityFabric , no apple industrial design , Thunderbolt output to XDR , etc). $534 brand new ( used is cheaper).
SAPPHIRE NITRO+ Radeon RX 6800 XT Gaming Graphics Card, AMD RDNA 2 11304-02-20G - Newegg.com
Buy SAPPHIRE NITRO+ Radeon RX 6800 XT 16GB GDDR6 PCI Express 4.0 ATX Gaming Graphics Card, AMD RDNA 2 11304-02-20G with fast shipping and top-rated customer service. Once you know, you Newegg!
So could buy 4 of those for less than the price of this Duo. ( could buy 5 but putting all of those into one box gets a bit tricky). For batch parallel workloads .... Apple's prices don't really hold up anymore for that 6800 class performance. The W6900X pricing is even further in looney-tunes land
Apple's MP 2019 pricing on the > 20 core options is caught in a time bubble also. Even Intel has backed far off the hefty > 1TB RAM tax. The GPUs are in a time bubble also ( for what they are relative to newer options).
Amazon dumping these is just as likely that this means that W7x000X is not coming any time soon .
Last edited:
Finally there are a few m2 ultra rumours coming up for next week. I really hope that we get new studios with max and ultra and at least a preview of the MacPro with some next level stuff.
Checked out the benches for different rendering SW again (the only weak spot as I see it)
These are ballpark figures:
Redshift bench:
6800 Duo (2GPUS) : 4 mins
2 x 6800 Duo (4 GPUS): 2 mins
m2Max: 7:30 mins
m1Ultra: 6:30 mins
*M2Ultra at best: 4 min
7900XTX using HIP on windows: 3 min
Blender 3.5 open data points:
6800 Duo (2GPUS) : 2 x1379.82 ? (only 1379.82 reported, has to be for a single GPU?)
m2Max: 1918.86
m1Ultra: 1831.34
*M2Ultra at best: 3500 ?
7900XTX using HIP on windows: 3600
Blender CPU:
28 core xeon 3275: 400 points
20 core m1 ultra: 420 points
m2 max: 252
*24 core m2 ultra: 500 points
*13900 intel: 450-550 points (clocking?)
So a m2 ultra studio would be similar to a intel 13900 CPU coupled with a 7900XT (or a 6800 duo)
Apple could then easily say that the new M2 Ultra Studio replaces the 28 core XEON with a 6800 duo (total cost about 20000$) for just 5000$
And if there was a working dual m2 ultra + overclock, it would be a lot faster then the XEON and about on par for GPU.
Personally, I am quite interested in the studio m2 ultra since that will probably be plenty fast as a front end device.
If there was a 10000$ m2 dual ultra that would also be interesting but for acting as a render node, I would absolutely continue to do that on PCs with nvidia cards.
I really look forward to get some closure next week. If the above conjecture is what happens I think Apple is in an ok spot for the Mac ecosystem. Not insanely great, but good enough. I do hope that the Mac Pro also have a halo tier product for the likes of @maikerukun so that total GPU power is 2x the current maxed out 2019mp.
Checked out the benches for different rendering SW again (the only weak spot as I see it)
These are ballpark figures:
Redshift bench:
6800 Duo (2GPUS) : 4 mins
2 x 6800 Duo (4 GPUS): 2 mins
m2Max: 7:30 mins
m1Ultra: 6:30 mins
*M2Ultra at best: 4 min
7900XTX using HIP on windows: 3 min
Blender 3.5 open data points:
6800 Duo (2GPUS) : 2 x1379.82 ? (only 1379.82 reported, has to be for a single GPU?)
m2Max: 1918.86
m1Ultra: 1831.34
*M2Ultra at best: 3500 ?
7900XTX using HIP on windows: 3600
Blender CPU:
28 core xeon 3275: 400 points
20 core m1 ultra: 420 points
m2 max: 252
*24 core m2 ultra: 500 points
*13900 intel: 450-550 points (clocking?)
So a m2 ultra studio would be similar to a intel 13900 CPU coupled with a 7900XT (or a 6800 duo)
Apple could then easily say that the new M2 Ultra Studio replaces the 28 core XEON with a 6800 duo (total cost about 20000$) for just 5000$
And if there was a working dual m2 ultra + overclock, it would be a lot faster then the XEON and about on par for GPU.
Personally, I am quite interested in the studio m2 ultra since that will probably be plenty fast as a front end device.
If there was a 10000$ m2 dual ultra that would also be interesting but for acting as a render node, I would absolutely continue to do that on PCs with nvidia cards.
I really look forward to get some closure next week. If the above conjecture is what happens I think Apple is in an ok spot for the Mac ecosystem. Not insanely great, but good enough. I do hope that the Mac Pro also have a halo tier product for the likes of @maikerukun so that total GPU power is 2x the current maxed out 2019mp.
I really don't think the Mac Pro will use an M2 Ultra. That would be way too underwhelming for Apple and then you have the Studio leapfrogging it next year with an M3. IMO that's never going to happen. I think the M2 are clearly Studio refreshes, and apparently the internal code number tracking would seem to imply the same.
The Mac Pro will be like the last one--announced or previewed but not released until fall 2023 or spring 2024 and will have an M3-based processor, add-in compute cards from Apple. We'll know in four days!
There is a decent chance that if Apple is going to get on stage and make a big deal out of 2-3 M2 models, then they won't somewhat undercut that with talk of a M3 generation. "buy this M2 stuff , but we are going to wipe out M2 in a handful of months."
If they gave any M3 metrics for Single Threaded that would likely map back to all the M3 variants.
In 2013, the Mac Pro as a demo model in a glass/plexiglass case. That would be a way of tap dancing around generational metrics leaking back into the other products.
And last time Apple did the Studio the Mac Pro was not done in the same session. If Apple is doing both on stage at the same time then both probably have same generation M-series. ( Don't see Apple teasing the M2 MBP 14" when roll out the M2 MBA/MBP 13" )
True, but unless the Mac Pro has a totally different processor than *any* of the others that will always be the case here. I don't agree--we know M2 specs, we've had them for almost a year, so M2 studio updates are not a big deal at all, and everyone expects an M3. My feeling is that if we assuming (safely, I'd argue) the Mac Pro uses the same overall Apple silicon architecture, then what makes it special is the add-on abilities. If they make an "Extreme" version it will Mac Pro only.
I can see this: Base Mac Pro uses an "Ultra" chip, but it's expandable. So you want Ultra power and no expansion, get a Studio. You want expansion, bump up to the "entry" Mac Pro for just a little more. True Mac Pro power is the Extreme chip with expansion.
It's logical and would fit product slotting without really cutting into any other product line sales. It also has that "halo" effect of "here's the absolute best" with the "BTW, lesser versions of this power will be coming to the full product line" add-on. So they announce the M2 Max and Ultra updates to the Studio, not a big deal, just a short announcement. The target for those aren't existing Studio owners, it's people who've waited. It's like the M2 Mini announcement, just the natural evolution of things. Those are available for immediate order. But that leads to the big announcement, the M3-based Mac Pro with Extreme chip, hardware ray-tracing, expandability with add-in compute/GPU cards, available in 6 months.
We will all know more soon.
I do not necessarily agree with this. In order to announce an M2 Ultra Mac Pro, I think they need to address two questions:
- Is the M2 Ultra fast enough for a Mac Pro class of machine?
- What justifies the existence of Mac Pro when the Mac Studio is also available with the same SOC?
- Apple has announced first-generation Mac Studio as a significantly more powerful machine than the Mac Pro, which is actually true, considering the key areas that Apple is focusing on: video (Final Cut Pro), music (Logic Pro) and coding (Xcode). If they can position the M1 Ultra as a more powerful solution than the Mac Pro, then obviously this is even more true for the M2 Ultra, let alone an overclocked version. By the logic of Apple-marketing, M2 Ultra is not a disadvantage of Mac Pro, but and advantage of Mac studio.
- Mac Pro was always about modularity and expandability (well, except for the Trash Can). Having PCIe slots for storage, networking and audio acceleration, is a difference big enough for Apple to justify the existence of Mac Pro next to the Mac Studio. Even more so if Apple adds third-party (AMD) GPU support, not to mention if they announces the rumored compute modules.
Slightly lower end? No, it's a lot lower end. The only way I see an M2 Ultra Mac Pro being released is IF they support 3rd-party GPUs, and even then it would still be a big MEH. Not something worth the long delay and not in the vein of previous Mac Pro announcements. I think it would be flop out of the gate.