MP 7,1 Mac Pro Apple Silicon is going to eat our lunch

[rondocap]

I love the 2019 Mac Pro - stacked with a 28 core CPU and dual W6800X duos, it's a beast for video work.

The new M1 Max mac is super impressive - it may not have the horsepower of the Mac Pro, but the software optimizations if you work with pro res and certain codecs is impressive, acceleration on the chip.

They even said it was equal to a Mac Pro with 8 cores AND Afterburner in Pro res, that's scary fast!

So...when the Mac Pro Apple Silicon comes, which undoubtedly will have even more powerful specs - I think our 2019 Mac Pros will definitely be a tough proposition price to performance. (honestly they are now already at that point, as much as I like the new GPUs and W6800X duo specifically)

Exciting times regardless, and I look forward to still enjoying the Mac Pro until that day comes - and I'm itching to try the Max and see how it compares in real world use for video work; heck it may even be close already due to optimizations!

 

[bsbeamer]

With the past few generations of MacPro, generally found "max upgraded" laptop models purchased 3-5 years after the MacPro release were close enough performance for 80% of the work. This might be closing that gap a little bit, but direct comparison is going to be more difficult since AS literally cannot do everything an Intel model could (that's good and bad).

As much as I'm intrigued by these new MacBook Pro's, I cannot justify the purchase to upgrade from a 2019 Core i9 model with 5500M for laptop machine at this time. Based on the budgets and proposals I've been going through lately, seems most small and medium sized business cannot justify either. Really hope 2022 is more normal for everyone. Trickle down effect from COVID budget reductions are impacting too many in video production.

 

[rondocap]

I'm going to be testing the M1 Max with the 32 core GPU vs a 28 core mac pro with the W6800x Duos in real world tests - mostly Red raw 8k, 6k, and some 3d work too, plus some pro res.

Im very curious what the results would be. The current M1 does poorly with 8k Red raw and heavy codecs like that, but this M1 Max with the 32 core GPU looks very promising.

If it's 90% as good in real world, that's a relative bargain vs the Mac Pro. Heck, just the W6800x Duo costs more than nearly a specced out M1 Max!

 

[MisterAndrew]

Mark Gurman tweeted that the Mac Pro will have "up to 40 CPU cores and 128 GPU cores."

https://twitter.com/x/status/1450233957350576129

 

[jasonmvp]

I'm pretty keen on the new MBPs but will probably punt on them for the time being given that my discount doesn't apply. Heh. ;-)

In all seriousness, I'm concerned where the next gen Mac Pro goes with the AS chip. I get that unified RAM (which isn't a new concept) is fast as hell. But what brought me back to the Mac Pro is its modularity. I'm seeing an AS-equipped Mac Pro slide back towards the dreaded trashcan Pro, and at that point I abandon ship again.

My 2019's PCI-E setup is a bit busy. I don't want to lose that flexibility in the new AS world. I suppose it's possible that we get some sort of PCI-E 4 (or 5?) setup but without any support for dGPUs. That's better than no PCI-E support, but it's still not ideal. Being able to upgrade the GPUs is a huge win as their tech generally changes year to year.

I was kicking around some other ideas but kept coming up blank. For instance: say that MPX slot is something Apple worked on knowing full well they had a plan for AS. And by the time ASMacPro(tm) comes out, those slots would be PCI-E 5, not 4 or 3. I got to thinking: maybe Apple is designing their own dGPU that uses both connectors to feed data to the GPU vs today's where only one of them is, while the other is for power and Thunderbolt? That would be a full Tbit/sec of bandw...oh... no.. that's only 128GB/sec. Fail. Way too slow.

Hm.

 

[mattspace]

There is no real meaning for professional, it is just a society created word. If you think you are professional, you are a professional, don't let others dictate you are or are not.

It does not matter the degree or title, or the equipment, it's what you can do.

I disagree, and I think that's an argument which reflects a broader problem within society of the denial of the value of education and certification, which holds that all opinions are equally valid and entitled, rather than earned.

Try cutting someone open and removing their appendix, and calling oneself a "professional" surgeon, and see how far one gets, even if the patient survives. Try rewiring a house without an electrician's ticket, and see how one ends up. Practice Law without a qualification, see how long one lasts.

It's not what a person can do, it's how they do it.

A professional is someone who is:

• Educated in their trade - this shows they have taken an active interest in what has been done before them, and therefore have acknowledged their ignorance, and built a knowledge base built upon the work of others.
• Qualified in their trade - this shows they have the commitment to have their work assessed by other people* against standardised industry measures, by those more knowledgable and experienced than themselves.

A Professional is not someone who gets paid to do a gig, a Professional is someone who pays for public liability insurance when they get a gig.

*The point of this, often overlooked, is that having a formal qualification tells people that you have worked within a process in which you are required to accept criticism of your work, and to fix the mistakes that other people find in it. You can't tell a professor or assessor that you disagree with them, and that your opinion is just as valid as theirs, because by definition, it isn't.

 

[deconstruct60]

I love the 2019 Mac Pro - stacked with a 28 core CPU and dual W6800X duos, it's a beast for video work.

The new M1 Max mac is super impressive - it may not have the horsepower of the Mac Pro, but the software optimizations if you work with pro res and certain codecs is impressive, acceleration on the chip.

They even said it was equal to a Mac Pro with 8 cores AND Afterburner in Pro res, that's scary fast!

Apple is cherry picking a bit on the Afterburner comparison stuff. The numbers they are throwing around are for ProRes 422 . Afterburner has more traction on ProRes RAW which Apple isn't really quoting numbers on. These new decoders are suppose to do ProRes RAW (the tech specs page says so) , but they aren't doing drumbeats about that performance. Afterburner was suppose to be the end of proxies ( for higher end cameras.). That isn't quite what they have done here.

The ProRes 422 is significant for them because that is what the iPhone 13's will be producing . The "M1 Max" will be good at transcoding ProRes to ProRes since there are two en/de coders. One can decode while the other encodes. ( Afterburner can't walk and chew gum at the same time).

It is a likely a decent previous to a even bigger M-series die though with four ProRes de/encoders and much smaller need for Afterburner. Similar for a bigger die running Logic and lower pressure to get a DSP card(s). I doubt there will be much iteration on either Afterburner firmware updates or another faster version later.

So...when the Mac Pro Apple Silicon comes, which undoubtedly will have even more powerful specs - I think our 2019 Mac Pros will definitely be a tough proposition price to performance. (honestly they are now already at that point, as much as I like the new GPUs and W6800X duo specifically)

Can't get to 64GB of RAM without switching out to a Max. To buy more RAM you need to buy more cores. I wouldn't declare the price/performance over for Mac Pro 2019 that put large investments in 3rd party RAM, storage, and non MPX GPUs.

Apple is charging $200 to go from 8 to 10 cores on the M1 Pro. That is a $100 per "P" core upgrade. Another $100 for two GPU cores (to get a "full" M1 Pro). They aren't shooting for super low cost leader there.

Exciting times regardless, and I look forward to still enjoying the Mac Pro until that day comes - and I'm itching to try the Max and see how it compares in real world use for video work; heck it may even be close already due to optimizations!

The days of folks strapping a Mac Pro into a ruggedized cart on wheels to do work in the field is going to be lots tougher to sell as a solution. And long delay feedback loops between shooting and "dailies" will shrink.

The "low end" Mac Pro with 8-12 CPU and 580X - 5700 GPU there in lie more shorter term trouble. The iMac 27" is in even deeper "hot water" now though.

 

[deconstruct60]

If it has 4x the performance of the M1 Max then a Geekbench score might be something like 7,000 single core and 41,000 multi core.

The single thread score would not change if just piled on 4x as much stuff . A single core is stilll going to be a single core. It would be a good thing just to keep single thread the same with that much more stuff sucking power also ( more interconnect and cache even if power down some P cores ) .
M1 pro and max single thread are very close to M1 .

Doubtful Apple would allow a single core to “grab” 4x more bandwidth since causes problems as the other cores jump back into the mix. Balanced bisecting bandwidth will be required if going to pile that much stuff together.

Looking at the die shots the die for the 2x and 4x are most likely different from the Max. it may turn out that Apple waits for the “M2“ foundation for the scale up versions. If improved cores rhen might get a modest bump ( 8-15% not 400% ) with a process shrink.

If Done with tiles also likely to run short of 41k on multithreaded because will now have memory hops to take from subsets of cores to farther away memory.

 

[sn1p3r845]

This gets me all excited for the new Mac Pro, there's absolutely no way I'm buying an Intel one now. By then there should be zero compatibility issues.

 

[mattspace]

People that moan about lack of eGPU support refuse to see how hard the massive built-in GPUs will slap.

Like a piece of celery, which has been in the bottom of fridge's crisper bin for 2 weeks.

They're crowing about the graphical performance of the top of the range M1 Pro Max WhateverBollocks as being competitive with the PS5 - the Lower performing of the current Sony / Microsoft console generation. The $5k+ computer having lower graphical performance than a ~$500 console is not a thing to celebrate.

 

[goMac]

No fool is going to house it inside a Cube-like design.

You're right, they'd probably house a roughly 400 watt package in a cylindrical, black case with a single cooler and fan.

More seriously: It probably would fit just fine in a Cube. MPX modules, especially the duos, have a similar TDP. You'd just have to make the rest of the Cube-thing a giant cooler, like MPX. Which is what the rumors are.

Take a G4 Cube. Put in the mainboard. Remove everything else and replace with a giant heat sink. Probably a very rough idea of what we're looking at.

 

[mattspace]

it seem like you have a limited view of what a work station can be. The 2013 MP morphed into a iMac Pro that was well received.

People said those who wanted a slotbox to replace the 5,1 had a limited view of what workstations could be, and that the trashcan was going to revolutionise the industry, and everyone would be making workstations like it from then on.

It was a one-off, that went nowhere, and left no legacy.

People said the iMac Pro should be more than enough for anyone who wanted a Mac Pro. The only people who praised it, were iMac customers, and Apple-appeasing / Apple-dependent media shills. Not even the developers who were partners for its launch followed through on their promises of software for it.

It was a one-off, that went nowhere, and left no legacy.

So, what do you think is going to happen the third time, when Apple tries to "redefine the workstation" and make yet another appliance, with the same full-replacement-price-for-GPU-upgrade pricing model?

There seems to be this weird idea amongst a proportion of Apple fans, that the slotbox is some sort of compromise, or lazy failure to do something better, when if fact it's a superbly adapted evolved answer to the market. You can't make a better workstation than a slotbox, because there is no "innovation" that is worth more than the flexibility (and psychological value of that flexibility, even if unused) a slotbox provides. Apple understood this prior to 2013, and acknowledged it in 2019.

Both would have shone with ASi inside especially if they were updated every 1 or 2 year. Both would be able to support a Jade 4C in terms of power draw and Jade 4C will likely has far better for performance for video editing work than a fully loaded 2019 MP.

Video editing is a niche, a niche. It is not the be all and end all of Mac Pro use, as observed by the fact that whenever Apple makes a machine that's all hardcore foussed on video editing, to the exclusion of being good at other niches, it fails in the market.

Again, the gaslighting that the trashcan would have been a success if only Apple had updated it each year, ignores that no one wants to replace a workstation afresh every year. It failed because users couldn't post-purchase upgrade it, not because Apple couldn't new-model upgrade it.

Mocking it as a non-upgradable appliance was literally HP's major Z-Series marketing campaign.

I would not be surprised if a Jade 4C machine cost 5000$ just as much as a 6900X does. There are not many who bother to change a 5000$ GPU every year to have the latest and greatest. People change every three year when the GPU is worth naught according to the economy department. Alternative they lease the machines.

The 6900XT is more like $2300, not $5k. That ~$2000-3000 (at current overpriced levels) is where the bulk of professionally used graphics cards sit. Most professionally used workstations are going to be running 3080/3080ti setups.

Apple is not going to sell, or lease you a machine with performance equivalent to that GPU's range, staying at that relative level of performance, for 2k-3k / year.

Apple is not going to sell you a machine that eats into the current "big iMac" sales. The "mini" Mac Pro is going to start above the iMac, for the computer alone.

 

[startergo]

If the new NotchBookPro could run my X86 Virtual machine it would have been the perfect laptop. I know I can run ARM virtual Windows, but I can't convert X86 Virtual machine to an ARM without losing all the licenses inside (around 15K).

 

[vel0city]

The next Mac Pro will be the true successor to our beloved 5, 1. It will be what we've wanted all this time.

Look at what Apple did with the new Macbook Pro. Pretty much everything anyone could want. That thing is like an Apple fever dream come true. A love letter to their pro userbase. That was Apple saying "we hear you and we get you"

The next Mac Pro will deliver the same ultra-high level of performance and features as the new Macbook Pro but on the desktop.

They are going to chain those Max chips together for absolutely insane, previously unheard of performance on both the GPU and CPU.

I am totally confident that Apple are going to deliver beyond expectations with whatever form factor the new Mac Pro takes.

In the meantime I've gone all-in on a 64GB Max MacBook Pro until the desktops arrive.

The Mac is most definitely back.

 

[mattspace]

Is upgradability a “pro” feature or an “enthusiast” feature?

"yes"

 

[jasonmvp]

Counterpoint - is anyone actually upgrading any of the components inside the 2019 Mac Pro, beyond installing extra ram?

I replaced the OEM VegaII MPX module with the W6800 Duo MPX module. Besides upgrading components, the PCI-E slots have allowed me the flexibility of adding:

• 2 HighPoint 4 x NVMe cards
• 1 512MB M.2 (non-NVMe) drive for scratch space
• 1 4-port 4K/60 BlackMagic HDMI capture card

Along with that, the internal space and connectors on the motherboard allowed me to add two more 2.5" Samsung SSD.

I don't want to see the flexibility of all of this removed in the next Pro. If it is, I pull the ejector handle and punch out (again). Like I did when the 2013 Trashcan was released.

 

[vel0city]

Rendering on the Apple M1 Max Chip

The home of Code & Visuals

blog.yiningkarlli.com

From an artist at Disney Animation Studios, testing with his own "hobby" CPU renderer.

"The real surprises to me came with the 2019 Mac Pro and the Threadripper 3990X workstation. In both of those cases, I expected the M1 Max to lose, but the 2021 14-inch MacBook Pro came surprisingly close to the 2019 Mac Pro’s performance in terms of wall time. Even more importantly as a predictor of future scalability, the M1 Max’s efficiency as measured by core-seconds comes in at far far superior to both the Intel Xeon W-3245 and the AMD Threadripper 3900X"

"in a nutshell: I expected incredible performance, but was surprised to find even my high expectations met and surpassed."

"The wider takeaway here though is that in order to give the M1 Max some real competition, one has to skip laptop chips entirely and reach for not just high end desktop chips, but for server-class workstation hardware to really beat the M1 Max. For workloads that push the CPU to maximum utilization for sustained periods of time, such as production-quality path traced rendering, the M1 Max represents a fundamental shift in what is possible in a laptop form factor. Something even more exciting to think about is how the M1 Max really is the middle tier Apple Silicon solution; presumably the large iMac and Mac Pro will push things into even more absurd territory."

 

[rondocap]

Hey, rondocap....

if you're in benchmark mode and don't mind: could you post some numbers from the RocketScience test in DaVinci?

Thanks!

Here Is a maxed out M1 Max 32 core/64gb vs a maxed out Mac Pro, 28 core, quad W6800x

Big price difference, but the Mac Pro still is multiple times better at these more difficult tests by a huge margin

Middle Test, UHD Pro res	Middle Test, UHD Pro res
M1 Max 32 Core 64GB	W6800x Duo (Quad)
09 Blur: 32 fps	09 Blur: 120 fps
18 Blur: 16 fps	18 Blur: 73 fps
30 Blur: 10 fps	30 Blur: 46 fps
66 Blur: 5 fps	66 Blur: 21 fps
1 TNR: 49 fps	1 TNR: 109 fps
2 TNR: 24 fps	2 TNR: 53 fps
4 TNR: 12 fps	4 TNR: 28 fps
6 TNR: 8 fps	6 TNR: 19 fps

 

[AndreeOnline]

It'll show the BMW here too in the screenshot..

ps. I know OpenCL is deprecated on Mac, but I think it is used still a lot, just like OpenGL is.

As a Blender-user (and loving it lately), it's been a bit of a bummer that Macs have been shut out of GPU accelerated rendering in Cycles (and other renderers—ProRender being a notable exception).

But, after having seemingly dragged their feet forever, Apple did join the Blender Developer Fund 1-2 weeks ago, or whenever it was.

Prior to this, the Blender guy/gal that was tinkering with a Metal-port of the code had trouble even keeping a Mac Pro-loaner for any amount of time. Admittedly, this is falls firmly in the "I read it on the internet" category.

But now they're in. I can't help thinking—and hoping—that they'll offer more active participation, like they've done with some game developers, to port Blender properly to Mac and make both viewport and rendering accelerated according to best practices. And while it might only be wishful thinking, them joining the fund now makes sense if they want to have something by the end of 2022, when new Apple Silicon Mac Pros might come.

I can wait a year if it means that Apple is actively helping, instead of having just one or two lone coding heros trying to do it in their spare time. Fingers crossed!

 

[mattspace]

Also for the iMac Pro and the Mac mini pros… I wonder if Apple will go for 2x m1 pro ? As a Mac Pro user I would hope not. This will spread the cost of the dual m1 max over three different segments instead of just one.

I don’t expect Apple will go beyond m1 max for the mini. An iMac Pro though may see dual m1 maxs with 256 GB ram

The cynic in me suggests the iMac Pro will just be the range-replacement for the current standard 27" iMac, with an Apple marketing message of "it turns out a lot of Pros were using our standard iMacs as Pro level machines, to do Pro level work, so we're renaming them to reflect their true role".

iMac: 24", iMac Pro: 27" 5k, (possibly) iMac Pro Max: 32" 6k (which reintroduces target display mode).

 

[mikas]

No more SFF Pros for me either. I wouldn't buy any of those never anymore..

 

[mikas]

As we all pobably know, the storage today is called M.2 NVMe.

Have we seen any standard M.2 NVMe as a standard of the shelf solution with Apple devices of any sort. And as a standard pluggable device in an Apple Mac Pro as of today? Nope, so I predict that's not gonna happen this time either. I would wish that, though. But not gonna happen.

I believe they are gonna bet it in on every front, and about everything there is to it. It's gonna be only Apple, or nothing. They are gonna rule the world. They are gonna make the profit off all of it too.

They are doing it on every other fronts in there, like games, entertainment like tv-shows, maybe cars someday and what not.

To me, this is annoying. I learnt them as a computer company when I was young. Now they are a Ted Lasso company. Or a Music company. Maybe some time they Are A Car Manufacturer too, who knows.

I'm sad to say that their real computer business seems to be on the back yard of their developings though. It seems like a second thought to be a computer, it comes just a lot behind of these continuous business models, subscriptions stuff and all.

Apples computers have become as a mear means to grow their subscriptions models and earnings to their ultimate limits. They want to tie us to subsrcibtions and yearly payments. That's much more ludicruous of an achievement than selling you just a computer you can use any way you want, and with any partners you want.

That's what all the other big players try to achieve too. All of them.

 

[kvic]

Seeing M1 Pro and M1 Max, personally I find it clearer where Apple is heading. It's very unlikely there will be eGPU and dGPU support on new Mac's with Apple silicons.

So called "Unified Memory Architecture" that Macrumor'ers have been bragging about is not new. It really takes someone like Apple to shatter the PC industry, then collectively they'll move forward. We could expect PC side to catch up pretty quickly at least in laptops. Let's remind ppl Sony/AMD were the recent pioneer in "unified memory architecture" with the debut of Playstation 4.

For a desktop workstation which excel in modularity, expandability and flexibilities, there is no strong indications that PC should follow Apple's examples. After all, PC workstations will continue to run the world and cater to a wide and variety of workloads while Mac Pro with Apple silicons remain in niche market segments.

With that said, I feel strongly the 2019 Mac Pro platform will continue to be available for as long as there are demands from its professional users. Sounds like x86-64 support will be available for a long while. Hope I don't have to byte my words.

 

[4wdwrx]

I think the best feature of the new MacBook Pro was bringing back the SD card slot.

 

[deconstruct60]

My 2019's PCI-E setup is a bit busy. I don't want to lose that flexibility in the new AS world. I suppose it's possible that we get some sort of PCI-E 4 (or 5?) setup but without any support for dGPUs. That's better than no PCI-E support, but it's still not ideal. Being able to upgrade the GPUs is a huge win as their tech generally changes year to year.

GPU tech change every year? Something in at least one category across the whole AMD line up; perhaps. Yearly drops in a specific product category. that really isn't supported.

Some of that "action every year" is also having all the players contributing to the action. Apple relationship with Nvidia is busted. So in Mac Pro space really have been limited to just one GPU vendor. Apple and Intel's relationship isn't quite as bad, but Apple probably isn't looking to let them in the mix either. (and Intel is likely looking to get some mature , stable footing on Windows and Linux first with oneAPI instead of jumping through Apple's Metal hoops. ) .

I was kicking around some other ideas but kept coming up blank. For instance: say that MPX slot is something Apple worked on knowing full well they had a plan for AS. And by the time ASMacPro(tm) comes out, those slots would be PCI-E 5, not 4 or 3. I got to thinking: maybe Apple is designing their own dGPU that uses both connectors to feed data to the GPU vs today's where only one of them is, while the other is for power and Thunderbolt? That would be a full Tbit/sec of bandw...oh... no.. that's only 128GB/sec. Fail. Way too slow.

the MPX slot in and of itself probably doesn't point to some deep long term plan. Apple did Afterburner too. And now they are weaving substantive parts of that into the SoC fixed function logic. M1 Pro and Max can encode as well as decode ProRes. Afterburner is still one way (decode).

I doubt the MPX connector took more than a couple of months to come up with. That wasn't some $100M R&D that Apple has a huge "sunk cost" commitment they are going to be reluctant to let go.

The MPX connector solves three problems :

1. Power to card with no wires . Apple hates messy wires.
2. provision DisplayPort to the default on board TB controllers
3. provision PCI-e to the TB controllers on some cards.


If there is only iGPU then problem one implicitly disappears. For problem two the TB controllers are also in the SoC. Provisioning them some DP feeds is also almost completely done. Alternative DP feeds are actually a bit of problem because would have to pump them back into the SoC and pin input/output on the SoC is limited. ( the huge iGPU needs gobs of memory I/O to keep itself feed. ) It would actually substantively simplify the logic board design if didn't have to have a N-way switch to route DP feeds hither and yond. [ Putting TB next to the display controller also lowers power consumption and Apple is all about fanatical Performance/watt now. ]

So really left with getting "extra " PCIe feeds for TB to display card. PCI-e v4 , v5 progression is likely to cover that in the future. If AMD/Nvidia add DisplayPort v2 and then "iterate" to add USB4/TB3 (since the need a TB protocol engine anyway for DPv2 ) then can provision out of a x16 PCi-e v4/v5 bundle without much "overhead". (that's if Apple lets them back into the "pool" of singed GPU drivers. )