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Apple would be more clever than that - they'd put the half-eaten apple on a "Designed by Apple in California" rose gold case with a Z-series inside.

A Z1 like iMac...iMac Pro o_O, thicker for real cooling and to house workstation level parts with the ability to quickly "pop the hood" to change them would be a neat idea. Something for the creatives without returning to a tower which we all know is not going to happen.

However, back in the real world, inevitably Apple will tell those pro users still hanging on to OS X to upgrade their iMac upon order.
 
i'm not quite convinced that creatives are interested in 'popping the hood' of their computers ;)

just for some perspective, here's a fairly popular site/magazine/etc for creatives by Behance..
http://99u.com

while many or most of the authors&readers are working on computers, there is very very little talk about computers.. especially anything related to discussions seen in this forum..

so while yes, this would be a neat idea for (some particular group of people) , it's not the creatives who are going to think it's neat nor is it something for them.
 
Either get with the program and give us GPU expandability with off the shelf GPUs, or a dirt cheap TB GPU enclosure that lets us use off the shelf GPUs without having to flash them.
 
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After all this tube-bashing, I need to add my own experience with the 6,1: it's been GREAT. I love the portability, speed and near total quiet. BIG improvement over my 3,1 in every way. I hope Apple sticks with the tube design.
 
There are three existing solutions I'm aware of:

1) The way PCs typically do it, by routing the video back to the motherboard physically by using a cable. Admittedly not very Apple-like. But Apple could have a custom PCIe card that routed the video back to the mobo over PCIe or an internal cable.

2) Plug the monitor into the computer's TB port and the PCIe graphics card is headless. Cheap onboard video handles bootup. After bootup, software allows the powerful GPU to do the rendering, but uses the integrated GPU for the physical output. This is already proven for example if you want to use an eGPU on a laptop, but want to use the laptop's built-in display instead of a monitor connected to the eGPU. I don't know how this is accomplished--perhaps it's just mirroring the framebuffer from one GPU to the other.

3) The onboard card is MXM, not some custom format, so that it can easily changed with other MXM boards. This has been done for example when an Xserve 3,1 was upgraded to a GTX980M. Users have the option of either choosing an MXM GPU upgrade, or PCIe GPU ugprade, (or both), with the caveat that when using PCIe you'd have to connect your monitor via DP instead of Thunderbolt.

In fact, if the nMP went to MXM you could at least upgrade the GPUs once in a while instead of it being a system all locked together in time. Granted, this isn't PCIe, but it's an improvement from where we are now.
I like the 2nd (and 3rd) solution in that it doesn't require a custom PCIe card design, if I got it right. I don't see Apple adding and internal MXM card in addition to PCIe slots, but I see that many xeons now come with integrated graphics.
Now, say you want fully accelerated videos on all you TB port connected to 4K monitors and decided not to use the ports on the card, would a standard PCIe slot allow transferring the content of all 3 huge frame buffers to the internal GPU?
You might say that nothing forces you to connect the monitors to the TB ports instead of the gfx cards ports, but Apple don't like ambiguous situations where video acceleration would depend on the ports you use. They'd rather ditch PCIe slots altogether.
Now, I recall some Mac Pros used to have somewhat obscure limitations in respect to the monitors you could connect simultaneously, especially with the display port to DVI active adapteur. In some cases you could only connect two monitors or the max resolution was limited.
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After all this tube-bashing, I need to add my own experience with the 6,1: it's been GREAT. I love the portability, speed and near total quiet. BIG improvement over my 3,1 in every way. I hope Apple sticks with the tube design.
I take that you don't use large hard drives or many peripherals, in respect to "portability" (of a desktop? :confused:)
As for quietness and speed, the tube design is actually an impediment to these: limited to 1 CPU, cannot upgrade GPUs and the single heatsink is not best for quiet cooling (requires crippled GPUs). A well-designed tower design would be better than the tube design in every respect, except size (not counting peripherals).
 
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After all this tube-bashing, I need to add my own experience with the 6,1: it's been GREAT. I love the portability, speed and near total quiet. BIG improvement over my 3,1 in every way. I hope Apple sticks with the tube design.

I take that you don't use large hard drives or many peripherals, in respect to "portability" (of a desktop? :confused:)
As for quietness and speed, the tube design is actually an impediment to these: limited to 1 CPU, cannot upgrade GPUs and the single heatsink is not best for quiet cooling (requires crippled GPUs). A well-designed tower design would be better than the tube design in every respect, except size (not counting peripherals).
Different people, different, needs, different uses.

I'm sure NReichman is happy while using the nMP because it fits his needs, this may not be true for everyone, but if you leave out the all the technical details and shortcomings that many of us are facing, it's not something strange at all, you have your work done as you wish -> you are satisfied with the the tool - nMP...:)

This is valid for any computer, even mac minis are great for many people, nMp is not a bad system (at least when released it had many advancements) it's just completely different from the other workstations and from what many of us have used in the past (and now). Its limits are obvious but they do not apply to everyone...
 
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i'm not quite convinced that creatives are interested in 'popping the hood' of their computers
Creatives are not tinkerers and they want to ply it in, turn it on and use it to create. However, creatives are also a group of people who frequently have to change their workflow to accommodate trends. Many photographers have had to go from stills to video to stay current. If you have a computer that is configured for stills (because you didn't anticipate going to video) and you move to video, you have to change the configuration which means changing memory, GPU and maybe adding cards (such as those who shoot video with Red cameras).

There are valid reasons for needing upgradeable computers and statistically I wouldn't be surprised if creatives are one of the larger groups needing that option. It would be really nice if you would stop insisting that Apple's concept of a computer is right for all it's customers. If it were, you wouldn't have as many people complaining about the MacPro and as many moving to PCs to get what you insist isn't required.

I'm done with this "discussion"
 
Creatives are not tinkerers
[...]
I'm done with this "discussion"
just so we're clear..

you quote me talking to someone else.. do your little ranty thing... then exit with "I'm done with discussing :mad:"

??
I didn't even realize you and I were discussing anything in the first place.
so, srry about that
 
Sir, TB3 actually only supports DP1.2 its widely know as I explained Intel dont want to support DP1.3 neither next year.

There is a difference between DisplayPort transported by Thunderbolt and the backward compatible pass-through mode.

Intel did a generation of TB controllers that Apple skipped last time.

"... Redwood Ridge maintains feature compatibility, but you get official support for DisplayPort 1.2 (and 4K resolution) if you're using a DisplayPort monitor. ... "

http://www.anandtech.com/show/7049/intel-thunderbolt-2-everything-you-need-to-know

For bleeding edge monitors all that TB has to do is pass-through the raw DisplayPort on all the 'pins'. ( which is what the other Type C ports would do to handle bleeding edge high resolutions. ).

If it looks like DP 1.3 monitors are going to rapidly take off Intel may have a "pass through mode only" update coming in the next year. Transporting DP 1.3-1.4 ... that probably isn't coming for years.



YOU AGAIN EVADE MY POINT ABOUT BASIC USB-C Only ports (those ports that are USB3.1 and Display Port ONLY W/O ANY THUNDERBOLT 3 SIGNALS).

Can't be USB only since would extremely likley be leveraging the full pass-through mode. There can be TB sockets where there is no TBv3 signals coming out. That has been true since TB v1.


FYI USB-C is before Thunderbolt, It Supports Display Port Without THUNDERBOLT AS STANDARD. http://www.displayport.org/what-is-displayport-over-usb-c/

It isn't really standard. I standard option. There is no guarantee every TYPE C port you see is going to produce DisplayPort .... or USB 3.1 for that matter. The only univerals standard is some USB 2.0 output. For TBv3 I think the minimal connectivity expectation is still substantively higher than USB. [ I suspect it is still DP and now USB 3.1 added to the mix with TB v3. ]

Accordingly the New Mac Pro having 6 TB3 ports also will have 4 Extra USB3.1/DP1.4 ONLY USB-C ports.

Highly doubtful to get 6 TB 3 before get to Xeon E5 v5. 4 TB v3 would just just fine. The current Mac Pro has a HDMI socket. Hence, all of the video doesn't come out through TB now. If the new GPUs support DP 1.3 out of he box Apple could just put two Type-C connectors on the system. The Mac Pro shouldn't drop all of the Type A ports. That is just Apple being unnecessarily OCD. There are billions of Type A devices out there. There is about zero need for socket height savings on the Mac Pro.
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Do you have a link to support your theory that the published TB3 spec showing DP1.2 is wrong? Because I can't find anything suggesting it will support DP1.3 or 1.4.
....

Depending upon how the legacy, "pass through" mode is triggered when you plug in a DisplayPort cable this may work now. There are no DP v1.3 or 1.4 monitors now. And barely "will support with update" GPUs now. So it would have been tough for Intel to certify whole systems for what there was no production hardware for.

It may happen to work if the handshake done through the connector can trigger a straight through crossbar to the DisplayPort signal being passed to TB. Thunderbolt encoded data is largely being by-passed all that needs to be done is propagate the same signal across to the connector.

If it doesn't work ( the pass through switch needs some work ) then probably be another TB controller update next year. As outlined though the Mac Pro need not only have TB ports. A DP only ( or USB combo ) port would work fine. [ Current machine has a HDMI port ... so having one different port got past Apple design's OCD syndrome once before. ]
 
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Sir, TB3 actually only supports DP1.2 its widely know as I explained Intel dont want to support DP1.3 neither next year.

YOU AGAIN EVADE MY POINT ABOUT BASIC USB-C Only ports (those ports that are USB3.1 and Display Port ONLY W/O ANY THUNDERBOLT 3 SIGNALS).

FYI USB-C is before Thunderbolt, It Supports Display Port Without THUNDERBOLT AS STANDARD. http://www.displayport.org/what-is-displayport-over-usb-c/

Accordingly the New Mac Pro having 6 TB3 ports also will have 4 Extra USB3.1/DP1.4 ONLY USB-C ports.

Further not only USB-C ports, remember the Mac Pro also Includes an HDMI, which logically should be upgraded to HDMI 2.0b which supports 8K 60p.

So the Next mac Pro Having Polaris GPU inside its an SAFE INVESTMENT if you are concerned about 8K Resolution or other modes not supported by DP1.2 (but supported don USB-C's DP1.4 ports which also should be available on the nnMP).

Please do not shout at me.

Now I do see where you're going, you think Apple will enable DisplayPort 1.3 over USB-C. We'll see, but as I understand it that is an optional "alternate mode" for USB-C. If they do enable it then it should take care of 5K support but for 8K it's another three year wait, lol.

USB-C does put some mighty nice lipstick on that pig, I'll grant you that.

As for Polaris, it does not make the Tube a safe investment at all. Assuming a Tube is released this fall, what happens when AMD releases Navi GPUs in 2018? The Tube remains stuck with two generation old GPUs. Or maybe some Adobe app gains significantly in CUDA optimizations, what then? Ooops, sorry, you don't get to swap in the latest Nvidia GPU! Apple has deemed CUDA to be worthless to real professionals!

And remember, Apple gimps the GPUs in the Tube because either the PSU cannot supply sufficient power or the heatsink cannot adequately cool them (or maybe some combination of the two).

"There are no DP v1.3 or 1.4 monitors now."​

That is the beauty of PCIe slots. A true workstation can handle new technology that wasn't available at the time of its manufacture. Like any other $4K to $12K machine, a workstation is an investment that can grow with one's needs rather than a disposable tool.
 
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After all this tube-bashing, I need to add my own experience with the 6,1: it's been GREAT. I love the portability, speed and near total quiet. BIG improvement over my 3,1 in every way. I hope Apple sticks with the tube design.
this again. the 4,1 is also a big performance improvement over the 3,1. especially upgraded with just the Apple branded HD5870 from 2010. but no not portable, though generally quiet.
 
There are no DP v1.3 or 1.4 monitors now.
yes there are coming http://press.asus.com/PressReleases...style-and-Gaming-Innovations-at-Computex-2016 32" DP1.3
http://www.bitfeed.co/page/asus-designo-curves-and-proart-5k-preview-computex-video
Please do not shout at me.
I Shoot wherever I hear shooting at me.

Now I do see where you're going, you think Apple will enable DisplayPort 1.3 over USB-C. We'll see
As they Already enable DP1.2 on the Retina Macbook 12, you know the crappy retina macbook with only a single usb-c port for everything.

as I understand it that is an optional "alternate mode" for USB-C

Thunderbolt 3 actually is an USB-C alternate mode, also Inside TB3 mode you Have Video Signals mixed with PCIe Data, USB...

If they do enable it then it should take care of 5K support but for 8K it's another three year wait

DP1.3 already supports 8K https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DisplayPort#1.3, you I think you mean to wait three year for an 8K Display to be commercially available...

As for Polaris, it does not make the Tube a safe investment at all. Assuming a Tube is released this fall, what happens when AMD releases Navi GPUs in 2018? The Tube remains stuck with two generation old GPUs. Or maybe some Adobe app gains significantly in CUDA optimizations, what then? Ooops, sorry, you don't get to swap in the latest Nvidia GPU! Apple has deemed CUDA to be worthless to real professionals!

nVidia would come to the Mac as Display GPU as soon they sit with apple and agree a good deal, I dont care on CUDA while I recognize its an superior GPGPU environment for macOS targeted apps is more critical to support Metal than cuda, as metal provides faster more efficient GPGPU.

When I need another GPU, I could sell the Mac Pro (as I'll do soon) and buy a New One, not a big deal, the Accountable Cost Delta could be registed as Hardware Depreciation for Tax purposes and actually give me an positive balance at FY end.

And remember, Apple gimps the GPUs in the Tube because either the PSU cannot supply sufficient power or the heatsink cannot adequately cool them (or maybe some combination of the two).

A Thermal Core redesign to support 1000W TDP is absolutely feasible w/o formfactor change (please don't convert it on a Thermodynamic class, I have a lot to teach you on thermodynamics), either from a material switch from Aluminum to copper, even to Heat pipes and Increased fan Speed, also switching the PSU to another beefier is feasible I've quoted few PSU for Rack Servers even smaller then the one on the mac pro and capable to deliver 1200W.

"There are no DP v1.3 or 1.4 monitors now."
That is the beauty of PCIe slots. A true workstation can handle new technology that wasn't available at the time of its manufacture. Like any other $4K to $12K machine, a workstation is an investment rather than a disposable tool that cannot grow with one's needs.

The Ugly of PCIe slots is system integrity (not just damaged MB which is rare but occurs, but stability issues which is more often), also You end with an NOT OVERALL OPTIMAL SYSTEM FOR A MODERN TASK, BECAUSE WHILE YOU CAN INSTALL A MODERN GPU (WHICH ACCOUNTS 2/3 of the SYSTEM COST) YOU STILL RUNNING ON A 4 YR OLD CPU, WHICH CREATES HUGE BOOTLE NECKS.

Further I don't care on GPU-GENERATION Upgrade-ability With PCIe4 close to be released it's naive to think you'll could upgrade any current system to PCIe4 based GPUs on 4yr from Now.
 
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deconstruct60 said:
There are no DP v1.3 or 1.4 monitors now.

Mago said:
yes there are coming

"Now" and "Coming" are very different.
This case if you read the post you see the actual product, indeed coming this case means now, this display is coming nows what renders moot your elaborated and very necessary and useful questioning on my wording.
 
http://www.bestbuy.com/site/apple-m...75853918&skuId=2680034#tabbed-customerreviews

very interesting...those reviewers either like it..or apple employees were asked to make reviews. LOL.
2013 mp.
These are not independent reviewers, these are customers that paid a ton of money for a product. Obviously, they were not forced to buy it and were already fine with the specs. It won't make sense for them to complain about, say, the lack of PCI slots.
We're not saying that Mac Pro owners should not be satisfied with their product, we're saying that the tube Mac Pro doesn't suit our needs and that we'd be much better off with a traditional workstation.

And I should add that the lack of update in 3 years is made worse because of the non-upgradable design. Who in his right mind would buy a Mac Pro now?
 
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These are not independent reviewers, these are customers that paid a ton of money for a product. Obviously, they were not forced to buy it and were already fine with the specs. It won't make sense for them to complain about, say, the lack of PCI slots.
We're not saying that Mac Pro owners should not be satisfied with their product, we're saying that the tube Mac Pro doesn't suit our needs and that we'd be much better off with a traditional workstation.

And I should add that the lack of update in 3 years is made worse because of the non-upgradable design. Who in his right mind would buy a Mac Pro now?
Yup..but seeing all 5 stars is.....but then again as you said it probably met their needs.
 
Yup..but seeing all 5 stars is.....but then again as you said it probably met their needs.
I would hope that it would meet their needs. One thing I positively hate is to see a reviewer down rate a system because they chose the wrong system. Reviews should be reflective of the item being reviewed and not the inability of the reviewer to properly select the right tool for the job.

As for the reviews they are a biased sample and would not be considered reliable (which is what jeanlain was alluding to)
 
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I would hope that it would meet their needs. One thing I positively hate is to see a reviewer down rate a system because they chose the wrong system. Reviews should be reflective of the item being reviewed and not the inability of the reviewer to properly select the right tool for the job.

As for the reviews they are a biased sample and would not be considered reliable (which is what jeanlain was alluding to)
You forget that your(people for who Mac Pro 6.1 does not meet their needs) point of view at Mac Pro is also biased and cannot be taken seriously or as reliable point of view.

So who wins, then? Who is right or wrong? Why complain or argue constantly about machine?
 
You forget that your(people for who Mac Pro 6.1 does not meet their needs) point of view at Mac Pro is also biased and cannot be taken seriously or as reliable point of view.

So who wins, then? Who is right or wrong? Why complain or argue constantly about machine?
When did they become my people?

Yes, you would be correct it a poll showed the opposite of the Best Buy survey results. Unless the sample is taken at random it would be considered scientifically invalid. However "my people" haven't provided such a poll to demonstrate the nMP a failure.

The issue isn't about whether the nMP meets the needs of people. The issue is it doesn't meet the needs of people who need the capabilities found in the cMP. If Apple offered the option of an updated cMP along with the nMP I doubt many would be raising an issue with the nMP.
 
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