Mac Pro - the End of an ERA?

[Moodles]

The 7601 why? Because it is the most expensive one? The 7551 is slower ( same core count but 200Mhz base clock drop ), but it is also about $1000 less expensive. So it probably comes in a bit slower than Xeon 6154 at about $100-200 less in cost. For a buy of 50-100 scale out servers that is $5,000-20,000 more money left over. It could mean just more severs. Both of these Xeon SP and Epyc are more server oriented offerings. There are some relatively limited single user corner cases where they are a better fit than the Xeon W ( or Threadripper) but for a broad customer range workstation they aren't good fit.

Same "scale out" advantage for the ARM chip, that's why they'll sell. If can beat the AMD and Intel offerings by $100-400 then when buy in significant numbers the savings can go to buying even more whole servers. In the context of embarrassingly parallel workloads usually amount to better overall infrastructure throughput.
[doublepost=1527868886][/doublepost]

Technically those aren't PCI-e cards ( obviously not strict PCI cards). Thunderbolt (TB) nominally needs three inputs: PCI-e , GPIO, and DisplayPort. Corner cases can drop the last (e.g., some of these add in TB cards will "happen to work" with the DisplayPort not connected. ). However without both of the first two it won't work at all. All of the "Thunderbolt capable" motherboards i've ever seen only have one (and only one) GPIO header to plug the expansion board into.

Two cards isn't likely going to happen any time soon. An extremely significantly large number of boards have no GPIO->TB header at all which is indicative of the relative importance the board makers put on it. So it is a feat to get to one. Getting two would be on a "trip to Mars' priority level for most of them.

Implicitly here you are smarter because you don't blow money, but (explicit) Apple would be smarter if they did. Running around 'buying' customers (in and of itself) doesn't make Apple smart. The previous Mac Pro and vast majority of the major workstation vendors ( Dell, HP, Lenovo) don't have hot swap HDDs as mainstream configurations.

Apple doesn't need specific people; they need customers ( as group of people. ). As long as they have a group that is willing to collectively spend at least as much money as the old group; they don't need the same exact set of people. If Macs sales volume , revenue , and profits were down over the last 7-8 years then perhaps the Mac Pro folks who have drifted away would be critical. They haven't.

"Pro" is folks doing work for significant compensation. "Pro" is not some set of system features. Features on a physical system doesn't make someone a "Pro". This who "pro" thing tends to drift into the swamp when "pro" becomes a euphemism for "my favorite features" as opposed to actually doing something.

Thanks for the info about Thunderbolt. I'm not familiar with how it all works. That sucks though. I've also only seen one board that had a TB port. Can't remember the brand. Might have been Asus/Asrock or Gigabyte. I'd have to look again.

As for the "Hot Swap" that was a tongue-in-cheek comment. I was just implying they should provide us with features (or the option for features) people can get on the PC side for workstations. This would involve options for the case as well, which I would love to see them do for their "pro" towers. Being locked into one case design (or even one motherboard design) isn't allowing flexibility for different configurations.

I personally don't need hot swap for what I do daily, but if I had the option I would take it because there's times when I could use it instead of having to use a hard drive dock. I'd be happy with an extended ATX board with plenty of expansion/upgrade options. Most guys I know are the same. They just want a Mac Pro that is fast, reliable, upgradeable, and will allow them to get their work done with hardly any downtime.

Not sure how to refine that perfectly, but something for professionals should provide you with the options for optimal CPU/RAM/GPU configs of the day that can be tailored if needed, with the ability to modify and upgrade at your discretion via expansion slots and connectivity so you can push the system to its limits and keep it relevant for at least several years to remain competitive. I agree it's not one specific feature, but there are some you tend to see offered (ability to change CPU/RAM, use PCI cards, etc) which you won't find in an iMac Pro, the last Mac Pro, or the MacBook Pro. Even many consumer computers give you those feature. Sadly I have seen more soldering everything to the board these days.

 

[singhs.apps]

Just wanted to offer my 2¢ since I've been digging through this stuff the past few weeks and I'm still unsure of what the hell to do for a workstation. If I got anything wrong, blame my injured brain from sifting through this technical web of madness. If any of you drop the hammer on a dual Xeon setup, I'd be happy to know the results

Good work. I have done a fair bit of research past few months.

If going for i9s, the 14 core has base clock above 3ghz and seems to be about 15% slower in multi core performance than the i9 18 core version but on par in single core performance. Decent cooling is a must.

Threadripper looks really good but might as well wait for the 2980 with a potential 5% improvement over the 1980 which would bring that much closer to the 7960 and 7980 i9s. It’s cheaper with 16x PCIe lanes extra.

Wish AMD would release a dual slot variety. It would be a no brainier for me.

Dual xeons make more sense than the single slot ones if multicore performance is needed WITH single core performance ... but I have been thinking of an alternate strategy : go little + big.

Get an 6/8 core fastest possible system for the little and go higher core count on the big which works purely as a power crunching system. You can continue to work on the little system ( like corsairs one) while offloading the multicore tasks to its bigger brother .. that seems to be my strategy for now.

 

[Mago]

Threadripper looks really good but might as well wait for the 2980 with a potential 5% improvement over the 1980 which would bring that much closer to the 7960 and 7980 i9s. It’s cheaper with 16x PCIe lanes extra.

I'm on TR trial now (actually long ago), since all the tools I use now have either a Linux version or alternative I decided just to ditch macOS for compute app development, also there is support in linux for even the latest nVidia GPU and the latest CUDA/Tensorflow, I'm going for nVidia since AMD support for TF is stuck at TF1.3, I can do turnarrounds on OpenCL 2. but I'm doing my first steps on TF and I dont wanna start from an old API, while AMD's CodeXL is somewat as functional as CUDA, still far behind CUDA capabilities, so I'n 50:50 AMD cpu + nVidia GPU, both on KDE Neon (KDE;s custom Kubuntu), few things I miss (mostly the Magic Tpad gestures).

The problem with i9's is lack of ecc ram support, if you work with large datasets it maybe a problem.

 

[singhs.apps]

I'm on TR trial now (actually long ago), since all the tools I use now have either a Linux version or alternative I decided just to ditch macOS for compute app development, also there is support in linux for even the latest nVidia GPU and the latest CUDA/Tensorflow, I'm going for nVidia since AMD support for TF is stuck at TF1.3, I can do turnarrounds on OpenCL 2. but I'm doing my first steps on TF and I dont wanna start from an old API, while AMD's CodeXL is somewat as functional as CUDA, still far behind CUDA capabilities, so I'n 50:50 AMD cpu + nVidia GPU, both on KDE Neon (KDE;s custom Kubuntu), few things I miss (mostly the Magic Tpad gestures).

The problem with i9's is lack of ecc ram support, if you work with large datasets it maybe a problem.

Are you using ECC with TR ? If so what are the specs of the ram ? Also any TR4 motherboard that can support thunderbolt card ?

 

[Moodles]

Good work. I have done a fair bit of research past few months.

If going for i9s, the 14 core has base clock above 3ghz and seems to be about 15% slower in multi core performance than the i9 18 core version but on par in single core performance. Decent cooling is a must.

Threadripper looks really good but might as well wait for the 2980 with a potential 5% improvement over the 1980 which would bring that much closer to the 7960 and 7980 i9s. It’s cheaper with 16x PCIe lanes extra.

Wish AMD would release a dual slot variety. It would be a no brainier for me.

Dual xeons make more sense than the single slot ones if multicore performance is needed WITH single core performance ... but I have been thinking of an alternate strategy : go little + big.

Get an 6/8 core fastest possible system for the little and go higher core count on the big which works purely as a power crunching system. You can continue to work on the little system ( like corsairs one) while offloading the multicore tasks to its bigger brother .. that seems to be my strategy for now.

Thanks

Yeah, that's what I'm thinking—2 procs with less cores (6-8) at higher base clock speed. Unfortunately I can't get 2 machines right now as I need additional hardware. AMD you need to use Epyc for dual. The Xeons are definitely better with heat compared to i9.

At the suggestion of someone above, I contacted HP about their workstations and I must say I was very surprised at how technically literate they were. So far they are the only company I've spoken to that knew what they were talking about and spent an hour on the phone with me discussing the details of what I do, what might work, and expected performance.

The HP tech suggested that for any power user jumping between multiple pro apps at once, you will see a performance boost compared to using an i9 or an i7 which are better for single app users compared to a single Xeon system. They also agreed for multitasking with lots of data flying around, ECC was ideal. You might lose performance when rendering compared to higher core cpus, especially with 3D, but for a workstation I need that seems to be the best bet for productivity and real-time video performance + single threaded operations, it seems ok.

Do note they will only install Quadro cards as they are the "pro" cards, or AMDs pro line. I wouldn't mind AMD but Premier isn't optimized for it. I was also hoping to save cash by using 1080 ti or similar, however the Quadro will allow for 10-bit display output which I hope to get as soon as I can.

Another thing that surprised me was how flexible and fair they were with financing. They suggested I buy my own PCI cards to save cash, that I could install any extra hardware I wanted without voiding warranty, and if I had a hardware failure I would simply need to remove those items I installed myself and return to factory setup and they still would do on-site repair. They also said processors could be upgraded during the finance period or anything else needed. I assume this would include a possible fee and adjustment to the cost, but still is nice. Maybe next they'll offer a reach-around.

If only I could run OS X on this thing...

They're putting together a few config options for me now. I'll post more details as I get them if anyone is interested.

 

[0388631]

I'm not sure if I'd go AMD for the moment. Ryzen 2 architecture is supposed to be a major improvement over Ryzen and Ryzen+ (the newly released), and there is always ThreadRipper to account for. I'm not sure when the changes to architecture will hit the Epyc line.

I can see why some of the video editors on this site are a bit tense about all this. Adobe et al. seem to favor NVidia and Intel. It reminds me a lot of the troubles in the 90s and early 2000s when everyone was focused on Apple for post-processing or general creative work. Tides have changed, but favoritism has not.

As of this post, HP seems to be the only company offering the Xeon 28 core Platinum processor. I can't find it in Dell's configuration pages, and System7 or Puget isn't carrying it. The 22/24 core, yes.
[doublepost=1527965167][/doublepost]

Do note they will only install Quadro cards as they are the "pro" cards, or AMDs pro line. I wouldn't mind AMD but Premier isn't optimized for it. I was also hoping to save cash by using 1080 ti or similar, however the Quadro will allow for 10-bit display output which I hope to get as soon as I can.

Fire Pro? I've got some older Quadro cards in boxes. Funny how their value drops a few thousand in a handful of years!

They're putting together a few config options for me now. I'll post more details as I get them if anyone is interested.

I am. Just make it before 9 PM EST. I've got some sours chilling in the fridge I'm going to drink up.

 

[AidenShaw]

I'm not sure if I'd go AMD for the moment. Ryzen 2 architecture is supposed to be a major improvement over Ryzen and Ryzen+ (the newly released), and there is always ThreadRipper to account for. I'm not sure when the changes to architecture will hit the Epyc line.

I can see why some of the video editors on this site are a bit tense about all this. Adobe et al. seem to favor NVidia and Intel. It reminds me a lot of the troubles in the 90s and early 2000s when everyone was focused on Apple for post-processing or general creative work. Tides have changed, but favoritism has not.

As of this post, HP seems to be the only company offering the Xeon 28 core Platinum processor. I can't find it in Dell's configuration pages, and System7 or Puget isn't carrying it. The 22/24 core, yes.
[doublepost=1527965167][/doublepost]

Fire Pro? I've got some older Quadro cards in boxes. Funny how their value drops a few thousand in a handful of years!



I am. Just make it before 9 PM EST. I've got some sours chilling in the fridge I'm going to drink up.

Go to http://www.dell.com/en-us/work/shop/cty/pdp/spd/precision-7820-workstation/xctopt7820us_4

Click the

button under dual processor

See

 

[jscipione]

One of the major selling points of the Mac Pro is that it has more cores and more high speed ports than any other Mac (when it comes out) so the Mac Pro will offer more than 18 cores and more than 4 USB-C ports besting the iMac Pro.

The iMac Pro sadly uses only 32 of its available 48 PCIe lanes [0] but the nMP uses all 40+4 lanes going to TB and dual x16 GPUs. You can easily load up all 40+4 lanes on the cMP with PCIe cards. So I wonder how is Apple going to use all 48 lanes in the Mac Pro this time.

Each pair of USB-C/TB ports take up a x4 lane so assuming 3 pairs that would use x12 lanes. A GPU uses x16. Dual 10G Ethernet x4 (PCIe v2). Rest of I/O x4. Quad NVMe RAID 0 takes x16 and you are up to 52 lanes so you share a pair of x4 lanes somewhere using all 48+4 lanes.

[0] https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/did-someone-say-block-diagram.2096445/

 

[Mago]

Are you using ECC with TR ? If so what are the specs of the ram ? Also any TR4 motherboard that can support thunderbolt card ?

8x 16gb Kingstom ddr4 2400 ValueRam (Ram is crazy expensive nowadays, it was almost 1600$ alone for 128GB), MB Asrock X399 Taichi, 1x Nvidia Titan V 12GB . 2x 512GB 960Pro NVme, tR 1950X, all on Stock Coolers Yet (noctua for the TR).

This MB on NON-ECC ran may use 3600mhz modules (also cheaper by GB).

Maybe, next week we see some TR4+ MB loaded with TB3.

 

[deconstruct60]

....

The iMac Pro sadly uses only 32 of its available 48 PCIe lanes [0] but the nMP uses all 40+4 lanes going to TB and dual x16 GPUs. You can easily load up all 40+4 lanes on the cMP with PCIe cards. So I wonder how is Apple going to use all 48 lanes in the Mac Pro this time.

Where are you getting 32 from? The diagram on the link you provide only shows the CPU with:
x16 GPU
x4 10GbE
x4 TB
x4 TB

That is 28 ; not 32. [ If you are counting the DMI connection that isn't included in the 48. ]


A M.2 NVMe socket for a PCI-e SSD ( x4) would bump that to 32 [or, less likely, x4 standard slot which could put a card to provision the M.2 slot(s). ] . A second GPU socket would bump that to 48. Done.

The block diagram says the 10GbE controller they are using in the iMac Pro is just PCI-e v2.0 so could be put a x4 switch on that bundle is probably get by with two 10GbE hanging off of that. (particularly if many of the two port usages were really at 5GbE. )

Each pair of USB-C/TB ports take up a x4 lane so assuming 3 pairs that would use x12 lanes.

There is no good rational to crank up the number of TB sockets past four. Especially since there is extremely likely a power cable for new Mac Pro (e.g., on a MacBook Pro 4 socket machine pragmatically loose one of those in many contexts just to provide power. ). They also do not have to be in a port pissing match with the iMac Pro. Extremely few folks are going to buy a Mac Pro over an iMac Pro primarily because of TB port count.

If Apple wants to provide more video out then HDMI/mini-DP would probably work better. If one of the major target markets for the Mac Pro is people with their own 3rd party displays then they have HDMI and DisplayPort monitors, it makes no sense not to provide a easy socket to hook those up. A Mac Pro with just one SSD drive is kind of loopy. Trying to pump out PCI-e bandwidth out of the machine to point have to put switch inside doesn't make much sense. [ I strongly suspect the Mac Pro 2013 has 6 TB ports because they 1-2 of those would be soaked up just in 3rd party monitor usage. With the bandwidth jump in TB v3, it is poor usage. ]

Dual 10G Ethernet x4 (PCIe v2). Rest of I/O x4. Quad NVMe RAID 0 takes x16 and you are up to 52 lanes so you share a pair of x4 lanes somewhere using all 48+4 lanes.

If Apple wanted to they could hang the second 10GbE off the PCH. I would compete with the standard SSD and USB, but could avoid putting in a switch (as mentioned above). They could also go asymmetric and put just as 1GbE as the second Ethernet connection.

If use the other x4 off the CPU you'd have dual PCI-e SSD. ( so already covered in the 32). Splitting the SSD connection over the CPU and PCH provides a more effective RAID 0 than putting both SSDs on either one of those ( both on CPU or both on PCH).

[0] https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/did-someone-say-block-diagram.2096445/

 

[Moodles]

I'm not sure if I'd go AMD for the moment. Ryzen 2 architecture is supposed to be a major improvement over Ryzen and Ryzen+ (the newly released), and there is always ThreadRipper to account for. I'm not sure when the changes to architecture will hit the Epyc line.

I can see why some of the video editors on this site are a bit tense about all this. Adobe et al. seem to favor NVidia and Intel. It reminds me a lot of the troubles in the 90s and early 2000s when everyone was focused on Apple for post-processing or general creative work. Tides have changed, but favoritism has not.

As of this post, HP seems to be the only company offering the Xeon 28 core Platinum processor. I can't find it in Dell's configuration pages, and System7 or Puget isn't carrying it. The 22/24 core, yes.
[doublepost=1527965167][/doublepost]

Fire Pro? I've got some older Quadro cards in boxes. Funny how their value drops a few thousand in a handful of years!



I am. Just make it before 9 PM EST. I've got some sours chilling in the fridge I'm going to drink up.

I agree. AMD needs a bit more time before I'd consider them, but their better stuff is also forcing Intel to up their game which can help everyone—innovation, price drops, etc. Competition is a good thing. We need way more of it.

Also agree with the other editors. Adobe, Intel and NVIDIA seem to be cornering things currently and I would add in Autodesk. IBM and Microsoft as well if you're talking software patents. The Foundry is also swallowing up software and charging a ton for it. I miss those Apple days when we had Gelato and other video accelerators that kicked ass for the time and all the graphics apps ran great. Can't remember the names of them all. I used to work with one that gave realtime playback in After Effects which was amazing for SD workflow.

A lot of people love the Mac OS. Many of us just can't stand how we've been tossed to the side while they rake in hundreds of billions from consumer products. Most of the guys I used to work with switched to Windows or Windows/Linux because they had no choice. They needed the hardware and software tools and Apple (and others) had no option for them.

Yeah, HP offers all the Xeons I think. I probably won't hear back from them until Monday or Tuesday. Platinums might be nice in a render machine, but so expensive. If you have the work they would pay off fast though. If I had the cash I'd probably start building a bladed server setup for rendering instead of one monster machine.

Not Fire Pro, the new Radeon Pro Duo and Radeon Pro SSG. Pretty nice pro cards. The SSG has up to 1TB of VRAM using M.2, which is just insane. I can't find the talk I saw on YouTube, but they were scrubbing through long timelines of 8k footage in realtime and it was snappy as hell with ridiculously high fps. Granted, I'm sure they also had M.2 SSDs holding the footage initially, but the card still seemed to cache it all.

P.S. I'm not sure how to multi-quote on here yet. Sorry about that lol

 

[jscipione]

Where are you getting 32 from? The diagram on the link you provide only shows the CPU with:
x16 GPU
x4 10GbE
x4 TB
x4 TB

That is 28 ; not 32. [ If you are counting the DMI connection that isn't included in the 48. ]

I was counting the DMI but my point was that the iMac Pro's PCIe lanes are underutilized and if it is using only 28 instead of 32 lanes even more so. There just isn't enough room inside the iMac case for anything more.

A M.2 NVMe socket for a PCI-e SSD (x4) would bump that to 32 [or, less likely, x4 standard slot which could put a card to provision the M.2 slot(s). ]. A second GPU socket would bump that to 48. Done.

I don't think that Apple will leave room for a second GPU based on comments from them that dual GPU in the nMP was a mistake, the market demands a single powerful GPU. You can look at my argument earlier in this thread for further explanation.

The block diagram says the 10GbE controller they are using in the iMac Pro is just PCI-e v2.0 so could be put a x4 switch on that bundle is probably get by with two 10GbE hanging off of that. (particularly if many of the two port usages were really at 5GbE. )

Apple may do a similar thing in the Mac Pro to save on PCIe lanes or perhaps hanging off PCH as you suggested.

There is no good rational to crank up the number of TB sockets past four. Especially since there is extremely likely a power cable for new Mac Pro (e.g., on a MacBook Pro 4 socket machine pragmatically loose one of those in many contexts just to provide power. ). They also do not have to be in a port pissing match with the iMac Pro. Extremely few folks are going to buy a Mac Pro over an iMac Pro primarily because of TB port count.

If Apple wants to provide more video out then HDMI/mini-DP would probably work better. If one of the major target markets for the Mac Pro is people with their own 3rd party displays then they have HDMI and DisplayPort monitors, it makes no sense not to provide a easy socket to hook those up. A Mac Pro with just one SSD drive is kind of loopy. Trying to pump out PCI-e bandwidth out of the machine to point have to put switch inside doesn't make much sense. [ I strongly suspect the Mac Pro 2013 has 6 TB ports because they 1-2 of those would be soaked up just in 3rd party monitor usage. With the bandwidth jump in TB v3, it is poor usage. ]

There are strong marketing reasons for Apple to include 6 USB-C ports: it is 2 more than iMac Pro which is two more than standard iMac. Also 6 ports would match the Late 2013 Mac Pro which had 6 TB2 ports. The Mac Pro 2013 had 6 TB ports because 1-2 ports were expected be used by a monitor but Apple is pushing USB-C for monitors as well. Sure 6 ports may be poor bandwidth usage but it is good marketing. HDMI may very well be on there but Mini-DP surely won't because Apple combines USB-C, TB3, and Display Port all together into USB-C.

If Apple wanted to they could hang the second 10GbE off the PCH. I would compete with the standard SSD and USB, but could avoid putting in a switch (as mentioned above). They could also go asymmetric and put just as 1GbE as the second Ethernet connection.

If use the other x4 off the CPU you'd have dual PCI-e SSD. ( so already covered in the 32). Splitting the SSD connection over the CPU and PCH provides a more effective RAID 0 than putting both SSDs on either one of those ( both on CPU or both on PCH).

That is sensible and I am not completely versed in how Apple distributes all their PCIe lanes. What I do know is that the previously two Mac Pros used all available PCIe lanes and then some while the iMac Pro doesn't even use half and this is because of its form factor doesn't allow any more to be used. We already saw a RAID 0 storage solution used in the iMac Pro and it seems like Apple may expand on that idea in future Macs including the Mac Pro 7,1. Perhaps Apple may come up some other novel storage solution that will take up a few PCIe lanes.

 

[Mago]

This is for all those dumbs that still believes on Mark Gurman predictions:

This is the MBP which he suposed we wont see today. 6 core i7 CoffeLake and 32gb DDR4 2667 likely to include Vega 24 GPU according rumours

 

[Zarniwoop]

MBP model 14,3

So yet another round with the "winner" keyboard.

What comes to modular Mac Pro, I've (Ive?) been thinking, that Apple is waiting for T3 to put it to the next Mac Pro. Why? T2 offers x4 speeds for SSD, but that is not so much for the future. T3 could offer x8 and RAID 0/1 option to combine both lanes. And two x16 slots for GPU's should still be there, but optional CTO.

AMD CPU could be the dark horse to differentiate from the PC industry along with hUMA/HSA. Then T3 chip could have an access to the main RAM. IMO, it has been the goal since Apple moved to Metal and AMD GPU's only. But "ever changing is the future".

 

[Moodles]

A new MacBookPro? I don't want one unless they put the F keys back, the magnetic charge port, and got rid of that crap keyboard. They also should check out this cool technology everyone's been using called USB. They plug right into PCs, phones, cameras, hard drives, printers, even your car and... old Macs.

 

[Mago]

I don't want one unless they put the F keys back

Unlikely, I love the TouchBar.

and got rid of that crap keyboard

Apple wont allow to lauch it w/o a sound improvement on its KBD reliability (andsome mea culpa).

They also should check out this cool technology everyone's been using called USB.

It comes in the TB3 port, actually is its default mode, What you need are USB type C peripherals, just plug on the TB3 port (as TB3 is actually an USC-C alt mode, not viceversa).

the magnetic charge port,

you only need a cheap USB-C magsafe plug, unlikely Appleto include it again.

 

[AidenShaw]

... There just isn't enough room inside the iMac case for anything more....

Self-inflicted wound.

 

[Jethro!]

Unlikely, I love the TouchBar.

Apple wont allow to lauch it w/o a sound improvement on its KBD reliability (andsome mea culpa).

It comes in the TB3 port, actually is its default mode, What you need are USB type C peripherals, just plug on the TB3 port (as TB3 is actually an USC-C alt mode, not viceversa). you only need a cheap USB-C magsafe plug, unlikely Appleto include it again.

If this is what the new MacBook "Pro" ends up looking like, it's all the reasons why I will end up NOT getting one.

 

[barmann]

Unlikely, I love the TouchBar.

Glad you like it .
But you do understand that the way the non touch bar models are equipped and positioned is a big issue ?

Apple wont allow to lauch it w/o a sound improvement on its KBD reliability (andsome mea culpa).

Utter nonsense .

It comes in the TB3 port, actually is its default mode, What you need are USB type C peripherals, just plug on the TB3 port (as TB3 is actually an USC-C alt mode, not viceversa). you only need a cheap USB-C magsafe plug, unlikely Appleto include it again.

That's the sort of thinking which made the MB/Ps the toerds they are today .

 

[Joe The Dragon]

MBP model 14,3

So yet another round with the "winner" keyboard.

What comes to modular Mac Pro, I've (Ive?) been thinking, that Apple is waiting for T3 to put it to the next Mac Pro. Why? T2 offers x4 speeds for SSD, but that is not so much for the future. T3 could offer x8 and RAID 0/1 option to combine both lanes. And two x16 slots for GPU's should still be there, but optional CTO.

AMD CPU could be the dark horse to differentiate from the PC industry along with hUMA/HSA. Then T3 chip could have an access to the main RAM. IMO, it has been the goal since Apple moved to Metal and AMD GPU's only. But "ever changing is the future".

The T2 has 2 X4 channels for SSD but they are jamming just about as much of the PCH on it but chaining to the PCH as well.

In pro desktop storage needs to be on cpu in M.2 slots not tied the MB like the Imac pro. Or at very least 2 m.2 and maybe 2 storage tied to the TX chip / MB

 

[filmak]

Unlikely, I love the TouchBar.

Apple wont allow to lauch it w/o a sound improvement on its KBD reliability (andsome mea culpa).

It comes in the TB3 port, actually is its default mode, What you need are USB type C peripherals, just plug on the TB3 port (as TB3 is actually an USC-C alt mode, not viceversa). you only need a cheap USB-C magsafe plug, unlikely Appleto include it again.

So, we need an external keyboard (for the F keys and reliability issues), a dongle for magsafe, a dongle for USB or 2 or 3 of them, a dongle for SD card, a dongle for HDMI, a dongle for ethernet, a dongle for...
(unfortunately they forgot to invent a dongle for adding some more RAM)

Very convenient for the users...

We also have the option to buy new USB-C hardware for office, for home, for on the go etc. Excellent solutions.

 

[mattspace]

So, we need an external keyboard (for the F keys and reliability issues), a dongle for magsafe, a dongle for USB or 2 or 3 of them, a dongle for SD card, a dongle for HDMI, a dongle for ethernet, a dongle for...
(unfortunately they forgot to invent a dongle for adding some more RAM)

Very convenient for the users...

We also have the option to buy new USB-C hardware for office, for home, for on the go etc. Excellent solutions.

Dont worry, all these things will become mainstream and completely displace your old set of peripherals... right after the first generation TB3-only MBPs become obsolete.

 

[filmak]

Is this solving some questions about their priorities?
Poor grandpa macOS is the last one...

"10:10 am Today is all about software. We have some very exciting updates across all four platforms: iOS, watchOS, tvOS, macOS."

 

[Zarniwoop]

Is this solving some questions about their priorities?
Poor grandpa macOS is the last one...

"10:10 am Today is all about software. We have some very exciting updates across all four platforms: iOS, watchOS, tvOS, macOS."

1h for iOS. All software. MacOS last...

But there was a lot time dedicated for emojis and some for wrist bands! Perhaps as much as for macOS.

So, what are the awesome features for macOS outside news and dark mode? APFS support for Fusion Drive? Yay...

macOS Mojave should be macOS Walker



Not really.

 

[filmak]

1h for iOS. All software. MacOS last...

But there was a lot time dedicated for emojis and some for wrist bands!

So, what are the awesome features for macOS outside news and dark mode? APFS support for Fusion Drive? Yay...

macOS Mojave should be macOS Walker



Not really.

Finally! We have a dynamic desktop! oh dear...