Remember that fabrication processes don't really compare that easily. Intel's 10nm is in fact denser compared to TSMCs 7nm process.
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MP 7,1 Most won’t be able to afford a new Mac Pro
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Remember that fabrication processes don't really compare that easily. Intel's 10nm is in fact denser compared to TSMCs 7nm process.
On a grand scale, yeah, but like I said, clock speed requirements isn't as high on mobile and server as it would be on desktop processor, so they simply are focusing their effort on mobile and server. It won't reach the clockspeed of their 14nm process, but I assume they are betting that IPC increase on Sunny Cove core will be able to offset the clockspeed disadvantage for mobile and server, but not on desktop (as clockspeed gap would be greater on desktop and IPC increase isn't enough to offset it).
I fully expect their consumer focused Mac products will be transitioned to their inhouse ARM by then.
nm is nm. The reason you hear that is because Intel decided to make the entire chip 10nm. That's the entire reason it took so long. Take a look at AMD's Ryzen 3. The chiplets are the only part that is 7nm, the rest is either 12 or 14 (I forget which)
Sorry, I think you missed what I said. Mobile is better binned because of its low TDP. Better binning is a two way street. Better bins for ultra low TDP ensure the chip is capable on running on as little juice as possible at idle or even lower energy plans. No idea what Apple uses and if it's got anything like Windows. I've never checked on my MBP.
Sunny Cove is based on Fovera, which is 3D stacked chiplets. Sunny Cove mobile is effectively a testing grounds for Intel for the time being.
Yeah, I am fully aware. They went too ambitious with their 10nm (with 2.7x density over 14nm, quad-patterning, etc) and it caused numerous delays. Unlike TSMC, Intel doesn't do half steps to develop knowhow of smaller processes over time and might have not foreseen the potential problems with <10nms. Intel is going back to tradtional 2x scaling with 7nm. Intel's 7nm is expected to be slightly more denser than TSMC's 5nm.
I can't see them going towards ARM to be honest. An ARM processor may seem fast but that's short burst performance. Sustained performance is important. And I suspect you'd need a processor as large and a typical CPU and have maybe 80% of its energy output at idle or load depending on what vendor model you go by. If Apple can design an ARM CPU that idles at 75 watts and can take 4K raw uncompressed video and crunch it on the CPU down to 1080p using h.265 for a 40 minute video, I'll be impressed. Provided they can convince software vendors to make another switch.
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Well that and mesh isn't as good as ring bus. Which brings Infinity Fabric into question, as the latency in the current Ryzens isn't great for some stuff, like audio production according to what I've read. But I can't seem to find the source of said claims and any claim that isn't a parroted talking point.
Microsoft had to go out of there way to make W10 more applicable with some legacy VST programs. Intel isn't the only one in a bind.
Let me dispel all this quoting of a $5999 price. I'm not going to invest at least $6K on a machine with a 256GB hard drive, and almost no RAM. I am going to want at least a TB of SSD drive space, and 48-64 Gigs of RAM. By the time I add Sales Tax, this machine is going to be around $8000. (With a monitor, if I wanted to go for that, it would total about $15,000.)
It isn't $5999. I know you all know this and its been said its a "starting" price, but lets get it out of our heads right away. This bastard is expensive.
There was a lot about upgradeability. There was nothing in the keynote about upgradeable cpu's down the road.
Apple has missed it again. They have low end, non-upgradeable machines, and then they have machines for professional movie production. I am not involved in movies (and don't want to be). While I do Photography at a very high level, most of wy workin the last 33 years has been custom database design and development. Helix, FileMaker, PHP, node, mySQL and iPhone apps that hook to the various databases. I need a power machine, to work with files in the 1-5 Gigabyte range, with lots of screen space.
It appears once again, that the only business market Apple can see is the movie studios. It may be a very reasonable cost for them, especially if one machine can replace many, as they say. However, that is a very limited market. All the nay-sayers will get their point proven. They will sell a few, but not enough to warrant upgrading it fo many years.
This article states it very plainly, what about the rest of us power users?
It isn't $5999. I know you all know this and its been said its a "starting" price, but lets get it out of our heads right away. This bastard is expensive.
There was a lot about upgradeability. There was nothing in the keynote about upgradeable cpu's down the road.
Apple has missed it again. They have low end, non-upgradeable machines, and then they have machines for professional movie production. I am not involved in movies (and don't want to be). While I do Photography at a very high level, most of wy workin the last 33 years has been custom database design and development. Helix, FileMaker, PHP, node, mySQL and iPhone apps that hook to the various databases. I need a power machine, to work with files in the 1-5 Gigabyte range, with lots of screen space.
It appears once again, that the only business market Apple can see is the movie studios. It may be a very reasonable cost for them, especially if one machine can replace many, as they say. However, that is a very limited market. All the nay-sayers will get their point proven. They will sell a few, but not enough to warrant upgrading it fo many years.
This article states it very plainly, what about the rest of us power users?
Actually they did for the longest time, it's why again 10nm took so long. Intels chips have never fully been the same nm as stated until the 10nm chip! Usually parts of the chip are a higher nm and the rated nm is for the lowest nm on the chip
Not exactly true...
You could buy in 2006 BTO Mac Pro at $2099, with downgrading the CPU to two 2.0 Ghz Xeon if I remember correctly.
And of course, Mac Pro did sold far less than PowerMac G3/G4/G5 which were very commonly sold desktop machines, starting at ~$1300...
2006 BTO with 2.0 Xeons was $200 less, so $2299,00.
You can still read the press releases and check prices:
2006 Mac Pro (2x2core 2.66GHz $2499) August 7, 2006 PRESS RELEASE Apple Unveils New Mac Pro Featuring Quad 64-bit Xeon Processors
2007 Mac Pro (8core $2799*) no PR
2008 Mac Pro (8core $2799) January 8, 2008 PRESS RELEASE Apple Introduces New Mac Pro
2009 Mac Pro (4core $2499, 8core $3299) March 3, 2009 PRESS RELEASE Apple Introduces New Mac Pro
2010 Mac Pro (4core $2499, 8core $3499, 12core $4999*) July 27, 2010 PRESS RELEASE Apple Unveils New Mac Pro With Up to 12 Processing Cores
2012 Mac Pro (4core $2499*, 8core $3799*) no PR
2013 Mac Pro (4core $2999, 6core $3999) December 18, 2013 PRESS RELEASE All New Mac Pro Available Starting Tomorrow
*Mactracker prices.
Not only ARM but I think Apple might integrate specialized ASIC to accelerate certain workload as well. Like you said, it will be up for Apple to convince developers to make switch.
Well, limit for ring bus seems like 10-core and they might have to keep using Mesh for higher core counts. For Infinity Fabric, Ryzen 3 has bigger L3 cache to mask its potential latency problem so latency problems with previous Ryzen might not be present....but can't really say until actual benchmarks come out.
Afterburner says hi.
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Yeah that and some other work they did. I didn't pay much attention to benches then but if they closed all gaps in Zen2 then it stands that most enthusiasts in the PC world may go with Ryzen for the interim until Intel brings out a new architecture that beats whatever AMD will be doing then.
There's always the potential for the next best product to come out after you purchase. That's a given. How long between your purchase and said release matters more. Grab a 3900X this summer and use it until 2023 or 2024 and then go back to Intel IF it's worth doing so.
I am thinking the price line is about in line as to what I paid for my 2008 Mac Pro new...the Cinema Display was cheaper (I am still using it...and the Mac Pro is still a 24/7 server now).
The Mac Pro is very expensive, but it's very nice. Most of the complaining about cost here is coming from people who can't justify and/or don't need the machine.
By way of example, in my small studio a graphics/edit suite bills ~$1000/day. Ends up around the $250,000 per year mark. I will get a minimum of three years out of a new Mac before replacing it, at which point it still holds quite a lot of value on the used market.
So if over three years the suite pulls in $750,000, a $20k investment in a computer is not outrageous. Even less so assuming that this machine can be comprehensively internally upgraded at that point. I think the new design makes it pretty clear that Apple intend to be more proactive in releasing internal upgrades.
Could I buy more performance for less money from HP? Yes I could.
But I am part of Apple's traditional base of pro customers. People who run studios that are expected to look sharp as well as provide great creative work. Believe it or not, clients respond positively to nicely designed computers and furniture when they come in.
I'm not a big player by any means. You don't need to be a huge studio to justify this.
(As a postscript, I do realise there are plenty of people with heavily render-based NVIDIA workflows. I do hope for you guys that Apple come through with something in the future.)
By way of example, in my small studio a graphics/edit suite bills ~$1000/day. Ends up around the $250,000 per year mark. I will get a minimum of three years out of a new Mac before replacing it, at which point it still holds quite a lot of value on the used market.
So if over three years the suite pulls in $750,000, a $20k investment in a computer is not outrageous. Even less so assuming that this machine can be comprehensively internally upgraded at that point. I think the new design makes it pretty clear that Apple intend to be more proactive in releasing internal upgrades.
Could I buy more performance for less money from HP? Yes I could.
But I am part of Apple's traditional base of pro customers. People who run studios that are expected to look sharp as well as provide great creative work. Believe it or not, clients respond positively to nicely designed computers and furniture when they come in.
I'm not a big player by any means. You don't need to be a huge studio to justify this.
(As a postscript, I do realise there are plenty of people with heavily render-based NVIDIA workflows. I do hope for you guys that Apple come through with something in the future.)
I get people saying that this device is not meant for developers, etc... but then why the hell was it announced at WWDC? Why not hold a different event for it?
Your assessment is spot-on. Thanks for the contribution.
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It sounds like you need to watch the event. Beyond all the high end video examples, they also showed how developer could use the CPU power to simultaneously emulate & debug multiple iOS devices.
I was at the event. The applications exposed to developers was only the simulations of several devices... which let’s be honest.. isn’t extremely difficult to achieve right now.
The Pro Studio did not showcase any of this however, and was purely focussed on content creation. The staff at the Pro Studio Event were focussing purely on media and not development qualities.
Power Macs are not Mac Pros
BS. We all know by now that the "PRO" moniker means absolutely NOTHING (see: 13" Macbook Pro POS with garbage graphics, etc. that is in no way a "Pro" computer).
The PRO moniker means NOTHING.
PowerMac, Mac Pro. Same damn thing unless you want to play games with "XEON" (which when they used PPC didn't apply).
There was a "Mac Pro G5" with the "Pro" name and it started at $2000, not $6000.
[doublepost=1559824534][/doublepost]Tim simply doesn't care to compete with Asus or iBUYPOWER or Dell or HP or any manufacturer, thereby dropping 95% of the potential shared market. I think if he took a look at what the lion's share wants he would see that all of us just want an affordable fast device, be it a desktop, or an iPad. Starting at $5k is ridiculous.
Pushing us off to iMacs is a non-starter. iMacs are non-repairable and not upgradeable. Tim can take his overpriced or anti-ecology, anti-green disposable computers and stick them where the sun doesn't shine.
I've got a stable of seven or eight 4,1 MacPros upgraded to 5,1 with nice graphic cards and some spare parts. When they won't cut it any more, back to Hackintoshes. I won't buy a MBP without ports either. No way I'm going to run around with a pocket full of silly dongles like some geek out of the eighties.
Current enthusiastic Apple users are anything but cool – more sheeple. Polluting the environment, running around with dongles, frothing at the mouth, justifying going into debt to help ruin the earth.
I have some sympathy for thehigh middle tier studio owner. He's running a kind of brothel: good sheets and fancy furniture keep the prices higher. Good on him – he knows why he's doing it and he's getting his money back. These days it's easy enough to bury the computers themselves in server rooms (for silence) and much of the heavy lifting is being done on Linux (DaVinci Resolve, the 3D rendering apps) so there's other ways to tickle the clients expectations. I'm still using Mac versions for my creative work as well.
I've got a stable of seven or eight 4,1 MacPros upgraded to 5,1 with nice graphic cards and some spare parts. When they won't cut it any more, back to Hackintoshes. I won't buy a MBP without ports either. No way I'm going to run around with a pocket full of silly dongles like some geek out of the eighties.
Current enthusiastic Apple users are anything but cool – more sheeple. Polluting the environment, running around with dongles, frothing at the mouth, justifying going into debt to help ruin the earth.
I have some sympathy for the
Most won't be able, because this is not for "most". This iteration of Mac Pro is absolutely niche.
Here's a quote from an Apple employee, Sarah Herrlinger, director of Global Accessibility Policy & Initiatives in regards to the 2019 Mac Pro:
"it's not for everyone, not even for most people."
"it's not for everyone, not even for most people."
Except the base model that is spec’d for most people.
This pretty much sums it up on how much they will charge. Like I said before, a maxed out mac pro will be in the scale of a price of a decent luxury car.