MP 7,1 New mac pro in december 2021 ?

[Mac3Duser]

Hello, do we agree that there will most certainly be a new generation of mac pro this year, in December (as usual)?
An 8.1 therefore with Pcie 4.0 and ice lake W3300 xeon.
what do you think about ?
It is better to wait or buy the current ones on the refurb store ?

 

[sirio76]

will most certainly be a new generation of mac pro this year, in December

I would say that is not certain at all, while possible I would not bet on that. There are many good reasons for Apple to skip this generation and just wait a year for an AS version. I may be wrong though..
You should ask yourself if you really need PCIe4 because other than that I do not see large performance improvements moving to the new CPU.
If you are not in a hurry you can simply wait a a couple months and see if an 8.1 materialize.

 

[Grilled Cheese]

I would say that is not certain at all

+1.
Probably not but maybe less likely than more likely…possibly.

 

[Mac3Duser]

I read that they announced an intel mac pro update first (certainly for big studios and stability) and a small mac pro AS later in 2022.
The new Xeons have more cores, we can imagine a first base model directly on the 12 cores with a more recent AMD (5500x?), Since the most powerful ice lake xeons go up to 38.

 

[sirio76]

I read that they announced an intel mac pro update first

That’s a rumor not a fact, it’s based on a MacOS build where you can find reference of the new CPU in the code, some time ago on older OS there was even reference of AMD CPU and that never materialized, bottom line is that you should not jump to conclusion just because of that. New Xeons are only a modest evolution of the older one in terms of performance beside the support for PCIe4 (that helps only in very limited scenario) so there’s no large incentive for Apple to build a new machine, then there are tons of marketing reasons why Apple can choose to go straight to a 2022 AS MacPro.

 

[goMac]

That’s a rumor not a fact, it’s based on a MacOS build where you can find reference of the new CPU in the code, some time ago on older OS there was even reference of AMD CPU and that never materialized, bottom line is that you should not jump to conclusion just because of that. New Xeons are only a modest evolution of the older one in terms of performance beside the support for PCIe4 (that helps only in very limited scenario) so there’s no large incentive for Apple to build a new machine, then there are tons of marketing reasons why Apple can choose to go straight to a 2022 AS MacPro.

Mark Gurman has already said there will be an Intel refresh.

And considering he's the guy who leaked the Apple Silicon Mac Pro, you can't believe one without the other.

He didn't mention a date though. Could be this year! But no one knows.

 

[sirio76]

Leakers says a lot of things, sometime eventually some of them turn out to be correct
If an Intel MacPro will happen it will happen as soon as the new Xeon will be available later this year, the more you go in to 2022 the less likely you will see it.
You will know for sure soon enough

 

[goMac]

Leakers says a lot of things, sometime eventually some of them turn out to be correct
If an Intel MacPro will happen it will happen as soon as the new Xeon will be available later this year, the more you go in to 2022 the less likely you will see it.
You will know for sure soon enough

By that reasoning, how do we even know there will be an Apple Silicon Mac Pro? Or a new Mac Pro at all? Maybe the 2019 is the very last one.

 

[rondocap]

I wouldn't bet that it will be released this year, everything seems to be delayed - and the Mac Pro doesn't get priority for Apples attention in these more difficult times. I still think a W3300 Mac Pro has a good change at an eventual release, though.

They just updated the MPX, which likely made 99% of Mac Pro users happy already. The CPU upgrade is only OK, if most Mac Pro users are video editors or some 3D work, the faster Xeons aren't really a huge difference for that workflow.

The W3300 is a nice upgrade since it has PCIE Gen 4, etc - but for the user base of the Mac Pro, it's just an incremental bump. Even a W6800x Duo vs a Vega ii Duo is just a small bump in performance, very close numbers for that most part.

The Apple Silicon Mac Pro is really far away, too - that will likely be the last one to come.

 

[DWHH1]

Whether we welcome a new Mac Pro or not this year it seems strange that respected and somewhat semi-officially approved 'leakers' should hint there will be an Intel based refresh for the Mac Pro. Here we are, a year into the two year Apple transition period, and Intel is still in the mix for a product refresh at the top end. The question we should perhaps ask is why isn't there an Apple Silicon chip that is fully capable of doing all, and more, that Intel Xeon parts can deliver? Did Apple claim too much, too soon, for its technology? Maybe it is easier to ship one last Intel version of the Mac Pro and then abandon that end of the market than to create an 'M2X' chip for what may be a shrinking and somewhat unprofitable backwater of the Apple ecosystem? Of course it is possible, even likely, that the world outside Apple is not ready with updated software. Consider Python. Where are the updated versions of the huge collection of libraries, especially multiprocessing and/or multithreading libraries? The list goes on.
Apple has long since moved on from the 'Build for the computer club hobbyist' days and today its pipeline is governed by the search for growth and profits. Today it is a $2.5Tn company, in 5 years I am sure it hopes to be a $10Tn company.
The Mac Pro, Apple Silicon or Intel based, may not survive the journey.

 

[blackquartz]

My two cents, If you really need the computer power go for it now, there isn't any safe bet regarding these machines, based on what we know so far the new Xeons aren't that impressive and pcie 4.0 has not had that big of an impact in the industry yet. So if you wait a year or two reality will most likely be the 8,1 isn't that game changer at all.

 

[Mac3Duser]

The problem is, I have no faith in AS Mac Pro at all because everything will be soldered together and integrated. it may be faster with some software, but if something doesn't work, everything will have to be changed. Obligation therefore to take an extended apple care, or to completely replace an overpriced motherboard, or to take the risk of having to buy a new mac pro every three years without being able to resell the old one, even for spare parts.
While with the latest mac pro intel, especially if it is in PCie 4.0, we will be able to update the graphics cards long enough and buy ram and xeons cheaper and cheaper on ebay (as for my mac pro 6.1 on which I put a 12 cores for 100 dollars).

 

[AlexMaximus]

Since the MP 7.1 is the ultra High End machine from Apple for Hollywood's finest production studios such as Pixar's, I am absolutely certain Apple will have to refresh the Curren Intel Mac Pro. The speed bump from 28 to 38 cores will be significant, no doubt. And since Apple developed the machine for the absolut TOP End, this new Xeon 33XX is mandatory.
The other argument of why is simply the fact that Apple can not shake an Apple silicon CPU out of their hats in the absolute Top End premium Workstation class product segment. Cell phone and ipad cpus is one thing, an equal powerful Xeon is something totally different. They need years and years to develop that tech from the ground up. And last but not least Mark Gurman. You can bet the ranch on it. MP 8.1 intel incoming.

 

[sirio76]

By that reasoning, how do we even know there will be an Apple Silicon Mac Pro? Or a new Mac Pro at all? Maybe the 2019 is the very last one.

As a matter of fact we don’t know for sure, but if history teach us something is that in one form or another Apple will offer an high end configuration. They told us they are committed to the pro community and they plan to migrate all the line to AS within two years, that's all we know for sure

 

[sirio76]

The Mac Pro, Apple Silicon or Intel based, may not survive the journey.

I keep riding this since 2010, but the MP it's still here

 

[sirio76]

The problem is, I have no faith in AS Mac Pro at all because everything will be soldered together and integrated

Who tell you this? you assume that it will be soldered just because low end AS machine are like that? soldering things on low end space/thermal constrained systems make sense, on large desktop not that much.
Unlike you I have no certainly but if I had to bet I would say that SoC will be the only part not socketed(I mean not replaceable by common user), everything else will be upgradable including PCIe device, RAM and storage.
If you really need a desktop right now just buy the 7.1 or if you are convinced that an 8.1 will come before the end of the year just wait till November, it may be worth the wait if the rumors turn out to be true

 

[sirio76]

Since the MP 7.1 is the ultra High End machine from Apple for Hollywood's finest production studios such as Pixar's, I am absolutely certain Apple will have to refresh the Curren Intel Mac Pro. The speed bump from 28 to 38 cores will be significant, no doubt. And since Apple developed the machine for the absolut TOP End, this new Xeon 33XX is mandatory.
The other argument of why is simply the fact that Apple can not shake an Apple silicon CPU out of their hats in the absolute Top End premium Workstation class product segment. Cell phone and ipad cpus is one thing, an equal powerful Xeon is something totally different. They need years and years to develop that tech from the ground up. And last but not least Mark Gurman. You can bet the ranch on it. MP 8.1 intel incoming.

I've seen a few tests, a 16core 7.1 score 7500 in Cinebench R20, compared to the new 16core (9100 points) is about 20% slower and that should be expected after two year of IPC improvements. Even for the 38core VS 28core part I've seen usually a 25% increase in CPU performance and I would not call that significant, but this is subjective
There are at least two good reasons to postpone top end AS SoC 1) building more complex systems simply take more time 2) software is not ready, for example the renderer I use do not have an AS version and barely runs using Rosetta2.
For many professional it is a safe bet to stay on an Intel system for another year, maybe more dependent on the software used.
Maybe an Intel 8.1 will indeed come shortly, but I would not base my work strategy on that.

 

[Mac3Duser]

AS Mac pro will be soldered, for sure, it is already announced by Apple itself, if I remember correctly with the ram and graphics card fully integrated. The only things we could put inside may be SSDs and other cards such as the afterburner, but no GPU other than Apple. that's for sure!

 

[sirio76]

AS Mac pro will be soldered, for sure, it is already announced by Apple itself

If you are so sure it will be easy to find where Apple say this, especially about unreleased/unannounced products.

 

[arche3]

Nobody used afterburner anyways. Prores raw is a consumer camera codec. No cinema camera shoots it. I'm a commercial director for some perspective.

 

[Kung gu]

The Mac Pro, Apple Silicon or Intel based, may not survive the journey.

I am 100% sure an Apple Sillcon Mac Pro or some sort of very high end desktop AS Mac will exist in 5 years and after too.

 

[Kung gu]

may be a shrinking and somewhat unprofitable backwater of the Apple ecosystem?

The Mac is not an "unprofitable backwater" platform last few quarters it made more money for Apple than the iPad.
I expect when the 2021 MacBooks Pros release, the Mac revenue will increase even more.

Apple is dedicated to the Mac Platform it showed this 2019 with the Mac Pro and the transition to Apple Sillicon.

I expect the Mac Lineup to be very different by the end of next year.

 

[deconstruct60]

Leakers says a lot of things, sometime eventually some of them turn out to be correct
If an Intel MacPro will happen it will happen as soon as the new Xeon will be available later this year,

Technically already available:

Products formerly Ice Lake

Products formerly Ice Lake product listing with links to detailed product features and specifications.

ark.intel.com

Pragmatically , Apple getting their hands on many thousands of them could be an issue that should improve by the end of the year. Apple likely isn't going to get "top vendor" priority where the supplies are limited. ( Apple chopping down on order volume by a huge margin is likely to drop them from the "tier 1 customer" status. Dell , HP, Lenovo, Boxx , etc. will get their allocations first and Apple will trail behind. )

the more you go in to 2022 the less likely you will see it.
You will know for sure soon enough

The carries the presumption that Apple is going to try to fill the same space that the W-3300 series covers ( which would include broad and wide high speed I/O and very large RAM capacities ) . That remains to be seen.

The only M-series powered rumored selection is a "half sized" Mac Pro. No way they are shooting for same I/O solution space and getting rid of half of the whole system.

But yes, it doesn't make much sense to delay release an update when all of the parts are readily available. If they do then something is "wrong" with the big Mac Pro upgrade progression.

 

[deconstruct60]

I wouldn't bet that it will be released this year, everything seems to be delayed - and the Mac Pro doesn't get priority for Apples attention in these more difficult times. I still think a W3300 Mac Pro has a good change at an eventual release, though.

The W-3300 is already released.

Can order them now ( how long to ship may not be immediate )

APEXX Matterhorn

Accelerate rendering, simulation, and other compute applications with a 28-core Intel® Xeon® W processor and up to four professional GPUs.

www.boxx.com

so if Apple doesn't ship in volume by November-December that would be a substantive delay. If announce in Dec and most orders don't ship until January that would be a substantive delay from now also.

They just updated the MPX, which likely made 99% of Mac Pro users happy already. The CPU upgrade is only OK, if most Mac Pro users are video editors or some 3D work, the faster Xeons aren't really a huge difference for that workflow.

Two major problems here. The primary target audience for an updated Mac Pro is not the Mac Pro 2019 users. The Mac Pro 2008-2013 users can't use a MPX module. So just a new MPX module doesn't buy them much of value.
There was probably something about the Mac Pro 2019 they didn't sign off on.

1. Price is probably one. The > 16 core options had excessive Intel " > 1TB " RAM tax on them in the $3K range and Apple slapped their tax on top. A major change that the Xeon W-3300 series brings is more price sanity at high core counts.

a W-3300 change would allow Apple to make some substantial pricing changes. Some MP users don't have deep access to spending other people's money. The price of the system matters.


2. 32 versus 28 cores is 4 more cores. At top end CPU workloads that makes a difference even if the indiividual bump is +5-10% over the W-3200 , but that isn't the primary point . For older Mac Pro the gap is much , much larger between those and the newer ones.

The W3300 is a nice upgrade since it has PCIE Gen 4, etc - but for the user base of the Mac Pro, it's just an incremental bump. Even a W6800x Duo vs a Vega ii Duo is just a small bump in performance, very close numbers for that most part.

How much is the W6800X choked with immature drivers and the PCI-e bus running at "half speed"? There is a substantive mismatch between even the Vega cards and the MP 2019 for workloads that push large data workloads across the data bus as a steady rate.

The Apple Silicon Mac Pro is really far away, too - that will likely be the last one to come.

Depends upon what "really far" means. The "half sized" Mac Pro and the "bigger screen" iMac update probably won't be that far apart if they use just about the same SoC. Spring '22 isn't "really far' in the big picture. For the impatient perhaps it is.

 

[avkills]

Nobody used afterburner anyways. Prores raw is a consumer camera codec. No cinema camera shoots it. I'm a commercial director for some perspective.

Pretty sure lots of editors convert the camera native files to ProRes for editing purposes. I have never considered ProRes a camera codec anyway. It is an editing codec. Almost all of the available digital video recording decks record in ProRes or Avid DNx. ProRes is also used quite a bit for video playout for live shows, which is where an AfterBurner card comes in handy.