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New Mac Pro Misconceptions
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Every other computer that has passed TB certification has had embedded GPUs on the motherboard. It is unlikely that Apple is going to get any special "get out of jail free" card on that aspect.
If it could have done trivially with a standard PCI-e connector some mainstream motherboard vendor would have already instead of some of the Rube Golberg contraptions that have floated out early at some trade shows that never passed certification.
There are more TB designs out there than just Apple's. If paying attention to what has succeed and failed elsewhere there is lots of information in what Apple has done then you are making it out to be so empty.
Even if hoping some 3rd party vendor marketplace is going to open up someone would reverse engineer the socket if there was viable demand.
( Lighting connector was re-mapped quite quickly. ) So the specifics of the connector don't matter much.
However, it is relatively obvious from the pictures though of the internals that these not standard PCI-e edge cards. If Apple was trying to leverage that large market of cards this device would not look the way it does.
Rhetorically, how does a normal mainstream card split up video singles to three physical DisplayPort sockets. Why would the split up be any different for Thunderbolt? Instead of running the output to a physical socket you run it into the TB controller's input pads/pins.
Since each controller needs two, so probably don't want to make it odd. So a simplistic way is
GPU1 output 1 ---> TB1 DP input 1.
GPU1 output 2 ---->TB1 DP input 2
GPU1 output 3 ---> TB2 DP input 1
GPU1 output 4 ----> TB2 DP input 2
GPU2 output 1 ----> TB3 DP input 1
GPU2 output 2 ----> TB3 DP input 2
The last GPU2 to TB3 is really not much different than what goes on now. (minus DP switch to alterntive to iGPU output). Bascially it is going to be some varition on that.
Depending up the mapping some folks will or will not by the Mac Pro... I don't buy that is a significant number of folks. Some stuff isn't know exactly, but it also really doesn't impact buying and/or using significantly either.
It is extremely likely though it is not overly complicated or flexible mapping. It is a "small as possble" box and complicted typically leads to a bigger more expensive box.
I'm not sure you have not been listening to Tim Cook or watching Steve Jobs. Cooks' comments has been something to the effect of "customers love surprises" . Or the Steve Jobs "one more thing" show. The absolutely easiest way to do "one more thing" is not to tell everyone exactly what you are about to tell them.
It was a sneak peak. Telling you everything is a like the movie trailers that have every single significant story plot event of the movie in the trailer. Why go if you just essentially told me the whole story? And WWDC has lots more items to cover than the Mac Pro. They told folks enough to keep many people interested until probably very late Fall. Mission accomplished.
In a technical presentation you "tell them what going to talk about", "talk about it" , and then "tell them what you told them".
That is not how Apple works. They don't really tell you what they are going to talk about. Tell you some of it. And then spring one more detail at the end that is a surprise. They make it an action adventure mystery story.
The sneak peek is overtly intended to be a mystery story. That they left out details now is only so that there is something to revel later. If they said everything now.... there is nothing left to say or release later. No mystery.
if expecting Apple to hand you all the answer in advance on a silver platter, your not really dealing with what Apple really does.
Frankly, most of the extremely bold claims are being made by many of the same folks who were making the same bold claims before WWDC as after. Either overtly in these forums or to others.
Generally the folks making the broad sweeping generalizations from very small sample sizes (i.e., like "my set up is like ... so it does/doesn't work") the issue is not the limited (or not) information that Apple has presented. It is making the broad sweeping generalization. Humans are generally bad at that. There is lots of published experiment data to back that up. It is not a sweeping generalization itself, but has been researched for a long time.
I'll agree that some folks are reading what they want to read in the what is there. However, there is significant amount of information out there about problems and issues that other folks have had with Thunderbolt, custom daughter cards, weaving discrete GPUs into thunderbolt systems etc. that this new Mac Pro is also subject to. Just because Apple didn't spell the exact details out on a web page or white paper doesn't mean some of it isn't already out there.
The complaint was that thunderbolt would provide a SIGNIFICANT performance difference. 5% (as shown by the benchmark in your link) is not a significant performance difference in fact, 5% is less than the standard deviation for a specific card in benchmarks (as per passmark data), meaning it matters more what the temperature, humidity, and if you got a "good" card, than if you're running it through thunderbolt or not.
Said otherwise, a good card, running in a slightly better environment on thunderbolt will outperform a bad card running in a slightly worse environment. Thunderbolt is less significant than the standard deviation.
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I've seen all these criticisms as comments by ignorant people on various sites.
Radiating Wrote (in black)
#1 It has no optical drive, you can't instal anything on it
Incorrect, it has room...
No, no "room", sorry.
#2 It has no expandable storage.
Incorrect, it has room...
No, no "room", sorry.
#3 But external sotrage is slow.
Incorrect, platter based hard drives...
I haven't read anyone say this.
#4 But you're stuck with the dual fire pro video cards, which don't have CUDA cores.
Incorrect, you can now add 12 or more external video cards through thunderbolt.
And you're still stuck with the ATI's. And TB2 attached cards will be slow at some things.
#5 But Thunderbolt 2 is a bottle neck and is so much slower than an internal video card.
Incorrect, I've run a GeForce Titan through thunderbolt 1 on a Mac, and saw only a 5% performance drop...
For some things. For other things it will much slower.
BTW, I've seen this done with USB 3.0 as well.
#6 But Thunderbolt PCI express enclosures are expensive or you have to do some DIY work.
Correct, but this basic board...
Cool pic..
Hopefully that reduces some anxiety for everyone.
It didn't for me. Way way too many errors in your list. In fact your list of "Misconceptions" is itself mostly comprised of misconceptions or misinformations itself.
#1 It has no optical drive, you can't instal anything on it
Incorrect, it has room...
No, no "room", sorry.
#2 It has no expandable storage.
Incorrect, it has room...
No, no "room", sorry.
#3 But external sotrage is slow.
Incorrect, platter based hard drives...
I haven't read anyone say this.
#4 But you're stuck with the dual fire pro video cards, which don't have CUDA cores.
Incorrect, you can now add 12 or more external video cards through thunderbolt.
And you're still stuck with the ATI's. And TB2 attached cards will be slow at some things.
#5 But Thunderbolt 2 is a bottle neck and is so much slower than an internal video card.
Incorrect, I've run a GeForce Titan through thunderbolt 1 on a Mac, and saw only a 5% performance drop...
For some things. For other things it will much slower.
BTW, I've seen this done with USB 3.0 as well.
#6 But Thunderbolt PCI express enclosures are expensive or you have to do some DIY work.
Correct, but this basic board...
Cool pic..
Hopefully that reduces some anxiety for everyone.
It didn't for me. Way way too many errors in your list. In fact your list of "Misconceptions" is itself mostly comprised of misconceptions or misinformations itself.
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Come on Tesselator, he's here handing out free Apple Kool Aid and you toss it back in his face.
Thankless Heathen.
Try the Kool Aid, Enjoy The Kool Aid. BE THE KOOL AID.
Thankless Heathen.
Try the Kool Aid, Enjoy The Kool Aid. BE THE KOOL AID.
It didn't for me. Way way too many errors in your list. In fact your list of "Misconceptions" is itself mostly comprised of misconceptions or misinformations itself.
Calling them "shills" is disrespectful.
They prefer "KADS" (Kool Aid Dispensing Service)
I have fond memories of koolaid from my childhood. I would never associate that beverage with such scum. This carpet bagging sycophantic sh!7 will subside soon enough.
HDMI 1.4, which is in the Mac Pro, can do 4K. My guess is each card can do one Thunderbolt 4K, one of them also does the HDMI.
If you were trying to run games with an external 7970, thunderbolt 2 would be a minor decrease in FPS, but keep in mind that you are still over 60fps in almost every case even at 2gb/s with that card, and if you got a slower card, the lack of bandwith would be even less noticeable. Once again, thats for games though. Look at Open CL rendering performance on bandwith limitations, a PCI-E x1 1.0 with my 7950 runs absolutlely no slower than a PCI-E x16 3.0 when mining litecoins. If you are running multiple external videocards through thunderbolt, you probably wont be relying on bandwith heavy applications, these programs are going to be doing almost all of the processing within the videocard and bandwith will not be as important.
More from the KADS squad
Welcome to MR !!!
Your VERY FIRST POST and it is in defense of that wondrous amazement of engineering, the New Improved Mac Pro !!!!
Please register at the KADS desk before handing out samples.
Let me see if I summed up your post well...there isn't a problem with moving peripherals from PCIE to TB, and if there is, it won't matter except sometimes? The ACTUAL QUESTION is, why move to TB when PCIE still worked just fine?
So TB is the solution to the problem Apple created, yes?
Welcome to MR !!!
Your VERY FIRST POST and it is in defense of that wondrous amazement of engineering, the New Improved Mac Pro !!!!
Please register at the KADS desk before handing out samples.
Let me see if I summed up your post well...there isn't a problem with moving peripherals from PCIE to TB, and if there is, it won't matter except sometimes? The ACTUAL QUESTION is, why move to TB when PCIE still worked just fine?
So TB is the solution to the problem Apple created, yes?
Yup, the spec on the MP6,1 are very current!
I wonder what will be in two or three years from now? Broadcast 2K (4K?), 2K 3D needs to be delivered? If I look at recent history as a guide then I'll be wanting to upgrade my internal PCIe display cards in about two years from now. I guess most people know that's pretty typical.
Also isn't PCIe v4 due out soon? The've been working on it for awhile now... what, over a year right? I wonder what new products will come from that and when... next year?
I wonder what will be in two or three years from now? Broadcast 2K (4K?), 2K 3D needs to be delivered? If I look at recent history as a guide then I'll be wanting to upgrade my internal PCIe display cards in about two years from now. I guess most people know that's pretty typical.
Also isn't PCIe v4 due out soon? The've been working on it for awhile now... what, over a year right? I wonder what new products will come from that and when... next year?
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Pretty confused overall by this reply, not sure if it's a language barrier or are you attempting to insult me?
.. and.. "Please register at the KADS desk before handing out samples." is this a joke? part of an automated response? or a statement to say I should research more before posting? And as a note, none of this paragraph is meant to imply sarcasm, I just really do not understand. *edit* ok, I have read some of your other posts on multiple threads and seem to understand your basic trolling methods now, I was just hoping someone with your profile credentials would have a bit more of a professional mannerism. But anyway, his question that I understood was not directly "why move to TB when PCIE still worked", but more along the lines of making a statement that thunderbolt 2 external videocards would significantly make a negative performance impact, and in which my reply states it very rarely, if ever, will make any negative impact.
I'm definitely NOT saying its a convenient solution to the lack of internal PCI-E expansion for semi-pro users, but to the professionals that will be making use of a large array of external videocards, it is still a completely viable soltion.
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If you would have posted this 6 months to a year ago I would agree wholeheartedly. Being the present as it is I tend to agree but with some reservations knowing of several exceptions and one complete error. If you were to make this comment again in 6 to 8 months I'd probably just laugh - recognizing how untrue it were.
I wonder how many people consider the future when selecting a machine for purchase? I know that's the very thing I spend the most time looking into:
- What are the present standards?
- How old are the present standards?
- Given release cycles when will new standards replace current ones?
- How much difference is there between coming and present standards?
- Is the base system capable of supporting the coming standards? And to what degree?
- How much is the machine I'm purchasing now?
- Where does it place on the price|performance chart?
- How much can I sell it for when I decide to upgrade?
- What do i need and expect it to do for me?
- What other options and configurations are available?
What would be the complete error? Are you saying that Thunderbolt 2 external videcards are not viable in professional applications? If so, why?
I gotta call BS on this. I am sorry but I have used video cards at PCI-E x1 and they are dog slow. You are not only going to get 15% drop if you run a gtx 680 @ x1 PCI-E especially if your running at high resolution (like 2560x1600 or 3840x2400).
My dad's work station has a ATI 7980 eyefinity 6 running 3840x2400 and its only PCI-E 2.0 x8 and even then i notice a pretty big difference between that and if it was running in a PCI-E 3.0 x16.
I was under the impression we were all talking about future expansion. Of course I dont know of any for TB2 right NOW.. but there are plenty of ones for TB1 that work right now, and the whole idea is that Apple is trying to implement TB2 to be more and more widely used, which should drive the production of better quality external products that support more powerful PCI-E components.
TB1 Examples:
http://www.bhphotovideo.com/bnh/controller/home?O=&sku=860815&Q=&is=REG&A=details
http://www.bhphotovideo.com/bnh/controller/home?O=&sku=884366&is=REG&Q=&A=details
http://www.bhphotovideo.com/bnh/controller/home?O=&sku=889096&is=REG&Q=&A=details
Those are just the first few that came up, there are more, and there will be even more in the future. Especially if nVida or AMD adopt a new system like the Tesla S2050 1U that runs off TB2.
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The complete error would be assuming that for "a large array of external videocards, it [TB2] is still a completely viable soltion." (sic)
I haven't tried it but I don't believe that's at all correct. I guess each TB2 port would struggle noticeably with just two high-end cards. It will in fact struggle sometimes with just one card attached. With two it will struggle more in that area and new contentions or "struggles" will be introduced because of multiplexing. A "large array"? Hehe, I guess not, no.
As far as your question above I would answer: They are not optimal for some kinds of "pro" application. Why? Because of TB2's throughput and burst-rate limitations and because of the latency which is introduced.
Given the discussion so far I'd like to remind you that I'm not making blanket statements like: It's no good for pro apps, or It just sucks, or it's just too slow, or anything like that. Not optimal means not the best or most favorable configuration. Even one TB defender here said performance dropped (apparently across the board?) by 10%.
And I assume that's with applications which don't demand the higher throughput. In fact I'm sure of it or he would have to have mentioned the 85% to 90% performance hit that occurred in those situations.
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Are you telling me that I can hook *any* of those expansion cards to a 2012 MacBook Pro for example, with a GTX 580 or 680 GPU inside, and OSX will recognize it and use it as a GPU? That I can run Adobe Premiere with GPU hardware acceleration that way, today, on TB1? Is that what you're saying is a fact?
" allows you to use full-size professional video capture, audio interface, 8 Gb Fibre Channel, 10 Gigabit Ethernet and RAID controller cards"
"Mercury Helios can use any half-length PCIe2.0 card (up to 6.5" (16.51 cm)) to provide a massive boost to your workflow. "
"High-performance workflows are possible by connecting a Thunderbolt-equipped computer to a Thunderbolt expansion chassis containing PCIe cards such as video capture, media transcoding, audio processing and fast data storage. "
Those are respectively from each of your examples.
Nowhere do I see "works with GPUs"
Please find me a link to someone using a Mac with an external GPU via TB.
Oh no, not at all. I'm saying PCI-E expansion enclosures via thunderbolt are a possibility, and thunderbolt is fast enough to make use of videcards for professional applications.
I am fully aware that most of the existing enclosures could not support a videcard anywhere near the power requirement of a GTX 680 or Quadro/FirePro equivalent, and that most programs would not be able to read these cards even if they could, but that doesn't mean it can't be done or wont be implemented soon.
The main point is, that for a single workstation, 20Gb/s bandwith would suffice for multiple videcards when running most professional applications, as it is not the bandwith that is the limiting factor.