New Modular Mac Pro and Display - Next Year

[deconstruct60]

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also, i won't be surprised when a newly designed mac pro is (at least) as different from the cMP as the turbine is.
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The simple question the bloggers/reporters could have asked (that apple probably wouldn't answer) is whether it is going to be a literal sits on desktop system ( like the MP 2013) or a desk-side/under-desk system like the (MP 2009-2012). If the primary objective is to push it "out of normal sight" then differences from past desk-side units probably wouldn't be all that high in general form.

If it is suppose to sit out on top of the desk and hit the same noise levels and similar desktop footprint constraints. That might lead to something with new differences.

 

[wallysb01]

Actually that is too narrow. Schiller used the term of modular in the Mac Pro's relationship to the Display ( likely docking station, but Apple calls those displays when a LCD panel is integrated. ).

Folks thinking there is some larger set of open market internal module components I think are a bit off. The 2009-2012 Mac Pro had a modular processor tray. There are folks selling old/used parts these days but those all flowed out of Apple contracted manufacturer(s).

Emphasis added.

I think it bears pointing out that when Shiller uses terms like modularity and upgradability, he's talking about it from Apple's perspective not from the user's perspective. So this might mean a box with slots, but not PCIe, and maybe more like modules that have self contained cooling/power in cute little packages that slot in inside a larger shell. The whole module could be user off-limits, and you might be luck to even touch your storage, who knows.

 

[Washac]

Done my fair share Apple bashing regarding having new upgradable machines, now looking forward to the new machine and my quite distant thoughts of either an Hackintosh or a gaming PC can be put on hold for now.

 

[mbosse]

i don't think they'll ever build something like shown in the picture.. it makes everyone (in the pro market) buy a big bulky computer even though many (or probably most) won't need this size configuration.

if the modular talk is sincere, i imagine gpu modules will be one of the main features/selling points.. don't force everyone into the big box.. but provide a seamless/supported/unified system of GPU expansion on a per usage basis.

i mean, what else would benefit from 'modules'? storage and GPU seem the most likely.

Modular does not necessary mean one big box.. it could as well mean several smaller boxes stacked together just as the user needs them...

 

[fokmik]

I dont get it,plz someone explain to me.
The current one has a v good thermal and it dont get hot and we have last gen or 2 gen old gpu and cpu. And today gpu and cpu are not suppose to be more efficient and with less heat??

 

[h9826790]

Dude, modular just means we'll be able to interchange internal components.... EVERY PC manufacturer already makes computers like this, except Apple (since the MP 5,1). All Apple is saying is that the the Mac Pro will be customizable and upgradeable. How would that be "costly or complicated to pull off"?? It's the most simple, straightforward, intelligent thing Apple could do.

Exactly, all Apple need to to is just sell us a nice looking Hackintosh with their own firmware on it. That's one of the easiest thing to do. In fact, "design" the Mac Pro should be much easier than the MacBook Pro.

 

[Theophany]

Exactly, all Apple need to to is just sell us a nice looking Hackintosh with their own firmware on it. That's one of the easiest thing to do. In fact, "design" the Mac Pro should be much easier than the MacBook Pro.

This strikes me as the simplest route for Apple to go down. Reinventing the wheel as they did with the 6,1 has proven to be a failure. Custom form factor graphics cards for such a small market adds ridiculous cost and having to engineer new solutions for problems that don't exist is bad product development.

I don't mind CPU/RAM daughterboards - in fact these actually make servicing and upgrading components easier because you have less to remove from the chassis. But dreaming up custom interfaces to replace PCI-e just serve to create additional cost and repeat the failures of the 6,1.

Like you said, a Mac specific firmware is enough to deter the majority of the market from building and flashing custom firmwares and allows Apple to continue to sell aftermarket GPUs without having to engineer them into a proprietary form factor.

 

[robeddie]

Yep. As we knew in the beginning, it was the Mac Cube 2.0

But, it's great that they've again acknowledged the problem and are redesigning it. If only they'd realized it as fast as they realized that the cube was a problem.

Pretty isn't always better.

I hope the redesigned Pro will be amazing.

The difference between this time, and when they made the cube, the cube was NOT meant as the ultimate high end mac of it's day. If the cube was too limited, you had the powermac G4 you could buy.
This time around, Apple made the 'cube, part II' ... but left us with no true power computer to buy if we felt it was a piece of crap.

 

[t0rr3s]

Best news in a long, long while. I actually checked the sources just because it sounded too good to be true. My 5,1 is still the undisputed, reigning champion.

 

[robeddie]

Everyone is all excited about the idea of a modular MP. I would recommend tempering your enthusiasm. Does any such thing exist by any other vendor? I'm not aware of any. There may be a reason if there isn't an example of a modular workstation currently in existence.

The obvious reasons would be that it would be costly and complicated to pull off, and in the end would still not be future proof. Whatever, you choose to inter-connect the modules with, it will eventually become outdated, and will eventually force you to upgrade all your modules.

For me the "modular" comment just confirmed that Apple thinks it can do what what everyone else can't. So it sounds like they are headed down an overly elaborate solution that is going to be more complicated, more expensive, and more proprietary than it needs to be.

I hope I'm wrong, but something tells me Apple can't help making the perfect, at least in Apples view, the enemy of the good.

I'll reply to your post like a few others have already. What on earth exactly do you think 'modular' means?!?
PC manufacturers have been making the 'modular', 'upgradeable' boxes for all of existence, and so too did Apple, until the trash can.
Complicated?!!? It's the easiest design to pull off, since you're not trying to build a piece of art disguised as a computer.

 

[blackdbird]

i just jizzed after hearing this , NERD ORGASM ..oohh yyyeeaaaahhhhhhhhhh

 

[AidenShaw]

Why use Titan anythings when Apple could use nVidia's professional line of video cards? Anything short of a Fire Pro or Quadro screams "We had to be cheap about this one component" to me. These are professional workstation cards. Not mainstream consumer cards.

Good point - but the Teslas and Quadros are the same size and same power draw as the Titans and GTX cards.

You can get a GP102 Pascal chip in a $700 GTX 1080 Ti, or the same chip in a $5K to $7K Quadro/Tesla - if ECC on the VRAM is vital.

Note that Apple didn't use a FirePro with ECC in the MP6,1.

 

[PortableLover]

Actually wondering.. will apple support gp100s in this new machine? I dont need it, but didnt they mention the scientific community?

 

[ugahairydawgs]

they wanted to build a machine to separate themselves from job's genius. they failed... spectacularly.

Jobs died in October of 2011 and this thing was introduced in June of 2013. Hard to think this thing wasn't in the pipeline while Jobs was still in charge.

 

[kschendel]

Modular does not necessary mean one big box.. it could as well mean several smaller boxes stacked together just as the user needs them...

Like Convergent's N-Gen! Although I don't advocate such a thing, it would be amusing to see someone try to do it properly. A funky machine in both hardware and software.

 

[Macist]

I think Apple actually talking roadmap, y'know, like a normal company that has pro customers is welcome.

I think Apple must have noticed that the pro exodus to Windows was threatening the infrastructure. Apple has traded on the idea that 'creative people' use Mac so if pros all go Windows it impacts sales of trinkets to consumers too. The anger directed at the underpowered, strangely-specced and bizarrely expensive MacBook Pro has also, finally, woken Apple from its slumber.

Trouble is a lot of damage has been done but as App revenue, Music, and iPhone sales make Apple a vast global money-harvesting machine Tim Cook, a disaster of a CEO, can say, 'Hey, I've counted the beans and we've got loads of them'. Perhaps now Apple see that long term they're going to come undone if they trash the Mac, which whatever its sales is a part of the ecosystem, the bigger picture.

 

[simonmet]

I don't think the Mac Pro is bad but its problems include:

1. Choice of workstation CPU and GPU drives the cost up and they represent (for the most part) poor value compared with desktop alternatives. I know many pros that value, well, value and they prefer to get a much better bang for their buck with standard desktop parts for their pro work. It's not even clear if ECC ram makes any difference for most applications.

Xeons can suit always-on servers but that's not really what the Mac Pro is. Always-on servers tend to be rackmounted headless in a cool room. The Mac Pro is (supposed to be) targeted to creative professionals primarily, maybe engineers and scientists too. But by going with Xeon and FirePro graphics they pushed too far into a niche product with limited consumer appeal.

2. With hardware and pricing that was too niche, the product probably didn't sell well after its initial launch period. This means Apple devoted less attention and fewer resources to maintaining, developing, growing or upgrading the platform. The Mac Pro platform was never really supported. If you're going to make custom-spec graphics slots you should back that up with an ecosystem that offers choice in performance and maker. The CPU was supposedly socketed and removable but I never heard of anyone doing that either.

3. Continuing the choice theme I know pros that prefer CPU over graphics power and the Mac Pro went from offering a dual-CPU option in the previous tower to just one, albeit higher core count CPU It would've been good to have the ability to choose a dual-CPU single graphics solution. That could've swept the floor with the previous tower in CPU compute tasks.

The D700 cards which are widely rumoured to be downclocked W9000s (approximately) are still probably 250 W graphics cards. So you can fit a 1080 within the same thermal envelope. A dual 1080 system is a very capable graphics system. Heck, they put a 1080 CPU in a relatively thin Razer laptop.

Im the end, for what is mainly a consumer brand Apple went way too niche and pricey for its Pro.

 

[kschendel]

1. Choice of workstation CPU and GPU drives the cost up and they represent (for the most part) poor value compared with desktop alternatives. I know many pros that value, well, value and they prefer to get a much better bang for their buck with standard desktop parts for their pro work. It's not even clear if ECC ram makes any difference for most applications.

Xeons can suit always-on servers that's not really what the Mac Pro is. Always-on servers tend to be rackmounted headless in a cool room. The Mac Pro is (supposed) to be targeted to creative professionals primarily, maybe engineers and scientists too. But by going with Xeon and FirePro graphics they put it far too much into the niche category in both hardware but mainly price.

I disagree re Xeons and ECC. Part of the reason I do my work on a Pro is that it has ECC memory, and server-grade CPUs that I can abuse for days at a time without throttling or thermal overload. If I need to run a series of 300Gb scale TPC-H or TPC-DS trials, I can do that on the cMP with no problems. I wouldn't trust the answers I'd get from an iMac or J Random PC even if it could finish the series without meltdown. As for ECC, my company pays me to develop and fix software, and that doesn't include chasing phantoms caused by transient undetected memory errors. This machine is always on, and there's no rackmount here. If you include the universe of all users and all applications, I'll agree that ECC is not worth the money for "most" of them, but Pro apps and Pro users are different, and ECC matters to me.

I'll let people who care about GPU's argue the GPU choice on the nMP.

 

[JeffPerrin]

My 5,1 is still the undisputed, reigning champion.

Yup! All we need is a (quiet!) cheese-grater mac built to accommodate modern standards.

i.e.; lots of internal slots and bays for PCIe cards, RAM, SSDs. And ports too! Lots of 'em!

 

[Jack Burton]

I still believe Apple is priming the Apple crowd for a single GPU machine. It may be upgradeable, but I think it might be a single card machine only. A mini tower. The reason? The people invited to the Apple event keep talking about the "new reality" where pros all moved to 1 GPU all over twitter, podcasts, blogs, etc.

These people had very little to say about GPUs last month. But now they are all saying the same thing: most software doesn't use multiple GPUs and pros need one big one. This is beyond the "thermal envelope" problem. Gruber, et all, are all saying the same thing: one GPU is the reality.

The evangelists Apple invited didn't think to ask about nVidia, CUDA, or OpenCL. But they all of a sudden know what pros need? Nah. They are mouth pieces for that Apple event. They were invited to convince people that whatever Apple makes is all they need.

I also don't know why Apple needs to much time to "design" what should be a simple, cheap to produce solution: a tower case.

 

[Rustus Maximus]

Jobs died in October of 2011 and this thing was introduced in June of 2013. Hard to think this thing wasn't in the pipeline while Jobs was still in charge.

I would hazard to guess that the last year of Steve being "in charge" was actually spent preparing for the inevitable hand off to his successor. He was at the helm for the cube disaster. He learned from it. I'm sure there was some form of Mac Pro revision on the drawing board but I highly doubt The Can™ was his vision. At least not in the final sad form it took.

 

[Mr. Dee]

Apple should keep the current cylindrical design for a mid range desktops for users who want a bit more than an iMac but not the full power and price of a Mac Pro.

 

[AidenShaw]

,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,

That system is probably not sitting near anyone's desk.

Actually, it's a maxi-tower that will be in an office area.

We did get a sound-deadening enclosure for it, though.

 

[Joe The Dragon]

I still believe Apple is priming the Apple crowd for a single GPU machine. It may be upgradeable, but I think it might be a single card machine only. A mini tower. The reason? The people invited to the Apple event keep talking about the "new reality" where pros all moved to 1 GPU all over twitter, podcasts, blogs, etc.

These people had very little to say about GPUs last month. But now they are all saying the same thing: most software doesn't use multiple GPUs and pros need one big one. This is beyond the "thermal envelope" problem. Gruber, et all, are all saying the same thing: one GPU is the reality.

The evangelists Apple invited didn't think to ask about nVidia, CUDA, or OpenCL. But they all of a sudden know what pros need? Nah. They are mouth pieces for that Apple event. They were invited to convince people that whatever Apple makes is all they need.

I also don't know why Apple needs to much time to "design" what should be a simple, cheap to produce solution: a tower case.

Waiting for New cpu's / chipsets?? AMD Naples 1 or 2 cpu or ryzen workstation 1 cpu name??? vs intel Skylake-X or Kaby Lake-X 1 or 2 cpu. Intel systems with 1 cpu have limited pci-e.

Full crossfire / sli so that games can use it and or be able to have dual gpu rending and have one be for gpu computing. So that it's the apps the can be coded the way that works for the app.

 

[Hank Carter]

I think Apple must have noticed that the pro exodus to Windows was threatening the infrastructure. Apple has traded on the idea that 'creative people' use Mac so if pros all go Windows it impacts sales of trinkets to consumers too. The anger directed at the underpowered, strangely-specced and bizarrely expensive MacBook Pro has also, finally, woken Apple from its slumber.

It may have also dawned on them that some of their future plans depend on the existence of something more powerful than an oversized iPhone aka iPad. You know, like a real computer.