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MP 7,1 Next-gen Intel Xeon Ice Lake uses different socket...?

S

Simon R.

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Sep 25, 2006
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Just cautiously assessing when to get into the new MP7,1 and a little reading suggests that the next generation of Xeon chips from Intel won't be compatible with the new Mac Pro? So basically this is the end of the line of CPU's for the current 7,1 - the current Xeon-W line...? Ice Lake are supposed to be out in late 2020 and seems like a significant upgrade from the current ones. Problem is, I am almost certain Apple won't update the Mac Pro to host these chips before maybe late 2021. At least that is my hunch since they don't want to spend too much R&D on the Mac Pro and they don't want to canibalize a 1 year old product.

What do you think? I know it's early and speculation but do you think Apple will follow up with each Xeon release and update the Mac Pro...?
 
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Correct this is it for this socket. I think Apple will do a minor spec bump in 2020 getting rid of the 8 core option, bumping SSD and GPU.

Then in 2021 they'll do a new system board that supports Ice Lake. Perhaps some minor changes to the case will be made too.
 
Yep. Intel has been on a socket of the month for a number of years now.

The 6,1 went over 2,000 days before being replaced. I expect nothing less for the 7,1.
 
I don’t think Apple needs to wait to put new stuff in. They don’t need to do a ‘refresh’, they’re not approaching this in the same was as their laptops etc. Things will just appear as config options as and when they become available (subject to a delay for testing/board changes)
 
Simon R. said:
What do you think? I know it's early and speculation but do you think Apple will follow up with each Xeon release and update the Mac Pro...?
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It's too early to know what Apple's future commitment to the Mac Pro will be. Prior to the 2013 Mac Pro we could expect an update to the Mac Pro as new technology became available. With the release of the 2013 Mac Pro that expectation evaporated over the following few years. Apple realized their mistake and I think the 2019 Mac Pro is a welcome change. However we'll have to see if Apple updates the Mac Pro with updated components (such as GPUs) or technology (such as processors) as they become available. Here's hoping they do.
 
I think that it’s highly unlikely that Apple will update that expensive motherboard before Sapphire Rapids arrives, maybe even not until the year after when graphite rapids is on.
 
defjam said:
we'll have to see if Apple updates the Mac Pro with updated components (such as GPUs) or technology (such as processors)
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they probably want to up their game in datacenter business to I guess non-rackmount Mac Pro will benefit from their updates to the rackmount Mac Pro
 
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In as far as the Mac Pro 7,1 is concerned , only Skylake ( the previous gen ) and Cascade Lake ( the current gen ) Xeons will physically install in the LGA 3647 socket . And only certain Cascade Lake Xeons are currently supported in the Mac's firmware . I hope that changes soon with firmware updates and the whole catalog of socket compatible Cascade Lakes will be made available for upgrades in our Macs .

Next year's Ice Lake and 2021's ( ? ) Tiger Lake Xeons will require a larger size socket , the LGA 4189 . So they are definitely not going to be compatible with our Mac Pro 7,1 . I'm not certain how Apple will respond to this - they might just ignore it .

Hopefully they'll release a Mac Pro 8,1 next year , but that would be kind of too soon for good 'ol slow Apple , no ? Workstations are not their top priority .
 
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What I would like is the ability to not replace a motherboard every time a new CPU comes out.

Look at the AM4 socket - 4 generations of Ryzen CPUs (outside of the bare-bones 320 series of boards, those only got 2 generations of CPUs.

My X-570 board will support 2nd gen Ryzen, 3rd Gen Ryzen, and 4th gen Ryzen. Fifth gen Ryzen (Zen 4) will be on the AM5 socket.

I am looking at once again being on a 5 year upgrade cycle, with a mid-life upgrade halfway through.
 
beaker7 said:
Yes. 2.

Are people really upset that they won’t be able to drop a 2022 CPU into a platform designed in 2016?
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Please ask the buyers of the fully decked out $53,000 Mac Pro 7,1 they bought from Apple ! Excellent workstations have been known to operate in a production environment for 5 to 10 years , with occasional maintenance and upgrades . No different than a fine automobile . I tell people with a straight face that the Nehalem Mac Pros are so over-engineered and over-manufactured they should have an operational life span of some 25 years ( from date originally made . ) There's a reason why they are so fanatically loved . Just one example - Apple used military grade solder on the logic boards . I think it was a composite of silver , tin , copper and bismuth . As such , we've never had any Mac Pro cursed with metal whiskering ( long metal hairs which shorted out Apple products like the 2011 MacBook Pro ) when lead was removed from solder for environmental reasons .
 
curmudgeonette said:
Exactly how many generations of CPUs fit in this socket?

And is there any significant difference between them? (Hint: They are both "-lakes".)
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Cascade Lakes have in-silicon mitigations for certain malware , like Spectre and Meltdown . They also support persistent memory . And they're cheaper . I don't believe there is a difference in performance , everything else being held equal ( frequency and core count ) .
 
Snow Tiger said:
Please ask the buyers of the fully decked out $53,000 Mac Pro 7,1 they bought from Apple ! Excellent workstations have been known to operate in a production environment for 5 to 10 years , with occasional maintenance and upgrades . No different than a fine automobile . I tell people with a straight face that the Nehalem Mac Pros are so over-engineered and over-manufactured they should have an operational life span of some 25 years ( from date originally made . ) There's a reason why they are so fanatically loved . Just one example - Apple used military grade solder on the logic boards . I think it was a composite of silver , tin , copper and bismuth . As such , we've never had any Mac Pro cursed with metal whiskering ( long metal hairs which shorted out Apple products like the 2011 MacBook Pro ) when lead was removed from solder for environmental reasons .
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Damn, I wonder what the life expectancy for the new Mac Pro is...
 
Parzival said:
Damn, I wonder what the life expectancy for the new Mac Pro is...
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Yea I wonder if I should’ve just done leasing on the damn beast to get a new one after three years!!
but then again, the trashcan also wasn’t upgradable and it lastet 6 years so..
 
chfilm said:
Yea I wonder if I should’ve just done leasing on the damn beast to get a new one after three years!!
but then again, the trashcan also wasn’t upgradable and it lastet 6 years so..
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Even if you can't go to the next gen, at least you've still got options to upgrade in the shape of the 24 or 28 core processors.
 
chfilm said:
Yea I wonder if I should’ve just done leasing on the damn beast to get a new one after three years!!
but then again, the trashcan also wasn’t upgradable and it lastet 6 years so..
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I wouldn’t worry as these concerns are all out of context.

The release of the a new model doesn’t suddenly make the previous model defunct and unusable. The current Mac Pro will be a beast for years to come and it will take a good few years for the rest of the Mac line to catch up performance wise.

Leasing is a really expensive way to buy a computer and there are much better ways (0% credit cards) to finance rather than buy outrighr for an individual/small business.
 
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Parzival said:
Damn, I wonder what the life expectancy for the new Mac Pro is...
Click to expand...

Well , I wouldn't worry too much . The farthest a MP7,1 can ever be upgraded is a 28 Core Cascade Lake W , which is currently an $8,000 piece of silicon . In a decade , you'll grab W-3275Ms off eBay for a hundred .

My gut instinct says the latest MP has generally decent build quality , although my personal MP7,1 came with its logic board screws out-of-alignment and there were bad scratch marks on the I/O PCIe card underneath the SMCs . How did that happen ? Seems somebody was rushing things .
 
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gazwas said:
Leasing is a really expensive way to buy a computer and there are much better ways (0% credit cards) to finance rather than buy outrighr for an individual/small business.
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yea that’s what stopped me ultimately... I’m not sure if 0% credit cards do exist in Germany tbh..
I didn’t find another better way to finance it off the bat though. My bank didn’t want to give me even a 5000€ credit Based on the automatic check because I’m a freelancer even though I’ve had some major income last year..I hate how our economy punishes non regular employees!
 
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