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nMP refresh
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Not even in the October event? When Apple continuously updated the Mac Pro before, it was with around 280 days apart, and now with the "Restarted" Mac Pro, they might go back to that cycle?
I wish, I live in Sweden. We do not even have an "Apple Refurbished Store" sadly.
At this point, if you don't need it right now, it's probably better to hold off to see where they go with it. That's my opinion anyway. Even if we don't get a refresh by the end of the year, we'll likely at least have some sort of indication when to expect it.
If you need it right this second, then get it. But so many times I've seen people buy an older machine only to have it updated very soon thereafter.
If you need it right this second, then get it. But so many times I've seen people buy an older machine only to have it updated very soon thereafter.
I'm one of the few that thinks a refresh may not be coming in the near term. If you care to, you can read the full debate in these recent threads...
https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/1769895/
https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/1772768/
https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/1769895/
https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/1772768/
Interesting read... Thanks.
I'm one of the believers (I BELIEVE!) that they have spent millions of dollars to create a new Pro-computer for a reason. It would be stupid to "skip" Haswell-E and get lower sales during that time... But that's just me. Who knows. Believe...
It's Intel that has let us down here if Apple skips Haswell... have you seen the benchmarks? In some cases Haswell performs a few percent better than Ivy but in others it performs like Sandy Bridge.
Nobody knows nothin'!
And yet, I'm drawn to these threads like a fly on ******. I can't help myself!
And yet, I'm drawn to these threads like a fly on ******. I can't help myself!
Today's rumor only discusses iMacs and iPads so a nMP refresh is looking even less likely this year.
I guess it depends on what you think a Cinema Display refresh entails. I think a lot of people are jumping to the conclusion that a new iMac with 5K display will automatically (and immediately) result in a new 5K Cinema Display. However, I'm not so sure.
I believe the only way to drive a 5K display these days is with a pair of 1.2 connections, no? Are there any GPUs that support DP 1.3? If so, it would be very unlike Apple to offer a Cinema Display that required it to be connected to two TB ports. On the other hand, the early LED displays had both MDP and USB connections to your Mac so dual TB connections is not out of the question. If a new 5K Cinema Display with dual 1.2 inputs launches shortly after a Retina iMac, then this would have no bearing on the nMP refresh.
However, maybe you're suggesting that a new 5K Cinema Display will come sometime next year along with new GPUs with native DP 1.3 support and that will drive the refresh of the nMP at that time?
What are you suggesting exactly?
I think that the new Cinema Display will indeed be 5k.
It might be possible to combine two DP 1.2 connections over the same Thunderbolt connector. But I'm also wondering if Apple wouldn't couple the Cinema Displat upgrade with some new hardware that can better handle the display as well.
I really don't think there is a huge likelihood of the iMac going 5k, and the Cinema Display not within the same 6 month span, if not at the same time.
I see. I agree that if there's a retina iMac with a 5K display, that eventually we might see a 5K ATD however one might have made the same argument about the display in the current iMac giving us a new ATD (slimmer, TB2, USB3) but that never materialized.
The biggest issue is driving a 5K display. There's no way you can do it with one TB2 connection. You would need two TB2 connections to drive it until such time as there's Thunderbolt 3 with DP1.3.
Even if Intel had TB3 ready to go, there are no GPUs on the market with DP1.3 output. Hence there is no possible way to update a nMP to drive a 5K display with a single connection in the near term.
So, either Apple releases a 5K ATD requiring dual TB2 interconnects (that works with most shipping Macs today), or they wait until GPU vendors have adopted DP1.3 and Intel launches TB3 which could be months or a year... we just don't know.
The unfortunate truth of a 5K display requiring dual TB2 connections to drive it is that the nMP could only drive a single such display as there are only three TB busses on the nMP.
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DP 1.2 supports a bandwidth of 21.6 Gbit/s, whereas a 5120 × 2880 × 24 bpp @ 60 Hz would require 22.18 Gbit/s. I'm sure they could tweak that a little to save bandwidth.
Is that a single channel or two channels?
I believe Thunderbolt can send two DP channels out over the same cable? If not, I could see them maybe doing some sort of active adaptor too.
As much as Apple likes to push near gear, I also find it harder to believe that they'd come out with something that does not work with this years gear.
It's also worth noting that they'd have to have a GPU outputting to a 5K display on the iMac somehow, so they've clearly got a DP 1.2 GPU working with it, unless they had a custom GPU designed. If they've got a custom GPU design, that means they could have a custom GPU for the nMP as well.
Actually, that would make a fair bit of sense. You either have to get a nMP, or get an Apple OEM GPU upgrade for your current nMP.
Thunderbolt 2 is dual 10Gbps Chanel's that can be aggregated to provide 20Gbps total throughput. So if the above math is correct TB2 would be about 10% short on bandwidth to drive a 5K display.
On the iMac, they can use any GPU with DP1.2 and drive the panel with dual outputs in an MST like scheme that likely divides the panel into two halves with each GPU output driving one half. This kludge would be completely internal to the iMac.
The only way they could drive this with today's Macs is with two TB connections or by running the display at 30HZ or maybe at some bizarre refresh rate like 50HZ.
The mini says "Now up to twice as fast" implying that it was recently updated. It's been two years and it's rumored to be getting an update soon. I'd take what the Apple website says as a grain of salt.
I'm going with June 2015 as the earliest. Just doesn't make sense to waste money upgrading while there's a lot of money to still be had as it is. MS has been taking a beating lately, so price cuts and Apple design/culture exposure could really do well in the long run. No competitors and now everyone can be a multi-cam expert to boot. --Plus a few extra bucks and you have a Windows machine with relative ease as well. 
What? There are competitors out there that will have updated hardware.
Not gonna get into this one again. We'll just disagree forever there.