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No rumors of imminent update?

A

asiga

macrumors 65816
Original poster
Nov 4, 2012
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I need a new machine for scientific research with GPGPU and multi-CPUs. The Mac Pro would be a great choice, but only if it was current. Investing in a 2-year old machine isn't an option for me. I can wait some weeks, perhaps a month, but not more. Are there any rumors of imminent update?

If negative, I'll take the painful choice of going Linux. Very sad, but only option I'm afraid.
 
I think the next MacPro will be based on the Broadwell-EP, rumor has it for release in the first quarter of 2016.

The Xeon E5 server processors based on the Broadwell-EP design will be released in the first quarter of 2016. The two processors, the Xeon E5-1600 v4 and E5-2600 v4, are for single- and dual-socket systems, respectively. The E5-2600 v4 processors will have up to 22 cores with HyperThreading (for 44 threads) and support for DDR4-2400 memory. The E5-1600 v4 will have up to 8 cores with HyperThreading. Both chips will be compatible with existing Grantley-EP platform and C610 series chipset.
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http://www.itworld.com/article/2985214/hardware/intels-xeon-roadmap-for-2016-leaks.html

The question is, will Apple update the MacPro line before WWDC on June 6th?
 
https://www.macrumors.com/roundup/mac-pro/

Grantley Xeon E5 V3 Haswell-EP processors appropriate for a high-end Mac Pro upgrade were introduced in 2014, but Apple may be waiting on E5 V4 Broadwell-EP chips for the top-of-the-line Mac Pro that are set to launch in the first half of 2016. E3 V4 chips appropriate for lower-end machines are already available, as are Skylake E3 V5 chips, so the update hold up is potentially related to the higher-core Mac Pro machines.

Updated AMD FirePro graphics cards were introduced in 2015, as were cards built on AMD's Fury platform, both of which could potentially be used in a next-generation Mac Pro.

With much of the next-generation hardware available for a Mac Pro update, it's possible Apple is planning to introduce a new Mac Pro in 2016, but there have not yet been rumors suggesting this is the case. If Apple is indeed waiting on new E5 V4 Broadwell-EP chips, an update could come later in 2016 after the chips are available.

In November of 2015, possible references to a new Mac Pro were discovered in OS X El Capitan, suggesting a next-generation machine is indeed in the works. A new Mac code name of AAPLJ951 was found in the operating system, which is similar to the AAPLJ90 code name of the existing Mac Pro.

Along with an improved processor and updated graphics, a refreshed Mac Pro could also potentially include faster memory, improved storage, and Thunderbolt 3 connectivity introduced through a shift to USB-C.
Click to expand...

Somewhat promising is that references to a new Mac Pro were found in El Cap. possible references to a new Mac Pro
 
Keep in mind, there are usually never any solid rumors of a new Mac Pro right before it's release.
 
asiga said:
If negative, I'll take the painful choice of going Linux. Very sad, but only option I'm afraid.
Click to expand...

At this point, going with Linux is the obvious choice. And you'll have far fewer support headaches for the tools on a major Linux distro than on Apple OSX.

I have a couple of Ubuntu systems with three Titan-X cards (going to four shortly). A handful with three GTX980 cards (maybe going to four). A half-dozen systems with dual GTX980Ti cards - and more on order. (Dual E5-2697 v3 CPUs (14 core) and 512 GiB RAM with dual GTX980Ti cards is hitting a sweet spot for our workflow.)

The only scary part is feeding systems with 3200 watt to 2800 watt power supplies - fortunately I have tons of 208 volt 30 amp power taps. (And not just theoretical peak - one system's power logs recently showed it averaging at over 1.1 kW for the last three days.)

BTW - is there much in the way of OpenCL based science libraries around? Most that I've seen are CUDA.
 
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I'm in a very similar situation as you're in!

I've been waiting (it seems like forever) for an update to the 2103 Mac Pro. I need a rock-solid platform (Xeon CPU, dedicated GPU, plenty of RAM) which will last for 6+ years. In addition to general computing use (Internet browsing, web-design, consumption of media, typesetting and the playing of games), it will be mainly used for scientific computing (custom-designed programs in Mathematica, Python and Java).

Hurry up, Apple!! =)


richmlow


asiga said:
I need a new machine for scientific research with GPGPU and multi-CPUs. The Mac Pro would be a great choice, but only if it was current. Investing in a 2-year old machine isn't an option for me. I can wait some weeks, perhaps a month, but not more. Are there any rumors of imminent update?

If negative, I'll take the painful choice of going Linux. Very sad, but only option I'm afraid.
Click to expand...
 
IMHO Apple is now run by the grey faced men in grey suits - AKA the accountants. Judging by the track record of the other models, I expect a 2016 model to be smaller hard-drives, less ports and another price hike. The 5,1 Mac Pro is a fantastic machine because it can be upgraded, tailored, modded and personalised - that's outside of the M.O. of Apple these days who want to constrain their users more and more within their own hardware camp. Putting a 250gb in a 2015 $3K macbook pro which runs slower than a 2013 macbook pro with the defence that "no hard disk is ever enough - use a port" and THEN hiking the price for this downgrade is more where apple is heading. I honestly dont think Apple take the Mac Pro seriously anymore, they probably sell more gold iphones in 1 day than all the Mac Pros they will sell in a year. I expect the daily meetings on the Mac team are titled "what else can we solder onto the MOBO?" and "Think of the max you would ever consider paying for this and then double it" or "how else can we repackage the ipad to sell it as a laptop? - what if we gold anodize it?

If I sound p*ssed it's because I am - I'm buying old machines these days after years of buying new ones simply because each new Mac is feeling more and more like an iPhone - which is in my opinion Apple's weakest product by far anyway.
 
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Yes, I feel that you are quite correct!


richmlow


glynster said:
IMHO Apple is now run by the grey faced men in grey suits - AKA the accountants. Judging by the track record of the other models, I expect a 2016 model to be smaller hard-drives, less ports and another price hike. The 5,1 Mac Pro is a fantastic machine because it can be upgraded, tailored, modded and personalised - that's outside of the M.O. of Apple these days who want to constrain their users more and more within their own hardware camp. Putting a 250gb in a 2015 $3K macbook pro which runs slower than a 2013 macbook pro with the defence that "no hard disk is ever enough - use a port" and THEN hiking the price for this downgrade is more where apple is heading. I honestly dont think Apple take the Mac Pro seriously anymore, they probably sell more gold iphones in 1 day than all the Mac Pros they will sell in a year. I expect the daily meetings on the Mac team are titled "what else can we solder onto the MOBO?" and "Think of the max you would ever consider paying for this and then double it" or "how else can we repackage the ipad to sell it as a laptop? - what if we gold anodize it?

If I sound p*ssed it's because I am - I'm buying old machines these days after years of buying new ones simply because each new Mac is feeling more and more like an iPhone - which is in my opinion Apple's weakest product by far anyway.
Click to expand...
 
https://www.macrumors.com/2016/01/15/apple-5k-thunderbolt-display/

Intel's Skylake processors, launching in early 2016, and Kaby Lake processors, expected to launch in the first half of 2017, will not be able to drive a 5K Thunderbolt Display over Single-Stream Transport (SST). The underlying issue is that both processor lineups lack support for DisplayPort 1.3. Instead, the display would sync two channels over Multi-Stream Transport (MST), which can cause some performance issues. That means Apple may wait until at least Cannon Lake chipset (which promise SST 5K support) in the second half of 2017, before releasing a 5K Thunderbolt Display.
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This may apply to more than the monitor. Which makes it all the more baffling why they didnt do an interim update when things like this are readily possible:

 
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glynster said:
IMHO Apple is now run by the grey faced men in grey suits - AKA the accountants.
Click to expand...
i'm not making the connection between this overdue 7,1(?) update and it being an accountant's decision to delay.

from an accountant's perspective, can you run me through the logic they're using when delaying the release this long?
 
Heh. The new Mac Pro wasn't the decision of a bunch of accountants or designers. But I don't know if that would make people more or less angry.
 
Since you obviously have the budget for a nice Mac Pro, I'd say get both a fat Linux box PLUS a Mac.

Stick the Linux box somewhere in a closet where it can quietly run 24/7, and get a Mac to access it via SSH/VNC.
 
cerberusss said:
Since you obviously have the budget for a nice Mac Pro, I'd say get both a fat Linux box PLUS a Mac.

Stick the Linux box somewhere in a closet where it can quietly run 24/7, and get a Mac to access it via SSH/VNC.
Click to expand...
The budget is tight, but yes, I can arrive to Mac Pro pricing, perhaps a bit higher than the low end entry model, but not much higher. However, although I work (for compiling code) on several OSs daily, I do it through virtual machines and shared folders, because one of the things I've learnt with time is that simplicity tends to save the day. I'm more productive having one machine with many VMs on it, rather than maintaining several boxes.

So, I'll go either Mac Pro or Linux. I prefer the former because of OS X and because of quiet operation. But I admit the Linux box has one advantage: being able to plug gfx boards of different vendors (which would be a plus for me).

Btw, can you plug a headless GPGPU board on the Mac Pro via Thunderbolt? It would be good for me to have the internal AMD GPUs plus an external NVIDIA for only GPGPU... this way I could work with CUDA as well as with OpenCL.

Anyway, none of this will make sense if Apple doesn't update the Mac Pro sometime in the following weeks, because I need to purchase this machine quite soon.
 
asiga said:
Anyway, none of this will make sense if Apple doesn't update the Mac Pro sometime in the following weeks, because I need to purchase this machine quite soon.
Click to expand...

Earliest announcement would be June with the usual delay for shipping after that, Linux box it is for you. Apple don't really care they abandoned the Pro user years ago they are now a high priced consumer gadget company instead of the computer company they used to be.
 
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OS X doesn't yet support external GPUs over thunderbolt, AFAIK.

Another solution would be to rent a nMP for a couple of months, and see if the new one comes out. Then again with the rental prices, you may as well buy one and sell it when it does come.
 
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asiga said:
The budget is tight, but yes, I can arrive to Mac Pro pricing, perhaps a bit higher than the low end entry model, but not much higher. However, although I work (for compiling code) on several OSs daily, I do it through virtual machines and shared folders, because one of the things I've learnt with time is that simplicity tends to save the day. I'm more productive having one machine with many VMs on it, rather than maintaining several boxes.

So, I'll go either Mac Pro or Linux. I prefer the former because of OS X and because of quiet operation. But I admit the Linux box has one advantage: being able to plug gfx boards of different vendors (which would be a plus for me).

Btw, can you plug a headless GPGPU board on the Mac Pro via Thunderbolt? It would be good for me to have the internal AMD GPUs plus an external NVIDIA for only GPGPU... this way I could work with CUDA as well as with OpenCL.

Anyway, none of this will make sense if Apple doesn't update the Mac Pro sometime in the following weeks, because I need to purchase this machine quite soon.
Click to expand...

If your time frame is weeks, don't expect an updated mac pro in that span. Updated CPUs from Intel and graphics cards from AMD may coincide for a June announcement of a mac pro at WWDC. I doubt we would see it sooner than that.

We have a whole thread dedicated to this but it may be hard to get concrete information out of it. I wrote up a summary a few weeks ago that I feel does a good job outlining what technologies apple may be waiting for before releasing a new mac pro.
 
AidenShaw said:
At this point, going with Linux is the obvious choice. And you'll have far fewer support headaches for the tools on a major Linux distro than on Apple OSX.

I have a couple of Ubuntu systems with three Titan-X cards (going to four shortly). A handful with three GTX980 cards (maybe going to four). A half-dozen systems with dual GTX980Ti cards - and more on order. (Dual E5-2697 v3 CPUs (14 core) and 512 GiB RAM with dual GTX980Ti cards is hitting a sweet spot for our workflow.)

The only scary part is feeding systems with 3200 watt to 2800 watt power supplies - fortunately I have tons of 208 volt 30 amp power taps. (And not just theoretical peak - one system's power logs recently showed it averaging at over 1.1 kW for the last three days.)

BTW - is there much in the way of OpenCL based science libraries around? Most that I've seen are CUDA.
Click to expand...

Ubuntu???

Why did you choose Ubuntu over CENTOS/RHEL or OpenSUSE/SLE
 
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Yes, the 2013 Mac Pro has these. However, they are 2-year old technology!!

I'm waiting for an update on all of these.


richmlow


poematik13 said:
Last time I checked, the 2013 mac pro has a xeon CPU, up to 128GB of ram, and 2 dedicated GPU's.
Click to expand...
 
lowendlinux said:
Ubuntu???

Why did you choose Ubuntu of CENTOS/RHEL or OpenSUSE/SLE
Click to expand...
The PhDs who are using the systems prefer Ubuntu, probably because it's more OSX-like. (Also Ubuntu, even LTS, usually gets new kernel stuff faster than CentOS/RHEL.)

I use CentOS or RHEL if I get to decide....
 
AidenShaw said:
The PhDs who are using the systems prefer Ubuntu, probably because it's more OSX-like. (Also Ubuntu, even LTS, usually gets new kernel stuff faster than CentOS/RHEL.)

I use CentOS or RHEL if I get to decide....
Click to expand...

If it's what they want then so be it.

CENTOS just feels like a tested, complete system, where as Ubuntu feels like it stops at 95% it's just always got these little annoyances
 
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