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Phil 'My Ass' Schiller Read Please: Our mMP whish list

I think AMD is a viable option this generation given the number of cores they now have vs Intel as well as how many PCIe lanes included on the CPU itself.

  • AMD Naples 32-core, 64 thread which has 128 PCIe 3.0 lanes, 8 memory channels.
  • 8 DDR4 slots means up to 512GB of RAM using 64GB sticks or 1TB with 128 GB sticks
  • 10 TB3 ports (40 PCIe lanes)
  • 4 X 16 lane PCIe slots or 3 X 16 lane + 2 X 8 lane (64 PCIe lanes)
  • 4 X M.2 (16 PCIe lanes)
  • 8 remaining lanes for other IO requirements (network, wifi etc)
 
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joelypolly said:
I think AMD is a viable option this generation given the number of cores they now have vs Intel as well as how many PCIe lanes included on the CPU itself.

  • AMD Naples 32-core, 64 thread which has 128 PCIe 3.0 lanes, 8 memory channels.
  • 8 DDR4 slots means up to 512GB of RAM using 64GB sticks or 1TB with 128 GB sticks
  • 10 TB3 ports (40 PCIe lanes)
  • 4 X 16 lane PCIe slots or 3 X 16 lane + 2 X 8 lane (64 PCIe lanes)
  • 4 X M.2 (16 PCIe lanes)
  • 8 remaining lanes for other IO requirements (network, wifi etc)
Click to expand...


Well now that they're aiming for 2019, might as well just go ryzen.

Fun fact: 128 PCIe lanes can support 32 Thunderbolt ports ERHUGERD! hopefully there's a touchbar, 'zallI'msayin
 
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I have a strange gut feeling that Apple's next take on the Mac Pro is going to be much closer in concept to the nMP than to the cMP or a standard PC tower. I'd be positively surprised if their interpretation of a "modular design" were to correspond with what the PC industry considered a modular design for the past 30 years. Much more likely is something highly proprietary that whilst being modular, expandable and hopefully upgradeable, is going to lock ppl in much more tightly to Apple than the cMP ever did. I'd be very surprised if Apple released a modern MacPro with only industry standard parts in it that you could upgrade yourself from the plethora of PC parts available. If you think about it: If that was what Apple had in mind, they could be on the market with this in less than 6 months. Instead well get something closer to the original PowerMacs: upgradeable, but everything propietary.
 
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G-News said:
"modular design" were to correspond with what the PC industry considered a modular design for the past 30 years.
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Our only Hope are the economics, for low volume products as the mMP a propertary Modular design dont paid itself, and its cheaper for apple to offer COTS hardware with much less mess and quicker updates -as promised-, but just ordering AMD and Nvidia a custom PCIe connector on existing Reference Designs could do the trick for Apple to keep the mMP as propertary (controlled) as the tMP, with little premium and minimal technical risk at low cost -I guess will be the solution adopted-.
 
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I think they can get away with just having M.2 slots so you can save a bunch of space on drives.
Perhaps NVLink style interconnect for GPUs for minimal size and faster CPU/GPU communication
This could get us something that is 2X the volume of the current nMP but significancy faster but still a very small package
 
what matters in the pro area:

1. performance
2. connectivity
2. silent operation
3. upgradeability

what doesn't matter:

1. price
2. size
[doublepost=1491664166][/doublepost]
Mago said:
The problem with Ryzen is the mMP also its aimed at lower-end Pro users (as musicians) too also VR/AR dont need that many cores, Naples goes from 16 to 32 cores While Skylate-W goes from 6 to 72 cores on the same socket.
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of course it depends on what u do but music needs as much CPU power and memory as possible, you can easily cap out ANY cpu on the market.
for basic recording and some effect's an iPad/iPhone has got enough power
but as far as plugins and orchestra sample library's go (film scoring), many use 3,5 or more extra slave workstations to serve the needs.
there are audio workstations available with up to 1500 cores :D

http://www.hpcmusic.com
 
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slughead said:
Well now that they're aiming for 2019, might as well just go ryzen.
Click to expand...
The problem with Ryzen is the mMP also its aimed at lower-end Pro users (as musicians) too also VR/AR dont need that many cores, Naples goes from 16 to 32 cores While Skylate-W goes from 6 to 72 cores on the same socket.
 
Mago said:
The problem with Ryzen is the mMP also its aimed at lower-end Pro users (as musicians) too also VR/AR dont need that many cores, Naples goes from 16 to 32 cores While Skylate-W goes from 6 to 72 cores on the same socket.
Click to expand...
I am not sure where you heard 72 core but the most I have seen is 32 core for Skylake and only at 2.1GHz. Also only 48 PCIe lanes which is the deal breaker
 
G-News said:
I have a strange gut feeling that Apple's next take on the Mac Pro is going to be much closer in concept to the nMP than to the cMP or a standard PC tower. I'd be positively surprised if their interpretation of a "modular design" were to correspond with what the PC industry considered a modular design for the past 30 years. Much more likely is something highly proprietary that whilst being modular, expandable and hopefully upgradeable, is going to lock ppl in much more tightly to Apple than the cMP ever did. I'd be very surprised if Apple released a modern MacPro with only industry standard parts in it that you could upgrade yourself from the plethora of PC parts available. If you think about it: If that was what Apple had in mind, they could be on the market with this in less than 6 months. Instead well get something closer to the original PowerMacs: upgradeable, but everything propietary.
Click to expand...


I could see it taking shape similar to the airport ac units + modularity otherwise I'm curious their take on modular design...perhaps these pro displays could be the center piece of the modular design
 
slughead said:
I'll have to check it out, last time I checked the TB overhead was up to 15% in high FPS situations PLUS the GTX 1080 had another 10-20% hit from the 4gbps limitation (even through a direct PCIe slot). The TB overhead I could see being reduced maybe but at the end of the day, you're still trapped at 4gbps.

Not too shabby, for sure, however for high end GPUs (soon to be mid-range speeds), TB is a bottleneck.

I'm not being down on TB, and eGPUs for laptops and all-in-ones aren't a bad idea. However for an actual tower desktop it's absolutely stupid. Even if you don't hit a wall, you still have the issue of ANOTHER wall wart and ANOTHER case fan and MORE cables. All expensive and points of failure.

It's just dumb.
Click to expand...

The Alienware Graphics Amplifier doesn't actually use Thunderbolt. Dell developed its own proprietary interface which has the same bandwidth as a PCIe slot.
 
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Mago said:
The problem with Ryzen is the mMP also its aimed at lower-end Pro users (as musicians) too also VR/AR dont need that many cores, Naples goes from 16 to 32 cores While Skylate-W goes from 6 to 72 cores on the same socket.
Click to expand...

Fair enough, but even low end pros won't be upset about having more than they need in terms of cores. Pretty much everyone is going to want a dGPU on the pro side and Intel's value on the low end just isn't there. THere's nothing wrong with X1800 for workstations on the low end with with the possible exception of available chipset capabilities, x1800 even does ECC!
 
joelypolly said:
Xeon Phi 72 core is around 7K USD and using atom cores
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Actually costs around 6500$ the 72 cores version,but at 64 cores is about 2500$ and actually dont uses Atom Cores, it cores uses Silvermont Architecture(as Atom), this is an misconception (its a 64bit implementation, with AVX512 instructions etc), it uses the same core as the Xeon-D, but on 16nm process.
 
Take the 2012 cheese grater, then:

Remove the optical drive bays;

The PSU should be like a 1U server PSU that sits along the top. Make it swappable sideways with no cabling required (like swapping SATA drives);

Base config with 1 high clocked quad core CPU for single threaded performance. Higher configs with a 2nd lower clocked 12 - 24 core CPU for multithreaded performance.
Apple to sell after market CPU upgrades in the form of a CPU chip in a heat sink case that snaps in and out of the motherboard;

PCIe slots: 16, 16, 8, 8, 4, 4;

Rackmount friendly case design;

Work with nvidia again. Vega looks good but CUDA has become very prevalent. Release Xgrid-like API that allows software to leverage CUDA render farms (see my last paragraph);

Be nice to see a slim mp like the above but with one CPU and 16, 8, 4.


On another note, what makes macs special is not the hardware, especially when it's all industry standard parts. We can wish for the latest specs all we want. It's the integration between hardware and software, and the software itself. Apple needs to double down on the os and their pro apps. That's where meaningful differentiation can be made.
 
Mago said:
Actually costs around 6500$ the 72 cores version,but at 64 cores is about 2500$ and actually dont uses Atom Cores, it cores uses Silvermont Architecture(as Atom), this is an misconception (its a 64bit implementation, with AVX512 instructions etc), it uses the same core as the Xeon-D, but on 16nm process.
Click to expand...
Atom is still atom though. The silvermont architecture was designed for smartphones and tablets not workstations. I agree as an add on card it would make sense but as a primary CPU your not going to get the performance of a desktop CPU like skylake or zen.

I haven't seen anything that shows Xeon of any type is using an atom derived architecture.
 
joelypolly said:
Atom is still atom though. The silvermont architecture was designed for smartphones and tablets not workstations. I agree as an add on card it would make sense but as a primary CPU your not going to get the performance of a desktop CPU like skylake or zen.

I haven't seen anything that shows Xeon of any type is using an atom derived architecture.
Click to expand...
Not to mention Kaby Lake and Ryzen, which are the successors of Skylake and Zen.
 
joelypolly said:
I agree as an add on card it would make sense but as a primary CPU your not going to get the performance of a desktop CPU like skylake or zen.
Click to expand...

You should check its benchmarks, and actually there are Xeon Phi powered workstations with xeon phi as main processor.

Xeon Phi its an Xeon-D on 64/72 cores in same MCM
 
usna92 said:
believe the key to professional use is standardization not innovation
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Both.
[doublepost=1491922545][/doublepost]This is my wishlist, posted in another thread:
Miguel Cunha said:
Since I still have to raise the money, Im comfortable with 2018.
Of course, it largely depends on the machine released.

For me, the current form factor is fine, except for the inability of upgrades - Its compact design suits my needs.
But, I reckon that a more modular design has a lot of advantages. I just hope it's not bulky and messy.

Hence, for me, the new Mac Pro would have to be/have:
  • Fully Customizable: I want to be able to configure my own machine from the ground up.
  • Fully upgradeable: CPU, GPU, RAM, Storage.
  • Easy to upgrade and repair: Full and easy access to all components. Cheaper BTO options.
  • Focused on performance: I endorse power efficiency, but I need a lot of power, nevertheless.
  • CPU: Single and dual processor configurations, 8 core minimum; support for DDR4, 2400.
  • GPU: nVidia. Single chip minimum - 8 GB GDDR5X.
  • RAM: up to 128 GB DDR4 EEC RAM.
  • Storage: Several bays (4 minimum). SSD system disc.
  • Expansion: Minimum 4 slots free.
  • Networking: 2 x 10 GbE, with optional SFP+

Default configurations:

Single Processor
  • CPU: 1 x Xeon E5 V4 1xxx
    • Cores: 8
    • Base frequency: 3.4 GHz
    • Cache: 20 MB
  • GPU: 1 x nVidia
  • RAM: 16 GB Minimum
  • Storage: 1 SSD, 512 GB PCIe
Dual Processor
  • CPU: 2x Xeon E5 V4 2xxx
    • Cores: 8
    • Base frequency: 3.2 GHz
    • Cache: 25 MB
  • GPU: 1 or 2 x nVidia
  • RAM: 16 GB Minimum
  • Storage: 1 SSD, 512 GB PCIe.
Again, this my wishlist.
This is what I need, at a competitive price. Don't bother do it, to charge twice as much.

If Apple will do it, that's another story.
If they don't, I'll leave the Mac, after 22 years.
There are other reliable options around the corner.
Click to expand...
 
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Honestly, all I want is somewhat decent specs and lots of space to put hard drives. I don't want/need a RAID enclosure (I actually have reasons against it), I just want a reliable and fast enclosure for a large number of drives (I currently have about 8 drives in active use, 6 of which are inside my 2010 Mac Pro). All the third party enclosures seem a bit sketchy, to be honest.

I hope the next Mac Pro either has space for at least half a dozen internal drives or Apple brings out an official thunderbolt 3 enclosure. I don't care about price or size or looks, as long as the general specs (CPU,GPU,etc.) are ok and I have a reliable and fast place to put all my drives.
 
danqi said:
Honestly, all I want is somewhat decent specs and lots of space to put hard drives. I don't want/need a RAID enclosure (I actually have reasons against it),
Click to expand...
Even tough I posted a minimum of 4 bays, I myself would use just 2: one for the system and apps and another for documents.
All others would be external for peace of mind, organisation and maintenance.

I always work with external media drives.
If the system becomes unstable or crashes, i can make clean installs and then point to them.
If the hardware fails, I plug the drives to another.
Whenever I have to update the software, no worries, I just have to point it to the drives.
Also I can take the drives with me to another system, without the machine itself.

So, as I really don't want to have a bulky box - one the plusses of the trash can - in oder to take it around with me wherever I go.
I think modular precisely as that - a system with several parts, sections, modules, interconnected with speedy technologies, powered by a base module with core components, not very different from the trash can - a very good idea - had it been designed with the modular concept in mind.
 
danqi said:
I don't want/need a RAID enclosure
Click to expand...

Miguel Cunha said:
I myself would use just 2:
Click to expand...

I moved from Intternal storage, while my tMP has 1tb ssd I plan to order 512gb on the mMP, I Use a DAS (what you name am Raid Enclosure) a LaCie 2Big with 2x6gb spinners, also I have an external SSD, I think a DAS (or even centralized storage in a NAS -also I have 2 NAS-) its much more convenient, all my projects can switch to another system in the event my tMP burns, or when I plan to work from my home, further TB2 DAS are quite solid and fast, but the great cpnvenience is that lot of data related to projects can easy move across different machines, I know there are some wires on my desk but not that much compares to a classic desktop I´m only using 2 extra cables a TB2 and a power cable to my DAS.

My nexy evolution I plan to move full time to my dual NAS, I plan to purchase a Synology DS1517+ it comes with dual 10GBe ports as fast as a TB2 DAS, it will replicate to the 2nd NAS on a buch of legacy GBe.

When I have problems with an Workstation I almost dont care the data stored in the workstation -still use time machine-, I dont need more storage than needed by my tools and few temporal projects.
 
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