MP 7,1 Waiting for Mac Pro 7,1 A1991 (no more)

[koyoot]

Oh, i hope that minimum 80 % are working on Vega Hard and Software Design... Pls let Vega be as good as Pascal...or better.... Ok, I prefer NVidia, cause of CUDA, but Amd should be a equal competition.

They are. Hardware is on the same level. Where Nvidia has advantage is in Software: CUDA. CUDA gives zero to non level of abstraction from hardware, thats why the software is so fast with it.

Lets look at situation where you do have abstraction layer in the software, and does not favor one hardware over another:

 

[JamesPDX]

How about purchasing the base model nMP then upgrading the CPU yourself?

I've heard of people doing that. Is it true you'd have to start with the 6-core to do this. Is it a socket thang?

 

[AidenShaw]

I've heard of people doing that. Is it true you'd have to start with the 6-core to do this. Is it a socket thang?

No, there's only one socket. 4-core to 12-core is possible.

 

[Flint Ironstag]

I've heard of people doing that. Is it true you'd have to start with the 6-core to do this. Is it a socket thang?

You can start with the 4 core and upgrade to options that Apple doesn't offer: 6,8,10,or 12 core).

Process doesn't look too bad.

 

[AidenShaw]

Process doesn't look too bad.

But what do you do when MacWorld San Jose comes along in a couple of months and the four amigos go onstage and announce that the MacPro has been cancelled with no replacement?

If you need pro hardware, it's time to put Apple in your rear view mirror and move on. Apple doesn't want your business.

But Apple has Emoji-bars!

 

[PortableLover]

But Apple has Emoji-bars!

That's all a pro needs these days? Nevermind more computing power..

 

[Plato65]

If one more sign was needed that the focus is not on the Mac, let alone the Mac Pro:
https://www.macrumors.com/2017/02/17/apple-ipad-pro-ad-series/

The comments are great. Despite rapidly falling iPad sales (and tablet sales in general), Apple is still pushing it as the future.

 

[AidenShaw]

If one more sign was needed that the focus is not on the Mac, let alone the Mac Pro:
https://www.macrumors.com/2017/02/17/apple-ipad-pro-ad-series/

The comments are great. Despite rapidly falling iPad sales (and tablet sales in general), Apple is still pushing it as the future.

I loved the top comment when I looked:

 

[mattspace]

But what do you do when MacWorld San Jose comes along in a couple of months and the four amigos go onstage and announce that the MacPro has been cancelled with no replacement?

Thought that sent a shiver down my spine, Dell has an 8k 32" display coming out (they're standardising on 4k/8k - 5k is an orphan resolution to them). That panel could be a basis for a "Pro" Xeon iMac.

 

[Plato65]

Thought that sent a shiver down my spine, Dell has an 8k 32" display coming out (they're standardising on 4k/8k - 5k is an orphan resolution to them). That panel could be a basis for a "Pro" Xeon iMac.

That could also be the display for the Linux machine I'm thinking of building... Now which GPUs can output 8k?

 

[mattspace]

That could also be the display for the Linux machine I'm thinking of building... Now which GPUs can output 8k?

It's a dual panel display, the way the 5k was, so anything that can do 2x4k, presumably.

 

[Plato65]

It's a dual panel display, the way the 5k was, so anything that can do 2x4k, presumably.

The estimated list price of $5,000 put a damper on my enthusiasm...

 

[Plato65]

I loved the top comment when I looked:

View attachment 689100​

The name of this ad campaign, by the way, is 'We Hear You'...

 

[JamesPDX]

But what do you do when MacWorld San Jose comes along in a couple of months and the four amigos go onstage and announce that the MacPro has been cancelled with no replacement?

If you need pro hardware, it's time to put Apple in your rear view mirror and move on. Apple doesn't want your business.

But Apple has Emoji-bars!

Any ideas on what I can keep in a control room with a build quality of the 5,1 MP and the quiet of the 6,1 MP?
Do you know of anyone that has turned a Boxx into a Hackintosh?

 

[F1Mac]

I loved the top comment when I looked:

View attachment 689100​

But "new Macs" have just been released, no?

...yeah yeah they're not desktops, but still. "New Macs" are going to be released this year as well, we'll see how that turns out in time...

Pushing the iPad Pro as something that is "more than a computer" is somewhat misleading, and stupid, but that's just me. Or maybe I can score an entire film on this thing I just wasn't very bright until now...

I like to think this ad campaign aims at a certain type of customer, which is not me or anyone else in MR's Mac Pro section...

 

[Plato65]

Time to face the reality.

Took a tour around the Apple website and noticed a few things:
- Not one of the leaders is focused on anything related to the Mac.
- There is not a single picture of the Mac Pro anywhere except on the Mac Pro page itself, not even on the pages for the “pro” apps.
- Same thing for the Mini and the Mini page itself shows the mini with a monitor that is no longer made.
- Vast majority is iOS with the occasional Apple Watch.
- There are few Macs anywhere and they’re almost all laptops. There are very few pictures of the iMac.
- If, and it’s a big if, there appears to be any role for the iMac it’s in developing software for iOS.
- Even the developer websites, which have to show Macs since no iOS device can do software coding, feature pictures of iOS app development only.
- The main marketing point for Macs on the "Mac in Business" website appears to be that they work well with iOS.
- Everything appears to be portable and consistent with Apple stopping the production of monitors and home wifi things.
- Almost all of the apps (mostly iOS) displayed feature either displaying or entering information or communication tools. There’s very little about actually doing something with data in any form (incl. text, photos, music, etc.).

Also, I came across this comment from 2013, a couple of months before the launch of nMP, that appears quite prescient:

"geoduck
6:37 PM EDT, Mar. 25th, 2013
I fear this is a hint of things to come. I can see Apple totally embracing the Post PC era…by dropping the Mac altogether. Not all at once mind you, first science. Then pushing iOS for productivity for consumers. I see the Mac Pro coming back as something less than hoped. OS-X becoming more and more iOS-like. iOS devices completely decoupled from Macs. Features in OS-X become more buried and soon disappearing altogether. Laptops getting to be thinner and lighter and eventually getting a touch screen. Then there will be iPads and iPads with keyboards. I can see in about a decade Apple selling iOS devices and the Mac name being but a memory. Sad, and I hope it doesn’t come to pass bit I won’t be surprised."
https://www.macobserver.com/tmo/article/apple-drops-science-as-core-market-web-page-deleted

Conclusion: Time to move on to Linux (or to reconsider Windows). I think I’ll get a used HP or Dell workstation and put Linux on it. I’ll use it first to run computations on the side, but over time look for replacement software and get used to working with it. Even if new Macs appear, I think it’s better to find multi-platform apps or web apps since Apple can’t be trusted to keep developing the Mac.

 

[Roykor]

Its also a bit sad and silly to see users with nMP where they pay a lot of green for it on youtube, trying desperate to update there machine them self with semi latest hardware and balancing on the edge of an hackingtosh. How far are you willing to go to keep yourself on a possible dying platform. How much do you really really care about the brand Apple ,when you notice they not care about you and basically there old users where it all started, at all.

If your locked-in you better going to investigate how to get free. Dont fear, i survived my switch to Windows, so you can too. Yes, its different. Thats all.

 

[pat500000]

Too bad that I have gift card. Otherwise, I'm jetting out.

 

[Aldaris]

Time to face the reality.

Took a tour around the Apple website and noticed a few things:
- Not one of the leaders is focused on anything related to the Mac.
- There is not a single picture of the Mac Pro anywhere except on the Mac Pro page itself, not even on the pages for the “pro” apps.
- Same thing for the Mini and the Mini page itself shows the mini with a monitor that is no longer made.
- Vast majority is iOS with the occasional Apple Watch.
- There are few Macs anywhere and they’re almost all laptops. There are very few pictures of the iMac.
- If, and it’s a big if, there appears to be any role for the iMac it’s in developing software for iOS.
- Even the developer websites, which have to show Macs since no iOS device can do software coding, feature pictures of iOS app development only.
- The main marketing point for Macs on the "Mac in Business" website appears to be that they work well with iOS.
- Everything appears to be portable and consistent with Apple stopping the production of monitors and home wifi things.
- Almost all of the apps (mostly iOS) displayed feature either displaying or entering information or communication tools. There’s very little about actually doing something with data in any form (incl. text, photos, music, etc.).

Also, I came across this comment from 2013, a couple of months before the launch of nMP, that appears quite prescient:

"geoduck
6:37 PM EDT, Mar. 25th, 2013
I fear this is a hint of things to come. I can see Apple totally embracing the Post PC era…by dropping the Mac altogether. Not all at once mind you, first science. Then pushing iOS for productivity for consumers. I see the Mac Pro coming back as something less than hoped. OS-X becoming more and more iOS-like. iOS devices completely decoupled from Macs. Features in OS-X become more buried and soon disappearing altogether. Laptops getting to be thinner and lighter and eventually getting a touch screen. Then there will be iPads and iPads with keyboards. I can see in about a decade Apple selling iOS devices and the Mac name being but a memory. Sad, and I hope it doesn’t come to pass bit I won’t be surprised."
https://www.macobserver.com/tmo/article/apple-drops-science-as-core-market-web-page-deleted

Conclusion: Time to move on to Linux (or to reconsider Windows). I think I’ll get a used HP or Dell workstation and put Linux on it. I’ll use it first to run computations on the side, but over time look for replacement software and get used to working with it. Even if new Macs appear, I think it’s better to find multi-platform apps or web apps since Apple can’t be trusted to keep developing the Mac.

... how long until the iOS glimmer fades? Really-they are peaking, and more and more people are extending their devices life cycles and putting off upgrading to the newest model of iPhone, the iPod is dead, and the iPad is no where near the gold standard Apple proclaims it to be. All the apologists are convinced Apple will always be on top, while the veterans are really concerned (Primarily with Cooks attitude and burning the shop behind him). Currently the sweet spot is iPhone, but for how long? Really? right now its high marked, but the coming generation sees it as "their grandparents phone" akin to a jitterbug-no "Beats" is going to whitewash that image. Apple is no longer the "cool" company, they are a step away from Wilfred brimley with diabetes informercials... Since Steve has passed they have rested on their laurels, relying on what was on the project boards and pipelines to sustain them, its now been over 5 years since his death, the well is dry. It won't be long since iOS is dried and withered on the vine too.

 

[zephonic]

I've probably already said this earlier in this thread, but since we're going in circles anyway:

It's not just Apple that is no longer focused on "pro" hardware. Intel, Microsoft, AMD, the entire industry has shifted its focus away from x86. Everybody is investing in mobile and cloud computing. If you google the aforementioned companies, you can find their mission statements for the future. None of them talks about x86, desktop or workstation computing.

My best guess, moving to Windows or Linux PC's buys you some time, but it is merely delaying the inevitable. At some point, we're all going to have to adjust to new workflows.

 

[Aldaris]

@zephonic you are right. There is no way I can really design what I need to with an iPad, it's one thing to have on site to review drawings and annotate corrections, but there is no way it can really compete with an actual computer let alone a workstation when it comes to CAD. Even cloud computing isn't a solution, at least at the moment. I am really doubting any substantial MacOS improvements coming either, possibly cosmetic, and further castration of the Mac as Apple goes iOS only...

 

[Plato65]

It's not just Apple that is no longer focused on "pro" hardware. Intel, Microsoft, AMD, the entire industry has shifted its focus away from x86. Everybody is investing in mobile and cloud computing. If you google the aforementioned companies, you can find their mission statements for the future. None of them talks about x86, desktop or workstation computing.

My best guess, moving to Windows or Linux PC's buys you some time, but it is merely delaying the inevitable. At some point, we're all going to have to adjust to new workflows.

Actually, it probably buys me a lot of time. I'm thinking of getting a Linux workstation that physically sits in my office, next to my antique iMac, and I can use it either directly, through the antique iMac, through my home antique iMac, or through my laptop. When the cloud resources for computations become easily available, the workstation will just migrate to the cloud but my workflow will stay the same. The frontend currently still is macOS, but that's a transition period and the frontend will probably be a Linux laptop soon or possibly an Android or Windows tablet at some point. And I won't be locked into buying hardware from a single vendor.

And as long as the ISPs keep the internet speeds increasing at current rates, the cloud services will take a long time to come... There's really no excuse for having less than 1GbE up & down into the home, office, or mobile device.

 

[AidenShaw]

Everybody is investing in mobile and cloud computing.

And the cloud is x64 and CUDA.

And there are use cases for which the cloud sucks. I have a bunch of servers with 72 x64 cores, 12K CUDA cores, 1 TiB RAM, hundreds of TB of shared local disk, multiple 10 GbE links per system. Costs about $46K per year per system. (3 to 4 year capital amortization)

Amazon AWS - three times that per year per system for less (older GPUs, fewer cores, less RAM, ...).

Cloud is great if you occasionally need peaks of 4 to 8 times or more of your typical load - but if your typical load and your peak load are similar, Amazon make loads of money compared to on-prem.

 

[Chancha]

Cloud is indeed an industry focus, but not necessarily because it is the future, at least not the sole future. In the same way, a lot of emphasis is on GPU compute for workstation market in recently years, that doesn't mean everything is going to be GPU bound, it just happened to be the unexplored place to have legit breakthrough and provide the most significant performance gain in the given period of time.

They actually made it pretty clear by changing the name from Apple Computer to Apple Inc., I guess it was we who refused to take the huge hint. At the golden age of Macs, personal computers were the more accessible terminal of which Apple saw to bring technology to people. And then with the advent of smart phones everything changed.

More and more I manage to digest how Apple sees itself: even back when Jobs started, the whole philosophy was always to bring computing into normal people's lives. The fact that creative industries or scientific professions happened to favor Macs was just a welcomed accident, the company ultimately is more concerned about the average person's access to technology, which explains the rather large focus on iOS at the moment. Whether or not this should come at the expense of Mac-using-Pros' wellbeing is questionable, but apparently Tim Cook and co. have already made their mind.

 

[ssgbryan]

More and more I manage to digest how Apple sees itself: even back when Jobs started, the whole philosophy was always to bring computing into normal people's lives. The fact that creative industries or scientific professions happened to favor Macs was just a welcomed accident, the company ultimately is more concerned about the average person's access to technology, which explains the rather large focus on iOS at the moment. Whether or not this should come at the expense of Mac-using-Pros' wellbeing is questionable, but apparently Tim Cook and co. have already made their mind.

The thing is, when Apple went through it's near-death experience, it was the creative industries that kept the lights on.

Apple now has all of their eggs in 1 basket. And it isn't difficult for phone manufacturers to become much smaller. See: Nokia.