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FWIW there is a lot of frustration on the inside with AMD. But differences with Nvidia are irreconcilable right now.

Apple builds to a price, not to a performance.

The differences with Nvidia more of less boil down to "Nvidia won't let us buy GeForce parts at (discounted) GeForce prices, give them a memory bump, and put a Quadro brand on them" which is what AMD were willing to do for the nMP.

Now that they've dumped "FirePro" in favour of "Radeon Pro", there's the question of whether they were already set to dump the brand, and so decided to throw the "FirePro" brand under the bus ("it's an entire computer for less than the price of the standalone GPUs") to get a few more Radeon sales from Apple, or whether the spectacular nMP GPU failure rate sullied the brand enough that they felt they had to ditch it.

Nvidia obviously thinks the (high priced) Quadro brand is worth more than Apple's business, or they don't trust Apple to do a customised design with their name and reputation on it (their own screwups in the past notwithstanding).
 
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The differences with Nvidia more of less boil down to "Nvidia won't let us buy GeForce parts at (discounted) GeForce prices, give them a memory bump, and put a Quadro brand on them" which is what AMD were willing to do for the nMP.

Not at all. The issue is far larger. I don't want to cause problems for myself, but I will say it is not a price or supply issue. Or even a reliability issue. I would think about what has been said on these forums about the sort of agreement Apple has with AMD and the services AMD is offering.

Edit: I should also clarify what you said about buying consumer parts and rebranding them happens with AMD, but is not the main part of that agreement.
 
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Any new improved Mac Pro would be welcome here. Held off upgrading my 5,1 thinking i could wait a year but now almost 4 years later no hope in site for anything improved and no apple or other 3rd party updates are available for the 6,1 nMacPro. They have broken the cycle of upgrade addiction.
 
Not at all. The issue is far larger. I don't want to cause problems for myself, but I will say it is not a price or supply issue. Or even a reliability issue. I would think about what has been said on these forums about the sort of agreement Apple has with AMD and the services AMD is offering.

Edit: I should also clarify what you said about buying consumer parts and rebranding them happens with AMD, but is not the main part of that agreement.
I think this is arguably the biggest problem Apple is facing with the current lineup. The constant strive to over engineer machines and put form over function has put them in a corner with no way out. Unless they want to go back to the standard PCI slot for the Mac Pro (when hell freezes over) then Apple is stuck with ATI, and their 5+ year upgrade cycle, and their driver support.

Apple made the Mac Pro an irrelevant second-class citizen, doomed to lose market share when they dumped the PCI slot. I don't blame Nvidia one bit for not wanting to work with Apple. Why should they? They're selling cards and making money just fine without having to deal with the custom requests or bending over backwards for the folks in Cupertino.

Besides, if the new MBP is any indication, whatever "Pro" machine they come out with is likely to have everything soldered to the motherboard anyway. What "Pro" wants to invest in disposable hardware?
 
They're selling cards and making money just fine without having to deal with the custom requests or bending over backwards for the folks in Cupertino.

Apple's a top tier chipmaker now. They have access to technology and methods that Nvidia and AMD do not.

It's a problem things like Vega have run late. But if Nvidia was not able to help with custom designs for Apple, we're all worse off. And Apple loses a competitive advantage.

Yesssssss I know not having an updated Mac Pro is losing a competitive advantage as well. But we're at the end of Apple using stock GPUs.
 
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It's a problem things like Vega have run late. But if Nvidia was not able to help with custom designs for Apple, we're all worse off. And Apple loses a competitive advantage.

Yesssssss I know not having an updated Mac Pro is losing a competitive advantage as well. But we're at the end of Apple using stock GPUs.

I don't know if it's that Nvidia wouldn't help Apple, or couldn't help Apple. It's probably the former.
 
Apple's a top tier chipmaker now
When did Apple open up a foundry? They design their own chips to spec, but they have a foundry or supplier create them. Unless Apple sunk anywhere from 40-100B over 2-3 years to build a facility no one's heard of. The guy who designed Apple's Ax chips went back to AMD and made Ryzen and now works at Tesla designing their next-gen car's system.
 
When did Apple open up a foundry? They design their own chips to spec, but they have a foundry or supplier create them. Unless Apple sunk anywhere from 40-100B over 2-3 years to build a facility no one's heard of. The guy who designed Apple's Ax chips went back to AMD and made Ryzen and now works at Tesla designing their next-gen car's system.

Worth taking a look at Apple's announcements around the Radeon Pro 460 and the scuttlebutt around here. The Macbook Pro GPUs are not built on the same process as anything else AMD makes. If you read the other threads here, and I would take them seriously, the Radeon Pro for the Macbook Pro is not made by AMD, but it is being made by Apple.

So think about the implications of what that sort of thing would involve.
 
Worth taking a look at Apple's announcements around the Radeon Pro 460 and the scuttlebutt around here. The Macbook Pro GPUs are not built on the same process as anything else AMD makes. If you read the other threads here, and I would take them seriously, the Radeon Pro for the Macbook Pro is not made by AMD, but it is being made by Apple.

So think about the implications of what that sort of thing would involve.
That's ridiculous. The Radeon pro 460 is polaris 11 made by amd and manufactured the same way all the other polaris chips are.
 
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That's ridiculous. The Radeon pro 460 is polaris 11 made by amd and manufactured the same way all the other polaris chips are.

Nope. They aren't. Even Apple's own public materials say they aren't, even if you don't believe all the other reports on the rumor sites.

They are based on Polaris 11. They are not stock Polaris 11. Not just a VRAM add on. The GPU is not stock Polaris 11.

First time this sort of thing has happened with the Mac.
 
They are based on Polaris 11. They are not stock Polaris 11. Not just a VRAM add on. The GPU is not stock Polaris 11.
Essentially you just said AMD modifies it for Apple. A special version AMD has their foundries make for Apple and Apple only. Apple's an impressive company, but they aren't going to sink in $40B in buildings and equipment, excluding the cost of hiring hundreds of people and the sunk in costs of R&D that will be nothing like their R&D costs now. The need to buy new equipment and train staff is a recurring cost every 3-4 years. Not to mention typical wafers take 3-4 weeks from start to finish. Far easier having something built to your spec. And if Apple were doing their own Ax processors, then they could possibly do their other hardware, which adds cost hand over fist on a recurring basis.

Say Apple did try to do what you suggest, at the 10 year mark they'd have likely spent around 300-400B dollars. In other words, these days there's no point in reinventing the wheel when your sunk costs are marginal if you go with a foundry of your choosing.

Just as an aside, Intel spent about $13B on R&D last year. Intel are their own designer and foundries. They do it from start to finish. Meanwhile TSMC spent about $2.8B last year on R&D, but their R&D only affects their process of developing what their customers ordered. Their customers spent the majority of total R&D.
 
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The reason Apple DGAF about the Mac Pro is because it doesn't sell. It doesn't sell because a large amount of actual Pro's who would be the target market for this product can't agree with the direction it has taken, in being un-upgradeable in key ways. If something goes wrong, you will have downtime with this, can't walk into a store and buy an SSD to stick in it etc (if you don't happen to live near OWC).
Yet because it doesn't sell, Apple will not put any attention to it, instead focusing on the avenues that do sell, such as ultraportables and iphones.

The problem is, the key demographic Apple is ignoring completely by taking these stances, is the same key demographic that kept Apple afloat during the trouble years. It is by catering to this key demographic with actual pro products in the past (Previous Mac Pro which one could put hard drives in, video cards in, etc. with a modicum of ease) that Apple managed to stay open for business. Yet today that Apple is the juggernaut it is, it just will ignore cries from this key demographic about their products, which now fail to meet the standards of these pro's.

This meets the definition of catch 22. Apple does not care for the Mac Pro because it does not sell well; The Mac Pro does not sell well because Apple does not care enough to put in features people who would buy it would actually use, such as video cards internal, possibility for multiple internal hard disks, standard gumstick ssds (M2), etc.; The Mac Pro continues not to sell well, and hence Apple does not care to put resources to it.

The only way for Apple to reverse course is when the mass market (that doesn't give two ***** about the product, just that it's shiny and expensive) goes en masse to another company for some superior product in the eye-candy/bling department. This is starting to happen with a vast barrage of assault from the Android side of the river. If one key company releases one key product, shiny enough, expensive enough, and covet-worthy enough, the mass market will jump ship to get the next it-product.




If something makes an actual ding in Apple's current cash cow (iphone) or stars (rinkydink notebook line), then and only then Apple will turn back to its diehards. But it may then be too late.




Same can be spoken for the macbook pro line of desktops. It's gone from repairable and customizable to being an appliance. But hey, customers vote with their wallets, good thing that apparently most customers are no smarter than bricks.
 
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Any new improved Mac Pro would be welcome here. Held off upgrading my 5,1 thinking i could wait a year but now almost 4 years later no hope in site for anything improved and no apple or other 3rd party updates are available for the 6,1 nMacPro. They have broken the cycle of upgrade addiction.
I thin k it’s gotta be a PC for me. Even with Tims latest empty promise, an new new Mac Pro will still mean crippled and/or proprietary GPU/HDD.
 
First time this sort of thing has happened with the Mac.

You seem to be forgetting D300, D500 and D700. Bespoke AMD parts, different labels, branded as FirePro but lacking in ECC memory.

Also, I have a MacBook Pro Late 2011 which AMD advises I use windows drivers provided by Apple, and not them. Can't be the same as the production model there either.

I'm not sure why people see Nvidia as reluctant here; they're a business. There are videos showing them testing what is safe to assume was Pascal running on older Mac Pros. You can't enter a bid without something solid; I'm sure Nvidia have working Pascal with decent macOS drivers, but AMD won this round again to be GPU supplier. If anyone has cold feet, it's Apple; due to the way Apple integrate Thunderbolt they need a bespoke solution rather than something off the shelf. Perhaps Nvidia weren't able to agree to Apple's demands, we'll probably never know.
 
Radeon Pro GPUs from MBP, are Semi-Custom product between Apple and AMD. Apple requested fab sync between Samsung, and GloFo, to manufacture this GPU. IBM sold GloFo a Fab, with FD-SOI technology and engineers who were working on this project, it was made by Apple request. Years ago Charlie Demerjian wrote about this fab sync, and what was behind it in few analysis on SemiAccurate site.
AMD is Semi-Custom company. They have IP that they can offer, to everyone who will want it.

goMac is more correct than you give him credit. The funny thing is, it is just small part of things that will become apparent in upcoming future. You better pay attention.

P.S. I think you forgot one most important thing in the context of AMD. In 2012 and 2013 two very important engineers came back from Apple to AMD, to create both products that are going to be released this year: Ryzen and Vega, and Raven Ridge APUs are merged between them. Ask yourself, why AMD did gave Mantle to Apple, and why Apple adopted it in form of Metal?

There is a reason for all of this.
 
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Nope. They aren't. Even Apple's own public materials say they aren't, even if you don't believe all the other reports on the rumor sites.

They are based on Polaris 11. They are not stock Polaris 11. Not just a VRAM add on. The GPU is not stock Polaris 11.

First time this sort of thing has happened with the Mac.

What public material are you referring to? I don't see anything that suggests what you are claiming.
 
^^^ burn.

Of course all true, can any of the apologetics's counter this article with reason?

What reason could there possibly be? It's been over 500, 800 and 1100 days since the iMac, Mac Mini and Mac Pro updates, respectively. New processors have been available for the Mac Mini since, roughly forever. Why are they even still selling these? Does anyone actually buy the thing? The iMac isn't in such bad shape, but Kaby Lake and new AMD GPUs have been out for a while now. And we know the absurdity of the Mac Pro situation (not even a processor bump or price drop in about 2.5 years?). Apple must know how completely daft it sounds to say stuff like "The pro area is very important to us". Anyone with two neurons in their brain knows that if that were actually true, they wouldn't go 2.5 years without an update or any real hint of an update. And how much trust to get it right, when they finally do it, can we give them after that absurdity of the new Macbook Pro? It took you that long to get skylake processors in your flagship laptop and you gave us a buggy computer with GimmickBar! and a hefty price increase, *****? I don't even what to think of the Mac Pro equivalent. Is the 4 core going to start at $3.5K and ship with a GimmickBar Keyboard? Maybe it will come with LED lights on it like some sort of gaming rig too! Maybe we'll have color options.

Luckily, I'm not in a spot where I need a computer from Apple any more. I feel for you guys that do.
 
This is not a good time for an nMP release yet.
The right CPUs are not yet available, hope that now with Ryzen Intell will speed up SKL-W Xeons to beat Naples to the punch. On the other hand, they might wait and see how it fares.
GPUs are also a no go now. Not considering NVidia, which seems a given, Vega is still a couple of months away and we're not sure if there will be a Polaris SKU in the entry level nMP, or if it will an all Vega lineup, hopefully the latter with Vega 11 and 10.
Even the Polaris re-spin is a month or so away.
So, like I said, not the right time yet. A few more months and a perfect machine will be born. I still have my bet on SKL-W and Vega, and in case that comes out right, it will be perfect.
Of course, for some the lack of expandability will still be an issue.
 
What reason could there possibly be? It's been over 500, 800 and 1100 days since the iMac, Mac Mini and Mac Pro updates, respectively. New processors have been available for the Mac Mini since, roughly forever. Why are they even still selling these? Does anyone actually buy the thing? The iMac isn't in such bad shape, but Kaby Lake and new AMD GPUs have been out for a while now. And we know the absurdity of the Mac Pro situation (not even a processor bump or price drop in about 2.5 years?). Apple must know how completely daft it sounds to say stuff like "The pro area is very important to us". Anyone with two neurons in their brain knows that if that were actually true, they wouldn't go 2.5 years without an update or any real hint of an update. And how much trust to get it right, when they finally do it, can we give them after that absurdity of the new Macbook Pro? It took you that long to get skylake processors in your flagship laptop and you gave us a buggy computer with GimmickBar! and a hefty price increase, *****? I don't even what to think of the Mac Pro equivalent. Is the 4 core going to start at $3.5K and ship with a GimmickBar Keyboard? Maybe it will come with LED lights on it like some sort of gaming rig too! Maybe we'll have color options.

Luckily, I'm not in a spot where I need a computer from Apple any more. I feel for you guys that do.
Apple have a rabid fan base, of which I used to be one, (still a fan, just no longer rabid). Apple can and have counted on this for years.
 
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A few more months and a perfect machine will be born. I still have my bet on SKL-W and Vega, and in case that comes out right, it will be perfect.
Of course, for some the lack of expandability will still be an issue.

I agree, SKL-W+Vega seems most likely what they've been waiting for. I don't think internal expandability is ever coming back, though.
 
And there is still no TB3D, nor probably there will ever be, sad thing.
LG seems to have solved the WiFi problem and displays are back on track, earlier than expected.
I really wish Apple would do a 5K TB3D for the new awesome nMP coming :)
Add to that a new keyboard with TouchBar and a mouse that charges not from the bottom (I know it charges quickly and there's usually no need to have it charging while using it, but still it was very un-Apple to design it like that - or not, the connector is hidden, but it looks stupid charging like that) and we're all set.
 
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