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

[AidenShaw]

They sold off the appliance division: http://money.cnn.com/2016/01/15/investing/ge-haier-appliances-sale/index.html

Thanks for the update, hadn't seen that. Just went major appliance shopping, and GE was in the short list. Ended up all Bosch.

But, it does show that GE had a management structure in place that allowed the appliance unit to be spun off and continue to operate as "GE appliance" under different ownership.

 

[mathpunk]

Thanks for the update, hadn't seen that. Just went major appliance shopping, and GE was in the short list. Ended up all Bosch.

But, it does show that GE had a management structure in place that allowed the appliance unit to be spun off and continue to operate as "GE appliance" under different ownership.

Wise choice going with Bosch. GE has outsourced its appliances for a long time. Their alleged "US made" stuff was merely cheaply assembled components from China that was quite subpar compared with European brands.

I think GE found itself too diversified and got out of financial engineering and consumer products to focus on their core competencies, which I agree they execute well.

As for Apple, I really have no idea what they are planning to do with their desktop computing line. At this point it makes no sense to release a new Mac Pro until E5v5 (and probably Vega GPUs) are available. The AVX-512 instructions are a new era, and anything that makes use of them will have a huge advantage. On the other hand, perhaps Apple is building an ARM server chip with 64 cores or something, or scrapping the 6,1 design for something different entirely. We will just have to keep waiting to see what they will do, if anything.

 

[CWallace]

That's a management problem.

General Electric makes:

• kick-ass jet engines
• kick-ass industrial automation
• kick-ass power generation (nuclear, steam, wind, hydro and gas turbine)
• kick-ass home appliances
• ...

and somehow keeps top people in each field.

It's too bad that Apple can't pass the "walk and chew gum at the same time" test.

GE is organized along Divisional Lines, so each of those categories has their own senior management team and P&L.

Apple is organized along Functional lines, so everything is under one senior management team and P&L.

While Apple is not run purely to Functional Organizational standards, it does mean that the company tends to focus it's attention on a specific area and with iOS bringing it the majority of the cash, it gets the majority of the attention while Mac languishes.

On the flip side, if organized along Divisional Lines, it's quite possible the Mac Pro's low sales (as a relation to the entire Mac product line) would not have justified it's continued existence in the "cheese-grater" era, much less the "trashcan" era. So that we still have a Mac Pro at all might be thanks to Apple not paying too much attention on how profitable it is and how many they sell.

 

[now i see it]

The sticker price of all of the TrashcanPros ensured that they would never be popular. Clearly Apple never intended them to be, setting prices as they did.

 

[rjtiedeman]

It's been over 3 years. It's almost too late for a come back now. Most have switched to iMacs. Others have move to PCs. Why invest now?

 

[Mago]

They sold off the appliance division: http://money.cnn.com/2016/01/15/investing/ge-haier-appliances-sale/index.html

I think that Apple would like to have a kick ass product in every category... but I think that iPhone/iPad development has stretched them too thin. There may be a zillion employees at Apple, but really there probably are only a few top dog design jocks & they've got more on their plate than they can handle.

I have no faith in Apple this year:

1. iPhone 8 => an Samsung Galaxy Rip-Off
2. iPad 'Pro' => who still buys the post-pc idea?
3. Macs => no one at apple cares of, so ?
4. Watch => has anyone purchased it?
   
5. VR/AR => where is the developer workstation?
6. Music => how long will take to stockholders to be aware its red numbers, instead the beatiful makeup 'stats' that dont show its whole cost vs actual income?
7. IoT with Google late in (but strong) and with an far lead from Amazon, Apple only has chance to be a good 3rd place .
8. server, mac mini, Airport, cinema display, RIP the biggest tech corporation has nothing to offer, because its now a single product focused enterprise: iPhone.

 

[Mikael H]

The sticker price of all of the TrashcanPros ensured that they would never be popular. Clearly Apple never intended them to be, setting prices as they did.

Putting dual workstation GPUs and all-flash storage in anything will ensure a high price.
Was the nNP extremely expensive compared to what you got when it was first released? Not really. I remember speccing up a similar box from Lenovo and having my jaw drop at how cheap the Mac was in comparison.
If you needed it all, it was a great deal, but a) few people need it all, and b) a thing or two has happened in the computer industry since 2013/-14.

I'd actually go so far as to say that if you are a professional who needs specifically what the nMP provides and who knows that your needs won't change a lot in the next 3-5 years, this workstation still may not be a bad deal, viewed as an appliance with a specific use case.
It's a bit like purchasing a smaller or older firewall model when you know your internet connection doesn't put enough strain on it to motivate the latest and greatest. What sucks is still having to pay the "new product" premium after all this time.

 

[H2SO4]

As others have been saying, part of the problem for professionals is that we need to trust our suppliers to be able to keep giving us the tools we invest in. It gets even more imporant with Apple since they provide not only the hardware but also the operating systems we run:
If HPE stops presenting a server roadmap and become independable in their release schedule, I don't really care, because I know my server software will keep running just fine on SuperMicro or Dell or Lenovo or even commodity PC hardware in a pinch. But when Apple can't be trusted to release updated hardware in time (but other suppliers can, as is obviously the case at least when it comes to GPUs), for how long will their GPU-bound customers keep investing in tying themselves up to Apple's whim?

If Apple were consistent about always providing their workstations with the latest available GPUs (where we still see considerable enhancements in each new generation), then I think most true professionals could live with the fact that new CPUs fitting the task (where we don't) are released less often now than they used to be.

Instead we have no way of knowing whether the next huge investment in machines and software will be money straight down the toilet, and so we have a vocal crowd declaring that they're jumping ship to a more dependable supplier. Nothing strange there.

For me personally, I would love a powerful, stationary Mac that would allow me to have a single machine at home that was capable of covering both my work-related workflow and my private playing-around needs. That would easily be covered by a Mac Pro with more CPU cores and a single but powerful GPU. As it is, I work from a regular MBPr (the late 2013 model is plenty good enough), I have a server in the datacenter at work as a testbed for heavier VM loads than the laptop is capable of, and then I have a separate regular PC running Fedora Linux for the handful of games and simulators I still run in my spare time. This could easily be consolidated onto a single workstation running my favorite OS.

This is amongst the best posts here. I really wish someone would have the balls to put it to Tim Cook at one of his contrived press conferences.
[doublepost=1489388926][/doublepost]

Putting dual workstation GPUs and all-flash storage in anything will ensure a high price.
Was the nNP extremely expensive compared to what you got when it was first released? Not really. I remember speccing up a similar box from Lenovo and having my jaw drop at how cheap the Mac was in comparison.
If you needed it all, it was a great deal, but a) few people need it all, and b) a thing or two has happened in the computer industry since 2013/-14.

I'd actually go so far as to say that if you are a professional who needs specifically what the nMP provides and who knows that your needs won't change a lot in the next 3-5 years, this workstation still may not be a bad deal, viewed as an appliance with a specific use case.
It's a bit like purchasing a smaller or older firewall model when you know your internet connection doesn't put enough strain on it to motivate the latest and greatest. What sucks is still having to pay the "new product" premium after all this time.

Did you include all of the extra peripherals/cables and power supplies running off all of that cable soup?

 

[Mikael H]

This is amongst the best posts here. I really wish someone would have the balls to put it to Tim Cook at one of his contrived press conferences.
[doublepost=1489388926][/doublepost]
Did you include all of the extra peripherals/cables and power supplies running off all of that cable soup?

Thanks. Something tells me somebody already did, but when you put enough corporate prestige into a choice it'll be hard work for a while to change the course, and I guess that's what's happening right now.

Re peripherals:
I frankly fail to see the problem from a professional point of view.
Are you in the music business? You're bound to have an external sound module and cable braids running on to the rest of your gear. That's dongles for you no matter how large or small your computer case is.

Do you need storage? Where's the break-even between running DAS and investing in a proper SAN? You'll still need multiple disk cabinets or file servers to host your data and your backups, so if you have more than very few professionals running Mac Pros in a shop, I'd say you'll still probably be better off connecting them to separate LUNs on a good file server or SAN appliance via FC or iSCSI. Scratch media on the local flash storage, "gold tier" production data on flash disks in the SAN, and archives + backups on different sets of mechanical disks; all you need on the Mac Pro is one or two additional network cables (and really: you wouldn't be running machines with proper network needs over WiFi anyway).
Could some of that be moved inside the case of a workstation with disk bays? Yes, absolutely. And it would cause the usual administrative headache of ensuring that all important data on each individual workstation is being backed up.

 

[Chancha]

To put things in perspective, in two of my previous jobs:

1) a small print house with a creative team of 5, was always on budget, had to buy the lowest config single core PowerMac G5 and later the MacPro 1,1 2.0GHz dual core, slowly upgrading the RAM and storage down the road
2) a music label which shot and edited its own music video in house, had a fully tricked 8 core MacPro 3,1, fibre optic card and xserve RAID across the hall, and PCI audio interface

Apple made the trashcan MP design fully aware of the fact that both use cases for these two scenarios will not favor the machine. The issue is not even GPU related as those tasks don't require it at all. The sheer inflexibility of an overly streamlined machine meant for professional scenarios is blatant suicide, assuming they actually intended the machine for this audience that is. I still refuse to believe the notion that Apple has not abundant Pros, all signs are pointing to it for the longest time.

 

[JamesPDX]

Thanks. Something tells me somebody already did, but when you put enough corporate prestige into a choice it'll be hard work for a while to change the course, and I guess that's what's happening right now.

Re peripherals:
I frankly fail to see the problem from a professional point of view.
Are you in the music business? You're bound to have an external sound module and cable braids running on to the rest of your gear. That's dongles for you no matter how large or small your computer case is.

Do you need storage? Where's the break-even between running DAS and investing in a proper SAN? You'll still need multiple disk cabinets or file servers to host your data and your backups, so if you have more than very few professionals running Mac Pros in a shop, I'd say you'll still probably be better off connecting them to separate LUNs on a good file server or SAN appliance via FC or iSCSI. Scratch media on the local flash storage, "gold tier" production data on flash disks in the SAN, and archives + backups on different sets of mechanical disks; all you need on the Mac Pro is one or two additional network cables (and really: you wouldn't be running machines with proper network needs over WiFi anyway).
Could some of that be moved inside the case of a workstation with disk bays? Yes, absolutely. And it would cause the usual administrative headache of ensuring that all important data on each individual workstation is being backed up.

Anybody working in music/video/post should pickup a Black Magic Design MultiDock II. Two Thunderbolt II ports, four SSD bays, and you can chain multiple units together. You can RAID it if you like. No wall warts, no fans, single rack-space. It's probably my favorite piece of computer gear. Say it with me: No more enclosures, no more noisy NAS units that fail. This is the shirt. Honest. And yeah, I'd trade Firewire, Bluetooth, and WiFi for an extra Ethernet and Thunderbolt port on my 2012 Mini.

 

[JesterJJZ]

Anybody working in music/video/post should pickup a Black Magic Design MultiDock II.

Blackmagic really needs to switch all their devices to TB3. I've held off on most TB2 devices since I kinda figured it was a dead standard with a short lifespan. It never really caught on. TB3 seems like it will be more mainstream.

 

[Chancha]

Why does it need to be one or another? There are ATX mother boards out there with a Thunderbolt 3 port, AND multiples of SATA/PCI lanes for both internal and external multi-drive storage solutions. And these boards can cost less than a Thunderbolt PCI enclosure. The modular approach may make sense for portable, but is inevitably a limiting factor for desktop workstation / studio workgroups.

 

[Chicane-UK]

Putting dual workstation GPUs and all-flash storage in anything will ensure a high price.
Was the nNP extremely expensive compared to what you got when it was first released? Not really. I remember speccing up a similar box from Lenovo and having my jaw drop at how cheap the Mac was in comparison.
If you needed it all, it was a great deal, but a) few people need it all, and b) a thing or two has happened in the computer industry since 2013/-14.

I'd actually go so far as to say that if you are a professional who needs specifically what the nMP provides and who knows that your needs won't change a lot in the next 3-5 years, this workstation still may not be a bad deal, viewed as an appliance with a specific use case.
It's a bit like purchasing a smaller or older firewall model when you know your internet connection doesn't put enough strain on it to motivate the latest and greatest. What sucks is still having to pay the "new product" premium after all this time.

I think that's the kicker. If Apple had gradually dropped the price of the nMP over time, then perhaps enthusiasts on here wouldn't quite be so scathing (even if they were disappointed at the lack of new models). In fact in the UK, the Mac Pro went UP in price due to a currency adjustment when the new MacBook Pro's dropped which makes it an even more ludicrous situation (UK RRP for the two 'off the shelf' SKU's was £2,499 and £3,299... they are now priced at £2,999 and £3,899 which is a massive 18-20% increase!!)

I understand no company wants to lose money, and when our currency dropped because the market reaction to Brexit, things like this were inevitable. But on dated hardware like the Mac Pro it only just served to galvanise my disappointment with Apple.

 

[Mago]

My dream is Apple to fully re-design the trashcan (make it bigger, twice volume 3X TDP, no return to the ISA-PC form factor) it could host two sockets 80 PCIE lines and 2-3 300W class GPUs, have enough spare PCIe lines for 10 full bandwidth Thunderbolt 3, 8 RDIMM sockets (512GB ram) and dual NVMe, Ok the trash-can will be need fully re-done and a single socket version will be much more expensive (also open the GPU form factor for 3rd party manufacturers, allowing easier HW updates both for Apple as developer and Owners -at Apple authorized centers-).

This will put the Mac Pro (and Apple) back on track.

 

[pat500000]

Well....looks like Apple want to focus more on karaoke.

 

[CWallace]

I think that's the kicker. If Apple had gradually dropped the price of the nMP over time, then perhaps enthusiasts on here wouldn't quite be so scathing (even if they were disappointed at the lack of new models).

I expect the model did so poorly (in terms of RoI / sales) that rather than discount it, they've kept the price high to try and recover what they can on every sale they can make. Not sure a significant price-cut would move more product considering most people's issue with it on this forum is lack of spec and lack of expandability and a price cut addresses neither.

Apple also has a general history of not discounting an in-production product, especially when there is nothing supplanting it in the line-up (as the MacBook did to the MacBook Air, hence the MBA getting cheaper over time).

 

[now i see it]

I'd buy the 4 core tomorrow if it cost $1600. But 3 grand? Never.

 

[richinaus]

I expect the model did so poorly (in terms of RoI / sales) that rather than discount it, they've kept the price high to try and recover what they can on every sale they can make. Not sure a significant price-cut would move more product considering most people's issue with it on this forum is lack of spec and lack of expandability and a price cut addresses neither.

Apple also has a general history of not discounting an in-production product, especially when there is nothing supplanting it in the line-up (as the MacBook did to the MacBook Air, hence the MBA getting cheaper over time).

it probably is not providing a good ROI if it hasn't received an update in so long. I refuse to buy it even though I need a new workstation. In fact I will go Windows before the current macpro, like many others, and will be if nothing happens soon.
However Vega and Kabylake Xeon does look promising for mid this year [WWDC announcement?].

 

[deconstruct60]

it probably is not providing a good ROI if it hasn't received an update in so long. I refuse to buy it even though I need a new workstation.

Folks not buying isn't going to speed up a replacement.

However Vega and Kabylake Xeon does look promising for mid this year [WWDC announcement?].

There is no "Kabylake" Xeon E5 1600 class processor coming this 2017 or probably pragmatically next yar either. May get something in the Skylake-W class in the 2nd half of this year, but there is little to no chance of a 6+ core model coming with "Kabylake" any time soon ( Xeon E3 v5 class can't pull a Mac Pro load across the line up. That is drifting back into iMac range. ) [ For example this places an August time line : https://www.pcgamesn.com/intel/skylake-x-kaby-lake-x ]

Vega coupled to Xeon E5 1600 v4 might be tractable in mid 2017, but unlikely going to see Xeon "Ex" (whatever number change to because of new socket track ) class mid year. (maybe mid-late Q3 but likely no volume for Mac Pro until Q4). The E5 v4 just dropped in Q2 '16 and this class has not been on a 12 month cadence before the fab rollout slow downs. let alone now.

There is little that would be able to ship at or near WWDC that is next gen on Intel CPU side. Conceptually they could do yet another "sneak peak" at WWDC.

 

[Theisus]

Conceptually they could do yet another "sneak peak" at WWDC.

Could be wrong but I was under the impression that WWDC was no longer going to be a hardware event?

That being said there are no rules and they can do what they choose, it's just disappointing to be this deep into a hardware cycle without any insight on what they are planning.

 

[now i see it]

There definitely won't be a sneak peak for a spec bumped nMP at WWDC. The "sneak peak" presentation we got in 2013 was warranted due to the radical redesign. There's absolutely no reason to expect that Apple decided to dump the TrashcanPro literally into the trash and come out with a completely new redesign after only 3.5 years. We're stuck with this design until 2023... Or at least according to Mr Schiller.

 

[Aldaris]

... We're stuck with this design until 2023... Or at least according to Mr "can't innovate my ass" Schiller.

View attachment 692181

 

[Theisus]

I liken the MP to a Bugatti Chiron, in that it only appeals to a small portion of people and is not a huge money maker.

Why does VW keep the Bugatti brand in business if it is loosing money on the cars it sells and spending a fortune in R&D? It's the prestige of making one of the fastest, best designed production cars ever.

That is what the MP is SUPPOSE to do; capture the creative market who want the most out of their equipment. There is a level of prestige that comes with catering to these clients and being know as the best. These people are trend setters. Apple's margins are so high on their other products that it doesn't matter if the margins on the MP aren't massive, the value that catering to these clients bring manifests itself in other ways.

At one point in Apple's history, they understood this. Now however it's 1181 days (at the time of writing) without so much as spec bump, and they are trying to sell me an iPad as a super computer.

 

[res0lve]

I liken the MP to a Bugatti Chiron, in that it only appeals to a small portion of people and is not a huge money maker.

Why does VW keep the Bugatti brand in business if it is loosing money on the cars it sells and spending a fortune in R&D? It's the prestige of making one of the fastest, best designed production cars ever.

That is what the MP is SUPPOSE to do; capture the creative market who want the most out of their equipment. There is a level of prestige that comes with catering to these clients and being know as the best. These people are trend setters. Apple's margins are so high on their other products that it doesn't matter if the margins on the MP aren't massive, the value that catering to these clients bring manifests itself in other ways.

At one point in Apple's history, they understood this. Now however it's 1181 days (at the time of writing) without so much as spec bump, and they are trying to sell me an iPad as a super computer.View attachment 692187

Your Bugatti analogy works only if VW was selling the Chiron with an engine form VW Golf Mk3 and wheels from Skoda Fabia.

Buggati Chiron showcases the prowess of VW engineering and nMP shows only the stubbornness.