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

Almost the setup I want, 8 core, 32GB and 512GB SSD. But no dual Fiji for me, or water cooling - I don't want water near my nMP :)
I know it's safe but forget it!!
I believe they'll leave the Fiji GPUs as eGPUs only in case you need it, but Vega will render it useless.
I wouldn't count on the TBD with integrated GPU though.
[doublepost=1466800399][/doublepost]Zen is having trouble with the integrated USB 3.1 controller sourced from ASMedia? Bad news for AMD.
 
ManuelGomes said:
Not really. There's still no Mac capable of driving the new display (being TB3 5K@60Hz HDR that is)
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If those specs are accurate, that would imply that Apple will have to do some kind of refresh if for no other reason than TB3. That doesn't mean it will be anything we are looking for though.
 
Jim, a new display to come would surely have to be 5K@60Hz, if still being 27". Take the current (discontinued) TBD and Retina it. Can't go wrong.
Having a 5K iMac already, it's the only way to go.
And since HDR is hot right now, and rightly so, it's a must.
 
ManuelGomes said:
Not really. There's still no Mac capable of driving the new display (being TB3 5K@60Hz HDR that is).

Unfortunately, I got that same feeling too.
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5K is a reason for Apple to exit the display business. They've painted themselves into another corner that they can't get out of.

Apple can't release an excellent 4K TB3 monitor, because of the whine-nado (like a sharknado, but with whiny nerds instead of sharks) of cries of "it's not 5K".

They can't release a 5K monitor, since the pieces aren't in place for that.

If they did release a 5K monitor, it would be an ugly duckling. Video will be making the jump to 8K, meaning that the 5K will be useful for a short time to do 4K video with some room for toolbars.

With no good options, exiting the display business is the best choice.
 
The issue is the lack of DisplayPort 1.3 cards back when (I assume) the new Mac Pro was being drawn up. They already solved this issue though; their AMD GPUs in the Retina iMac 27" use a custom pin-out to drive the internal monitor.

As such, a TB display with a custom AMD GPU with the same wiring to drive the display, even if the connected device couldn't on its own.

I guess now the issue is, to prevent any degradation in performance, Apple almost certainly will limit this to TB3 hardware. Even most 'new' Macs still can't drive 5k without two cables, so this would make sense.

It does eat into their product lines a bit, but the Mac isn't their main area of interest any more, perhaps that concerns them less now than ever.
 
Draeconis said:
The issue is the lack of DisplayPort 1.3 cards back when (I assume) the new Mac Pro was being drawn up. They already solved this issue though; their AMD GPUs in the Retina iMac 27" use a custom pin-out to drive the internal monitor.

As such, a TB display with a custom AMD GPU with the same wiring to drive the display, even if the connected device couldn't on its own.

I guess now the issue is, to prevent any degradation in performance, Apple almost certainly will limit this to TB3 hardware. Even most 'new' Macs still can't drive 5k without two cables, so this would make sense.

It does eat into their product lines a bit, but the Mac isn't their main area of interest any more, perhaps that concerns them less now than ever.
Click to expand...
And when that concerns them less.. That would concern consumers more. There are lot of potential Mac Pros parts that Apple could use that would improve massively compared to current Mac Pro but they just got lazy because they got bunch of money and probably spending millions of dollars to party and go places to get recognized by universities. But whatever. If that's what they want then that's that. If amd gpu wasn't on their list...well...shucks.
 
pat500000 said:
It would probably be whatever is available at discounted price and that's that with Apple.
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So true. At least it will have great Broadwell-EP Xeon options, likely ranging to the E5-2697 V4 18 core 2.3 GHz, with the sweet spot being the E5-1680 V4 8 core 3.4 GHz for it's balanced performance at both lower thread counts and with all cores saturated. There is a 3.0 GHz 12 core E5-2687W v4 that could offer an even better sweet spot, but its 160W TDP is probably too much for Apple's clever little Tube.

An NVMe SSD is a given, maybe two of them if hardware engineers can sneak it past Apple executives. Imagine buying a Tube with the base 256GB SSD and opening it to find an empty PCIe slot for a second SSD! Will Apple bestow such a luxury upon us? Not likely, but we can dream!

The ultra-efficient 14nm Polaris GPUs are the perfect fit for the Mac Pro's inferior cooling system, which is why Apple will not use them. Maybe some "pro" version of the R9 nano, Fiji XT based with HBM, for example a two board version of the Radeon Pro Duo. It's an older 28nm fab so Apple can likely buy them at fire sale prices and maintain their rapacious margins. Tube buyers would be able to feel as if they had higher end video cards in their expensive contraption, at least for a few months anyways...
 
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AidenShaw said:
If they did release a 5K monitor, it would be an ugly duckling. Video will be making the jump to 8K, meaning that the 5K will be useful for a short time to do 4K video with some room for toolbars
Click to expand...

The jump to 8K now is mostly for content producers, not average consumers. 4K is not quite common yet. Until recently 8K cameras for making this content is just a recent development.
 
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rGiskard said:
So true. At least it will have great Broadwell-EP Xeon options, likely ranging to the E5-2697 V4 18 core 2.3 GHz, with the sweet spot being the E5-1680 V4 8 core 3.4 GHz for it's balanced performance at both lower thread counts and with all cores saturated. There is a 3.0 GHz 12 core E5-2687W v4 that could offer an even better sweet spot, but its 160W TDP is probably too much for Apple's clever little Tube.

An NVMe SSD is a given, maybe two of them if hardware engineers can sneak it past Apple executives. Imagine buying a Tube with the base 256GB SSD and opening it to find an empty PCIe slot for a second SSD! Will Apple bestow such a luxury upon us? Not likely, but we can dream!

The ultra-efficient 14nm Polaris GPUs are the perfect fit for the Mac Pro's inferior cooling system, which is why Apple will not use them. Maybe some "pro" version of the R9 nano, Fiji XT based with HBM, for example a two board version of the Radeon Pro Duo. It's an older 28nm fab so Apple can likely buy them at fire sale prices and maintain their rapacious margins. Tube buyers would be able to feel as if they had higher end video cards in their expensive contraption, at least for a few months anyways...
Click to expand...
I used to think that the computers were made based on the characteristic of the company leadership. If the leader of the company was brutal and visionary, products would be more visionary and brutal like products. If the leader was whimpy or sissy, then the products would come out as sissy. They type of products that are being produced demostrates the leadership they have. I want a manly and honorable leadership in a company. Not tim crook.
 
AidenShaw said:
They can't release a 5K monitor, since the pieces aren't in place for that.
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One of their biggest selling products is a 5k display, with a computer attached, and they can sell it for the same price Dell charges for the display alone.

Apple has an economy of scale for these things that simply isn't available to anyone else.

Everything gets released at once, when there's TB3 on all the machines.

A point to consider, and I don't know if it's possible, but Dells 5k display works as a 4k display with a single input. Anyone know what the quality of the picture is like in that mode? A 5k eGPU retina display that uses its own gpu for machines with tb3 but no dGPU, which shuts down its gpu for machines with a good dGPU - that's where we've heard so far. A rabbit out of the hat trick, would be for it to act as a 4k monitor for machines with usb3-typec, ie both generations of macbook one, presuming Apple doesn't spec-bump the mbone to tb3 so soon.
 
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