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

[mattspace]

Wow. I still can’t see a bill like that surviving in a western society such as Australia appears to be. It sounds like a form of communism?

Similar sort of authoritarianism but by way of rightwing neoliberal capitalists, held policy-hostage by christian fundamentalists.

Suffice to say, with laws like this, and trends in this direction of "national security" concerns pretty much engulfing most western democracies, it's easy to see why Apple would be charting a course of attempting to build a government-proof ecosystem. If it's self-evident that you cant ask them to do something for technical reasons, they never have to come out and say"no".

 

[koyoot]

"Privacy" is the only thing that Apple is doing right, lately.

 

[barmann]

the legislation pretty much enables the federal police to install anything they want anywhere, including requiring employees to act in an enabling role against their employers, and to compel, for example Apple, to serve up a compromised version of an app (or operating system) to a particular person, if the in-transit encryption can't be broken.

So lets say you're a public servant, suspected of leaking a document about how badly a government department is failing in its mission - a document the government is supposed to disclose, but is using cabinet-in-confidence, commercial-in-confidence, or ministerial discretion to sit upon, and not release. Lets say you were suspected of leaking said document to a journalist via whatsapp, and therefore the actual transit of the document is encrypted and can't be read. The legislation would allow the police to compel whatsapp to provide them with a compromised version of their app, that has back doors for the police, compel Apple to host it, and to push it as an update to the people suspected of being involved. The legislation would even allow for all this to be done, without the management of whatsapp or Apple ever being made aware of what is happening, by allowing the police to go directly to programmers within the various companies, with "do it or go to jail, tell anyone and go to jail", or they can go to the companies with "x million dollars a day fine if you don't do this".

I don't know how to put this delicately - you are full of it .

Since the dawn of time, law enforcement agencies have been granted access to people's private information, if and when it is required .
There is no discussion on whether or not this is acceptable; it is and there is no point in arguing otherwise .

However, what constitutes a necessity for such invasion of privacy is very much subject to discussion , and law makers , police and intelligence agencies, civil rights groups etc. are constantly working on finding appropriate solutions .

If there is one group that must never have a say in the matter - to get back on topic - it is private corporations .
In civilized countries, corporations aren't people , hence they have no voice re. political or public security issues, they simply are to comply .
[doublepost=1544009925][/doublepost]

Wow. I still can’t see a bill like that surviving in a western society such as Australia appears to be. It sounds like a form of communism?

Never mind communism .
Look up Patriot Act .
Alive and well .

 

[mattspace]

I don't know how to put this delicately - you are full of it .

Well here's the thing, I'm in the country where it's happening, where all citizens browsing histories, phone records and online metadata are required to stored, identifiably, by internet service providers for a minimum 24 months and are searchable without a court order by pretty much any "official" organisation, be it local councils or the RSPCA (animal welfare charity), and you're in Germany opining about it.

I'm pretty sure these laws wouldn't fly in the EU, but feel free to snipe. Or, you know, you could actually look up the legislation yourself, I've pointed links to articles about it.

A summary of the current decryption / mandated backdoors legislation, for people who want to get an idea of the horror.

For a perspective in comparison to America - as I understand it, in America you cannot be compelled to provide a password (I assume due to protections against self-incrimination), on the grounds that the contents of a person's mind cannot be ordered to be divulged - police can't demand the passcode to your phone, for example. Australia has no constitutional concept of that sort of limitation to government power. If you have a password protected device, or hard drive etc, you can be jailed more or less indefinitely until you provide said password. Protections against self-incrimination are similarly tenuous, most jurisdictions here have adopted a British take on the Miranda warning, which allows the veracity of testimony to be considered of lower quality, if a defendant chooses to exercise their right not to answer questions upon arrest, and there are multiple tribunals (anti-corruption, national security etc) in which the right to remain silent is specifically excluded. Funnily enough, there's no federal anti-corruption organisation. In America you have HIPPA and privacy legislation, in Australia we have a government that considers privacy legislation covering medical and social security systems doesn't apply to a person if they publicly criticise the government - it's called "correcting the record" and allows the minister or their staff to brief journalists on the personal details of an individual, using information that would otherwise be covered by privacy law.

 

[Manzanito]

For Apple's sake, I hope that you are right.

Wishful thinking on my part, I know

 

[barmann]

Well here's the thing, I'm in the country where it's happening, where all citizens browsing histories, phone records and online metadata are required to stored, identifiably, by internet service providers for a minimum 24 months and are searchable without a court order by pretty much any "official" organisation, be it local councils or the RSPCA (animal welfare charity), and you're in Germany opining about it.

I'm pretty sure these laws wouldn't fly in the EU, but feel free to snipe. Or, you know, you could actually look up the legislation yourself, I've pointed links to articles about it.

A summary of the current decryption / mandated backdoors legislation, for people who want to get an idea of the horror.

Well, we are way off topic, but I'll bite .

Off the top of my head, I think ISPs in Germany are required to store user data for at least 12 months, but I might be mistaken . The actual time limit might not be a matter of public record .

I've been on the receiving end of user data being given to non government parties by my ISP, which is one reason why I'm vigourosly demanding appropriate procedure for sharing of any user data .
As it is today in the EU, courts and law makers have granted access to ISP data to entities not even connected to law enforcement, which is a scandal .

However, in my opionion proper law enforcement agencies need to be granted access to any and all online data - if there is a justifiable cause and a court order (!) .

When private corporations like Apple use their wealth and influence to hinder legal proceedings, it's obstruction at best, and will be treason eventually .
Personally, I think Apple already crossed that line .

Hence, the T2 chip is unpatriotic .

 

[mattspace]

However, in my opionion proper law enforcement agencies need to be granted access to any and all online data - if there is a justifiable cause and a court order (!)

The law here already provides for people suspected of a crime to be forced to decrypt their devices. What this new legislation requires is to force companies to change their products in order to facilitate government back doors, so that the encrypted data can be seen without the suspect being made aware of the fact they are being investigated - for example, forcing Apple to push the install of a version of iMessage that has a silent VNC client, which broadcasts the user's screen to the police, and that's simply not a tenable situation - there is no sort of back door that is useful to government, that would not also be available to criminal elements. It's termed "the war on maths" here for just that reason, because encryption and security has no middle ground.

The reason the tech companies are up in arms, is that would mean Australian IT companied, like Atlassian which is now a world-wide entity, will become synonymous with "compromised security" and considered inherently untrustworthy. When the Goods & Services Tax was extended to wholly foreign companies selling to Australian citizens, Amazon withdrew all sales of physical goods from the Australian market, instead setting up a local Amazon Au store. By way of comparison, a coffee table photography book that would have cost $AU90 including shipping, went up to AU$200 when sourced thorough the local store.

For Apple to no longer be able to assure customers that their privacy is protected, from any and all prying eyes, would be an existential threat to the company, and potentially ruinous to its shareholders.

And all of this will depend on an assumption that criminals would not just roll their own *criminal* software that doesn't pay attention to these laws, and build it upon custom built phones - just like they did in the past before encrypted communication on retail devices became widespread.

And to add chutzpah to the situation, most of the government ministers responsible for this legislation use end-to-end encrypted 3rd party messaging services for cabinet communication, precisely because it interferes with Freedom on Information requests.

 

[ibgb]

The legislation would allow the police to compel whatsapp to provide them with a compromised version of their app, that has back doors for the police, compel Apple to host it, and to push it as an update to the people suspected of being involved.

WhatsApp is Facebook, so data, chats are stored in Facebook data domain database on say an iphone. Facebook can read the WhatsApp locally stored data as easily as they read other Facebook info from your iphone. Of course, they say they don't do that, ...yet. Chats are secure during transit, maybe, but not at rest and stored on an iphone.

 

[mattspace]

WhatsApp is Facebook, so data, chats are stored in Facebook data domain database on say an iphone. Facebook can read the WhatsApp locally stored data as easily as they read other Facebook info from your iphone. Of course, they say they don't do that, ...yet. Chats are secure during transit, maybe, but not at rest and stored on an iphone.

Yup, and the phone is locked - this legislation is about either breaking the security in transit, or breaking the security on device, so that it can be read without the target knowing they're being surveilled.

 

[ibgb]

Yup, and the phone is locked - this legislation is about either breaking the security in transit, or breaking the security on device, so that it can be read without the target knowing they're being surveilled.

I think Facebook can already do that.

 

[mattspace]

I think Facebook can already do that.

Well, i guess it depends on whether you think Facebook would capitulate without being forced to do so - last I saw they were lining up to oppose the legislation.

Laughably, the aspect of it that's coming out today, the only bodies that are explicitly prohibited from using the powers granted in this legislation, are the state-level anti-corruption bodies that investigate politicians.

*postscript* the legislation has been deferred until next year, as the minority government filibusters the last session of parliament, to prevent a vote on a piece of legislation put forward by an independent member (with support of the opposition), that would have required children in Australias offshore migration detention camps, to be brought to the mainland for emergency medical care.

So our IT sector survives for another couple of months.

Check that, the "opposition" is going out of its way to pass the government's laws after hours, because they're a bunch of cowards who are afraid of being accused of being "weak" on national security.

Now back to our regularly scheduled discussion of... a new Mac Pro?

 

[barmann]

Yup, and the phone is locked - this legislation is about either breaking the security in transit, or breaking the security on device, so that it can be read without the target knowing they're being surveilled.

I always thought that kind of was the point of surveillance by law enforcement ...

You are aware that all social media 'providers' , all chat apps, and most search engines are already tracking you, are storing your data and are selling it to anyone ?
Same with Apple, MS, Amazon etc . ?

They don't sell the most private details and content, as even in the US that would get them jailed, but they sure have stored it and analyze and milk it as good as they can .

Oh, and the next MP must run Snow Leopard and have plenty of standard slots .

 

[mattspace]

I always thought that kind of was the point of surveillance by law enforcement ...

No surveillance law (ever before enacted here at least) allowed the state to compel an employee of a company to effectively unlock the doors of its premises, and threatened jail time if they tell their manager they've done it. This law is unique in that it doesn't require law enforcement to go to the legal department or head of the company, and have them order the capabilities to be put in, or give them the opportunity to challenge the order. They can target and squeeze low level employees directly, with jail time as a penalty for refusing to comply, or informing anyone of what was done. I'd be curious if a law of that nature was on the books in the EU, or if even the Patriot Act went that far.

If you're an Australian, and you work in Australia for an overseas tech company, like for example Apple, you're no longer safe to employ.

And yeah, it specifically prevents these powers being used by the anti-corruption bodies that police politicians and public servants.

You are aware that all social media 'providers' , all chat apps, and most search engines are already tracking you, are storing your data and are selling it to anyone ?
Same with Apple, MS, Amazon etc . ?

This would be why you never use the internet without a logless VPN provider, and use anti-tracking utilities like ghostery etc, it's not perfect, but it's better than nothing.

They don't sell the most private details and content, as even in the US that would get them jailed, but they sure have stored it and analyze and milk it as good as they can .

Sure, but Apple can't send me to jail based on what's in my iMessage history.

Oh, and the next MP must run Snow Leopard and have plenty of standard slots .

Well, I think we can consign snowy to VMs, but hearhear, more slots rabblerabble!

 

[barmann]

Well, I think we can consign snowy to VMs, ...

I don't know what a VM is, but them are fighting words ...

 

[danwells]

It won't be less than an 8-core Xeon-W (e.g. iMac Pro) as a base configuration, and probably more than that - Apple wants this to be the fastest Mac yet, not "base configuration is slower than a glorified iMac". By the time they get it out the door, there may well be an 8-core consumer iMac, which would move the iMac Pro to "10 cores and beyond" or even "12 cores and beyond". At a bare minimum, the base Mac Pro will be as fast and core-laden as the base iMac Pro, and I'd actually expect it to start a step faster. I expect it to use a "big-socket' Xeon to accommodate the 28-core option at the top end, and possibly dual processor options, although the lesser options will probably be essentially Xeon-W chips in the bigger socket.

Similarly, I wouldn't expect any less than 1TB of SSD connected through the T2 (T3?) as a minimum option. If I had to guess, the configurations will be 2 TB, 4 TB and 8 TB. I am certainly hoping there are standard M2 SSD slots in addition to the proprietary storage going through the T2 (I would not expect MacOS to boot off of anything except the proprietary storage).

Depending on whether the chips have 4 (standard Xeon-W) or 6 (standard on big-socket Xeons) memory channels, the base RAM will probably be either 32 or 48 GB, using 8 GB DIMMs and filling all channels. I'd hope for 2 slots per channel, which would give a maximum RAM capacity of 256 GB or 384 GB using standard 32 GB DIMMs, with the possibility of doubling that if 64 GB DIMMs were supported. Hopefully the RAM slots won't be too badly blocked by some other component - we don't want to think about what the Apple Tax on half a terabyte of RAM might be!

They will do something to block NVidia video cards... Best case is that the video card(s) are in standard PCIe x16 slots, but they have a nonstandard power connector and an internal video-out that routes the video signal over Thunderbolt 3 - they might not even have a back plate if the only output is over TB3. That would make it worthwhile for AMD to keep making upgrade cards - the differences from a standard card are trivial, and even a run of a couple of thousand is worth it.

The middle (and probably most likely) case is that the video card is easily replaceable, but it's more nonstandard than the above. One possibility is that the PCIe connector also carries the video-out to TB3 (and/or the extra power), and isn't a standard PCIe connector, while the card is a nonstandard shape. It's probably electrically just PCIe, but there are substantial physical barriers...

The worse case is that Apple just solders the video chip on the motherboard...

If there are any fully standard PCIe slots, they'll be x4 - Apple may well have heard the complaints about music interfaces and the like, but will be dedicated to keeping NVidia cards out.

This is a powerful machine, but it's not a cheap one. ~$6499 base, with options that reach the stratosphere. I wouldn't be at all surprised to see a $20,000 configuration without putting huge amounts of money into Apple-Taxed RAM and storage. Even without getting into dual processors, the highest processor upgrade (to 28 or 32 cores, depending on what Intel has out by when the machine is released) will probably be a $5000+ option. Similarly, a $5000+ video card upgrade wouldn't surprise me. In both cases, there will be other options in between the base and the monster upgrade, of course. It will probably be possible to get the machine well over $30,000 by recklessly paying Apple Taxes. 512 GB of 2666 MHz ECCRAM is over $5000 at Newegg, and really top-end PCIe storage like Apple uses is at least $350/TB even before Apple Taxes. If they permit both dual processors and dual video cards, there's probably an insane configuration pushing $50,000 (who knows if they'll ever sell one of those).​

 

[Wuiffi]

tbh. I am not expecting to see anything I really want to buy anymore from Apple. I don't need ECC ram or Xeon. What I want is a fast 8 core processor with very good graphics which is partly upgradeable. And all of that for a decent price. I am ok to pay an apple premium, but I don't want to spend 5000$ or more.

I will probably wait for the WWDC and if they don't announce then, I will go for a custom Ryzen 3000 + Navi build. For years now it felt like it's time to say goodbye to the mac. Doesn't feel like Apple really likes their own products anymore.

Evolution with big price increases instead of revolution and being competitive. As a long time Apple fan it does hurt a bit.

 

[BillyBobBongo]

I will probably wait for the WWDC and if they don't announce then, I will go for a custom Ryzen 3000 + Navi build.

I've been looking at putting a Ryzen build together for a while now, will most likely hold off and wait for the next generation. It's going to be an interesting year for AMD in 2019, even more so for Intel if the leaks are to be believed!

 

[fuchsdh]

tbh. I am not expecting to see anything I really want to buy anymore from Apple. I don't need ECC ram or Xeon. What I want is a fast 8 core processor with very good graphics which is partly upgradeable. And all of that for a decent price. I am ok to pay an apple premium, but I don't want to spend 5000$ or more.

I will probably wait for the WWDC and if they don't announce then, I will go for a custom Ryzen 3000 + Navi build. For years now it felt like it's time to say goodbye to the mac. Doesn't feel like Apple really likes their own products anymore.

Evolution with big price increases instead of revolution and being competitive. As a long time Apple fan it does hurt a bit.

I have to ask why you're waiting since Apple has never and will never make the xMac you want?

 

[koyoot]

I've been looking at putting a Ryzen build together for a while now, will most likely hold off and wait for the next generation. It's going to be an interesting year for AMD in 2019, even more so for Intel if the leaks are to be believed!

AM4 will provide us with 16C/32T CPUs, with high clocks. Threadripper will have at least double the core count of AM4, and possibly - even 64 cores. What Intel will come up with?

10 cores on Socket 1151, with Comet Lake(rejoice, 6C/6T CPUs on Core i3 line!). On server: dual CPU, 350W 56 core monsters that cannot be cooled in any other way than Liquid cooling(I remember how AMD was mocked for such ridiculous power levels. Fun times ahead...).

Now, imagine that world jumps onto Epyc/Threadripper/Ryzen bandwagon. How ridiculous will Apple computers look when they will offer inferior CPUs? Hooray for vendor lock up!

 

[Manzanito]

AM4 will provide us with 16C/32T CPUs, with high clocks. Threadripper will have at least double the core count of AM4, and possibly - even 64 cores. What Intel will come up with?

10 cores on Socket 1151, with Comet Lake(rejoice, 6C/6T CPUs on Core i3 line!). On server: dual CPU, 350W 56 core monsters that cannot be cooled in any other way than Liquid cooling(I remember how AMD was mocked for such ridiculous power levels. Fun times ahead...).

Now, imagine that world jumps onto Epyc/Threadripper/Ryzen bandwagon. How ridiculous will Apple computers look when they will offer inferior CPUs? Hooray for vendor lock up!

They already look bad only offering amd gpus.

 

[Wuiffi]

I have to ask why you're waiting since Apple has never and will never make the xMac you want?

pretty easy: macOS. Have been using Macs for decades and don't want to switch operating systems. There is still a tiny bit of hope left, that Apple will actually give us something with good value and that may serve my needs.

 

[AidenShaw]

AM4 will provide us with 16C/32T CPUs, with high clocks. Threadripper will have at least double the core count of AM4, and possibly - even 64 cores. What Intel will come up with?

Meanwhile, the list of software that can use more than a handful of cores remains pretty short.

 

[fuchsdh]

pretty easy: macOS. Have been using Macs for decades and don't want to switch operating systems. There is still a tiny bit of hope left, that Apple will actually give us something with good value and that may serve my needs.

I just don’t see that happening. Even if the 7,1 is the second coming of the cheese grater, you don’t seem all that interested in workstation CPUs and thus it’s going to be more expensive than an i9 for no benefit to you. If you’re interested in staying in MacOS getting an iMac when they update them and sticking an eGPU off it might be more economical.

 

[shuto]

Is no one expecting the Modular Mac Pro to have official nVidea GPU support?

Maybe its just wishful thinking, but I thought Mojave having a boot screen with RTX 2080ti was a sign this might be a possibility. And also with Apple rumoured to have a contract with AMD until 2018, maybe this is the reason Apple are not blessing new nVidea drivers for 5,1 Macs?

I've made my decision, if the Modular Mac Pro doesn't have official Apple support for nVidea cards it sadly means its PC time for me (because I want to use Octane render and Redshift render for my work).

 

[koyoot]

Meanwhile, the list of software that can use more than a handful of cores remains pretty short.

Which shows lack of competence in software devs.

Is no one expecting the Modular Mac Pro to have official nVidea GPU support?

Maybe its just wishful thinking, but I thought Mojave having a boot screen with RTX 2080ti was a sign this might be a possibility. And also with Apple rumoured to have a contract with AMD until 2018, maybe this is the reason Apple are not blessing new nVidea drivers for 5,1 Macs?

I've made my decision, if the Modular Mac Pro doesn't have official Apple support for nVidea cards it sadly means its PC time for me (because I want to use Octane render and Redshift render for my work).

YAY. No CUDA cupport. Open Source initiatives for the win!

Yeah. AMD has contract to the end of 2018. And provided Apple with their brand new, developed in tandem with Apple GPU: Vega 12(Radeon Pro vega 20).

Everybody said that Nvidia is booted out of Macs for foreseeable future.

They already look bad only offering amd gpus.

Oh, another one of those "Pros" who judge usefulness of any GPU based on gaming benchmarks.

Its only your problem that you locked yourself to CUDA, instead of supporting open initiatives.