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

[deconstruct60]

I might be mistaken, but I remember reading Apple stating "the mMP is not a product for this *fiscal* year". Companies close their FY generally around March/April, therefore I would not expect them to tell us anything before.

Apple was talking calendar year.

"...
. This time around, Boger was succinct: the promised Mac Pro will be a 2019 product.

“We want to be transparent and communicate openly with our pro community, so we want them to know that the Mac Pro is a 2019 product. It’s not something for this year.” In addition to transparency for pro customers, there’s also a larger fiscal reason behind it.

“We know that there’s a lot of customers today that are making purchase decisions on the iMac Pro and whether or not they should wait for the Mac Pro,” says Boger.
[/quote]

Nothing there is about Apple's or some other specific company's fiscal year. If not marked out that way then the default of calendar year is most appropriate.

Hence, their engineers might have developed a prototype with a Xeon W from an iMP, but updating the board and the chipset to the new CPU/GPU available at launch shouldn't take much longer than what a typical PC OEM would need to come up with a new product. They had (at least) three years to develop it. I get they want to do it Apple-style, therefore needing time to develop a concept and its USPs, but if they need more than a few months to update the mMP to a newgen CPU/GPU, then the project is already a failure, IMHO.

The three years span of time is immaterial if there aren't folks assigned to the project actively working on it. Apple has a functional skill matrix organization. If folks are pulled off of project X to fight the fire on project Y or assigned more projects than they have bodies to distribute/allocate to them, then things will simply take more time.

It probably isn't solely external component partners timeline issues.

Apple has had "time enough" though. But PC OEM often have longer than the 3-4 month horizons many folks have expectations on these boards. The bigger difference is keeping the development pipeline fully resources and allocated sufficiently far in advance and steady.

 

[mikehalloran]

Why not look at the new Mac Mini and an EGPU then?
I think it’s a safe bet to assume the new Mac Pro will be ludicrously expensive. They’ve never reduced the price of the trash can model and they must be paying peanuts for its 4 year old plus components by now.

It will surprise me if the price doesn’t begin at $14,995 — which may or may not include the new monitor. I expect configurations to go way up in price.

Per the second TechCrunch article, it’s being designed for the film and animation industry to run bleeding edge AV apps also being developed by Apple. No reason not to believe it.

https://techcrunch.com/2018/04/05/a...es-2019-imac-pro-will-be-shaped-by-workflows/

With competition from the likes of $15k–$150k 8–52 Core rendering stations running Windows 10, the target industry is already paying this coin. Recent videos of 10–20 2018 Minis $40k–$80k) with eGPU linked through the T2 chip rendering a single animation file show you the kind of tasks this 7.1 will be expected to perform. BTW, 10 linked top end 6-core 1TB Minis are a lot less money than a $150,000 52 Core Maya Box with 8TB RAM and 8TB SSD.

Why in the world would Apple build a new Mac Pro that cannot outperform a large number of Minis? What’s the point?

 

[AidenShaw]

What’s the point?

That's been the feeling of many people when looking at Apple products that are laughingly labeled as "Pro".

What's the point?

 

[apolloa]

It will surprise me if the price doesn’t begin at $14,995 — which may or may not include the new monitor. I expect configurations to go way up in price.

Per the second TechCrunch article, it’s being designed for the film and animation industry to run bleeding edge AV apps also being developed by Apple. No reason not to believe it.

https://techcrunch.com/2018/04/05/a...es-2019-imac-pro-will-be-shaped-by-workflows/

With competition from the likes of $15k–$150k 8–52 Core rendering stations running Windows 10, the target industry is already paying this coin. Recent videos of 10–20 2018 Minis $40k–$80k) with eGPU linked through the T2 chip rendering a single animation file show you the kind of tasks this 7.1 will be expected to perform. BTW, 10 linked top end 6-core 1TB Minis are a lot less money than a $150,000 52 Core Maya Box with 8TB RAM and 8TB SSD.

Why in the world would Apple build a new Mac Pro that cannot outperform a large number of Minis? What’s the point?

I think you’ll be lucky if the new machine supports dual CPU’s let alone up to 52 cores. But we will see, interesting article and view point though. I don’t think apple will sell this machine initially with the idea to outperform several Minis, just one.

 

[barmann]

Per the second TechCrunch article, it’s being designed for the film and animation industry to run bleeding edge AV apps also being developed by Apple. No reason not to believe it.

https://techcrunch.com/2018/04/05/a...es-2019-imac-pro-will-be-shaped-by-workflows/

That's a fairly old article, and it's just parroting the phrases Apple wanted to get out there back then .

Apple and bleeding edge apps ? Sure , that's what they do . (...)
No reason to believe any of it .

 

[Boil]

Apple and bleeding edge apps...

Like when they bought Nothing Real & developed a new version of Shake...!

Oh, wait...

 

[goMac]

I’m sure it will be configurable up to and beyond a $15k price, but I think it will start at $3000-$4000.

 

[Aldaris]

I’d like to see a barebones entry at 2 or 2.5k like a transition between Mac mini and pro.

 

[Boil]

I’d like to see a barebones entry at 2 or 2.5k like a transition between Mac mini and pro.

That would be the fabled xMac, which in the Hackintosh world is an ITX motherboard & single GPU...

Which is something Apple should really do, bigger than a Mac mini, smaller than a Mac Pro...

And most folks who need a discrete GPU only really need one, so...

 

[fuchsdh]

That would be the fabled xMac, which in the Hackintosh world is an ITX motherboard & single GPU...

Which is something Apple should really do, bigger than a Mac mini, smaller than a Mac Pro...

And most folks who need a discrete GPU only really need one, so...

I don't think a $2.5K Mac Pro makes an xMac any more than the previous Mac Pros at those prices did. People who want xMacs will complain that it costs too much to get higher-speed Xeons and that ECC RAM is too expensive. They want a tower/ATX-flavor form factor with i7 or i9 parts.

Biggest advantage with a low starting cost is (presuming upgradeability/modularity) it's easier for different use cases to build a machine that fits their needs. The did specifically mention at the roundtable that there were customers who didn't need the dual GPU power, so at least it's on their mind.

 

[Boil]

I’d like to see a barebones entry at 2 or 2.5k like a transition between Mac mini and pro.

That would be the fabled xMac, which in the Hackintosh world is an ITX motherboard & single GPU...

Which is something Apple should really do, bigger than a Mac mini, smaller than a Mac Pro...

And most folks who need a discrete GPU only really need one, so...

I don't think a $2.5K Mac Pro makes an xMac any more than the previous Mac Pros at those prices did. People who want xMacs will complain that it costs too much to get higher-speed Xeons and that ECC RAM is too expensive. They want a tower/ATX-flavor form factor with i7 or i9 parts.

Biggest advantage with a low starting cost is (presuming upgradeability/modularity) it's easier for different use cases to build a machine that fits their needs. The did specifically mention at the roundtable that there were customers who didn't need the dual GPU power, so at least it's on their mind.

My commentary was towards a (non-existent) product that sits between the Mac mini & the Mac Pro...

This would be the xMac that has been talked about before, an expandable consumer machine...

You know, like an ITX build with a single discrete GPU...

 

[mikehalloran]

The next Mac Pro will not be yet anther consumer machine. Apple has quite a few already.

Look whom it’s being built for and who’s testing it. Look at the competition.

I’m not buying into the low cost wishful thinking.

 

[Boil]

The next Mac Pro will not be yet anther consumer machine. Apple has quite a few already.

Look whom it’s being built for and who’s testing it. Look at the competition.

I’m not buying into the low cost wishful thinking.

No one is saying that, the above is a side track on this thread...

I fully expect the new modular Mac Pro to be Xeon-based, with Vega II GPU(s)...

But I would prefer to see them Threadripper-based, with Vega II GPU(s)...

As I would LOVE to see a new xMac product line from Apple that gives a single GPU slot headless consumer (Ryzen CPUs) solution...

 

[Biped]

The next Mac Pro will not be yet anther consumer machine. Apple has quite a few already.

Look whom it’s being built for and who’s testing it. Look at the competition.

I’m not buying into the low cost wishful thinking.

Apple has no business in enterprise, they ran from that long time ago.
Their only market left is consumer, and 'pro-suuumer'.

A lot of that 'pro-suuumer' pool has jumped ship for various valid business reasons.

If Apple expects any decent sales/uptake ... it better be appealing to consumer at the basic configuration levels, they are the only ones left without a sour taste in their mouth. Then maybe with options to satisfy those 'still circling the airport'.

 

[barmann]

The next Mac Pro will not be yet anther consumer machine. Apple has quite a few already.

Look whom it’s being built for and who’s testing it. Look at the competition.

I’m not buying into the low cost wishful thinking.

Well - who is it built for , and who is testing it ?
Is there any actual information on that ?
[doublepost=1547044291][/doublepost]

I’d like to see a barebones entry at 2 or 2.5k like a transition between Mac mini and pro.

Trouble is , a low entry price MP would be nice, but doesn't mean much if proprietary technology makes updates or upgrades prohibitively expensive .

I'd rather pay a bit more for a box with lots of industry standard parts, slots and ports , than throw another chastity belt design like the tcMP and Mini in the mix .

 

[askunk]

Meanwhile, Pixar is buying Nvidia RTX...

FYI, if you want to follow the AMD keynote at CES, it's here in about 50 mins:

 

[Aldaris]

Trouble is , a low entry price MP would be nice, but doesn't mean much if proprietary technology makes updates or upgrades prohibitively expensive .

I tend to agree with you. However I thing apple needs to think big on the spectrum here. There have been a lot that have left, and a lot were ringing the belll when the tcMac was unveiled. The if Apple doesn’t hit this out of the park (between a decent lineup whether they stick to the 3 sku model or rumored scalable sku they need to entice people to stay and come back. They also need to show they aren’t in a thermal corner or other self engineered situation. If we get the cube 3.0 it’s safe to say the professionals/sumers have left the building).

Apple could reasonably have an entry i9 and then tiers/upgraded Xeon CPU’s. Whether they will or not is still very much up for debate and speculation. I’m not looking so much into an xMac as much as I want them to deliver something serious with a future.

Phil wasn’t lying when he said in 2013 WWDC “this is the Mac Pro for the next decade”. Here we are 2 blogger PR control private fireside chats later and what do we have? We have Cook spouting about the strongest lineup ever and a pipeline that won’t quit. Apple needs a solid hit out of the park-or it’ll be true that we all need new hardware.

 

[GrumpyCoder]

Watching the AMD keynote... can't believe they're touting gaming, then compare the new GPU to the Vega64 with ~25% gain in performance. In other words... as slow as it gets. I do like the 16GB on the card for DL, but without CUDA...
$699 isn't bad tho, in the same ballpark as the 2080.

 

[koyoot]

AMD claims that Ryzen 3 series, 8C/16T CPU will have Core i9 9900K performance, minimum, while consuming, almost half of power .

 

[GrumpyCoder]

Hm, not really looking like that from the Cinebench run they just did. But that was a 16-core model, wasn't it?

 

[koyoot]

Hm, not really looking like that from the Cinebench run they just did. But that was a 16-core model, wasn't it?

Nope . It was 8C/16T eng sample .

Im pretty sure, that Engineering Sample was 65W, eng sample Apisak found with 3.7 base/4.0 GHz boost clock, few weeks ago.

This is the reason why AMD claims "minimum" performance of Core i9 9900K.

This has made my mind. My next build is based on Zen 2+Navi.

 

[ssgbryan]

If Timmy had the brains god gave a goose, our upcoming Mac Pro would be next gen Ryzen at the low end, and EPYC on the top end, driving 1 or more Radeon 7. That plus the AMD ProRender Engine seeing the CPU and GPUs as one render engine.

Nirvana.......

 

[GrumpyCoder]

If they can pull this off for ~$250, nice. I'd be more interested in a 16c/32t model (not Threadripper) for a linux box. As far as their gaming demos... a little disappointing. Their new CPU+GPU is roughly the same level as an overclocked 6700K + 2080 in Forza 4. Can't wait for some benchmarks of the R7 in february.

 

[goMac]

Watching the AMD keynote... can't believe they're touting gaming, then compare the new GPU to the Vega64 with ~25% gain in performance. In other words... as slow as it gets. I do like the 16GB on the card for DL, but without CUDA...
$699 isn't bad tho, in the same ballpark as the 2080.

The new GPU is a mid end card, it's not their high end. I.E. it's not the same thing as full Vega 20.

So a 25% gain on the new mid end vs their old high end is pretty good.

The downside is that the power consumption is still pretty high, which may be why they're releasing this before a full Vega 20. I'd hope they could drive it down to 225w for an upper mid end card.

 

[koyoot]

The new GPU is a mid end card, it's not their high end. I.E. it's not the same thing as Vega 20.

So a 25% gain on the new mid end vs their old high end is pretty good.

The downside is that the power consumption is still pretty high, which may be why they're releasing this before a full Vega 20. It'd hope they could drive it down to 225w for an upper mid end card.

Vega 7 IS Vega 20 based. It is the same GPU

If they can pull this off for ~$250, nice. I'd be more interested in a 16c/32t model (not Threadripper) for a linux box. As far as their gaming demos... a little disappointing. Their new CPU+GPU is roughly the same level as an overclocked 6700K + 2080 in Forza 4. Can't wait for some benchmarks of the R7 in february.

Which is very good. The first thing what Zen1/+ lacked was single threaded performance. Right now - AMD may have here an advantage over Intel.

P.S. There are eng samples with 12 cores floating around, so maybe they will pull something magical for AM4.

If Timmy had the brains god gave a goose, our upcoming Mac Pro would be next gen Ryzen at the low end, and EPYC on the top end, driving 1 or more Radeon 7. That plus the AMD ProRender Engine seeing the CPU and GPUs as one render engine.

Nirvana.......

Mac Pro should be based on HEDT and Server chips, at the least. If we are talking about using AMD CPUs on Apple computers: Threadripper, and EPYC.