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

[goMac]

If Apple hadn't declared that everyone jump out of the OpenGL pool for new projects on iOS it still could be there on iOS. Apple has basically dumped active support for any iOS device that can't do metal. So it is the new lowest common denominator for new iOS code. On android Vulkan is uspported by it isn't as broad or as deeply weaved into the system.

For software teams that can "port once" and hit the biggest number of devices the choice is going to be OpenGL ES. For folks aiming only at iPhone they go with Metal. How many folks are going to do both? that the more salient point.

Long term if Apple nukes all the open porting options and makes it hard to keep the standardized ports up to date while other set of platforms don't kneecap the open porting options there will probably be a decline in number of apps ported to macOS/iOS. The days of "they'll do it anyway to get to the meteoric growth on iOS" are over. iOS is a big market (and macOS can piggyback off of that to some extent), but driving porting costs higher is going to get many software development orgs to stop and take a harder look. ( if the moat looks too deep some will baulk. )

The industry feeling is that OpenGL is just dead in general. Even without Apple, Linux vendors are moving on to Vulkan. And Microsoft is full steam ahead on DirectX 12. There is no one really maintaining OpenGL as a standard. It's like keeping a brain dead patient on life support, despite what Khronos might say.

If Apple had continued supporting OpenGL, they'd probably be the last ones left propping it up. I expect Android will hang on to OpenGL support a bit longer, but Android is also quickly moving on to Vulkan.

But again, there are versions of OpenGL ES that run on top of Metal on the Mac and iOS. So if someone really needed to write OpenGL ES on Apple platforms, there are ways to do it. It's just not smart considering you can get way better performance from Metal.

I should also mention: Nvidia really got this ball rolling with CUDA not being a standard. Once Nvidia broke industry standards, everyone stopped caring about keeping standards around. So if anyone here is an Nvidia fan, best not complain about where things ended up with Metal. Send a nice thank you card to Nvidia.

 

[koyoot]

The industry feeling is that OpenGL is just dead in general. Even without Apple, Linux vendors are moving on to Vulkan. And Microsoft is full steam ahead on DirectX 12. There is no one really maintaining OpenGL as a standard. It's like keeping a brain dead patient on life support, despite what Khronos might say.

If Apple had continued supporting OpenGL, they'd probably be the last ones left propping it up. I expect Android will hang on to OpenGL support a bit longer, but Android is also quickly moving on to Vulkan.

But again, there are versions of OpenGL ES that run on top of Metal on the Mac and iOS. So if someone really needed to write OpenGL ES on Apple platforms, there are ways to do it. It's just not smart considering you can get way better performance from Metal.

I should also mention: Nvidia really got this ball rolling with CUDA not being a standard. Once Nvidia broke industry standards, everyone stopped caring about keeping standards around. So if anyone here is an Nvidia fan, best not complain about where things ended up with Metal. Send a nice thank you card to Nvidia.

Currently it appears that every single major platform has its own "standard". MS: DX12, Linux: Vulkan, AppleOS: Metal.

Ironically, the best of them all appears to be... Vulkan, the most open standard of them all.

 

[goMac]

Currently it appears that every single major platform has its own "standard". MS: DX12, Linux: Vulkan, AppleOS: Metal.

Ironically, the best of them all appears to be... Vulkan, the most open standard of them all.

They all kind of have their own strengths and weaknesses. Metal so far seems like the easiest to use and has the nicest tools (as long as you like Swift or Obj-C). But it definitely is missing some things that Vulkan and DirectX 12 have. Apple seems to be pushing that you can do most everything you need by hand with a compute shader. So far that seems to be true, but it's still not quite as nice as having some of the more advanced features available out of the box.

 

[Chancha]

Nothing on ARM would affect a plug-in system. Plugin loading is usually a feature actually provided by the OS.

The plugins themselves would need ARM versions, but that’s still probably not complicated either. Much less of a deal than the PowerPC to Intel transition because all processors involved would be little endian.

I think the difficult part isn't about how hard a re-coding is, but the economic / instrumental resistance of any change happening, especially for smaller developers and the product being older / previous gen where no realistic focus is going to be further invested. On the user perspective, it means clear cutoff of backward compatibility. We see this happening often anyway, like the more pressing issue is macOS killing off 32bit apps pretty soon.

 

[goMac]

I think the difficult part isn't about how hard a re-coding is

I don't mean to nitpick, but I wanted to clear something up in thread generally.

Moving to ARM isn't recoding. It's bringing your app into a future version of Xcode and hitting build. Maybe making some small changes. Maybe making some larger changes if you use OpenGL and OpenGL goes away on ARM. ARM is just a different instruction format from x86 just like png and jpg are different image formats. You don't have to redo your whole Photoshop document just because you want to save in png instead of jpg.

People need to chill out about ARM. PowerPC to x86 was complicated because those processors both handled data differently. x86 to Apple's version of ARM is way way easier because there is no difference in how those CPUs handle data. And most all the vendors we're talking about are already on ARM in one way or another.

Companies will need to QA test the updates and some things will take some time. But no one is going to have to tear large parts of their code up and redo things just because of ARM. Again, ignoring things like OpenGL maybe going away, 99.9% of code is going to just work.

but the economic / instrumental resistance of any change happening, especially for smaller developers and the product being older / previous gen where no realistic focus is going to be further invested. On the user perspective, it means clear cutoff of backward compatibility. We see this happening often anyway, like the more pressing issue is macOS killing off 32bit apps pretty soon.

It depends. ARM doesn't mean no more x86. The iOS/Marzipan apps are going to be both ARM and x86. And adding an ARM version really isn't much of an issue. The biggest risk is probably stuff like OpenGL just going away completely on ARM, not the CPU change itself. That sort of thing can be a problem, but OpenGL will go away eventually on Intel too.

And if there is a vendor that cares so little about their product that they won't do an ARM version? I dunno. As long as it isn't some exotic application it should be a really easy rollover.

 

[Mago]

iOS has a lot of challenges to overcome if someday actually pretends to be a follow on for the PC:

• File management API its ridiculous primitive
• input devices, it needs more than keyboard touch and pencil to consider it for PC replacemente: mouse, 3D mouse, raw etc it needs an open input decice architecture.
• garbage collection / backgroung multitasking / Viirtualization (containerization)
• multiple displays
• native HSA support to delegate heavy processing to external boxes, it will allow real desktop replacement.

As you can read, a lot to develop, File API is doing easteady progress, but none of the other items seems even cosidered, but if so, the way Apple deploy such developments, means at least 3-4 years of developments just to have a descent pc-replacement iDevice.

About Mac Based on ARM cpu, I think it could reach practical high-end Desktop PC performance not later than this year (at least on the paper), but it wont ever be close to the performace provided by upcoming Zen 2+ and whatever-Lake architectures, at least this Year an ARM Mac wont be more powerful than a MabBook (non-Pro), but could start an hybrid coexistence with x86 macs and with years replace x86 at all.

 

[askunk]

https://developer.apple.com/documentation/metal/choosing_gpus_on_mac/about_gpu_bandwidth

It is pretty clear to me that either we rely on developers to update correctly their software or the eGPU can be a disaster for Pro users. I use software that I paid big cash and updates are expensive, I hope they come up with a solution that does not rely on eGPUs but uses a faster bus for the GPUs or I risk to waste my money on a mMP.

 

[Peace]

I'm gonna guess WWDC19 because I ( personally) believe Apple will be putting forward looking tech into the nMP.

PCIe 5.0 on the way


http://appleinsider.com/articles/19...ts-ratified-could-find-a-home-in-2019-mac-pro

 

[askunk]

oh... yeahhhh

 

[goMac]

About Mac Based on ARM cpu, I think it could reach practical high-end Desktop PC performance not later than this year (at least on the paper), but it wont ever be close to the performace provided by upcoming Zen 2+ and whatever-Lake architectures, at least this Year an ARM Mac wont be more powerful than a MabBook (non-Pro), but could start an hybrid coexistence with x86 macs and with years replace x86 at all.

I don't think we'll see any ARM developer announcements until 2020, first ARM Macs on the low or mid ends in 2021, with no ARM Mac Pro until 2022-2023 at the earliest.

We've got a while for stuff like OpenGL and Metal to sort itself out. And the next series of Mac Pro updates will be x86 based. I think even if/when they do migrate to ARM, Apple will be supporting x86 for a while.

It's still early for anyone to be considering ARM in their Mac Pro purchase decision making.

 

[Boil]

PCIe 5.0 on the way


http://appleinsider.com/articles/19...ts-ratified-could-find-a-home-in-2019-mac-pro

If we are gonna have PCIe Gen 5, then how about some DDR5 RAM as well...?

While I wait for the new modular Mac Pro, I think I will get one of these in the interim...

https://www.asrock.com/nettop/AMD/DeskMini A300 Series/index.asp

Lack of Thunderbolt 3 aside, an excellent Mac mini substitute...?

 

[fuchsdh]

iOS has a lot of challenges to overcome if someday actually pretends to be a follow on for the PC:

• File management API its ridiculous primitive
• input devices, it needs more than keyboard touch and pencil to consider it for PC replacemente: mouse, 3D mouse, raw etc it needs an open input decice architecture.
• garbage collection / backgroung multitasking / Viirtualization (containerization)
• multiple displays
• native HSA support to delegate heavy processing to external boxes, it will allow real desktop replacement.

As you can read, a lot to develop, File API is doing easteady progress, but none of the other items seems even cosidered, but if so, the way Apple deploy such developments, means at least 3-4 years of developments just to have a descent pc-replacement iDevice.

About Mac Based on ARM cpu, I think it could reach practical high-end Desktop PC performance not later than this year (at least on the paper), but it wont ever be close to the performace provided by upcoming Zen 2+ and whatever-Lake architectures, at least this Year an ARM Mac wont be more powerful than a MabBook (non-Pro), but could start an hybrid coexistence with x86 macs and with years replace x86 at all.

This presupposes that Apple or anyone else thinks that iOS devices are going to replace all use cases, when what Apple seems to be aiming for (and we'll see more come WWDC) is many to most.

As great and as fast as their chips are, there's always going to be people doing stuff on big boxes with huge chips and lots of cooling, or still using mice (the same way some people still use terminals for their work.) But that's not the future of mainstream computing, and you don't need things like pointer or virtualization support for every profession.

The danger is not that the use case of Macs goes away entirely, it's that Apple just doesn't feel like participating in that segment.

Currently, that's a pretty foolish concern at present given how profitable Macs are versus their sales numbers, and that they aren't trying to rapidly push iOS' capabilities too far, too fast.

 

[barmann]

This presupposes that Apple or anyone else thinks that iOS devices are going to replace all use cases, when what Apple seems to be aiming for (and we'll see more come WWDC) is many to most.

As great and as fast as their chips are, there's always going to be people doing stuff on big boxes with huge chips and lots of cooling, or still using mice (the same way some people still use terminals for their work.) But that's not the future of mainstream computing, and you don't need things like pointer or virtualization support for every profession.

The danger is not that the use case of Macs goes away entirely, it's that Apple just doesn't feel like participating in that segment.

Currently, that's a pretty foolish concern at present given how profitable Macs are versus their sales numbers, and that they aren't trying to rapidly push iOS' capabilities too far, too fast.

Good points .

Just a couple of things - on the one hand, Apple seems to be pushing iOS as a replacement for PC OSs, but on the other hand they have done virtually nothing to improve its usability in a decade or so .
In 2010, Jobs called the iPad the future of computing ; he was wrong then, and all Apple does is repeating the mantra and keep being wrong .

Also, I think 'portable' OSs and tablets/smartphones have already hit a ceiling years ago. While the hardware performance keeps improving, the user interface seems to be stuck in a pre-PC era .
There is only so much one can do on a small touch screen , without accessible file management and without proper accessory support .
In a word, it's primitive .

 

[askunk]

https://appleinsider.com/articles/1...in-macos-and-thats-a-bad-sign-for-the-mac-pro

 

[goMac]

https://appleinsider.com/articles/1...in-macos-and-thats-a-bad-sign-for-the-mac-pro

I think one thread that got missed here is in general Apple is hostile to third party graphics drivers. They don't publish the specs on how to write them. And there is no stable interface which is why Nvidia is requiring new drivers for every version of macOS.

I wouldn't be surprised if Apple is trying to clamp down on third party drivers completely. And I know Apple has had a lot of problems getting all the GPU vendors synced up with their release cycles, so they really want to minimize the amount of GPU drivers that are included with the OS. That means they also likely would not be open to just making the Nvidia drivers part of the OS.

That really puts drivers for GPUs that are not included with Macs in a bad place.

 

[Apple Master]

SO when are they going to announce the 7,1 ????

 

[JesterJJZ]

SO when are they going to announce the 7,1 ????

Probably WWDC in June at this point.

 

[Aldaris]

NAB is April 6-11. I wouldn’t exactly expect the formal announcement, but with the apology/excuse/dog ate my homework press chit-chats have occurred in April 2017/18 I wouldn’t be surprised by an update in April.

3 years in a row, 6 years come and gone... but this is the strongest Apple ever! (Roll my eyes while I puke).

 

[goMac]

NAB is April 6-11. I wouldn’t exactly expect the formal announcement, but with the apology/excuse/dog ate my homework press chit-chats have occurred in April 2017/18 I wouldn’t be surprised by an update in April.

3 years in a row, 6 years come and gone... but this is the strongest Apple ever! (Roll my eyes while I puke).

Usually at NAB there is a back room demo or a talk with VIPs, and something leaks out that's not specific but is some sort of sign of life.

 

[koyoot]

https://appleinsider.com/articles/1...in-macos-and-thats-a-bad-sign-for-the-mac-pro

Where are people claiming that AMD's contract was ending in 2018, and Nvidia will be back in Apple computers?

 

[AidenShaw]

Where are people claiming that AMD's contract was ending in 2018, and Nvidia will be back in Apple computers?

They had no information to back their claims, and still don't.

Nobody posting here has any information about Apple's contracts with suppliers and third parties.
[doublepost=1547861646][/doublepost]

Probably WWDC in June at this point.

June 2020, or June 2021?

 

[danwells]

I'm 100% convinced that the new Mac Pro will be deliberately NVidia-proofed. There's huge bad blood there - probably connected to the size of the bag Apple was left holding after the 2010-era MBP issues. Even in addition to the drivers, I do not expect the GPU or GPUs to be standard PCIe in the PC-type form factor with the video connectors on the back of the board. At the very least, it will require TB3 video injection, which could be as simple as an internal jumper cable and a blank back panel - which, oddly, could make some version of the Instinct MI easier to port, since those lack standard HDMI or DisplayPort video connectors.

More likely, in my opinion, than something as simple as a blank-back card with a jumper cable is some change in physical form factor and/or cooling. Since Apple controls the machine, why not use a single liquid cooling loop with a unique connector? If the connector has a self-closing valve, it could still be possible for the user to exchange the GPU for another Apple supplied unit, including a faster/newer model. Even if not, it's not a terrible job for a service center. They might also mess with card dimensions or power connections (two 8-pin connectors isn't quite elegant enough - how about a connector directly on the motherboard)? The data connector will very likely still be PCIe, but a standard PC GPU won't fit...

I'd expect plenty of these types of "modularity" - elegance galore, but carefully designed to subject components to an Apple Tax, and to prevent components that might be unstable from getting in. The only PC-standard components I would think reasonably likely are RAM (hopefully a near 100% chance), and possibly processor upgrades (unofficial, but may not be upgrade-proof) and/or slots for additional NVMe SSDs. The primary SSD will run through the T2 (or T3), but there may be options to add more storage using standard blade drives. There may also be a PCIe x4 slot or two that don't allow standard graphics cards, but let audio interfaces and such in.

If the reason you want a Mac Pro contains the words "NVidia" or "Game", Apple is determined not to support your use case. This is not a value judgment on my part on those use cases - simply my best guess at where Apple's looking. I'd love a slot-box, but Jony Ive hates them, and he's designing the Mac Pro. I'd expect a machine that starts at $6499 or so, with a very high base configuration (12 or 14 core Xeon SP), decent clock speed, 48 GB RAM, 2 TB SSD, Vega VII or equivalent). The top configuration will easily clear $20,000 with every option checked, and may go much higher, especially if there's provision for dual processors - 2 28-core Xeons are $20,000 or so before you add a computer.

Anyone who's been around long enough to remember the Mac IIfx, that's what we're looking at here...

 

[goMac]

I'm 100% convinced that the new Mac Pro will be deliberately NVidia-proofed.

They don't need to do anything extra in hardware. macOS is already Nvidia-proofed.

Even if Nvidia had drivers they need Apple to sign them.
[doublepost=1547878588][/doublepost]

Where are people claiming that AMD's contract was ending in 2018, and Nvidia will be back in Apple computers?

Ah yes, the "surely this is a contract issue, and those evil AMD lawyers tricked poor sweet lil ol Apple into this" crowd.

 

[startergo]

I'm 100% convinced that the new Mac Pro will be deliberately NVidia-proofed. There's huge bad blood there - probably connected to the size of the bag Apple was left holding after the 2010-era MBP issues. Even in addition to the drivers, I do not expect the GPU or GPUs to be standard PCIe in the PC-type form factor with the video connectors on the back of the board. At the very least, it will require TB3 video injection, which could be as simple as an internal jumper cable and a blank back panel - which, oddly, could make some version of the Instinct MI easier to port, since those lack standard HDMI or DisplayPort video connectors.

More likely, in my opinion, than something as simple as a blank-back card with a jumper cable is some change in physical form factor and/or cooling. Since Apple controls the machine, why not use a single liquid cooling loop with a unique connector? If the connector has a self-closing valve, it could still be possible for the user to exchange the GPU for another Apple supplied unit, including a faster/newer model. Even if not, it's not a terrible job for a service center. They might also mess with card dimensions or power connections (two 8-pin connectors isn't quite elegant enough - how about a connector directly on the motherboard)? The data connector will very likely still be PCIe, but a standard PC GPU won't fit...

I'd expect plenty of these types of "modularity" - elegance galore, but carefully designed to subject components to an Apple Tax, and to prevent components that might be unstable from getting in. The only PC-standard components I would think reasonably likely are RAM (hopefully a near 100% chance), and possibly processor upgrades (unofficial, but may not be upgrade-proof) and/or slots for additional NVMe SSDs. The primary SSD will run through the T2 (or T3), but there may be options to add more storage using standard blade drives. There may also be a PCIe x4 slot or two that don't allow standard graphics cards, but let audio interfaces and such in.

If the reason you want a Mac Pro contains the words "NVidia" or "Game", Apple is determined not to support your use case. This is not a value judgment on my part on those use cases - simply my best guess at where Apple's looking. I'd love a slot-box, but Jony Ive hates them, and he's designing the Mac Pro. I'd expect a machine that starts at $6499 or so, with a very high base configuration (12 or 14 core Xeon SP), decent clock speed, 48 GB RAM, 2 TB SSD, Vega VII or equivalent). The top configuration will easily clear $20,000 with every option checked, and may go much higher, especially if there's provision for dual processors - 2 28-core Xeons are $20,000 or so before you add a computer.

Anyone who's been around long enough to remember the Mac IIfx, that's what we're looking at here...

If you want NVIDIA and GAME you can still use Apple hardware and Windows software up until/if they come up with proprietory processors which do not understand instructions in Windows environment . So I think the biggest concern is really will there be Intel or non-intel (non Windows) processors . This way they can kill both Windows and hakintosh competition and promote all proprietary hardware for sale, which is pure profit . Back to the G5 concept .

 

[fuchsdh]

I'm 100% convinced that the new Mac Pro will be deliberately NVidia-proofed. There's huge bad blood there - probably connected to the size of the bag Apple was left holding after the 2010-era MBP issues. Even in addition to the drivers, I do not expect the GPU or GPUs to be standard PCIe in the PC-type form factor with the video connectors on the back of the board. At the very least, it will require TB3 video injection, which could be as simple as an internal jumper cable and a blank back panel - which, oddly, could make some version of the Instinct MI easier to port, since those lack standard HDMI or DisplayPort video connectors.

More likely, in my opinion, than something as simple as a blank-back card with a jumper cable is some change in physical form factor and/or cooling. Since Apple controls the machine, why not use a single liquid cooling loop with a unique connector? If the connector has a self-closing valve, it could still be possible for the user to exchange the GPU for another Apple supplied unit, including a faster/newer model. Even if not, it's not a terrible job for a service center. They might also mess with card dimensions or power connections (two 8-pin connectors isn't quite elegant enough - how about a connector directly on the motherboard)? The data connector will very likely still be PCIe, but a standard PC GPU won't fit...

I'd expect plenty of these types of "modularity" - elegance galore, but carefully designed to subject components to an Apple Tax, and to prevent components that might be unstable from getting in. The only PC-standard components I would think reasonably likely are RAM (hopefully a near 100% chance), and possibly processor upgrades (unofficial, but may not be upgrade-proof) and/or slots for additional NVMe SSDs. The primary SSD will run through the T2 (or T3), but there may be options to add more storage using standard blade drives. There may also be a PCIe x4 slot or two that don't allow standard graphics cards, but let audio interfaces and such in.

If the reason you want a Mac Pro contains the words "NVidia" or "Game", Apple is determined not to support your use case. This is not a value judgment on my part on those use cases - simply my best guess at where Apple's looking. I'd love a slot-box, but Jony Ive hates them, and he's designing the Mac Pro. I'd expect a machine that starts at $6499 or so, with a very high base configuration (12 or 14 core Xeon SP), decent clock speed, 48 GB RAM, 2 TB SSD, Vega VII or equivalent). The top configuration will easily clear $20,000 with every option checked, and may go much higher, especially if there's provision for dual processors - 2 28-core Xeons are $20,000 or so before you add a computer.

Anyone who's been around long enough to remember the Mac IIfx, that's what we're looking at here...

Yeah while I can buy them refusing to sign drivers and such I can't imagine them designing the machine specifically to mess with Nvidia users. Companies might be occasionally petty, they aren't *that* petty. But a Mac Pro was never going to be a great gaming option, and that's just down to professional use cases rather than spite.

The question of storage has had me go back and forth. Like you say I'm wondering if they'll just make a proprietary SSD that has the T2 functions and then everything else you can add internally is dumb storage.

Alternatively, is there really any reason you couldn't deliberately authorize/deauthorize accessories via a utility to grant most of the protection the T2 provides with more flexibility for a modular system? I don't imagine most people are swapping components that often. If you just have to disable protection, install your stuff, and then turn it back on with the current configuration being the blessed one it's obviously not as secure as the laptops, but it still beats having people run their machines without SIP and the like on.