Yep - in 2019, $6500 gets you a(n RBG-less) Workstation with a 32-core Threadripper, 128Gb of ram, a NVMe boot drive, and a 8GB WX7100 workstation video card. That is what I have priced out for an AMD workstation.
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MP 7,1 Waiting for Mac Pro 7,1 A1991 (no more)
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Yep - in 2019, $6500 gets you a(n RBG-less) Workstation with a 32-core Threadripper, 128Gb of ram, a NVMe boot drive, and a 8GB WX7100 workstation video card. That is what I have priced out for an AMD workstation.
Cool, I thought that was you looking over my shoulder when I was last browsing the thread...
That was sarcasm, by the way...
I read your entire post & am fully familiar with rackmount chassis components...
You talked about a 2U or 3U chassis, which would require PCIe cards (GPUs, GPGPUs, Video I/O, Audio I/O, etc.) to be mounted in a non-traditional way (because your 2U or 3U chassis does not provide room for the cards to "stand up" in their expansion slots)...
Then you show an ugly 10U "rack" for those who do not have a machine room to hide their gear away...
And even with a smaller (shorter) rack mount desktop rack, you are increasing the overall "bounding box" volume of the chassis for no real gains...
As I said, no...
Sorry you misunderstand me. I meant there should be room in the design for an optical drive. That's what I meant by going for a design that is similar to all the other workstations, with reliability and expandability been more important than style. I should have added functionality to that list.
No, I read & comprehend your entire "Rackmount Mac Pro" post, I am not confused; I do not agree as to the validity of same...
There have been a number of rackmount chassis available from third-party vendors to modify various Mac Pros for rackmount use, for those who need that capacity, I am sure they will step in for the forthcoming modular Mac Pro...
Ah cool.
It just appeared everything I wrote was interpreted in a 100% literal way: "I want a computer definitely 2 or 3U high, and most definitely mounted on that exact rack I linked to"
It weirdly came across as though you didn't understand the benefits of rack mounted gear, or why the image posted wasn't actually meant to represent how such a concept could look if devised by Jony Ive.
For the sake of clarity to anybody who doesn't understand like @Boil does:
Rack mounted gear is useful for professionals, and Jony Ive could make it look good. Doesn't mean I think it's going to happen.
https://seekingalpha.com/article/4236795-amd-gaining-much-rapidly-nvidia-market-realizes
Current outlook says AMD has between 12 and 15% market share in HPC GPU compute. And it will be growing.
That IBM's CUDA-like, cross platform API cannot come soon enough.
Current outlook says AMD has between 12 and 15% market share in HPC GPU compute. And it will be growing.
That IBM's CUDA-like, cross platform API cannot come soon enough.
My point is , and I should have been more clear, that the majority of App store apps are of no interest to MacPro users ; and none of the iOS apps are .
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I might have missed part of that conversation - the iPad, like all iOS devices and iOS itsself, isn't designed and equipped for productivity . Even pen and keyboard support is marginal and limited to specific models - almost a decade after the first ipads were released .
Hence iOS devices are not taking part in the performance race - it's like a big engine mounted to a wheelbarrow, its performance is irrelevant outside of Apple events .
That’s your own conclusion about the apps on the App Store is of no interest to Mac Pro users. As if you personally know what every single Mac Pro user wants.
The fact that YouTubers like Unbox Therapy production staff are using MacBook Pro’s for editing and I would consider their work flow to be pro based. MKBHD uses an iMac Pro, Jonathan Morris showed that you could actually edit video on an iPad Pro, the recent iPad Pro commercials were edited on an iPad Pro. So, don’t make assumptions about what defines a Pro.
Yes, the Mac Pro is a category in itself and has unique needs. In a few years time, Apple and Adobe might bring more pro apps to iOS like Final Cut and even Illustrator. So, things will evolve and change. This year, we will likely see significant work flow changes to iOS. Also, keep in mind, my ideas were more targeted to the MacBook, but will over time spread to the rest of the product lineup when they have matured.
I would be very interested in seeing real world benchmarks on iOS (i.e. ARM) devices. While we cannot eliminate all variables in such a test it's a lot better than some synthetic benchmark which has little value.
Final Cut Pro X is actually using iOS's media engine. They ported it back over to Mac instead of using QuickTime X. So we have a fairly good idea what performance is like because it's the same engine.
On ARM devices that media engine will outperform Intel's integrated graphics because it's built on top of Metal, and Metal performs better on Apple's ARM than it does on Intel graphics. The unified address space gives it a large performance advantage.
Intel does have a different architecture here, but in a much worse way, not in a better way.
Edit: I'm avoiding comparing against discrete GPUs like you'd find on a Mac Pro because that would remove the CPU from the equation, which isn't really the point. Even though a discrete GPU doesn't have the unified address space because it's off die, discrete GPUs power through the difference through brute force with their cores and clock speeds.
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I have respect for tubers, but in terms of workflow, they are still small, almost prosumer when evaluated in the larger context. Compared to larger architectural,industrial design,civic planning, to engineering and modelling, to scientific, to even financial ( not to mention large media studios, soundstages, sfx, etc ). Sure a lot of those industries have infrastructure that offloads a lot of work ( usually for qa/cat/uat/etc level digestion ) but still a lot of them rely on local high horsepower workstations at 'dev' level work. These environments are orders of magnitude larger, more designed and managed than a bunch of a boutique videographers.
Sure, the idea here that youtubers are 'pro' is definitionally correct, and maybe the most fashionable and market friendly, hence most appealing to Apple. But in the larger perspective they represent so little of the 'pro' marketplace. I think it is a failed strategy to court the 'youtuber' as the primary focus.
It is a small market first of all, and one that can be largely already served by the current lineup of products from Apple.
Secondly the 'internet media boutique' business model is subject to all the whims of regulation ( EUCD, EUGDDPR, GDDERPER, etc ), the mood of a particular filtering AI on any given day, the razor sharp pitchforks of the social justice mafioso, or to the egos of the executive class; that industry has the potential to be extremely ephemeral. I doubt they have much lobby power to ensure their long term livelihood.
Thirdly I doubt that success in the youtuber market translates to any meaningful sales into the ( lets call it ) enterprise professional market. Which is the market that HP/DELL have captive and probably keeps the whole effort ( R&D, supply chain, support, marketting ) of keeping a 'professional solutions' product line fiscally viable.
Compressor, Motion & especially Logic Pro X and Final Cut Pro. Those last two alone dictate the trajectories of Apple's 'pro' hadrware.
Pretty much anything Metal based will run better on an Apple CPU than an Intel one (without a discrete GPU) just because of how the GPU/CPU pipe is optimized. That's... well.... most of those apps, plus more and more the Adobe apps.
The A Series is basically an HSA architecture, which is the key to the faster performance. Apple does have one other option if they want that optimized CPU/GPU pipe, and that is AMD.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heterogeneous_System_Architecture
(Apple isn't noted as an HSA member because they're not. Their implementation is not part of the HSA standard even though it's the same idea.)
Intel so far, for whatever reason, has not shipped a similar architecture. But it would open the door to a much faster single chip architecture from either AMD or Apple that would blow the doors off the current MacBook Pro in Metal pro apps.
An HSA architecture is also a key part of something like starting to use Metal for audio work, so it would open doors to new types of acceleration that isn't possible right now on Intel.
Edit: A bit more to explain why this is important for performance and even affects mixed CPU/GPU loads...
Every time your CPU needs to send data to your GPU, or your GPU needs to send data back, there is a sync. Syncs take a while, and while the sync is going on, your CPU and GPU sit idle. If you're in Final Cut Pro or After Effects/Premiere, rendering a frame has to sync to the GPU, and then sync back to the CPU. And if you have filters running on both the CPU and GPU, you might have a lot of syncing back and forth as it switches between CPU and GPU, which means a lot of wasted time.
The A series is different in that it doesn't need to sync. The GPU and CPU can both work off the same data. So while the Intel CPU is sitting there, spending a lot of time idle, doing nothing but syncing the integrated GPU and the CPU, the A series is spending all it's time working. The end result is the A series is a video processing monster while the Intel chip is... not.
This does apply to the Mac Pro because the problem is actually worse with discrete graphics. A discrete GPU is much faster than an integrated GPU, but the distance your data has to travel is further. So syncs cost even more and you're spending even more time waiting. In some cases, for certain tasks, a Mac Pro can bench worse than an A series chip because the Mac Pro is drowning in syncs while the A series is not.
Where performance people get excited is the idea of a A series style large CPU that had a large GPU with as much power as a discrete GPU. Then you'd get the best of both worlds. You'd have a fast GPU with the sync-less design of what Apple did with the A series.
As mentioned, AMD is doing this sort of work with Ryzen. Nvidia is also working on this with Tegra. Apple has the A series. All the shipping game consoles are using this type of design. And Intel has... nothing. The rumor was Intel wanted to buy ATI to use them as a basis of an A series like design a long time ago, but then AMD beat them to the punch. And for whatever reason they've never upgraded their integrated graphics to use this design.
The syncing problem is why Furmark exists. Furmark is designed to never send anything back and forth between the CPU and GPU, so your GPU and CPU don't have long periods of sitting idle. That's why it stresses out your hardware in ways that are considered unrealistic compared to normal usage.
It's also why Metal, Vulkan, and DirectX 12 exist. OpenGL 4 doesn't know how to handle sync less architecture, so new APIs were designed for this new generation of architecture. In theory, Metal would also adapt nicely to what AMD is doing. But right now Metal runs sub-optimally on all Intel Macs (as does Vulkan and DirectX 12).
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Does anyone make anything close to a 300+ watt A-series chip (adding the power draws of a Mac Pro CPU and GPU)? It certainly isn't mainstream, but is there some odd piece of supercomputing hardware that is headed in that direction? You can't just assume that it would scale from 10 watts to 300.
Interesting idea to eliminate the gazillions of syncs - but it looks (from the Wikipedia link) to only be present in AMD APUs under Linux (and in the Apple A-series). First of all, would Apple have any interest in building an A-series chip with monster cores for desktop Macs (I have no doubt they could design such a core/chip if they wanted to). Second, how much recoding would it take? Would it just be Metal, or would it also involve rewriting Final Cut (Apple probably would) and the Creative Cloud (which Adobe might not be willing to do)?
Interesting idea to eliminate the gazillions of syncs - but it looks (from the Wikipedia link) to only be present in AMD APUs under Linux (and in the Apple A-series). First of all, would Apple have any interest in building an A-series chip with monster cores for desktop Macs (I have no doubt they could design such a core/chip if they wanted to). Second, how much recoding would it take? Would it just be Metal, or would it also involve rewriting Final Cut (Apple probably would) and the Creative Cloud (which Adobe might not be willing to do)?
Well, I already doubt about Mac Pro since Apple cares about their own software, not others.
Btw, MacOS Mojave got Navi GPU inside and there 4 of them. Perhaps new Mac computer is going to use them?
Btw, MacOS Mojave got Navi GPU inside and there 4 of them. Perhaps new Mac computer is going to use them?
Workstation GPUs are hot and workstation CPUs are hot, so I don't know if there is a good path for workstations right now. I would guess Apple is thinking about a way to do it. They could even split into multiple chips for cooling, as long as everything was on the same board. It could have even been a driver for the design of the 2013 Mac Pro. That was about the time people started talking about these designs.
AMD has done some work with their CPUs and discrete GPUs that might move towards getting a sync-less sort of setup running while keeping the GPU off die. The HSA standard is supposed to build an ecosystem of devices that can do much more efficient sync or no sync. If HSA took off, you might be able to do similar things slightly slower with PCIe GPUs.
Where Intel is in clear danger is lower power systems, like laptops. It's much easier to throw a mobile GPU and a mobile CPU together. Intel did it themselves with the i7-8705G, but that's still not a sync-less/unified memory design. AMD is shipping Ryzen Mobile, which is a unified memory design. The MacBook Pro would require Apple to create a bigger A series chip, but it's clearly a good candidate for this sort of design. And GPU performance has been one of the biggest complaints on the MacBook Pro.
I think the next Mac Pro will be a traditional design. But when you look at where Intel is, where Apple is, and where everyone else is... Apple has a great laptop chip already, Intel has one that's lagging, and Apple sells a lot of laptops...
Metal does most of the work. Metal does have some pitfalls where you can accidentally add syncs back that aren't necessary. But beyond that there isn't any extra re-write. Metal tries to make both approaches work automatically on both types of GPU designs.
It's why I'm guessing Apple deprecating OpenGL has something to do with A series Macs. Metal is tuned for the A series, OpenGL is not.
It's also again why I don't think there is a path forward for Intel only apps if an ARM transition starts. If you've adopted Metal, you're already re-tuning your app for the A series chips by using Metal. I don't know why pros and app vendors would decide to hold out on a processor that's not tuned for their Metal code. It doesn't make sense. And if you're refusing to adopt Metal and sticking it out on OpenGL, Apple will eventually cut you off anyway. They're forcing everyone to optimize for the A series right now.
(Again, Metal's tuning also fits AMD processors well, so I don't feel like that can be ruled out.)
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I think an A-series MacBook is very likely at some point - stick a built-in keyboard on an iPad Pro, toss MacOS on it and they're done (or at least close). They could cover all the consumer-level machines with one new chip (no new cores) - a double iPad Pro chip with 8 Tempest cores. If they had 4 Tempest core and 8 Tempest core chips at a variety of clock speeds, they could handle everything from the lightest MacBook to the 21"iMac. Call these machines MacBook, Mac Mini, iMac... Of course, references to A12x and Tempest are really to whatever's current when the transition occurs. They may be restricted to getting software from the Mac App Store, to make sure they get the ARM binary.
Ultralight 12" MacBook gets A12x - it's an iPad Pro with a keyboard...
13" MacBook gets "double A12x" with a graphics enhancement.
Mac Mini gets A12x at the low end, "double A12x" on higher model
21" iMac gets "double A12x" with a graphics enhancement
Since the Metal tuning fits AMD well, give the x86 line AMD processors? There's only one chip missing - a high performance 6-core (or even 8-core) mobile processor with a 45 watt TDP for the 15" MacBook Pro. Since AMD likes to pair Ryzen with Vega on package (or is it even on die?) for mobile use, the other possibility is a ~75 watt package with CPU and GPU (Ryzen with Vega or Navi - advantageous for HSA).
If that chip shows up (and Apple's not in a long-term contract with Intel about either chips or Thunderbolt - does any AMD machine support Thunderbolt?)... Whenever I say "existing", I, of course, again mean "current when the transition happens"
The x86 line all gets the "Pro" designation (two name changes - the 27" iMac becomes part of the iMac Pro family, and there's quite possibly a Mac Mini Pro).
13" MacBook Pro gets existing Ryzen Mobile, mostly higher-end quad-cores (~35 watts with GPU).
15" MacBook Pro gets the chip that doesn't exist now - high-performance 6 or 8 core Ryzen Mobile (~45 watts without GPU or ~75 watts with)
Mac Mini Pro gets a selection of Ryzen G desktop processors with integrated Vega graphics - possibly a 6-core model with discrete graphics.
27" iMac Pro (note that this is successor to the current 27" iMac, not what we now know as an iMac Pro) gets Ryzen 5 and 7, up to and including the 2700X, and Vega/Navi discrete graphics.
32" iMac Pro (this is the successor of the current iMac Pro) gets Threadripper and high-end Radeons (Radeon VII, etc.)
Mac Pro gets either top Threadrippers or Epyc, with top-level AMD graphics.
???????? - If Apple doesn't like Intel very much, it could happen
Ultralight 12" MacBook gets A12x - it's an iPad Pro with a keyboard...
13" MacBook gets "double A12x" with a graphics enhancement.
Mac Mini gets A12x at the low end, "double A12x" on higher model
21" iMac gets "double A12x" with a graphics enhancement
Since the Metal tuning fits AMD well, give the x86 line AMD processors? There's only one chip missing - a high performance 6-core (or even 8-core) mobile processor with a 45 watt TDP for the 15" MacBook Pro. Since AMD likes to pair Ryzen with Vega on package (or is it even on die?) for mobile use, the other possibility is a ~75 watt package with CPU and GPU (Ryzen with Vega or Navi - advantageous for HSA).
If that chip shows up (and Apple's not in a long-term contract with Intel about either chips or Thunderbolt - does any AMD machine support Thunderbolt?)... Whenever I say "existing", I, of course, again mean "current when the transition happens"
The x86 line all gets the "Pro" designation (two name changes - the 27" iMac becomes part of the iMac Pro family, and there's quite possibly a Mac Mini Pro).
13" MacBook Pro gets existing Ryzen Mobile, mostly higher-end quad-cores (~35 watts with GPU).
15" MacBook Pro gets the chip that doesn't exist now - high-performance 6 or 8 core Ryzen Mobile (~45 watts without GPU or ~75 watts with)
Mac Mini Pro gets a selection of Ryzen G desktop processors with integrated Vega graphics - possibly a 6-core model with discrete graphics.
27" iMac Pro (note that this is successor to the current 27" iMac, not what we now know as an iMac Pro) gets Ryzen 5 and 7, up to and including the 2700X, and Vega/Navi discrete graphics.
32" iMac Pro (this is the successor of the current iMac Pro) gets Threadripper and high-end Radeons (Radeon VII, etc.)
Mac Pro gets either top Threadrippers or Epyc, with top-level AMD graphics.
???????? - If Apple doesn't like Intel very much, it could happen
I think a split x86/ARM line is possible. But... if Apple feels they could get together a MacBook Pro sized chip, and they think they could do it better than AMD, I think that is a real possibility. Desktops are a harder target, but it feels like without much more work they could scale up to the MacBook Pros. And they sell enough MacBook Pros to justify it.
Either way, you could end up with a 13" MacBook Pro that's not stuck on Intel Integrated Graphics, is optimized for Metal, and could actually be a real good machine for pro work or somebody who wants to run Fortnight. I would guess that sort of thing is why Apple would be most dis-satisfied with Intel. The 13" Macbook Pro is a real odd machine without good graphics.
If AMD got HSA rolling, it might be a better choice for Apple to build a next gen Mac Pro platform on instead of ARM. It would give them the expandability of a Mac Pro, with a lot of the sort of things they love about the A series.
I'm still thinking the next Mac Pro might be a Xeon box. But that would be exciting if they could really do something with a next generation platform instead of shipping yet another Xeon box. I guess yet another Xeon box is still better than the 2013 Mac Pro though.
Then there is the wilder ideas that I think have maybe been brought up in this thread. Maybe Apple and AMD team up and do custom x86 chips or custom ARM chips together. Apple and AMD are tight in a way right now that Apple and Intel, or Apple and Nvidia are not. There seems to be a lot going on behind the scenes with Apple and the Radeon group. And for some reason AMD is letting Apple have their own branding and letting them lead the launches of some of their GPUs. There has been speculation AMD and Apple are sharing GPU tech behind the scenes. It also seems to be tied to why Apple and Nvidia don't get along.
Either way, you could end up with a 13" MacBook Pro that's not stuck on Intel Integrated Graphics, is optimized for Metal, and could actually be a real good machine for pro work or somebody who wants to run Fortnight. I would guess that sort of thing is why Apple would be most dis-satisfied with Intel. The 13" Macbook Pro is a real odd machine without good graphics.
If AMD got HSA rolling, it might be a better choice for Apple to build a next gen Mac Pro platform on instead of ARM. It would give them the expandability of a Mac Pro, with a lot of the sort of things they love about the A series.
I'm still thinking the next Mac Pro might be a Xeon box. But that would be exciting if they could really do something with a next generation platform instead of shipping yet another Xeon box. I guess yet another Xeon box is still better than the 2013 Mac Pro though.
Then there is the wilder ideas that I think have maybe been brought up in this thread. Maybe Apple and AMD team up and do custom x86 chips or custom ARM chips together. Apple and AMD are tight in a way right now that Apple and Intel, or Apple and Nvidia are not. There seems to be a lot going on behind the scenes with Apple and the Radeon group. And for some reason AMD is letting Apple have their own branding and letting them lead the launches of some of their GPUs. There has been speculation AMD and Apple are sharing GPU tech behind the scenes. It also seems to be tied to why Apple and Nvidia don't get along.
The What is a Pro argument really has been beaten to death .
It seems to come up a lot when iPads and iOS need a little defending .
My view is this, and it isn't based on individual users' needs - a PRO capable computing device needs to be able to do most things for most people .
Which isn't unique to the MacPro, by the way .
Hence, iOS is out , iPads are out .
We can talk about future capabilities all we want, about youtube hacks and some random editing someone might or might not have actually done on a pocket calculator .
But right now, mobile devices and OSs, as useful as they are for many applications, are nowhere near their PC counterparts . Despite having been the future of things for many years now .
I agree Apple seems to look at work flow changes - given their track record on the hardware and software side, this is troubling .
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Fair point .
But Apple has been losing ground for a while in these areas, to say the least .
FCP not helping either .
I seriously suggest reading anything more than just Wikipedia about HSA, and AMD hardware. Not just past hardware. But also present, and future hardware.
Tell me guys(its not in particular to you danwells, its to this whole forum). How can you lack basic information about AMD hardware, and then come here, to Apple forum, which computers uses their hardware, and complain how useless their hardware is?
Apple would have to evolve the ARM architecture they use to be capable of handling more than 100 Amps delivered to SoC.
Without this - there is no question wheter it can be useful on desktop. And believe me. Circuit design is not a piece of cake, when it goes for ARM architecture.
What is holding them back? According to some forum members the iPad Pro easily bests current entry Macintoshes. Add in lower power consumption and the ability to "natively" run existing software and one has to wonder why hasn't Apple already produced such a system.
Yes. They are supposedly producing such a system. That’s why we are talking about it.