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

[deconstruct60]

Dual CPUs have become a more premium and specialty niche since the cheese grater with Intel’s pivoting.

Casting this as an Intel ( or Apple or just those two vendor) 'thing' is missing the overall picture.
https://www.nextplatform.com/2019/04/24/why-single-socket-servers-could-rule-the-future/

AMD is following mostlly the same track ( Ryzen , Threadripper, Eypc). The non-x86 in several , very hight workstation , and server split ... also about the same .

This is mainly the latest iteration on a long term trend that extends back to the beginnig of compute in the 60's were 'smaller' systems took workloads from 'larger' systems as what could be packed into a smaller space doubled about every 18 months.

Some folks workloads are scaling up faster than the shrinkage, but a substantial number of folks are not (which grows the 'space' coverage of the 'smaller' systems. )

It’s not impossible Apple would offer dual sockets but it’s arguably way less necessary especially as the GPU has become more important. They wouldn’t build a machine that requires radically different builds for a dual socket (the old Mac Pros were basically the same except for the daughter card.)

Important to note that the daughter card didn't mean changing I/O chipset back in the 2009-2012 series.
[doublepost=1557952334][/doublepost]

Is it prohibitively expensive to make it a dual cpu workstation? It was possible to have such a system back in the 5,1 days, but maybe things have changed somehow.

The primary issue isn't whether they are expense to make. It is primarily how many are going to buy them. The number of greater than 1 socket systems sold is on a flat to downward trend in most submarkets. Couple that to Apple's standard strategy of only doing a finite number of systems ( not making over a dozen different Mac , iPhone , watch , or any other individual systems category product. )


Most of the CPUs made for dual socket systems are optimized for carrying the workload for lots of folks at the same time. Not workload for one person looking at an attached monitor. There are corner cases where "most core count" and "single user looking at screen" match up but generally not an expanding group.

Things in the computing world have changed since over the last decade. Number of cores per socket is radically different. The number of computation cores inside of a system ( if not bigoted to only counting x86 ones) is up order of magnitude. That's is a big difference.

 

[macguru9999]

You would need an external graphics card. Not an elegant solution. And external storage drives. Lots of them.

Actually, just looking at these posts, I was thinking of a project.... Get a cMP shell, take everything out, fit a mac mini , TB3 to PCIe bridged video card and a few USBc SSDs in the trays up the top etc .... At least it would look tidy from the outside.

 

[namethisfile]

I don't know if someone posted it before or not
Here is the Mac Pro 7.1 according to the website
https://menclub.hk/mobile/article/article.php?cat=tech&aid=20370

Reminds me of the Quadra lines. (DELETED... needless whining)

 

[askunk]

Actually, just looking at these posts, I was thinking of a project.... Get a cMP shell, take everything out, fit a mac mini , TB3 to PCIe bridged video card and a few USBc SSDs in the trays up the top etc .... At least it would look tidy from the outside.

If Apple fails to deliver, I am going to do the same. Better cooling for both of them, maybe they run faster and more reliably. I will build an internal USB 3 hub to upgrade it to BT5.0, faster wireless...as soon as stuff comes out.

 

[Boil]

The BM eGPU is an appliance add-on for people who will pay for the cost in a single job or two. Its markup isn’t really an issue especially when it’s all about a less finicky more integrated product.

I wouldn’t buy one as I think it removes a lot of an eGPU’s benefits in the process, but it fills its role. The better criticism might be that like the tube Mac Pro it’s a very small niche.

And ugly, Apple also recommends the Sonnet eGPUs, but does not carry them on their web store...

IMO, if I had to have an eGPU box on my desk, it would be one of the Sonnet units...
[doublepost=1557962588][/doublepost]

I'm not in media industry but what I've see suggest 8K to be a "Master Copy* format and 4K for broadcast/projection even most studio don't see a case to a/v edit in 8K displays.

absolutely, because live capture and processing is still a thing. Every major sports event, every large concert, all of these things are the early drivers of higher resolutions, and you can't always stop recording, swap out a drive and then sneakernet it back to the workstation.

You can hook those 4K cameras up to a TB3 video I/O box...

8k spherical immersive is a different thing to just a standard 8k master, and that's the only VR-related workflow Apple has any foothold in. It's one of FCPX's new "features".

That sounds like something where the video is handled in post, no real "live stream" or video feed of the 8K spherical data, so downloading the capture drives later would not be a big deal...?

Why does the chassis need to be smaller? We already have mac mini for that.

Why settle with two pci-e ports if we can have more, making it more futureproof? I can see why apple would like that, but why should we?

Because it is Apple & you know they are going to go for as compact a package as possible...

Three PCIe slots would be acceptable, just trying to push the boundaries of what is really needed & cutting out all the legacy shitte...

well with intel 1 cpu you are looking about 48 pci-e lanes
so X16 slot 1 / video.
X16 slot 2
gives you 32
and then 10G 4 for 2 ports
12 for 3 TB buses.

With all other IO + storage + TX on the DMI bus.

Maybe move dual 10G to pch and use it's X4 for one more TB bus or 4 more lanes into to the PCH.

Seems like the extra PCIe lanes in Threadripper would help here...!

It’s not about capture. Resolve needs dedicated playback/output hardware. Yes, they make TB3 hardware, but they are generally less powerful than their pcie cards and don’t have certain features.

But much as we had no boxes (or REALLY expensive "broadcast" boxes) in the past & said boxes evolved from the internal PCIe solutions; I would think future implementations of external TBX video I/O boxes will become just as, if not more so, powerful as their internal PCIe brethren...?

Is it prohibitively expensive to make it a dual cpu workstation? It was possible to have such a system back in the 5,1 days, but maybe things have changed somehow.

Yes, yes it is...

The what now? Any links?

Uh, check Aja, Avid & Blackmagic for starters...? Is this a real question...?

I don't know if someone posted it before or not
Here is the Mac Pro 7.1 according to the website
https://menclub.hk/mobile/article/article.php?cat=tech&aid=20370

In the manic pacing of the modern 24 hour news cycle, this is "old news"...

Which is yet another argument for going ditching Intel and going with AMD.

I don't know what the future will bring, but I don't want to have to buy a new computer, if I can add functionality with a PCI-e card.

Yes, Threadripper for the PCIe lanes...!

Regarding "new computer vs. more PCIe slots", that is what all the TB3 / USB-C ports are for...!

Pedrith,

A lot of folks have mentioned storage space - I know I certainly have, although a number of folks have blown off anything that I have had to say about it.

Most folks seem to believe that the 7,1 should be a fat client.

Not a fat client, but not every workstation needs a large amount of in-chassis storage...

There are external TB3 boxes for JBOD & RAID applications, as there are external NAS solutions (to take advantage of the dual 10Gb Ethernet ports)...

So the gist of it all is this:

We still need three PCIe slots to meet the needs of the broadcast video world...

Mass storage is not needed in the chassis, an external TB3 / USB-C or NAS can fulfill mass storage needs... Obviously there would still be a decent sized system drive (T2 chip & Apple proprietary NVMe SSDs )...

AMD & Threadripper would really be the wise choice (AVX512 though...?) in regards to number of available PCIe lanes... And all those extra cores / threads are a bonus...

 

[Trusteft]

And ugly, Apple also recommends the Sonnet eGPUs, but does not carry them on their web store...

IMO, if I had to have an eGPU box on my desk, it would be one of the Sonnet units...
[doublepost=1557962588][/doublepost]



You can hook those 4K cameras up to a TB3 video I/O box...



That sounds like something where the video is handled in post, no real "live stream" or video feed of the 8K spherical data, so downloading the capture drives later would not be a big deal...?



Because it is Apple & you know they are going to go for as compact a package as possible...

Three PCIe slots would be acceptable, just trying to push the boundaries of what is really needed & cutting out all the legacy shitte...



Seems like the extra PCIe lanes in Threadripper would help here...!



But much as we had no boxes (or REALLY expensive "broadcast" boxes) in the past & said boxes evolved from the internal PCIe solutions; I would think future implementations of external TBX video I/O boxes will become just as, if not more so, powerful as their internal PCIe brethren...?



Yes, yes it is...



Uh, check Aja, Avid & Blackmagic for starters...? Is this a real question...?



In the manic pacing of the modern 24 hour news cycle, this is "old news"...



Yes, Threadripper for the PCIe lanes...!

Regarding "new computer vs. more PCIe slots", that is what all the TB3 / USB-C ports are for...!



Not a fat client, but not every workstation needs a large amount of in-chassis storage...

There are external TB3 boxes for JBOD & RAID applications, as there are external NAS solutions (to take advantage of the dual 10Gb Ethernet ports)...

So the gist of it all is this:

We still need three PCIe slots to meet the needs of the broadcast video world...

Mass storage is not needed in the chassis, an external TB3 / USB-C or NAS can fulfill mass storage needs... Obviously there would still be a decent sized system drive (T2 chip & Apple proprietary NVMe SSDs )...

AMD & Threadripper would really be the wise choice (AVX512 though...?) in regards to number of available PCIe lanes... And all those extra cores / threads are a bonus...

No reason to be rude.

 

[Boil]

With the movement towards digital cameras that record straight to a solid state storage medium, and the current crop of TB3 video capture boxes, do you see the internal PCIe capture card becoming a thing of the past...?

The what now? Any links?

Uh, check Aja, Avid & Blackmagic for starters...? Is this a real question...?

No reason to be rude.

Not trying to be rude at all... There was a mini side discussion regarding TB3 video I/O boxes in the last few pages...

And Thunderbolt video I/O boxes have been around for awhile now...

 

[ekwipt]

AMD confirms that their products are unaffected by Intel's Fallout and RIDL vulnerabilities. Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) has released a statement which confirmed that the company's processors are not vulnerable to the speculative execution vulnerabilities known as Fallout and RILD (Rogue In-Flight Data Load), two vulnerabilities which were recently uncovered on Intel's recent x86 processors.

https://videocardz.com/80709/amd-confirms-radeon-navi-and-3rd-gen-ryzen-available-in-q3-2019


3rd Gen Ryzen CPUs "Low end MacPro"
2nd Gen Epyc CPU's "More cores Higher End"
Threadripper 3 2020
Navi and Radeon VII as video cards
PCIe 4
USB 4 (backwards compatible with Thunderbolt 3

 

[Boil]

AMD confirms that their products are unaffected by Intel's Fallout and RIDL vulnerabilities. Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) has released a statement which confirmed that the company's processors are not vulnerable to the speculative execution vulnerabilities known as Fallout and RILD (Rogue In-Flight Data Load), two vulnerabilities which were recently uncovered on Intel's recent x86 processors.

https://videocardz.com/80709/amd-confirms-radeon-navi-and-3rd-gen-ryzen-available-in-q3-2019


3rd Gen Ryzen CPUs "Low end MacPro"
2nd Gen Epyc CPU's "More cores Higher End"
Threadripper 3 2020
Navi and Radeon VII as video cards
PCIe 4
USB 4 (backwards compatible with Thunderbolt 3

There are murmurings of TR3 being killed off, there is the question of dual-channel RAM not being enough throughput for the 12 & 16 core Ryzens...

AMD has stated from the beginning that the AM4 socket was good until 2020, I feel there will be a new AM4+ / AM5 socket that will allow quad-channel memory, maybe even DDR5 & support for high-speed low-latency 23GB / 64GB sticks...

Maybe they do something where the AM4 / X570 folks stick with the PCIe 3.0 & dual-channel DDR4 memory, but the AM4+ / AM5 folks get a new enthusiast chipset (X599) & along with it bump up their specs to PCIe 4.0 & quad-channel DDR5 memory...?

Maybe this X599 enthusiast system also gets more PCIe lanes...?

This X599-based system would be the basis of the modular Mac Pro...

Apple could do a demo preview of the modular Mac Pro, but not give any solid details or specs, just a bunch of "X times faster" slides for assorted "pro" software & pretty shots of the exterior chassis (maybe even just teaser shots, but no solid full chassis shots) & then announce shipping in Dec 2019, deliver a handful of units & then really deliver it all a few months into 2020...?!?

 

[mattspace]

You can hook those 4K cameras up to a TB3 video I/O box...

Yeah, but 4k is only a year or two away from being a "legacy" / consumer format. Video demands are increasing faster than thunderbolt bandwidth. TB is a strategy from the 1080 era, when it looked like 1080 might sit around just as long as standard definition (and also, it was an explicit strategy to sideline the discreet GPU industry, at a time when Intel was trying to get into the GPU market).

That sounds like something where the video is handled in post, no real "live stream" or video feed of the 8K spherical data, so downloading the capture drives later would not be a big deal...?

Live immersive streaming is a thing, and it's only going to become bigger.

 

[ekwipt]

There are murmurings of TR3 being killed off, there is the question of dual-channel RAM not being enough throughput for the 12 & 16 core Ryzens...

AMD has stated from the beginning that the AM4 socket was good until 2020, I feel there will be a new AM4+ / AM5 socket that will allow quad-channel memory, maybe even DDR5 & support for high-speed low-latency 23GB / 64GB sticks...

Maybe they do something where the AM4 / X570 folks stick with the PCIe 3.0 & dual-channel DDR4 memory, but the AM4+ / AM5 folks get a new enthusiast chipset (X599) & along with it bump up their specs to PCIe 4.0 & quad-channel DDR5 memory...?

Maybe this X599 enthusiast system also gets more PCIe lanes...?

This X599-based system would be the basis of the modular Mac Pro...

Apple could do a demo preview of the modular Mac Pro, but not give any solid details or specs, just a bunch of "X times faster" slides for assorted "pro" software & pretty shots of the exterior chassis (maybe even just teaser shots, but no solid full chassis shots) & then announce shipping in Dec 2019, deliver a handful of units & then really deliver it all a few months into 2020...?!?

I'm guessing we have not seen the new MacPro for this long is because they are changing chip manufacturers, that and AMD stock price would hit the ****ing roof with the announcement. You can't have a Xbox and Playstation 5 being faster than a MacPro. I think we will see a low end Mac Pro based on Ryzen 3000 and then a Higher end MacPro based on Epyc or possibly Threadripper right up to 64 Cores

 

[Boil]

Maybe the reason TR3 dropped off the roadmap at the recent AMD earnings report is because Apple has an exclusive with it for the modular Mac Pro...?!?

 

[ekwipt]

Maybe the reason TR3 dropped off the roadmap at the recent AMD earnings report is because Apple has an exclusive with it for the modular Mac Pro...?!?

Now we are talking!

 

[Kpjoslee]

Maybe the reason TR3 dropped off the roadmap at the recent AMD earnings report is because Apple has an exclusive with it for the modular Mac Pro...?!?

They are trying to harvest all the chiplets for Ryzen and Epyc. HEDT is the least important market for them and it took a backseat.

 

[namethisfile]

There is a slim possibility Apple can go mainstream with the next Mac Pro.

Here's my theory...

Apple will release two Mac "Pro's"

One just called "Mac" and the other one "Mac Pro"

The one called just "Mac" will have Comet Lake S CPU's with up to 10 cores. Base price at.... get this... $1500 for an i3 4-core CPU... good news is, they're not soldered. So, users can get the i3 and upgrade it to a 10-core one down the road... base RAM is 2x 4GB 2800Mhz DDR RAM for total of 8GBs (has four RAM slots; upgradeable to 32GB); has 2 PCIe slots that are far enough apart from each other so that one can install a double-slot GPU and still have room for another GPU and/or other PCIe devices; two GPU's would make it run at x8 per usual; has 2 NVME slots and 4 SATA ports and 4 x 3.5/2.5" drive bays; 256 GB NVME base; 4 x TB3/USBC ports, wifi, Ethernet.... base GPU is Nvidia GTX 1650 GPU with 4GB VRAM! And, of course, Apple KB and Mouse are INCLUDED!!!

The Mac Pro will come later with Cascade Lake Xeons, 4 PCIe slots, quad-channel support. Probably base price at $2999 with RTX 2060!

Just my opinion you guys. No AMD Inside is what I am seeing.

PS... the Mac with the Intel iGPU can be leveraged for quicksync/Metal/OpenCl like its iMac cousins....

PPS... So, yeah, basically a headless, roomier, slottier iMac!

PPPS... and to answer the self-sales-cannibalization thing? Ummm... do you think strawberry ice cream will self cannibalize the sales of chocolate ice cream? The answer, my friend, is a yummy, no!

 

[barmann]

Casting this as an Intel ( or Apple or just those two vendor) 'thing' is missing the overall picture.
https://www.nextplatform.com/2019/04/24/why-single-socket-servers-could-rule-the-future/

AMD is following mostlly the same track ( Ryzen , Threadripper, Eypc). The non-x86 in several , very hight workstation , and server split ... also about the same .

This is mainly the latest iteration on a long term trend that extends back to the beginnig of compute in the 60's were 'smaller' systems took workloads from 'larger' systems as what could be packed into a smaller space doubled about every 18 months.

Some folks workloads are scaling up faster than the shrinkage, but a substantial number of folks are not (which grows the 'space' coverage of the 'smaller' systems. )

There also used to be a trend for decades, when significantly increased performance and functionality was delivered at the same cost or less every other year or so .

This has changed in recent years, in most cases you pay more to get ... - more .
In mass produced technology like computers, that's not very common , historically speaking .
Bit of a regress instead of progress .

 

[deconstruct60]

AMD confirms that their products are unaffected by Intel's Fallout and RIDL vulnerabilities. Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) has released a statement which confirmed that the company's processors are not vulnerable to the speculative execution vulnerabilities known as Fallout and RILD (Rogue In-Flight Data Load), two vulnerabilities which were recently uncovered on Intel's recent x86 processors.

Somewhat recent x86 processors; not the most recent

"... The issues were independently discovered by both Intel and the various other groups, with the first notification to the chip company occurring in June last year. ...
Moreover, the very latest Coffee Lake, Whiskey Lake, and Cascade Lake processors include complete hardware fixes for all three variants. ..."
https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/201...leaks-data-from-intel-chips-internal-buffers/


So over a year ago did it make sense to plan to peg the release of the next Mac Pro to the "2nd iteration " of Xeon W with hardware fixes? Yes. Even if folks not looking carefully at the situation were going to grumble and moan, it was/is a better move.

Intel's "problem" at this point is that they need to "turn over" their whole processor line up. The longer they leave a 'hole' in the Xeon W space that longer it wlll hurt. But covering Xeon SP is a bigger deal ( secured virtualization with hyperthreading/SMT on is a bigger issue and the margins there are higher. )

 

[frankiee]

So there seem to be two different "main ideas" how the new MP might look like:

1. System composed of (proprietary) modules, which might be stacked or otherwise connected together. Let's call this the "Lego MacPro". (LMP)
   
2. A more classic case (as shown in some renderings) but with the twist that the airflow is going from bottom -> top instead of front -> back like usual. Let's call this the "Vertical MacPro". (VMP)

If Apple really decides to do something like 1), I will a) swear at Apple for the entire rest of my life and b) compile a list of parts for my next Hackintosh and start ordering them as soon as WWDC is over (maybe something I should have done already). This will be also one of the darkest days regarding my relationship with Apple (with the introduction of the 6,1 at a close second place).

Now, if they go along with 2) things might look different. For me, then it really would depend on the price, how much they shrink the device and what is actually left being upgradeable. Personally I would like to have the following:

• PCI slots! Room for at least 2 full sized GPUs, maybe even a third available slot in such a dual GPU configuration. Or one GPU plus 2 free slots. Support for NVIDIA is mandatory!
• Replaceable RAM, maybe 8 slots allowing for a max of 256GB
• At least two standard(!) NVME Slots
• At least two bays for holding 2 3,5" HDD drives (Timemachine, Cold Storage), maybe with the option to use those bays in a 4x 2,5" Drive configuration
• The usual connectors like TB3, USB3 etc
• Silent, efficient cooling system (air based, no water cooling please) with enough headroom, and please add some dust filters!

Maybe upgradable CPU as well? OK, now I am dreaming for sure ...

This solution also would have the benefit that Apple could at least pretend to be somewhat innovative with the more unusual airflow. My take is that they won't go to the cheesegrater again, because from their POV, this would be like a defeat, so they wont do this if only for this reason. I say "pretend" because this isn't something really new, actually my own Hackintosh does have this vertical airflow. I used this case (which was actually introduced way back in 2011!): https://www.silverstonetek.com/product.php?pid=242&area=de, and they also have a newer model using the same concept: https://www.silverstonetek.com/product.php?pid=522&area=de.

All I can say that such a vertical airflow is indeed the most efficient one I ever saw. Imho, the reason it failed for Apple twice is that they didn't execute it well, i.e. they crammed the insides way too much, so that even such a vertical airflow is not enough. I mean I placed some temp sensors in my Hack which control the three bottom fans, creating three different temperature zones. Those three fans even run at a lower RPM than they are actually rated for (but still they are not exactly silent, those AP181 aren't the best quality), but can ramp up when the temp in my zones goes up. With this setup, I already had my GPU running hot at 80 degrees, but the surrounding sensor just showed an increase of maybe 5 degrees over idle. However, such a tower - especially on the floor - sucks in a lot of dust. Thankfully there are some dust filters, but you have to clean them every two or three weeks. But still better as with my former cMP, which accumulated dust like there is no tomorrow.

So yeah, I think I would buy this "VMP"!

That being said, what of those two main ideas would you prefer? (I think I know the answer

Or ... maybe there is even a third option, what would you think?

 

[xgman]

Or ... maybe there is even a third option, what would you think?

I'll take the third option. The one that Apple will actually sell. I am certain that it will be less than people are hoping for and way more expensive than anticipated. Seriously though, I think this represents such a small market for them (and one that they have neglected for years now) that I don't think they have really know what to do with it.

 

[frankiee]

You may be right ... but if it is not the VMP and also not the LMP, what else will it be?

 

[deconstruct60]

There also used to be a trend for decades, when significantly increased performance and functionality was delivered at the same cost or less every other year or so .

This has changed in recent years, in most cases you pay more to get ... - more .

It has only primarily changed in hot rod, single threaded drag racing. The doubling of transistors hasn't really been that far off. For parallel computations the performance hasn't been off much. Software is more of the bottleneck than the hardware is. And that is the part that is far more subject to "rigidity" than the hardware is.

doubling the transistors doesn't mean performance is going to increase if the computation is stuck in some chokepoint. Brute force hammering things with clock speed doesn't scale over the long term.

In mass produced technology like computers, that's not very common , historically speaking .
Bit of a regress instead of progress .

This also ignores that making things smaller has also gotten more expensive. Not "mass producing" the same stuff with largely the same tools. The tools are getting more inexpensive. To get the same "economies of scale" means there are higher and higher thresholds to hit. It also means there are fewer competitors in the game so the price decreases due to that also play less of a factor.

 

[Manzanito]

There also used to be a trend for decades, when significantly increased performance and functionality was delivered at the same cost or less every other year or so .

This has changed in recent years, in most cases you pay more to get ... - more .
In mass produced technology like computers, that's not very common , historically speaking .
Bit of a regress instead of progress .

Maybe people don’t buy new computers at the same rate anymore? Also, a lot of people used to buy a computer just to browse the web and can get by with a smartphone.

Less sales will turn into less components being made, and thus more expensive to produce per unit.

Just a thought, I don’t have data to back any of this up, but could be a factor.

 

[deconstruct60]

They are trying to harvest all the chiplets for Ryzen and Epyc. HEDT is the least important market for them and it took a backseat.

In addition to a only a fixed number of 7nm wafers they can start at TSMC, AMD still has some 14/12nm wafer start obligations at Globalfoundary. Threadripper got bumped with core count last Fall and Intel is too busy trying to fill all of their 'holes' to iterate the Xeon W so they already have them covered on "bug fix", price, and core count in that space. They can use that to avoid "penalty" money for too low of a volume if that is on the table.

And it isn't just Ryzen and Epyc limiting AMD's 7nm wafer starts. Decent chance AMD is feeling a huge need to ramp Navi also to cover their middle ground in the GPU market. Again they only have a relatively fixed number of 7nm wafer to allocate. So yet another more highly competitive area where they need coverage sooner.
[doublepost=1558016619][/doublepost]

Maybe the reason TR3 dropped off the roadmap at the recent AMD earnings report is because Apple has an exclusive with it for the modular Mac Pro...?!?

Unlikely. First, the volume of the Mac Pro probably wouldn't be high enough to entirely soak up 1005 of Threadripper production at its former levels. It also doesn't make sense for them to roll it out as an "extra low" volume product ( as outlined above where they can fill far more design wins in higher margin and/or more highly competitive markets).

Reportedly the design wins for AMD Epyc are noticeably higher that last generation ( e.g., Dell jumping on board and more cloud hyperscalars jumping in. ) . If AMD can't produce enough processors to fill their new design wins they loose. That is one reason while high scale folks avoided them in the past. AMD coming up short in supply chain was a "bogey man" issue. Right now Intel is the one missing the boat. Any sign they are just as behind the curve as Intel, AMD will loose momentum.

Secondly, if Apple targeted Threadripper's late 2018 status they'd already have their chip shipping. [ If had used 2017 roadmaps to target Xeon W second iteration that is sliding deeper into 2019. And so is Threadripper 7nm . There likely would have been no credible roadmap timing upside there. ]

Thirdly, it would be bad move for AMD to signal to design partners that they were up to "selling out" a whole product general category to a single use. Apple buy a "custom" chip they paid for perhaps. But same general chip design and exclude folks unless they paid a huge upfront fee.... that would be a short term gimmick but a long term blunder.

 

[deconstruct60]

... I currently have a 5.1 Tower (12 core) with 4 2 TB hard drives. My video card is not hdmi nor vga. It's a stock card that came with the machine. I have a great monitor but if the new Mac Pro is hdmi is there a dongle that I can use to connect to the monitor or will I have to buy a new monitor?

If the monitor is not VGA or HDMI then it probably has DisplayPort (DP) on it. Thunderbolt 3 Type-C sockets can output DP no "adapter" ( need proper connector on both sides, but that is just right plug form factor ). If an older monitor and only has some variant of DVI then will need an adapter. The standard video cards for a 5.1 tower would have two DP and just one dual-link DVI port. Apple was very much on the "DisplayPort" bandwagon at that point and the natural "go together" monitor would have been DP ( since more than one of those ports. )

Also with all the stuff I have been reading nobody has mentioned hard drive space. Do you think that I will come with more than 4 tb of storage?

You appear to be using "hard drive space" to mean persistent storage space. "Hard Drive" implicates spinning platters in 3.5" or 2.5" form factors. You second point is about how much capacity the storage drive would have. How the storage drive is implemented and how much capacity it has are to different dimensions.

Most likely, Apple is going to use a SSD as the standard default drive. So in the standard configurations there will be no "Hard Disk" inside the system. The iMac Pro ships with a single SSD. The new Mini ships with a single SSD. The relatively mildly "speed bumped" iMac ships with some HDD/Fusion Drive standard configurations but that is primarily a 3 year old design at this point. [ Apple in part probably pushed it out the door just to iterate to CPUs with less competitive market problems while they work on something more substantive as an update. ]

I do some video work and would like a lot of HD space so that I can expand as needed. I also use bootcamp and need HD space for that as well. If the machine comes with only 4 tb are their options out there that are better than my WD 6TB drive as I find it very slow in transferring data?

The issue is not really directly measured in capacity " xx TB" , but whether Apple is going to break out of the pattern of having one, and only one, internal drive. They probably should for the Mac Pro. It is more likely though that those addition storage drive options will be SSD and not HDD for two primary reasons. First, Apple's new file system APFS is highly skewed to being optimized for SSDs. Sure folks could use an internal secondary HDD for HFS+ or NTFS (Windows) , or something else than prime space for newer version of the OS/Apps/user directory , but since this is a "pro" machine the presumption Apple will probably work with is that "time is money" and faster alternative drives are better than slower ones. ( so perhaps 1-4 M.2 SSD blade slots and no 3.5" or 2.5" drive bays. )

If they are shooting for overall size reduction they probably be looking for more volume efficient drives. That would probably at least knock out 3.5" drives. ( 5.25" drives are extremely likely out; the old optical drive bays. ). 2.5" drives is a format where SDD are coming down to meet the $/GB range of drives from the 2010 era so there may be some volume allocated to them.

What Apple is probably not doing is approaching the next Mac Pro as a container for the "stuff" in the 2009-2012 Mac Pro. [ pull all/most of that old stuff and put it in the new container. ]

Lastly I read a bit about the new line of processors. It gave a base speed and then a turbo speed. How does that work. Is there a setting that allows you to default to turbo or is that handled by the OS? I remember back when growing up my dad's pc had a turbo button.

That Turbo button has almost nothing to do with this. It is all handled by the CPU itself mostly and the OS giving it some boundary parameters. It is dynamically shifted with workload. ( That is the huge decoupling from the "button". Button 'on' was "always go fast" or button off always go at normal rate. This is a system where there is no fixed, uniformly static rate on a fixed setting.). When there are fewer things the CPU is trying to run concurrently it will automagically shift into "Turbo" mode. When the workload is very heavy, it will settle back toward that base. Pragmatically with most normal user workloads you will see an average blended clock rate above the mid-point between the too.

If you almost never look at activity monitor or some other performance measuring tool to gauge what your software is doing relative to the installed hardware, the base/turbo thing is highly likely a non issue for you. The processor choice that Apple makes is probably good enough. The more expensive options they have will give broader coverage to heavier loads.

 

[Boil]

( so perhaps 1-4 M.2 SSD blade slots and no 3.5" or 2.5" drive bays. )

This is where I would see the "modular" aspect come in...

There could very well be four M.2 slots, but they would be for Apple-proprietary M.2 SSDs, all controlled by the T2 chip, and you have to install them in pairs...

That's how they get you...! ;^p

Alternatively, and going back to my backplane / daughtercard modular cube format (the high TDP non-ARM version)...

CPU / RAM / Primary system drive (T2 & dual Apple-proprietary M.2 SSDs) on main daughtercard

Four standard 2280 M.2 slots on secondary storage daughtercard with integrated RAID controller

Three remaining daughtercards slots:

For Apple-proprietary (modular...!) GPUs (Radeon VII & various Navi BTO)

For third-party add-ins (Blackmagic Design will partner to provide a 12G SDI 8K daughtercard at launch & BTO)

So you got your high-core-count CPU, a bunch of RAM (RAMdisk, anyone...?), a T2-secured / controlled "parallel" M.2 SSD primary boot / system drive; you got up to an 8TB M.2-based RAID with hardware controller (working files / scratch disk), & three slots for GPUs & third-party add-ins...