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

Either way tomorrow's WWDC will be interesting , as in interesting times . ;)

Apart from the Mac Pro ( WWDC or Bust ! ;) ), Apple really seems to be ready to get down and dirty .
The iTunes thing , OSX going 64bit apps only, iOS/iPad integration appearing to be done the worst possible way - for us Mac users Macs might be the least of our worries .
 
Boil said:
Form factor:

7.7" Cube
or
Cheesegrater 2.0

CPU:

Threadripper 3
or
ARM cluster

GPUs:

AMD
or
AMD
Click to expand...


The only thing that could justify this time between the latest MP and this one is, IMHO, a radical change in CPU side. More ARM than AMD... OR a even more broader change into the Mac line (latest mac mini, imac, macbook without any real news). iMac without even T2... just rushed to keep the mac line alive. But an intel MP now, on the verge on the (supposed) switch to ARM... could sign the death certificate of the confidence from the "pro" side. Unless... they have a so modular thing that can survive the switch simply changing a "module".
 
Wolf1701 said:
The only thing that could justify this time between the latest MP and this one is, IMHO, a radical change in CPU side. More ARM than AMD... OR a even more broader change into the Mac line (latest mac mini, imac, macbook without any real news). iMac without even T2... just rushed to keep the mac line alive. But an intel MP now, on the verge on the (supposed) switch to ARM... could sign the death certificate of the confidence from the "pro" side. Unless... they have a so modular thing that can survive the switch simply changing a "module".
Click to expand...

They can't go ARM on the pro side now. It will take several/many years before software, drivers etc is re-written for the ARM architecture. Apple would have to ask all developers to port all their software! For music production alone it would involve several 100 different smaller and bigger developers being willing to allocate the resources to do that.

Would make absolutely no sense to go ARM at least not for the next 5+ years.
 
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Simon R. said:
They can't go ARM on the pro side now. It will take several/many years before software, drivers etc is re-written for the ARM architecture. Apple would have to ask all developers to port all their software! If developers are willing at all, it will take many years before everything is ready.

Would make absolutely no sense to go ARM at least not for the next 5+ years.
Click to expand...

Yes and no, IF they want to switch they have to start soon or later... and they could also erase the AMD/NVIDIA debate... if the ARM CPU are similar to the phone's ones. How compares an ARM with GPU and a proper cooling to a xeon? No one knows.
 
Wolf1701 said:
Yes and no, IF they want to switch they have to start soon or later... and they could also erase the AMD/NVIDIA debate... if the ARM CPU are similar to the phone's ones. How compares an ARM with GPU and a proper cooling to a xeon? No one knows.
Click to expand...

Apple's ARM implementation includes integrated graphics, so no need for AMD or Nvidia...!
 
Apple is not going to switch to ARM on the Pro line anytime soon, for the simple reason that ARM can not emulate x86_64 at anywhere near acceptable speeds.

68k>PPC 68k emulator built into the Mac OS.

PPC>x86 PPC emulator built into Mac OS X.

x86_64>ARM64 x86_64 emulator built into the macOS.

Anyway, I don't think we are going to see any Mac Pro, Arm or otherwise tomorrow. Apple has been only doing software a WWDC, no hardware last year, unless you count the Gay Pride watch band.

I'm hoping I'm wrong, we'll know in a few hours.

I had set WWDC as my final deadline for waiting, but now the Threadripper 3 has been pushed back, I maybe could wait a little longer.

Tho I won't be buying any Pro machine that doesn't have upgradable graphics, a few PCI-E slots, and more than one M.2 slot.

I'm not holding my breath waiting on that form Apple, anymore...
 
But what if Apple figured out how to make their ARM APUs work together, seen as one pool by the OS, with latency & all that taken care of...

The base Mac Pro would have four ARM processors, 64GB RAM, & 2TB SSD...

Fully loaded Mac Pro would have sixteen ARM processors, 256GB RAM, & 8TB SSD...

Four TB3 / USB-C ports, four USB-A ports, one 10Gb Ethernet port, one 1Gb Ethernet port, one 3.5mm headphone jack, 600W PSU...

7.7" Cube

Steve-Jobs.jpg
 
Last thing that's needed is silly performance comparison videos again - Power PC vs Intel days - and how half the clockspeed of a RISC machine somehow still was supposedly competitive with the Pentium/Athlon/Opteron. Hint: It wasn't! :)

The switch to Intel put Apple on the radar for me. Suddenly you were able to get lots of software that seemed like an easy port from Windows or Linux. Unless a new platform somehow manages to completely destroy Intel/AMD in terms of performance to the point where you'd be stupid to stick with those I predict developers will bother with porting about as much as they went and optimized their apps for the unique dual GPU configuration of a certain Mac Pro.
 
Jyby said:
I mean they didn’t really offer any modules for the 2013 Max Pro you could buy later on... None of the Vega GPUs or otherwise were available post launch.


Or maybe Apple has been working with other companies to ensure the major software is being compiled to ARM? This is already the approach Microsoft has taken with its Windows Store apps.. I'm sure we'll start seeing everyone compile for ARM pretty quickly- And if you're small indie dev? idk it's like Mac OS 9 days- your days are numbered..
[doublepost=1559484424][/doublepost]Just want to put this thought out there on ARM, because it's fantastic for one reason alone! Companies can license the work from ARM and design their own ARM chips. Where as, Intel is a closed package- you buy it or you don't... Or you get on some committee and change the way things work ~2-3 generations from the date your idea was approved by Intel...

So ARM for the pro machines is definitely possible.. Apple would probably want to put desktop class ARM chips in the iMac first though.. So Mac Pro 8,1 would probably be ARM, like 4-6 years from now.

But there is tons of merit to stick with Intel... They do a lot of the work for Apple.. Helping to make motherboard layouts as well... So it might be smart for Apple to play its best cards instead of do it all by itself... Apple has never really done everything by itself.. If you look at the software components they use to make our Apps or Siri.. you'll realize it's not Apples technology per se. Java, Ruby, React etc are all tools used by Apple.
Click to expand...

The reason no after market upgrades were available were clearly told by Apple. They built themselves into a thermal corner.

Xcode (and other coding environments) does the compiling for you. All Apple apps are already ready for ARM (because of iOS) and Adobe are nearly there as well.

The rest of your post are purely conjecture. Apple have the expertise and manpower to build logic boards themselves. Heck, that was how they started in a garage so many years ago.
 
Manzanito said:
Don’t you think if apple wasn’t going to announce the mac pro tomorrow they would have done some sort of damage control by now?
Click to expand...
If there was nothing at the April window (blogger apology chat in 2017, 2018) and nothing on Monday, I’d say run and run hard, that Apple is dead. As far as damage control goes if that is the case... I don’t know what they could do. The fact that they released upgraded MacBook pros last week (or the week before-sorry the last few weeks have blended together), says that they have a filled keynote, let’s hope it’s filled with more than emojis and how to use their new music app.
 
Manzanito said:
Don’t you think if apple wasn’t going to announce the mac pro tomorrow they would have done some sort of damage control by now?
Click to expand...

It wouldn’t surprise me a bit if they’d completely forgotten about it and quietly reassigned the engineer who began work in 2017.
 
The very fact that we are discussing strange theories is a (pro)blem.

How can I plan my business with apple, or justify an investment if I can not predict his lifespan?

Secrecy is good in a highly competitive and fast market... but if "pro" still has a meaning... hint for apple: it is not the color.
 
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Manzanito said:
Don’t you think if apple wasn’t going to announce the mac pro tomorrow they would have done some sort of damage control by now?
Click to expand...

Don’t they have until the end of 2019?
Yes, WWDC is ideal. But if delayed they can always squeeze it in at a fall announcement.
 
Boil said:
But what if Apple figured out how to make their ARM APUs work together, seen as one pool by the OS, with latency & all that taken care of...

The base Mac Pro would have four ARM processors, 64GB RAM, & 2TB SSD...

Fully loaded Mac Pro would have sixteen ARM processors, 256GB RAM, & 8TB SSD...

Four TB3 / USB-C ports, four USB-A ports, one 10Gb Ethernet port, one 1Gb Ethernet port, one 3.5mm headphone jack, 600W PSU...

7.7" Cube

Steve-Jobs.jpg
Click to expand...

No professional in his right mind is going to pony up $5000 to beta test an ARM-based Mac Pro whose only native apps will consist of a Podcast player, a Music player and a Video Player ported from iOS and running on a brand new version of macOS.
 
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satchmo said:
Don’t they have until the end of 2019?
Yes, WWDC is ideal. But if delayed they can always squeeze it in at a fall announcement.
Click to expand...
Yes, according to their self imposed timeframe. However, it’s been more than a year since we heard something about the mac pro. In april 2018 all they said was that it will be a 2019 product, and a year before that Schiller said that it will be a modular product.

I think it’s about time we knew what Schiller means by modular.
 
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