Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
Well, this was a great forum thread . :)

mp-wecant.jpg
 
I hope this is s mistake or bad rumours, at least about the GPUs, the Vega II Duo shouldn't sell over 4000$ and the Vega II at 1800$ as much. Beyond that many people would opt for Linux/ nVidia boxes.

I would guess the Vega GPUs are going to sell at Vega prices. I would guess standard Vega II at around $600 upgrade, maybe the Duo at $1000-$1200.

Standalone kit prices might be higher.

Your sources so far haven't been great so I'm not going to put much stock in them. No offense, just not a great track record.

If Apple wanted to mark them up that much, they'd rebrand them FirePros like they did in previous years.

[doublepost=1560187860][/doublepost]
Apple has said you can throw other cards in there, but I haven't seen someone say that was fully supported so that it is an equal offering.

It's fully supported. I can't get into it, but I have first person sourcing. Not some dark web thing.

The only catch is you won't get Thunderbolt video output. Not entirely equal based on that, but not unreasonable. And that's a technical issue that isn't totally on Apple.

(I do wonder if we'll ever see cards that pass DisplayPort back into the box.)
 
  • Like
Reactions: Flint Ironstag
I would guess the Vega GPUs are going to sell at Vega prices. I would guess standard Vega II at around $600 upgrade, maybe the Duo at $1000-$1200.

Standalone kit prices might be higher.

Your sources so far haven't been great so I'm not going to put much stock in them. No offense, just not a great track record.

If Apple wanted to mark them up that much, they'd rebrand them FirePros like they did in previous years.

[doublepost=1560187860][/doublepost]

It's fully supported. I can't get into it, but I have first person sourcing. Not some dark web thing.

The only catch is you won't get Thunderbolt video output. Not entirely equal based on that, but not unreasonable. And that's a technical issue that isn't totally on Apple.

(I do wonder if we'll ever see cards that pass DisplayPort back into the box.)

64GB of HBM2, custom PCB with extra power slot and PLX chip for onboard ThunderBolt / USB-C output and humongous cooling system for $1,200?

Sorry, not going to happen.
 
How about somewhere in between $1200 and $4000 for the Duo? It's basically a Radeon VII ($700 PC video card), with the Duo being two of them... It does have double the HBM of a standard Radeon VII, and some Apple-y tweaks like the better power delivery and Thunderbolt output.

It's also basically a Radeon Instinct MI50 (multi-thousand dollar workstation card that is essentially a binned Radeon VII with extra memory and a custom driver).

They've adopted Vega instead of Instinct branding, which suggests they'll aim closer to the Vega end, but it'll almost certainly be somewhere in between the two.

$1200 for the Duo seems awfully low, because that's cheaper than the two Radeon VIIs that make it up, leaving nothing at all for the extra memory and custom PCB.

How about $1000 per Vega, $2000 for the Duo? That does something for the memory and leaves some Apple Tax, while still staying on the Vega end of the pricing spectrum as opposed to the Instinct end. That's an upgrade price, but they're relatively realistic about how little the 580x is worth - I suspect the second one (or adding one later) is only $300 or so more expensive.
 
I would guess the Vega GPUs are going to sell at Vega prices.

the consumer 7nm Vega is called Vega VII ; not Vega II.


I would guess standard Vega II at around $600 upgrade, maybe the Duo at $1000-$1200.

I would guess that Apple doesn't really give full (or any) "credit' for the 580X card at all and the upgrade price is basically the cost of the card. Which won't be a BOM of $799.


If Apple wanted to mark them up that much, they'd rebrand them FirePros like they did in previous years.

"FirePro" as the branding label died off a couple of years ago. They have been using "Radeon Pro" as the overall workstation card brand over the recent period of time and currently. The offiical full name of the card Apple is using is " Pro Vega II" So it is just a minor variation on "Radeon Pro".

https://www.tomshardware.com/news/amd-radeon-pro-vega-ii-7nm-gpus-apple-specs,39571.html

And if go to AMD's official "pro" workstation graphics page now

https://www.amd.com/en/graphics/workstations

Guess what is at the top of that page at the moment with a "Learn More" button? .... Yep

https://www.amd.com/en/graphics/workstations-radeon-pro-vega-ii

This probably aren't going to be priced as Instinct MI60 ( not really a well know public price for those anyway ), but these are being branded as "Pro" card so highly likely not the consumer pricing ( which was probably close to "at cost" )


[doublepost=1560187860][/doublepost]

It's fully supported. I can't get into it, but I have first person sourcing. Not some dark web thing.

The only catch is you won't get Thunderbolt video output. Not entirely equal based on that, but not unreasonable. And that's a technical issue that isn't totally on Apple.

We'll see. That may be that it is the GPUs that have been used in other Macs ( with the list evolving over time ) will work. But stuff way off anything that has been embedded, I'd be surprised. Not sure if that is was 'cherry picked' sampling of generic cards and testing.

$6K 6k display and won't run.... Apple is going to need a midrange GPU solution that isn't in the stratosphere on pricing.


(I do wonder if we'll ever see cards that pass DisplayPort back into the box.)

Somewhat depends upon how anal Apple wants to be on working with folks to make MPX modules and what the run rate these new Mac Pro's is. The latter is probably a bigger problem as right now it looks relatively small ( at least for a couple of years and it makes it that far).
[doublepost=1560232529][/doublepost]
64GB of HBM2, custom PCB with extra power slot and PLX chip for onboard ThunderBolt / USB-C output and humongous cooling system for $1,200?

The other issue for the Duo Card is that Intercard/GPU Infinity Fabric is exactly a feature they pruned off of the Vega VII at the lower price point. If leveraging a MI60 product feature then it probably won't be a linear cost increase over he single.

The other issue for the Duo is those GPU packages are probably going to have to be binned better to run that close together.



P.S. the Navi RX 5700 price creeping up from the RX 570 pricing levels is probably another indication that AMD BOM costs aren't in the "cheap" zone.
 
Last edited:
I would guess that Apple doesn't really give full (or any) "credit' for the 580X card at all and the upgrade price is basically the cost of the card. Which won't be a BOM of $799.

On the iMac Pro, the "upgrade" pricing from Vega 56, to Vega 64, was pretty much the retail price of a Vega 64. Pay for two GPUs, get one.

It will be interesting to see what happens to pricing when buying a machine with a GPU upgrade, plus a second GPU that's the same one you upgraded from. Will it be a case of effectively paying for 3 GPUs and getting two, or will the upgrade be a price delta between the original and the more powerful one, or will the configurator let you strip out all the GPUs and see a GPU-less chassis price?
 
On the iMac Pro, the "upgrade" pricing from Vega 56, to Vega 64, was pretty much the retail price of a Vega 64. Pay for two GPUs, get one.
This is just the little psychological trick that applies to virtually all options (CPU, RAM, SSD, etc) across the whole product range.

You don't get the stock part, that's already factored into the base price, in a doggy bag. And even if you did, Apple would STILL come out of the deal with a good margin since their actual costs will be pretty low due to brutal negotiation.
 
Last edited:
We'll see. That may be that it is the GPUs that have been used in other Macs ( with the list evolving over time ) will work. But stuff way off anything that has been embedded, I'd be surprised. Not sure if that is was 'cherry picked' sampling of generic cards and testing.

I didn't get anything about specifics like boot screens, but my takeaway was that anything (as long as there are drivers in macOS) will work.

The drivers part is limiting (no Nvidia for now). But there isn't anything in the hardware that prevents the use of other cards.

On boot screens, I'd be surprised if Apple was still using UGA and not GOP on this box. But I don't know of any details to say anything for sure on that.
 
I just got info from darknet about nVidia, and he expects nVidia drivers get signed by Apple before September, at least this year no Mac specific (MXP cartdirge ejem module) GPU yet, but maybe next year a Titan RTX "duo" to come to the Mac pro as DIY upgrade only
 
  • Like
Reactions: aaronhead14
Nvidia and Apple making up…ha ha ha. I don't think Huang wants Apple's business enough, and Apple don't feel any way inclined to let bygones be bygones. Between the bad blood from past dealings, the alleged issues Nvidia have with Apple's approach to Metal & GPU drivers, the seemingly lukewarm efforts of Nvidia's Mac driver team…nope.
 
I wonder when orders and bto prices will go live?

I doubt it will ship before October (i.e,. will probably need for macOS 10.15 to go 'golden master' before can build stockpile of completed inventory), but they may start taking orders by second half of September.

https://www.macrumors.com/2019/06/10/mac-pro-and-pro-display-xdr-coming-september/

They "took" September 'back' but might be next dribble more information date.
But more likely some info update in October along with some other new products ( some other Mac and probably more dog and pony with the rack version). Given they were using them for on stage for 10.15 demos in a couple of sessions it shouldn't slide too deep into the Fall, but before 10.15 comes out would be strange at this point.

The order (demand) is probably not going to initially match the supply. They should be making these at scale at least a month before they start taking orders.
 
It looks like the Pro Display XDR doesn't have a kensington security lock or other security fixing. I mean its cool that it is easy to take off its magnetic mounting, but I'd feel a bit scared owing a $5000 monitor without it being bolted down. I think the vesa mount is the same, magnetically attached.

Anyone think of a good way to make these less difficult to be stolen?
 
It looks like the Pro Display XDR doesn't have a kensington security lock or other security fixing.

The reality of Kensington locks, is they're for college use where lots of people come and go. Noone is going to install one of these in a room that isn't secure (with keycoded doors if it's a larger organisation).

That said, I'd be unsurprised to see someone come out with a lock that involves threading a tether through the grille on the back.
 
  • Like
Reactions: shuto
Any chance it arrives before Catalina? Being mojave the last version of macos capable of running aperture it would be nice if one could run 10.14 on the new cheesegrater.
 
Well....I got pricing wrong and they didn't make gaming edition Mac Pros but....I got the cartridge format module right :)

https://forums.macrumors.com/thread...ro-is-gonna-cost.2098497/page-3#post-25676439

And I got the cylindrical handles right :p

https://forums.macrumors.com/thread...u-macos-support.2083168/page-50#post-27241943

Ehhhhh. It's just a normal PCIe slot with extra pins in a separate connector. It's not really a cartridge format anymore than a full length PCIe card is a cartridge. And you can still put a normal GPU in that slot. But I see where you are going. :p
 
  • Like
Reactions: ct2k7
Ehhhhh. It's just a normal PCIe slot with extra pins in a separate connector. It's not really a cartridge format anymore than a full length PCIe card is a cartridge. And you can still put a normal GPU in that slot. But I see where you are going. :p
OK OK it just needs the Atari Collection in the GPU firmware and then the MPX is definitely a cartridge :p
 
The reality of Kensington locks, is they're for college use where lots of people come and go. Noone is going to install one of these in a room that isn't secure (with keycoded doors if it's a larger organisation).

That said, I'd be unsurprised to see someone come out with a lock that involves threading a tether through the grille on the back.

The best thing about this display is that if you are caught carrying it away you can always claim you're the guy hired as the display's stand :p just going for a quick break, back in 5!
 
  • Like
Reactions: mattspace
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.