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

[Manzanito]

Yeah, too bad you can't choose when ordering, at least it doesn't seem so. The silver looks better with the mMP though.

goMac, indeed. Only remembered that after writing

Doing the math, here the base mMP will probably go for little over 7,000 EUR or so.
The base 8 core nMP, with 16GB RAM, goes for 4,699 EUR. Add to that 480 EUR for another 16GB, 85 EUR for the mouse and 149 EUR for the keyboard for a similar config to the mMP. That should be around 1,700 EUR extra for the base mMP, if we're to compare similar configs. It's the price of expandability I guess, very much in line with what was expected I'd say. Still hard to swallow though.

I'm already freaking out, what I'm aiming at now would be the base mMP with a single Vega and the Pro display XDR with stand. That should go for 14,000 USD, considering 2,000 USD for the Vega - hope it will be less. That will be more than 16,000 EUR!! Shoot... way more than I was initially considering.

I think it will be around 6.500€. If you convert $ to € and add VAT, that’s roughly what you’ll get.

 

[Kpjoslee]

For the record, I have no dog in this fight. That being said, someone posted an engineering sample of the Ryzen 9 3950X Geekbench score vis-a-vis the Xeon W-3275 Geekbench score:

http://browser.geekbench.com/v4/cpu/compare/12921561?baseline=13495867

https://www.reddit.com/r/Amd/comments/c09c2p/if_you_pitted_a_ryzen_9_3950x_custom_build_vs_the/

Geekbench is just a terrible benchmark for workstation/server platforms.

http://browser.geekbench.com/v4/cpu/compare/13495867?baseline=12065220

It is like saying Ryzen 3 16 core is 1.5 times faster than 32 core EPYC 7601.

 

[mattspace]

Hi Everyone!

Can I ask a stupid question...

Will the new mac pro be locked to Mojave and newer OS? I'm not a mac guy normally, but was told by someone with regard to a newer trashcan that they were told by Apple it was not able to be rolled back. Now, I don't believe that for a million reasons, since those components have been basically the same through several OS. But, iirc with the new T2 chips, Apple are managing to restrict third-party servicing, so I'm wondering if they're going to make the hardware incompatible with older OS versions.

Odds are it will be "whatever is current when it's released" and no earlier. Not such a huge problem now though - parallels has a free version for VMing macOS on Mac, so supporting older apps should be relatively turnkey

 

[ManuelGomes]

Old news the mMP? OK, Ice Lake is around the corner (maybe) but by that pattern we'd never get a mMP, ever. Always waiting for the next best thing.
I find current Xeon W pretty solid, PCIe 3 is old news, ok. But will PCIe 4 right now really make a difference? OK, this is a rig for the future but again, would it be better to keep on waiting? I wouldn't see Apple going, at this time, with AMD TR or Rome and Navi, just to be full PCIe 4 compliant, right?
Maybe even the board is PCIe 4 ready, who knows. Doubt it, though. But it might have been designed that way, although the slots should be too far off. And when PCIe 4 comes to Intel, the socket might be different, so no reason to design for it now.
Call me picky, but I don't much like non-power of 2 numbers so 12 core, no thanks. I know, stupid right? Well, everybody's got their own kinks.
Manzanito, didn't really make the conversion. Hope that's the case, or even lower, if Apple charges less for the Vega card.
VAT here is 23% so, currently the base model would go for 6,550,00 EUR, without Vega. I guess it's even worse than what I thought.
If I add to that the 1TB BTO...
[doublepost=1562923138][/doublepost]I'd expect mMP to come with Catalina, if not for the new system volume feature.
But yes, it will be quite new at the time and bug prone, Mojave is more mature.

 

[Macintosh IIcx]

I’m starting to think we won’t see Intel Xeon Ice Lake-W before in two years. It seems Comet Lake will be their desktop CPU in 2020 1H, and we will then see when they think 10nm is ready for desktop use. Intel normally want the desktop version to cook some time before moving it to server and workstation, so I would be surprised if we see Xeon Ice Lake-W before June 2021.

 

[ManuelGomes]

Yep, I'd say not for at least a year, year and a half for ICL-W.
Although some roadmaps had ICL-SP set for 1Q'20, but Intel roadmaps these days change a lot.
Maybe Apple will then provide a replacement board so we can update our mMPs. Not, you'll have to buy a new mMP then.

 

[Pressure]

Yep, I'd say not for at least a year, year and a half for ICL-W.
Although some roadmaps had ICL-SP set for 1Q'20, but Intel roadmaps these days change a lot.
Maybe Apple will then provide a replacement board so we can update our mMPs. Not, you'll have to buy a new mMP then.

Yeah, they are known to do that.

 

[ZombiePhysicist]

Old news the mMP? OK, Ice Lake is around the corner (maybe) but by that pattern we'd never get a mMP, ever. Always waiting for the next best thing.
I find current Xeon W pretty solid, PCIe 3 is old news, ok. But will PCIe 4 right now really make a difference? OK, this is a rig for the future but again, would it be better to keep on waiting? I wouldn't see Apple going, at this time, with AMD TR or Rome and Navi, just to be full PCIe 4 compliant, right?
Maybe even the board is PCIe 4 ready, who knows. Doubt it, though. But it might have been designed that way, although the slots should be too far off. And when PCIe 4 comes to Intel, the socket might be different, so no reason to design for it now.
Call me picky, but I don't much like non-power of 2 numbers so 12 core, no thanks. I know, stupid right? Well, everybody's got their own kinks.
Manzanito, didn't really make the conversion. Hope that's the case, or even lower, if Apple charges less for the Vega card.
VAT here is 23% so, currently the base model would go for 6,550,00 EUR, without Vega. I guess it's even worse than what I thought.
If I add to that the 1TB BTO...
[doublepost=1562923138][/doublepost]I'd expect mMP to come with Catalina, if not for the new system volume feature.
But yes, it will be quite new at the time and bug prone, Mojave is more mature.

From what I heard is everyone is going to skip PCI 4 and jump right to PCI 5, probably starting around the end of 2019. PCI6 is supposed to be worked on/ratified i think in 2021 and not clear how quickly thereafter motherboards will ship.

I do think the PCI5 and 6 updates are huge updates proving tons more bandwidth. It will allow a lot more IO and particularly as SSD prices fall, raiding 4 NVMe drives on a PCI card, we will be getting north of 12GB/sec throughput. That will start to push the bus along with 8k video cards. Not immediately, but in a few years.

So it really confuses me on what I should do with regard to buying this 2019 PCIe Mac Pro or wait and hope they release upgraded machines in 2020 and 2021/22 with the faster busses. On the other hand if these dont sell they may never update this machine again or move from intel. So I'm confused on what to do myself.

Which is why I started a thread/poll on this over here:
https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/poll-when-to-buy-the-new-mac-pro.2189615/

 

[Pressure]

From what I heard is everyone is going to skip PCI 4 and jump right to PCI 5, probably starting around the end of 2019. PCI6 is supposed to be worked on/ratified i think in 2021 and not clear how quickly thereafter motherboards will ship.

I do think the PCI5 and 6 updates are huge updates proving tons more bandwidth. It will allow a lot more IO and particularly as SSD prices fall, raiding 4 NVMe drives on a PCI card, we will be getting north of 12GB/sec throughput. That will start to push the bus along with 8k video cards. Not immediately, but in a few years.

So it really confuses me on what I should do with regard to buying this 2019 PCIe Mac Pro or wait and hope they release upgraded machines in 2020 and 2021/22 with the faster busses. On the other hand if these dont sell they may never update this machine again or move from intel. So I'm confused on what to do myself.

Which is why I started a thread/poll on this over here:
https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/poll-when-to-buy-the-new-mac-pro.2189615/

PCIe 4.0 were announced late 2011 and ready for implementation in June 2017. I doubt we will see PCIe 5.0 implemented before 2021 at the earliest.

 

[ZombiePhysicist]

PCIe 4.0 were announced late 2011 and ready for implementation in June 2017. I doubt we will see PCIe 5.0 implemented before 2021 at the earliest.

The PCI group didnt ratify PCI 4 until October 2017:

https://www.anandtech.com/show/11967/pcisig-finalizes-and-releasees-pcie-40-spec

So that took about 1.5 years to come out to market. PCI5 was ratified a several weeks ago and everyone seems to believe it will get out to market much faster, and that many manufacturers will simply skip PCI4.

 

[Zarniwoop]

I'd expect mMP to come with Catalina, if not for the new system volume feature.
But yes, it will be quite new at the time and bug prone, Mojave is more mature.

Why put ECC memory and all the pro hardware and couple it with a beta OS? MacOS xx.0 has been since the era of dinosaurs a buggy release.

MacOS 14.6 would be the most stable OS release Apple has to offer for many months.

 

[skippermonkey]

The PCI group didnt ratify PCI 4 until October 2017:

https://www.anandtech.com/show/11967/pcisig-finalizes-and-releasees-pcie-40-spec

So that took about 1.5 years to come out to market. PCI5 was ratified a several weeks ago and everyone seems to believe it will get out to market much faster, and that many manufacturers will simply skip PCI4.

I did a quick read and while PCIe 4 doubles the throughput, the motherboards currently run very hot. Plus, given the limited CPUs and GPUs that are PCIe 4 compatible, Apple had very little choice but to go with the tried and tested PCIe3. It also sounds like Intel might jump and go straight to PCIe5, so that would also help to make Apple's decision. Personally I'm not going to worry about it too much.

 

[fuchsdh]

Why put ECC memory and all the pro hardware and couple it with a beta OS? MacOS xx.0 has been since the era of dinosaurs a buggy release.

MacOS 14.6 would be the most stable OS release Apple has to offer for many months.

I dunno where the earlier posters were assuming it'd ship with Mojave, because on the tech specs page it just says MacOS and has the boilerplate Mojave text that's there for all machines. I'd say it's just as likely it ships with Catalina if it comes out afterwards and the text there changes.

 

[ManuelGomes]

A roadmap stated that ICL-SP would be PCIe 4 next year (Q1 or Q2), along with 8ch DDR4 and Sapphire Rapids-SP would be PCIe5 in 2021, with 8ch DDR5. So, SPR will be a major uptick. Still, there was also Cooper Lake-SP next year as well, ICL would span across both COL and SPR. But that might have changed though.
If Apple updates the mMP every 2 years (being optimistic here) then SPR-W maybe in 2021 would be the target for a new nmMP. How many acronyms do we have till now? Really?
8ch DDR5 and PCIe5 would be great of course. But designing for PCIe5 should be an even greater challenge, with reduced traces, and expansion slots as we have now on the mMP don't seem doable.
And 8ch mem for a WS, assuming -W also provides them all, although a wet dream, seems overkill. Probably only room for 1DPC, less modules and more bandwidth looks actually nice. Well, I guess we're never happy.

AMD didn't skip on PCIe4, nor will Intel. PCIe5 will take it's time, PCIe4 has just started to be deployed, but it will be faster than former iterations, no doubt. But it will be at least 2 years to see anything out, I believe.

Regarding Catalina, you're of course, but it will look kinda awkward for Apple to have just released a new OS and at the same time (more or less, we hope) a new shiny, powerful rig that comes pre-installed with... the former version of macOS. You're right, sure. It's not machine for beta testing, but still. You can always update later of course, whenever you feel comfortable with Catalina.
[doublepost=1562943945][/doublepost]fuch, check the tech specs page:

https://www.apple.com/mac-pro/specs/


Operating System
macOS

macOS is the operating system that powers everything you do on a Mac. macOS Mojave brings new features inspired by its most powerful users but designed for everyone. So you can get more out of every click.

Learn more about macOS Mojave

I know what you mean, but for all purposes, if the tech specs page is listing mMP specs, and in the OS section mentions Mojave (even if it's just because it's the current version) I'd take their word for it. Catalina has been announced, it's not like nobody knows about it, both unveiled at the same event even. They could have only mentioned macOS and that way it would ship with whatever version they would feel it should. I know it's just a detail, but still an important one, or not.

 

[barmann]

Hi Everyone!

Can I ask a stupid question...

Will the new mac pro be locked to Mojave and newer OS? I'm not a mac guy normally, but was told by someone with regard to a newer trashcan that they were told by Apple it was not able to be rolled back. Now, I don't believe that for a million reasons, since those components have been basically the same through several OS. But, iirc with the new T2 chips, Apple are managing to restrict third-party servicing, so I'm wondering if they're going to make the hardware incompatible with older OS versions.

Usually - always ? - Macs only run on the OSX version they are delivered with, or later versions .

It's a big weakness of Macs, especially since after Mavericks legacy software and hardware compatibility took a big hit .

 

[fuchsdh]

A roadmap stated that ICL-SP would be PCIe 4 next year (Q1 or Q2), along with 8ch DDR4 and Sapphire Rapids-SP would be PCIe5 in 2021, with 8ch DDR5. So, SPR will be a major uptick. Still, there was also Cooper Lake-SP next year as well, ICL would span across both COL and SPR. But that might have changed though.
If Apple updates the mMP every 2 years (being optimistic here) then SPR-W maybe in 2021 would be the target for a new nmMP. How many acronyms do we have till now? Really?
8ch DDR5 and PCIe5 would be great of course. But designing for PCIe5 should be an even greater challenge, with reduced traces, and expansion slots as we have now on the mMP don't seem doable.
And 8ch mem for a WS, assuming -W also provides them all, although a wet dream, seems overkill. Probably only room for 1DPC, less modules and more bandwidth looks actually nice. Well, I guess we're never happy.

AMD didn't skip on PCIe4, nor will Intel. PCIe5 will take it's time, PCIe4 has just started to be deployed, but it will be faster than former iterations, no doubt. But it will be at least 2 years to see anything out, I believe.

Regarding Catalina, you're of course, but it will look kinda awkward for Apple to have just released a new OS and at the same time (more or less, we hope) a new shiny, powerful rig that comes pre-installed with... the former version of macOS. You're right, sure. It's not machine for beta testing, but still. You can always update later of course, whenever you feel comfortable with Catalina.
[doublepost=1562943945][/doublepost]fuch, check the tech specs page:

https://www.apple.com/mac-pro/specs/


Operating System
macOS

macOS is the operating system that powers everything you do on a Mac. macOS Mojave brings new features inspired by its most powerful users but designed for everyone. So you can get more out of every click.

Learn more about macOS Mojave

I know what you mean, but for all purposes, if the tech specs page is listing mMP specs, and in the OS section mentions Mojave (even if it's just because it's the current version) I'd take their word for it. Catalina has been announced, it's not like nobody knows about it, both unveiled at the same event even. They could have only mentioned macOS and that way it would ship with whatever version they would feel it should. I know it's just a detail, but still an important one, or not.

Yeah, I dunno, them shipping it with Mojave doesn't seem like something they'd do, even if it'd probably be the right move. I guess we'll see.

 

[shuto]

Yeah I’m pretty almost sure mMP won’t ship with Mojave. The PCIe configure app for the Mac Pro is from the Catalina betas isn’t it.

In one way I’d like it to ship with Mojave so could still run QuickTime7. But I think Catalina’s Sidecar app is worth more than QuickTime7 for me.

I just wish QuicktimeX didn’t put the controls over the video. That’s the main thing I miss about QuickTime7.

Does anyone know of a good QuickTime alternative player which doesn’t put the controls over the video?

 

[fuchsdh]

Yeah I’m pretty almost sure mMP won’t ship with Mojave. The PCIe configure app for the Mac Pro is from the Catalina betas isn’t it.

In one way I’d like it to ship with Mojave so could still run QuickTime7. But I think Catalina’s Sidecar app is worth more than QuickTime7 for me.

I just wish QuicktimeX didn’t put the controls over the video. That’s the main thing I miss about QuickTime7.

Does anyone know of a good QuickTime alternative player which doesn’t put the controls over the video?

It's got loads of issues, but VLC has the advantage of being able to play almost everything and it won't stick the player controls on top. It also has a very user-hostile but powerful export suite of options.

I do miss the good old QT7 Pro + Perian days. Was nice to have your native player deal with practically every random codec.

Right now I still use QT7 to quickly strip out and save AIFFs of an audio track from a video, will have to figure out the best way to do that going forward.

 

[deconstruct60]

The PCI group didnt ratify PCI 4 until October 2017:

https://www.anandtech.com/show/11967/pcisig-finalizes-and-releasees-pcie-40-spec

So that took about 1.5 years to come out to market.

Revisionist history. How about 4 months, not 1.5 years.

Shown at hot chips August 2017
https://www.anandtech.com/show/13257/hot-chips-2018-ibm-power9-scale-up-cpu-live-blog

Announced by August 2017
https://www-01.ibm.com/common/ssi/S...77/ENUSZG18-0086/index.html&request_locale=en

Shipping Feb 2018
https://www.nextplatform.com/2018/02/13/first-look-ibms-power9-zz-systems/


If want narrow it down to the hitting the shops like Fry's bargain aisle , Newegg, and Microcenter. then 1.5 years but the computer market? It is way shorter than that.

If Global Foundries hadn't hit the all at 7nm and IBM had made a few different choices , then Power10 probably would have been first to PCi-e v5.

PCI5 was ratified a several weeks ago and everyone seems to believe it will get out to market much faster, and that many manufacturers will simply skip PCI4.

The only folks talking about skipping PCI-e v4 was mainly forum arm flappers.

"... aced with the choice between PCIe 4.0 and 5.0, chip designers will need to weigh their options based on the needs of their applications with those demanding the highest performance being the first to migrate to Gen 5. With PCIe 4.0 reaching volume production this year and production of PCIe 5.0 likely just a few years behind, PCIe will remain the standard of choice in a broad range of applications with Gen 4 and Gen 5 having a sustained period of coexistence in the market. ... "
https://semiengineering.com/pcie-4-0-hangs-in-pcie-5-0-coming-on-strong/

"

There is no serious architecture planning to do that. What folks did do was wait until most o the PCI-e SerDes (PIPE) standard solidified and used that as design foundation to jump into the 4 implementations with 5 queued up not that far behind.

"... PIPE specification has evolved to version 5.1.1 not only to match the latest specifications but also to scale up for future enhancements in the protocols. I .."
https://blogs.synopsys.com/vip-cent...5-0-dp-1-4-usb-3-2-sata-and-future-protocols/

Most roadmaps show some iteration on v4 before switch to v5. PCI-e v4 devices will work with a PCI-e v5 CPU just fine. There is almost zero rational reason for the add-in device makers to skip v4 .


There is nothing about the Mac Pro's status in 2017 - early 2019 that would make the 'need' for PCI-e v4 pressing or relevant. There were dramatically more substantive issues to address. This whole "but MP 2019 doesn't have PCI-e v4 so it has far diminished value " meme is misdirection at best. The mainstream market ignored PCI-e v4 for well over a year and the sky didn't fall in. Same thing will be true about adoption of PCI-e v5.

 

[ZombiePhysicist]

Revisionist history. How about 4 months, not 1.5 years.

Shown at hot chips August 2017
https://www.anandtech.com/show/13257/hot-chips-2018-ibm-power9-scale-up-cpu-live-blog

Announced by August 2017
https://www-01.ibm.com/common/ssi/S...77/ENUSZG18-0086/index.html&request_locale=en

Shipping Feb 2018
https://www.nextplatform.com/2018/02/13/first-look-ibms-power9-zz-systems/


If want narrow it down to the hitting the shops like Fry's bargain aisle , Newegg, and Microcenter. then 1.5 years but the computer market? It is way shorter than that.

If Global Foundries hadn't hit the all at 7nm and IBM had made a few different choices , then Power10 probably would have been first to PCi-e v5.





The only folks talking about skipping PCI-e v4 was mainly forum arm flappers.

"... aced with the choice between PCIe 4.0 and 5.0, chip designers will need to weigh their options based on the needs of their applications with those demanding the highest performance being the first to migrate to Gen 5. With PCIe 4.0 reaching volume production this year and production of PCIe 5.0 likely just a few years behind, PCIe will remain the standard of choice in a broad range of applications with Gen 4 and Gen 5 having a sustained period of coexistence in the market. ... "
https://semiengineering.com/pcie-4-0-hangs-in-pcie-5-0-coming-on-strong/

"

There is no serious architecture planning to do that. What folks did do was wait until most o the PCI-e SerDes (PIPE) standard solidified and used that as design foundation to jump into the 4 implementations with 5 queued up not that far behind.

"... PIPE specification has evolved to version 5.1.1 not only to match the latest specifications but also to scale up for future enhancements in the protocols. I .."
https://blogs.synopsys.com/vip-cent...5-0-dp-1-4-usb-3-2-sata-and-future-protocols/

Most roadmaps show some iteration on v4 before switch to v5. PCI-e v4 devices will work with a PCI-e v5 CPU just fine. There is almost zero rational reason for the add-in device makers to skip v4 .


There is nothing about the Mac Pro's status in 2017 - early 2019 that would make the 'need' for PCI-e v4 pressing or relevant. There were dramatically more substantive issues to address. This whole "but MP 2019 doesn't have PCI-e v4 so it has far diminished value " meme is misdirection at best. The mainstream market ignored PCI-e v4 for well over a year and the sky didn't fall in. Same thing will be true about adoption of PCI-e v5.

I'll defer to your greater expertise in the PCI 4 timeline, and thanks for all that detail. But that it came out faster gets to my greater point that PCI 5 boards are very likely to be out by end of year, and I do think PCI 4 will be largely skipped. Could be wrong, and I guess we'll know better by end of year.

As for any discussion of "need" on a product as niche as the mac pro, we can agree to disagree. But max bandwidth, max speed, max capacity... my position is there is always a "need" for that in the high end at least by some portion of users. The who needs "more than 640k of ram" sentiment is usually decently reasonable at a given time for most users (despite being derided with hindsight), but I think it's applicability in the pro niches is more reasonably dismissed as not applicable. As always, YMMV.

 

[JesperA]

It's got loads of issues, but VLC has the advantage of being able to play almost everything and it won't stick the player controls on top. It also has a very user-hostile but powerful export suite of options.

I do miss the good old QT7 Pro + Perian days. Was nice to have your native player deal with practically every random codec.

Right now I still use QT7 to quickly strip out and save AIFFs of an audio track from a video, will have to figure out the best way to do that going forward.

I've used VLC for years and years, then switch to IINA which works far better for me, have you given it a try?

 

[fuchsdh]

I've used VLC for years and years, then switch to IINA which works far better for me, have you given it a try?

No, I'll hafta' check it out.

 

[ManuelGomes]

Just to create havoc, have you heard of Vega reaching EOL?

 

[deconstruct60]

Just to create havoc, have you heard of Vega reaching EOL?

I commented in another thread, but there is quite a high likelihood that this is coupled to the arrival of Apple's Vega II production run. It is the same basic die as the Radeion VII. The Radeon VII is probably not a profitable card. The Vega II probably will be (for both AMD and Apple ). So why sell it in the context that makes close to zero profit if can take basically the same die and sell in it in profitable one?

Folks are trying to couch it as the RX5700 ran it out on performance. Again that probably missing the whole boat of the fact that AMD has a limited number of 7nm wafer starts available and is going to have to make choices as to which products to fab. ( Ryzen 300 , neg gen EYPC , the much delayed Threadripper all also will soak up a limited number of 7nm wafer starts. )

 

[deconstruct60]

I'll defer to your greater expertise in the PCI 4 timeline, and thanks for all that detail. But that it came out faster gets to my greater point that PCI 5 boards are very likely to be out by end of year, and I do think PCI 4 will be largely skipped. Could be wrong, and I guess we'll know better by end of year.

As for any discussion of "need" on a product as niche as the mac pro, we can agree to disagree.

PCIe v5 CPUs from which vendor by the end of the year from who? As opposed to just handwaving this is going to happend ... which major CPU vendor is going to deliver PCI-e v5 this year?


AMD? Just did not skip PCIe v4. ( IMHO AMD PCie v5 in 2020 is doubtful. Likely far more focused on a process shrink and opening clock/power gap than adding major new bandwidth change. )
Intel ? Is not shipping any PCIe v5 by the end of the year.
PCIe v4 2020 and maybe PCIe v5 in 2021. https://fuse.wikichip.org/news/2336...r5-pcie-5-0-for-2021-granite-rapids-for-2022/
[ Intel has a 10nm FPGA product with PCIe v5 coming. There are some megabucks (8-digits + ) shops that may deploy some stealth market stuff in 2019 )
IBM ? no ( as linked in early they have slid)
ARM Neoverse? No. PCI-e v4 https://www.anandtech.com/show/13959/arm-announces-neoverse-n1-platform/2
Apple? No they haven't even done x16 PCI-e v3 let alone anything in bandwidth range of double digit PCI-e v4.

Similarly on the GPU side?
AMD ? No. just did not skip PCIe v4.
Nvidia? Probably not ( nothing to couple to with IBM CPU with v5 yet. Leaning on Nvidia-Link to GPU-to-GPU , and graphics isn't a major driver.)
[ Nvidia's recently acquired Mellonix didn't skip PCIe v4 at all.
https://ir.mellanox.com/news-releas...es-industrys-first-pcie-gen-4-openpower-based ]

But max bandwidth, max speed, max capacity... my position is there is always a "need" for that in the high end at least by some portion of users.

If there is not CPU provisioning it for year(s) there isa bout zero real "need" in the current context.

The real "need" issue is whether PCI-e v4 bandwidth speeds are useful. They are. There is almost nobody whose computations are completely pragmatically blocked until get to PCI-e v5 speeds.

And "need" is always balanced against cost (and reliability). There are pros with bigger budgets but if tack on another zero/digit to the price, many will drop out. ( even without another digit but just a 120% increase for Mac Pro. )

The who needs "more than 640k of ram" sentiment is usually decently reasonable at a given time for most users (despite being derided with hindsight), but I think it's applicability in the pro niches is more reasonably dismissed as not applicable. As always, YMMV.

LOL. No one, including me, said anything even remotely like that. PCIe v4 not being completely skipped has absolutely nothing with semi-permanently capping folks at PCI-e v3 for next 2-3 years.

The core issue is that while PCI-e v5 just pasted 1.0 standardization, it will take time to work that standard into products and to completely the testing/compatibility testing regime required to make that into a viable broad market.
Getting "in design phase" CPUs out the door is often a 2+ year timeline. No one is going to whip out a new CPU over the next 6-8 months having started after PCI-e v5 came up for final vote.