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

[Zdigital2015]

they didn't give it the chance. Making a proprietary box like that needs real support or the users will abandon it. That is what happened. People wouldn't have minded so much if they could have swapped in their own components.

They were selling mostly MacBook Airs and Pros by that time and the Late 2013 iMac was challenging the 2013 Mac Pro in certain use cases. They thought they had it covered and doubled down on the iMac (Retina 5K) instead as the better bet for most of their user base, even Pros. They were partially right. Mobile was always the better (and frankly, easier) bet from a revenue perspective. Yes, they dropped the ball on Pros and we’re way too slow in course correcting. The Mac Pro may or may not be the answer. Time will tell.

 

[thisisnotmyname]

Read somewhere, AMD pro Vega II should be much cheaper than expected, at about 1200$ / GPU, two Vega II should rise the cgmMP up to 4800$, so assuming a 6000$ base adding 4gpu s 16 core CPU and 1tb SSD should be below or close to 13k$ w/o ram upgrades, a 1.5tb upgrade should alone add 30k$.

For those comfortable with AMD ROCm are good news a cheap Linux workstation (as long you can install Linux), a single Vega II equals a rtx2080ti in performance with twice ram (both non ECC)

Have you found benchmarks to support that Vega II to RTX2080ti comparison? I've looked for benchmarks every once in a while but hadn't found anything for the Vega II yet, would appreciate a link.

 

[H2SO4]

They were selling mostly MacBook Airs and Pros by that time and the Late 2013 iMac was challenging the 2013 Mac Pro in certain use cases. They thought they had it covered and doubled down on the iMac (Retina 5K) instead as the better bet for most of their user base, even Pros. They were partially right. Mobile was always the better (and frankly, easier) bet from a revenue perspective. Yes, they dropped the ball on Pros and we’re way too slow in course correcting. The Mac Pro may or may not be the answer. Time will tell.

Point was. They abandoned it. When you have an item that takes off the shelf parts that’s less of an issue. With the nMP they left their users out in the cold.

 

[Mago]

Have you found benchmarks to support that Vega II to RTX2080ti comparison? I've looked for benchmarks every once in a while but hadn't found anything for the Vega II yet, would appreciate a link.

There are benchmark about Radeon VII (actually same GPU as Vega ii) and rtx family https://www.pugetsystems.com/labs/articles/DaVinci-Resolve-15-AMD-Radeon-VII-16GB-Performance-1382/

Note the same GPU is used in the Radeon pro instinct mi50/60 which claims same performance in tensorflow as a Quadro rtx6000/8000 as long the Quadros don't use rtx cores , with rtx cores enabled Quadros are 3x faster in tensorflow. Only Vega 20 advantage is fp64 compute which ratio is 1:2 compared to fp32 while rtx family fp32 to fp64 is 1:32 but this is a very niche market (fp64 is often used in astronomy, fluids dynamics or nuclear science) so commercially is more profitable fp32 than fp64.

Ram in card is also another Niche selling point as most ML HPC applications do fine with 12gb, there are nlp models which really benefit from large on board ram, as well done huge finite elements models require a lot of ram, that's why AMD and apple choose to load it with twice ram as mainstream (3D rendering also benefits from huge ram on card)
[automerge]1572122206[/automerge]
AMD Vega II should price among Radeon vii and instinct mi50, closer as both shares GPU, but Radeon vii is only 16gb ram while mi50 is 32gb with ECC (Vega II has no ECC)

 

[fuchsdh]

they didn't give it the chance. Making a proprietary box like that needs real support or the users will abandon it. That is what happened. People wouldn't have minded so much if they could have swapped in their own components.

Yep. I would have bought a 6,1 if they'd updated it, because while slots are nice, I could see the appeal of what the tube offered. But instead they made hanging onto a 5,1 much more cost-efficient.

 

[chfilm]

You should see around a 40% jump in performance going from dual D700 to the base in the 7,1.

I‘m editing in Premiere. My issue with the 6.1 Dual D700 isn‘t so much in render or playback speed, but in overall sluggishness of the Adobe interface with dual 5k Displays attached. This is both in Premiere and Lightroom and After Effects.
I also have a 1080p projector attached, which is offline most the time, but I sometimes have the feeling it still taxes the GPU, as it shows up in display settings even when offline.

What GPU Setup you guys think is recommended for my two 5k screens? Think the Middle variant of the new machine will be sufficient? I‘m doing a lot of After effects work and currently, it doesnt utilize my second GPU AT ALL. All my GPU power gets sourced from the 1st card and only goes into interface and maybe when I final render in Premiere.

 

[Zdigital2015]

I‘m editing in Premiere. My issue with the 6.1 Dual D700 isn‘t so much in render or playback speed, but in overall sluggishness of the Adobe interface with dual 5k Displays attached. This is both in Premiere and Lightroom and After Effects.
I also have a 1080p projector attached, which is offline most the time, but I sometimes have the feeling it still taxes the GPU, as it shows up in display settings even when offline.

What GPU Setup you guys think is recommended for my two 5k screens? Think the Middle variant of the new machine will be sufficient? I‘m doing a lot of After effects work and currently, it doesnt utilize my second GPU AT ALL. All my GPU power gets sourced from the 1st card and only goes into interface and maybe when I final render in Premiere.

You’ve consulted the following Tech Support articles and have made sure you aren’t using the displays on the same Thunderbolt buses, right?

Use multiple displays with your Mac Pro (Late 2013) - Apple Support

Learn how to connect multiple displays (such as monitors, TVs, and projectors) to your Mac Pro (Late 2013) using Thunderbolt, Mini DisplayPort, and HDMI connections.

support.apple.com

Connect a display to your Mac - Apple Support

Mac computers support one or more external displays, depending on the Mac model. Here's how to connect an external display.

support.apple.com

You’re using the latest version of Premiere CC 2019 (13.1.5), not an older version?

 

[chfilm]

You’ve consulted the following Tech Support articles and have made sure you aren’t using the displays on the same Thunderbolt buses, right?

Use multiple displays with your Mac Pro (Late 2013) - Apple Support

Learn how to connect multiple displays (such as monitors, TVs, and projectors) to your Mac Pro (Late 2013) using Thunderbolt, Mini DisplayPort, and HDMI connections.

support.apple.com

Connect a display to your Mac - Apple Support

Mac computers support one or more external displays, depending on the Mac model. Here's how to connect an external display.

support.apple.com

You’re using the latest version of Premiere CC 2019 (13.1.5), not an older version?

Of course. Since they are both dual TB, it’s not even possible to attach them on the same bus, and yes, my premiere is up to date. OSX runs fine, but the very same premiere Projekt runs buttery smooth on the same machine attached to 2 regular 27” screens but on the 5ks, just everything becomes painfully sluggish.

 

[McTaste]

I run three dell 5k displays, and could never get satisfaction using any 5k displays with my garbage can.

It is not perfect in windows, but having one physical card per display helps. 1080ti or higher. I have been wondering if a quadro rtx 6000 would run two of these displays successfully.

 

[chfilm]

I run three dell 5k displays, and could never get satisfaction using any 5k displays with my garbage can.

It is not perfect in windows, but having one physical card per display helps. 1080ti or higher. I have been wondering if a quadro rtx 6000 would run two of these displays successfully.

Wow, three seems a mouthful. I already feel I‘m at the limit with these two. The one D700 is constantly at 100% load...

You‘re talking eGPU? I was considering getting a Radeon WX8200 in an enclosure and plug both or at least one screen into that. It should help. But then again, it feels like wasted money, to invest into the trashcan setup at this point.
What GPU in the new cheesegrater are you aiming at?

 

[McTaste]

Wow, three seems a mouthful. I already feel I‘m at the limit with these two. The one D700 is constantly at 100% load...

You‘re talking eGPU? I was considering getting a Radeon WX8200 in an enclosure and plug both or at least one screen into that. It should help. But then again, it feels like wasted money, to invest into the trashcan setup at this point.
What GPU in the new cheesegrater are you aiming at?

I gave up on doing any high res displays on the garbage can. Easier to just dedicate one internal card per display in a custom pc, in my situation.

I would probably go low or middle tier video on the nmp, as I do not need tons of video memory. Considering giving up my current setup for 1-2 xdr displays, but I kinda like my xwing looking display configuration now...

 

[Zdigital2015]

Of course. Since they are both dual TB, it’s not even possible to attach them on the same bus, and yes, my premiere is up to date. OSX runs fine, but the very same premiere Projekt runs buttery smooth on the same machine attached to 2 regular 27” screens but on the 5ks, just everything becomes painfully sluggish.

Sorry, I forgot about the dual cable requirement for 5K on the 2013. You’re running each at true @2x resolution of 2560x1440, nothing scaled? Have you tried a 4K monitor instead for at least one of the 5K's? Just to see if the same sluggishness occurs.

Or possibly moving your external storage to Thunderbolt 2, using a 2560x1440 monitor on the shared bus and then out the 5K display on the other bus, neither on the bus shared with the HDMI port or maybe put the storage on the same port as the HDMI port, since you don't use that display as much.

Other than that, you are probably looking at moving to a new computer.

 

[chfilm]

Sorry, I forgot about the dual cable requirement for 5K on the 2013. You’re running each at true @2x resolution of 2560x1440, nothing scaled? Have you tried a 4K monitor instead for at least one of the 5K's? Just to see if the same sluggishness occurs.

Or possibly moving your external storage to Thunderbolt 2, using a 2560x1440 monitor on the shared bus and then out the 5K display on the other bus, neither on the bus shared with the HDMI port or maybe put the storage on the same port as the HDMI port, since you don't use that display as much.

Other than that, you are probably looking at moving to a new computer.

Im most definitely looking either at an egpu or a new Mac Pro- that’s why I’m asking what gpu variant would be right for me.
The sluggishness gets better-BUT DOES NOT DISAPPEAR- when I have just one 5k attached, but that’s not an option.

 

[deconstruct60]

I‘m editing in Premiere. My issue with the 6.1 Dual D700 isn‘t so much in render or playback speed, but in overall sluggishness of the Adobe interface with dual 5k Displays attached. This is both in Premiere and Lightroom and After Effects.

On at least Premiere I seem to recall that there was some buffer space that Adobe attempts to carve out varying on resolution of the monitor on the GPU. So for a two 5K monitors could be getting close to a large fraction of the 6GB space on the D700. ( essentially because pragmatically have 4 monitors there; each 5K has a 'half' ). Something like activity monitor or iStats should be able to see have the memory is loaded.

What GPU Setup you guys think is recommended for my two 5k screens? Think the Middle variant of the new machine will be sufficient?

If running out of VRAM space is an issue then the 580X's 8GB probably isn't going to do too much better.

I‘m doing a lot of After effects work and currently, it doesnt utilize my second GPU AT ALL. All my GPU power gets sourced from the 1st card and only goes into interface and maybe when I final render in Premiere.

The "upper variant" ( Vega II Pro Duo) isn't going to help much if the Premiere can't put a 2nd GPU to work on the problem. Apple really only has two GPUs packages for this Mac Pro in these MPX cards. The Polaris ( probably Polaris 30 12nm ) and Vega II ( Vega 20 ). The top end card just increases the GPU package count. Pragmatically it is back to the Dual GPU set up of the Mac Pro 2013 (6,1) just with much better interconnections between the GPUs, much faster and bigger VRAM memory space, and relatively modern GPU implementation.

We will have to essentially see some low level tech diagrams ( or reverse engineering) but it is probably the case that the edge video out ports on the card are only hooked to one of the GPUs on the Duo card. ( The Duo card does appear to run at least two DisplayPort streams off the card and into the internal mux for one of the standard Thunderbolt v3 outputs. The Solo card can't drive all four of the standard TB ports with video out. )

If Adobe doesn't update Premiere to use Metal and the Infinity Fabric links to spread workload then there will be very little bang for the buck with the Duo card. ( or two Solo cards. ) .

A second card that is a Vega 56/64/VII would work also paired with 580X. Hook the monitors to the Vega and the 580X would just be used by apps that could spread the load ( to be competitive Adobe is going to have to figure that one out over time. ).

 

[ssgbryan]

Don't count out a Navi upgrade - Apple is the only company making Polaris or Vega cards anymore, and once stocks run out, a shiny 5500 variant could become available until the 5900 series comes out in 2020 (I'm betting 2nd half).

 

[tobiastimpe]

Both AVID and Waves have announced new versions of their software for Catalina today. It is likely that the preorder and the reviews of the new Mac Pro are coming very soon.

 

[goMac]

If Adobe doesn't update Premiere to use Metal and the Infinity Fabric links to spread workload then there will be very little bang for the buck with the Duo card. ( or two Solo cards. ) .

It's been a bit, so I'm not sure if this is a feature or not... But if Premiere supported both as separate graphics/compute targets, that would certainly help. But that setup will still skip the Infinity Link and do all the synchronization indirectly.

But yeah, Apple is going to have to get everyone to update or the Vega II Duo will be mostly useless. At least Apple's own software seems to be making decent use of it.

For apps that can do both compute and graphics on separate GPUs, it wouldn't be a big lift to transition that over to Metal's Infinity Link compatible API. Even if graphics loads aren't being split.

 

[bsbeamer]

Both AVID and Waves have announced new versions of their software for Catalina today. It is likely that the preorder and the reviews of the new Mac Pro are coming very soon.

Posted in the other 7,1 thread. MAX is next week, FYI:

There’s a rumor floating about an Adobe MAX preview for MP7,1. Probably just means a new MP will be used for demos, but maybe someone from Apple will speak if not released by then.

 

[goMac]

Posted in the other 7,1 thread. MAX is next week, FYI:

There’s a rumor floating about an Adobe MAX preview for MP7,1. Probably just means a new MP will be used for demos, but maybe someone from Apple will speak if not released by then.

It seems like they're lining up to release this week.

But we've come a long ways since this thread started. Now we're down to figuring out if the Mac Pro is going to be released this week or the next.

Edit: It also seems likely that "released" will mean it be available to be ordered this week, but take a week or two to start arriving. That could still give Adobe some amount of exclusivity.

 

[OkiRun]

Read somewhere, AMD pro Vega II should be much cheaper than expected, at about 1200$ / GPU, two Vega II should rise the cgmMP up to 4800$, so assuming a 6000$ base adding 4gpu s 16 core CPU and 1tb SSD should be below or close to 13k$ w/o ram upgrades, a 1.5tb upgrade should alone add 30k$.

For those comfortable with AMD ROCm are good news a cheap Linux workstation (as long you can install Linux), a single Vega II equals a rtx2080ti in performance with twice ram (both non ECC)

sorry for being dense.... 1 pro vega II is 1200 yet two are 4800?

 

[OkiRun]

It's been a bit, so I'm not sure if this is a feature or not... But if Premiere supported both as separate graphics/compute targets, that would certainly help. But that setup will still skip the Infinity Link and do all the synchronization indirectly.

But yeah, Apple is going to have to get everyone to update or the Vega II Duo will be mostly useless. At least Apple's own software seems to be making decent use of it.

For apps that can do both compute and graphics on separate GPUs, it wouldn't be a big lift to transition that over to Metal's Infinity Link compatible API. Even if graphics loads aren't being split.

From Adobe website:

Changes to GPU support on macOS

​

With the next releases, CUDA support is no longer available on macOS and we will be deprecating support for OpenCL. We recommend transitioning to Apple Metal, including systems running NVIDIA graphics.

​

The next releases of Premiere Pro and Adobe Media Encoder will default to Apple Metal graphics rendering on macOS. This applies to new projects and existing projects. Apple Metal provides a modern and unified render pipeline for all users on that platform and will be the focus of our development on macOS going forward.

 

[Korican100]

i wish they would release configuration details. I wonder if the afterburner card is as much as the GPU's. And i hope upgrading from 256gb to 1tb isn't going to be some crazy crap like $400. And any guess what the Ram price jump is going to be from the 32gb to 48gb?

 

[Zdigital2015]

i wish they would release configuration details. I wonder if the afterburner card is as much as the GPU's. And i hope upgrading from 256gb to 1tb isn't going to be some crazy crap like $400. And any guess what the Ram price jump is going to be from the 32gb to 48gb?

I would be willing to bet the Afterburner card is between $800-$1200, the upgrade from 256GB to 1TB will be $400 (that’s what the iMac upgrade costs now) and the jump from 32GB to 48GB will most likely be $200-$300.

 

[Mago]

sorry for being dense.... 1 pro vega II is 1200 yet two are 4800?

4800 should be the upgrade from single rx580 to dual Vega II pro duo (4 GPU/128 gb hbm2 non ecc)

 

[deconstruct60]

i wish they would release configuration details. I wonder if the afterburner card is as much as the GPU's. And i hope upgrading from 256gb to 1tb isn't going to be some crazy crap like $400. And any guess what the Ram price jump is going to be from the 32gb to 48gb?

The SSD technology is the same as the iMac Pro. So the prices probably are about the same. 1TB delta there is $400 so somewhere in the $300-400 range is a pretty good chance.

For memory probably $170-200. depending if Apple is shooting for a nice round number (then more likely $200). $170 is about a 35% markup on crucial's prices for 2 8GB DIMMs. The 8's are only used in those first two configurations ( 32 and 48) so they'll probably put overhead on stocking those extra stock in inventory.

Afterburner is probably over $1,200. ( depends upon how bleeding edge or "old" the FPGA package. "old" would mean $1,200 range. Newer would push it substantially higher. I suspect this is closer to $2K than $1K which Apple will spin as a bargin versus $3-4+ K boards. )