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

[deconstruct60]

From Adobe website:
.....

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.

Metal isn't going to automagically get them balanced/distributed computation over Infinity Fabric. The extensions to Metal can be used to do that but it will take work. If Adobe is simply just trying to replace all of their CUDA and OpenCL with Metal it is far more likely their effort will probably be on rewrites of what they have rather than extending it to the new domain. If they hadn't already started on Metal substantially before they are way behind the curve on the transitions needed to leverage the Vega II Duo. ( folks who were doing multiple GPU with Metal would be ready to transition. )

Premiere Pro on Metal is needed simply to be viable across the whole mac line up. If they haven't sorted that out they they are unlikely to be doing work on a narrow vertical niche installed base of the Mac Pro. (numbers wise it will be too small a priority given the hole they are in. )

 

[OkiRun]

I have a bad feeling that when the first round of 'data' comes back comparing the Mac Pro to a high end PC, we will be drubbed with the high end PC ran our benchmarks .005 seconds faster then the Mac Pro! See, you don't need a Mac Pro! Buy a DIY kit and you too can be a millisecond faster than the overpriced Mac Pro!
So before that starts... I'm buying the operating system, upgradability, the new GPU cards, and the ProRes Card. F*** your benchmark testing results.

 

[Mago]

Afterburner card is between $800-$1200,

Most fpga Dev boards with 1M logic elements cost below 300, billing more than that for whtas basically an fpga Feb board cut down?

 

[OkiRun]

Thoughts about the cost of the Pegasus HD option listed on the Spec List for MP?

 

[goMac]

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.

That’s different than supporting dual GPUS, either through traditional synchronization or Infinity Fabric. Metal in Catalina (or earlier) does not make it automatic.

 

[ssgbryan]

I have a bad feeling that when the first round of 'data' comes back comparing the Mac Pro to a high end PC, we will be drubbed with the high end PC ran our benchmarks .005 seconds faster then the Mac Pro! See, you don't need a Mac Pro! Buy a DIY kit and you too can be a millisecond faster than the overpriced Mac Pro!
So before that starts... I'm buying the operating system, upgradability, the new GPU cards, and the ProRes Card. F*** your benchmark testing results.

Why do DYI? There are plenty of companies out there that will build you a system that will "drubb" a baseline 7,1; usually for between 1/3 to 1/2 the price. The biggest problem would be finding the video cards (GCN cards are no longer made, other than Apple); and finding a 256 SSD that is PCIe 4 - I don't think they make them that small.

Video cards? The ones going in the 7,1 aren't new - they are GCN, either from 2 years ago (which were just a refresh of Ellsmere) or silicon that couldn't pass certification for Radeon Instinct compute cards.

So, if you want a "new" video card, you will be buying that at a later date. If Apple writes video drivers for it. Unless of course, Apple gets their head out of their 4th point of contact and makes Navi cards available. There isn't any real reason they can't develop a 5500MPX (same basic performance as a 580) for their new baseline video card. Or simply do the right thing and provide a 5700MPX for the 7,1.

ProRes Card - that is a good reason to go with a 7,1. Of course, if your workflow doesn't use it, then it is pretty much worthless. I suspect that most of the folks that bought a Mac Pro in the past don't have that in their workflow.

All a benchmarking suite does is give you a (very) rough estimate of how the computer performs relative to other computers. No need to get worked up over it.

Unless you are trying to convince yourself that the 7,1 is a good deal for your workflow.

 

[Coyote2006]

About later GPU upgrade: Running a 5K UltraFine or the new 6K is a dead end. You won't ever be able to add a PC GPU into the MacPro due to the lack of a TB3 connector on the card.

Well, maybe Apple provides an internal connector for this? We'll see this soon ...

 

[tobiastimpe]

Wasn't there some kind of internal connector?

 

[chfilm]

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.




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



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. ).

Yea I was looking at my video memory and it's constantly full in Premiere. Take a look at these screenshots of my both D700s when using premiere for 30 minutes. One completely flatlines, while the other one is gasping for air. It's so annoying.
Based on that, what do you think about the new GPUs? I think the single Vega II should do the trick for me, or? The Dual cards probably won't be utilized once again, and that one card has 32 gb memory alone! That should be a massive improvement over the current 6gb I suppose.

 

[ManuelGomes]

AirPods Pro are out.
Something Pro out of Apple, just not the right Pro gear...

 

[thisisnotmyname]

AirPods Pro are out.
Something Pro out of Apple, just not the right Pro gear...

;-)

I suspect the rumors about a series of press releases for new products throughout the week will happen. Mac Pro will be released soon.

 

[ManuelGomes]

Compatibility with Mac Pro 2019
[automerge]1572362140[/automerge]
Yeah, seems it will go that way

 

[fuchsdh]

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.

Well, not like they weren't getting pushed that way anyhow, but nice they're actually reacting to the writing on the wall rather than continuing to ignoring it. But god knows when they'll be reasonably up-to-date on hardware acceleration options across their major applications.

 

[bsbeamer]

Adobe posted that update about CUDA many months ago. Premiere Pro is accelerated with multiple GPU setups and was recently updated for better acceleration performance with those setups and eGPU. The versions they'll demo at MAX next week will further build on that. If rumors are to be believed, we should see a performance demo using MP7,1.

Everything Adobe Video is being pushed through their Mercury engine and that has supported Metal for a long time. Metal performance improved tremendously in the past 6-9 months. Mercury also supports CUDA and OpenCL, when available. You can switch between hardware acceleration options in AME, but it is codec dependent and not every codec has functions that can be accelerated properly. OpenCL will not be developed further, but should not immediately disappear (likely in late 2020 or late 2021).

Adobe has a general policy of supporting the last three OS versions, so 10.15 Catalina, 10.14 Mojave, and 10.13 High Sierra will be supported until mid/late 2020. Mojave should be supported until mid/late 2022 and will likely end around the same time as Apple's OS security updates. That does not mean the latest software functions are passed down to the older OS versions.

 

[Pressure]

Wasn't there some kind of internal connector?

You can always add the Gigabyte GC-TITAN RIDGE card and route the monitor through there if need be.

 

[Coyote2006]

You can always add the Gigabyte GC-TITAN RIDGE card and route the monitor through there if need be.

Hmm, is that working out of the box? With what kind of GPU?

 

[McTaste]

One issue with adding third party video cards. you lose a big feature of the nmp: the cooling system.

 

[Krevnik]

Hmm, is that working out of the box? With what kind of GPU?

It takes in two DisplayPort connections, and has its own Thunderbolt 3 port.

eGPU users have used it to help drive Thunderbolt displays. It does work, but you only get the video part of it, not the USB/Thunderbolt connectivity. It’s not ideal for things like the LG 5K because of that.

 

[Coyote2006]

It takes in two DisplayPort connections, and has its own Thunderbolt 3 port.

eGPU users have used it to help drive Thunderbolt displays. It does work, but you only get the video part of it, not the USB/Thunderbolt connectivity. It’s not ideal for things like the LG 5K because of that.

Thanks

 

[apolloa]

I think Mac Pro’s will be launched tomorrow for purchase along with a new 16” MacBook Pro.
And maybe updates to the iPad Pro but that’s a long shot.

 

[wallysb01]

I think Mac Pro’s will be launched tomorrow for purchase along with a new 16” MacBook Pro.
And maybe updates to the iPad Pro but that’s a long shot.

Let us hope!

 

[bsbeamer]

Just hope it’s for sale by Black Friday so I can get my free $25 iTunes gift card with purchase...

 

[OkiRun]

Just hope it’s for sale by Black Friday so I can get my free $25 iTunes gift card with purchase...

Does the new Mac Pro come with a student discount? I might need to quickly sign up for a class...

 

[deconstruct60]

Pragmatically Apple did announce the Mac Pro will be delayed.

Apple Says New Mac Pro Will Be Manufactured in Texas After Receiving Tariff Exemptions

Apple today announced that its next-generation Mac Pro will be manufactured in Texas, with production slated to begin soon at the same Austin...

www.macrumors.com

" ... will begin production soon at the same Austin facility ..."

That meant it had not started production at that 9/23/2019 point of time. That didn't even attempt to make them in substantive numbers before Fall has already started. That is highly likely delayed.
Apple probably will need to run for 4-6 weeks before there was enough product to launch so they would highly likely be sliding into November. If there was any volume ramp problem that needed to be ironed out that could easily mean sliding into December.

Delayed past the vey loose "Fall" deadline they gave themselves? (i.e., orders start by Friday December 20th) No. Is that ( December) what Apple was shooting for all along? I suspect not. But technically they don't yet need to do another "dog ate my homework" session.


Slapping 10.14 Mojave as the operating system during June-September was probably just lazy, sloppy web site content management. The flakey 10.15 initial release probably has put some delay into the Mac Pro roll out ( it pragmatically couldn't roll out with that. ). Given Apple's track record this Fall I suspect general 10.15 wasn't the only was half baked. ( https://www.macrumors.com/2019/10/28/new-13-2-update-bricking-some-homepods/ . Also iOs 13 , 13.1 , and 13.1.2 , inside of 11 days. )

 

[apolloa]

Pragmatically Apple did announce the Mac Pro will be delayed.

Apple Says New Mac Pro Will Be Manufactured in Texas After Receiving Tariff Exemptions

Apple today announced that its next-generation Mac Pro will be manufactured in Texas, with production slated to begin soon at the same Austin...

www.macrumors.com

" ... will begin production soon at the same Austin facility ..."

That meant it had not started production at that 9/23/2019 point of time. That didn't even attempt to make them in substantive numbers before Fall has already started. That is highly likely delayed.
Apple probably will need to run for 4-6 weeks before there was enough product to launch so they would highly likely be sliding into November. If there was any volume ramp problem that needed to be ironed out that could easily mean sliding into December.

Delayed past the vey loose "Fall" deadline they gave themselves? (i.e., orders start by Friday December 20th) No. Is that ( December) what Apple was shooting for all along? I suspect not. But technically they don't yet need to do another "dog ate my homework" session.


Slapping 10.14 Mojave as the operating system during June-September was probably just lazy, sloppy web site content management. The flakey 10.15 initial release probably has put some delay into the Mac Pro roll out ( it pragmatically couldn't roll out with that. ). Given Apple's track record this Fall I suspect general 10.15 wasn't the only was half baked. ( https://www.macrumors.com/2019/10/28/new-13-2-update-bricking-some-homepods/ . Also iOs 13 , 13.1 , and 13.1.2 , inside of 11 days. )

Your clutching at straws with that one!