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

[koyoot]

https://twitter.com/x/status/1197250743503376389

Apple already laying ground for "possibility" of switching from Intel to AMD for CPUs.

Van Gogh is AMD's upcoming APU. Van Gogh is NEXT gen. The one after the one which is going to be released in January(Renoire APUs).

Here is the hope that next gen Mac Pro, the one after everybody is waiting today, will have AMD CPUs, instead of Intel.

Enjoy.

P.S. It might not mean anything. But evidently - somebody is testing something.

 

[thisisnotmyname]

Apple has 500+ retail locations. Every store will (eventually) have at least one for in-store demos and initially at least a few for the stockroom (especially in larger volume locations) in whatever standard BTO configs are available. They will need to stockpile at least 1,000 units just for day one availability, plus whatever their resellers and high spending corporate business clients have basically pre-ordered (or promised to order). That is not even anticipating what actual customer pre-orders/orders might be initially.

The business account manager on one of my local Apple retail stores told me they won't be getting a demo Mac Pro or XDR. He couldn't speak for other locations but this isn't a small store either (just not a flagship). From this terribly small sample data is seems that many retail locations won't get a demo unit. Probably won't have inventory in that location if they don't have a demo unit. Obviously I'm going way out on a limb with those predictions.

 

[Blair Paulsen]

IF, the 7,1 MP "just works" I think it will sell more units than some expect. OTOH, if there are notable growing pains once it's out in the wild...
Apple's key promise is user experience. Give content creators a capable, intuitive, trouble free tool and I'd bet there are plenty of people willing to pay the Apple Tax.

 

[Aldaris]

The business account manager on one of my local Apple retail stores told me they won't be getting a demo Mac Pro or XDR. He couldn't speak for other locations but this isn't a small store either (just not a flagship). From this terribly small sample data is seems that many retail locations won't get a demo unit. Probably won't have inventory in that location if they don't have a demo unit. Obviously I'm going way out on a limb with those predictions.

Makes sense.
I mean the 6,1 was on display near the two Apple stores near Salt Lake City at one point but they didn’t stick around long-I think they may have brought another one out at one point but certainly not a major item.
Plus what about those people coming in for a $329 iPad and see a $5k display... I don’t think too many people will be going back to their cars with a Mac Pro and XDR. I certainly would want an armed guard, heck some of those 27” iMac are more than a little pricey then I car to walk to my car.

 

[thisisnotmyname]

Makes sense.
I mean the 6,1 was on display near the two Apple stores near Salt Lake City at one point but they didn’t stick around long-I think they may have brought another one out at one point but certainly not a major item.
Plus what about those people coming in for a $329 iPad and see a $5k display... I don’t think too many people will be going back to their cars with a Mac Pro and XDR. I certainly would want an armed guard, heck some of those 27” iMac are more than a little pricey then I car to walk to my car.

The folks at the retail stores near me are nice enough to carry my purchases out for me

 

[airdrop]

That is a bit of a too broad, sweeping generalization. The iMac Pro is for a substantive portion ( not all) of those who bought Mac Pro's before. There are even a substantive number of MP 2013 users that didn't move up to the iMac Pro over the last 2 years.

The regular iMac covers another smaller group of those folks. The latest MBP 15" covers yet another smaller group of those folks. The Mac Mini yet another smaller group of those folks ( that would get substantively bigger if Apple incrementally improved the thermals coverage on next Mini iteration and allow it to get up into the 8-10 core range with next gen CPUs and had a decent enough iGPU. ) .

Collectively all four cover a big enough chunk for Apple to be happen enough with. Are they covering everyone ? No. Is it covering a large fraction of "box with slots only" people? No. The big disconnect is that the "box with slot" only folks think they were the overwhelmingly vast majority of Mac Pro buyers. It is highly likely that they are smaller block than they think (i.e., large overall market trend of far more folks buying laptops and getting work done than desktops. Even in workstation space , luggable laptops growing at paces faster than highly generic boxes. )

Those four were mainly getting transitions from folks toward the bottom 25% of the old Mac Pro market. Probably an even more significant chunk of folks who stretched budgets up to get the "old" Mac Pro. Folks whose workloads relatively haven't increased in performance demands versus improvements possible in these other form factors and have a function over form outlook then the "form" doesn't particularly matter as much. [ Apple even explicitly commented that they have seen trends of folks moving into iMacs and MBP as "Pro" user growth migrations over time. ]

The new Mac Pro is coming from the other end of that spectrum. It is going to capture more of the folks who were more so in the upper 25% of the old Mac Pro market. But even it is "passing" on the bleeding edge maximum x86 core count chasers. The key for the Mac Pro 2019 is going to be how well they do with the old 50-75% range. The old 25-50% range that are fixated on "box with slots" Apple probably has factored in as not being primarily critical to the overall Mac ecosystem.

There is a sizable hole there with probably tens of thousands in it (over a multiple year run rate), but it isn't huge relative to most of the rest of the Mac line up. The Mac Pro 2019 has healthy enough margins to make Apple not particularly miss that unit count difference. It is more of a hobby product now. If they can afford the hobby they'll keep a finger in that game.

Need to give you that, well said thank you.

 

[StuAff]

I'm not so sure they are going to use the MPX for the 580X. There is a PCIe power header by slots 5 and 6 that could be used to power it. Guess we'll find out soon enough.

The 580X is an MPX module. Slide shown in the keynote of the card showed the second edge connector, and Avid's Twitter feed posted a link to a shot of a 7,1 with a full set of HDX cards, and a 580X at the bottom....
There will be absolutely no advantage in performance for the 580X over the RX580 8GB, at least on macOS (Windows would allow overclocking). All the important specs are identical.

 

[RyanXM]

The 580X is an MPX module. Slide shown in the keynote of the card showed the second edge connector, and Avid's Twitter feed posted a link to a shot of a 7,1 with a full set of HDX cards, and a 580X at the bottom....

I just remembered...it has ThunderBolt 3 passthrough so most certainly an MPX module.

 

[ssgbryan]

https://twitter.com/x/status/1197250743503376389

Apple already laying ground for "possibility" of switching from Intel to AMD for CPUs.

Van Gogh is AMD's upcoming APU. Van Gogh is NEXT gen. The one after the one which is going to be released in January(Renoire APUs).

Here is the hope that next gen Mac Pro, the one after everybody is waiting today, will have AMD CPUs, instead of Intel.

Enjoy.

P.S. It might not mean anything. But evidently - somebody is testing something.

Navi 21 is a GPU, not CPU. We already know that the MacBook Pro will have both the 5300 & the 5500 Navi chips. OTOH, it would be nice to have the rumored "Nvidia Killer" available on a Mac. It would be even better if we had Adrenaline drivers to go with them....

 

[koyoot]

Navi 21 is a GPU, not CPU. We already know that the MacBook Pro will have both the 5300 & the 5500 Navi chips. OTOH, it would be nice to have the rumored "Nvidia Killer" available on a Mac. It would be even better if we had Adrenaline drivers to go with them....

You have missed that there is Van Gogh?

Van Gogh is Semi Custom APU, that will not be available on desktop market, or for that matter most likely - anywhere else.

Let me repeat this. Van Gogh is a Semi-Custom APU.

 

[OkiRun]

You have missed that there is Van Gogh?

Van Gogh is Semi Custom APU, that will not be available on desktop market, or for that matter most likely - anywhere else.

Let me repeat this. Van Gogh is a Semi-Custom APU.

An APUis a processor that includes both the CPU and GPU on a single chip. The name “APU was coined by AMD, which released the first APU in January, 2011. ... These chips are sometimes called “hybrid processors,” since they contain both the central processing unit and the graphics processing unit.
=====

I had to go research this! Some of us aren't computer majors. Yet another rabbit hole to go down to keep up with these posts.... another gray hair.

 

[koyoot]

An APUis a processor that includes both the CPU and GPU on a single chip. The name “APU was coined by AMD, which released the first APU in January, 2011. ... These chips are sometimes called “hybrid processors,” since they contain both the central processing unit and the graphics processing unit.
=====

I had to go research this! Some of us aren't computer majors. Yet another rabbit hole to go down to keep up with these posts.... another gray hair.

Have you used any Intel mainstream CPU in the past... 10 years?

Yes, they are technically APUs, because they combine CPU and GPU on the same die.

 

[AidenShaw]

An APU is a processor that includes both the CPU and GPU on a single chip

Just like all of the Intel CPUs with integrated graphics. No big deal....
[automerge]1574300381[/automerge]

Yes, they are technically APUs, because they combine CPU and GPU on the same die.

They meet the definition of what ATI calls an "APU", but "APU" is not an industry standard term. Intel calls them CPUs.

My laptop has an i7 8650U, which has an embedded Intel® UHD Graphics 620. It has no trouble driving a pair of 4K monitors for most stuff. (Not 4K gaming, of course.)

 

[OkiRun]

Have you used any Intel mainstream CPU in the past... 10 years?

Yes, they are technically APUs, because they combine CPU and GPU on the same die.

I manage staff who know this kind of thing and... they don't know I'm trying to learn more about the workings of the computers I buy them. If they did - I'm sure they would freak out.

And as I have already said in earlier posts - I deeply appreciate the information I am learning on Mac Rumors. Thanks so much.

 

[koyoot]

Anyway, lets sum up some things.

Van Gogh is Semi-Custom APU. Semi-Custom business is done by AMD's partners. Which means that it would be Apple who would order chips from TSMC(!).

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/arti...ontent=tictoc&utm_campaign=socialflow-organic

This article appeared over 6 months ago.

So we have now clues, that somebody is laying ground work for AMD CPU based Macs. Somebody has been laying corporate ground work, to ditch Intel from upcoming Macs. Next generation of AMD products will have USB4, which will have - Thunderbolt support, something that Apple would require.

Van Gogh is most likely a product for next generation Apple Laptops, and potentially Mac Mini. Not Mac Pro, not iMac Pro.

Those computers might still benefit from Threadrippers, and EPYC CPUs. But imagine Apple wanting something custom made, just for them. Possibilities are endless considering that you can slap anything you want on the CPU made from Chiplets. Including - HBM working as a high bandwidth cache.

 

[AidenShaw]

So we have now clues, that somebody is laying ground work for AMD CPU based Macs.

Or, Apple is covering their bases with a skunkworks project on AMD - just like they built x64 versions of NeXT during the PPC days. No actual plans to productize - but do the engineering just in case.

Might also come in handy when negotiating pricing with Intel.

 

[bsbeamer]

OSX was written for Intel on Sony Viao laptops as a demo long before it was actually implemented by Apple for official public launch. Good for Apple if they’re trying to keep Intel on their toes a little bit with a leak like this. Still is not an excuse for failing to offer high clock i9 CPU options for (other) desktop machines.

 

[koyoot]

Or, Apple is covering their bases with a skunkworks project on AMD - just like they built x64 versions of NeXT during the PPC days. No actual plans to productize - but do the engineering just in case.

Might also come in handy when negotiating pricing with Intel.

You clearly have no idea, what Van Gogh is, what Semi-Custom means, and how it is possible that its Device ID is already in Mac OS Catalina 15.2 Beta 3

It means that Apple already has samples, and they are testing the hardware.

Semi-Custom means, that Apple payed for its design. Physical design of the silicon, masks in the manufacturing lines, etc.

Its a done deal, if this is a product for Apple, and done by Apple.

 

[Joe The Dragon]

Or, Apple is covering their bases with a skunkworks project on AMD - just like they built x64 versions of NeXT during the PPC days. No actual plans to productize - but do the engineering just in case.

Might also come in handy when negotiating pricing with Intel.

amd just needs a few drives / remove the intel only locks.

ALL other os's run on both.

 

[koyoot]

The notion that there is any optimization required, or that Apple has to rewrite MacOS for AMD CPUs is ridiculous.

And AMD based hackintoshes that were running on Ryzen CPU for past two years were possible why?

Because its the same bloody x86 instruction set!
There is no optimization required, nor it is a skunkworks project, nor Apple wants to keep pressure on Intel.

 

[goMac]

Packaging photos are out via *gulp* Trump.

Looks like the box is pretty unique. It has a weird strap on it. I think it actually splits in half making it easier to remove the tower.

Internal honeycomb structure as well for protection.

 

[shuto]

And this can't actually be what the base plate could look like can it?

(text x10 too big - hope that this is a one off stupid idea)

This wouldn't happen in Jony Ive's time!

 

[mattspace]

The Mac Pro's association with Trump is leaving a bad taste in my mouth.
For the 2013 Mac Pro they make a beautiful factory video, for this we get a Whitehouse video full of TrumpTrump

And this can't actually be what the base plate could look like can it?View attachment 878378
(text x10 too big - hope that this is a one off stupid idea)

This wouldn't happen in Jony Ive's time!

Darring Fireball's thought on the Whitehouse Mac Pro video...
"A low moment in Apple’s proud history, and a sadly iconic moment for Tim Cook. I hope avoiding those tariffs is worth it."

• The original Mac Pro is the "cheesegrater" or "cMP"
• The 2013 is the "trashcan" or "nMP"
• The 2019 - (edited to remove a suggestion as to whom the product should be named after).

 

[Wolf1701]

And this can't actually be what the base plate could look like can it?View attachment 878378
(text x10 too big - hope that this is a one off stupid idea)

This wouldn't happen in Jony Ive's time!

text too big? Who cares?
Jony? Lots of worst things happened in it's time
Tim that does something as CEO of Apple instead of acting like an NGO/ONG? Good, about time

 

[bsbeamer]

Tim Apple knew giving him a full machine was a waste, so he just gave him part of the case. All I want is to see the BTO pricing options at this point. Given up on even attempting to place an order within 2019.

The reality is, Apple is a USA-based company and needs to deal with this (and future) administrations to cement their own needs. All of the governmental investigations and interference coming from both political sides does not look like it will be a pretty road for the next 8-10 years for the US Government and Apple (and Facebook, Google, etc). If efforts like this is what it takes, the public may need to look away while the Company fights for privacy and other "righteous" causes.