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

[goMac]

I should have been more precise...
If Apple cuts the asking price of the Afterburner $150 from their original 'internal' cost figures we will never know.

Maybe. But I doubt that’s a heated discussion. Apple knows that everyone else knows that they charge a bit of a premium so I don’t see them fussing over a few hundred bucks.

And if Afterburner really is that good they’ll likely keep the premium in place.

I think Apple won’t alter prices. Evidence is they very likely have access to AMD’s roadmap. They are already unhappy with Intel and leaving them. Nothing happening right now is some surprise they weren’t prepared for that’s going to make them alter their plans. Apple probably was aware of Threadripper and it’s performance months and months ago. And evidence seems to be pointing to them considering an AMD future.

 

[Wolf1701]

You know AMD publicity sheets.

"640K is more memory than anyone will ever need"

 

[deconstruct60]

Its worse than that.

Depending on Intel manufacturing Woes, AMD can be on PCIe 5.0, while Intel can still be stuck with PCIe 3.0.

Probably not really worse. Although some slideware last year have AMD Zen 3 (Milan) with all kinds of super duper features, what has recently shown up is much more akin to a "tick tock" move by them and far more tractable.

"... Moving on to Milan and an interesting discussion I had with a source who believes that Milan will either come out with PCIe Gen 5 or DDR5. Now in the most recent presentation, the one that was deleted from YouTube, we clearly saw on the roadmap that Milan appears to be very much like Rome, still PCIe 3/4 and DDR4...."
https://adoredtv.com/tech-rumour-mill-2-nvidia-intel-and-amd-rumour-dump-transcript/

So AMD isn't moving to PCI=e v5 in 2020 at all. Intel already has test dies on PCI-e v4 on track for 2H 2020. AMD will have something better in 2H 2020 but it won't be SMT 4 , PCI-e v4 , DDR5 , better.

Intel's PCI-e v5 should merge in with 7nm. ( it showed in the recent Xe talk in the Xe-HPC system that uses PCI-e v5 as a base layer for their CXL interconnect between the GPU (and CPU) packages ).

Intel is probably going to get to 10nm Xeon W class products in 2020 with PCI-e 4. They just probably won't be substantially higher core count options. Better I/O, increased IPC , and more instructions in AVX512 and security. That will be offset by bigger package and no TDP relief (maybe some more incremental creep up). That will be probably a better fit to a better iMac Pro ( 10 -> 18 (maybe 20) core ) at price points below the Mac Pro but we'll see what the Xeon W 2300 series brings.

Xeon W 3300 is probably going to be more problematical. Intel is probably gong to need two dies to keep up on the core counts ( or even get back to the 28 core range). So not only would the Mac Pro be not that old at that point, but what could jump too would be somewhat a placeholder trying to get to 2021-2022 and better solutions.

10nm probably won't make desktop. and perhaps not the high end -X series if were there is more mania about max boost clock speed and overclocking. Intel is probably going to use EMIB and packaging to cobble together midsize 10nm dies so they don't have to do "monster" size ones ( and better control yield issues. ).

If a Max core count war than AMD is probably way ahead. The issue though in the Mac product space is Apple doesn't necessarily need maximum core count only for the Mac Pro ( or iMac Pro). AMD is more than competitive for those systems, but probably isn't so out of the race that AMD can skip delivering on other aspects like (firmware dev support, os dev bootstrap support , etc. ). Intel knows how Apple brings up Mac system because they have been in the loop a long time.

 

[mattspace]

That's why I mentioned C4D - the set of scalable apps is not the null set.

How much faster will Photoshop run with 64 cores vs 12? (or 12 vs 6?) Most desktop apps aren't embarrassingly parallel.

Get massively parallel systems for your render farms - or massively parallel cloud systems.

Maybe not Photoshop, but certainly Affinity Photo does some things astoundingly well in multicore.

For example batch processing, my older version of Photoshop does one particular batch task (I have to do every time I make a change to a project) of opening, resizing and saving out one file at a time, and takes about 10 minutes to do the job, barely moving the needle on a single core. Affinity photo does it in about 8 seconds, with all real and virtual cores maxed out.

 

[Biped]

How much faster will Photoshop run with 64 cores vs 12? (or 12 vs 6?) Most desktop apps aren't embarrassingly parallel.

Never underestimate Adobe's remarkable ability to grossly misuse a potential performance resource !

You know, if chrome would let me assign affinity such that each tab got a single dedicated core ...

 

[airdrop]

Jesus.

Looking at all of the AMD announcements, and reviews, I am a complete moron for going with Intel platform few months ago. Complete moron.

Anyone wan't to buy Asus ROG Strix H370-I mITX MoBo?

/joke

On a more serious note. Lets cheer up, AMD based Macs are coming sooner rather than later, based on what we know at this point.

But I will feel bad for those people who bought iMac Pro with 18 core CPUs, to find out that standard iMac with 16 core Ryzen CPU will be as fast as 5000$ machine, but cost half as much.

Most people who both 18-core machines will not have any regrets. If you watch YouTube only than of course, work wise this is investment and at the current time this is fastest Mac. There will be always newer and faster.

 

[vel0city]

But I will feel bad for those people who bought iMac Pro with 18 core CPUs, to find out that standard iMac with 16 core Ryzen CPU will be as fast as 5000$ machine, but cost half as much.

Problem with the iMac is fan noise though. As soon as you throw anything processor intensive at it the fans ramp up to hairdryer levels. I've tried multiple configs and models and they are all the same, including the new i9 - lovely for light work, but anything demanding like sculpting in ZBrush, rendering in C4D, creating particle simulations with Real Flow or X-Particles, rendering in Keyshot - all of these tasks make the regular iMac unbearably loud and cause throttling to kick in.

On an iMac Pro doing the same tasks you can hardly hear it whir. Night and day. It's not always just about speed, and I say this to people all the time who automatically think Octane is the "best" renderer because it is fast. Sometimes the stability, usage, functionality and features are worth more than pure speed. So I don't think anyone doing demanding work on an iMac Pro would be envious of anyone on a regular iMac, unless they like the sound of a vacuum cleaner being used next to them all day.

 

[koyoot]

Probably not really worse. Although some slideware last year have AMD Zen 3 (Milan) with all kinds of super duper features, what has recently shown up is much more akin to a "tick tock" move by them and far more tractable.

"... Moving on to Milan and an interesting discussion I had with a source who believes that Milan will either come out with PCIe Gen 5 or DDR5. Now in the most recent presentation, the one that was deleted from YouTube, we clearly saw on the roadmap that Milan appears to be very much like Rome, still PCIe 3/4 and DDR4...."
https://adoredtv.com/tech-rumour-mill-2-nvidia-intel-and-amd-rumour-dump-transcript/

So AMD isn't moving to PCI=e v5 in 2020 at all. Intel already has test dies on PCI-e v4 on track for 2H 2020. AMD will have something better in 2H 2020 but it won't be SMT 4 , PCI-e v4 , DDR5 , better.

Intel's PCI-e v5 should merge in with 7nm. ( it showed in the recent Xe talk in the Xe-HPC system that uses PCI-e v5 as a base layer for their CXL interconnect between the GPU (and CPU) packages ).

Intel is probably going to get to 10nm Xeon W class products in 2020 with PCI-e 4. They just probably won't be substantially higher core count options. Better I/O, increased IPC , and more instructions in AVX512 and security. That will be offset by bigger package and no TDP relief (maybe some more incremental creep up). That will be probably a better fit to a better iMac Pro ( 10 -> 18 (maybe 20) core ) at price points below the Mac Pro but we'll see what the Xeon W 2300 series brings.

Xeon W 3300 is probably going to be more problematical. Intel is probably gong to need two dies to keep up on the core counts ( or even get back to the 28 core range). So not only would the Mac Pro be not that old at that point, but what could jump too would be somewhat a placeholder trying to get to 2021-2022 and better solutions.

10nm probably won't make desktop. and perhaps not the high end -X series if were there is more mania about max boost clock speed and overclocking. Intel is probably going to use EMIB and packaging to cobble together midsize 10nm dies so they don't have to do "monster" size ones ( and better control yield issues. ).

If a Max core count war than AMD is probably way ahead. The issue though in the Mac product space is Apple doesn't necessarily need maximum core count only for the Mac Pro ( or iMac Pro). AMD is more than competitive for those systems, but probably isn't so out of the race that AMD can skip delivering on other aspects like (firmware dev support, os dev bootstrap support , etc. ). Intel knows how Apple brings up Mac system because they have been in the loop a long time.

What makes you believe that 10 nm is a thing, when Rocket Lake appears to be a complete backport of Ice Lake to 14 nm process(!)?

I was accused by usual suspects for reading AMD's marketing material. What if Intel is blatantly lying, and 10 nm is a dead process? Why do people believe in Intel's marketing knowing full well they are the most unethical company on this front, historically?

Problem with the iMac is fan noise though. As soon as you throw anything processor intensive at it the fans ramp up to hairdryer levels. I've tried multiple configs and models and they are all the same, including the new i9 - lovely for light work, but anything demanding like sculpting in ZBrush, rendering in C4D, creating particle simulations with Real Flow or X-Particles, rendering in Keyshot - all of these tasks make the regular iMac unbearably loud and cause throttling to kick in.

On an iMac Pro doing the same tasks you can hardly hear it whir. Night and day. It's not always just about speed, and I say this to people all the time who automatically think Octane is the "best" renderer because it is fast. Sometimes the stability, usage, functionality and features are worth more than pure speed. So I don't think anyone doing demanding work on an iMac Pro would be envious of anyone on a regular iMac, unless they like the sound of a vacuum cleaner being used next to them all day.

I would like to point out, that 16 core Ryzen CPU uses like half of the power of 18 core Xeon, while being faster in most tasks.

Yeah, that won't affect the sound pressure of the iMac/iMac Pro, at all...

 

[Mago]

How much faster will Photoshop run with 64 cores vs 12? (or 12 vs 6?) Most desktop apps aren't embarrassingly parallel.

Yesterday many sites released benchmarks on the new Threadripper 3970X, it beat the Xeon W-3175X (Mac pro top choice) in every Adobe-related benchmark not using overclocking and even almost all benchmark with overclocking except AfterEffects.

https://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/amd-threadripper-3970x-review/4


I think this close the discussion about cores/Adobe.

that might be justified by the increased costs around the Thunderbolt system.

Ok, this clarifies everything.

 

[koyoot]

Yesterday many sites released benchmarks on the new Threadripper 3970X, it beat the Xeon W-3175X (Mac pro top choice) in every Adobe-related benchmark not using overclocking and even almost all benchmark with overclocking except AfterEffects.

https://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/amd-threadripper-3970x-review/4


I think this close the discussion about cores/Adobe.

According to some 28 cores is all you need for your computing needs .

 

[thisisnotmyname]

Other technical info: no SMT4. Its still SMT2.

Core sharing has diminishing returns. Hyperthreading already isn't the same as doubling your core count. Packing more and more threads into a single core is counting on having spare capacity for operations and eventually you run into instruction bottlenecks. Four threads won't be a doubling of performance over two, it will be an incremental increase when ops allow.

 

[Mikael H]

Core sharing has diminishing returns. Hyperthreading already isn't the same as doubling your core count. Packing more and more threads into a single core is counting on having spare capacity for operations and eventually you run into instruction bottlenecks. Four threads won't be a doubling of performance over two, it will be an incremental increase when ops allow.

..Not only that, but in any task where security matters you won't use Intel's version of Hyperthreading, effectively halving the thread-/"logical processor" count compared to their spec sheets...

 

[Romanesco]

With the 32-core AMD Threadripper 3970X and the upcoming 64-core 3990X next year, can we still justify paying for a 28-core maxed out Mac Pro in 2019?

I’m afraid people will start building dual boot hackintoshes aside Windows on the AMD platform that will be twice as cheap and double/ triple the performance by end of next year.

 

[ssgbryan]

They are doing that right now, no need to wait until the end of next year.

There is already an entire community built around running OSX on Ryzen. Catalina was running on Ryzen boxen the day of release.

 

[Romanesco]

They are doing that right now, no need to wait until the end of next year.

There is already an entire community built around running OSX on Ryzen. Catalina was running on Ryzen boxen the day of release.

Mind pointing out the resource(s) to follow?

 

[ssgbryan]

amd-osx.com

 

[fuchsdh]

The issue is this machine was teased in 2017, again in 2018, finally announced with specs in mid 2019, but it's the end of 2019, we still cannot actually purchase, still cannot configure BTO pricing, still don't have an actual shipping date, and some of that base level upgradeable hardware remains at 2017/2018 level tech. That roadmap is not immediately promising or setting this machine up for longterm success.

In Q1 2020 Apple will be still be shipping this $6K+ beast with basically RX 580's as the base GPU option. A GPU that was released Q2 2017 and can be found for under $200 as an Apple certified MP5,1 upgrade. If they continue to offer that same configuration without updates in late 2020/2021/2022, it will really signal their intentions with this machine platform long-term and be really embarrassing, especially if they don't drop the price.

In reality, Pro's are expecting at least minor spec bumps on (around) a yearly basis for machines in this price range. Most are going 2-4+ years per machine, depending on post-purchase upgrades available. What most Pro's really want are machines that are on regular update cycles and they purchase when it times to their needs. Offices that I'm in are planning for Q2 2020 if they even pickup an MP7,1 at this point. Many of them are basically waiting to see how it shakes out for the first 3-6 months and to get the overall temperature at NAB 2020. More than a handful have already moved to iMacs and MacMini for their Mac workstations.

Given that they just updated the MBPs with all-new GPUs and storage options, and that follows new GPU options less than six months ago, it seems like Apple *has* been putting more effort into spec bumps.

If it's eighteen months in and Apple hasn't done a spec bump I'd be highly surprised.

 

[ct2k7]

Given that they just updated the MBPs with all-new GPUs and storage options, and that follows new GPU options less than six months ago, it seems like Apple *has* been putting more effort into spec bumps.

If it's eighteen months in and Apple hasn't done a spec bump I'd be highly surprised.

It has a larger public profile than the Mac Pro, the public would notice if there stopped being changes made.

I feel the Mac Pro is nearly outclassed before it has already been released.

 

[macguru9999]

It has a larger public profile than the Mac Pro, the public would notice if there stopped being changes made.

I feel the Mac Pro is nearly outclassed before it has already been released.

You cannot be outclassed unless there is a competitor .... So situations where windows 10 will do .... If your talking macos then hackintoshes are not a reliable alternative due to upgrade issues, besides any machine released by apple will hopefully have an upgrade path that maintains competitiveness (HOPEFULLY)

 

[Chevron]

What's the scoop with the processors in the new Mac Pro?

Will the 8 core version be able to have a processor upgrade to 12, 16 core etc later down the line 'a la' 5,1 MP?

 

[Mago]

What's the scoop with the processors in the new Mac Pro?

Will the 8 core version be able to have a processor upgrade to 12, 16 core etc later down the line 'a la' 5,1 MP?

Yes, but if you plan to buy a base imMP to upgrade it as it was a barebone, few bad news, Intel shortage of CPU (Cascade-lake Xeon) won't allow you to find a cheaper way to a decent imMP, at least not soon, if someday Intel's chip shortage turnout before Cascade lake is discontinued.

Also given the compatible motherboard (no cheap server mob is compatible) are too very expensive, will be either expensive to repurpose the bundled 8 core processor or resell as a used part.

 

[Chevron]

Sorry not sure I understand you. Are you saying it's possible to upgrade the 8 Core to a higher spec (12,16, 18 etc) but they might not be available in the future?

 

[ct2k7]

Sorry not sure I understand you. Are you saying it's possible to upgrade the 8 Core to a higher spec (12,16, 18 etc) but they might not be available in the future?

Yes, and it won’t be cheap

 

[chfilm]

Yes, and it won’t be cheap

I'll just go with 16 from the get go and be done with it I think.

All this talk about it being outdated from the start... it was absolutely the same with the nMP back in 2013 and yet here we are 6 years later and it's still cashing in for me on a daily basis. I think the panic is overblown. There's always gonna be something better on the horizon. Just BRING ON THE DAMN CTO PRICING!

 

[thisisnotmyname]

Yes, but if you plan to buy a base imMP to upgrade it as it was a barebone, few bad news, Intel shortage of CPU (Cascade-lake Xeon) won't allow you to find a cheaper way to a decent imMP, at least not soon, if someday Intel's chip shortage turnout before Cascade lake is discontinued.

Also given the compatible motherboard (no cheap server mob is compatible) are too very expensive, will be either expensive to repurpose the bundled 8 core processor or resell as a used part.

iMago is right that currently those chips are going for around retail or slightly higher. I expect that will change with time though if you plan on upgrading later. The processors are not soldered or anything so pulling one and putting in another compatible chip would be just fine.