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

[khollister]

I've often thought of the Mac Pro and Cinema Display as simply advertising for the brand itself, comparable to elite sports cars auto makers have. They don't sell many of them but the tech in them sometimes filters down to lesser models furthermore they tend to attract a lot of attention to the brand. There's no reason to give up the Cinema Display or Mac Pro - just a lack of vision. Making solid long lasting computers at both the top and mid range level is an insurance policy that consumers will stay loyal to the brand. No coincidence as Apple shows a lack of interest in these areas users are questioning what's worth staying for.

Exactly - it seems pretty clear that Apple is no longer on board with the "trickle down" marketing approach. That is why I now have to admit I think the MP is eventually dead - they are only investing resources in the product that they believe they can leverage in MP sales as opposed to it being a flagship product for the rest of the line.

I have recently made the difficult decision to move from Logic Pro to Cubase and replace my cMP with a Skylake-X Windows 10 machine next year. Even if Apple does update the nMP, the cost will be astronomical (plus costs for external drive boxes). I'm staying on Mac for my general computing needs (which is now 100% laptop based), but affordable high-horsepower hardware and a commitment to the pro apps is obviously not in the vision for Apple.

I think the recent monitor announcement and dropping Aperture (and not demoing Logic at the latest keynote) are supporting evidence that the new Apple is more than willing to abdicate market segments if they don't think they can dominate a high volume market.

It comes down to I'm tired of feeling like it's NeXT all over again (I owned one of the pizza boxes too).

 

[fastlanephil]

I have recently made the difficult decision to move from Logic Pro to Cubase and replace my cMP with a Skylake-X Windows 10 machine next year. Even if Apple does update the nMP, the cost will be astronomical (plus costs for external drive boxes). I'm staying on Mac for my general computing needs (which is now 100% laptop based), but affordable high-horsepower hardware and a commitment to the pro apps is obviously not in the vision for Apple.
.

I'm in a similar situation and am contemplating eventually switching to Cubase, or possibably even Sonar if they actually do go cross platform, once the cMac Pro can't do the job. I made the move from orchestral to electronic based music a while back and also switched to Logic so over-all most of my projects are less CPU intensive and Logic Pro X is really a great enviroment for electronic music creation. It seems that's where Apple is steering Logic besides recording. I have a W7 boot drive with my old DAW and a few plugins to keep my feet wet. As a hobbiest I can afford to be down if and when it's time to bale. I'm hoping Apple will continue to build some sort of computer that I can work with that is affordable but I'm not counting on it.

 

[Beer Wig]

Exactly...I have recently made the difficult decision to move from Logic Pro to Cubase and replace my cMP with a Skylake-X Windows 10 machine next year...

I'm trying to hold out until the next version of Ableton to make my decision. I can't imagine many in the Ableton community are very happy right now either.

 

[ManuelGomes]

this is not it but...
http://wccftech.com/intel-skylake-x-kaby-lake-x-cpu-sample/
Let's hope the server parts will come soon.
Validation and $h!t will take a while though.
Like I said, I'm hoping X299 will get to the nnMP (Late?) 2017.
But almost a year from now is too much to wait for.
44 PCIe lanes will be good for both GPUs full width, 3 TB3 controllers. Dual SSDs from the PCH as well as all other goodies. Perfect...

Anything new on macOS 10.12.2 Beta 2?

 

[pat500000]

I haven't heard Ming say anything about nmp...only iphones and mbp.

 

[ManuelGomes]

Either the nMP is a well kept secret or there is no nMP after all.
I believe (hope) there will be one.

On another note:
http://www.fudzilla.com/news/42065-intel-s-use-of-lasers-could-change-chips
Laser interconnect?!

 

[fuchsdh]

Ming isn't going to provide any real insight into a designed-and-built-in-America nMP.

 

[Jaho101]

The fact that the 10 USB 3 thing showed up in El Cap pretty much indicates some sort of Broadwell based custom PCB being tested. Delaying another half year, or more, for Skylake would be a pretty odd choice.

 

[tuxon86]

Ming isn't going to provide any real insight into a designed-and-built-in-America nMP.

Some parts are made oversea by third party.

 

[ManuelGomes]

Why was it BDW based? All you could see was the USB port types, and even that was not clear.

 

[Jaho101]

Why was it BDW based? All you could see was the USB port types, and even that was not clear.

I'm basing it on the timing, obviously could be wrong and they might have had early Skylake Xeon samples.

 

[CmdrLaForge]

I haven't heard Ming say anything about nmp...only iphones and mbp.

Maybe (just maybe) because it is build in the USA

 

[tuxon86]

Maybe (just maybe) because it is build in the USA

Not all part are...

 

[Aldaris]

Not all part are...

The components aren't but it is assembled here; in a sense it really cuts out the middle man and keeps tighter control on what is going on.

Additionally it is highly unlikely that there are enough components to notice their movement anyway. Someone recently accounted seeing an Apple Store floor crew shocked when a Mac Pro was pulled from the back and sold... not the highest demand. And it could really be on the chopping block, with the Texas Apple Assembly shop turned into a Mac repair/refurbish shop keeping some poor folks employed with the dismal sales and no real need to produce more than one Mac Pro a week.

*there is a sprinkle of sarcasm, not directed at any member of the forum, but the sheer lack of information from Apple regarding the Pro.

 

[AidenShaw]

...with the Texas Apple Assembly shop turned into a Mac repair/refurbish shop ...

The Texas factory is a Flextronics facility that's been contracted to assemble the trash can.

If (or when - if Apple hasn't already) Apple drops the MP6,1, that facility will be quickly reconfigured to build electronics for someone else.

There is no Apple factory building trash cans in Texas. There's no factory to reconfigure when Apple drops the Mac Pro.

 

[Aldaris]

The Texas factory is a Flextronics facility that's been contracted to assemble the trash can.

If (or when - if Apple hasn't already) Apple drops the MP6,1, that facility will be quickly reconfigured to build electronics for someone else.

There is no Apple factory building trash cans in Texas. There's no factory to reconfigure when Apple drops the Mac Pro.

I can't imagine there is enough demand of the 6,1 to justify it not being reconfigured now.

 

[pat500000]

Maybe (just maybe) because it is build in the USA

Or is it? (Inspector gadget theme)

 

[CmdrLaForge]

Not all part are...

Yes that's clear it is mainly an assembly line but I thought maybe that's the reason the Asian analyst doesn't have any insights..
[doublepost=1478773382][/doublepost]

Or is it? (Inspector gadget theme)

To my knowledge Apple made a big thing that it is assembled in the states.

 

[tuxon86]

Yes that's clear it is mainly an assembly line but I thought maybe that's the reason the Asian analyst doesn't have any insights..
[doublepost=1478773382][/doublepost]

To my knowledge Apple made a big thing that it is assembled in the states.

You don't think that if a production line in Asia was pumping out parts for Apple that wouldn't fit in the iMac or mbp that someone would raise the possibility that they are destine to the nnMP?

 

[fuchsdh]

You don't think that if a production line in Asia was pumping out parts for Apple that wouldn't fit in the iMac or mbp that someone would raise the possibility that they are destine to the nnMP?

We didn't have any rumors or parts leaks for the original nMP, so yeah, I think either people aren't looking for it or people missed it.

 

[pat500000]

Yes that's clear it is mainly an assembly line but I thought maybe that's the reason the Asian analyst doesn't have any insights..
[doublepost=1478773382][/doublepost]

To my knowledge Apple made a big thing that it is assembled in the states.

Weren't there leaked info about that big thing?

 

[Christian Schumacher]

I remember back in late 2012 or early 2013 [IDK and I don't have the link either] when some user posted then how surprised people would be as to how 'different' the new Mac Pro actually was. He also hinted that his knowledge was from watching a 'covered' prototype while it was being tested at a 3D facility ['Mari' the 3D software comes to mind as it was demoed later on the new Mac Pro reveal] These were leaks prior to the Mac Pro release and I first read them here TBH.

 

[koyoot]

The parts have not leaked for simple fact that they are custom built in the Mac Pro Factory itself. You can see the assembly of the GPU boards in the promotion film made for Mac Pro.

That is one of the reasons why nobody will tell you anything about Mac Pro refresh/next generation release.

 

[tuxon86]

The parts have not leaked for simple fact that they are custom built in the Mac Pro Factory itself. You can see the assembly of the GPU boards in the promotion film made for Mac Pro.

That is one of the reasons why nobody will tell you anything about Mac Pro refresh/next generation release.

That's a promotion film... We know that some part comes from over sea. Yes the final assembly of the board is done at that factory. The component on those board comes from all over the place. This isn't just an Apple thing. Car makers advertise the same. Both BMW and Mercedes published articles saying their cars where designed and built in Germany which is true, but the vast majority of the parts came from all around the world with a big buch from Mexico...

 

[Nathanbl]

Here's a question, from a different kind of power user - not video, phono-real rendering or music...

Are those patiently (or not) waiting for a new MP really waiting on memory access bandwidth and updated graphics? Are those the real-world, meaningful performance improvements, 2013 - to - today? Is this why Apple takes so very long between updates? Because to make a real difference - which seems to be a criteria for them - it requires a complete machine redesign?

It seems Apple takes a fundamentally different approach than, say, Dell, which will stuff the latest processor into a cheap and ugly plastic "workstation" box, and charge you almost exponentially more for the high end ones.

I'm an engineer running 3D CAD (Siemens NX) on my MBP, driving the original, true 4K LG monitor, plus Autocad on occasion. For most design tasks, this thing smokes most reasonably-priced Dell workstations in NX - even the common Xeon ones, and even when I run NX in Parallels (I can run it native Mac too, it's just an ugly interface). I've always attributed this to the SSD being particularly helpful with model loading (LOTS of seperate files) and to the fact that single core processor speed, plus enough graphics to keep up, is more important for many of the modeling operations and constraint-matrix-solving.

That said, while 90% of the work is great, I do run into a performance wall in really big assemblies, something I blame on being limited to 16 Gb, and secondarily on asking the 2Gb Nvidia 750M graphics to drive a monster monitor.

Anyway, it's for that reason that I was disappointed to see the MBP remain at 16 Gb (although I understand the power thing), and started thinking again about maybe a MP. If the biggest gains will (maybe eventually please?) come from a huge jump in memory access speed and graphics, I might join the "we're still waiting" gang. If I misunderstand the new processor advantages (hey, I'm a mechanical engineer), then maybe "only" a 5K iMac, or the maybe-year-away 32 Gb MBP would be a big step up.