MP 7,1 What will happen if Apple makes a Mac Pro 7.2 ?

[MIKX]

I wonder what will happen when ( eventually ) the MP 7,2 emerges ?

Will it be similar to what has happened since the 2009 4,1 . .and then the 5,1s were released.

Up until the 7,1 release who would have bought a cMP 1,1 . . .or a 2,1 or even a 3,1 ? Not me.

Or . . . . given the modularity of the current 7,1 will super hotted up 7,1s start appearing for sale if a 7,2 appears ?

The next few years should be interesting but for the present I suspect that 4,1s and 5,1s are still more than adequate for general non-professional use with the 5,1s ease of CPU upgrade plus the ability to stealthily run Catalina ( Thanks to Dosdude1 ) and most of the recent GPUs, faster RAM etc.

Personally with my usual work demand I cannot justify a US$6,000 + sales tax upgrade.

My pumped up 4,1>5,1 does everything I require of it .. . . but . . .if I come across a DUAl 5,1 in good nick. . I WOULD go for that as 4,1 CPU upgrades though doable are fraught with danger. 😎

PS : Having just turned 70 years of age I must admit this does influence my thinking.

 

[atonaldenim]

Happy birthday @MIKX, hope you find a good deal on a dual 5,1 soon and some X5690s!

 

[jinnyman]

I just don't believe Apple updating the 7,1 to 7,2 in any near future given how much that platform is and the track record of Apple in that field. Look at iMac Pro. Can anyone say with some kind of certainty that Apple will update that as well? Look at Mac Mini. Apple likes to make their models appear generation-less in CPU in a sense that despite of constant CPU improvement and introduction of a new generation, Apple want to make it appear the current model is "enough" for users. The one of the primary reason being maximization of its profit.

Apple has a lot to do to build the trust again. If Mac Pro 7,1 were 2,799 USD starting model, they would surely update the motherboard and call it 7,2 when the next intel xeon platform comes out. I just don't see that with 7,1. They will let the current 7,1 run for 4~5 years.

 

[MIKX]

Happy birthday @MIKX, hope you find a good deal on a dual 5,1 soon and some X5690s!

Thanks for the B'day wish !
If I find a " in good nick " 2012 5,1. here in Japan I'll go for X5675s to keep my electricity bills low but will up grade the RAM.

Here in Japan "new and latest" is the byword regardless of price . . . so I might get 5,1 lucky soon.

There are many, many 5,1 professional owners here. If I approach one directly and state that I just need the 5,1 .. NOT their 3rd. party addons ( they can install them in the 7,1 ) I suspect that that might be an attractive offer.

 

[thomast0001]

I've been thinking about this over the last several weeks. To me it's pretty obvious Apple has left some breathing room for a minor update, say in the next year to year and a half (late 2020 to early 2021). However, I don't see much motivation to go to 7.2 in the (relatively) near future.

So let's start with what won't change (for now), most notably use of the LGA 3647 socket, due to Intel's processor roadmap. So no PCIE 4 for example. What might change is:

• A bump from the Xeon W-3223 8 core processor on the low end to the W-3225 (with a faster base frequency and higher turbo boost, although the same DDR4-2666 memory restriction). We might see similar bumps for the other CPU options, although I don't think they are directly on Intel's roadmap.
• A bump from 256GB to 512GB as the starting storage capacity, with an "adjustment" to storage upgrade prices.
• Similar "adjustments" to the cost of memory upgrades, and also a switch from a base 32GB to a base 48GB.
• Some kind of GPU "upgrade" from the 580X that's still less than the Radeon Pro Vega II (and even the W5700X). Again, don't be surprised if there are price "adjustments" to the GPU upgrades.
• Switching the I/O card to have USB-C instead of USB-A. If you need USB-A, "Get an add-on card".
• Support for USB 4.

Almost all of these possibilities can be handled by a simple upgrade of "modular" components. The one exception is support for USB 4.

Other potential changes:

• Changing the higher-level GPU upgrades to something else, say Navi-based.
• Those SATA connectors. They just feel like "legacy" support. I'm not sure what they'd replace them with -- perhaps a couple of NVME SSD slots?

Further out there's the switch to the LGA 4189 socket, PCIE 4, and 8-way DDR[45]-3200 memory. That obviously requires a motherboard respin, and thus would require a bump in the 7.x spec.

And then there's the "other" elephant in the room (besides the processor socket), namely the T2 chip. That's going to be respun at some point. Perhaps Apple will eventually provide a self-service mechanism for validating core storage SSD replacements using an updated security model for example. Only time will tell if that would be backward-compatible with the existing T2 chip.

The bottom line is if Apple does anything in the next year to year and a half, it'll be pretty minor, for the single reason that Apple has been following (bound to?) Intel's roadmap.