MP 7,1 Will 'made/assembled in the USA' increase Mac Pro quality?

[AndreeOnline]

Serious question with no inflammatory intent, so please treat it as such. I'd also appreciate leaving the actual politics out of it. It's strictly a question of where people think the most skilled assembly workforce operates.

Do you think that building the Mac Pro in the USA will increase or decrease build quality.

 

[tsialex]

Serious question with no inflammatory intent, so please treat it as such. I'd also appreciate leaving the actual politics out of it. It's strictly a question of where people think the most skilled assembly workforce operates.

Do you think that building the Mac Pro in the USA will increase or decrease build quality.

We don't know what will be manufactured in the USA itself, if Apple is using the MP6,1 model, every PCB will came from Chinese ODMs and will be only assembled in the USA with cases manufactured locally.

Anyway, there are a lot of factors to be measured before anything. If all PCBs are all made in China, even the shipment method have to be accounted, a container with 10k backplanes 30 days travelling by slow boat will have some impact in the final product.

One anecdoctal evidence that I and others noticed a long time ago, MP5,1 backplanes from Mac Pros to be assembled in Cork have better finish/look than the ones destined to be assembled in the USA or China, but those seems a lot cleaner/with a lot less flux residues. Some people think that it's because of the very strict regulations of solvents used in the manufacture process of PCBs for Europe or something along the lines.

 

[AndreeOnline]

I'm just assuming that steel parts/sheet metal, screws and so on will be sourced in the US, but that most of the electronics will come from China.

But I guess that the intricate case will be made in the USA.

 

[acorntoy]

It’s a 7k computer, wherever it’s made I trust they vet the process before shipping to consumers. If they chose a bad supplier in either the USA or China it would come out badly.

 

[th0masp]

Isn't it all going to be about the quality control?

From what I know in another industry - (road) bicycles - there's this elitism about certain brands' higher end products being made in Europe but if you look more closely the big Taiwanese factories actually have the production and QC process worked out better: larger productions and dealing with a variety of clients leading to higher requirements to keep machinery and workflows up to date and such. Probably also a more experienced and much larger employee pool to hire from.

So Made in Taiwan supposedly routinely works out better than fancy-pants Made in France or Italy in these cases. At lower prices!

 

[Moonjumper]

Apple will apply high quality control, so it doesn’t matter where it’s made. It is the bottom end of the market where there is more variability. It is easier to cut corners to reduce cost in some places.

 

[AidenShaw]

Apple will apply high quality control, so it doesn’t matter where it’s made. It is the bottom end of the market where there is more variability. It is easier to cut corners to reduce cost in some places.

Regarding all the GPU and thermal issues with the MP6,1 - I'm not sure that I believe you. (edit: No, I'm sure that I don't believe you.)

Although, the 6,1 issues are problems in the engineering design - not QC issues in assembly.

 

[tsialex]

Regarding all the GPU and thermal issues with the MP6,1 - I'm not sure that I believe you. (edit: No, I'm sure that I don't believe you.)

Apple has total ownership of the thermal issues of MP6,1, but GPU issues are totally an AMD problem, not just with MP6,1 but with 15" MBP2011 and iMac 2011. AMD totally f_cked up this, HD 7950/7970 (same as D500 and D700) fails even with MP5,1 that never ever overheated. Interestingly, HD 7870 (same as D300) almost never fail in the same situation.

 

[AidenShaw]

Apple has total ownership of the thermal issues of MP6,1, but GPU issues are totally an AMD problem, not just with MP6,1 but with 15" MBP2011 and iMac 2011. AMD totally f_cked up this, HD 7950/7970 (same as D500 and D700) fails even with MP5,1 that never ever overheated. Interestingly, HD 7870 (same as D300) almost never fail in the same situation.

Who chose AMD over Nvidia as the GPU vendor?

Apple.

Who didn't adequately test the GPUs before shipping?

Apple.

Apple chose the faulty parts - the blame can't be shifted.

The mobile GTX failures are a bit different - since the change in solder formulation showed up later in the life of the systems after many heat cycles. Very hard to test for something that shows up years later. (I had a Dell Latitude with that GPU that croaked an hour out of SFO on an SFO->HKG->DPS flight. Fortunately, I had a spare laptop just in case.)

The blame rests with the big logo on the front. Not on the chips with the fine print on the inside. Dell replaced my laptop mobo, not Nvidia.

 

[tsialex]

Who chose AMD over Nvidia as the GPU vendor?

Apple.

Who didn't adequately test the GPUs before shipping?

Apple.

The mobile GTX failures are a bit different - since the change in solder formulation showed up later in the life of the systems after many heat cycles.

You can tell that the buck will always end with Apple, but everyday we see reports of 3rd party desktop HD 7950/7970 cards falling with 5,1 Mac Pros and PCs, so it's not an Apple problem but industry wide. Dell AIOs that use the same GPUs fails like iMacs, desktops with HD 7950 fail like 5,1 Mac Pros. Workstations with AMD FirePro GPUs fail like MP6,1…

Search and see that a entire repair service industry was developed everywhere to repair this AMD problem replacing the two generations of AMD GPU processors that fail, for years, but now is just too expensive to buy the failing GPUs processors, that will fail again down the road.

Let's not even discuss the NVIDIA problem…

 

[AidenShaw]

Let's not even discuss the NVIDIA problem…

Why? Because the Nvidia issue was a single mobile variant that had a specific failure due to a change in solder formulation to meet RoHS rules? And while real, I bought 20 Latitude laptops with that "faulty" GPU - but in fact only one failed (on me. on the SFO->HKG->DPS trip, and was repaired the day after I got back to the US).

Whereas you've listed across the board AMD failures, that spawned an "entire service repair industry".

The buck always ends on the big logo on the outside. As it should - you sent money to Apple, and if the product is defective Apple is required to honor the warranty. You are not required to deal with AMD or Nvidia for component defects.

You're trying to speak with forked tongue.

 

[tsialex]

Why? Because the Nvidia issue was a single mobile variant that had a specific failure due to a change in solder formulation to meet RoHS rules? And while real, I bought 20 Latitude laptops with that "faulty" GPU - but in fact only one failed (on me. on the SFO->HKG->DPS trip, and was repaired the day after I got back to the US).

Whereas you've listed across the board AMD failures, that spawned an "entire service repair industry".

The buck always ends on the big logo on the outside.

NVIDIA problem is different and the corporation acted totally different from AMD. NVIDIA issued a new batch of every affected GPU chip model and offered replacements for failed products/OEM rebates/payed affected final users/etc.

AMD never even admitted the problem, never payed anyone, never issued corrected batches for the failed chips. Every replaced chip will fail again. Thats why I asked to not discuss the NVIDIA problem while talking about AMD responsibility with Northern and Southern Islands generation of GPUs.