That response didn't exactly adhere to my non-anecdotal request. I also work in an industry where workstations are a mainstay. I've only seen one out in the wild at various studios, agencies, and post houses. The point is that no one really knows anything except for Apple.
Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
Will there be a new Mac Pro in 2015?
- Thread starter Anto38x
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
- Status
That response didn't exactly adhere to my non-anecdotal request. I also work in an industry where workstations are a mainstay. I've only seen one out in the wild at various studios, agencies, and post houses. The point is that no one really knows anything except for Apple.
I have advanced this theory before. That the "real" Mac Pro is alive and well in Apple HQ. (though locked behind some thick doors)
It was pretty obvious that 7970 was original test platform for D700, and the D500s showed up in 7870 OpenGl screens, etc. If you wanted to evaluate cards and write drivers, having AMD or Nvidia make each engineering sample in the nMP form factor would add an insane amount of time & money to the process. Whereas if you had a "box with slots" it would be 1000x easier to write drivers, etc.
One day, maybe a few of those machines will end up in a yard sale in Palo Alto and we will know what we missed.
^I love this
The sad thing is if Apple had been just slightly accommodating perhaps making the nMP twice the size (which is still small), allowed for some internal expansion and used some off the shelf gfx cards I think more people would have openly embraced the uni-pony lifestyle.
I bet they do use nMP at Apple too but that's beside the point. Apples makes a living selling stuff outside of Apple, not for its own needs. They pretty much lost the engineering and scientific market with the nMP. They also kind of been eclipsed in the video market with the debacle of Final Cut. Where I live, most studio and music production school use ProTools instead of Logic. So that leaves what... Photoshop? It's the same on both mac and PC. 3D design? The PC side has better software and support for better GPU.
So, beside being cute and silent... What market does the nMP targets?
If Apple did in fact make a bigger can, with room for regular GPUs, wouldn't that ruin the design?
The nMP is all about the design, you could never fit 2 regular cards, and have the video (TB) ports laid out like they are now, with such a clean design. And this is in fact something I really love about the nMP actually.
Out with all the legacy ports and "normal" stuff, start with a clean slate.
Sure it makes upgrades almost impossible, but this an Apple machine, you're not supposed to be messing around it's insides
If you don't mess around with it, it won't (hopefully) brake on you, controlled ecosystem.
Before you come down on me, I'm not saying this is how it's supposed to be, but I must confess that my days of building rigs and overclocking are gone, I now prefer something stable, quiet and cool looking as a plus.
But I do agree Apple should then have another machine that can be easily upgradeable, for those who want or need to. Too bad this is not, or I believe ever was, the Apple way, even with the cMP I don't think they want you messing around those as well.
The nMP is all about the design, you could never fit 2 regular cards, and have the video (TB) ports laid out like they are now, with such a clean design. And this is in fact something I really love about the nMP actually.
Out with all the legacy ports and "normal" stuff, start with a clean slate.
Sure it makes upgrades almost impossible, but this an Apple machine, you're not supposed to be messing around it's insides
If you don't mess around with it, it won't (hopefully) brake on you, controlled ecosystem.
Before you come down on me, I'm not saying this is how it's supposed to be, but I must confess that my days of building rigs and overclocking are gone, I now prefer something stable, quiet and cool looking as a plus.
But I do agree Apple should then have another machine that can be easily upgradeable, for those who want or need to. Too bad this is not, or I believe ever was, the Apple way, even with the cMP I don't think they want you messing around those as well.
I'm very much curious as to which Tonga version Apple will use as the new D310 GPU? Full XT, Pro or something in between?
I'd say the full XT but with only 256bit mem width, to save on power. Or maybe they'll just throttle down to meet the power envelop. Or maybe the power supply has been optimized and more than 145W can be used. Don't believe this last one though, it must be dead silent and it doesn't help.
I'd say the full XT but with only 256bit mem width, to save on power. Or maybe they'll just throttle down to meet the power envelop. Or maybe the power supply has been optimized and more than 145W can be used. Don't believe this last one though, it must be dead silent and it doesn't help.
With the rumors now of a Tonga with 384 bit memory bus, this would make sense in a mac pro if only because they can better differentiate memory.
D310 - Tonga, 3 GB VRAM
D510 - Hawaii/Grenada, 4 GB VRAM
D710 - Hawaii/Grenada, 8 GB VRAM
They could use Tonga with 256 bit bus and 2 GB VRAM, but that would be depressing to see the entry level Mac Pro stuck still at 2 GB VRAM. Also, I am still holding out hope that we could see Fiji, but with the rumored limitation of 4 GB of VRAM and the need for a watercooling to keep up with Nvidia, it makes it sound like it may have pretty high power draw/heat.
I have no idea, I'm not a nMP user nor am I a fan of it. Heck, I basically hate it--it seems like a powerful Mac Mini to me. But there are lot of people in this forum who do like the nMP, some of them like it even better than the cMP. It's not for me, but to each his own. (My ideal is the hypothetical xMac.)
But while I understand that Apple wanting to "make a powerful desktop for their own internal use" is not by itself enough justification for the effort, it is nevertheless a strong incentive. So as long as the Mac Pro is profitable, I believe they will keep making it in some form or another.
If Apple did in fact make a bigger can, with room for regular GPUs, wouldn't that ruin the design?
No, it would fix the design.
They would definitely have my money. Hell, the first Pro Apple machine I bought I didn’t even need. I just like the look of it. If the nMP had some reasonable internal expansion options I’d be typing from one now.^I love this
The sad thing is if Apple had been just slightly accommodating perhaps making the nMP twice the size (which is still small), allowed for some internal expansion and used some off the shelf gfx cards I think more people would have openly embraced the uni-pony lifestyle.
No, it would fix the design.
Or, it makes the entire design impossible.
The whole thing about "just add another processor, make it larger" is that it's spitballing features without any idea of how it would function. Unless we have decent fluid dynamics engineers here to testify, it's impossible to say that you could take Apple's central core concept and "scale it up" to make it work that way.
Well, Intel released updates to the Xeon E5 family (the v3 series). There're options to go to an 18-core monster, but also 16 and 14 core CPUs are options. Right now the max you can have is 12 cores. So we'll probably see some improvements on that platform, alongside some Thunderbolt 3 ports next to USB 3.1 type A and Thunderbolt 2 ports.
I think Apple did what it did primarily to keep within its design philosophy of smaller, less user-upgradeable, limited-lifetime products, and also to meet a certain price-point.
Certainly it would have been possible to engineer a larger self-cooling cylinder with more options - that's what engineers are for. But Apple didn't want that for design and/or cost reasons.
They have a way of approaching product development unlike most other companies, and it involves a little bit of listening to the market and a lot of telling the market where it should be going. Sometimes, the method works and you end up with the iMac / iPhone / iPad. Other times you end up with the G4 Cube, Final Cut Pro, or Apple Maps.
I do appreciate the Mac Pro, but I think you're hitting on something pretty important. The Mac Pro is kind of like a Mac Mini, but with a HUGE design/price divide. It's kind of ridiculous that our only options are to either go from an underpowered dual-core machine on MacBook Air internals which supports 0 4K displays, to a box with Xeons, dual-GPU discrete graphics, ECC memory, w/ support for multiple 4K/5K displays and more.
I really don't understand why Apple won't give us a can with well spec'ed but reasonable components. 4/6 core i7, single GPU discrete graphics, non-ECC RAM, etc.
You can get something really close to that from Apple, but they insist on welding a monitor to it.
It's silly that Apple chose form over function with a workstation. Who cares what it looks like or how big it is? It's just gonna get tossed under my desk and work hard. Once you factor in all the external accessories it becomes a terrible design. The design philosophy of the nMP only works if everything was wireless.
Yes, that! Look, i love working with OSX. And I enjoy my Apple ecosystem at home. (iMac, iPhone, iPad, Apple TV) But.. i think Apple sometimes choose for better looks than practical use.
Also, I have to admit that they did something special with the MacPro. 1 single fan and so much horsepower. Than again, its Apple. They have a other view on computing and will never step away from that. That is there core.
For me, this will be one of the reasons that i may switch back to Windows (10) and configure a workstation monster. Leaving OSX and the simplicity with Apple products (plug and play) will be a big miss tho
a problem how?
it's like 8x smaller than what it replaced while still being more powerful/faster as well as more efficient/quiet.
that's pretty impressive.
Its obvious the next week Apple will update the new Mac Pro, no surprise here:
On the cards:
the question here is, how does will include Thunderbolt 2 ports? or be pure Thunderbolt 3/ USB-C ?
Not on the cards but very likely:
Past Year some rumours pointed out to an X99/Haswell-E 6 core i7 Based Mac Pro, at less than 2000$ will sell fast.
On the cards:
- updated Xeon Cpu now with DDR4 memory.
- updated ATI D310/D510/D710
- Thunderbolt 3 / Display Port 1.3 / USB 3.1 USB-C
- Updated SSD
Not on the cards but very likely:
- Dual SSD on Raid 1 for 4TB/S memory bandwitdth
Past Year some rumours pointed out to an X99/Haswell-E 6 core i7 Based Mac Pro, at less than 2000$ will sell fast.
I’m pretty sure it would. I’m sure there is something similar that has been designed in another industry that works just as well.
No it isn’t. Here’s how I read what you just said;
Apple have removed all of the empty space and made it smaller.
Of course it’s more powerful they are using upgraded components.
- Status