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Will there be a new Mac Pro in 2015?
- Thread starter Anto38x
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I know GDDR5 is dead, what I was saying is that, since HBM is still in it's infancy an improved Tonga (and I mean Tonga since it's the latest design, GCN 1.2) would be a good bet. Most of the engineering work is done (I know of course it's not that simple), node could still be 28nm, GDDR5 is not new, so it would have been much better than Grenada, if it was (over) designed to meet the same specs. It would be almost like pasting 2 copies of Tonga in one die.
It would almost compete with Fiji, since it would become similar, and with 8GB of GDDR5 it could even eventually best it at times.
The design team would even be the same.
I guess that way Fury wouldn't stand out that much though.
As for TB3 and SSD, of course with a switch the full BW would not be available for both, but it would have to be a trade-off as usual. Hoping you wouldn't use both always at the same time, so they could share BW.
Since you have 8 PCIe lanes left on the CPU, 4 would go for the SSD and the remaining 4 to the TB3 controller, giving each full BW. But that is for only 1 TB3, 2 ports. As you say, that would equal other machines. But who uses more than 2 ports anyway? Some will say yes, but I'd guess a minority. And with everyone claiming the death of TB cause of USB-C, well, that could be the way to go. Don't get me wrong, I believe in TB.
If you use 2 TB controllers as you said, then the SSD must go back to the PCH, where only PCIe 2 is available, capping the BW again. I posted that thought also some time back, that would make sense, but only if no PCIe lanes on the PCH were used. If all 8 could be switched to 4 lanes PCIe 3 for the SSD, than all would be well.
I know GDDR5 is dead, what I was saying is that, since HBM is still in it's infancy an improved Tonga (and I mean Tonga since it's the latest design, GCN 1.2) would be a good bet. Most of the engineering work is done (I know of course it's not that simple), node could still be 28nm, GDDR5 is not new, so it would have been much better than Grenada, if it was (over) designed to meet the same specs. It would be almost like pasting 2 copies of Tonga in one die.
It would almost compete with Fiji, since it would become similar, and with 8GB of GDDR5 it could even eventually best it at times.
The design team would even be the same.
I guess that way Fury wouldn't stand out that much though.
As for TB3 and SSD, of course with a switch the full BW would not be available for both, but it would have to be a trade-off as usual. Hoping you wouldn't use both always at the same time, so they could share BW.
Since you have 8 PCIe lanes left on the CPU, 4 would go for the SSD and the remaining 4 to the TB3 controller, giving each full BW. But that is for only 1 TB3, 2 ports. As you say, that would equal other machines. But who uses more than 2 ports anyway? Some will say yes, but I'd guess a minority. And with everyone claiming the death of TB cause of USB-C, well, that could be the way to go. Don't get me wrong, I believe in TB.
If you use 2 TB controllers as you said, then the SSD must go back to the PCH, where only PCIe 2 is available, capping the BW again. I posted that thought also some time back, that would make sense, but only if no PCIe lanes on the PCH were used. If all 8 could be switched to 4 lanes PCIe 3 for the SSD, than all would be well.
Fury X (Fiji) reviews and benchmarks are out. Overall, I'm a bit disappointed. In gaming, it seems to be a few percentage points below Nvidia's best (980 Ti/Maxwell), and also has higher power consumption and needs water cooling to do it. In compute, it seems to trade blows with Maxwell, depending on the benchmark.
As to figuring out what could be in the next Mac Pro, I doubt it will be Fiji/Fury. Both Maxwell and Fiji seem to be gaming oriented parts, as both Nvidia and AMD have been stuck at 28 nm, they have had to specialize their cards to either be good at compute or gaming. Gaming has never been a priority for Apple. Fiji doesn't seem to blow away Hawaii at compute, so I could see Apple using those in the next Mac Pro, as they are cheaper and are not limited by memory capacity.
As to figuring out what could be in the next Mac Pro, I doubt it will be Fiji/Fury. Both Maxwell and Fiji seem to be gaming oriented parts, as both Nvidia and AMD have been stuck at 28 nm, they have had to specialize their cards to either be good at compute or gaming. Gaming has never been a priority for Apple. Fiji doesn't seem to blow away Hawaii at compute, so I could see Apple using those in the next Mac Pro, as they are cheaper and are not limited by memory capacity.
Fury X device ID in ElCap DP1 and DP2 drivers could indicate that some work is in progress...
In DP2 they added additional framebuffer personalities and now AMD9000Controller contains first complete personality "tailored" for the trashcan. Of course still no Fiji section in AMDX4000.
I'm not saying that it will happen, but just pure facts I noticed.
I guess everybody was expecting a miracle...
Still, impressive numbers koyoot!!
Fury in nMP seems unlikely though. Unless they wait a while longer, maybe even for HBM2 next year.
But it seems too far away for an update, even though the wait has been endless...
If it comes soon enough, then with 8Gb chips dropping in price versus 4Gb then the high capacity cards make sense.
Also, with DDR4 prices coming down and DDR3 going up, sooner or later the change will make a lot of sense, maybe Apple will decide to go for it.
Still, impressive numbers koyoot!!
Fury in nMP seems unlikely though. Unless they wait a while longer, maybe even for HBM2 next year.
But it seems too far away for an update, even though the wait has been endless...
If it comes soon enough, then with 8Gb chips dropping in price versus 4Gb then the high capacity cards make sense.
Also, with DDR4 prices coming down and DDR3 going up, sooner or later the change will make a lot of sense, maybe Apple will decide to go for it.
The reviews so far are extremely inconsistent. All gaming of course. However. Fury X in compute performance is in Luxmark at least 81% faster and uses less power, according to golem.de. And the data about computing is consistent everywhere. In every, single review that contains compute.
http://www.golem.de/news/radeon-r9-...erg-schlaegt-nvidias-titan-1506-114780-7.html
http://www.golem.de/news/radeon-r9-...erg-schlaegt-nvidias-titan-1506-114780-7.html
While Anandtech's review isn't up yet, you can check out their compute benchmarks at
http://www.anandtech.com/bench/GPU15/1224
http://www.anandtech.com/bench/GPU15/1224
If you click the drop down box, there are a few different compute benchmarks. Interestingly, Fury does will with video encoding, which sounds like a nice selling point for Apple if these were to end up in a Mac Pro.
From Gaming point of view, I will go with my heart and say that now, way better option to buy is GTX 980 Ti. A lot better than Fury X.
For 4K, and compute, tho... Thats where gets interesting, because for gaming in 4K I think overall better option will be Fury. As for compute, Ive always stated that AMD solutions are the way to go. And in quite quick future we will have DX12 and the rest of Low-Level API applications. It will be very interesting to see what will happen then. For now, best GPU there is is the GTX 980 Ti.
I hope Fury Nano will be 90% of Fury X at 175W of TDP at 499$. That will shake things up much.
For 4K, and compute, tho... Thats where gets interesting, because for gaming in 4K I think overall better option will be Fury. As for compute, Ive always stated that AMD solutions are the way to go. And in quite quick future we will have DX12 and the rest of Low-Level API applications. It will be very interesting to see what will happen then. For now, best GPU there is is the GTX 980 Ti.
I hope Fury Nano will be 90% of Fury X at 175W of TDP at 499$. That will shake things up much.
Uhm... no chance, I think. You're right on many things, but I believe that the point of having TB3 is to connect 4K (and maybe 5K) monitors with one cable. The GPU are able to drive at least 2 4K monitors + 1 on HDMI and the new versions might even reach 4 monitors. Therefore, I guess there will be no less than 2 TB3. Still, it would be quite a strange move to go from 6 TB2 (which Apple was very proud of) to 2TB3. As far as I know, there is no increase in connected units on a single line from TB2 to TB3.
Cheers.
I think the 2 thunderbolt 3 refers to the number of thunderbolt 3 controllers. In the current Mac Pro, there are 6 thunderbolt 2 ports, but there are only 3 thunderbolt controllers, with the available bandwidth for each controller split between 2 ports each.
The reason there could be less controllers in a future mac pro is that the bandwidth available from the CPU for thunderbolt will likely be the same, despite double the bandwidth required for each thunderbolt 3 controller compared to thunderbolt 2.
Yes, I believe the update has been delayed just because at the moment there is no good solution to maintain all ports and improve on the current.
The newer SSDs need PCIe x4 or else it's a wash, the performance is there but you don't really take advantage of it. You can still use the same solution as the current in the nMP but that would be a waste. So, it needs to go on the CPU lanes.
But the TB3 controllers also need PCIe 3 lanes to be any good, and with the 2 GPUs there are only 8 left, which is very short. So, unless you use a switch and have all fight for bandwidth, or you let go of some features to have all at full speed.
OK, if you need lots of displays, you're in trouble, you need to find another solution. If you can deal with only 1 or 2, no problem, unless you also need to attach other devices.
USB Alternate Mode could be the solution, with some extra display ports, but you can't do it with the current hardware.
Also, if Apple would go with Fury for GPUs, only HDMI 1.4a would be available, which is also a problem.
4K is no problem, but limited in number, 5K is a stretch and will leave you with nothing else.
The hardware at the moment isn't up to the required needs, I'd say. And that's why we haven't seen a nMP yet.
Problem is, it won't be that soon anyway. Whatever comes up will be some sort of compromise.
Apple did indeed bet on TB but who knows now what they want, with USB-C on the MacBook it could spread to all of their hardware, and leave TB dead in the water.
The newer SSDs need PCIe x4 or else it's a wash, the performance is there but you don't really take advantage of it. You can still use the same solution as the current in the nMP but that would be a waste. So, it needs to go on the CPU lanes.
But the TB3 controllers also need PCIe 3 lanes to be any good, and with the 2 GPUs there are only 8 left, which is very short. So, unless you use a switch and have all fight for bandwidth, or you let go of some features to have all at full speed.
OK, if you need lots of displays, you're in trouble, you need to find another solution. If you can deal with only 1 or 2, no problem, unless you also need to attach other devices.
USB Alternate Mode could be the solution, with some extra display ports, but you can't do it with the current hardware.
Also, if Apple would go with Fury for GPUs, only HDMI 1.4a would be available, which is also a problem.
4K is no problem, but limited in number, 5K is a stretch and will leave you with nothing else.
The hardware at the moment isn't up to the required needs, I'd say. And that's why we haven't seen a nMP yet.
Problem is, it won't be that soon anyway. Whatever comes up will be some sort of compromise.
Apple did indeed bet on TB but who knows now what they want, with USB-C on the MacBook it could spread to all of their hardware, and leave TB dead in the water.
Not exactly. Fury X does not have HDMI 2.0 natively, however it can use DP-HDMI dongles to make it. Also, AMD stated that only Fury X is the reference design. Fury and Fury Nano can be modified by producers in every way they like.
Which means semi-custom needs like Apples can lead to HDMI 2.0 in next Mac Pro.
Also, I really don't know why people got so "glued" to the TB3... What if next Mac Pro will use Haswell - EP CPUs and will not support TB3?
Which means semi-custom needs like Apples can lead to HDMI 2.0 in next Mac Pro.
Also, I really don't know why people got so "glued" to the TB3... What if next Mac Pro will use Haswell - EP CPUs and will not support TB3?
Yes, but it's a shame that you need to resort to dongles to do it. It's not a clean solution.
Apple certainly won't go for home cooked solutions, from what I know.
And since it seems a hardware issue a simple customization doesn't seem viable.
Like you couldn't just make DP go to the next revision like that.
I must admit I would like to see TB3 in there, but it's too far off and demands a lot of bw.
For those into eGPUs I can even see the need.
4K seems good enough and TB3 isn't required, but true 5K does require TB3 and unfortunately it seems the way to go for Apple. I'm not sure they would now go back to regular 4K after releasing 5K riMacs.
But with all these DP and HDMI AMD issues, it seems 5K will be on hold for a while. So, probably no 5K display any time soon, which is too bad. And since 4K might seem a step back, it might not be an option as well, which to me would be more than enough and I even prefer. Too bad.
Haswell (or Broadwell) and DDR4 will have to come sooner than later. Intel will want to stop supplying Ivy Bridge in favor of Haswell, and DDR3 is becoming more expensive than DDR4, so it's just a matter of doing the math. Of course, Apple needs to spend money on R&D for the new platform, but that will pay off. At the moment, keeping the rest with no changes, the cost would be in the development of a new motherboard and firmware. But then again, there's the issue with the newer SSDs... :-(
And so on...
Apple certainly won't go for home cooked solutions, from what I know.
And since it seems a hardware issue a simple customization doesn't seem viable.
Like you couldn't just make DP go to the next revision like that.
I must admit I would like to see TB3 in there, but it's too far off and demands a lot of bw.
For those into eGPUs I can even see the need.
4K seems good enough and TB3 isn't required, but true 5K does require TB3 and unfortunately it seems the way to go for Apple. I'm not sure they would now go back to regular 4K after releasing 5K riMacs.
But with all these DP and HDMI AMD issues, it seems 5K will be on hold for a while. So, probably no 5K display any time soon, which is too bad. And since 4K might seem a step back, it might not be an option as well, which to me would be more than enough and I even prefer. Too bad.
Haswell (or Broadwell) and DDR4 will have to come sooner than later. Intel will want to stop supplying Ivy Bridge in favor of Haswell, and DDR3 is becoming more expensive than DDR4, so it's just a matter of doing the math. Of course, Apple needs to spend money on R&D for the new platform, but that will pay off. At the moment, keeping the rest with no changes, the cost would be in the development of a new motherboard and firmware. But then again, there's the issue with the newer SSDs... :-(
And so on...
All Fury X are sold out in the first 24 hours.
There could be a delivery bottleneck, which makes it hard to believe Apple will get enough GPUs to make new cards for the nMP.
Goods news for AMD nonetheless, they need it to keep it going.
There could be a delivery bottleneck, which makes it hard to believe Apple will get enough GPUs to make new cards for the nMP.
Goods news for AMD nonetheless, they need it to keep it going.
Thunderbolt 3 can be implemented regardless of the processor used, it just needs the available bandwidth. The only reason people wrongly assume it requires skylake is that an intel slide depicting a skylake CPU and a thunderbolt 3 controller was leaked.
It wouldn't surprise me to see Apple drop the GPUs down to PCIe 8x, instead of 16x. This would give them more than enough bandwidth with minimal performance impact. They could also have some clever controller that manages the bandwidth, like they currently do between the 3 thunderbolt 2 controllers.
I expect Apple has been waiting on thunderbolt 3 and new intel processors to give much of their laptops and desktops the refresh they need. The added bandwidth will allow them to release an external retina display, and the 100 W of power will allow them to move all of their laptops to a USB-C/thunderbolt cable instead of magsafe + thunderbolt. I am guessing around the time El Capitan is to be released, we see an Apple press conference where they refresh much of the product line. However, that doesn't necessarily mean the Mac Pro will be updated then, as Apple may choose to wait for new Broadwell-E processors from intel in early 2016.
It wouldn't surprise me to see Apple drop the GPUs down to PCIe 8x, instead of 16x. This would give them more than enough bandwidth with minimal performance impact. They could also have some clever controller that manages the bandwidth, like they currently do between the 3 thunderbolt 2 controllers.
I expect Apple has been waiting on thunderbolt 3 and new intel processors to give much of their laptops and desktops the refresh they need. The added bandwidth will allow them to release an external retina display, and the 100 W of power will allow them to move all of their laptops to a USB-C/thunderbolt cable instead of magsafe + thunderbolt. I am guessing around the time El Capitan is to be released, we see an Apple press conference where they refresh much of the product line. However, that doesn't necessarily mean the Mac Pro will be updated then, as Apple may choose to wait for new Broadwell-E processors from intel in early 2016.
AMD claims Grenada is not a rebadge, there are process enhancements that allow a speed increase, more and faster mem and power management optimizations. OK, still a bit far fetched to call it a new GPU.
Intel announces Kaby Lake, in between SkyLake and CannonLake, on 14nm again, delaying 10nm.
Intel announces Kaby Lake, in between SkyLake and CannonLake, on 14nm again, delaying 10nm.
Stacc, indeed you don't need SkyLake for TB3, it's a separate controller altogether.
But the new PCH for SkyLake will feature PCIe 3 lanes instead of PCIe 2, which provides added BW. Also, DMI 3 will allow faster transfers to the CPU, which avoids bottlenecks.
Today, to get any advantage out of TB3 you'd need to hang it out of the CPU directly.
This would be no problem if you only use one GPU, or having them both on x8 - which I very much doubt Apple will do, although the performance penalty would be minor.
The clever controller you mention is nothing but a PLX PEX 8724 switch in fact - which can manage the available lanes, could even be enough for 3 TB controllers and 1 SSD, since it can manage up to 6 ports.
But the new PCH for SkyLake will feature PCIe 3 lanes instead of PCIe 2, which provides added BW. Also, DMI 3 will allow faster transfers to the CPU, which avoids bottlenecks.
Today, to get any advantage out of TB3 you'd need to hang it out of the CPU directly.
This would be no problem if you only use one GPU, or having them both on x8 - which I very much doubt Apple will do, although the performance penalty would be minor.
The clever controller you mention is nothing but a PLX PEX 8724 switch in fact - which can manage the available lanes, could even be enough for 3 TB controllers and 1 SSD, since it can manage up to 6 ports.
Yep, 10nm seems to be still in the oven, 14nm will be here for a while for sure.
As the process gets smaller, difficulties arise, and Intel is not exactly in a hurry to release new nodes.
As the process gets smaller, difficulties arise, and Intel is not exactly in a hurry to release new nodes.
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