Will there be a new Mac Pro in 2015?

[JesterJJZ]

I agree that we need some form of standardized Hackintosh configuration and install. I bought a 2012MP when the Trashcan was released as well, and I'm nervous about what's next as well. I see another two years or so with this machine, after that…help. It's sad that Apple no long makes the computer I need.

 

[Fangio]

Fury Nano has nMP written all over it.

Have to agree, chances are good with the Device ID already present in El Cap.

 

[Stacc]

Have to agree, chances are good with the Device ID already present in El Cap.

How does the device ID relate to the specific AMD GPU? Is the assumption that the first number has been incremented from 6 to 7 imply that its a new generation of GPU? How do you look these up?

 

[koyoot]

Stacc, its the same device ID that is in AMD Catalyst for Windows.

Its also worth noting that in Fangio's post, there are device ID's of Tonga Pro GPU, also.

 

[Stacc]

Stacc, its the same device ID that is in AMD Catalyst for Windows.

Its also worth noting that in Fangio's post, there are device ID's of Tonga Pro GPU, also.

Ah, makes sense. Thanks.

I wonder if some of the other ids that correspond to Tonga that are not the M295X would correspond to an AMD D310. A low end tonga with a high end Fiji makes a lot of sense since they share a similar feature set.

 

[koyoot]

Both are GCN 1.2.
So, lets assume this is the case.
D310 - Tonga Pro - 1792 GCN cores on single GPU, 2 GB of RAM GDDR5, 256 Bit
D510 - Fiji Pro - 3584 GCN cores on single GPU, 4 GB of HBM
D710 - Fiji XT - 4096 GCN cores on single GPU, 4 GB of HBM.
This lineup makes sense.

 

[Arron Rouse]

A few notes from an ex-tech journalist.

Diving in Fiji
Several months before the hard launch, AMD was touting Fury/Fiji as being very power efficient. It was particularly pushed that the RAM used much less power. As we've seen, the retail Fury cards are power hungry rather than efficient. The exception is the Nano.

It seems a reasonable guess would be that TSMC just couldn't deliver many Fiji chips that were any good. That AMD has worked around this by pushing more power into the slightly duff chips to make them at least work. Remember that AMD is in a deep financial hole and that it might never climb out. So it can't afford to delay and it can't afford to throw away working chips even if they're a long way off spec.

Maybe what we're seeing in Fury Nano is what Fiji was meant to be all along. And what we're seeing in Fury X is a slightly duff Fiji chip that has been pushed hard until it performs. Which might also explain why a Fiji chip in one card clocked at 1GHz uses around half the power of the same chip at the same clock in a different card.

So maybe this indicates why Nano is so expensive -- AMD don't want too many people to buy them because TSMC has crapped out yet again and can't make many. And it explains why, when Fiji was supposed to be power efficient, it's a long way from it.

The Mac Pro Side
There is one extra possibility for the conspiracy theorists. After all, as Koyoot and other AMD fans are quick to point out, 175W puts Fiji smack in the middle of drop-in-replacement territory for the D700. So suppose Fiji did work out as planned and that the Nano has the good ones. Maybe Apple swooped in and wanted a crap-load of them.

If that happened, it could be that Apple wanted enough chips for a typically bad ramp-up from TSMC to lead to a huge bad-bin of Fijis. And those are what we're seeing in the Fury/Fury X. That would work from AMD's point of view too as the top-end cards don't sell in anything like the numbers of the profitable mid-ranges. So flogging a few thousand bad-binned chips that have been fed Watts until they work makes sense for a company that hasn't seen a profit for a decade.

Last Thoughts
If the above is right, when the process gets better -- assuming TSMC manages it -- AMD can just ditch the Fury/Fury X and drop the price on the Nano.

That leaves some major questions: where is the performance leap that everyone expected from the HBM 4096bit-wide memory bus? For graphics, that should mean a huge difference. Could it be that the current drivers are just not taking advantage of it yet? Could it be that the current applications just don't expect it so are tuned to avoid memory read/writes?

It seems another reasonable guess that the few DX12 games showing a huge lead for Fiji over Nvidia's Maxwell are really showing the effects of that wide HBM bus. If so, AMD still can't breath easy as Nvidia will be releasing its Pascal chips next year that also have HBM.

 

[Zarniwoop]

Hmm.. After reading all this debate and information in it... and latest news about Xeon E3-1200 v5 series, I got a vision that we could see these new Late 2015 / Early 2016 products:

iMac Pro

• 27" 5k 100% Adobe RGB
• Intel Xenon E3 Skylake 1280 v5
• DDR4 ECC 2133
• single GPU D510 (alias Fury Nano LT) or CTO D710 (Fury Nano)
• x4 PCI SSD drives
• Improved cooling system

Regular iMac 5k would be with Skylake i5 and i7 processors, regular DDR4, x2 PCI SSD and AMD M380X an M390 GPUs.

Mac Pro
- cheaper entry model 4 core

• Intel Xenon E3 Skylake 1280 v5 (not possible to CTO to six or more cores)
  
• DDR4 ECC 2133 8GB
• single GPU D310 and CTO D510 & D710
• Starting price: 500 USD cheaper than current entry model

- 6, 8 and 12 core models

• Broadwell-EP E5-1xxx
• DDR4 ECC 2133 16GB
• dual GPU D310, D510 & D710
• Starting price: six core with D310 could be 200 USD less from current six core model

Apple has had a history of droping their prices from second or third generation.. that's why the price drop.

 

[goMac]

iMac Pro

• 27" 5k 100% Adobe RGB
• Intel Xenon E3 Skylake 1280 v5
• DDR4 ECC 2133
• single GPU D510 (alias Fury Nano LT) or CTO D710 (Fury Nano)
• x4 PCI SSD drives
• Improved cooling system

Regular iMac 5k would be with Skylake i5 and i7 processors, regular DDR4, x2 PCI SSD and AMD M380X an M390 GPUs.

Nope.

On the Mac Pros I think Haswell E5s are more likely right now.

Edit: Broadwell-EP is still shipping, so that's more likely than a Skylake E3 slipping in.

 

[flat five]

iMac Pro

imac is already a pro machine.. people are doing great stuff on MBPs.. imacs best those.
idk pro is a person not a computer.

 

[fuchsdh]

Yeah I'm not sure there's really any demand for a "pro" iMac. I guess you can get those HP or Dell all-in-ones and get akin to what you're talking about, but the regular iMacs are plenty fast (faster probably in certain situations than those AIO workstations due to the i7s versus Xeons) and can handle the loads people use them for; I mean more and more of what used to "require" a pro workstation can easily get done on the iMac as-is.

I also dunno about making a cut-down model for a lower entry price. It's certainly something Apple's done with relative frequency for its consumer models, and on occasion for its pro models, but a completely different Xeon line seems a bit unlikely. I'd certainly love a $2799 or $2499 entry point but at some point if you make so many compromises it's not worth it. A single GPU also seems really weird with their design ethos; I'd wager much heavier that they'd keep around a D300/D500 for the low-end model than roll a new single GPU for it.

 

[goMac]

Yeah I'm not sure there's really any demand for a "pro" iMac. I guess you can get those HP or Dell all-in-ones and get akin to what you're talking about, but the regular iMacs are plenty fast (faster probably in certain situations than those AIO workstations due to the i7s versus Xeons) and can handle the loads people use them for; I mean more and more of what used to "require" a pro workstation can easily get done on the iMac as-is.

I also dunno about making a cut-down model for a lower entry price. It's certainly something Apple's done with relative frequency for its consumer models, and on occasion for its pro models, but a completely different Xeon line seems a bit unlikely. I'd certainly love a $2799 or $2499 entry point but at some point if you make so many compromises it's not worth it. A single GPU also seems really weird with their design ethos; I'd wager much heavier that they'd keep around a D300/D500 for the low-end model than roll a new single GPU for it.

They're pretty set on having a dedicated, not shared, GPU for OpenCL.

 

[Zarniwoop]

Nope.

On the Mac Pros I think Haswell E5s are more likely right now.

Edit: Broadwell-EP's is still shipping, so that's more likely than a Skylake E3 slipping in.

If Broadwell-EP's and Skylake E3 Xeon's are both shipping at the end of the year, it is very probable that Mac Pro update is postponed to the end of the year too.

Second thing is that Haswell-EP's TDP is 140W and current Ivy Bridge-EP's have 130W TDP. We don't know Broadwell-EP's TDP values yet, but if we look at the other product line, it could be at 125W.

 

[Zarniwoop]

imac is already a pro machine.. people are doing great stuff on MBPs.. imacs best those.
idk pro is a person not a computer.

Intel has just introduced mobile Xeon's. That led me to a conclusion, that Apple could use Xeon architecture in all their Pro line. Including rMBP 13" and 15" and in a new product category, iMac Pro. They could introduce the idea on October when they release El Captain. That would differentiate their consumer and prosumer markets and would give them right to continue with high prices. iPad Pro would go with the theme.. "It's PRO time!"

Consumer machines

• x2 PCI SSD
• Intel Core i5 and i7
• DDR4

Prosumer machines

• x4 PCI SSD
• Intel Xeons
• DDR4 ECC
• Precisely calibrated displays

 

[ixxx69]

Intel has just introduced mobile Xeon's. That led me to a conclusion, that Apple could use Xeon architecture in all their Pro line. Including rMBP 13" and 15" and in a new product category, iMac Pro. They could introduce the idea on October when they release El Captain. That would differentiate their consumer and prosumer markets and would give them right to continue with high prices. iPad Pro would go with the theme.. "It's PRO time!"

Consumer machines

• x2 PCI SSD
• Intel Core i5 and i7
• DDR4

Prosumer machines

• x4 PCI SSD
• Intel Xeons
• DDR4 ECC
• Precisely calibrated displays

There's a lot of fantasy-land stuff in this thread, but this just doesn't make sense for Apple's market or marketing... and that's putting it politely.

It's also the kind of thing that makes shopping for a Dell/HP such a frustrating nightmare experience... I'm shopping for a computer, not whether a guy in marketing thinks I'm a "pro" or not. I kind of understand why Dell, etc. does it because that's the only place they make profit (on computers), and it's in their best interest to keep so-called "Pros" buying expensive workstations when a less expensive "gaming" machine would suit their needs just fine.

Apple makes a nice profit on all their high-volume products, and their highest-volume products are the least expensive to mid-range models. So you're suggesting that Apple purposely make their high-volume incredibly popular MBPs more expensive while offering zero benefits to 98% of their MBP customers? That's the kind of "chasing the buck" marketing thinking that dooms company after company.

Intel is testing the waters with "mobile" Xeon... there's a reason it's happening now, and that's because the entire industry is moving towards smaller, mobile, and power-efficiency. The days of the "desktop" (as we've known it) are numbered, and Intel has to start the transition of their highly-profitable Xeon line to this new world somewhere, and this is it.

I'm jut not seeing how that makes ANY sense to stick Xeons into iMacs, Minis, or Mac laptops based on what i've been watching for the last decade and where the market continues to evolve toward.

 

[sigmadog]

iPad Pro would go with the theme.. "It's PRO time!"

Ha! Don't quit your day job!

 

[Zarniwoop]

Ha! Don't quit your day job!

Just watch it happening..

 

[Zarniwoop]

There's a lot of fantasy-land stuff in this thread, but this just doesn't make sense for Apple's market or marketing... and that's putting it politely.

It's also the kind of thing that makes shopping for a Dell/HP such a frustrating nightmare experience... I'm shopping for a computer, not whether a guy in marketing thinks I'm a "pro" or not. I kind of understand why Dell, etc. does it because that's the only place they make profit (on computers), and it's in their best interest to keep so-called "Pros" buying expensive workstations when a less expensive "gaming" machine would suit their needs just fine.

Apple makes a nice profit on all their high-volume products, and their highest-volume products are the least expensive to mid-range models. So you're suggesting that Apple purposely make their high-volume incredibly popular MBPs more expensive while offering zero benefits to 98% of their MBP customers? That's the kind of "chasing the buck" marketing thinking that dooms company after company.

Intel is testing the waters with "mobile" Xeon... there's a reason it's happening now, and that's because the entire industry is moving towards smaller, mobile, and power-efficiency. The days of the "desktop" (as we've known it) are numbered, and Intel has to start the transition of their highly-profitable Xeon line to this new world somewhere, and this is it.

I'm jut not seeing how that makes ANY sense to stick Xeons into iMacs, Minis, or Mac laptops based on what i've been watching for the last decade and where the market continues to evolve toward.

When Apple used PowerPC processors, it was (More) difficult to compare Mac vs Pc. Mac was special because of G5 or similar...It was "different".

Now that everyone runs Intel, you have to diffrentiate. Apple tries openCl / GPGPU. Xeon could give another path.

 

[scottsjack]

It just seems that there are so many options available from HP and Dell that are both super expandable and using current technology that a user must really really want Mac OS to have any motivation to buy one. For FCP and Logic users a Mac makes perfect sense. I just don't see the pain and anguish of the Mac Pro world for those who work with say Adobe.

 

[ixxx69]

When Apple used PowerPC processors, it was difficult to compare Mac vs Pc. When you had G5, it was "different".

Now that everyone runs Intel, you have to diffrentiate. Apple tries openCl / GPGPU. Xeon could give another path.

You're entitled to your opinion of course, but I think you're misunderstanding a lot on this subject.

Apple didn't use PPC to be "different" (PPC was the more natural path from the original 68000 architecture starting with the first Mac). That last decade has not seen Apple strive to differentiate the hardware specs between Windows and Mac. And 95% of Apple customers don't even know what OpenCL or GPGPU is... they're not buying a Mac because of that.

How is using Xeons in Macs going to differentiate Macs from PCs?

It's OS X (and iOS) and the Apple ecosystem that differentiates Apple from everyone else, along with really slick hardware design.

 

[ixxx69]

It just seems that there are so many options available from HP and Dell that are both super expandable and using current technology that a user must really really want Mac OS to have any motivation to buy one. For FCP and Logic users a Mac makes perfect sense. I just don't see the pain and anguish of the Mac Pro world for those who work with say Adobe.

Not picking on you specifically, but sometimes kind of feels like talking to a brick wall - some people are going to get it and some people aren't.

They're just aren't as many users who want what you're suggesting as you think there are. 90% of Adobe users would be perfectly fine with a Mac Mini.

That's not to say that I personally wouldn't love to see Apple update their MP's every year and offer an xMac of some type (I'd be first in line to buy one). And I honestly think it would be to Apple's benefit to cater a little more to that market (keep me happy and I'll keep recommending to all my family and friends to keep buying Macs). But I do see the writing on the wall.

 

[Zarniwoop]

When Apple used PowerPC processors, it was difficult to compare Mac vs Pc. When you had G5, it was "different".

Now that everyone runs Intel, you have to diffrentiate. Apple tries openCl / GPGPU. Xeon could give another path.

I'm jut not seeing how that makes ANY sense to stick Xeons into iMacs, Minis, or Mac laptops based on what i've been watching for the last decade and where the market continues to evolve toward.

Apple's Pro laptops are like Disneyland. Most of us know that Disneyland is not real, but it gives you an illusion of "reality". The "Pro" in Apple laptops is as fake as Disneyland is "real". Apple Pro laptops are just more expensive with a layer of "real" Pro feature, like retina display or longer battery life.

Real Pro features can be lot of connectors (usb/tb and one kilo of dongles), lightweight, long battery, a lot of horse power, killer display for Photo/ video editing, built in 3G/LTE, water/dirt proof, excelent keyboard... MBP vs MB Air are not so different that one is Pro and one is not.

 

[Stacc]

Hmm.. After reading all this debate and information in it... and latest news about Xeon E3-1200 v5 series, I got a vision that we could see these new Late 2015 / Early 2016 products:

iMac Pro

• 27" 5k 100% Adobe RGB
• Intel Xenon E3 Skylake 1280 v5
• DDR4 ECC 2133
• single GPU D510 (alias Fury Nano LT) or CTO D710 (Fury Nano)
• x4 PCI SSD drives
• Improved cooling system

Regular iMac 5k would be with Skylake i5 and i7 processors, regular DDR4, x2 PCI SSD and AMD M380X an M390 GPUs.

Mac Pro
- cheaper entry model 4 core

• Intel Xenon E3 Skylake 1280 v5 (not possible to CTO to six or more cores)
  
• DDR4 ECC 2133 8GB
• single GPU D310 and CTO D510 & D710
• Starting price: 500 USD cheaper than current entry model

- 6, 8 and 12 core models

• Broadwell-EP E5-1xxx
• DDR4 ECC 2133 16GB
• dual GPU D310, D510 & D710
• Starting price: six core with D310 could be 200 USD less from current six core model

Apple has had a history of droping their prices from second or third generation.. that's why the price drop.

The Xeon E3 line does not offer any significantly new product lines or capabilities, besides ECC memory, which isn't that important. I think its more likely Apple would build a new product that contains a high end core i7/Xeon E3 than have a stripped down mac pro and still call it a mac pro.

Apple's desktop lineup is currently Mac mini (good) -> iMac (better) -> Mac Pro (best). Is there a good reason for this to change? There is are clear differentiators between each of these products. The mac mini is the cheapest way to get a mac, but has very compromised performance and is often neglected by Apple. The iMac is the desktop mac for everyone, with a great screen and reasonable performance, but at a premium compared to PCs. The Mac Pro is for high end performance and is the most expensive.

Right now, the high end iMac intersects the low end Mac Pro. This is not a new development, its just that both the iMac and the Mac Pro got more expensive (the Mac Pro first, followed by the 5k iMac). Your mac designs are nibbling at an idea I have had for a mac that fits between the iMac and the Mac Pro. A future mac line could drop the mac mini, make the iMac the entry level mac, add in a "Mac Pro Mini" followed by the Mac Pro. There are a few reasons I could see this happening.

The iMac seems to have heat and throttling problems especially on the high end 5k configurations. Drop the 90 W CPUs and the ~125 W GPU and use the 65 W intel CPUs that include the iris pro graphics. This makes the iMac the entry level choice, and its an all in one that is easy to setup and use. Prices range from $1000 to $2000 and the same 21" and 27" retina configurations. Savings come from dropping the discrete GPU, and the economy of scales ramping up for the retina displays. This makes the defining feature of every affordable mac the gorgeous screen.

Jumping to the Mac Pro, drop the 4 core configuration leaving 6 core xeon processors and dual GPUs. The same tube design we love (and hate) that starts around $3500 to $4000.

This leaves a gap that could be filled with a headless mac, the "Mac Pro Mini". Using the Mac Pro as a template, an even smaller mac is designed around the thermal core with a high end core i7 processor and a ~150 W GPU. This results in a compact mac that can plug into a retina external display and is still cool and quiet, because it isn't restricted to the thermal constraints of the iMac. The new AMD Fury Nano and future HBM based GPUs can play a part in this, because of how small and compact they are. This is a nice desktop that is significantly different than other PCs and laptops to justify a cost starting at $2k.

This leaves iMac (good) -> Mac Pro Mini (better) -> Mac Pro (best). However, I don't think enough has changed in Apple's eyes to justify such a switch. I think they would rather people step up from an iMac to a Mac Pro, without offering something in the middle.

 

[Zarniwoop]

You're entitled to your opinion of course, but I think you're misunderstanding a lot on this subject.

Apple didn't use PPC to be "different" (PPC was the more natural path from the original 68000 architecture starting with the first Mac). That last decade has not seen Apple strive to differentiate the hardware specs between Windows and Mac. And 95% of Apple customers don't even know what OpenCL or GPGPU is... they're not buying a Mac because of that.

How is using Xeons in Macs going to differentiate Macs from PCs?

It's OS X (and iOS) and the Apple ecosystem that differentiates Apple from everyone else, along with really slick hardware design.

Apple did advertise PowerPc as their main asset against PC's before the switch to Intel. Later it was the OS that was far superior than buggy Windows. Same time Apple tried to design their products more beautyful than their competitors. Today, Windows is not buggy like before (10 might bring it back though) and everyone copies Apple when it comes to desing.

So they need to be different other way. And that could be all Xeon prosumer machines.. But still they'd be like Disneyland.. selling dreams, giving an illusion that it is a TRUE Pro machine.

 

[ixxx69]

Apple's Pro laptops are like Disneyland. Most of us know that Disneyland is not real, but it gives you an illusion of "reality". The "Pro" in Apple laptops is as fake as Disneyland is "real". Apple Pro laptops are just more expensive with a layer of "real" Pro feature, like retina display or longer battery life.

Real Pro features can be lot of connectors (usb/tb and one kilo of dongles), lightweight, long battery, a lot of horse power, killer display for Photo/ video editing, built in 3G/LTE, water/dirt proof, excelent keyboard... MBP vs MB Air are not so different that one is Pro and one is not.

Uh, okay. I guess I'll end it with this because you're making less and less sense (I don't even know where to start with the Disneyland analogy).

So you just have a problem with the word "Pro" being in the name of the MacBook Pro? Maybe it's a french translation misunderstanding? MBP buyers aren't getting hung up on the word "Pro"... it just's a marketing term. I have a Cuisinart "Pro" - but they didn't name it that because it's intended for professional chefs.