Will there be a new Mac Pro in 2015?

[tuxon86]

Because an eGPU will bring down the whole machine and render the boot drive possible corrupted. Time Machine drive is sad, but it doesn't mean an OS reinstall. (Any how many people actually know how to do an OS re-install?)

A Time Machine drive failure just means sending someone away. A boot drive failure means doing a lot more support work to reinstall the OS. It's not coincidence Apple has been doing a lot of work to prevent boot drive corruption, including rootless in 10.11.



The applications have already been written. It's too late to change the spec. Offline GPUs by definition have no display. By changing that you muck up so much stuff, and already written applications won't respect any change.

Again, the easiest way is to deal with this in the drivers like they did for TB3. It doesn't require anyone to change but the drivers. I'm not even sure why people are looking for a different workaround when the drivers can take care of it. If the drivers talk, they can work around interruptions, back up state outside of VRAM, and restore state onto a different GPU.

If you don't involve the drivers, the other problem is that GPU disconnects can happen in the middle of a GPU operation. Under a normal shutdown, if you've sent work to a GPU, you're at least allowed to finish it before you move GPUs. With a disconnect, that's forced. The work is completely lost and you don't get a chance to cleanly finish up. So even a display change notification isn't really adequate to deal with this.

But like I said, if you deal with this in the drivers like they are in Windows, this doesn't end up being an issue. I'm sure Apple could do the same thing, and then no one has to change or rewrite anything in their applications.



GPUs are a lot more critical these days. Apple is re-writing OS X so every application will sit on top of Metal. That means every application is running tasks on the GPU. We're not talking about high end applications or games being the only issues here. We're talking about every application on the system being linked to and using the eGPU, and having it suddenly go away.

If unplugging your eGPU or any GPU cause your boot drive to fail, then your implementation of the graphic engine and kernel is stupid. And this isn't the case with the big three OS of our time. Else everytime a GPU failed you would have to reinstall your OS which is definitively not the case.

And all of your negative and aprehensions can be fixed via software solutions.

 

[tuxon86]

Isn't this a bit optimistic?
Q4 is till the 31st of December!

Or not... The company that I work for start their financial years on May 1st so for us Q4 is next year

 

[filmak]

Or not... The company that I work for start their financial years on May 1st so for us Q4 is next year

I really hope you are not working at intel!

 

[ManuelGomes]

In our company, Q4 ends September 30th. does that mean we'll have BDW-EP this month already?
Just kidding of course (not regarding our fiscal year ending though). Don't work at Intel either.
I hope we get to see the nMP until year end, maybe an October soft launch, but availability might be scarce and probably only early 2016 (early 2016 Mac Pro sounds nice anyway).

 

[Stacc]

New rumors reported by WCCFTech (so take it with a grain of salt) have Broadwell-E coming out Feb-March 2016. This passes the sanity test, as Broadwell-E has always been rumored for Q1 2016. Of course, it remains to be seen whether Apple is going to time Mac Pro updates with intel's releases.

Apple probably wants to make a splash by standardizing thunderbolt 3 across its higher end macs when it is first released. I bet we see a new, thinner design for the macbook pro that trades some ports (magsafe, mini-displayport, USB type A?) for a couple of USB-C ports. It will probably be announced with a 5k retina display that can charge it through just the USB-C connection. One "feature" that seems inevitable with a 15" macbook pro redesign is dropping the discrete GPU, potentially opening the door for an (Apple provided) external one.

If we see thunderbolt 3 and a 5k external display they would also probably announce a mac pro to go with it. That way Apple can claim retina displays across the lineup. This means the timeframe for a mac pro release may be limited by other Apple products, and could be limited by say the availability of skylake processors suitable for the 15" macbook pro. There is a chance Apple could put this together for October, or it may want to wait until early 2016 as thunderbolt 3 controllers and intel processors (Skylake and Broadwell-E) have wider availability. Also, its unlikely Apple does a soft release for the Mac Pro, since this will most likely just be a spec bump, not a redesign of the chassis.

 

[goMac]

If unplugging your eGPU or any GPU cause your boot drive to fail, then your implementation of the graphic engine and kernel is stupid. And this isn't the case with the big three OS of our time. Else everytime a GPU failed you would have to reinstall your OS which is definitively not the case.

Uh, any driver failure on OS X could possibly do that. This... shouldn't be a surprise? I mean, that's a kernel panic. It's rare, but it happens.

And yeah, it most definitely can happen under OS X. Kernel panics can rarely corrupt boot disks. And yes, a GPU failure could lead to you reinstalling your OS if it panics and thrashes your machine.

It's the exact same thing as "If you pull the power on your machine while it's running there is a small chance you could corrupt your boot disk."

And all of your negative and aprehensions can be fixed via software solutions.

I keep saying that and for some reason people keep arguing with me like I'm not. Intel and AMD already fixed it with drivers, which I'm saying is not just a good way of fixing it, but the best way of fixing it.

All I am saying is that the solution that they did for TB3 is the best solution and fixes these issues. Did people miss the original link or something?

The thing I'm arguing is that OS X today is not in a state where Apple would support this. I'm not saying it won't be tomorrow. I'm not saying it never will be. I'm saying this will never be supported officially on the current version of OS X. It's going to require new drivers, and changes to the graphical subsystem. It's insane to try to tackle this in each individual app, but again, they already solved this on Windows.

 

[koyoot]

New rumors reported by WCCFTech (so take it with a grain of salt) have Broadwell-E coming out Feb-March 2016. This passes the sanity test, as Broadwell-E has always been rumored for Q1 2016. Of course, it remains to be seen whether Apple is going to time Mac Pro updates with intel's releases.

Are you sure you are talking about the right chips for Mac Pro?
Broadwell-E are 6 and 8 core i7 CPUs, not Xeons . Xeons are Broadwell-EP, and they are coming in Q4 2015 .

 

[tuxon86]

Uh, any driver failure on OS X could possibly do that. This... shouldn't be a surprise? I mean, that's a kernel panic. It's rare, but it happens.

And yeah, it most definitely can happen under OS X. Kernel panics can rarely corrupt boot disks. And yes, a GPU failure could lead to you reinstalling your OS if it panics and thrashes your machine.

It's the exact same thing as "If you pull the power on your machine while it's running there is a small chance you could corrupt your boot disk."



I keep saying that and for some reason people keep arguing with me like I'm not. Intel and AMD already fixed it with drivers, which I'm saying is not just a good way of fixing it, but the best way of fixing it.

All I am saying is that the solution that they did for TB3 is the best solution and fixes these issues. Did people miss the original link or something?

The thing I'm arguing is that OS X today is not in a state where Apple would support this. I'm not saying it won't be tomorrow. I'm not saying it never will be. I'm saying this will never be supported officially on the current version of OS X. It's going to require new drivers, and changes to the graphical subsystem. It's insane to try to tackle this in each individual app, but again, they already solved this on Windows.

Kernel panic /= auto boot drive corruption... Else you would have to reinstall every time your system crashes. Never seen a GPU failure bring down a whole system in a park of 25k+ cheap pc. I've seen drivers do that but the physical GPU never in 20 years...

Added: it is the job of drivers to do this. I don't understand how you can find that to be a problem. It has worked for about 19 years or so for USB... And software is easier to improve upon.

 

[goMac]

Kernel panic /= auto boot drive corruption... Else you would have to reinstall every time your system crashes.

Didn't say it was every time.

Never seen a GPU failure bring down a whole system in a park of 25k+ cheap pc. I've seen drivers do that but the physical GPU never in 20 years...

I'm trying to understand your mental disconnect here. You've seen GPU driver crashes cause boot corruption but not the GPU hardware... If you hot plug a GPU, the machine will keep running, but what's most likely to crash on the machine? It's the GPU driver. The GPU hardware doesn't have a psychic link to the hard drive that causes it to start writing bad data. The GPU software is completely what I'm talking about.

Even if the driver stays up, every application on the OS (because remember, every application is about to use Metal on that GPU on 10.11) has a good chance of going down.

Added: it is the job of drivers to do this. I don't understand how you can find that to be a problem. It has worked for about 19 years or so for USB... And software is easier to improve upon.

Hot plugging a GPU is basically equivalent to hot plugging a CPU. That's how it's different from USB. No sane person would go "Gee why can't we hot plug a CPU we can hot plug hard drives durp durp." A GPU runs your program's code and has a cache. It's a CPU doing CPU-y things. That's why you can't hot plug it like you hot plug a disk or a monitor.

Every application is running jobs on the GPU, and if the GPU suddenly disconnects, all that data is going to go away and the app is going to crash. You can solve it in drivers, but it's not at all like USB hot plug. Each vendor has their own shader language and possibly their own image compression algorithm, so you can't even directly transfer data from one GPU to another.

It's totally solvable in drivers, but it's a lot of work. You've got to keep back ups of everything that is stored in VRAM that's suddenly going to be gone, and somehow get it onto a new GPU with it's own language that's different.

Intel and AMD working together probably means they solved this by making sure data is kept around in a format that can be compiled to each other's architectures, and restored on a different GPU (which isn't something we even have with the dual GPU Macbook Pros.) I'm curious to read up on it, but it's not trivial at all. It also explains why it's not compatible with Nvidia GPUs right now.

 

[ManuelGomes]

AMD is rumored to sell off 20% to Silver Lake private equity.
If true, good or bad move?
They need the ca$h.
Restructuring again and probable lay offs. :-(

 

[ManuelGomes]

Shoot, it seems that with today's event there won't be another one in October.
New Macs and El Cap will be quiet launches?

 

[envoy510]

Does this have any bearing on the discussion of a new Mac Pro in 2015?

http://www.kitguru.net/components/c...troduction-of-core-i7-broadwell-e-processors/

 

[ManuelGomes]

Those are BDW-E, not the Xeons that go in the nMP.

No mention to Macs in the event today (apart from a quick ref to El Cap). I guess there might still be another event after all. Makes sense to only talk about iOS stuff today, and leave OS X for a later date.

 

[koyoot]

El Capitan will be released on 30th September. That means no El Capitan in potential October event. What could be there shown, apart from Macs?

 

[ManuelGomes]

El Cap has gone GM, out on the 30th.

 

[ManuelGomes]

Sorry, beat me to it.
yes, again it seems no event in October. However, even today there has no real focus on iOS9, specifically that is. Only when devices were presented. It could go the same route with new Macs (iMac, MB, MBP, nMP)...

 

[koyoot]

There is one thing that pops to my mind, however: iMac 4K. Already in El Cap full indications of this computer. It must be presented somewhere.

 

[ManuelGomes]

With the creation of the Radeon Group and the extra money, will AMD reborn from the ashes?

 

[ManuelGomes]

Yes, the iMac is a sure thing. Still, they might go for a silent update. It's a weird resolution, non-standard, but Apple does it in several devices.

 

[Stacc]

With the iPad Pro being announced today and El Capitan's release set to Sep 30th, I predict the only mac that will be updated in 2015 is the 21" iMac. It will probably just show up in the store one day. The Macbook Pro's, iMac 27" and Mac Pro will wait until next year. If there were more mac updates, Apple would have held on to El Capitan and timed it with a press conference to announce new macs along with the iPad pro. The non release is probably caused by lack of availability of Skylake chips for the consumer lines, Broadwell-EP for the Mac Pro and Thunderbolt 3 controllers for all of them.

 

[monokakata]

not really an ad.. but just for fun ->

: )

"The world's first 64 bit personal computer."

No. This made me angry when it ran. It's a flat-out lie.

At the time this ad ran, I had three or four DEC AlphaStations in operation, running a full 64 bit OS and sitting nicely even on small desks. They were no larger than desktop PCs (not towers) that Dell and others were selling. As I remember they were AlphaStations AS233/something units.

I hung onto them for a long time and finally gave the last one away to a MacRumors member who wanted to experience OpenVMS.

The AlphaStations were meant as personal computers, not servers (although they could be used for that, and I was).

An Apple Lie. Not even a shading-of-the-truth, but a lie.

 

[Nugget]

I dunno, those alphas (and sparcs of the same era) were workstations. You could probably count on one hand the number of individuals who bought them. They were primarily built for, marketed to, and bought by businesses. Not really what people think of when they use the term "Personal Computer." I don't think the claim was a lie.

But "Personal Computer" is like "Sports Car." It's a loosely defined term that is shifty and elusive when it comes time to define it.

 

[monokakata]

Well, the G5 was hardly a low-end Dell. Mine had video cards, VGA, you could run OpenVMS or Ultrix (Unix), there was a word processor, and so on. I won't argue about market share, because you're certainly right there.

But they were 64 bit and sat comfortably on a desk, not under it.

I'm not moving away from "lie," but hey . . . this is certainly off topic.

 

[goMac]

Sorry, beat me to it.
yes, again it seems no event in October. However, even today there has no real focus on iOS9, specifically that is. Only when devices were presented. It could go the same route with new Macs (iMac, MB, MBP, nMP)...

Not sure how the jump to this is made from an El Capitan release. The iMacs at least are getting rev'd (4k 21.5 going into product now just hit the front page.) Notebooks are also ripe for upgrades.

Last year 10.10 got released in October.

https://www.apple.com/pr/library/2014/10/16OS-X-Yosemite-Available-Today-as-a-Free-Upgrade.html

Year before 10.9 got released in October.

https://www.apple.com/pr/library/20...ilable-Today-Free-from-the-Mac-App-Store.html

10.8 was in July .... which still isn't September. ;-)


If there are new Macs coming in October it doesn't make much sense to release OS X in September. iOS and OS X aren't that tightly coupled. And frankly the drama Apple typically has when their web severs get hit for a massive upgrade almost never goes well. They'd want to move iOS 9 and OS X 10.11 apart in time. Something is likely screwed up iin iOS 9. Triage that drama and then release OS X.

Sup?

 

[deconstruct60]

Not sure how the jump to this is made from an El Capitan release. The iMacs at least are getting rev'd (4k 21.5 going into product now just hit the front page.) Notebooks are also ripe for upgrades.

Perhaps reading DaringFireball.

"... Lot of little birdies out tonight in San Francisco. The consensus is that there’s only going to be one Apple event this fall, and it’s tomorrow. So if there’s an iPad Pro, it’s coming tomorrow, no matter how much or how little sense that makes. ..."
http://daringfireball.net/

"... To do just one event, something had to give. One casualty was the Mac. Other than a few offhand references to things that work with features in Mac OS X, the Mac got no stagetime whatsover. El Capitan’s only public demo will have been at WWDC back in June. Whatever new Macs get released this year (retina 21-inch iMac, updated MacBook Pros?) will be announced via press releases. ..."
http://daringfireball.net/2015/09/thoughts_and_observations_on_todays_hey_siri_event


I don't think Apple would do another dog and pony show in SF. Maybe they will do a small event on campus to a small subset of the tech spec porn media crowd. Or just release the Macs around the same time the iPad Pro pre-orders go live. Mac would get picked up in the likely press coverage of that.

The Macbook is ripe (if there are some TB v3 controllers and Gen 6 Core M in enough volume to ship). The other Macbooks may need to wait if that are hinged on Gen 6 CPU Iris/Iris Pro updates.


The iPad Mini 4 rolls out that should have come instead of the 3. The iPad Air takes its turn going stale. Sprayed some more colors on the Apple watches that are actually shipping in volume and threw a $1K strap at the more money than sense crowd. ..... Mac Pro in 2015 is looks pretty dim at this point.

Looks like something really lame on the Mac front like a iMac 21.5" with broadwell bumps while they sit and squat on the 5K models and that may be just about it for Macs for the rest of 2015. If that is it then there is nothing to build another dog and pony show around.

Sup?

El Capitan got what 2-5 secs of keynote time in a screen shot? In a 2.5 hour presentation and the presentation was also about El Capitan? That is a bit of a stretch. Arrives Sept 30 .... exactly one day away from October. Setting an expectation for October was off by 24 hours. One bug hiccup in the GM testing and it would be October ( of they'll just ship buggy stuff and prudent to wait for 11.1 ). Releasing on the exact last day of a Apple's fiscal year ...... smells of corporate politics not maximized software quality control. ( bet a small sum there are bonuses on the line or some kind of financial accounting hocus pocus with cost accounting for upgrade 'costs' ... and that is what picked the date. )