Will there ever be a new large iMac (Pro)?

[pldelisle]

iMac Pro won't be refreshed until RDNA2. It's written in the sky (don't know if this expression is correct in English ).

iMac Pro needs 80 CUs of NAVI21 XT. If NAVI10 XT does 9.7 TFLOPs in FP32, imagine an iMac Pro with 18-20 TFLOPs of compute power. This will be for sure in the next iMac Pro. But 9.7 TFLOPs FP32 is not enough right now in the iMac Pro and GCN5 is still what AMD only has to offer for now in this performance range. The only chip that could fit in the iMac Pro is the Radeon VII in 7nm. But *one* SKU is not enough for the iMac Pro.

 

[Azrael9]

It is only iMac Pro and MP that can "compete" with ARM on the longer run (5-7 years). Hence the 27 inch iMac should go. iMac Pro should get W2200 that scales to 18C and prices slashed.

The iMac Pro consolidation of the 27 inch line is a notion that has come up before on this thread. It's not without some merit.

You could have a Xeon based iMac Pro that goes from the current £1750 upto £5k and beyond...

...in much the way the old G5/Intel Mac Tower scaled from £1700 upwards.

...would they run cooler than the i9 series?

8 core around £1750. 10 core around £2250. 14 core around £3.5k. 18 core around £5k? Between RDNA 1 and RDNA2 you could scale the gpu options.

To me, the new 27 inch will effectively slash the entry price point of the iMac Pro.

Ofc. I'm looking forward to seeing what 'substantial' means and how it's priced.

Azrael.
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iMac Pro won't be refreshed until RDNA2. It's written in the sky (don't know if this expression is correct in English ).

iMac Pro needs 80 CUs of NAVI21 XT. If NAVI10 XT does 9.7 TFLOPs in FP32, imagine an iMac Pro with 18-20 TFLOPs of compute power. This will be for sure in the next iMac Pro. But 9.7 TFLOPs FP32 is not enough right now in the iMac Pro and GCN5 is still what AMD only has to offer for now in this performance range.

'Written in the stars...?' Yes. I like that. It's quite in Apple's nature to charge you £5k to get access to this year's gpu tech' which will be had quite easily in a PC tower no where near as exotically priced.

Well. The RDNA2 is quite the leap forward. It's this year's gpu. 18-20 tflops. Crazy. :O

The RDNA and it's 9.7 Tflops is year old tech'.

...and it will be going into a 27 incher that occupies the former Mac Tower price range. (Trash can used to be £2.5k.)

Yes. If they're keeping the iMac Pro around, there's only one place the RDNA2 is going. It's a big chip. The 'big boy' is launching 1st with the RDNA+1 optimised re-spin alongside it.

It's going to be some beast, that RDNA2.

Azrael.

 

[iPadified]

I do not want to offend anyone, but it has become difficult to look for important information here because of the large information flow ... I suggest writing more about the case and more succinctly, but less flooding and about desires

There is absolutely no information here, just thoughts

 

[applemanit]

View attachment 924796

This off Twitter.

Seems to be the basic idea of the new iMac.

Personally I don't like too much those round corners, in particular the inner outline. Ok, it is a render but it's too much round for me. It's like a giant iPad put on the same old iMac stand. I hope we'll see a less rounded corners with a 90 degrees internal outline. And hopefully a new Stand!

Though I prefer the 'foot' on this one...

View attachment 924803
I'm wondering if we get the pivot mechanism from the XDR...or...the 'same' stand and 'hinge' that we have now. I can't say the ergonomics on the current adjustability are great.

Me too. I think that would be the perfect (and very professional) iMac design for 2020. And imagine also to use the new iMac with a second monitor, in this case, of course, the Pro Display XDR. The new design should not differ too much and match the display, don't you think? Remember the Thunderbolt Display and the iMac had a very similar design. The stand and the back were the same. The Thunderbold display only differed because it did not have the chin, but it had the same bezels, the same Apple logo.

Finally iMac is always been an "All-In-One" desktop computer, it's not just a monitor, so it would be strange to see it sold separately from its stand. So maybe we'll se a semplified version of the Pro Stand, not removable, not endorsable.

IMHO

 

[Azrael9]

Personally I don't like too much those round corners, in particular the inner outline. Ok, it is a render but it's too much round for me. It's like a giant iPad put on the same old iMac stand. I hope we'll see a less rounded corners with a 90 degrees internal outline. And hopefully a new Stand!




Me too. I think that would be the perfect (and very professional) iMac design for 2020. And imagine also to use the new iMac with a second monitor, in this case, of course, the Pro Display XDR. The new design should not differ too much and match the display, don't you think? Remember the Thunderbolt Display and the iMac had a very similar design. The stand and the back were the same. The Thunderbold display only differed because it did not have the chin, but it had the same bezels, the same Apple logo.

Finally iMac is always been an "All-In-One" desktop computer, it's not just a monitor, so it would be strange to see it sold separately from its stand. So maybe we'll se a semplified version of the Pro Stand, not removable, not endorsable.

IMHO

One of those designs looks breathtaking and modern...and looks like the future.

Not seen this side by side show of the iMac pro and XDR.

The XDR looks miles ahead in design. Truly stunning.

Rumor: Redesigned iMac to be announced at WWDC with thin bezels, AMD Navi GPUs and T2 chip - 9to5Mac

Apple may be about to refresh the iMac’s external design after more than eight years. According to leaker Sonny Dickson,...

9to5mac.com

Azrael.

 

[applemanit]

The one with the stock out. 27 inches. Hopefully boosted screen size in the same foot print.

Don't be wrong about this 🤞
[automerge]1592415977[/automerge]

View attachment 924860

One of those designs looks breathtaking and modern...and looks like the future.

Not seen this side by side show of the iMac pro and XDR.

The XDR looks miles ahead in design. Truly stunning.

Rumor: Redesigned iMac to be announced at WWDC with thin bezels, AMD Navi GPUs and T2 chip - 9to5Mac

Apple may be about to refresh the iMac’s external design after more than eight years. According to leaker Sonny Dickson,...

9to5mac.com

Azrael.

The XDR design is the design we want for the new iMac.

 

[pldelisle]

The iMac Pro consolidation of the 27 inch line is a notion that has come up before on this thread. It's not without some merit.

You could have a Xeon based iMac Pro that goes from the current £1750 upto £5k and beyond...

...in much the way the old G5/Intel Mac Tower scaled from £1700 upwards.

...would they run cooler than the i9 series?

8 core around £1750. 10 core around £2250. 14 core around £3.5k. 18 core around £5k? Between RDNA 1 and RDNA2 you could scale the gpu options.

To me, the new 27 inch will effectively slash the entry price point of the iMac Pro.

Ofc. I'm looking forward to seeing what 'substantial' means and how it's priced.

Azrael.
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'Written in the stars...?' Yes. I like that. It's quite in Apple's nature to charge you £5k to get access to this year's gpu tech' which will be had quite easily in a PC tower no where near as exotically priced.

Well. The RDNA2 is quite the leap forward. It's this year's gpu. 18-20 tflops. Crazy. :O

The RDNA and it's 9.7 Tflops is year old tech'.

...and it will be going into a 27 incher that occupies the former Mac Tower price range. (Trash can used to be £2.5k.)

Yes. If they're keeping the iMac Pro around, there's only one place the RDNA2 is going. It's a big chip. The 'big boy' is launching 1st with the RDNA+1 optimised re-spin alongside it.

It's going to be some beast, that RDNA2.

Azrael.

iMac Pro With Cascade Lake-W Xeon CPUs up to 18 cores, up To 512 GB ECC RAM, AMD Radeon Pro 6800-6900, 1-2-4 TB SSD NVME in crazy RAID 0 setup. Apple‘s quality 5 or 6K display. What a dream machine !!!

Would definitively wait for this if my MacBook Pro’s battery hasn’t exploded it until then.

 

[Azrael9]

iMac Pro With Cascade Lake-W Xeon CPUs up to 18 cores, up To 512 GB ECC RAM, AMD Radeon Pro 6800-6900, 1-2-4 TB SSD NVME in crazy RAID 0 setup. Apple‘s quality 5 or 6K display. What a dream machine !!!

For those who like to think obscenely about their Macs. Me included.

The one thing I want from the new iMac. Is ambition.

A move to Xeons whilst keeping the current 27 inch pricing structure, the XDR design and scaling the spec upto the current iMac Pro price point would greatly increase the iMac's power and value status for price charged.

An 8 core for £1750 right up to an 18 core for £5k.

It just depends on how 'substantial' this refresh is going to be. If it's a consolidate iMac Pro range (and greater range of prices and BTO options...) the iMac Pro and the 27 incher could be one and the same...with the BTO option for a RDNA2 just shipping 'later.'

"In some Macs, Apple’s designs will double or quadruple the number of cores that Intel provides. The current entry-level MacBook Air has two cores, for example."

Something I caught from the Bloomberg ARM article.

Azrael.

 

[Freida]

Have never seen it likes this. Wow, what a beauty.

And what a disgrace next to it. If Apple doesn't unify the design language and make iMac Pro a real Pro then I don't know whats up with them.

The XDR is truly beautiful. I would really love to see one in person though. Stores in here don't have them on display
Maybe Toronto but not sure about that.

View attachment 924860

One of those designs looks breathtaking and modern...and looks like the future.

Not seen this side by side show of the iMac pro and XDR.

The XDR looks miles ahead in design. Truly stunning.

Rumor: Redesigned iMac to be announced at WWDC with thin bezels, AMD Navi GPUs and T2 chip - 9to5Mac

Apple may be about to refresh the iMac’s external design after more than eight years. According to leaker Sonny Dickson,...

9to5mac.com

Azrael.

 

[xgman]

There is no information. This largely is just a chat to pass the time.

Well this is the most accurate statement on this thread.

 

[Freida]

Here is what I feel right now.

scenarios:

a) iMac refresh is substantial and provides most desired features whilst giving customers good value
b) iMac Pro is refreshed with up to date specs (as what you quoted) and we get truly PRO AiO product.

If neither of this happens then I don't know what I will do.

if iMac Pro costs almost double of iMac then I expect at double the value or else I'm wasting money.

I'm more than happy to wait till fall for iMac Pro if that means RDNA2, XDR display (not all the features of course - size + resolutions is pretty much enough) etc.

It all depends on what is going to happen on monday and how substantial the iMac truly is going to be.

So, will I get iMac and be happy or will I wait for iMac Pro and be happy? Or will Apple screw us over again and we get outdated junk with luxurious pricetag?

I feel that Apple knows that there is a pressure from customers that care so the question is - will they address it or will the fart in our faces?

Tim Cook - each bloody earnings call he says: We have amazing products in our pipeline and we can't wait to share those with you.
Well, I wanna be alive when those 'amazing' products arrive, Tim! As so far you showed us one disappointment after another.

Mac Pro and XDR was an exception but you made sure that most people won't reach that so congrats, you showed us something and then you also showed us the finger. Now only rich kids can afford your fancy stand for $1000 and fancy wheels for $700.

Proud of you, Tim!

For those who like to think obscenely about their Macs. Me included.

The one thing I want from the new iMac. Is ambition.

A move to Xeons whilst keeping the current 27 inch pricing structure, the XDR design and scaling the spec upto the current iMac Pro price point would greatly increase the iMac's power and value status for price charged.

An 8 core for £1750 right up to an 18 core for £5k.

It just depends on how 'substantial' this refresh is going to be. If it's a consolidate iMac Pro range (and greater range of prices and BTO options...) the iMac Pro and the 27 incher could be one and the same...with the BTO option for a RDNA2 just shipping 'later.'

"In some Macs, Apple’s designs will double or quadruple the number of cores that Intel provides. The current entry-level MacBook Air has two cores, for example."

Something I caught from the Bloomberg ARM article.

Azrael.

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We've exhausted all the info. Now we are just chatting and killing time. Exploring crazy ideas also and occasionally debate latest twitter leaks.
If you want to be up to date, read last 10 pages and you will have all the info you need.

Most of us just simply can't wait for monday and we have high hopes for Apple to make an entry the same way as with the Mac Pro and XDR. (Except the prices of course)

So here is to better future

I do not want to offend anyone, but it has become difficult to look for important information here because of the large information flow ... I suggest writing more about the case and more succinctly, but less flooding and about desires

 

[askunk]

Jumping the refreshed Navi 10 (shall we call it Navi10+?) a bunch of weeks from the official presentation (Sept, very likely), when AMD is perfectly capable - and has done it in the past - to provide early batches to Apple would be a crime.

The Mac Pro mounts a Pro W5700X which is a slightly refined version of the 5700XT with - if I am not mistaken - FP8 enabled for ML/AI. It has a slightly different thermal profile and (lower gaming) performance than a 5700XT, but quite close and it can run ML much faster.

The present iMac Pro (let's assume that the iMac 2020 cooling has similar thermal exchange capacity) mounts up to 140W TDP processors and 275W cards. Well within what we would expect with a 10900K (125W) and a 5700XT (250W).
Therefore, there is no official need to underclock it. What it could happen is that Apple undervolts it and changes the thermal profile to make it more silent, therefore inevitably capping its peak power.

 

[pldelisle]

I am in ML, and I’ve yet seen a real implementation in FP8. Just saying

Anyway, absolutely nothing run on AMD. Every library is CUDA-only.

 

[gusping]

I do not want to offend anyone, but it has become difficult to look for important information here because of the large information flow ... I suggest writing more about the case and more succinctly, but less flooding and about desires

We are all deeply deeply offended. Apologise immediately!
[automerge]1592425932[/automerge]

I understood. But here there are people who understand well in technology and write the right and interesting things, I will not mention their names
But then we have to flip through a lot of "water".

Just ask us any questions you have. Chances are, we have covered it top to bottom, 10 times over, in the last day alone. WE ARE ADDICTED TO IMAC CHAT.
[automerge]1592426025[/automerge]

iMac Pro won't be refreshed until RDNA2. It's written in the sky (don't know if this expression is correct in English ).

iMac Pro needs 80 CUs of NAVI21 XT. If NAVI10 XT does 9.7 TFLOPs in FP32, imagine an iMac Pro with 18-20 TFLOPs of compute power. This will be for sure in the next iMac Pro. But 9.7 TFLOPs FP32 is not enough right now in the iMac Pro and GCN5 is still what AMD only has to offer for now in this performance range. The only chip that could fit in the iMac Pro is the Radeon VII in 7nm. But *one* SKU is not enough for the iMac Pro.

Smart man, I have another question for you.

What does half-precision mean, when AMD says X GPU is 10 TFLOPs, or 20 TFLOPs in half-compute/half precision, etc. (can't remember the exact term, sorry).
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iMac Pro With Cascade Lake-W Xeon CPUs up to 18 cores, up To 512 GB ECC RAM, AMD Radeon Pro 6800-6900, 1-2-4 TB SSD NVME in crazy RAID 0 setup. Apple‘s quality 5 or 6K display. What a dream machine !!!

Would definitively wait for this if my MacBook Pro’s battery hasn’t exploded it until then.

Sounds expensive. I hope you have $20k spare.
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Here is what I feel right now.

scenarios:

a) iMac refresh is substantial and provides most desired features whilst giving customers good value
b) iMac Pro is refreshed with up to date specs (as what you quoted) and we get truly PRO AiO product.

If neither of this happens then I don't know what I will do.

SCREAMMMM from the rooftops - "For Fusion sakeeeeeeee!!!" *jumps*

 

[pldelisle]

What does half-precision mean, when AMD says X GPU is 10 TFLOPs, or 20 TFLOPs in half-compute/half precision, etc. (can't remember the exact term, sorry)

You have different types of variables, but for numbers you mainly have Integers and Floats.

In the floats family, you can store different ranges of numbers. You have 64 bits floats for storing very big numbers with high precision (this is called Double Precision, FP64). You have 32 bits floats which has 8 bits for exponent and 23 bits for the fractions + 1 bit for the +/- sign. This is call Single Precision or FP32. So half the FP64 capacity, but also faster to compute because you can fit two FP32 in a 64bit register. Same deduction goes for FP16. Smaller range of numbers, lower precision for small numbers (5 bits for exponent, 10 bits for fraction, 1 bit sign), but can fit 4 numbers in the 64bits wide register. Or you can fit twice the data in the same amount of memory. Recall memory is precious in a GPU and very limited. So for graphics intensive, real time computation, or things that doesn’t really require high precision computation, half precision is very great. Tensor cores are optimized for multiply/accumulate operations, very common in deep learning models, thus leverage 100 TFLOPS of compute power for this operation because you can tweak the floating points representation in memory to concatenate the vectors.

Intel has AVX-512, so it can process a 512-bit vector operation in very few clock cycles, thus increasing the compute power of a core.

So basically, know your maths and memory representation This can save you a lot of compute time and memory !

 

[gusping]

You have different types of variables, but for numbers you mainly have Integers and Floats.

In the floats family, you can store different ranges of numbers. You have 64 bits floats for storing very big numbers with high precision (this is called Double Precision, FP64). You have 32 bits floats which has 8 bits for exponent and 23 bits for the fractions + 1 bit for the +/- sign. This is call Single Precision or FP32. So half the FP64 capacity, but also faster to compute because you can fit two FP32 in a 64bit register. Same deduction goes for FP16. Smaller range of numbers, lower precision for small numbers (5 bits for exponent, 10 bits for fraction, 1 bit sign), but can fit 4 numbers in the 64bits wide register. Or you can fit twice the data in the same amount of memory. Recall memory is precious in a GPU and very limited. So for graphics intensive, real time computation, or things that doesn’t really require high precision computation, half precision is very great. Tensor cores are optimized for multiply/accumulate operations, very common in deep learning models, thus leverage 100 TFLOPS of compute power for this operation because you can tweak the floating points representation in memory to concatenate the vectors.

Intel has AVX-512, so it can process a 512-bit vector operation in very few clock cycles, thus increasing the compute power of a core.

So basically, know your maths and memory representation This can save you a lot of compute time and memory !

Well explained, thank you very much!

 

[TinaBelcher]

It better be arrive during the summer! I'd be mad if they reveal it, and not having a release date within the next 4 weeks. I really badly want an iMac asap so I can use the large screen as I'm preparing to write my bachelor. What I'm really afraid of is that the rumored redesign is for the iMac Pro and not the regular iMac. I can just imagine it!

 

[gusping]

It better be arrive during the summer! I'd be mad if they reveal it, and not having a release date within the next 4 weeks. I really badly want an iMac asap so I can use the large screen as I'm preparing to write my bachelor. What I'm really afraid of is that the rumored redesign is for the iMac Pro and not the regular iMac. I can just imagine it!

Nah, you’re all good, dont worry. New regular iMac announced Monday. If not, I’ll buy you a 2019 iMac.

 

[DrRadon]

It better be arrive during the summer! I'd be mad if they reveal it, and not having a release date within the next 4 weeks.

According to leaks this has been ready to ship for a while and only was looking for a new space in apples timeline wich got messed up due to covid. Fairly certain it will drop ASAP after the Keynote.

 

[gusping]

According to leaks this has been ready to ship for a while and only was looking for a new space in apples timeline wich got messed up due to covid. Fairly certain it will drop ASAP after the Keynote.

I’d happily take a delay and for Apple to include RDNA2 though pretty please...

 

[ernstinvisiblelubitsch]

has anyone in this thread personally used the pro XDR display? I’ve been reading a lot about highlights blooming on the pro xdr display because there aren’t enough local dimming zones on the mini-led screen, and I’m just curious what effect that has on trying to do work like color correction. I probably wouldn’t mind if a revamped iMac didn’t get a mini-LED display.

 

[DrRadon]

has anyone in this thread personally used the pro XDR display? I’ve been reading a lot about highlights blooming on the pro xdr display because there aren’t enough local dimming zones on the mini-led screen, and I’m just curious what effect that has on trying to do work like color correction. I probably wouldn’t mind if a revamped iMac didn’t get a mini-LED display.

We are in the Marked for iMacs here, XDR should be better to our eyes.

Check out this video comparing it on a way higher level to see it's "flaws".

 

[Homy]

The first test of 5600M. Faster than Vega 56 in iMac Pro and 5700 XT eGPU in Unigine Heaven. If it can do this at 50W imagine what it can do in an iMac. Still expensive though.

 

[ekwipt]

Welcome to another day of ad infinitum discussion on whether the iMac bezels will be reduced, and if so by how much. Today's topics also likely to include financing of Apple products and whether Intel's 10 gen chips really are getting hotter. Contributions expected from leading climate change denialists.

Bad Bot

 

[i'm the mac daddy]

The burning question I have is come Monday will this thread come to a well deserved end or will it live until Fall or possible next year? I can’t remember when it was born, I want to say it’s a coming up on its first birthday? Will we all be excited and talking about the new iMac and specs in a new thread? Or will we all be severely disappointed with Tim Apple and prophessizing the end of the iMac line? Either way it’s been a fun ride guys and gals.