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

[rkuo]

I still don’t think there’s AS iMacs this year. Power and battery life are the biggest impact and that comes with laptops which is certainly where they will start and get that buzz.
Smaller iMac WWDC larger iMac next fall makes far more sense.

I don't know about that ... they should move aggressively to get through the transition period. If they wait to introduce Apple Silicon across the product line, the entire transition will drag out.

 

[fireguy286]

I don't know about that ... they should move aggressively to get through the transition period. If they wait to introduce Apple Silicon across the product line, the entire transition will drag out.

I’d agree but they were very clear it’s 2 year transition.

 

[CWallace]

I don't think we can expect the smaller iMac to come with miniled. Probably come to higher end devices first. The China times rumour of a 23" iMac this year said it would be a lower priced device like the iPhone SE, and miniled undoubtedly adds to cost.

I do agree with you that I do not think the ~24" will have MiniLED. I expect that to be a feature of its "big brother". I was just throwing it out there as a possible reason why the machine, if in theory ready by macOS 11, might not ship.

As to the "cheaper iMac SE", Renee Ritchie this week on his Apple Silicon iMac video did mention that while he feels the first models might be priced similar to their Intel equivalents to both pay for the AS R&D as well as all the new features we will hopefully see (like FaceID), he does also hope that Apple will offer future less-expensive models with less features (but still current AS SoCs) like an iPhone SE / iPad (Air).

"Only" 128GB.

Good catch. Thanks.

 

[DrRadon]

Finally it shipped. It already states Eindhoven Netherlands, but still claims to arrive Monday 31th.
It's not even UPS but DHL express.

 

[Azrael9]

Finally it shipped. It already states Eindhoven Netherlands, but still claims to arrive Monday 31th.
It's not even UPS but DHL express.

Finally.

Congrats, Dr. Radon.

Azrael.

 

[Azrael9]

I do agree with you that I do not think the ~24" will have MiniLED. I expect that to be a feature of its "big brother". I was just throwing it out there as a possible reason why the machine, if in theory ready by macOS 11, might not ship.

As to the "cheaper iMac SE", Renee Ritchie this week on his Apple Silicon iMac video did mention that while he feels the first models might be priced similar to their Intel equivalents to both pay for the AS R&D as well as all the new features we will hopefully see (like FaceID), he does also hope that Apple will offer future less-expensive models with less features (but still current AS SoCs) like an iPhone SE / iPad (Air).




Good catch. Thanks.

We await the 1st AS with great interest.

Azrael.
[automerge]1598287993[/automerge]

Random RAM thing i learned earlier today.
Apparently two sticks of RAM is better than four. So rather get two times 32GB than four times 16GB if you want 64GB of RAM.
Not sure if this is true for OS X as well, headed about it in a video that was for Windows concerning Premiere and After Effects RAM usage. Was quiet well don, were you could not only see the render time drop with more GB of RAM but also see the usage of each RAM brick (16gb having the RAM almost used at 100% while 64GB were more like 30GB usage per brick and the in-between 32GB at around 60% full).

Noted.

I'll have it all on pushing my two sticks of 16 gigs.

Azrael.

 

[Azrael9]

NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090 graphics card pictured - VideoCardz.com

Next generation Geforce flagship appears to be much bigger than previously expected. NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090 is a 3-slot graphics card New photos of the upcoming GeForce RTX 3090 graphics cards have emerged. The card named RTX 3090 appears to occupy three slots on the motherboard, as the I/O...

videocardz.com

Azrael.

 

[Homy]

NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090 graphics card pictured - VideoCardz.com

Next generation Geforce flagship appears to be much bigger than previously expected. NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090 is a 3-slot graphics card New photos of the upcoming GeForce RTX 3090 graphics cards have emerged. The card named RTX 3090 appears to occupy three slots on the motherboard, as the I/O...

videocardz.com

Azrael.

Soon those cards will be as big as a computer by themselves. I think Apple is going in the right direction.

 

[DrRadon]

Soon those cards will be as big as a computer by themselves. I think Apple is going in the right direction.

98% of the size comes due to being modular. Check on some videos were people set up water-cooling, if you take the fans and the heatsink of theres almost nothing left, and that nothing is spread out pretty wide due to having the option to just plug it into any current motherboard. Apple just puts all of that right on the motherboard and down clocks a lot due to less one fan for all on iMac and two tiny fans on MBP.
Who knows what will happen with MacPro. Maybe apple will have their own large, fan driven, modular, GPUs in there two years from now?

 

[Homy]

Apple just puts all of that right on the motherboard and down clocks a lot due to less one fan for all on iMac and two tiny fans on MBP.

That's not what I mean. I'm talking about Apple's Tile Based Deferred Rendering (TBDR) vs traditional Immediate Mode Rendering (IMR) used by Nvidia, AMD and Intel: https://9to5mac.com/2020/07/08/arm-mac-graphics/

 

[DrRadon]

Well see. I'll happily wait 2-3 years before i will be thinking about replacing my MacBook Pro so i don't feel to much need to build in depth knowledge on what could happen with these joined GPU/CPU solutions. But is this not coming anyway? I thought PS5 was also doing it.

 

[Mr. Warbles]

Interesting day today. I ordered an i7 8 core, 1TB SSD from Expercom on 8/7. I ordered from them because they had a sale that knocked $180 off the price!

well, after receiving 0 updates from expercom as to when I could expect my computer it arrived today! In fact, if I go to my expercom account it still says it’s processing. No tracking number, and it says “no items have shipped”, Yet here I am with it in hand! Very cool! I wasn’t expecting to get it until September. Looks like it shipped right from China rather than going to them first.

upgraded to 64GB of Samsung RAM (two 32 sticks removed the 8GB Apple RAM) and no issues! this thing is flying. Beautiful machine and the 5k screen is unbelievable. Coming from a mid 2010 iMac, it’s a serious upgrade.

 

[Freida]

How did Apple compensate you for the mess they created in the end? Did you get something nice?

Finally it shipped. It already states Eindhoven Netherlands, but still claims to arrive Monday 31th.
It's not even UPS but DHL express.

 

[The_Lord_of_Apple]

That's not what I mean. I'm talking about Apple's Tile Based Deferred Rendering (TBDR) vs traditional Immediate Mode Rendering (IMR) used by Nvidia, AMD and Intel: https://9to5mac.com/2020/07/08/arm-mac-graphics/

The article doesn't quite explain what Tile Based Deferred Rendering is in layman's terms. If you go through the corrsponding WWDC video about the GPU architecture, it explains how video data is not passed over the PCI bus. If it is not being passed over the PCI bus, is the performance that much greater? Nothing is ever quantified so that it makes sense.

Either TBDR or IMR has its pros and cons.

Perhaps TBDR is more suitable for laptops whereby the lower end discrete GPU performance can be matched by the AS GPU therefore better battery life.

Discrete GPU is not going away.

 

[Homy]

The article doesn't quite explain what Tile Based Deferred Rendering is in layman's terms. If you go through the corrsponding WWDC video about the GPU architecture, it explains how video data is not passed over the PCI bus. If it is not being passed over the PCI bus, is the performance that much greater? Nothing is ever quantified so that it makes sense.

Either TBDR or IMR has its pros and cons.

Perhaps TBDR is more suitable for laptops whereby the lower end discrete GPU performance can be matched by the AS GPU therefore better battery life.

Discrete GPU is not going away.

That's the thing with TBDR. Because of its efficiency it doesn't need as much memory bandwidth as IMR. "It drastically saves on memory bandwidth because of the unified memory architecture". Here are two other articles that explain the details more:

Tailor Your Apps for Apple GPUs and Tile-Based Deferred Rendering | Apple Developer Documentation

Learn about characteristic Apple GPU features, including imageblocks, tile shaders, and raster order groups.

developer.apple.com

WWDC20 – What’s new in Metal and the Apple GPU

WWDC20 has been an event of major changes. All operating systems had significant design changes. The new macOS named Big Sur is now version 11. The biggest announcemen…

metalkit.org

But is this not coming anyway? I thought PS5 was also doing it.

Yes, PS5 and Xbox X use SoC GPUs. Xbox with 52 CUs at 12 TFLOPs and PS5 with 36 CUs at 10 TFLOPS. This is a good sign. If they (AMD) can make such powerful GPUs then Apple should also be able to do so for its desktop computers like iMac.

 

[pldelisle]

That's the thing with TBDR. Because of its efficiency it doesn't need as much memory bandwidth as IMR. "It drastically saves on memory bandwidth because of the unified memory architecture". Here are two other articles that explain the details more:

Tailor Your Apps for Apple GPUs and Tile-Based Deferred Rendering | Apple Developer Documentation

Learn about characteristic Apple GPU features, including imageblocks, tile shaders, and raster order groups.

developer.apple.com

WWDC20 – What’s new in Metal and the Apple GPU

WWDC20 has been an event of major changes. All operating systems had significant design changes. The new macOS named Big Sur is now version 11. The biggest announcemen…

metalkit.org

Yes, PS5 and Xbox X use SoC GPUs. Xbox with 52 CUs at 12 TFLOPs and PS5 with 36 CUs at 10 TFLOPS. This is a good sign. If they (AMD) can make such powerful GPUs then Apple should also be able to do so for its desktop computers like iMac.

They won’t.
They will largely prefer having their own GPU because they will control their own release cycle.
Yes Intel has been slow to evolve but AMD isn’t better with GPUs. If Apple can release steady improvement every 18-24 months, they will use their own SoC with built in GPU.

 

[Homy]

They won’t.
They will largely prefer having their own GPU because they will control their own release cycle.
Yes Intel has been slow to evolve but AMD isn’t better with GPUs. If Apple can release steady improvement every 18-24 months, they will use their own SoC with built in GPU.

They won't what?? You are writing like I've said something about Apple willing to use AMD GPUs in AS?? How did you get that impression? I said if AMD can do it (for Xbox and PS) so can Apple, meaning they can build such powerful SoC GPUs too.

 

[rkuo]

The article doesn't quite explain what Tile Based Deferred Rendering is in layman's terms. If you go through the corrsponding WWDC video about the GPU architecture, it explains how video data is not passed over the PCI bus. If it is not being passed over the PCI bus, is the performance that much greater? Nothing is ever quantified so that it makes sense.

Either TBDR or IMR has its pros and cons.

Perhaps TBDR is more suitable for laptops whereby the lower end discrete GPU performance can be matched by the AS GPU therefore better battery life.

Discrete GPU is not going away.

Neither approach is strictly better. TBDR’s advantages are more apparent on low complexity scenes (aka mobile). Not really relevant in a mainstream GPU.

 

[pldelisle]

They won't what?? You are writing like I've said something about Apple willing to use AMD GPUs in AS?? How did you get that impression? I said if AMD can do it (for Xbox and PS) so can Apple, meaning they can build such power SoC GPUs too.

These SoC are still AMD chips. X86. They don’t do half of what an Apple Silicon will do.
Except for Mac Pro and maybe high end iMac 30/32’’, everything else will be on Apple Silicon iGPU and will beat low/mid range GPU in every real world application.

 

[The_Lord_of_Apple]

Here are two other articles that explain the details more:

Thanks for sharing the couple of links but I am too afraid to click them because I am going to spend the rest of my day figuring out TBDR. I've never ever got into the Apple side of development back in the day and as much as I am tempted I am going to refrain as I have too many things to do this week.

Judging from the response of Otoy when they announced the PR1 of Octane-X, they were impressed with the gains achieved from the metal API and still had more optimisations to do. I am guessing that the metal API is one half of the GPU equation for Apple. Otoy are going to release Octane-X to be utilised on Iphone/Ipad. The idea is that you can offload rendering on to the iPad. So what does that indicate about the metal API and AS? The degree of complexity of what was being rendered wasn't specified by Otoy.

The other part of me (wishful thinking) is the Afterburner card. The card has an open API that any software vendor can use to execute computations on the card. Perhaps this is maybe the foundation of an apple discrete GPU in the future. I haven't dug into the Afterburner API either.

 

[DrRadon]

Wow.
Apples seems to really have put out all the stops to make good.
I went from no support and panic mode to special support on Friday.
Money got taken of my account on saturday and the ordere switched to preparing to ship the same day.
Yesterday i got tracking, it still said 31th of august but the tracking ID actually tells me it is arriving today, only one day late.

To bad about the mess last week. That did not feel good. Like, legit not feel good. But they really seem to do anything to make good once they noticed.

But it's really weird because DHL express still only claims "Shipment information received".


Apparently the iMac never got picked up by DHL. Might still be on it's way. definitely not coming today.

 

[MadMitch89]

Going back and reviewing all the leaks from legitimate sources, here’s my take. We’re getting a 24 inch iMac and a 27 (or more) iMac Pro with Apple Silicon. The iMac Pro is the replacement for the 27 inch iMac. I think will create a nice product split with the normal iMac for the normal user getting a slightly bigger screen and the power use iMac Pro getting beefier specs.

 

[iPadified]

Thanks for sharing the couple of links but I am too afraid to click them because I am going to spend the rest of my day figuring out TBDR. I've never ever got into the Apple side of development back in the day and as much as I am tempted I am going to refrain as I have too many things to do this week.

Judging from the response of Otoy when they announced the PR1 of Octane-X, they were impressed with the gains achieved from the metal API and still had more optimisations to do. I am guessing that the metal API is one half of the GPU equation for Apple. Otoy are going to release Octane-X to be utilised on Iphone/Ipad. The idea is that you can offload rendering on to the iPad. So what does that indicate about the metal API and AS? The degree of complexity of what was being rendered wasn't specified by Otoy.

The other part of me (wishful thinking) is the Afterburner card. The card has an open API that any software vendor can use to execute computations on the card. Perhaps this is maybe the foundation of an apple discrete GPU in the future. I haven't dug into the Afterburner API either.

Offload rendering to an iPad! I remember when 4X Titan cards was state of the art... I think it is amazing the we are reasoning around an iPad/AS for offloading rendering.

I am quite sure we see dedicated compute cards like the Afterburner for the Mac Pro. The challange here is how these can be used in an iMac format.

 

[Azrael9]

That's not what I mean. I'm talking about Apple's Tile Based Deferred Rendering (TBDR) vs traditional Immediate Mode Rendering (IMR) used by Nvidia, AMD and Intel: https://9to5mac.com/2020/07/08/arm-mac-graphics/

So Apple are going for 'efficiency' of processing vs monolithic. From what I could see of the Max Tech' videos and the developer vids on Apple GPUs.

I think it's a very elegant solution. Can't wait to see it in an AS solution. I expect Apple to eclipse the RDNA1 series without too much problem. And consumer Macs to have far more potent GPU performance because of their approach.

Intel iGPU and AMD gpus have been underwhelming in Macs for some time.

I'm astonished we got the 5700XT with 16 gigs of VRAM. And it is impressive. But we must caveat that with?

It's a so last year gpu and it's mid-range.

It's not RDNA2 tech'. It's not Ampere.

In a few months the 5700XT will seem quite dated. And it is. Dated. Already.

Azrael.

 

[Azrael9]

Going back and reviewing all the leaks from legitimate sources, here’s my take. We’re getting a 24 inch iMac and a 27 (or more) iMac Pro with Apple Silicon. The iMac Pro is the replacement for the 27 inch iMac. I think will create a nice product split with the normal iMac for the normal user getting a slightly bigger screen and the power use iMac Pro getting beefier specs.

I can see those battle lines being drawn.

The 24 inch AS iMac may go all the way up to £2300.

Leaving the 27+ iMac AS in £2500+ territory.

Interesting times ahead. For sure.

Azrael.