MP 7,1 Worth purchasing Mac Pro 7,1 or wait?

[avro707]

Did you check the Refurb store.
There where 2 pages of 7.1mp's today (UK).

FYI I have seen some huge bargains on Amazon recently for Mac Pro components.
1.Wheels 75% off
2.8TB SSD 37% off (£1000 cheaper)
3.Vega 2 MPX was much cheaper, but out of stock now

Unfortunately I'm one of those evil people in Australia who is not allowed to buy refurbished Mac Pro from USA or UK stores (or any others). They never have refurb Mac Pros in the Australia store.

I also looked at Canada (through some workaround procedures) but the pricing would have been crazy with exchange rate, shipping and insurance, then the import duty levied by Customs here. It works out cheaper to order a brand new computer which is what I did. But the wait is lengthy.

For the reason you liked the old 5,1 (and I did too - I have two of them) is basically what tipped me towards the 7,1. It should last and it has easy ability to expand it and it won't need Opencore.

At the moment I'm using the 6,1 full time - it's very good and quite fast. The other 5,1 6 core machine is dedicated to Zwift which is also critical - it's part of my recovery from major surgery.

 

[avro707]

My 7,1 is on the way now. So I will have it before end of month.

Looking forward to it - at least one bright point in what has turned out to be a rubbish year with a hip replacement maybe on the way if my femur won’t start healing fully.

 

[MarkC426]

Where do Australian orders ship from.....?

Hope you have a full recovery....🤕

 

[subroutines]

One could argue that Apple silicon changes the game in regards to speed, power in a far more favorable thermal envelope. But if the new 8,1 is indeed a "closed" system like the 6,1, it will follow in the same footsteps as the 6,1. Simply because whatever power this new machine brings doesn't live in a vacuum... the whole Apple eco system will exist on its own silicon too. So as new MBPs and iMacs and Studios come out with better SOCs for less money, people will complain that their Mac Pros can't be upgraded to better last. Hopefully they include some PCIe expansion to at least serve its intended market better like the 7,1.

any indication that the 8,1 might be closed system?

 

[avro707]

Where do Australian orders ship from.....?

Hope you have a full recovery....🤕

I'm not sure - we only seem to get tracking when it arrives in the country, that's when the Apple tracking notification is sent. I should have the new 7,1 MP in a couple of days.

Thanks also for the well wishes.

 

[DrEGPU]

any indication that the 8,1 might be closed system?

I think there's a reasonable argument that Apple only considers audiovisual professionals as the professionals for which their "pro" line is designed. The 7,1 used Xeons with limited numbers of slower Gen3 PCIe lanes. Instead of fussing around with PCie pools, AMD EPYC CPUs (and now Threadripper Pro) have more PCIe lanes that are faster, plus potentially more CPU cores. I know, I know, Apple probably had contracts in place with Intel, and it would require some recompiling and forking of MacOS. However, that fact that Apple released the afterburner card (an FPGA card devoted entirely to video "stuff") indicates Apple is focused on audiovisual work. The fact that the MA and M2 Macs are ridiculously powerful at 8K decode streams is also evidence.

This is all to say, that it seems like Apple is positioning itself to double-down on AV professionals, and they've shown that they can do this quite well with their SoC's (ie, M1 and M2). The M3(?) will probably follow this paradigm and the 8,1 Mac Pro could possibly have several M3 processors (2?, 4? more?).

If they do continue on with their ARM-based SoC's (M1/M2/M3?), they could also embed other functions baked into the chips, like even more powerful neural engines, except this time those optimized for training models, instead of just running them, for example.

 

[solaris8x86]

All intel Mac will be EOL around 2026-2027 because each generation of Mac is about 7 year lifecycle. The Mac Pro 7,1 was introduced in 2019 so it will be about EOL by that time. After that, there's no more intel binary for intel Macs anymore from Apple. Even the MacOS itself by the time will be solely support to M-processor only and the Universal binary will be stopped producing. If you go get a new Intel Mac now. In 2026, it will be fully-stopped in software/OS support. Which your new intel Mac can only last for 3 years only from now.

 

[Matty_TypeR]

When the new intel and AMD thread ripper CPU's arrive with RDNA 3 GPU's along with Nvidia will the M- processor compete or will mac pro's become redundant after 3 years with soldered in M chips and ram. will they even be upgradable the new mac pro 8.1 machines. As Apple lock down the ecosphere further upgradable paths will only be available with new purchases.

I can see a future with New Mac pro's M chips tied into OSX and windows via emulation being the only option. with thunderbolt 5 due next year from intel offering 80gb through put even Egpu's will become a fast alternative but so far not supported by M chips. The new Mac pro 8.1 must come with an upgrade path or i cant see many buying into a locked ecosphere of OSX IOS only. Its almost like Apple are making there own Iron curtain for OSX IOS hardware.

 

[avro707]

Where do Australian orders ship from.....?

Hope you have a full recovery....🤕

Built in USA.

Shipped to NSW Australia (Eastern Creek where Apple has a local distribution centre)

Then shipped with local courier company (which is when I got tracking from Apple).

It’s a staggering computer, it’s a rocket. And build quality - awesome.

 

[PowerMike G5]

any indication that the 8,1 might be closed system?

None at all. Purely conjecture based on what they've done with Apple Silicon.

It possible given the thermal difference between Apple Silicon and Intel CPU/AMD GPUs that they could go the closed system route. But I hope they are smart enough to know how much pro workloads rely on expandability for this type of machine.

So I hope they still provide PCIe slots. Even if they try to wall the garden by providing their own interconnect for GPU expansion. I wouldn't be surprised if they did provide an expandable tower, that they provide that expansion via their own standard. Like for example, the tech they use to fuse the M1 Ultra together and making that as expansion slots so you can upgrade GPU power over time, albeit using only Apple made GPUs. I just hope if the did that, that they would at least mix in some standardized PCIe slots for more wide-range usage.