Luminous Landscape Forum
Equipment & Techniques => Computers & Peripherals => Topic started by: BernardLanguillier on January 22, 2019, 03:46:21 pm
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I has been 1.5 years+ since Apple announced their intent to come up with a new modular Mac Pro.
Any insider info regarding a possible timing for announcement?
Cheers,
Bernard
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I has been 1.5 years+ since Apple announced their intent to come up with a new modular Mac Pro. Any insider info regarding a possible timing for announcement?
No insider information. I haven't read anything on the Mac sites other than sometime in 2019.
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I gave up on mac pros such a long time ago... To slow, to inflexible, way to expensive for what they are...
However, back to topic, not before summer 2019 would me my guess.
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I gave up on mac pros such a long time ago... To slow, to inflexible, way to expensive for what they are...
However, back to topic, not before summer 2019 would me my guess.
Yes, that would be my guess as well.
As a side comment, the pricing of the Mac pro should be compared to pro level workstations. If you look at typical references on Windows, such as the HP Z8, price can easily go to 30,000 - 40,000 US$ without even speaking about the highest possible configurations.
Cheers,
Bernard
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True, but one could argue that the choice is much wider and as it is now, the workstation support with photo applications is just not very good.
You don’t gain much by spending money on expensive Xeon CPUs and certainly nothing by spending even more money on workstation graphic cards.
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
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True, but one could argue that the choice is much wider and as it is now, the workstation support with photo applications is just not very good.
You don’t gain much by spending money on expensive Xeon CPUs and certainly nothing by spending even more money on workstation graphic cards.
Well, I am not sure I totally agree with the point about GPU.
If you compare the performance of C1 Pro vs LR on raw exports or PTGUI - C1 Pro and PTgui doing a very efficient use of GPU - it is clear that fast GPU can have a very high value for computationnally intensive tasks.
Cheers,
Bernard
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Ok wrong choice of word. I agree with you, what I wanted to say Consumer "Gaming" Cards offer much better performance compared to very expensive professional graphic cards. C1 is amazing in using even two graphic cards.
Take a look at the
RTX2080Ti - from 1100EUR
same chip (yes more Memory, but that's certainly not the bottleneck with C1 and PTGui)
Quadro RTX 8000 - from 6000EUR
No I can go further, my two RTX2070 costed me around 1100 and are in C1 way faster.
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Indeed, fair point.
But today in the Apple ecosystem, there is simply no machine allowing you to install a discrete GPU of choice.
I understand it is one good reason to move away from Mac, but within the Mac ecosystem, the hope of a modular Mac Pro is mostly on the GPU side. Be it gaming cards or pro Quadro like cards.
cheers,
Bernard
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Nothing more than https://www.macrumors.com/roundup/mac-pro/ off hand. I'd love 2 PCIe4/5 16x slots with spacing for a double height card (takes 2 slots). Add in 4 M.2 NVMe slots, 8 TB3 ports and 8 RAM slots. I was originally thinking of a mix of TB3 and USB-C 3.1gen2 ports, but I think having 2 standards with the same jack would cause issues.
I think that having user upgradeable components is critical to the pro market, something that Apple may have come around to. Increase the price on the main unit, and adjust the price down on the upgrade/additions. AppleCare +++ should be an option, or just JointVenture and be done.
As to discrete GPU's we now have that with eGPU's over TB3.
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As to discrete GPU's we now have that with eGPU's over TB3.
More boxes and cables and power supplies.
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Nothing more than https://www.macrumors.com/roundup/mac-pro/ off hand. I'd love 2 PCIe4/5 16x slots with spacing for a double height card (takes 2 slots). Add in 4 M.2 NVMe slots, 8 TB3 ports and 8 RAM slots. I was originally thinking of a mix of TB3 and USB-C 3.1gen2 ports, but I think having 2 standards with the same jack would cause issues.
I doubt you will see PCIe 5.0... 4.0 is still rolling out, at least in AMD side... they plan to add support in new GPU and new processors based on the Zen2 architecture this year.
Intel did not comment anything about their new Sunny Cove architecture... but that does not mean they will not release this year... but if Apple is waiting for this... probably it will mean something to be released by Q3 the soonest...
But yes, doubling pcie bandwith will free bottlenecks like the ones for new ssds that looks like the bottleneck is the PCIe 4x lanes...
http://dgpfotografia.com
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But yes, doubling pcie bandwith will free bottlenecks like the ones for new ssds that looks like the bottleneck is the PCIe 4x lanes...
http://dgpfotografia.com
Since the latest PCIe memory needs a PCIe 3.0 4x slot - and we have PCIe3.0 -16x slots on board, you could use 4 as a raid0 on one slot.
That means to current standards 8TB of space and extremely fast memory. A samsung 2TB is doing solo already 2500Mb/sec read write .
(Your CPU has to support all these PCIe lanes; in the light of this memory development you better have enough of those)
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Since the latest PCIe memory needs a PCIe 3.0 4x slot - and we have PCIe3.0 -16x slots on board, you could use 4 as a raid0 on one slot.
That means to current standards 8TB of space and extremely fast memory. A samsung 2TB is doing solo already 2500Mb/sec read write .
(Your CPU has to support all these PCIe lanes; in the light of this memory development you better have enough of those)
But you need the physical lanes. An Intel Xeon processor for an iMac has 48 PCIe 3.0 lanes. If you use two graphic cards in 16x, you already are wasting 32, that leaves you 16 lanes for TB3 (each one requires 4x lanes), PCIe SSD (each one 4x lanes) a 10 GBit port, another 4x lanes. Of course those are the lanes directed connected to the processor, the chipset provides more, but they are bottlenecked by the connection between the processor and the chipset, that it is 4x PCIe 3.0 connection, shared with all your USB, SATA and other ports... And to put PCIe SSD on RAID (like iMac Pro is doing), you really want those lines directly connected to the processor.
So, PCI 4.0 is quite interesting, since it is like multiplying by 2 the number of physical lines available in any processor.
P.D.: Yes, AMD Threadripper processors can have more physical lines, but Apple does not use AMD for CPUs.
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So, PCI 4.0 is quite interesting, since it is like multiplying by 2 the number of physical lines available in any processor.
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Yes indeed, PCIe connections will become more and more important... leaving SATA for backup/archive disks.
Probably Apple wants to put some new technology in the machine - thats why we are waiting already 6 years ;) since their last cylinder option. I already stept on to a Hackintosh i9 ; for me a good decision.
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Yes indeed, PCIe connections will become more and more important... leaving SATA for backup/archive disks.
Probably Apple wants to put some new technology in the machine - thats why we are waiting already 6 years ;) since their last cylinder option. I already stept on to a Hackintosh i9 ; for me a good decision.
Yes, I did the same... not that I need a Mac Pro or a iMac Pro, but for less money than a good Mac Mini + eGPU I got an i9-9900k + Raedon 580 and 32 GB of RAM. Enough for my Lightroom, Photoshop and Final Cut X needs.
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Yes, I did the same... not that I need a Mac Pro or a iMac Pro, but for less money than a good Mac Mini + eGPU I got an i9-9900k + Raedon 580 and 32 GB of RAM. Enough for my Lightroom, Photoshop and Final Cut X needs.
Ok but i read 9900k 16 PCI-lanes.. is that enough for you? that why i went for a 9700x...
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Ok but i read 9900k 16 PCI-lanes.. is that enough for you? that why i went for a 9700x...
Yes it has, for me it is ok... going with something x299 it will mean to look for a 10 cores processor or higher (8 cores version of x299 I don't think will have better performance than the i9-9900k)... that will be probably be an investment that I will not recover.
So, I apologize to the original poster if he thinks I'm going to off-topic, let me know and I will stop.
So, what I have right now it is an i9-9900k processor, connected directly to its PCI by 16x there is a AMD Readon RX580 with 8GB. The rest of devices are conected to the 24 PCIe lanes that the Z390 chipset offers. The problem with those lines are connected to the processor via a DMI 3.0 bus (something propietary of Intel) that basically has the bandwith of the PCIe 3.0 4x bus. To those lanes I have connected a Samsung EVO 970 SSD and maybe in the future I will add a second SSD MVNe SSD there. In the future, if I externalize all my 3.5 HDD Drives (I have 4 right now connected directly via a SATA bus to my motherboard) to a NAS, I will buy a 10GBe network card.
So, my needs, I basically use Lightroom, very minimal work in Photoshop and Final Cut X, this last one it is really the reason I upgraded to this from my 2015 Macbook Pro. I just do light video editing, basically cutting 4k h264 video from my Sonys with very light color correcting. The only thing I'm thinking to change right now... it is to return the RX580 and buy a Vega 56, specially after seeing they had a price drop here in Europe this month and also seeing how much Final Cut X makes use of the GPU to render and encode h264 video. It is maxing GPU processor and memory each time I export or render the timeline after I do a small color correcting in Final Cut X.
Would I benefit not having my SSD bottlenecked by other components while editing video? Probably... but seeing the usage I think that will be minimal.
I think this system will serve me ok for the next 3 to 4 years... that it is a margin that I think Apple will give in the hypothetical case that right now they decide to go nuclear and switch to ARM based architecture or say that from version 10.X of Mac OS they will only support Macs with their T2 or equivalent chip (by margin, time they will at least support "old" Mac hardware they were selling right now without the T2 chip... I think the only Macs that don't have it are Mac Pros and normal iMacs).
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Interesting discussion.
Anybody else thinking that Apple could go full AMD for CPU and GPU?
Cheers,
Bernard
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I don’t think so. While I see huge potential in AMDs new products in many applications intel is currently faster, especially adobe products.
This doesn’t mean the CPU in general are faster, but that’s how it is with current optimization.
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
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The likelihood of Apple using AMD CPUs is zero. It's far more likely to abandon x86 for their own aarch64 implementation (though they would start with a laptop and the Mac Pro would be the last model to make switch).
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Interesting discussion.
Anybody else thinking that Apple could go full AMD for CPU and GPU?
Cheers,
Bernard
Hi Bernard,
I don't think so... Intel has promised to license Thunderbolt under royalty-free license, but that hasn't happened yet, I think... I can only find references of news that Intel was planning to do it so by the end of 2018: https://www.anandtech.com/show/12228/intel-titan-ridge-thunderbolt-3 , but I can not find a news article saying that it did...
Apple collaborated with the development of Thunderbolt with Intel, so maybe they could use internally in an AMD/ARM based product, not sure if that will happen in the future. Apple relies a lot in Thunderbolt, so I think this is a must for any new computer coming from them. So this could be a show stopper.
Other hand it is what it was mentioned here, optimized code for the new Zen/Zen 2 architecture that AMD processors are using now. Apple has compilers optimized to create very fast x86 for Intel architectures (also making a lot of use of the GPU consumer Intel CPUs has inside) and of course, optimized compilers for their ARM based processors in their iPhones and iPads... saying that, Apple has a very good relation with AMD, so making the Ryzen/Threadripper processors work well with Mac OS it will only mean put tons of money in paying engineers to optimize the code. So, basically it is a matter of money + time. Not sure if Apple is interested in that investment, specially if the rumours of creating the desktop/laptop version of their ARM processors are true. They will have to invest on this to them move to ARM.
Anyway... in the favour of AMD case, I think Apple must not be very happy with Intel lately, the rumour is that their 5G modems are not up to the task and Apple must go with Qualcomm modems, since both Qualcomm and Apple are fighting in court around IPR and abusive clauses... they must not be happy to have to go this route (there are other rumours that point that Apple is manufacturing their own modems, not sure if those are true...). So, looks Intel is going to lose their major client for their modems. Also Intel continuous delays in creating an stable 10nm manufacturing process must not have Apple very happy...
Regards,
David
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Apple has AMD based rigs in their labs and are constantly testing & developing on both CPU platforms. The question is more of can Apple productize it & ship at a volume that AMD can support given they sold most their fabs. The Zen/Zen2 stuff is amazing, and while I would personally like to see something AMD roll off Apples assembly line, I don't think it'll happen.
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Apple has AMD based rigs in their labs and are constantly testing & developing on both CPU platforms. The question is more of can Apple productize it & ship at a volume that AMD can support given they sold most their fabs. The Zen/Zen2 stuff is amazing, and while I would personally like to see something AMD roll off Apples assembly line, I don't think it'll happen.
That shouldn't be a problem at this stage for AMD. They are using TSMC for the new Zen2 products. And does not look TSMC has problems to cope with manufacturing demand, considering that they are making right now all AMD GPUs, Nvidias ones too... all actual Apple chips... and part of the new CPUs of AMD (the zen2 has a chiplet design, blocks of 8 cores make at TSMC 7nm technology, and a northbridge chip made in the Global Foundries 14nm or 12nm technology).
I agree with you, this comeback of AMD was quite nice and Threadripper looks like a quite nice product and architecture, I really hope software side starts optimizing for it, I have the feeling that the processor can give more if Adobe and similar companies optimize their code for it...
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A friend has an iMac Pro, and it is a screamer on his 500,000 image Lightroom library. The new Mac Pro is likely to be even faster, but also even more expensive.
From reading the Mac forums, here's my guess as to the rough specs of the new machine (nothing more than the musings of a person who's been using the Mac for 35 years - this is NOT based on inside info).
It's going to be expensive - my best estimate is $5999 or $6499 for a (very nice) base configuration. Apple has always preferred to sell all-in-one computers (iMacs), and they protect the iMac market by pricing the Mac Pro above any usual iMac configuration. They will probably only take the base price of the iMac Pro into account - I can't imagine them starting the Mac Pro above the top CTO prices of the iMac Pro!
It's not going to be as expandable as some people wish for - specifically, it probably won't be compatible with standard PC graphics cards (Apple hates NVidia), nor accept internal spinning hard drives. It probably will have replaceable graphics, and there may be single and dual graphics options. There will certainly be multiple AMD GPU choices available, and there may be the option of installing two - but they won't be commodity cards from Newegg.
I strongly suspect it'll use the "big-socket" Xeon processors - the recently released 28-core Xeon W-3175X ($3000 for CPU alone) or a close relative will be the top processor option. They'll probably use something around a 12-core in the 3.2-3.5 gHz range with a turbo near 4 gHz as the base option, then offer three upgrades that increase core count at similar per-core speeds. The other possibility I wouldn't rule out is AMD Threadripper and EPYC (they won't offer both Intel and AMD options, but either one could be their choice). They won't be standard Threadrippers, because Threadripper uses non-ECC RAM and tops out at 128 GB - EPYC will go (much) higher, and so could a slightly modified Threadripper Apple has the clout to get. IF they use AMD, the CPU upgrades will probably be a little cheaper.
12 cores - base
16 cores - +$700
22 cores - +$1500
28 cores - +$3000 (typical Apple tax - they'll sell a $3000 processor for $3000, but not give any credit for the $800 12-core they take out).
They may offer some dual CPU 22-core and 28-core per CPU options at the very high end. Dual processors with 16 cores or less make no sense, because a single higher core count processor would outperform them. A dual 28-core would be at least an $8000 upgrade option from the base model.
The big-socket Xeons have 6-channel memory, so the memory options will look odd to people used to 4-channel configurations. The motherboards have either 6 or 12 RAM slots, and configurations that fill 6 or all 12 are much faster than configurations that leave empty channels. Apple very rarely sells configurations with empty channels, so 48 GB is the minimum practical configuration. RAM is almost certainly expandable after purchase, probably by the user, so Apple-taxed RAM may not be the only way to go. If they're using AMD, it'll be 4 and 8 channel RAM, but the costs per GB should be similar.
48 GB - base
96 GB - +$1200
192 GB - +$3600
384 GB - +$7000 (highly uncertain)
These RAM prices are based on the iMac Pro. Since RAM is user-expandable, Apple may go a little easier on users?
They will have multiple AMD graphics options, with a base that is either the Vega 64 from the iMac Pro or a successor model. They'll almost certainly have a GPU upgrade in the $500-$1000 range, and probably at least one more, which could be two of the upgraded GPUs for $1500 or so, or it could be one of AMDs Instinct cards. They may very well have multiple upgrade options, and I wouldn't be surprised to see a $5000+ upgrade available.
I suspect they're going to start high, and offer options running VERY high, on SSDs. The boot SSD will almost certainly be run through the T2 (or possibly T3) chip, although they may offer some M.2 slots that accept standard PCIe SSDs for storage (no boot unless you disable some security).
My suspicion is that they'll start at 2 TB, and offer 4 TB, 8 TB and maybe even 16 TB options. They might start at 1 TB in a $5999 base configuration ($750 upgrade to 2 TB, add $750 to other options, there's probably no 16 TB option)
2 TB - base
4 TB - +$1500
8 TB - +$4000
16 TB - +$9000
Most Mac Pros sold will probably be in the $7000-$10,000 range, although there will be combinations of options that push it over $20,000 - possibly way over $20,000 if dual-CPU and dual-GPU options are offered. The highest-end models will sell in very small numbers, probably mostly to Hollywood.