Will there be a new Mac Pro in 2015?

Just figured it out!

The small circles around the edge are new Apple TV units.

The small rounded-off squares around the edge are the new, smaller (and suckier) Mac minis.

The large circles intersecting with the center are the upgraded Mac Pro 6,1 computers.

The large rounded-off square in the center is the new, user-configurable Mac Pro tower 7,1 offering dual CPUs, SATA3 ports for three 2.5" drives, a PCIe SSD slot and PCIe slots as well as eight RAM slots.

Man have I got problems!

scottsjack said:

Just figured it out!

The small circles around the edge are new Apple TV units.

The small rounded-off squares around the edge are the new, smaller (and suckier) Mac minis.

The large circles intersecting with the center are the upgraded Mac Pro 6,1 computers.

The large rounded-off square in the center is the new, user-configurable Mac Pro tower 7,1 offering dual CPUs, SATA3 ports for three 2.5" drives, a PCIe SSD slot and PCIe slots as well as eight RAM slots.

Man have I got problems!

Click to expand...

You are either :-

A) Correct
B) Mental
C) Both

Good post though

rdav said:

Yep, and apparently the next update will be available in some odd shades of purple, orange, yellow & cyan
.

Click to expand...

they should make a blue steel one

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Guess won't be seeing the nMP 7,1 anytime soon.
rMBP 15" and iMac have been refreshed, M370X might be (or not) a good sign, maybe Apple updates drivers now.
Intel will be announcing TB3 at Computex.
If only they would release a new chipset, even for Broadwell, like the 100 series with PCIe 3 with enough bandwidth for newer NVMe drives and TB3, that would be an awesome machine. But Skylake is still at least a year away I reckon.
With AMD's 300 or 400 GPUs out the door soon (next month), maybe an update is coming.
But if it's just a small refresh like 2 days ago, they won't bother.

ManuelGomes said:

Guess won't be seeing the nMP(7,1) anytime soon.... But if it's just a small refresh like 2 days ago, they won't bother.

Click to expand...

They could also update the Video Cards (& SSDs) - plus replace a couple of the USB-3 ports with USB-C etc. Would make a significant difference.

scottsjack said:

Just figured it out!

The small circles around the edge are new Apple TV units.

The small rounded-off squares around the edge are the new, smaller (and suckier) Mac minis.

Click to expand...

The Rounded off squares look more like Apple TV ( from above) than the Mac Mini. The rounded circles could be either a new Airport/Time Capsule or more dedicated "Apple Home" server device. Not necessarily hooked to a TV but playing the same 'central hub' role for Apple's Home Kit ecosystem. Not sure why home automation would be necessarily hooked to a TV accessory device. That doesn't make sense.

A Mac ( mini or otherwise) is gross overkill for a "always on", hub network interaction server.

Home Kit is quite likely a major talking point in the WWDC presentation.

Apple does need to "something" with Apple TV. It is old tech that is so outclassed they need to drop prices to compete. Apple TV is a well rumored connected with Home Kit so it wouldn't be surprising to synchronize with that new ecosystem introduction.


Besides OS X updates I doubt there will be anything Mac (or iPod/iPad/iPhone ) hardware focus here at all. It is a developers conference not a product system introduction one. If new hardware happens to line up with WWDC software topics they'll do it there but otherwise can release products when ready.


Apple has to cover OS X , iOS , and the iOS derivatives ( AppleTV and whatever else is new with HomeKit / CarKit / etc. ) That means a smaller slice of the fixed time block for hardware dog and pony time.

ManuelGomes said:

Guess won't be seeing the nMP 7,1 anytime soon.
....
If only they would release a new chipset, even for Broadwell, like the 100 series with PCIe 3 with enough bandwidth for newer NVMe drives and TB3,

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The 100 series is coupled to Gen 6 ( Skylake) desktop/mobile products. It requires a bump in the DMI link between CPU and chipset. That isn't coming to E5 v4 which is designed to be socket compatible with v3. Will get a new variant socket to get a new DMI link (just like the desktop/mobile is doing.)


Besides the 100 series solves a "problem" that the Xeon E5 v3-v4 + C610 series chipset doesn't have. Only counting PCIe v3 lanes here:

Mainstream Core i + sub 100 series chipset ==> 16 lanes.

Xeon E5 v3-v4 + C610 series chipset ==> 40 lanes.

Gen 6 Mainstream Core i + 100 series chipset ===> 36 (***) lanes

(***) Some 100 series options have 20 physical v3 lanes. That is not necessarily 20 lanes worth of bandwidth. In essence, getting a 'free' PCIe switch, lane expander with some versions built in. Probably closer to x6-x8 of real PCIe bandwidth. That makes for smaller, easier board lay out, not additional bandwidth. Bandwidth wise it is probably closer to 22-24 v3 lanes. Still almost half of Xeon E5 v3-v4.

that would be an awesome machine. But Skylake is still at least a year away I reckon.

Click to expand...

Xeon E5 v5 is probably almost two years away ( early 2017 ) with v4 hovering around early 2016.

AMD might light some fire under Intel's plans but it remains to be seen if their 2016-2017 offering is going to panic Intel. Doubtful it will. More respect? yes. Panic? no.

With AMD's 300 or 400 GPUs out the door soon (next month), maybe an update is coming.

Click to expand...

Apple has to build a custom card from AMD's reference card design. Highly doubtful that Apple's custom reworks are going to show up at the same time as AMD "tweak and build" standard format cards. Throw on top, GPU driver updates likely synched to the next OS X and it makes WWDC unlikely. If Apple is sticking with FirePro designation that isn't going to drop on the initial next gen arch release.

If more like rebadged elements of the AMD 300 series then more possible but the newer HBM stuff is doubtful.

and TB3, that would be an awesome machine.

Click to expand...

TB3 is likely another one of those closer to early 2016 technologies would be slide the Mac Pro out if tightly coupled to it.

rdav said:

They could also update the Video Cards (& SSDs) - plus replace a couple of the USB-3 ports with USB-C etc. Would make a significant difference.

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Depends upon whether Apple is trying to do "Big Bang" major upgrades only ( show up every 2-3 years with something new ) or is going to try to incrementally improve the Mac Pro ( get back on a more 12-18 month cycle).

The first is more like "hobby" status. The second is trying to be more market competitive/responsive.

Apple could get on the incrementally improve treadmill again. They have been off of it for 5 years.

dec
Your math is ok but if you factor in that 32 lanes are for the GPUs alone, you get only 8 free lanes for the TB controllers, as it happens right now, and a switch has to be used.
Xeon E3 are coming this October or November, maybe the E5 will come sooner than expected, a year from now or so.
You need 4 PCIe v3 lanes for the SSD - Samsung 951 NVMe if all goes well.
The same for each TB controller.
With Skylake and PCIe 4 they could theoretically all hang off the extra CPU lanes.
Or use the PCH lanes since by then they'll be PCIe 3.

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Regarding the GPUs, maybe Apple is already sampling cards based on Fiji, with early silicon provided by AMD. Or not.
I mean, if AMD is winning another design with Apple maybe they provide early parts so that Apple can fine tune custom cards right from the start.
Not likely though.

ManuelGomes said:

Regarding the GPUs, maybe Apple is already sampling cards based on Fiji, with early silicon provided by AMD. Or not.
I mean, if AMD is winning another design with Apple maybe they provide early parts so that Apple can fine tune custom cards right from the start.
Not likely though.

Click to expand...

I imagine that buried deep behind several security doors Apple has what we might consider to be the "real" Mac Pro. It has slots.

If you wanted to develop parts for OS X, it would be MASSIVELY easier to do so with PCIE slots, rather then have to make custom PCB for every card that might be used.

If you look inside the AMD drivers they have a great many cards listed in there, many will never see light of day yet SOMEONE is testing them and writing drivers.

So quite likely that there is a Mac inside the HQ that has PCIE 3.0 and slots. Maybe one day they will make it out and end up on Ebay?

I can dream.

Anyhow, I'm sure that Apple has been working on newer cards, the fact that there is a nicely functioning R9 290X driver in every copy of OS X downloaded for last 6 months tells us that.

I agree, a development MacPro should exist, a more flexible way to test different components or configurations.
Maybe it's just a testbed, open mobo with PCIe slots, but the same hardware config as the MP.
That makes sense.
But I wouldn't think it's a cMP case or something similar.
It's a good sign the somewhat recent driver. If the M370X is still a rebrand, as it should be, maybe they will not have it further developed, at least until the nMP 7,1 is out.
A pic of the expected Fiji card was leaked already, nice!!
Specs for the 980Ti are out, sort of - not final.

By the way, the Dx00 GPUs on the nMP run at the full PCIe 3 speed?
Or is it like they're also capped to PCIe 2?
I never really understood why the PCIe 2/1 issue exists really? IS it a hardware limitation? Doesn't seem like it, since removing a resistor is all it takes, as far as I know.
What's the deal really?
Artificial limitation?!

nMP GPUs run at PCIE 3 x16

But of a waste on my D300s as the bandwidth isn't needed.

As to the 3,1-5,1 requiring mods to get PCIE 2.0, I imagine it's all to keep the official Apple cards on a pedestal. If you dig into the giant 4870 flashing thread a guy named "beige" claimed that having a 1gb flashed card was SLOWER for some specific task then the 512 MB Apple card. It was much later on that I found the resistor to move to enable PCIE 2.0.

At least for AMD cards it is always a resistor. Since the 2600xt this has been the case. Easy enough to find when you have an Apple card and a PC one next to each other.

Much more difficult on things like 7870 and R9 290x which never had an Apple version. (Found them anyway)

Nvidia cards have always used a byte of rom to turn on and off a specific register at boot. With each card family this byte moved, sometimes taking me a month of trial and error to find.

ManuelGomes said:

dec
Your math is ok but if you factor in that 32 lanes are for the GPUs alone, you get only 8 free lanes for the TB controllers, as it happens right now, and a switch has to be used.

Click to expand...

Pragmatically the switch is used to "downshift" x8 PCIe v3 lanes ( ~x16 v2 worth down into 3 x4 v2 lanes ). If using PCIe v3 native TB v3 controllers then don't really need an "adapter". Can actually drop the switch as the CPU can provision two x4 v3 lanes itself instead of the single x8.

Would drop to just four TB v 3 ports but there "more" on those 4 ports than on the 6 v2 ports.

TB v3 @ 40Gb/s x 2 => 80Gb/s
TB v2 @ 20Gb/s x 3 => 60Gb/s

Haven't really lost much in terms of bandwidth ( it is the exact same x8 worth of PCIe v3 connected to). If manage to pump out DP 1.3 as alternate mode and use Display Port's daisy chaining abilities haven't lost out much of number of connected displays either.

Xeon E5 v4 , 4 ( 2 controllers ) TB v3 ports , 2 USB Type C ports with plain USB 3.0 , 4 USB 3 Type ports, and a HDMI 2.0 port. is better than the current Mac Pro. If can round up GPUs with DP 1.3 output all the better.

Xeon E3 are coming this October or November, maybe the E5 will come sooner than expected, a year from now or so.

Click to expand...

E5 v4 is coming around the end of this year. E5 v5 in 12 months maybe is up there with maybe Halle Berry is going to call me to go to lunch.

You need 4 PCIe v3 lanes for the SSD - Samsung 951 NVMe if all goes well.
The same for each TB controller.
With Skylake and PCIe 4 they could theoretically all hang off the extra CPU lanes.

Click to expand...

If stick with 3 TB controllers then it is tight.

Theoretically. The issue is that it just isn't going to ship in the E5 class short-intermediate term. NVMe on x4 PCIe v2 is a decent bump. It isn't the fastest possible but it is an improvement.

If the C620 chipset gets just x8 PCIv3 not sure if one x4 PCIv3 SSD would be better than two x4 PCIv2 SSDs. That single drive limitation inside the Mac Pro is a bit of a handicap. USB 3.1 Gen 2 and 10Gb Ethernet are also potential additional PCIe lane consumers. ( 10GbE would have to finally get affordable and USB 3.1 Gen 2 may not be multimode. )

scottsjack said:

Just figured it out!

The small circles around the edge are new Apple TV units.

The small rounded-off squares around the edge are the new, smaller (and suckier) Mac minis.

The large circles intersecting with the center are the upgraded Mac Pro 6,1 computers.

The large rounded-off square in the center is the new, user-configurable Mac Pro tower 7,1 offering dual CPUs, SATA3 ports for three 2.5" drives, a PCIe SSD slot and PCIe slots as well as eight RAM slots.

Man have I got problems!

Click to expand...

I think the large black square represents a new Apple TV which sits on top of the large colored circles which are 45 records(the first singles) that represent music of all colors and the objects around the edges are users of different musical colors with their shape representing a link to the Apple TV and the records or music.

Thanx MVC, that was my understanding but even reading all the threads on it I wasn't actually sure.
Great work there, good thing you have the skills and the means to do the job.

dec
Correct, the extra bandwidth is long overdue to nMP. 4 TB ports should be quite enough for most people I guess. Of course there always those who need more, but that should account for a small percentage of real users.
The USB 3 ports are already there to be used on the chipset, most of it is under used, even the GbE is not used - Apple opted for the extra Broadcom chip.
I believe the next GPUs will be equal between them, both will have an SSD socket. This would even make things easier for Apple, less stock parts to deal with. And for us the possibility to have another drive.
Of course the bandwidth here comes into play again, but ok.

Broadwell is a bit of a mess, maybe Intel will skip BDW-EP altogether and go straight to SKL-EP next year, but I don't really see that happening.


Out of curiosity, M370X on rMBP is Cape Verde all over again, GCN 1.0 rebrand as usual, old tech. What gives, Apple?
Maybe it's just a short term refresh while SkyLake is unavailable, and maybe next year there's a new model with a newer GPU, but that doesn't make a lot of sense.

ManuelGomes said:

.... 4 TB ports should be quite enough for most people I guess. Of course there always those who need more, but that should account for a small percentage of real users.

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It is really need for some combination of TB and mDP ports. There are 6 on the current Mac Pro as much for "Thunderbolt" needs as for "connect my legacy monitor" needs. Instead of having the HMDI share a video source with the a pair of TB ports, just letting the HDMI port solely have the source doesn't really cut down the number of video sources feeds. HDMI connectors on monitors is at least as generally common at this point as mDP/DP ones. There is only a very small corner case for 6 monitors (or three first gen 4K ones ) that need mDP.

The USB 3 ports are already there to be used on the chipset, most of it is under used, even the GbE is not used - Apple opted for the extra Broadcom chip.

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The GbE on the chipset ( C600 or C610 ) series actually consumes a PCIe link to physically hook up. So whether use Broadcom/etc GbE controller or Intel's marginally cheaper chipset-to-phys adapter it is still costing x1 PCIe v2 link. I think to do dual ports, it is just more straightforward to do two independent x1 GbE controllers.

USB 3 ports are on the C610 chipset ( for v3 or v4 ) but so far Apple isn't in a hurry to get there. It is a slippery slope of letting Apple slide back into the lazy mode of Intel USB controller drivers are the only ones they need to work on.

Broadwell is a bit of a mess, ...
...
Out of curiosity, M370X on rMBP is Cape Verde all over again,

Click to expand...

Broadwell in and of itself wasn't really a mess. The transition to 14nm was the core problem. Intel's 14nm Atom line ( that isn't the Broadwell design) didn't ship on time either. The specifics of the microarchitecture independent of process probably where not the root cause issue.

The M370X as Cape Verde is somewhat indicative of the same problem. Both AMD and Nvidia are largely stuck on 28nm. Some of the rebrand volume is because there is no really new microarchitecture to move to. Getting more "optimize the current generation design" output. Relatively small tweaks to better run on the process tech currently holding at then. [ Nvidia had done a bit of 'tick tock' move with Maxwell is making more of 28nm. AMD doesn't run as broad or deep of a design pipeline. ]

The jumps between process level 22nm -> 14 nm -> 10nm are taking longer in part because it is getting substantially harder. Therefore harder to run a wide range of design teams in deep pipeline fashion.

GCN 1.0 rebrand as usual, old tech. What gives, Apple?

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CPU 'older' ... GPU 'older' similar to the Mac Pro 2012. Probably a placeholder design. "what is easiest to do while spending most work on the more substantive upgrade".


Although, if the 5K video support is one cable ( DPv1.3 ) then it isn't so much old as tweaked. The revision number ( not model number) is more significant. If tweaked the display support it wouldn't be hard to tweak some of the missing OpenCL 2.0 support issues also (non working GCN 1.1 elements switched on and working in this revision). Why reuse the device id at that point perhaps has to do with keep driver complexity down.

If a two cable 5K solution and better die binning (higher clocking with lower power ) then just relatively old GPU design.

Maybe it's just a short term refresh while SkyLake is unavailable, and maybe next year there's a new model with a newer GPU, but that doesn't make a lot of sense.

Click to expand...

Intel seems on track to do Gen 6 ( Skylake) quads first so probably a new MBP 15" in the late Fall. (The non Retina iMacs are now languishing too. So they'd be part of the Fall dog-and-pony show too ) Maybe AMD has uncorked their fab problems by then. Maybe Apple has squeezed better prices out of Nvidia (and/or they moved forward) by then.

Gomes,

Where did you see that the new rMBP is using Cape Verde? I looked but couldn't find. Keep in mind that we haven't heard HOW it does 5K.

Both iMac and nMP use dual cables. Would seem to be a poor choice for a machine that only has 2 @ TB ports to begin with. But they have now established with the MacBook that anything more than 1 port is a luxury.

Using old, unwanted GPUs from AMD probably would get them a hell of a deal since AMD hasn't offered anything competitive for some time. And sadly Apple no longer views anyone as competition so why use cutting edge tech when you don't have to? Very much their style now. 2nd tier parts in a beautiful case gets them a first tier price.

MacVidCards said:

Where did you see that the new rMBP is using Cape Verde?

Click to expand...

http://www.anandtech.com/show/9276/2015-15inch-retina-macbook-pros-dgpu-r9-m370x-is-cape-verde

Disappointing but not unexpected. I'm sure AMD is thrilled to have somewhere to dump old unwanted 2011-12 parts and Apple has really come to their rescue.

Looking forward to the benchmarks from Barefeats. Anyone want to guess whether they went with high fan speeds or heavy throttling?

With the 5K iMac they choose a little of both. Harder to get air in and out of a MBP. And people get burned when a piece inside gets to 214 F.

It's almost June 2015. Does this mean Apple will probably wait until Skylake to upgrade the nMP?

Thunderbird said:

It's almost June 2015. Does this mean Apple will probably wait until Skylake to upgrade the nMP?

Click to expand...

No. While skylake should arrive on consumer platforms this fall, skylake won't arrive on Intel's Xeon processors used in the Mac Pro until end of 2016 or 2017.

Mac Pro update would be nice then again so would a nice monitor by Apple to go with it. That would make the world more complete if you will.

I was just about to pull a trigger on two nMP the basic model and the more expesive one. But just came across this post - should I hold off and for how long ?

dec
Yes, you're right about HDMI but why hasn't Apple ditched it already? They are always so keen on moving on to "different" techs and letting go of the usual stuff, the things everyone has, to make them different I suppose.
And moving along to just DP/mDP would seem something they would do.

Regarding the GbE, that was my idea too for long, but looking at the chipset layout you can see a dedicated channel just for the GbE port, with 1 lane for the PHY but inside the existing link, without consuming the original 8 lanes. Take a look at the attachment and tell me what you think of it.
Of course the extra port would take a lane, although I'm not sure with Intel's controller i218 and i210 working together.
If that is the case, and using finally the integrated USB 3 ports, there are enough lanes to take another SSD, but only again at reduced speed and with fewer lanes.
Still, the newer rMBP are not yet NVMe like the MB but the speed is awesome nonetheless.

When I said Broadwell was a mess I really wasn't saying the proc itself, but rather the process yields, that keep preventing the planned availability. 14nm are late or not ready on time and that made the odd superimposing of the two/three families of processors, and a general market confusion/mess.
But it's understandable that the smaller the process becomes the harder it is to get good yields.

If the Cape Verde on rMBP is a tweaked version of the original, and a good one, maybe Apple bet on an old winner. Still, at least a cut down Tonga would have been nicer.
You think they can get DP v1.3 working on it? And update the GCN cores? I very much doubt it but cool if they do.
But I don't see yet another refresh of the rMBP that soon, not before next year, but who knows.

MVC, like mikeboss said anandtech, fudzilla, etc already posted it.
That must have been a great deal for Apple, and AMD for that matter, getting rid of all those old parts.
I'm hitching to see those benchies.

TB, SkyLake seems to far off for an update (a year from now for the Xeons, or more), maybe Broadwell next year.
The Retina TB Display would be nice though, but I guess Apple ditched the display business. The question would arise though if they did, 4K or 5K?