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JesterJJZ

macrumors 68020
Jul 21, 2004
2,443
808
relative to the glossy, the matte screens had worse contrast. I liked the antiglare and extra resolution, but it was really an inferior screen.

See, I view it the opposite way. The glossy screens induced a "false, contrastier" image than what it really was. Bad for graphics, photo, video etc...
 
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sigmadog

macrumors 6502a
Feb 11, 2009
835
753
just west of Idaho
See, I view it the opposite way. The glossy screens induced a "false, contras tier" image than what it really was. Bad for graphics, photo, video etc...

I agree. Working in print, the end product looks closer to what I see on my matte screens because ink is never as bright as the light emitted on glossy screens.
 

fuchsdh

macrumors 68020
Jun 19, 2014
2,017
1,813
See, I view it the opposite way. The glossy screens induced a "false, contrastier" image than what it really was. Bad for graphics, photo, video etc...

You're looking at it the wrong way, though. Matte screens are the added layer that leads to the reduced quality image. While that might more accurately mimic the world outside of truecolor (like Sigma says, printing being a huge one) and that comes with added possibilities of glare, people complaining that the colors on glossy displays are "wrong" are arguing from a point of ignorance.
 

poematik13

macrumors 65816
Jun 5, 2014
1,222
1,410
you're supposed to be doing color critical work on a calibrated reference monitor, not your laptop screen lol prosumers
 

JesterJJZ

macrumors 68020
Jul 21, 2004
2,443
808
You're looking at it the wrong way, though. Matte screens are the added layer that leads to the reduced quality image. While that might more accurately mimic the world outside of truecolor (like Sigma says, printing being a huge one) and that comes with added possibilities of glare, people complaining that the colors on glossy displays are "wrong" are arguing from a point of ignorance.

So many things wrong here…no point arguing further. Enjoy your glossy screens.

----------

you're supposed to be doing color critical work on a calibrated reference monitor, not your laptop screen lol prosumers

I do, but you can't always lug those around when you work on the road. Nice to have a decent option in a laptop.
 

fuchsdh

macrumors 68020
Jun 19, 2014
2,017
1,813
So many things wrong here…no point arguing further. Enjoy your glossy screens.

----------



I do, but you can't always lug those around when you work on the road. Nice to have a decent option in a laptop.

Please, enlighten me.
 

JesterJJZ

macrumors 68020
Jul 21, 2004
2,443
808
Please, enlighten me.

Have you seen a MBP with AG display in person? There's physically no additional glass plate in front of the screen. It's not simply a coating to make it less shiny, it's a naked panel, you can touch the screen and squish the pixels. Also why the bezel was different. The AG displays show a more accurate image. The glossy ones ad contrast, fine for some, terrible for others.
 

JDHiro

macrumors 6502
Oct 24, 2013
372
622
Seattle, WA
Have you seen a MBP with AG display in person? There's physically no additional glass plate in front of the screen. It's not simply a coating to make it less shiny, it's a naked panel, you can touch the screen and squish the pixels. Also why the bezel was different. The AG displays show a more accurate image. The glossy ones ad contrast, fine for some, terrible for others.

There are lot of terrible AG desktop monitors, but the 17" MBP AG was a fantastic screen.

(I still prefer the new glossy screens for my line of work, software development)
 

ActionableMango

macrumors G3
Sep 21, 2010
9,612
6,907
I see merit in both glossy and anti-reflective screens...

...but the larger point to me is that years ago Apple used to provide both screen types as an option. People with different needs or preferences could get what they needed or wanted.

In any case, I don't know what MacBook Pros and glossy/matte screens have to do with whether or not there will be a new Mac Pro in 2015! :p
 

sigmadog

macrumors 6502a
Feb 11, 2009
835
753
just west of Idaho
...but the larger point to me is that years ago Apple used to provide both screen types as an option. People with different needs or preferences could get what they needed or wanted.

In any case, I don't know what MacBook Pros and glossy/matte screens have to do with whether or not there will be a new Mac Pro in 2015! :p

With nearly 600 responses in the thread, the discussion is bound to wander into the weeds now and then. :)
 

mrxak

macrumors 68000
So, realistically, what could Apple actually announce at WWDC that might come out within 3 or 4 months?

What could Apple realistically quietly release on their website June 8th available for shipping within a couple weeks?

What could Apple realistically start taking orders for on December 31st?

Let's figure out what the specs would look like for those three hypothetical Mac Pros.
 
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poematik13

macrumors 65816
Jun 5, 2014
1,222
1,410
There are no shipping delays for current models right now, so a chance of a new refresh at WWDC is slim, but there is still a chance, and thats why im holding out on purchasing a 6c/d500/1TB/16GB until then.

They can put in the new AMD GPU's (call it D310? 510? 710? etc), and bump to xeon v3 i believe? not much else. I'm thinking a late 2015 refresh is more likely, with skylake/TB3/MDP 1.3/new gpu and HDMI 2.0. And it would go alongside a 5K TB3 display
 

Stacc

macrumors 6502a
Jun 22, 2005
888
353
So, realistically, what could Apple actually announce at WWDC that might come out within 3 or 4 months?

What could Apple realistically quietly release on their website June 8th available for shipping within a couple weeks?

What could Apple realistically start taking orders for on December 31st?

Let's figure out what the specs would look like for those three hypothetical Mac Pros.

There are several upgrades that are available today/within the next month for the Mac Pro.

For the CPU, Apple would upgrade to new Haswell based Xeon chips. These would yield a small bump in performance ~5% and similar frequencies as to what is in the Mac Pro today.

GPUs are more interesting. AMD is expected to release new "Fiji" chips within a month. Since all the information on these chips is rumor based, its unclear whether this would make it into a Mac Pro. Otherwise, previous generation "Hawaii" chips are available and would be an upgrade over the "Tahiti" chips that are in the D700. Either of these options would be a significant increase in speed compared to the current offering.

There have been significant upgrades in SSDs since the release of the Mac Pro. Even looking at what is in the new 15" macbook pro, this would be a big increase in speed.

Longer term, nothing will change in this picture until early 2016 when Intel releases Broadwell based Xeon processors. Anyone who mentions Intel skylake based processors in 2015 for the Mac Pro are wrong, since these will only be consumer chips, i.e. for laptops and consumer desktops like the iMac. Skylake based Xeons won't be released until most likely 2017. GPUs will likely not change much until mid 2016, when both AMD and Nvidia release the next generation of graphics processors on a smaller transistor size.

Also, the schedule could be influenced by the release of thunderbolt 3 and Displayport 1.3 if Apple wants to release a retina thunderbolt display they may have to wait until late 2015 to do so. Essentially, Apple needs a higher bandwidth connection between the Mac Pro and the display to be able to handle a 5k resolution. A thunderbolt 3 controller is rumored to be released around the time of skylake, but this controller could be used in a Mac Pro without skylake. Intel is releasing some information about thunderbolt 3 next week, so maybe we can guess more information then about timelines.
 

sigmadog

macrumors 6502a
Feb 11, 2009
835
753
just west of Idaho
I don't know why I still visit this thread. I already spent the money I had set aside for a nMP when there was no update. LOL

Same here. I'm waiting delivery on an updated 2009 5,1 12-core. It's gonna be my new baby for the next five years (at least).

I can't stay away from these nMP threads. It's a hobby.
 

Xteec

macrumors regular
Sep 21, 2012
146
71
Australia
There are several upgrades that are available today/within the next month for the Mac Pro.

For the CPU, Apple would upgrade to new Haswell based Xeon chips. These would yield a small bump in performance ~5% and similar frequencies as to what is in the Mac Pro today.

GPUs are more interesting. AMD is expected to release new "Fiji" chips within a month. Since all the information on these chips is rumor based, its unclear whether this would make it into a Mac Pro. Otherwise, previous generation "Hawaii" chips are available and would be an upgrade over the "Tahiti" chips that are in the D700. Either of these options would be a significant increase in speed compared to the current offering.

There have been significant upgrades in SSDs since the release of the Mac Pro. Even looking at what is in the new 15" macbook pro, this would be a big increase in speed.

Longer term, nothing will change in this picture until early 2016 when Intel releases Broadwell based Xeon processors. Anyone who mentions Intel skylake based processors in 2015 for the Mac Pro are wrong, since these will only be consumer chips, i.e. for laptops and consumer desktops like the iMac. Skylake based Xeons won't be released until most likely 2017. GPUs will likely not change much until mid 2016, when both AMD and Nvidia release the next generation of graphics processors on a smaller transistor size.

Also, the schedule could be influenced by the release of thunderbolt 3 and Displayport 1.3 if Apple wants to release a retina thunderbolt display they may have to wait until late 2015 to do so. Essentially, Apple needs a higher bandwidth connection between the Mac Pro and the display to be able to handle a 5k resolution. A thunderbolt 3 controller is rumored to be released around the time of skylake, but this controller could be used in a Mac Pro without skylake. Intel is releasing some information about thunderbolt 3 next week, so maybe we can guess more information then about timelines.

This is quite a good summary of the state of things and is in line with what I have been reading. Thanks for that.
 

ManuelGomes

macrumors 68000
Dec 4, 2014
1,617
354
Aveiro, Portugal
WWDC will probably not bring any news in nMP.
Maybe a late 2015 announcement for an early 2016 shipping, but even then it's not clear yet.
I'd say Broadwell will b the next CPU in nMP, and the newer Samsung drives and 300 AMD GPUs.
By the way, 300 series are in fact all rebroands, Hawaii enhanced refresh for the 390X and 390, 380 will be Tonga and so on.
Fiji will be Fury, to fight Titan brand, separate from 300 series. Rumours...

----------

If you guys remember (at least those old enough :)) Fury was already an ATI brand,.
Rage...
Maxx...
 

ManuelGomes

macrumors 68000
Dec 4, 2014
1,617
354
Aveiro, Portugal
I guess this will come to:
D310 -> Tonga Pro 256bit, 2GB (or the full XT 384bit 3GB)
D510 -> Hawaii Pro 512bit 4GB
D710 -> Hawaii XT 512bit 8GB

Tonga could come with 4GB, which should be the minimum these days, but I guess that would make the D510 short.
Rumors also dictate than both high end cards will feature 8GB of mem, and that would make the D310 4GB.
Cool.
 

PhiLLoW

macrumors 6502
May 31, 2014
324
184
I guess this will come to:
D310 -> Tonga Pro 256bit, 2GB (or the full XT 384bit 3GB)
D510 -> Hawaii Pro 512bit 4GB
D710 -> Hawaii XT 512bit 8GB

Tonga could come with 4GB, which should be the minimum these days, but I guess that would make the D510 short.
Rumors also dictate than both high end cards will feature 8GB of mem, and that would make the D310 4GB.
Cool.


Would be interesting to see if it will be possible to purchase only the graphics card (s) so we can upgrade ourselve. Or maybe some kind of instore upgrade for the not so techy users.
 

koyoot

macrumors 603
Jun 5, 2012
5,939
1,853
I guess this will come to:
D310 -> Tonga Pro 256bit, 2GB (or the full XT 384bit 3GB)
D510 -> Hawaii Pro 512bit 4GB
D710 -> Hawaii XT 512bit 8GB

Tonga could come with 4GB, which should be the minimum these days, but I guess that would make the D510 short.
Rumors also dictate than both high end cards will feature 8GB of mem, and that would make the D310 4GB.
Cool.
If a GPU is made on new process with new features, and with higher core count its not Hawaii anymore.

Its Grenada. Also its worth mentioning. Rumors for few months were saying that next gen AMD GPUs will be called Caribbean Islands. Trinidad, Tobago, Bermuda and Grenada are Caribbean Islands.

Tonga, Hawaii, Tahiti, and Fiji are Volcanic Islands.

Also, there is a rumor, that Grenada would have not 2816 GCN cores, but 3072. Everything about this lineup will be known at Computex. Fiji will be shown few weeks later at E3.

It is quite funny. Apple realeased updated Macbook Pro with R9 M370X Radeon GPU from AMD few days after AMD announced new GPUs.

WWDC is few days after the computex.
 

ManuelGomes

macrumors 68000
Dec 4, 2014
1,617
354
Aveiro, Portugal
Absolutely true.
But that's not the case apparently, or at least what's expected.
Still the same node as far as I can tell, don't expect higher core count either. If the cores were enhanced as to be a newer GCN version, then maybe this would grant a new name. But still no major overhaul I'd say.
The island cluster to which each generation belongs is always a big issue, but could also be misleading.
So why is Fiji, a next gen card, a volcanic island card and not a Caribbean island card, since these are the next gen cards? ;-)
As you say, we better wait for WWDC, Computex, E3 and all will be clear - we hope. Only a few days away...
 

Stacc

macrumors 6502a
Jun 22, 2005
888
353
ManuelGomes said:
I guess this will come to:
D310 -> Tonga Pro 256bit, 2GB (or the full XT 384bit 3GB)
D510 -> Hawaii Pro 512bit 4GB
D710 -> Hawaii XT 512bit 8GB

This is a pretty reasonable guess. As Koyoot mentioned, you could probably swap Hawaii for Grenada, and expect a bit of a performance bump. It would be a shame though if Apple offered a 2 GB VRAM card in the mac pro.

Yeah, the new release of AMD's cards has been interesting to follow. AMD was rumored to have been releasing the chips around march, when the Nvidia Titan X came out. Its been pushed back months. The rumors of AMD's Fiji being a high priced card means it must be performing well, either similar to or better than the Titan X. Additionally, they must have made improvements to the lower priced cards so they can compete better against Nvidia's lineup.

I would love to see the latest and greatest Fiji chip in a Mac Pro, but rumors also have it as a card with 4 GB of VRAM, less than the current D700. This may prevent it from ending up in the next Mac Pro refresh. That is unless AMD/Apple can spin it as a good thing or AMD has worked some magic to give it 8 GB. Apple loves to use VRAM as a distinguishing factor for video cards. They could always switch to marketing compute cores on the GPU instead, which would probably make more sense.

But computex is next week and WWDC is the week after that. So not too long to find out.
 

Synchro3

macrumors 68000
Jan 12, 2014
1,987
850
I would love to see the latest and greatest Fiji chip in a Mac Pro, but rumors also have it as a card with 4 GB of VRAM, less than the current D700. This may prevent it from ending up in the next Mac Pro refresh. That is unless AMD/Apple can spin it as a good thing or AMD has worked some magic to give it 8 GB. Apple loves to use VRAM as a distinguishing factor for video cards. They could always switch to marketing compute cores on the GPU instead, which would probably make more sense.

But computex is next week and WWDC is the week after that. So not too long to find out.

Exactly: AMD Radeon R9 390X limited to 4GB of VRAM because of HBM limitations? http://www.tweaktown.com/news/43742/amd-radeon-r9-390x-limited-4gb-vram-hbm-limitations/index.html
 

koyoot

macrumors 603
Jun 5, 2012
5,939
1,853
Absolutely true.
But that's not the case apparently, or at least what's expected.
Still the same node as far as I can tell, don't expect higher core count either. If the cores were enhanced as to be a newer GCN version, then maybe this would grant a new name. But still no major overhaul I'd say.
The island cluster to which each generation belongs is always a big issue, but could also be misleading.
So why is Fiji, a next gen card, a volcanic island card and not a Caribbean island card, since these are the next gen cards? ;-)
As you say, we better wait for WWDC, Computex, E3 and all will be clear - we hope. Only a few days away...

No, its not that easy.

As slides of newest APUs from AMD shown, GLOFO process is more dense than the one from TSMC, and brings reduction of leakage of up top 38% at the same voltage. Also its possible to maintain at that process even lower voltages in comparison to TSMC's.

Fiji will be called AMD Radeon Fury or just simply AMD Fury.

There also can be cut down version of it.

Why its Volcanic Island? Because simply it is Bigger Tonga die. GCN 1.2 with few tweaks.

I think people dont understand the mechanics behind GCN cores.

Look at cut down Tahiti versus Tonga. The same core counts. Completely different chips with completely different technology behind the chip.

The same would go for Hawaii. If a GPU with 2816 GCN cores has GCN version 1.2 or higher - that is not anymore Hawaii.
 
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mrxak

macrumors 68000
There are several upgrades that are available today/within the next month for the Mac Pro.

For the CPU, Apple would upgrade to new Haswell based Xeon chips. These would yield a small bump in performance ~5% and similar frequencies as to what is in the Mac Pro today.

GPUs are more interesting. AMD is expected to release new "Fiji" chips within a month. Since all the information on these chips is rumor based, its unclear whether this would make it into a Mac Pro. Otherwise, previous generation "Hawaii" chips are available and would be an upgrade over the "Tahiti" chips that are in the D700. Either of these options would be a significant increase in speed compared to the current offering.

There have been significant upgrades in SSDs since the release of the Mac Pro. Even looking at what is in the new 15" macbook pro, this would be a big increase in speed.

Longer term, nothing will change in this picture until early 2016 when Intel releases Broadwell based Xeon processors. Anyone who mentions Intel skylake based processors in 2015 for the Mac Pro are wrong, since these will only be consumer chips, i.e. for laptops and consumer desktops like the iMac. Skylake based Xeons won't be released until most likely 2017. GPUs will likely not change much until mid 2016, when both AMD and Nvidia release the next generation of graphics processors on a smaller transistor size.

Also, the schedule could be influenced by the release of thunderbolt 3 and Displayport 1.3 if Apple wants to release a retina thunderbolt display they may have to wait until late 2015 to do so. Essentially, Apple needs a higher bandwidth connection between the Mac Pro and the display to be able to handle a 5k resolution. A thunderbolt 3 controller is rumored to be released around the time of skylake, but this controller could be used in a Mac Pro without skylake. Intel is releasing some information about thunderbolt 3 next week, so maybe we can guess more information then about timelines.

Thanks a lot for this. After reading many pages of Intel/AMD code names and alphanumeric strings, my eyes were starting to glaze over.

I will propose a hypothesis, that Apple's apparent new focus on GPU computing on the workstation will mean they will not be so dependent on Intel's timeline and instead release new products mainly based on available GPUs (and likely AMD ones at that, because Apple wants to kill off CUDA in favor of OpenCL). If they can get a 5% bump from new Intel Xeons while also getting a much bigger bump on OpenCL performance from new AMD GPUs, they can still show graphs indicating big gains in FCPX, etc. Apple will continue to Think Different about workstations and tell us that CPU performance gains just don't matter anymore, while continuing to provide only 2xGPU 1xCPU configurations instead of 1xGPU 2xCPU like many people want.

I suppose another option might be to simply provide a dual-CPU solution to get those CPU gains that Intel isn't otherwise providing, and revolutionize the workstation yet again with the wonders of a single GPU model. But nah, I don't think that's likely.
 
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