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deconstruct60

macrumors G5
Mar 10, 2009
12,256
3,855
Amazing how much you all know about a machine you've never used, tested, or likely even seen in person. :D

What is the difference between seen in pictures and seen in photographs if the photos are accurate? What would be Apple's motivation for putting inaccurate pictures on their website. Don't think some ambulance chasing lawyers wouldn't come sue them for putting up inaccurate ones?

The other factor is that despite Apple's hype that this machine is revolutionary, it isn't. Evolutionary yes, but there isn't Area 51 alien technology here. It has much of the same stuff lots of other previous systems have. It has alot more to do with having seen the insides of lots of previous machines and that the insides of this one , while laid out in a pretty fashion, isn't substantively different.
 

wallysb01

macrumors 68000
Jun 30, 2011
1,589
809
Can't keep leveraging "it is just another 20W" to squeeze at 150W CPU in there.

Oh agreed. I don't think the 2687W ends up in there. My point was that even if it could fit heat wise, the fact that the 10 is faster than the 12 might be a little too complicated for Apple.

The problem for the 2670 and 2780 is that too are outside the zone of processors that Apple has tended to use ( Jumping from E5 1660's (~1,000 ) point right up to $1500 range ( past Apple's typical $1400-1500 zone for the top). I can see them compelled to put the > $1700 12 core into the mix but $500 (pre 30% mark-up jump) is going to leave some folks behind. probably just one 10 core option and then the "if you have to ask can't afford it" 12 core option.

I realize that. And I had originally thought they'd skip them (2670/80) too, but I think given all the changes this spot might make some sense. So I wouldn't be surprised to see one of those two in the new Mac Pro. I just think its a nice entry point for the 10 core option that Apple might like to start off at. And it's the first spot that likely gives an actual upgrade over the 1600s.
 

-hh

macrumors 68030
Jul 17, 2001
2,550
336
NJ Highlands, Earth
Well, looks like the central pipe acts as a turbine if the load exceeds ~ 500W. If the new Mac Pro pushes enough air through, I think it might even levitate. :D


A bit of a dated comment, but I ran across some relevant numbers from some work we have going on a new aircooled design; we gave them a bridge temperature limit of 80C and the amount of air mass that's required works out to roughly 1.3 ft^3/min (at 20C) so as to be able to dissipate 50W waste heat.

Multiplying by ten to extrapolate this to a 500W load, the Mac Pro would need to move (at least) 13 cubic feet per minute through its heat exchanger...roughly around 1 lb(mass) of air.




-hh
 

theluggage

macrumors 604
Jul 29, 2011
7,485
7,329
Amazing how much you all know about a machine you've never used, tested, or likely even seen in person. :D

Well, as for the airflow issue, in this universe hot air rises, so having the airflow go from bottom to top (edited!) seems a pretty safe guess.

Don't think some ambulance chasing lawyers wouldn't come sue them for putting up inaccurate ones?

They're not offering anything for sale yet - as long as they get the specs right before they start taking orders they'll be fine.

the insides of this one , while laid out in a pretty fashion, isn't substantively different.

Having air flowing up a single, vertical chimney lined with radiator fins ought to be pretty darned efficient c.f. systems trying to route air around the cluttered innards of a mini-tower where CPUs, GPUs and arbitrary hardware added by the user all have their own heatsinks and fans dumping heat in diverse directions.

Kicking out the spinning disks should also help thermal performance.
 
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WardC

macrumors 68030
Oct 17, 2007
2,726
213
Fort Worth, TX
WHAT? Are you all trying to say the New 2013 Mac Pro only will be using a SINGLE CPU chip? I thought it was going to be dual-CPU...it shows that on the website.

Now I am confused.

Dual CPU, 24-core. That is what I was thinking.

EDIT: Well, I went through that "Sneak peek tour" again and I now see it looks like only a single CPU. When they are talking about 12-core options they are talking about the new Ivy Bridge chips, and that looks like about the top configuration they will be offering. I don't think they will have a dual-CPU option at all.
 
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milo

macrumors 604
Sep 23, 2003
6,891
522
You probably misread dual GPU. It has been clear since the day they announced it that it is single CPU, it has been discussed over and over in the hundreds of posts about this machine.
 

-hh

macrumors 68030
Jul 17, 2001
2,550
336
NJ Highlands, Earth
Well, as for the airflow issue, in this universe hot air rises, so having the airflow go from top to bottom seems a pretty safe guess.

Um...top to bottom would be backwards to natural convection. Typo, I assume, based on what follows:

Having air flowing up a single, vertical chimney lined with radiator fins ought to be pretty darned efficient ...

Fin efficiency is TBD; the general rule of thumb is that its better to have lots of tiny channels (ie, small fins) than a few big ones. The problem...and trade-off is that the smaller the channels are, the more important filtering becomes to prevent dirt/dust/etc from clogging & choking the system.

There's some work with metalized graphite/carbon foams...offer some really good (tiny) webs at good solid/open ratios to obtain good heat transfer (upwards of 100W/cm^2), but they need HEPA-level air filtering and the material's traditionally been quite brittle, which hinders its use in applications with shock/vibe/etc.

We'll probably get some interesting insight from Apple's design once we see if it employs a filter on its air intake (and if so, what type), as this should give us some insight onto just how much thermal load (& margin) they're designing for.


-hh
 

tralfaz

macrumors member
Jun 20, 2013
77
76
Two 6 core chips cheaper than 1 12 core

If the linked price list is close to accurate a pair of 6 core CPUs are less than 1/3 the cost of a single 12 core. And don't you get 2x the PCIe lines with a dual CPU motherboard? I'm not believing these things can sustain high load processing without down clocking the CPU/GPU. Cooling will probably be enough for sporadic burst loads typical for workstation work flow.

Oh well I'm not buying until it supports DDR4 main memory, so this under powered over priced vanity piece is not gonna tempt me. My bank account thanks you Apple.
 

milo

macrumors 604
Sep 23, 2003
6,891
522
If the linked price list is close to accurate a pair of 6 core CPUs are less than 1/3 the cost of a single 12 core.

Well, it's about half if you compare the same clock speed. It's only a third the price if you compare a pair of the slowest 6 core to the fastest 12 core. That's still a huge difference in price, but the difference is a lot less when you compare the 4 and 8 core. The 6 core is hard to compare since two of the four prices are missing and one that is there is a low power version, so it may have some performance compromise. I'm almost more concerned about the max clock speed for the 12 cores but at least the 4/6/8 go past 3Ghz.

As for DDR4, it will be great to have but it isn't available to Apple or anyone else yet. Pricing hasn't been announced yet either so no way to know if it's "overpriced" just yet.
 
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