FirePro in New Mac Pro is FirePro W9000

[thekev]

All good points. There needs to be more TB based storage solutions.

I've never had good results from the third party solutions marketed by Apple for things like storage. Look at the review on their internal Mac Pro raid card.

Well, I also meant PCIe expansion, as in full-sized cards, not just a proprietary miniature slot for flash storage. TB PCIe card enclosures do exist, but they start at around $400 each (for a cheap Sonnet enclosure that will only support a single half-length card).

I wouldn't look for ways to hook in PCI cards with third party solutions with the possible exceptions of things like Red Rocket cards and possibly if a mobile solution is required. It's obvious notebooks are the dominant OSX solution for Apple, so they are what drives the thunderbolt mantra. This is just leveraging that back, which is what I find moderately strange. Adoption hasn't been that great so far. Perhaps they're projecting improvements in that regard. Otherwise it makes less sense to shrink a case and place more things outside the box thus solving the problem you just created. In that regard they took the iPad design mantra and used it to redesign the mac pro. It has less internal storage capacity than the imac at this point. I'm still curious what this is going to cost.

 

[portishead]

The design of the new Mac Pro is very interesting... I actually kind of like it. But...

1. The lack of CUDA-enabled graphics options would be a deal breaker for me. Adobe CS apps and DaVinci Resolve both rely heavily on CUDA for optimal performance.

I'm not sure about Adobe, but Blackmagic has already said they are working on changing to OpenCL. I'm guessing Adobe will too.

 

[wiz329]

But just by looking at the cards it's clear that they are not off the shelf versions of anything. Thus MSRP of some other card doesn't mean that much even though they may be equivalent spec wise.

But with those types of specs, the price can't be going down by much. Especially with fat Apple margins.

 

[subsonix]

But with those types of specs, the price can't be going down by much. Especially with fat Apple margins.

The fat Apple margin is on the entire package, since those cards looks like they are made by Apple who knows how the margins break down among the internal components. Or how these cards relate to retail versions directly from AMD.

I'm just speculating obviously we will see I guess.

 

[wallysb01]

But just by looking at the cards it's clear that they are not off the shelf versions of anything. Thus MSRP of some other card doesn't mean that much even though they may be equivalent spec wise.

But is they are equivalent spec-wise, it stands to reason they will be equivalent, or at least similar, cost-wise too.

 

[thekev]

Which 6 core is probably a pressing question too. If it is a E5 2600 v2 ... may be trading off more base clock speed than you think.

I was wondering if it would be E5 2600 v2 variants. That would be an awfully expensive route if they aren't going to populate 2 sockets.

 

[deconstruct60]

While I'm sure Apple will be able to get some sort of a deal on them, they'll still cost at LEAST $3k-$4k. Add a Xeon to that, a proprietary SSD from Apple, and you're looking at a starting price of at least $6,999.

The starting price for the current top end "Best" (top CPU selection for dual ) Mac Pro is ..... $6,199. Which roughly the same ball park.


if you think every Mac Pro is going to have a dual W9000 there is nothing that indicates that from what they have said so far. In the midst of hyping the system I think the 12 core + dual W9000 equivalents is about the "max priced" model.... not the starting price.

They are trying to position this as it is still a top end machine even though your TB's of storage are somewhere else. Not that they are actually going to sell alot of those. Just that it could be done.

Not to mention the TDP of those GPUs is over 500W already. Plus the CPU. You're looking at decent sized PSU in that little machine. I hope it holds up well under load.

It will hold up. The GPU and CPU thermal management units will start to downclock it has the heat backlog build up. ;-) Hold up and wait.

I suspect they are counting on just one (maybe two) of the three ( GPU , GPU , CPU) going very high at a time. They explicitly talk about about how can "borrow" thermal headroom from the "happens to be not so busy" other part of the system. The question is whether that is an "all the time" thing or a sometimes thing.

----------

. It has less internal storage capacity than the imac at this point.

Or a Mac mini. Ironic because the mini is even smaller. But the Mac Pro's storage is extra super duper fast.

I'm still curious what this is going to cost.

Probably more than an iMac or mini. ;-)

 

[thekev]

Or a Mac mini. Ironic because the mini is even smaller. But the Mac Pro's storage is extra super duper fast.

It's like you said a few days ago, there's no reason for Apple to base the design on the iPad. In terms of storage provisioning, it seems like they did that. It basically becomes a required part of the purchase. Given that you need a backup, that is a minimum of two extra boxes.

Probably more than an iMac or mini. ;-)

I would say that is a given. Look at the currently available line. It starts at $2500. The 12 core models start at $3800. If you click on Mac, then Mac Pro, it plays an animation. Apple is indicating with some amount of subtlety that this is a financial black hole. It's in the design! It was the first thing that occurred to me. I'm surprised no one else mentioned it.

 

[lucasfer899]

The moment I saw the teaser video during the yesterday's keynote, just one work came to mind.
"Expensive"

 

[MacVidCards]

it makes less sense to shrink a case and place more things outside the box thus solving the problem you just created.

Yep

 

[robogobo]

The price won't be based on any sum retail parts. Apple (and any other large scale manufacturer) gets much lower volume pricing, and has the freedom to price their machines strategically based on where they want them to sit in the lineup. I'd expect the new Mac Pro will be in line with, or cheaper than the old machines. Take the maxed out iMac price, tack on $500 or so.

 

[Harveyhb]

Hello

So how many Full HD (1920*1080) outputs will the new mac pro support, at once?

 

[Lone Deranger]

Seems like the GPUs are swappable.

http://forums.cgsociety.org/showpost.php?p=7601739&postcount=88

The Graphics cards in this new macpro are swappable. But they are bespoke and a new form factor it seems. Ram / GPU and the Main drive is all updatable - it does seem that there is the possibility of installing 2 or more of these PCIe drives + 2.5" SSDs they have just not shown us that yet. 3.5" are definate 'NO'

The product will launch with ATI and perhaps Nvidia / OEM will have a form factor later or at launch.

 

[PortableLover]

Seems like the GPUs are swappable.

http://forums.cgsociety.org/showpost.php?p=7601739&postcount=88

The Graphics cards in this new macpro are swappable. But they are bespoke and a new form factor it seems. Ram / GPU and the Main drive is all updatable - it does seem that there is the possibility of installing 2 or more of these PCIe drives + 2.5" SSDs they have just not shown us that yet. 3.5" are definate 'NO'

The product will launch with ATI and perhaps Nvidia / OEM will have a form factor later or at launch.

Is this real life or fantasea? Srs though, will but this new MP if this is true. If nothing is swappable then ill have to reconsider unless its at a lower price

 

[ElderBrE]

Seems like the GPUs are swappable.

http://forums.cgsociety.org/showpost.php?p=7601739&postcount=88

The Graphics cards in this new macpro are swappable. But they are bespoke and a new form factor it seems. Ram / GPU and the Main drive is all updatable - it does seem that there is the possibility of installing 2 or more of these PCIe drives + 2.5" SSDs they have just not shown us that yet. 3.5" are definate 'NO'

The product will launch with ATI and perhaps Nvidia / OEM will have a form factor later or at launch.

If that's true, it's great news. Not perfect news, but great nonetheless. We will see how many cards they decide to "port" for this Mac Pro, but at least it won't be just what Apple wants to offer.

 

[thekev]

Yep

Perhaps they will rethink that move when Dyson wants their design back.

 

[Lone Deranger]

Just messaged my friend from The Foundry, who's been giving the Mari demo on the new Mac Pro. Maybe he can shed some light on our questions.

 

[ekwipt]

Seems like the GPUs are swappable.

http://forums.cgsociety.org/showpost.php?p=7601739&postcount=88

The Graphics cards in this new macpro are swappable. But they are bespoke and a new form factor it seems. Ram / GPU and the Main drive is all updatable - it does seem that there is the possibility of installing 2 or more of these PCIe drives + 2.5" SSDs they have just not shown us that yet. 3.5" are definate 'NO'

The product will launch with ATI and perhaps Nvidia / OEM will have a form factor later or at launch.

Amazing if true, it will mean that we can't make our own cards, hopefully nvidia and nvidia keep the macs up to pace, history tells us they won't

 

[garnerx]

2 x 274 watt graphics cards plus a beefy CPU, all cooled by one heat sink and one fan...

 

[theSeb]

2 x 274 watt graphics cards plus a beefy CPU, all cooled by one heat sink and one fan...

My tractor does ok with one fan. There is nothing in the laws of thermodynamics that says this won't be enough to cool it down. I am concerned about the noise factor though.

 

[ancelrick]

Seems like the GPUs are swappable.

http://forums.cgsociety.org/showpost.php?p=7601739&postcount=88

The Graphics cards in this new macpro are swappable. But they are bespoke and a new form factor it seems.

What does swappable mean? They are so clearly a proprietary form factor, no output ports on the card at all. There is no other (non-apple) card to swap it with. One of them seems to have the SSD slot on it, meaning that even the two cards are not the same card.

Sounds like Apple speak to me. Translation = " If you have you one that's not working right we'd be happy to "swap it out" for ya!

 

[Harveyhb]

Hello

So how many Full HD (1920*1080) outputs will the new mac pro support, at once?

Anyone? by this I mean with the Firepro cards.

 

[ND40oz]

anyone? By this i mean with the firepro cards.

6, although it may be more, I'm not sure how daisy chaining Display Port 1.2 ports works with TB2.

 

[ancelrick]

Anyone? by this I mean with the Firepro cards.

up to 3, 4k displays . http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/4K_resolution

According to Apple's current marketing info. " and still have enough power to connect up to three high-resolution 4K displays." anything else is an educated guess at best.

 

[Harveyhb]

Thanks.

So the thunderbolt outputs will be used as video out? not a direct out form the GPU?