Asclepio
macrumors 6502a
only discreet gpus with the xeon/some ******** screen high end . mark my words.
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2017 iMac refresh wish list [merged]
- Thread starter Sirmausalot
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only discreet gpus with the xeon/some ******** screen high end . mark my words.
CWallace
macrumors G5
I just don't see the iMac offering more than 4 cores - one because of thermal issues and two because a 6/8/10 core i7 eats into the business case of the next Mac Pro, which is probably already borderline at best (I see Apple doing it more as a "Flagship Model" than something that will make money).
Both the "base" and "pro" 27" iMacs will continue to have discrete GPUs, likely from the same family. It will be like "consumer" and "workstation" cards - same GPU family, just better binned parts and less-aggressive driver settings for the "workstation" card to favor stability over raw performance.
From what I understand that's always been Apple's M.O. "One product sells another".
People who use Mac Pros at work are more likely to use Macs and iDevices at home and vice versa. Kinda like how back in the day there were remarks about iPods and iTunes being used to sell Macs, and the Mac being envisioned as the "digital lifestyle" hub.
btrach144
macrumors 68040
lol that sounds like typical Apple.
"Only pros spending $4k require discreet GPUs" Good Guy Apple
The iMac will probably continue to use Intel's Core i7/Xeon E3 product line and would move up to 6 core's with coffee lake's release.
CWallace
macrumors G5
The 4 and 6-core Coffee Lake S and H family look to be coming in Q1 2018, so if the iMac Pro is a 2018 model launched in parallel with the Mac Pro, that could very well be the CPUs they use.
I would expect the "baseline" iMac to use 4-core Kaby Lake to meet a late 2017 launch date.
True, but there are recent rumors that suggest that Coffee Lake for the desktop may be released this year. Maybe as soon as august.
iMac Pro is rumored for the usual October/November of 2017. Although the 4 core Xeon is rumored, a 6 or 8 core i7 would be desired by many pros -- I'm salivating at the prospect of encoding video lightning fast. I don't think they are worried about cannibalizing Mac Pros with the iMac Pro.
sparkie7
macrumors 68030
I want the new iMac/ iMac Pro to be have easily accessible RAM and storage bays. To change SSD's without having to suction off the display glass. Are you listening Apple?
Possible to connect? Absolutely. Able to "handle?" Most likely, although it depends on what you mean by "handle."
Theoretically, the iMac should be able to physically see a many eGPUs as as you can connect.
Windows should let you use them with an external monitor they are connected to with relatively little hassle (assuming the enclosures are TB3 and can provide sufficient power).
If you want to CrossFire/SLI them, this will be a bit more work, but only because you'll either need a dual card enclosure (none exist as far as I know) or a long bridge.
macOS should also be able to use the GPU's for the external monitors attached (and for OpenCL/CUDA), although it currently requires a fair bit of tweaking.
Neither macOS, nor Windows is going to let you drive the internal iMac display with more than one GPU though, and whether or not people can even hack together a solution to get one eGPU properly driving the internal display is still up in the air (best case scenario, be prepared to shave off 30% or more performance to do so.)
Anyway, you probably won't want to go beyond the number of physical TB3 controllers (not the same as ports) the iMac has on its logic board, as each additional GPU beyond the number of controllers will result in reduced available bandwidth for all TB3 devices, which I would imagine could quickly lead to diminishing returns. Just as importantly however, given the cost of TB3 enclosures, I can't see too many scenarios where its really worth it to invest in more than one. If you actually need 2 GPUs that are more powerful than what the iMac itself offers, you should probably be looking at investing in a (n)nMP (whenever that comes out), or a PC/Hackintosh.
But yeah, as far as I know its certainly doable 🙂
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Think there's any chance in the world for a matte display option now that they're doing 'pro' models?
I'm a digital artist and always found it more comfortable to use a matte display. Glossy's are beautiful but the hard reflections drive me nuts while working on images.
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Man I hope so. Ditch the big HDD and add a user-accessible SSD or PCI-e SSD bay. This would be great for users as flash drops in price and bumps in capacity over the next 5 years. I'm fine with a HDD external for mass storage as long as the internals can be upgraded and fast as hell.
I'm a digital artist and always found it more comfortable to use a matte display. Glossy's are beautiful but the hard reflections drive me nuts while working on images.
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Man I hope so. Ditch the big HDD and add a user-accessible SSD or PCI-e SSD bay. This would be great for users as flash drops in price and bumps in capacity over the next 5 years. I'm fine with a HDD external for mass storage as long as the internals can be upgraded and fast as hell.
xgman
macrumors 603
Why would they care what it eats in to as long as you buy Apple?
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No.
CWallace
macrumors G5
Apple prefers to not compete with themselves.
Also, I don't believe the Xeon E3 line is anything but 4 cores and that is the CPU family likely going into the iMac Pro. That leaves the Xeon E5 for the new Mac Pro (though that model will now probably start at 6 cores, with the iMac Pro taking over the 4-core SKU).
When you sell products, it's generally a bad idea to compete with yourself. If you have two products covering a similar segment they don't gain anymore sales, but send more money down the drain making two products for the same kind of customer.
This is silly. Apple wants you to buy Apple. They weren't worried about iPad sales cannibalizing the mac, iPhone hurting the iPod, etc. From Apple's perspective, the more Apple devices you buy and own, the better.
On the specific case of whether Apple would offer similar configurations of the iMac and Mac Pro but I think its safe to say that each has to offer unique enough features to justify their existence. There are certainly ways to distinguish these products whether or not the iMac has >4 cores.
btrach144
macrumors 68040
I have to agree with CWallace. Apple won't eat into the Mac Pro market.
Plus, Xeon E3 has the same thermal constraints as the current i5 and i7 in the iMac. The Xeon E5 has a way bigger power draw and heat output. Apple would have to have a specially designed iMac just for the E5 chip. Not happening.
There is no Mac Pro market. Well, of any real significance to Apple. From a business insider article. They have gone on record saying they only worry about innovation, not cannibalizing their own products. They WANT the iPad Pro to become the new notebook and don't mind if it replaces the Macbook. From eh business insider article:
"You need each of these products to try to fight for their space, their time with you," Apple's head of marketing Phil Schiller told Charlie Rose in a new episode of 60 Minutes that aired Sunday.
But doesn't Apple run the risk of cannibalizing its own products? "It's not a danger," Schiller said in response to Rose. "It's almost by design."
"The iPhone has to become so great that you don't know why you want an iPad," Schiller explained. "The iPad has to be so great that you don't know why you want a notebook. The notebook has to be so great that you don't know why you want a desktop. Each one's job is to compete with the other ones."
Apple has shed light on this way of thinking before. During a quarterly earnings call with investors in early 2013, Apple CEO Tim Cook said the company's "base philosophy is to never fear cannibalization."
"If we do, somebody else will just cannibalize it, and so we never fear it," Cook said. "We know that iPhone has cannibalized some iPod business. It doesn’t worry us, but it’s done that. We know that iPad will cannibalize some Macs. That doesn’t worry us."
CWallace
macrumors G5
Notice they said "some".
If Apple really plans to have 10 and 12 core Skylake-X iMac Pros with high-end GPUs in a new form factor that can handle the TDP, then they would never have bothered with a new Mac Pro and would have just scrapped the model with the current cylinder.
If they really expected the iPad Pro to replace the MacBook, then they would have embraced Finder on iOS, not shot it down when a developer submitted an App that offered the same functionality. And we'd have the butterfly keyboard Smart Cover.
There will be some overlap in products that results in customers buying one rather then the other (I bought an iPad Pro 12.9" rather than a MacBook, for example). But Apple, at least right now, is not going to offer two product lines that overlap so much that they're effectively interchangeable to most end users - especially when one of them (MP) is significantly more expensive than the other (iMP).
If Apple really plans to have 10 and 12 core Skylake-X iMac Pros with high-end GPUs in a new form factor that can handle the TDP, then they would never have bothered with a new Mac Pro and would have just scrapped the model with the current cylinder.
If they really expected the iPad Pro to replace the MacBook, then they would have embraced Finder on iOS, not shot it down when a developer submitted an App that offered the same functionality. And we'd have the butterfly keyboard Smart Cover.
There will be some overlap in products that results in customers buying one rather then the other (I bought an iPad Pro 12.9" rather than a MacBook, for example). But Apple, at least right now, is not going to offer two product lines that overlap so much that they're effectively interchangeable to most end users - especially when one of them (MP) is significantly more expensive than the other (iMP).
I agree. I think the iMac pro will still be based on the Core i7/Xeon E3 chips and not the higher core versions. People are reading too much into what an iMac pro really is. Apple probably isn't going to make the iMac thicker and bulkier to support hotter components, which means it will be the Xeon E3 line which is really just a core i7 with ECC memory support. If it comes out soon it will be 4 core Kaby Lake based processor or this fall it would be a 6 core coffee lake (assuming the rumors are true).
GPU wise we will probably get a "Radeon Pro" based product with is nothing more than a consumer GPU like what is in the MacBook pro. The question will be whether they expand the thermal envelope of what is currently in the iMac. Worst case we get a RX 480/580 as the top end option and best option would be Vega if they can accommodate it. The Mac Pro will probably always have a leg up here as it could support multiple GPUs (at least in theory).
Nobody knows for sure but I think the fact that Polaris has been available for almost a year now (with lower TDP variants available since Fall 2016) and yet we haven't seen a refresh indicates that Apple has bigger and better plans for the next iMac's GPU (and hopefully CPU as well.)
An interesting note, the Fiji based R9 Nano, manufactured on a 28nm process, offers performance very close to a GTX 980TI/GTX 1070/R9 Fury X with a TDP of only 175W (calling into question Apple's excuse that it couldn't fit better GPUs in the nMP).
I can't see any reason why the move to 14nm wouldn't enable AMD to create a comparable Vega card with AT LEAST R9 Nano level performance that can stay within a 120W TDP. Of course, whether or not they actually CHOOSE to design such a chip is a completely different matter.
Considering the above and Apple's recent comments on GPU's I'm personally hopeful that the next iMac will take a much needed step up in GPU performance.
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