2022 Mac Pro Rumored to Use Intel's Ice Lake Xeon W-3300 Chips

[Tooldog]

100% opinion follows. My company is very small.
Apple may become even less attractive to the creative development community without a strong showing from macOS 12. 11 is a non-starter. Technology moves faster than the fat old Apple. They may have already peaked in my particular computing space. In the near term Apple is well behind and frankly being overrun in computational areas that rely on the GPU to compute physics models in both real time and offline. Apple may have technology in the pipeline I'm not aware of, but at the moment I can't even consider Apple Silicone or macOS 11. Suffice it to say that Apple isn't going to be computing any animation work for me in the near term. If they have a compelling product in the future, we might invest in Apple again. Competition makes everything better.

Next is Apple's unwillingness to adequately partner with AMD or NVIDIA for the Intel Mac Pro. I'm not concerned with the public popularity or someone's feelings about the companies or the tech because such feelings don't influence the work or the tech. Add that Apple is a flaky business partner at best, they will abandon you without a paddle. If you aren't in the contact list of an Apple top executive AND work in an industry that somehow makes them feel good, perhaps even if you are, expect to be backhanded and stranded at any moment. They aren't just out of touch, they don't want to know what you need let alone what you want. Without one of these, we can't use an Apple product for anything but static art. An iPad can handle a lot of the static art we need to do.

We purchased one Intel Mini last year. It is the only full-time macOS computer in the shop. One 2010 Pro on Catalina that gets about 4 hours a week of use. Using Apple systems saved us so much time and aggravation in the past. Those days are gone, time moves on, and so did we.

Its okay if there is a 2022 Intel Mac Pro, it may not be for you. Without support for the very latest, and future GPU's from AMD and NVIDIA, it isn't for us either.

 

[baryon]

This is good because it means Apple will have to keep macOS Intel-compatible for many more years. All the YouTube hype will make you believe that Intel is gone and that all Macs are now M1 and that's it, but chances are if you bought a Mac more than a year ago, you intend to keep it for another 4-5-6 years. While Apple thinks that "4 years" is enough support for a computer, lots of people use older computers simply because the one they have is fine and they have no reason to upgrade.

 

[mdriftmeyer]

Spending that much money on a chip that is already losing support for new features seems unwise.

Sure, if that were true. That's akin to saying Zen 4 is old tech. Sorry, but the M Series/ARM Desktop Market isn't going to be the colossal success across the computing industry as fandom here believes it will be. The purchases and mergers for both Intel and AMD will continue to propel them forward for decades.

 

[mdriftmeyer]

I can’t wait to spend $25,000 on a system that will barely outrun the 2022 MacBook Air! /s

In all seriousness, this would be more appealing (especially if released this year) for its ability to run x86 software that hasn’t transitioned, and importantly for some - Windows virtual machines.

Mac vendors aren't dropping X86 support. They're adding ARM support. So far, it's a mixed bag of compatibility for high end audio interfaces [Apogee Digital Ensemble/Symphony not support on Silicon yet], Universal Audio in transition. Avid in transition, so on and so forth. Native Instruments still hasn't got Battery 4 transitioned for their 13 suite to be certified for ARM. Works phenomenally well on Intel. Film industry has all sorts of professional tools yet to be ported. Disney has a ton invested in x86 OS X. They're not just going to prioritize ARM with billions in projects already tagged out.

General Consumers bread and butter for Apple is iOS/iPadOS/WatchOS/ : All ARM
Professional Consumers bread and butter for Apple is macOS/OS X : all x86.

The 2022 Xeons are Big Core/Little Core MCM designs. Similar but different than the MCM CPU/APU hybrid designs of Zen 4 and beyond. All those advantages Apple leveraged for M1 will be present moving forward on AMD designs. And you can bet they are with Jim Keller Intel designs yet to be released. You remember him, the guy who developed the products Apple bought and led the team through the A4 before leading the design of Zen at AMD, etc.

 

[StupidOpinion]

if you're complaining about the intel chip, this computer is not for you. in fact, 99% of you guys don't even have a mac pro to begin with. some people need x86 support, running windows natively, or running with hardware that won't work on apple silicon. apple silicon is great on the latest mac tech but isn't ready for professional use

 

[pray2crom]

I am more curious to see what Apple has in store for the GPU side of things. Are we ever going to see a RTX 3070 or 6800XT like performance on the next iteration of the M-series chips? Intel is already working on their dedicated GPU....not sure what will come of it. But apple's offering on GPU performance has been lacking at least for gaming that is.

 

[tubular]

"Apple" silicon is good for pads, phones and books, but not for work stations. It doesn't scale up properly.

We don't know anything about scalability, because we have only one data point: the M1.

It will take a while to get up to the top end of the workstation range. How fast we won't know until we know more about scalability, and see previous paragraph.

 

[MikeZTM]

You can take out the we there, I don't agree with you at all. And I'm not talking about parallel processing, just general purpose computing. I don't do much video, but I think you're way underestimating just what more cores can give you when doing video -- you don't have to be only processing just 1 frame/stream at a time...

A lot of the process is single core bonded for IO and memory reasons. You can not magically adding more core to make video editing faster.

 

[techwhiz]

Scaling a processor is no easy task.
Apple would need a 16 to 32 core ARM 64 processor. They need to add ECC on the memory busses and also internal ECC. This is non trivial and impact performance and timing.

Adding additional Gen4 PCIe lanes isn't trivial.

You can't just morph the current ARM processors into what competes with a Xeon. Go look at Amazon and Ampere high end ARM. That's what Apple has to do for MacPro.

 

[typecase]

This is good for Intel support on macOS.

Exactly this. I'm happy given that I bought a MP last year and this hopefully this extends the support for intel on Mac OS. I hope the Apple Silicon Mac Pro has the same expandability as the Intel one. Aside from more hard drive bays and the stratospheric price, the new Mac Pro was a dream come true for me. I find it hard to believe that reducing the size will allow the same expandability/performance.

 

[Miha_v]

Latest Intel Macbook pro was bought in our office a week ago (not for me, btw). Why Intel, I asked? Response: cause software stability is still no.1 priority and all the fancy M1 speed doesn't help you, if professional software you rely on isn't running properly on it (yet). From my own experience, nothing is more frustrating then having to deal with incompatibilities / software issues, when you are trying to do some actual work.

Future is silicone of course, no doubt about that.

 

[poked]

We don't know anything about scalability, because we have only one data point: the M1.

It will take a while to get up to the top end of the workstation range. How fast we won't know until we know more about scalability, and see previous paragraph.

I am more curious to see what Apple has in store for the GPU side of things. Are we ever going to see a RTX 3070 or 6800XT like performance on the next iteration of the M-series chips? Intel is already working on their dedicated GPU....not sure what will come of it. But apple's offering on GPU performance has been lacking at least for gaming that is.

Apples system has never been about gpu/gaming. That’s what windows is for. I wouldn’t hold your breath to see any sort of gpu re-make anytime soon, but with m1x/M2, they’d probably be focusing on program compatibility.

 

[Deliro]

Why not transition to silicon? Or is it because they haven’t figured out the GPU tech?

You do understand that Apple, currently, does not have anything that can match Xeon processors ? Xeons are for workstations or servers. For a mac application it would likely be for high end 3D rendering, 4K and above video editing etc. Current M series have limited cores and memory capacity. Nothing to do with GPU.

I’m sure that Apple has something in the works.

 

[poked]

You do understand that Apple, currently, does not have anything that can match Xeon processors ? Xeons are for workstations or servers. For a mac application it would likely be for high end 3D rendering, 4K and above video editing etc. Current M series have limited cores and memory capacity. Nothing to do with GPU.

I’m sure that Apple has something in the works.

I mean, that’s implied by their specific useage of Xeon processors in the first place, no? Why would they continue to use a processor they can’t lock down as their own brand when it’s deeply anti-Apple policy? and if you’re so sure, I’d absolutely love to see you in 2022. Of COURSE they do. That’s the whole point of their proprietary chips to begin with. But that wasn’t my question. My question was “why” as in… if they’re pulling new software out of their company every two years, why is this rumored for 2022 integration into a lineup that doesn’t want to rely on intel power and performance? I don’t think any of us can answer that except to make educated guesses.

 

[ojfl]

I am not sure we need a very powerful new Mac Pro, but we need something with more memory and some expandability so we can re-use our PCI eSATA cards, otherwise, we would have to buy an extra chassis for those. We shall see.

 

[visualseed]

100% opinion follows. My company is very small.
Apple may become even less attractive to the creative development community without a strong showing from macOS 12. 11 is a non-starter. Technology moves faster than the fat old Apple. They may have already peaked in my particular computing space. In the near term Apple is well behind and frankly being overrun in computational areas that rely on the GPU to compute physics models in both real time and offline. Apple may have technology in the pipeline I'm not aware of, but at the moment I can't even consider Apple Silicone or macOS 11. Suffice it to say that Apple isn't going to be computing any animation work for me in the near term. If they have a compelling product in the future, we might invest in Apple again. Competition makes everything better.

Next is Apple's unwillingness to adequately partner with AMD or NVIDIA for the Intel Mac Pro. I'm not concerned with the public popularity or someone's feelings about the companies or the tech because such feelings don't influence the work or the tech. Add that Apple is a flaky business partner at best, they will abandon you without a paddle. If you aren't in the contact list of an Apple top executive AND work in an industry that somehow makes them feel good, perhaps even if you are, expect to be backhanded and stranded at any moment. They aren't just out of touch, they don't want to know what you need let alone what you want. Without one of these, we can't use an Apple product for anything but static art. An iPad can handle a lot of the static art we need to do.

We purchased one Intel Mini last year. It is the only full-time macOS computer in the shop. One 2010 Pro on Catalina that gets about 4 hours a week of use. Using Apple systems saved us so much time and aggravation in the past. Those days are gone, time moves on, and so did we.

Its okay if there is a 2022 Intel Mac Pro, it may not be for you. Without support for the very latest, and future GPU's from AMD and NVIDIA, it isn't for us either.

I don't know what this rant is about, but if you want to show up at the track with an 11 year old car with parts from Auto Zone, maybe Formula 1 racing isn't for you.

 

[peter2]

Apple is facing a much larger problem than GPU integration or hardware in general. Software support is the problem. While I love the AS SoCs, for most of the scientific world, macOS is almost dead at this point (Intel or AS). When Apple dropped Nvidia we had to start working around problems, with OpenCL. etc. The state of the software world is catastrophic and simply not worth to bother with. Nvidia software won't work, no problem (well, not really but expected and acceptable). Things like Tensorflow, Pytorch, Carla, AirSim, other simulators and frameworks either don't fully work or are a major pain to work with unless one is ok with CPU only support. Apple did a Tensorflow fork a while back. It's bugged, doesn't fully work, it's in a useless state. But what should we expect when Apple is using Linux and Nvidia to train their own AI? Once the research is done, it's easy to convert models to support metal including GPU and Neural Engine for inference. But how does that help the people who have to do research?

At this point (and of course that can change in the future), Apple is really good for reading/writing, browsing the web and emails. In addition, musicians can use it, so can photographers and YouTubers to cut their videos. I do a bit of photo image processing and lightweight video work, but otherwise my Macs have become a tool for lightweight work I could easily do on a MBA/MacMini while I have to use Linux on different hardware to get the heavier workloads done.

Exactly.

 

[MisterAndrew]

I’m not extremely well versed in Intel’s chipset and motherboard socket compatibility, as a current Mac Pro owner is there any chance in hell I can swap one of the new Ice Lake processors in? If not, and this would be extremely extra but I’m curious, would it be possible to swap the motherboards?

I have the 16-core, it’s no slouch but I was considering swapping in the 28-core as .R3D video files eat those 16 cores like they’re not even there. I assume an equivalent chip from Ice Lake would be faster and more efficient…

You could potentially replace the logic board with the new version, but you would need to code it with your existing serial number. It would then most likely still register as a 2019 7,1 and not a 2021/22 8,1 so there might be issues with software and firmware updates. It would be better to sell the current system and buy a new one so you had a proper serial number for the new system.

 

[peter2]

I’d say this is great news for those huge numbers of us using Intel Macs as it kicks back the end of life date for them. As for why are Apple doing this there are several possibilities I can think of (all of which could be wrong)

1. They don’t want to alienate their enterprise customers
2. They haven’t had time to redesign and approve every Mac yet due to pandemic delays
3. They’re working on an X86/64 virtualisation layer and want to release that first so we can run normal windows in a vm
4. They haven’t been able to scale up the CPU yet
5. They haven’t been able to scale up the GPU yet
6. They haven’t designed enough add on cards yet
7. They really do want to stick to a 2 year migration as slow and steady wins the race

My bet is that the main hurdle is RAM, which is a part of the AS SoC. At the moment Apple can’t provide even the 128GB of RAM present in my 2010 Mac Pro on an AS system, while today’s reasonable upper config would be something like 2TB of RAM or more.
Moreover, I doubt this will change anytime soon, if ever...

 

[Moonlight]

Look at all of these people who assume they are smarter than Apple...

 

[lysingur]

At this point (and of course that can change in the future), Apple is really good for reading/writing, browsing the web and emails. In addition, musicians can use it, so can photographers and YouTubers to cut their videos. I do a bit of photo image processing and lightweight video work, but otherwise my Macs have become a tool for lightweight work I could easily do on a MBA/MacMini while I have to use Linux on different hardware to get the heavier workloads done.

Mac is no longer a major part of Apple's business. It generates less than 10% of their revenue. In the best of times, scientific research is on the periphery of Apple's vision for the Mac and now, as Mac occupies a rather ancillary role to the iOS-centred ecosystem, scientific research is the farthest thing on their minds. The profit simply isn't there to justify the investment. What you describe as lightweight work is really Apple's core business—digital services, that is.

Apple has never catered to the niche under Cook and they most likely won't go down that road again.

 

[blazerunner]

Is this a processor with big and little cores?

 

[sn1p3r845]

I have my credit card in hand waiting, I wish I had the funds to buy the 2019 when they released but I wasn't ready. Now I am and I'm hungry for it. My 2013 trash can is about to kick the bucket.

 

[bradman83]

Why not AMD Threadripper Pro or Epyc?

Apple already has an existing relationship with Intel so it doesn’t make sense for them to switch vendors now this late in the transition. Additionally, AMD chips don’t have native Thunderbolt support. While it’s possible for OEMs to build Thunderbolt into an AMD motherboard by adding a controller chip it’s not as elegant of a solution as what Intel offers. Mac Pro users are more likely to have heavy duty Thunderbolt setups than consumer or prosumer/base professional users.

 

[bobtem]

The baby MacPro is so cute and cuddly. I want to adopt one