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frou

macrumors 65816
Mar 14, 2009
1,287
1,786
I just checked Apple's internal project management database, and adding support for obscure ancient Xeons to the cMP has the same priority as releasing a decent Mac Mini.
 
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goMac

Contributor
Apr 15, 2004
7,662
1,693
two things apple should do:
- enable NVME boot
- enable 5GT/sec on all GPUS

thats my wish list.

Apple would have to commit the time coding that AND testing that to make sure they don't break anything. For a machine they haven't sold in a half decade. That's assuming the firmware even has capacity for those features, which we don't even know.

Better for them to take that time and put it into the new Mac Pro.
 
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Squuiid

macrumors 68000
Original poster
Oct 31, 2006
1,856
1,580
Any more 5,1 firmware updates in today's High Sierra beta?
 
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thomasthegps

macrumors regular
Sep 23, 2015
220
145
France
Apple would have to commit the time coding that AND testing that to make sure they don't break anything. For a machine they haven't sold in a half decade. That's assuming the firmware even has capacity for those features, which we don't even know.

Better for them to take that time and put it into the new Mac Pro.
Yeah you are probably right, but still it sure would be nice for people who still use this hardware. Personally I wouldn’t see any reason to invest in newer hardware if we had these features and hevc vp9 decoding on GPUs.
 

goMac

Contributor
Apr 15, 2004
7,662
1,693
Yeah you are probably right, but still it sure would be nice for people who still use this hardware. Personally I wouldn’t see any reason to invest in newer hardware if we had these features and hevc vp9 decoding on GPUs.

Firmware updates are extremely dangerous. Breaking something could mean a large batch of machines that come back into the Apple store, and they could be unbootable. It's why you rarely see firmware updates add features, not worth the risks. Worth it for critical bug fixes though.

But there have literally been firmware bugs in the past where Apple would rather have people bring machines in and replace the board rather than do the update over the web.

Probably also why there was never a supported 4,1 to 5,1 firmware update.

An APFS update for the Mac Pro 5,1 is actually a huge favor from Apple. They could have just left the 5,1 on HFS. But I imagine it's causing a lot of trouble for the Mac Pro team.
 
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itdk92

macrumors 6502a
Nov 14, 2016
504
180
Copenhagen, Denmark
Firmware updates are extremely dangerous. Breaking something could mean a large batch of machines that come back into the Apple store, and they could be unbootable. It's why you rarely see firmware updates add features, not worth the risks. Worth it for critical bug fixes though.

But there have literally been firmware bugs in the past where Apple would rather have people bring machines in and replace the board rather than do the update over the web.

Probably also why there was never a supported 4,1 to 5,1 firmware update.

An APFS update for the Mac Pro 5,1 is actually a huge favor from Apple. They could have just left the 5,1 on HFS. But I imagine it's causing a lot of trouble for the Mac Pro team.

No, the new 5.1 Firmware has been a MUST for Apple, after the "performance my ass" nMP fiasco, and the backlash on the last MacBook Pro ('16-'17)

They needed to keep people quiet until iMac Pro and Mac Pro

While we still can and should somewhat thank them, anything else than that would have been a bad move, marketing wise.

On another note, I can't see why releasing a new firmware, after seven years, only for APFS.

I believe we are missing something or that they might include something in the last release. Still far fetched though
 

thomasthegps

macrumors regular
Sep 23, 2015
220
145
France
Honestly If apple was that worried people would break their Mac Pro they would of never made a new firmware. What might be happening is that the chip that holds the firmware maybe doesn't have enough space for other features or maybe Apple wants to make sure that people want to upgrade by not making the Mac Pro as good as it could be. Just imagine we had NVME, 5GT/sec Graphics, Hardware HEVC vp9 decoding why would I upgrade ? The Mac Pro with a 6 core xeon is still a really good machine, its a shame that apple cripples it.
 

goMac

Contributor
Apr 15, 2004
7,662
1,693
I believe we are missing something or that they might include something in the last release. Still far fetched though

Like I said, adding anything else is too high risk. APFS is to keep Mac Pro users happy, but they don't want to go the other way and break a bunch of Mac Pros. Or if they add NVMe they don't want users complaining because their specific card doesn't work. And again, this all assumes that the actual flash ROM on the board is large enough to hold all these features (it may not be.)

Given the technical risk, everyone is really super lucky Apple wants to keep Mac Pro users happy enough by adding APFS. Something like NVMe is not as simple as Apple just copying and pasting code in. It probably requires a brand new implementation no one wants to write.

Again, all time Apple would rather put into a new Mac Pro. If the 2012 Mac Pro didn't support NVMe yesterday not that many people are going to be upset if it doesn't support it tomorrow. If they upgrade to High Sierra which has APFS and they can't use it they might be more mad.

I don't think everyone asking for NVMe understands how big of a deal that would be to add. Something like APFS is risky, but is a lot lot smaller of a job.
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Honestly If apple was that worried people would break their Mac Pro they would of never made a new firmware.

That's exactly why I'm saying how lucky everyone is that they added APFS support. They could have very easily kept the 5,1 at HFS.
 

h9826790

macrumors P6
Apr 3, 2014
16,611
8,537
Hong Kong
I don't think Apple really worry about breaking our Mac, especially the cMP. There are only very few cMP out there if compare to all the Macbooks (including Air, Pro...). And even fewer will upgrade to HS and perform the firmware upgrade.

If they have concern about that, they won't update the Macbook's firmware just to make it boot with black screen and white Apple. Clearly they don't worry about damage anything. And willing to do some change that's completely provide zero extra function.

And TBH, I still hasn't heard a single case that accidentally kill a Mac because of firmware flashing.
 

goMac

Contributor
Apr 15, 2004
7,662
1,693
And TBH, I still hasn't heard a single case that accidentally kill a Mac because of firmware flashing.

It happens. That's why everytime there is a firmware update you get warnings about not restarting the machine in the middle of it or not pulling power... Not only could there be bugs, but there is the user doing something stupid too.

When Apple updated iOS to APFS they didn't just throw it out there. Every single release of iOS 10 did a test APFS conversion and then rolled it back to look for problems. Apple literally did the APFS conversion process on hundreds of millions of devices at least a half dozen times before they decided it was ready.

I think you all are dramatically underestimating how seriously Apple takes updating things that could cause massive breakage. APFS is a relatively easy thing to add and we've already have three firmwares, with some bugs already being fixed. This isn't easy stuff even for a simple feature.

Stuff like changing the boot screen color is pretty small potatoes (it's just a variable in EFI, you can even set it in your NVRAM to whatever you want as a user. So it's barely a change.) And large chunks of that is in the EFI boot loader on your hard disk, not in the firmware.
 

Daze513

macrumors newbie
Sep 22, 2015
27
6
OK so if no new firmware then ill just update via app store.

Anyone see anything different that hasn't been mentioned with firmwares?
 

Squuiid

macrumors 68000
Original poster
Oct 31, 2006
1,856
1,580
OK so if no new firmware then ill just update via app store.

Anyone see anything different that hasn't been mentioned with firmwares?
I updated to DP7 from the App Store and can no longer boot! Get a '?' now.
 

Squuiid

macrumors 68000
Original poster
Oct 31, 2006
1,856
1,580
Welcome to the beta! Anyway, did you try boot into recovery partition and reinstall HS?
LOL. I'd been running DP5 and DP6 with no problems. APFS conversion went fine. Mac Pro 5,1 firmware installed fine both times.
DP7 update killed my OS :mad:
Will try recovery when I get home.
 

Daze513

macrumors newbie
Sep 22, 2015
27
6
LOL. I'd been running DP5 and DP6 with no problems. APFS conversion went fine. Mac Pro 5,1 firmware installed fine both times.
DP7 update killed my OS :mad:
Will try recovery when I get home.


Damn almost did the same thing today before leaving for work. I’m not on APFS though yet so lets see. I may just do a full installer instead to be safe.

@Squuiid please let me know how it goes, ill wait for your feedback before I proceed with App Store update
 

Squuiid

macrumors 68000
Original poster
Oct 31, 2006
1,856
1,580
Damn almost did the same thing today before leaving for work. I’m not on APFS though yet so lets see. I may just do a full installer instead to be safe.

@Squuiid please let me know how it goes, ill wait for your feedback before I proceed with App Store update
Had to reinstall. Repair in disk utility was useless unfortunately.
However, all was as I had left it once the reinstall completed. Oh, and as others have reported, TRIM now works fine.
 
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itdk92

macrumors 6502a
Nov 14, 2016
504
180
Copenhagen, Denmark
Honestly If apple was that worried people would break their Mac Pro they would of never made a new firmware. What might be happening is that the chip that holds the firmware maybe doesn't have enough space for other features or maybe Apple wants to make sure that people want to upgrade by not making the Mac Pro as good as it could be. Just imagine we had NVME, 5GT/sec Graphics, Hardware HEVC vp9 decoding why would I upgrade ? The Mac Pro with a 6 core xeon is still a really good machine, its a shame that apple cripples it.

We get 5GT/s graphics on the vast majority of the modern cards available ;)
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TRIM is working natively with DP7.

Like natively in the sense you don't have to enable it manually, or in the sense that they put back the trimforce command?
 
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