AMD zealots will bombast this and say it's because of price to performance ration, but it has always been speculated that AMD sells it's chips to high profile companies, like Apple, at below production costs. This will allow AMD to seem more competitive professionally than they actually are. If you just go by fastest and best, NVIDIA has been leading for a few years, and now with Pascal and Volta, there is is no question of their dominance. CUDA is closed and proprietary, but NVIDIA architecture it is still the fastest out there.. If Apple doesn't give the ability to choose GPU on the new MacPro, the line is not Pro. eGPU doesn't count..
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Apple Continues to Work on All-New Mac Pro With Upgradeable Design
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AMD zealots will bombast this and say it's because of price to performance ration, but it has always been speculated that AMD sells it's chips to high profile companies, like Apple, at below production costs. This will allow AMD to seem more competitive professionally than they actually are. If you just go by fastest and best, NVIDIA has been leading for a few years, and now with Pascal and Volta, there is is no question of their dominance. CUDA is closed and proprietary, but NVIDIA architecture it is still the fastest out there.. If Apple doesn't give the ability to choose GPU on the new MacPro, the line is not Pro. eGPU doesn't count..
And this ultimately is the reason for the delay. The trashcan was a failed designed and Apple won't release another Mac Pro until it looks as cool as the trashcan. This is a bit of a dangerous attitude for people who rely on OSX for workstation grade work. Think about it....it's going to be a minimum of 5 years before it's updated. Might even be 6 if shipping gets pushed out until 2019 which is possible given the iMac Pro is out.
Yes, agreed.
Apple over think. Deliver the hardware. I seriously question those people who prefer Form over Function - I would suggest they don't really want the performance that comes with such a machine, instead, would prefer some candy eye on their desk. ( Personally, my desktop is on the floor. I don't give a crap what it looks like, as long as it delivers the necessary performance ).
Interesting that a friend of mine just replaced his 2008 aluminum iMac because the DISPLAY was failing... In fact, he even limped it along for another 6 months (and actually, still has it in service), by attaching an external 24" display with essentially the same specs as the built-in one on his iMac, and just put it in "Mirrored" display mode...
So, you never know which is going to fail first in an all-in-one; but you can ALWAYS find a workaround...
C'mon Apple! Size still matters. Give us pro's something like this, please....
Thats actually a very good point. I wonder what Vegas would set the betting odds on Apple allowing a choice on the GPU. It can't be good.
PROs simply max-out the RAM at the beginning. They are the LEAST-likely ones to play the "maybe I'll put more RAM in later" game...
I’ve been saying for years and I’ll say it again: give us new components in a 2012 style case and pros will lose their minds.
What exactly does this mean? It means standard connections that can be bought and installed without needing Apple to do it. It means PCIe lanes that we can install what we want in. It means all major components being user upgradable post-purchase. I would accept the CPU being limited on that last one so it’s harder but still.
Will we get this? Probably not because that’s not how Apple works anymore but this is what pros want. We’ll gladly spend $15k+ on a machine that we know will be a workhorse for the next 5-10 years. What we don’t want is a trash can that’s garbage from the start and can’t realistically be upgraded in any way. I don’t care what size it is (it sitsin a rack anyway) or what colour it is or how many proprietary ports they can squeeze in. I care about a proper workstation that can be properly maintained. This is what Pros want. If they take the iMac Pro components and pop them into a 2010 case I will be forever happy.
What exactly does this mean? It means standard connections that can be bought and installed without needing Apple to do it. It means PCIe lanes that we can install what we want in. It means all major components being user upgradable post-purchase. I would accept the CPU being limited on that last one so it’s harder but still.
Will we get this? Probably not because that’s not how Apple works anymore but this is what pros want. We’ll gladly spend $15k+ on a machine that we know will be a workhorse for the next 5-10 years. What we don’t want is a trash can that’s garbage from the start and can’t realistically be upgraded in any way. I don’t care what size it is (it sitsin a rack anyway) or what colour it is or how many proprietary ports they can squeeze in. I care about a proper workstation that can be properly maintained. This is what Pros want. If they take the iMac Pro components and pop them into a 2010 case I will be forever happy.
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Bring back 1985! You can do it!
We're DONE with Towers. No longer necessary nor even desirable. But people just want to make the Singer sing the same old hits, year-after-year.
"Cracklin' Rosie Get on board! We're gonna ride like there ain't no more..."
"I seen the needle and the damage done; there's a little bit in everyone..."
I love those songs too; but sometimes ya just GOTTA let the Artist do something NEW!!!
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...on the interwebs, that is.
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COMPLETELY different class of product!
You totally shot your entire argument with that one ridiculous statement.
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EXACTLY!!!!C'mon Apple! Size still matters. Give us pro's something like this, please....
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I love the Jesus with Lightsabre and puppy Avatar!!!
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Er, they really don't.
Because they've just been churning out incremental upgrades, year-after-year, in the same, tired form-factors.
So I think Apple is being sly with their use of "modular" when they speak of the future Mac Pro. I think they're gonna make a small box that's basically just a Xeon chip with your choice of cores, SSD, and a bunch of RAM. I'd like to see the wee box user-accessible for at least the RAM and SSD, but wouldn't be surprised if Apple soldered it all down-- because when they say "modular," I'll bet it means they've teased out a viable solution for dead-simple parallel processing. So you want more than one Xeon, or more than 128GBs of RAM? Great, tie your existing Mac Pro box into another one (or seven!) with a Thunderbolt 3 cable (or maybe the light-pipe flavor of it for lower latency and other goodness?). Make the thing inherently rack-mountable and convince the big graphics chip makers to make some matching "graphic boxes" instead of cards-- and of course there would be PCI expansion boxes to be able to use the more traditional cards if need be (as there are now), but I'll bet Apple will just push getting the designed-for-Thunderbolt-from-the-get-go boxes. Mayhaps their rumored new displays will feature a built in graphics processor to set them apart from cheaper offerings and obviate the immediate need for a high-powered GPU box. Seems like this is the future they've been pushing for ever since the advent of Thunderbolt. If the connect-everything-with-Thunderbolt concept really works this idea would satisfy upgrade desires and Apple's penchant to keep everything in a pretty hermetically sealed box. They could also make a cheaper version that uses Core iWhatever chips and doesn't do the parallel processing trick to replace the Mini, it'd be silver and the Xeon Pro model would be "space gray," naturally. But I could be wrong and maybe they'll just make another tower like the old cheese-grater, but that doesn't seem a very Apple-y thing to do.
The "minor tweak" you are talking about would have increased the diameter of the cylinder by about 3 X, to fit in one of today's monster GPUs...
That’s not what I got from the Ryzen reviews. The TDP is right around what Intel offers. Their CPU design prior was not competitive, but Ryzen is pretty good, and even scales down to 15W mobile with Vega graphics included to boot.
1. The Mac Pro has a better thermal design, within its limitations. But with fans, size matters. All things being equal, the air-moving capacity of a circular fan goes up at something like the CUBE of the diameter; so making a fan LARGER IN DIAMETER (which can be done in a form-factor like the iMac) AUTOMATICALLY moves more air, even at the same speed.
2. Apple is the hands-down master at large, quiet fans. If you really believe the iMac Pro is going to sound like a hair-dryer, you're mistaken.
If I'm honest I think my current 5,1 will be my last Apple desktop. I don't really need the power, (I just like it). Bit what I do want is to able to easily upgrade the RAM, HD, Opt drive, GPU etc without a huge neck pain. I'm 99% certain that the modules that go into the Mac Pro will only be available from Apple.
Ok, well I WAS going to let your Hater Rant go; but you have SEVERAL untruths:
1. AppleScript isn't going ANYWHERE. Here are some Developer notes from High Sierra:
https://developer.apple.com/library...eScript/RN-AppleScript/RN-10_13/RN-10_13.html
2. Same with Automator. In fact, it has been given some SERIOUS love in High Sierra and iOS 11:
https://wccftech.com/ios-11-macos-10-13-will-feature-a-brand-new-automator-app-rumor/
3. No support of OpenGL? Since WHEN???
https://developer.apple.com/opengl/
Having said that, they DO seem to be more interested in Metal2 going forward...
4. And as far as the Nvidia PROPRIETARY CUDA non-Standard goes, there is PLENTY of support for High Sierra, with the latest macOS CUDA Drivers being released on 12/8/17...
http://www.nvidia.com/object/mac-driver-archive.html
So, any more NONSENSICAL, EASILY-DISPROVEN, LIES?
My #1 feature request:
An affordable base model users can configure as to their needs. i.e. I don't want to pay for dual GPUs I won't ever use!
Just reboot the 2012 cheese grater in a smaller case with USB 3, TB 3, and SSD slots and take my money!
An affordable base model users can configure as to their needs. i.e. I don't want to pay for dual GPUs I won't ever use!
Just reboot the 2012 cheese grater in a smaller case with USB 3, TB 3, and SSD slots and take my money!
An Apple approved service center is somewhat different than an Apple Service Center. It isn't just Apple employees and contractors. It is anyone who is passed qualification to do service on Macs. ( for large buyers of Mac that could be in-house personnel if have an internal 'shop'. )
Maybe you should have been doing some research before plunking down $13,000 on a new computer. The info that Apple is working on a new modular Mac Pro has been around for more than 6 months.
I just hope the new Mac Pro will not be as cost-prohibitive for the rest of us as the iMac Pro seems to be.
The Apple's list of Approved service centers is larger than just Apple run sites.
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Ryzen and Threadripper are just as split as the mainstream Core i5/i7 and the separate die/socket Intel W ( and marketed upper end i7 and i9 using the very same die. )
Note that Apple has released some of it's own ML tools: https://www.macrumors.com/2017/12/08/apple-turi-create-machine-learning-framework/ . I wonder if Apple has internal hardware ML acceleration platforms supporting the development of Turi Create (and et.al.), and if so, what they use ... CUDA, OpenCL, Metal, or ???
Use it to make money and it’ll pay for itself in less than 2 years. Like any professional would do.