Yep! I do a lot of photo editing. I transitioned to a MBP. It slows down at times, but the portability and ability to upgrade very frequently make it a winner for me. I don’t think I’ll ever own a desktop again (we have a NAS for “always on” local data needs).
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Apple Now Offering Radeon Pro W5500X for Mac Pro
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Yep! I do a lot of photo editing. I transitioned to a MBP. It slows down at times, but the portability and ability to upgrade very frequently make it a winner for me. I don’t think I’ll ever own a desktop again (we have a NAS for “always on” local data needs).
I get your point, but if you're using the Mac Pro in music production, you really don't need much of a GPU.
You're right but it still stinks to announce switch to APL Silicon 6 months after the huge debut of the MacPRo. Those of us who need it for video STILL expected to upgrade it over the next few years as promised. But now the software tuneups will be for APL Silicon and now the machine we just spent a fortune on. Yes we will use and need it now, but none of us who spent $14K on a high end upgradable machine saw this coming 6 months after debut and purchase.
RX580 still okay especially for sound engineers who doesn’t need heavy graphics…but heck that still 2016 silicon, I think W5500X should came as standard configuration and replaced RX580 anyways.
The forum police are here?
So what’s the benefit of this card over the 580x? According to Apple’s specs they both have the same number of teraflop performance.
I somehow doubt Apple went to all the expense and time to create the Mac Pro "to dissuade people from buying it because they know it’s going away."
The ARM project's been in the wind for a while and the Mac Pro had to be 'reinvented' in the meantime.
I'm sure Apple is selling quite a few Mac Pro units to those who need them/can afford them.
Apple announced that they will transition their entire lineup (yes, that includes the MacPro) within two years, just like they did the last time around.
You can start eating already, no need to wait 5 years. 😆
Its not apple silicon, its Apple ARM PowerPC V2.
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Sadly, this Mac Pro is already a 50k paper weight, now that ARM is coming.
Why would Apple even bother offering this card with 0 Thunderbolt ports? I suppose there's a fringe case where someone is using a pair of HDMI outputs.
Also, would you guys quit it with the ARM nonsense. This machine is very capable, and you're not going to see a decked out Mac Pro for a few years with full software support with all the plugins, and 3rd party apps ready to go and fully optimized for a new Pro machine for at least 3-5 years.
You buy one of these because you need it and/or can afford it. In either case, getting 3-5 years out of the machine is perfectly suitable. People lease cars that provide absolutely no long-term value for much more and I'm sure most people could find a way to get 5-10 years out of this machine.
Also, would you guys quit it with the ARM nonsense. This machine is very capable, and you're not going to see a decked out Mac Pro for a few years with full software support with all the plugins, and 3rd party apps ready to go and fully optimized for a new Pro machine for at least 3-5 years.
You buy one of these because you need it and/or can afford it. In either case, getting 3-5 years out of the machine is perfectly suitable. People lease cars that provide absolutely no long-term value for much more and I'm sure most people could find a way to get 5-10 years out of this machine.
Hyperbole aside, I don’t know of a lot of paperweights that are currently billing $75 - $175 an hour doing various forms of production work, but you keep tilting at that windmill. It’s never a paperweight until it won’t boot.
So much drama, so little substance.
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“None of us who spent $14K on a high end upgradable machine saw this coming 6 months after debut and purchase.”
So you spent $14K without doing your due diligence?!?!
The Apple Silicon switch has been in the news for almost 5 years now in various rumors form and on various rumor sites and you didn’t see it coming? It’s practically been a cacophony. Sorry, that’s on you.
Good question. I bought the 5700 when it was released just to get the extra Thunderbolt ports to support my storage library. $250/connector. Jeez!
This is confusing. It seems the W5500X has the same memory size and performance. It also has fewer compute units and supports fewer monitors. What info is missing which would explain the $200 increase over the base 580X?
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Newer and shinier .
Later down the road when Apple drops "Polaris" era drivers from other systems, these might eek out a bit longer life ( basically getting a MBP 16" GPU silicon here. So Apple isn't quite as likely to "leave behind". It is 2019 era so better match to 2019 era of rest of Mac Pro. ) There is an edge case if driving a single XDR where the display data compression allows to get better speed out of the USB sockets on the XDR ( video clogs TB stream a bit less).
Similar in 4K - 5K display range may squeeze out some more moderate-high 3D object frame rates because it has better raster ops performance.
Finally, there is an edge case if measuring power consumption ( heat producing) in a rack environment where this laptop zone target chip is just going to consume less power doing what the 580X would be doing at around the same speed.
But yeah, as a computation GPU alternative , $200 isn't a good value proposition ( over the 580X ). It drives fewer monitors (only 4 display stream outputs). It isn't an across the board update. It is a corner case upgrade. ( Apple probably gets some upshift because the semi-custom NAVI they are using here and in the MBP 16" gets some more volume. But that isn't really an end user upside. )
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Not confusing. There are a few corner cases where it is more useful. But otherwise Apple pockets some more money for those who are chasing "newer shiny" and want to toss another $200 into the systems ( "can't buy the 580X because it is 'old"! --> more money for Apple) .
Assuming Apple updates the Mac Pro to ARM, what do you expect them to use for GPU?
Continue using AMD.
Graphics cards with Apple's own GPU chips.
Rely solely on SoC (system on chip) graphics.
Continue using AMD.
Graphics cards with Apple's own GPU chips.
Rely solely on SoC (system on chip) graphics.
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Well yes, and technically so is a teraflop. I guess I should've written "Jiggawatts" Oops. 🤦♂️I can assure you "gigawatt" is a real word.
The Navi GPU (W5500X) supports HEVC and VP9 up to 8K. The Polaris GPU (580X) supports HEVC up to 4K. So the W5500X is better for video. I think that’s about it. The 580X has better compute performance (double precision). So whether the new GPU is better depends what it will be used for.
The same reason the 580X has the HDMI ports—the MXM module routes the relevant TB inputs to the existing ports, and the HDMI is there for people who don't need a ton of graphics grunt and are more likely to have HDMI displays. Sound production is as people mentioned, a good example; the half-slot size also allows for more internal expansion as a flexibility option.
And yeah, the hand-wringing about ARM is dumb. Even if, as I expect, they produce an ARM Mac Pro that matches or exceeds Intel's offerings, the existing power doesn't disappear. In the best case scenario, Apple's commitment to their MXM modules means that the 7,1s might get some additional life with GPUs further down the line... but even if they don't, regular third-party cards will still be there.
The people holding onto 5,1s have shown "obsolescence" is very much in the eye of the beholder.
Given how fast Apple's SOC graphics options are, and the fact that at WWDC they mentioned the unified memory architecture, I imagine a bunch of new Macs are just going to use the SOC graphics, but for high-end machines that's not a great option from what we've seen; in those cases I expect discrete AMD graphics will still exist.
So some slightly better video features and less power consumption? Thanks for the info.
It’s strange Apple didn’t make this the new default card. Perhaps they will in time, but it would make sense given how similar they are.
It may once drivers are better and more stable. AMD has been horrible in the driver department and I expect that Apple is implementing the base functionality right now and the drivers are still not optimized yet, but I could be off base. I would hope that six months later, AMD RDNA driver should be in better shape than the picture the article paints.
AMD releases the Radeon 5500XT
Yesterday AMD released the mid-range Radeon 5500XT card, a 1080p focused part.
semiaccurate.com