Apple Offers Developers a Closer Look at the New Mac Pro

[pondosinatra]

If they really wanted to make it revolutionary, they would have made it cube shaped and small and cheap. You'd be able to increase your processing power by connecting more cubes together......maybe have it max out at a 5x5x5 matrix of cubes. If it had two GPU's then you'd have 250 GPU's crunching away at numbers. It would also be a nod to not only the Mac Cube (which despite the cost was an excellent machine) and the NeXT Cube and obviously to Steve.

As for peripherals, have it connect to some kind of docking station which would act as a hub for everything - storage, monitors etc.

Man, if I had a billion dollars start up money I'd totally make these. Somebody else take my idea and run with it, just inscribe my name inside every case.

 

[StoneJack]

My beloved G350 B&W was my first real computer I bought at university.
Added many drives, increased RAM (it had whopping 64 mb of RAM then, lol to 512 mb), exchanged video card for ATI Rage to play Unreal Tournament, changed CD ROM to DVD RW drive, changed the CPU, added expansion cards.. it was such a great and expandable machine.. it came with Mac OS 7.5 and worked all the way to OS X 10.3 Panther.. Now you can't find such Mac anymore

 

[Mago]

Apple, given the impact this design, sure will consider "Gamer" verision (non-xeon/single or dual low-end gpu).

Few people play games on mac mostly because current HW (except MP) dont rivalize with PS3/Xbox, but thera are few very good titles as Deus Ex, among others.

 

[sperry1988]

For all of you whining about how this isnt for pro's, maybe you should ask yourself if you are a pro in the first place?

When ever someone says "I need a mac pro" everyone assumes said person does nothing but work in final cut all day long. The reason for this is because these people have the biggest mouths and their voices get heard the most.

But there are many other uses for a mac pro than just video editing. In fact most mac pros sold are NOT used for video editing but in other areas. Science and 3D modeling alone are two industries where more mac pros are sold than video editing, but we never hear these people complain and scream that everything wasn't designed just for them. Walk into a real lab and you will find tons of pros connected working on different things, most are connected to a SAN or something simular. Most are doing real work, not just sitting there as a render machine...

Im willing to bet that if mac somehow made this machine incompatible with final cut, it would still be a huge seller (in mac pro terms.)

 

[nikto70]

no, 2.5GB transfer for hard drives isn't met already about anywhere in the real world so far.

Guess I'm just confused then. I thought PCI had a way faster transfer (or higher bandwidth) than Thunderbolt. Isn't this why many of the pros are up in arms since there is no way to get native PCI externally from this Mac Pro? As I understand it right now: PCI-e 3.0 x16 =16 GB/s.

Someone educate me here!

 

[NT1440]

If they really wanted to make it revolutionary, they would have made it cube shaped and small and cheap. You'd be able to increase your processing power by connecting more cubes together......maybe have it max out at a 5x5x5 matrix of cubes. If it had two GPU's then you'd have 250 GPU's crunching away at numbers. It would also be a nod to not only the Mac Cube (which despite the cost was an excellent machine) and the NeXT Cube and obviously to Steve.

So...the model of modular computers from the 60's? How is that revolutionary?

 

[omnious]

Quickly photoshopped on a *real* Mac Pro.

 

[snowmen]

Agree with a lot of what you're saying here, but TB2 will be a transitional solution. Customers with existing TB equipment will be able to work just fine on a TB2 capable machine. If / when they're ready to add TB2 devices into the mix, it's just as easy as that.

Problem is we don't have such transitional period.

You see... for companies who uses current/previous generation Mac Pro, they don't even have TB devices at all. Even their external hard drive/raid solutions would not be TB devices. And now you expect them to spend thousands of dollars to switch to a port that nobody even know if it will succeed?

It's a very unsafe move for any professional. We're not rich kids fooling around. We may spend thousands but every penny we spend we have to make a return of it... At least it's what we want isn't it?

AAPL has done a lot of transitions in the past. Just to name a few: Motorola to IBM... Classic OS to OSX... IBM to Intel... FCP6 to FCPX... QT7 to QTX... 32bit to 64bit... And all AAPL's successful transition has either done it with a long transitional period of time and seamless. If not, all others failed considerably. That is the reason I have doubt about Mac Pro.

We simply don't have a transition time for external expansion solution. Some kids here said we didn't even check if there is TB -> Fibre Channel around... Of course not! Up to today we don't even need to know its existence because there is no TB port on any Mac Pro that we currently use! Why should we care expect for those who wants to switch to Mac Mini or iMac?
Are there any company invested in TB -> Fibre Channel last couple months for their Mac Pro? LOL

 

[cmanderson]

Problem is we don't have such transitional period.

You see... for companies who uses current/previous generation Mac Pro, they don't even have TB devices at all. Even their external hard drive/raid solutions would not be TB devices. And now you expect them to spend thousands of dollars to switch to a port that nobody even know if it will succeed?

It's a very unsafe move for any professional. We're not rich kids fooling around. We may spend thousands but every penny we spend we have to make a return of it... At least it's what we want isn't it?

AAPL has done a lot of transitions in the past. Just to name a few: Motorola to IBM... Classic OS to OSX... IBM to Intel... FCP6 to FCPX... QT7 to QTX... 32bit to 64bit... And all AAPL's successful transition has either done it with a long transitional period of time and seamless. If not, all others failed considerably. That is the reason I have doubt about Mac Pro.

We simply don't have a transition time for external expansion solution. Some kids here said we didn't even check if there is TB -> Fibre Channel around... Of course not! Up to today we don't even need to know its existence because there is no TB port on any Mac Pro that we currently use! Why should we care expect for those who wants to switch to Mac Mini or iMac?
Are there any company invested in TB -> Fibre Channel last couple months for their Mac Pro? LOL

You'll still be able to plug existing TB equipment into the TB2 ports, so in a sense there is a transitional period. There's also bridge solutions and USB 3.0, which is available to current Mac Pro's via plug-in adapters. Firewire 800 adapters for TB exist. There's also eSATA solutions via Thunderbolt docks (see OWC.)

Finally, there's a fair amount of super fast PCIe storage in the MacPro itself. I'm not sure we know what the limit will be (previously heard rumors up to 2TB).

I can't shake a stick without seeing someone post about how USB 3.0 is good enough and TB is a waste, so if that's actually true (it isn't in a lot of cases), those ports are there as well.

And then there's the possibility of TB to FC bridging as you've suggested, or 10GigE and iSCSI.

I understand some want a big honking aluminum noise maker under or at the side of their desk (I've even seen absurd pictures of them on medium size desks next to monitors, which is ridiculous in most of those cases...I'll assume <1% of those are real pro users.) But the internal storage options via SATA have already been limited, and then there's the PCI / PCIe expansion which has been removed and replaced by TB. I can see how many feel hurt by that, but I've come up from the age of the 286 PC and over time, I have found less and less need for it in my use cases.

I know I don't speak for everyone, but times change and change is what a lot of folks are most afraid of. In the middle there are legitimate complaints, and for those I suspect they'll hold on to their late model Mac Pro's for as long as they're useful. The Apple Police won't be coming for them.

This isn't directed at you, just my own commentary on what I've seen in print in so many places including this forum.

 

[PCVSMAC]

Guess I'm just confused then. I thought PCI had a way faster transfer (or higher bandwidth) than Thunderbolt. Isn't this why many of the pros are up in arms since there is no way to get native PCI externally from this Mac Pro? As I understand it right now: PCI-e 3.0 x16 =16 GB/s.

Someone educate me here!

people are confusing GB and Gb

Bit , and Bytes

your info is correct. the thunderbolt is only 20Gb/s thats around 3GB/s

3 PCIe 3.0 lanes only.

have a nice day

 

[cmanderson]

Problem is we don't have such transitional period.

AAPL has done a lot of transitions in the past. Just to name a few: Motorola to IBM... Classic OS to OSX... IBM to Intel... FCP6 to FCPX... QT7 to QTX... 32bit to 64bit... And all AAPL's successful transition has either done it with a long transitional period of time and seamless. If not, all others failed considerably. That is the reason I have doubt about Mac Pro.

There's good sense here, and one possibility (only a possibility in some markets, since current Mac Pro was removed in others) is a "Mac Pro Classic" or something of the sort. I don't put much weight in that possibility, but it is one and could stem some of the tide for those customers who decide they simply can't live with external storage and the possibility of having to replace the CPU every couple of years as GPU technology advances. If external GPU were a good alternative, it would be less of an issue.

 

[aragdog]

New MacPro

I know I am late to the party. But as an owner of 5 MacPros including the latest one. I am interested in this. First of all I insert and take out USB's from my cameras all of the time. Rotating this thing and all will be tiring and bad with all of the cables attached, poor design. Then no double processors, or allowance for PCI expansion. I am not a player here. Did Apple read any of the comments and prayers from most users? I guess not.

 

[nikto70]

people are confusing GB and Gb

Bit , and Bytes

your info is correct. the thunderbolt is only 20Gb/s thats around 3GB/s

3 PCIe 3.0 lanes only.

have a nice day

Thanks! Seems like Apple could've avoided a lot drama by simply including a damn PCI socket.

 

[melendezest]

I Love It!!!

I definitely understand the complaints of many of the pros here.

This system just doesn't address your needs the way that you wanted them addressed.

However, I believe that "modularity" trumps all-in-one here. This thing is so powerful, with so much bandwidth, that it really is the computer of the future. Apple made the Mac Pro really flexible because it is modular; you add what you need and only what you need, if and when you need it. They stripped it down (to the chagrin of many, understandably) as Apple always does; look at their notebook line. Unlike a notebook, though, modularity on a desktop makes sense.

I agree with another poster that stated that Apple is going after a subset of the pro market; this is almost a new niche. I also believe this thing strikes at the heart of the needs of every prosumer out there. This thing will be expandable forever. Thunderbolt 2 (albeit relatively expensive) makes sure of that. Just imagine: External graphics cards, external memory, external extra CPUs, all added on-demand, if necessary. Expensive? Probably. Flexible, certainly. This will grow with me and my needs for quite some time, and I don't have to spend the money up-front for "future proofing".

On the other hand, I understand that this thing is way, way ahead of its time for many. I feel for you pros that don't like it because it doesn't fit your current equipment plans.

But like it or not, this is the future. Modular everything. I for one, understand what Apple was going for and I am glad they went this direction. Putting everything in one case doesn't have the advantages it did before (again, for many). It is Apple's version of the newer Craftsman tools and its many attachments.

Art + POWER = Beauty and Joy. I have found my new computer (even if I'll NEVER really tax this thing)!

 

[cmanderson]

I know I am late to the party. But as an owner of 5 MacPros including the latest one. I am interested in this. First of all I insert and take out USB's from my cameras all of the time. Rotating this thing and all will be tiring and bad with all of the cables attached, poor design. Then no double processors, or allowance for PCI expansion. I am not a player here. Did Apple read any of the comments and prayers from most users? I guess not.

A USB 3.0 hub (or Thunderbolt display) can solve part of that problem. 12 cores on one die would perform better than 6 cores on 2 die. TB can solve the PCI expansion delimma, and there are 6 TB 2 ports. It's not for everyone, obviously, but it will work for many.

 

[rezwits]

3 PCIe Chassis, exist

Thanks! Seems like Apple could've avoided a lot drama by simply including a damn PCI socket.

I have seen 3 PCIe Thunderbolt Chassis

You could have at minimum 18 PCIe slots. Expensive but, damn, I think Apple is saying to itself. Numbers please, out of 400,000 (or whatever) Mac Pros, how many slots go unused out of 1,200,000 slots made? And probably they estimate around at least 6,000,000 go unused, what a waste of money. That's just a classic argument for starters.

But for the guys who go, man if I could only get 5 cards in this! Well this is best of both worlds. They can stack PCIe cards, guys can build ANYTHING.

Technology is moving MICRO and to SMALL "POWER" CORE machines, meaning really tiny but really powerful but also modular and expandable. Pocket sized in the end.

But hey even in this smaller micro technological world, they are at least giving guys the chance to create huge monstrosities...

I think I am in the camp with some other guys on mac forums, who are in one group, not GREEDY. We are happy that Apple didn't not give up on the Mac Pro. Them not giving up on the Mac Pro is AWESOME!

They could have said, "Here is this MacMini RAIC case, where you can put 4 MacMini's in it and Bridge them via Thunderbolt, with power supplies for all 4 minis, HAVE FUN."

To me it is very simple. All around us we have these RAID towers, 4,5,8 even 16 drive bays. So they said forget this if you want drives get a Thunderbolt RAID array. AND then add the above PCIe expansion chassis argument.

And that's it. I mean you could argue the optical drive missing too. But, this is Apple it's what they do, DITCH older tech, DITCH unused tech.

 

[maxosx]

Thanks! Seems like Apple could've avoided a lot drama by simply including a damn PCI socket.

But then it wouldn't be Apple, they love drama, lawsuits, vitriol, and silence over everything else.

That's until they want to get up on stage seeking another standing ovation.. ha..ha..ha..

This new Mac Pro hits all their targets when it comes to styling which is right up there with grabbing headlines and attention.

 

[nikto70]

I have seen 3 PCIe Thunderbolt Chassis

But can you run PCI-e natively? Will you be able to get more than 2.5 GB/s bandwidth? From what I understand this will be a major problem for certain GPUs and certain situations (high end video/graphic people) where you need much more bandwidth than what Thunderbolt can provide. Maybe all these high end people have already switched a while ago to running Linux on PCs (i.e., Pixar)? Perhaps Apple has simply let go of this market. I dunno.

 

[rezwits]

^ truth, in it's utmost form.

This is the Mac mini Pro. Where exactly do I plug in my $3000 DSP Farm Card, oh yeah that's right I don't. Apple's current focus is if you buy an iPhone your deemed an instant creative professional. In a year or two they'll cite lack of sales and kill it off as well as USA based mfg/assembly. For a Mac mini upgrade this is awesome, for a current Mac Pro replacement this is a joke. I wonder if it will have 64gb,128gb, or 256gb internal storage that will be burnt through in a couple of hours of work. Apple's fallen off its square, it should rename itself to Apple Mobile, or Apple Telecom, still waiting on 4&5ghz CPUs Intel can't seem to figure out as well as more than 2 socket configs 8core CPU is 2006 tech dual 8 is 16 core and still 2006, it's like buying the same thing over and over and over except giving it a cool redundant name to explain the lack in technological break throughs and how I will gain battery life/strength.

Yeah but you know or maybe you don't. CPUs and GPUs are to the point where they are maxed out and create a chain:

CPU > GPU > RAM > HD > USB (or similar) & ETHER, WiFi
depending how you want to branch at the end

Now the CPU is maxed, it's just maxed (you know about cores tho). So where we are at is we have to increase the speed of the bottlenecks that create that chain.

GPUs seem like it's a money issue cause they seem to be price point maxed, unless you want this huge flippin box of 16 GPU that are a foot and half long each. So I mean you basically get a $500 video card and that can achieve 120 fps, or crush/render with an excess of 2000-4000 cores or whatever.

The RAM so really fast, so next in line is make the HD like RAM or RAM disk.

The next thing after that is to make USB/FW/SATA faster, enter TBolt, which trying to have a direct link to the Processor, bypassing the motherboard.

As a bonus the Thunderbolt also doubles as a network interface.

so now you have

CPU GPU RAM SSD and TB (the last interface Internet, which will take a while with WiFi too)

The bottlenecks are getting destroyed! That's the PLUS. This is the way, the future of computing.

When you sit there and plop a 1TB drive or Camera with Thunderbolt (if it exist yet), you will be able to transfer files at 1 GB/s speeds? 500 GB transfer in 10 minutes? And then you can just use the file right from the SSD without putting it in RAM. (in the near future) THIS IS SICK SPEED HDs 5 years ago were doing 1 TB in 12-16 hours!!hours!!

People just need to get a grip. And understand they don't know everything about computers and technology. I honest don't either and don't claim to.

I mean I guess yeah you have to love Apple a little here, because you just have to have faith that the engineers THOUGHT about this and the FUTURE and how systems have to evolve to get to the future.

As Phil Schiller, was going really, really fast telling everyone about the Mac Pro in the keynote it was like he was on some kind of drug. You wanna know what that drug was? THat Damn Mac Pro!!! He's been using it and he's no he's going 5x faster than everybody else! And he's pumped because he's crushing companies. That's adrenalin!

Go figure I guess...

wait hold up: 2.5 GIGA Bytes / SECOND isn't enough? wow per device

I had an ATA and I was all doing crazy testing going "Sweet man 9.5 MB/s" that was in 1999-ish? Now with we are at 25x the SPEED! That's pretty good. And these are real specs, True 25x

Oh and now I am going... ok my WiFi is going, you guessed 9.5 MB/s 802.11n thru walls tho

bottlenecks man bottlenecks

 

[thedeske]

So, no one thinks there will be a bunch of exciting things that will plug inside and outside of this interesting new power box. Is that what everyone thinks? Hmm?

You can only see what's on the prototype and how it doesn't fit what you had in mind right now?

 

[AidenShaw]

it's peak 2 GB/s

people are confusing GB and Gb

Bit , and Bytes

your info is correct. the thunderbolt is only 20Gb/s thats around 3GB/s

3 PCIe 3.0 lanes only.

have a nice day

PCIe as implemented on T-Bolt has 20% overhead, so you'll get 16 Gb/s usable. Divide 16 Gb by 8 to get GB, and you have 2 GB/s.

 

[nikto70]

You can only see what's on the prototype and how it doesn't fit what you had in mind right now?

I think people see a very expensive machine that can only be upgraded by replacing it with another very expensive machine down the line. But what the hell do we all know. We're just the internets. I guess we'll see what happens...

 

[Larry-K]

I shuffle quite a few terabytes a day. 3TB worth of data from 7200 rpm drive to another internal SATA drive takes about 12 hours. There are weekends where I move 9-15 TB of files. It takes a loooong time.

And what does 9-15TB of SSD storage cost? You get what you pay for.

 

[capuzino]

The same time it's really interesting and irritating how people argue here about something that they know, let's say nothing about. Like this Mac Pro, which ain't on sale yet.

Someone arguing about the PCIe bandwidth, that's too low for everything.
Thunderbolt, for example, does use PCIe x4 channel (maybe in this situation times 3 or 6), and with that external chipset, which is between the CPU and thunderbolt chipset. While if you have 3 4K screens connected (as one TB2 can handle alone the 4K picture), you should still have opportunity to use the 3 other connectors for 18 other thunderbolt things.
And what this means? By my calculations, it somehow leaves the x16 bandwidth for the both GPUs, as the TB controllers are mixed up in the system the way that GPUs can also use them. And with the "top-of-the-line" configuration, you have enough power for everyone, as we know, Apple works with the hardware bit better than PCs. Oh yeah, and the PCIe x4 they use per port, is by the PCIe 2.0 standard. So for those, they use max of 12GB/s of the PCIe bandwidth, which means they leave 28 for the graphics and other stuff. (and remember that it said PCIe 3.0 40GB/s bandwidth, and for now, we know that TB uses PCIe 2.0. Not sure about this.)

"I have to turn over the Mac Pro to add more stuff connected to it!" Right. USB 3.0 ain't so low speed, neither are the TB2. Use Hubs, or buy the Apple screen that works as one, and you never have to turn around your Mac Pro again.
"No optical drive" Connect it to your TB Hub. Belkin has one, that connects to Thunderbolt 1, and you can connect to it 3,5 plug microphone, headphones, three usb 3.0 things, firewire 400 device, and what's the best: an other TB device. The Hub costs here around 300 euros (24% tax)

"No PCIe slots, and TB is too low for them" Good news for the sound guys: TB to firewire adapters, and TB PCIe expansion cases. They are enough for you. They are stable, as the TB connects almost straight to the main things, and it gives you enough bandwidth to work properly with the top most speed.

For PCIe slots, there ain't HDD/SSD controllers, that can handle fast speeds. If you haven't noticed, the most used PCIe port for SSDs is x4. (and TB is more stable and faster than Sata III. 4 times.) Top most 4GB/s, but for today, the max of the controllers are 2.5, which goes to the same as TB. And you might sometimes connect multiple TBs to get higher speeds, to no worries. That's even a note for the graphic persons.

If you need graphic power, why wouldn't you just connect together few Mac Pros? It's upgradeable (the parts ain't soldered, you know.). You can add the same amount of GPUs than to your old Mac Pros, with much higher bandwidth and speed.

This ain't just Apple's work. It's also work of Intel's engineers.
Apple tells, what they want, Intel shows what they can do. To reach the maximum. From the minimum.

 

[FluJunkie]

So...the model of modular computers from the 60's? How is that revolutionary?

Technically, I'd argue a plug-and-play cluster that seamlessly acts as a single computer, which is what he's actually suggesting, would be pretty damned revolutionary.