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Apple's New Mac Pro Begins Showing Up in Benchmarks

Here's what's up -- lack of significant advancements in CPU technology is a real restriction. There just isn't much to do other than add more cores, and all those cores are hot, which then comes at the expense of clock speed. It's a tricky balance.

In light of that, Apple's decided that the big leap forward in the new generation of Mac Pros will come from the GPU side. Geekbench is a CPU-only test, so you're not seeing the important part. The important part is that on a GPU test it would obliterate any out of the box mac ever, probably by an order of magnitude. From here on out, it's all eggs in the GPU basket.

If the software creators don't take advantage of the dual workstation GPUs, it won't do anyone any good. If they do, then it'll make this new Mac Pro wipe the floor with the old model in real world use (not Geekbench).

Of course, you can always add GPUs to the old model. But it's the change in philosophy that I'm commenting on.
 
MikhailT said:
This is at least $2.5K with the least RAM and SSD assuming they'd do multiple SKUs. I'd suspect it'll be $5k for the standard SKU and max'ed out $10K SKU.
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I think there will be a surge of iMac sales just after the Pro's pricing is announced....
 
Rocketman said:
Everything you listed is solid state. Nothing mechanical.

Steve had a cow over IBM PPC not achieving a Ghz target. This is STILL below 3 Ghz.
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Ok? I'm not sure what you're trying to say about the mechanical part since I didn't say anything. Did you mean to say the solid state would cost more?

As for GHz, it means nothing. It hasn't meant anything for several years now. All the focus is on multiple cores and GPUs with compute capability. There are GPUs that can do 10x of the computation that a CPU can do in several areas.

This single 12-core 2.7Ghz beats the crap out of two 6-core 3.06GHZ CPUs.
 
clamnectar said:
Here's what's up -- lack of significant advancements in CPU technology is a real restriction.

Apple's decided that the big leap forward in the new generation of Mac Pros will come from the GPU side.The important part is that on a GPU test it would obliterate any out of the box Mac ever, probably by an order of magnitude. From here on out, it's all eggs in the GPU basket.

If the software creators don't take advantage of the dual workstation GPUs, it won't do anyone any good. If they do, then it'll make this new Mac Pro wipe the floor with the old model in real world use.
Click to expand...
Agreed. This is a systems engineering approach. Schiller emphasized devs need to use Open CL. That API and its sisters will be GPGPU goodness makers.

CPU tech is maxed out for a while.

The "next thing" is Micron cube memory.

Rocketman
 
Old school tests for a new school computer are not going to flatter.

The new Mac Pro will rely on the GPUs for performance gains. I'll wait for some more relevant tests before judging.
 
Rocketman said:
Since the performance is only incrementally more and the size is substantially less and it is a single chip machine, I suspect this will be under $2k price point. A Mac-Mini x2 of sorts.

The question becomes, what about dual chip versions?
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I think you're dreaming.
 
clamnectar said:
If the software creators don't take advantage of the dual workstation GPUs, it won't do anyone any good. If they do, then it'll make this new Mac Pro wipe the floor with the old model in real world use (not Geekbench).
Click to expand...

I think this is the big "if". Right now, it sounds like there could be a huge variation in what software actually sees a benefit from this hardware, but I guess id things are going to be rewritten anyway for a new OS X, that might give devs a chance to maximize the hardware potential... remains to be seen.
 
clamnectar said:
Here's what's up -- lack of significant advancements in CPU technology is a real restriction. There just isn't much to do other than add more cores, and all those cores are hot, which then comes at the expense of clock speed. It's a tricky balance.

In light of that, Apple's decided that the big leap forward in the new generation of Mac Pros will come from the GPU side. Geekbench is a CPU-only test, so you're not seeing the important part. The important part is that on a GPU test it would obliterate any out of the box mac ever, probably by an order of magnitude. From here on out, it's all eggs in the GPU basket.

If the software creators don't take advantage of the dual workstation GPUs, it won't do anyone any good. If they do, then it'll make this new Mac Pro wipe the floor with the old model in real world use (not Geekbench).

Of course, you can always add GPUs to the old model. But it's the change in philosophy that I'm commenting on.
Click to expand...

They're making one hell of a gamble. People use MPs for all kinds of things. For me as an audio guy, if Steinberg choose not to use GPU processing for Cubase (and why would they, I can't even imagine the work they would have to do) then my current MP will be the last Apple desktop I buy. I'm not going to spend thousands of dollars for some fast GPUs I won't ever use.
 
Do we know if the processor is a final version? If not, it's possible a finalized version will kick out more. Just wondering.
 
interesting. 2x x5690's score higher - with slower ram and sub-systems.

my upgrade path looks like ebay, not a new mac pro. but.. this isn't all there is to it. looking forward to some real benchmarks with real products.
 
MikhailT said:
Ok? I'm not sure what you're trying to say about the mechanical part since I didn't say anything. Did you mean to say the solid state would cost more?

As for GHz, it means nothing. It hasn't meant anything for several years now. All the focus is on multiple cores and GPUs with compute capability. There are GPUs that can do 10x of the computation that a CPU can do in several areas.

This single 12-core 2.7Ghz beats the crap out of two 6-core 3.06GHZ CPUs.
Click to expand...

Beats the crap out of? It's 10% faster than the score they have listed. It's not impressive when X5680s and X5690s are that much faster than the X5675 3.06GHz CPUs. Good for a single CPU box? Absolutely. Just not for anyone who wanted more x86 performance than they maybe already maxed out on.
 
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I am not happy with that benchmark, I feel like if I was just having a bad day with my girlfriend. Kind of sucks.
 
Remember beta hardware and beta software.

ImperialX said:
The benchmarks look kind of...underwhelming.
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For example the processors could be running only at their base speeds. Plus who's to say that these machines will actually ship with these processors. Beyond that any Magericks release would be running as a beta with all of the debug code included.
 
wizard said:
For example the processors could be running only at their base speeds. Plus who's to say that these machines will actually ship with these processors. Beyond that any Magericks release would be running as a beta with all of the debug code included.
Click to expand...

There are only two 12-core CPUs coming that will be suitable, so it's this or the slower 2.4GHz one.
 
MacRumors said:
.....We chatted with John Poole of Primate Labs, who highlighted the substantial improvements in many single-core measures and in memory performance, suggesting that lower multi-core scores later in the Integer Performance testing run could be indicative of thermal issues.

Article Link: Apple's New Mac Pro Begins Showing Up in Benchmarks
Click to expand...

DisMyMac said:
Save a world of problems now, Apple, and add one inch diameter. "Naaaah. We want it thin!"
Click to expand...

The first thing that also came to my mind, when I read possible thermal issues. Why not allow a tiny bit more space around all these heat generating components, for proper dissipation, and save a lot of possible issues later. After all this ain't no sleek iPhone or MBA, but a PRO desktop machine, but then I too thought, they know what they're doing; leave it to them and the final shipping version will be fine.

Sometimes I wonder if their obsession with design comes at the expense of utility and or product longevity, such as in the current gen Time Capsule, where many burned-out power supplies have rendered those units inoperable.
 
Mac Pro 2013

Customer desires:
- Slightly smaller
- Exponentially faster

Apple delivers:
- Slightly faster
- Exponentially smaller.

Oh... and one more thing. You'll no longer be able to upgrade any of the internal components when Intel or AMD upgrade their processors.

Classic :apple:
 
THIS IS COMING FROM A MAC PRO WHICH IS 1/8 IN SIZE OF THE CURRENT MAC PRO!

CAN'T INNOVATE MY ASS INDEED!!!!!!!!!!!!

sorry i had so say this...😱
 
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