Apple's Newest Mac Pro Turns Four Years Old Today

[doctor-don]

Based on the iMac Pro price it wouldn't surprise me if the new Mac Pro starts at $4,999 also with another $1,999 for the new display they make to go with it. Gone are the days of a $1999-$2,499 start price for a Mac Pro I think.

Try $2,999 to $3,999 to start.

 

[SecuritySteve]

Gotcha. I honestly didn’t think there had been any real upgrades to what Apple’s using, until just recently with the Xeon-W and Skylake-SP releases.

Do you think the upcoming Mac Pro will just offer the W series with its max 18 cores, or will they go with the 61xx/81xx? There are some nice parts there... 6144, 6146, 6154, 8168, 8180. 6-channel memory is a big deal for those whose workloads are bottlenecked by memory bandwidth. I suppose dual processors would be too much to ask for. I guess it all depends on how pro is Pro.

My guess is W series; after all Apple’s never offered more than 12 cores before now, and the market for 20-56 core workstations must be very small. But then again, they have offered dual socket machines in the past, though definitely not at the $15k-75k level.

So other than my own needs, I know some rocket scientists (no joke) who use mac machines. They prefer dual-CPU configurations for bandwidth reasons, and I believe they chose not to upgrade to the cylinder in 2013 because it was single CPU whereas the 2012 model had dual CPU capabilities. So I know there is at least is some market for heftier CPU options, and I would imagine that there are also dual GPU pro users for mac as well. If Apple made the upcoming Mac Pro more of an X-mac with processors that range from i5s to dual Xeons, I believe that they could really capture a HUGE segment of the market. I know reviewers tend to state that the 'pc market' is dwindling, in favor tablets and phones. That statement is true, but they underestimate why a huge segment of the 'pc market' will never leave that market - you can always get more power and performance per dollar if you use a larger form factor. These users are enthusiasts, gamers, and lightweight pros. Targeting those users in the Mac product lineup would bring some new life into Apple products and change their reputation amongst the most ardent of PC users.

Personally, what I expect to happen is the modular mac pro will target the dual-CPU / dual-GPU market while letting the iMac Pro target the single-CPU / single-GPU market - so as to offer a clear distinction between the two products and allowing both to coexist side by side.

 

[Greymacuser]

The trashcanmac is a tombstone, marking Apple's indifference towards professional desktop users.

 

[trainwrecka]

I still adore that design. I don’t think it’s proper to do so, but here I am.

Alone on a desk, it looks wonderful. Once you plug in all those wires though? It becomes the ugliest Frankenstein Mac you've ever laid eyes on. I miss my Mac Pro tower. This thing is an eyesore everyday.

 

[Mago]

I know some rocket scientists (no joke) who use mac machines. They prefer dual-CPU configurations for bandwidth reasons, and I believe they chose not to upgrade to

Most scientist (if not all) requiring HPC migrated from macOS to now pretty good CentOS or Ubuntu Linux Distros, thince with these dont have hardware restrictions, in some moved to Master(iMac/MacPro/iMP)<==>Slave Clusters(an array of linux compute servers).

HPC software tool chains have grown very fast thanks to AI/ML grown, now its easy to setup remote virtual GPU accelerators in mixed OS like MacOS/Linux, for scientist most Attractive in macOS now are available free (and community controlled) in Linux, you have a pretty good clone of Continuity for Android Phones in KDE desktop, and most IDE now has an official Linux Version (and myriad clones), and believe Scientist dindt bit the SWIT bait, their are attached to C/Python mostly, new languages as Kotlin are growing much faster in STEM than SWIFT.

Apple did a mortal sin dismissing to update timely the Mac PRo, even the trashcan within its restrictions could served a good user base moving to dual nVidia 1060/1070 GPUs and newer Xeons.

But seems Apple-AMD undiclosed pacts are the actual cause, AMD's Zen Architecture seems tailored to Apple, and even it was co-founded by Apple, dont get surprises to see AMD Epyc CPU in the new Mac Pro, as AMD Vega20 64 (vega20 is codename for vega successor)

 

[loby]

Agree...also add a SD card slot like the iMac pro. I hope the new screen will also allow the current Mac Pro 2013 to be able to hook up to it. include a thunderbolt 2 option for us who have the "Trash Can". That would make up for the lack of upgradability in the current Mac Pro.

5k beauty (or even a 4K) for the current Mac Pro 2013...please...

Again...I hope Apple will give us who bought the Mac Pro 2013 a bone and allow their new monitor to hook up to it. IF they do that, it will show Apple’s heart in that they care about their customers.

If the new monitor is only USB-3 and not have a thunderbolt 2 (or backward comparable option, then we who have the Mac Pro 2013 are left in the dust.

I use a thunderbolt monitor with it. Nice...but a 4K or 5k native Apple Monitor would give us confidence that Apple did not dump us Mac Pro 2013 professionals.

Here’s hoping!
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My quad core i7 Mac mini is five years old today. It's sad there isn't a replacement for it available yet.

I am surprise that my Mac mini 2012 is still fast and runs great over the 2014 version...

Look forward to the next “quad” or “6-core” mini....

 

[Daniel Reed]

Would external GPUs run efficiently with no bottleneck over Thunderbolt 2 ports compared to Thunderbolt 3 on current Macs?

In benchmarks I've seen and tests I've run, there was zero to 5% gains w/ TB3 vs TB2.

The issue w/ TB eGPU in general seems to be latency - more noticeable on long multi-minute single frame renders.

I expected that to improve as Apple cleans up & optimizes OS code for better eGPU support.