However any new chips and systems will be a mixed bag, I'm sure faster in some things, and slower in others. Time will tell.
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Apple's Next iMac Pro: Everything We Know
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However any new chips and systems will be a mixed bag, I'm sure faster in some things, and slower in others. Time will tell.
As others have pointed out, for many reasons it's safe to say that this is a done deal.
Here's a possibility: the Jade2C is actually seen "logically" by the OS as a single SoC, so 2 of them (i.e. Jade4C) are seen by the OS in a way consistent with what the dev claimed.
Well the MBP 16" with M1 MAX is already thrashing $15000 Mac Pros in many tasks (especially video editing).
I expect the significant majority of people who bought Mac Pros did so for workloads they are being paid handsomely for and those machines have likely been fully amortized and paid for by now. So even if those users scrap them in 2022 or 2023 for an Apple Silicon Mac Pro, the same situation will apply and they will be paid for soon enough from customer jobs.
Then we have the people who bought it with expectation they will use them for a decade-plus (see John Siracusa, for example). Most of those folks likely knew going in that Apple was going to abandon Intel for their own CPUs and many of them had 2012-or-earlier models for a decade-plus and they kept them working long after Apple stopped supporting them with macOS and security updates. So they will continue to use their Intel Mac Pros long after Apple stops supporting Intel products.
Honestly, the only people really at "risk" are those who bought them for vanity purposes - and even then, if you can afford to drop that amount of money on a machine just for "fun", you can likely afford to do it again within five years.
Understandable, but they were 100% correct on M1 Pro and M1 Max so I believe they are also correct on Jade2C-Die and Jade4C-Die.
Could be. One of the reasons why I could see that neither model drops before WWDC when Apple can dedicate sessions to explaining how they work and how to properly program for them.
And if that is the case, then either iMac Pro does not get them (if it launches before WWDC) or it does not launch until WWDC alongside them. Because I do not see Apple launching iMac Pro in early 2022 with M1 Pro and M1 MAX only and then three months later (post-WWDC) also offer Jade2C-Die as a BTO option. There would be far too much risk of significant customer backlash from a very important part of their market (the people who can actually drop $5000 for an M1 MAX Duo with 128GB).
The current top-end iMac is already more powerful than the entry-level Mac Pro. Part of the premium for the Mac Pro is the PCIe expansion (the number of slots and bandwidth is huge even by PC Workstation standards) and the massive RAM capacity and ECC RAM - and it is an interesting question how, or if, Apple are going to match that with Apple Silicon.
Also, the M1 Pro/Max‘s main advantage is its low power consumption - it thrashes anything that can run in a thin laptop that is practical to run on battery, but it isn’t going to be so impressive against a Mac Pro with quad high-end, full size, desktop GPUs and a 1500W power supply...
A quad M1 Max is going to look a lot more impressive in a small-form-factor all-in-one or “cube”. I think Apple are going to need to “think different” to replace the Mac Pro and I wouldn’t be surprised if there is never a 1-for-1 replacement.
I'm just disappointed that more trash can Macs haven't been coming my way. I'll gladly take one off someone's hands. My old Mac Pro is nearing the graveyard, sadly.
My guess is 1Q 2022 we’ll get 27/30” iMac and maybe Mac mini with M1 Max, WWDC we’ll get iMac pro and “the cube” with jade-2C. MacPro will take longer, probably not 2022 and will present changes in way tasks are processed.
As a 2018MBP owner who got very frustrated when Apple released an upgraded graphics 3months after release, I hope they don’t do it again. As for MacPro owners I think a significant number will be ok within that timeframe, as AS software adoption has been so painfully slow, they’ll have to keep running Windows.
Spring 2022 will give us 27" iMacs (new design) & Mac minis (possible new taller design) with M1 Pro/Max SoCs...
WWDC 2022 will give us 30" iMac Pros & Mac Pro Cubes with M1 Pro/Max Dual/Quad SoCs; as well as a final update for the 2019 Intel Mac Pro, new motherboard, new Xeon CPUs, new RDNA3-based MPX GPUs...?
I don’t think there’ll be different screen for Big iMac and iMac Pro, they’ll be same design chassis with different internals. Also be pleasantly surprised to see Quad SoC in WWDC.
Though your point about refreshment of intel offer for MacPro makes sense, I suspect it will depend on the “cube” success. It may also send “contradictory” signs about AS in top performing machines, so if it happens it will be very discretely, and IMHO only makes sense to “gain” time.
Yup. I don't think we'll see three size classes. We may see a distinction between Pro and non-Pro at the same size class, perhaps even differentiated by color, but I'm not sure about that. Can't be that many non-Pro people who want an iMac that big.
I think that's a plausible bet.
I agree with you in general. Seems like 2C and 4C are going to warrant a dedicated explainer type event/launch.
So maybe it really is iMac (early 2022) and iMac Pro, Mac Pro later (June 22). Trick for me would be whether to get a maxed out iMac early or waiting in hopes of an iMac Pro. I can wait as long as my current rig keeps chugging along.
...or "pro" people who don't want some sort of choice over their display type and VESA mounting.
The rest is kinda just ramblings on the general topics in this thread:
"pro" means nothing - it's just a label that means "higher spec than the model without 'pro' in the name" if that. Some consumers buy high-end iMacs, some pros use MacBook Airs (probably moreso with the M1 models). Going forward Apple have the opportunity to use "Pro" consistently to refer to systems with M1,2... Pro and M1,2... Max chips (if the "2-port" 13" MBP goes away with the release of the M2 Air that's almost done).
That would make a lot of sense because the "single" M1 Pro is already getting into the territory where you won't see much improvement over the M1 in general-purpose "productivity" apps that don't take advantage of multi-threading or GPU-based processing - but the reality is that any "pro" label will be stuck on by the marketing department, not the engineers.... and frankly the marketing department have dropped the ball by not coming up with a snappy brand name for the M-series chips.
So, ignoring "Pro", with Intel Macs, the big divide was between general-purpose Core-i (MacBook/MacBookPro/iMac/Mini) and "workstation class" Xeon (Mac Pro/iMac Pro) - which was largely justified by Intel's strategy of maintaining an - arguably artificial - premium between the two, and reserving some features (including ECC RAM, higher core counts) for Xeon. I think there were similar shenanigans with GPUs and support for CUDA/OpenCL drivers. Even AMD CPUs don't have such a rigid divide (Epyc is very much about server workloads rather than an arbitrary line in the sand between workstations and "prosumer") - and with Apple Silicon, the only reason why such a distinction should exist is if Apple decide to make ECC RAM (which I believe is in the LPDDR5 spec, but heavens knows how much ECC LPDDR RAM will cost...*) the line in the sand. So it's really up to Apple to decide what sort of distinction there will be between "workstations" and "regular desktops". It could be the dual-M1 Max, it could be the quad M1 Max, it could be ECC, and for the headless/tower workstation it could be some sort of external-DRAM-as swap arrangement to get the higher RAM capacities or simply PCIe slots (for which there are lots of applications beyond the probably dead external GPU option).
Looking at the current iMac range, it's notable that it runs from $1799 for the entry level to $3199 just looking at CPU and GPU options, up to $6000 if you max out the RAM and add a 1TB SSD (you can go even higher if you put the silly SSDs in). If you imagine a M1 Max x4 version - that's probably going to come with a minimum of 128GB of RAM, given that the current, single M1 Max starts at 32GB - probably, in part, because the GPU needs a big chink of it, and on a 4x you want each GPU to have enough local RAM to keep it fed)... so it's really that $6000 model that you're comparing with (and no sneakily buying an aftermarket RAM upgrade for a fraction of the price with Apple Silicon!). Even a M1 Max x2 - by the same sort of logic - could have a minimum starting price of $4000.
(Of course, Apple may come up with a way of having 4 M1 Max's share the same pool of unified RAM... but, frankly, if you need a x4 are you going to cut corners on RAM? - anyway, I'm being open minded as to whether the "x2" and "x4" options are single dies, multiple dies in the same package or separate packages)
So we could easily have a "big iMac" range stretching from $2000 to $6000 (and beyond with big SSD options). There's plenty of room there to create a "consumer/workstation" distinction of Apple's choosing.
The other thing to consider is that the iMac Pro looks to have been a bit of a flop - that doesn't mean that there aren't happy owners, but there was no update, the maxed-out, cheaper, iMac ended up being able to beat the entry-level iMP in a sprint and it was quietly dropped possibly a year before any Apple Silicon replacement. Also, I deeply suspect that the iMac Pro was supposed to be the real replacement for the "trashcan" Mac Pro: the timing of the unprecedented, early-2017 "please don't leave us pros, we love you and we're working on a new modular Mac Pro, honest!" press conference feels just right for when they would have been showing "key partners" prototypes of the iMac Pro - and there's no evidence that they had any plans for a new Mac Pro at that point. So they might not be in a hurry to revisit the "iMac Pro" name, if only for political reasons... Same goes for the "cube"... Of course, if they are prepared to revisit past not-so-much-glories, there are so many possibilities...
- iMac Pro (with M1 Pro) staring from ~$2000
- iMac Pro (With M1 Max) starting from ~$3000
- iMac Duo (M1 Max x2) starting from ~$4000 (maybe)
- iMac Quadra (M1 Max x4) staring from ~$6000 (very maybe)
Screens max. 30" with a notch, of course, so that they can pretty much fit into something the same size as the current model. Called "superfluid ultra XDR retina double plus" which means whatever tech Apple could get and still enjoy a generous profit margin.
- Mac Cube staring from ~$2500 (regular), $3500 (Duo), $5500 (Quadra)
...and the icing on the cake:
- "Mac I'm A Real Pro" staring from ~$10000 - 16 core Xeon (yes, but wait...) - with a M1 Max x4 "compute & graphics" module occupying the first MPX slot. Up to 1.5TB of DIMM-based RAM on the mainboard which acts as ultra-fast swap for the 128GB M1. Up to 4 additional MPX M1 Max cards can be added for $youhavetobekidding each - also compatible with existing Mac Pros by disabling secure boot and installing an unauthorised hack which Apple will eventually be embarrassed into supporting.
You heard it here first! (Honestly, I'm only half joking - but if I'm right about the names then I'll start googling for edible hats)
(*...but given that Apple charges $25-per-GB that Apple charges for BTO RAM upgrades whether they're LPDDR4x modules built into the M1 package or bog standard DDR4 SODIMS, the BOM is probably irrelevant...)
The IMP was a bandaid, a small snack to tie people over until dinner. Well, and dinner didn't come so well for the low end purchasers apparently. An idea: given that the IMP, past, was differentiated by the space gray *everything*, and Apple killed all of the separately available space gray accessories, how will they differentiate any second coming of that model? Make them pink? Make them BIG? Make them chinless, and thin bezels? Make them a box with a separate attached monitor? I seriously doubt they will bring back a space gray IMP again, and bring back the matching accessories. They could, but that would be a little embarrassing.
If we are shooting for the stars, I'm partial to a Novec immersion cooled screamer with a 35" screen.
Would it? Keep in mind this year’s iMac changed the look and feature set of the accessories.
My point is: Apple didn't KILL them, and then bring them back. If that's what happens...
No, I know, but that would only be embarrassing if they brought them back in exactly the same style.
We can surmise the new Pro keyboards would mimic some design cues from the 24-inch iMac's keyboard (and some features, such as external Touch ID), and perhaps some from the M1 Pro MacBook Pro.
(It is a little weird that they bothered to discontinue them either way. They must have sold really poorly?)
I dunno - getting a Xeon space-heater into an iMac-size computer probably wasn't easy, and while it was externally iMac-shaped the cooling system and internal layout was completely re-designed. It didn't seem like something that was thrown together in a few months to address what was, quite clearly, a crisis at Apple. The problem was the concept of an all-in-one, premium-priced Xeon workstation with no (officially) user-servicable parts inside and no alternative to an (albeit quite nice) 27" prosumer-class display... if that concept floated your boat, though, it seemed like a pretty good execution. If they wanted a stop-gap, Foxconn could have had a cargo-ship full of bog-standard ATX Xeon towers in premium cases on the next tide.
Going by the new MacBook Pros vs. the 24" iMac and the M2 Air leaks, while the Amateurs will get to "taste the rainbow" the new Professional will be wearing "any colour you like provided its black and silver".
Not to call the project easy, but it was essentially the iMac chassis with a simplified mainboard (no more need for a hard drive, etc.), and a Xeon CPU. The remaining room was then filled with a beefier cooling system. And they upgraded the camera.
They had already done the 6700K, which ran at 91W. The regular Xeon W-2100 runs at 120W or 140W, but Apple's special 'B' editions ran at lower wattage, so probably something in between 91 and 120.
Again, that's not to downplay the project. But it wasn't exactly miracle work. It was just a design with some very clear goals in mind (put a many-core CPU in there, and then see how we can cool), and they achieved that.
I know someone who immediately got one.
Not my cup of tea, but if you enjoy the iMac, want it to be as powerful as reasonable in that form factor, and can afford spending $5000 and beyond, sure, why not. If you use that product professionally for four years, that's, what, $105 a month. Compared to salary and other employee costs, that's nothing.
Yep.
I certainly thought about one when they were announced in 2017 - but a Xeon was overkill for me and the premium over the fairly-high-spec iMac I ended up getting was just a bit too high (even though, at the time, I could have got an educational discount) - esp. with a cheap 3rd party RAM upgrade on the iMac. Plus I'd have to have waited several more months for the iMac Pro to be actually available. What I really wanted was one of the aforementioned "bog-standard ATX Xeon towers in premium cases" but that ain't gonna happen. Frankly, I'd be going PC around now if it weren't for the promise of M1 (which, at least, turns having soldered-in, non-upgradeable everything into a significant performance increase...)
So I don't think the iMP was bad when it came out - but come 2020 and the top-end iMac is faster than the base iMP, the higher specs are still expensive - and Intel Mac has an expiry date.
We’ve only got 1 @ 4K so I can’t say for sure. You’d be able to do 2 @ 4K for sure I imagine though as long as you split up the Thunderbolt busses.
From the Apple Tech Specs page: https://support.apple.com/kb/SP771?locale=en_US
- Simultaneously supports full native resolution on the built-in display at 1 billion colors and:
- Two 5120‑by‑2880 (5K) external displays at 60Hz with support for 1 billion colors, or
- Four 3840-by-2160 (4K UHD) external displays at 60Hz with support for 1 billion colors, or
- Four 4096‑by‑2304 (4K) external displays at 60Hz with support for millions of colors
Think 24" iMac but a tad thicker to accommodate the M1 Pro/Max thermal management system, screen size about 27 to 30 inches, and only available in the same color scheme as the old iMac Pro. That's the new iMac Pro. Don't be surprised if the iMac Pro's M1 Max has been modified with a different memory controller to support as much as 128 GB of RAM.
Did you wish for something snappy like for example "Snapdragon"? I think the naming of Apples chips is pretty straight forward compared to other chip manufacturers. So I'm happy that it's not completely confusing and weird.
I think the iMac Pro did for Apple what they expected. Like you said it was just a temporary replacement for the Trashcan Mac Pro until the new expandable Mac Pro was ready.
And I don't think Apple is afraid to use the iMac Pro name again. For most people the iMac Pro was a unreachable extreme expensive computer for professionals so they didn't take much notice. And the professionals don't care what a computer is called.
In contrary, if Apple decides to call the bigger iMac "iMac Pro" and it is available for ~$2400 for someone who doesn't look at the specs it seems like the price of the iMac Pro just was cut in half.