Base and Middle Tier Mac Pro Models Offer CPU Performance Similar to iMac Pro

[macsimcon]

These guys run 1,000's of Macs.
https://www.macstadium.com/

But you're making my point. What can a $6,000+ 2019 Mac Pro do that a $3,000 2018 Mac Pro can't do for half the cost? You know that nearly all the Macs at MacStadium and Macminicolo are Mac Minis, so I don't see a niche for putting a 2019 Mac Pro in a data center. I think Apple is making a rack-mount version of the 2019 Mac Pro for video and audio production, not data centers.

And we still don't have an answer: with the deprecation of Server.app, what specific macOS applications is a customer going to want to host on a $6,000+ Mac Pro in a data center?

 

[jelockwood]

Those are 2018 Xeons. 20% slower than today's.

Yep. The Mac Pro is already obsolete in many areas.

• CPU chip as you said is a generation out of date, this likely means other parts of the Intel chipset are also a generation behind, whilst bigger i.e. more core versions of the same generation as Apple include will/should be possible it is not yet clear if newer Intel generations will be
• PCIe slots are it seems only 3.0
• WiFi not upgradeable and does not do WiFi6 even though the iPhone 11 Pro does and was released months earlier
• Video cards, the MPX slots are proprietary and I see no indication anyone except Apple will do MPX video cards you are therefore at the mercy of Apple and theirs whilst covering a range including very powerful ones are already behind the latest AMD PC models, AMD PC models can in theory be used but do not have Mac firmware and would be handicapped by Apple's PCIe 3.0 slots (admittedly current even state of the art GPUs would only have a small penalty but it is clear we are approaching this limit which is one of the reasons Apple made their proprietary MPX connector to boost PCIe 3.0 and why PCs have already gone to PCIe 4.0 and are already looking at 5.0)

 

[BOOMBA]

They are though. Go look at all the benchmarks for the third gen 32 core Threadrippers. They are quite a bit faster for about half the price. Ouch.

I'm seeing single core 32 core threadripper scores of
1086-1384,
and multicore from 9925 to 30585

what's up with these ranges?
(FYI, I am building a 32-core Threadripper system to replace my trashcan, just waiting on the processor to come in stock)

 

[ssgbryan]

Time to write the 4 greatest words in the English language

We Told You So......
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Outside of heavy duty rendering, I don't see the point of the MP now when you factor in the prices. How many sales can they possibly expect along those lines....

I do heavy duty rendering - it is why I am leaving Apple after 20 years.

Ryzen 9 3950x is going in my new box (when I can get my hands on one).
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I just hope Apple keeps the iMac Pro updated. I'm ready to acquire one if they come out with an update.
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Games are single core. If you are crunching numbers or compressing video, you need as many cores as you can afford.

Maybe on OSX they are, but on Windows the low end ones use four cores, AAA games are 6 - 8 cores/threads.

The next generation of AAA games (2020) will be using 8 cores/16 threads, since that is the specifications of the upcoming game consoles (PS5 and the XBox Series X)

 

[bpeeps]

Thanks I'll stick with my 2019 iMac.

You were going to anyway. 😂

 

[LordVic]

Yikes, so AMD’s 3950X processor ($1,289 and in-stock now at NewEgg) with its GB5 scores of 1,309 SC and 14,174 MC, sorta makes these scores seem, idk, a bit underwhelming?

(I know that *somehow* I’m comparing Apples to oranges, but come on...)

It's a decent comparison. Zen2 is seriously shaking up the playing field. Intel is no longer the defacto leader in IPC. That means that Ryzen 3's cheaper offerings with more core counts, are now competitive in more scenarios.

In many builds, Intel is just no longer the automatic answer. It would be a massive blow to Intel if companies like Dell, Apple, HP, Asus started shifting their lineups over to use Zen2 based CPU's.

Though I don't think AMD has yet released their Zen2 based mobile chipset.
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Wow I can't believe my 2017 iMac (non-pro) beat the Mac Pro in single core performance. My results were 1082/4529. Obviously the Mac Pro destroys my iMac on multi core performance.

Does single core even matter these days? You can only scroll a website or launch an app so fast. My guess it will be multi-core software and graphics performance which makes or breaks this machine.

None of your results shuold really unexpected. As you increase core count on CPU's (especially without a die shrink in the process) you run into thermal barriers. Especially when you are putting a limit in your chips total thermal output.

This results in lower core count CPU's having overall faster cores. More cores you add, the slower they have to generally be to avoid pumping in too uch heat.



As for single threaded performance? It's going to depend thoroughly on what you are doing and whether or not the software platform being used is capable of taking care of multiple threading or not.

You'll find that not everything can be threaded. Certain maths, certain order of operations etc, just can't be threaded as they are sequential in nature. Not to mention any legacy software written before threading was really popular.

Some things that don't thread terribly well: Lots of games are still using < 4 threads. Some DB engines (older ones). Some IDE's. Some machine learning. it really comes down to specific use cases.

 

[iBug2]

Yep. The Mac Pro is already obsolete in many areas.

• CPU chip as you said is a generation out of date, this likely means other parts of the Intel chipset are also a generation behind, whilst bigger i.e. more core versions of the same generation as Apple include will/should be possible it is not yet clear if newer Intel generations will be
• PCIe slots are it seems only 3.0
• WiFi not upgradeable and does not do WiFi6 even though the iPhone 11 Pro does and was released months earlier
• Video cards, the MPX slots are proprietary and I see no indication anyone except Apple will do MPX video cards you are therefore at the mercy of Apple and theirs whilst covering a range including very powerful ones are already behind the latest AMD PC models, AMD PC models can in theory be used but do not have Mac firmware and would be handicapped by Apple's PCIe 3.0 slots (admittedly current even state of the art GPUs would only have a small penalty but it is clear we are approaching this limit which is one of the reasons Apple made their proprietary MPX connector to boost PCIe 3.0 and why PCs have already gone to PCIe 4.0 and are already looking at 5.0)

I suppose lack of wifi 6 is no big deal for a tower. These machines are connected to the internet via Ethernet at really high speeds.

No GPU is even close to the limits of PCIe3. Actually there is no measurable difference in using 8 lanes of PCIe3 as opposed to 16 lanes. The advantage of PCIe4 is not speed. It is using less lanes, so smaller motherboards for the same performance. About the processors, Intel does not have any newer models with 28 cores. There is only this. Don’t know about the rest.

 

[ssgbryan]

Zen 2 mobile comes out 1st quarter 2020.

Zen 3 Server (Milan EYPC) is 4th quarter 2020. TSMC is already hitting their production targets for 5nm, which Zen 4 (currently in development) will use.

This is truly a great time if you need computing horsepower. Pity we can't get it with Apple.

No GPU is even close to the limits of PCIe3. Actually there is no measurable difference in using 8 lanes of PCIe3 as opposed to 16 lanes. The advantage of PCIe4 is not speed. It is using less lanes, so smaller motherboards for the same performance. About the processors, Intel does not have any newer models with 28 cores. There is only this. Don’t know about the rest.

PCIe 4.0 isn't about graphics cards - it is about storage: 4.5Gb read/write. I.e. 40% more than PCIe 3.0 maximum throughput.

The Intel W-3275: Am I nothing to you?

 

[LordVic]

I suppose lack of wifi 6 is no big deal for a tower. These machines are connected to the internet via Ethernet at really high speeds.

No GPU is even close to the limits of PCIe3. Actually there is no measurable difference in using 8 lanes of PCIe3 as opposed to 16 lanes. The advantage of PCIe4 is not speed. It is using less lanes, so smaller motherboards for the same performance. About the processors, Intel does not have any newer models with 28 cores. There is only this. Don’t know about the rest.

The biggest benefit to PCI-4 isn't GPU right now but NVME storage.

PCI-E v 3.0 runs a maximum of 1GB/s per channel, giving a maximum throughput for NVME using 4 lanes at 4GB/s.

PCI-E v 4.0 runs at a mixum of 2GB/s per channel, giving a maximum throughput for NVME using 4 lanes at 8GB/s

we are already seeing storage options available for PCI-E v4 that are capable of 5+ GBps.

In addition, other devices can now take advantage of the increased bandwidth per lane and use overall less lanes.

You can now run PCI-E 4 network cards using 1/2 the lanes they previous did, freeing up additional lanes for other uses (Computers have a limited number of PCI-E lanes depending on CPU and chipset)

Overall, yes, Not everyone will take advantage or even notice the difference. But for many, the improvement of the performance of PCI-E v4 will be tremendous.

 

[rog]

LOL, 5 grand for a base model which is slower than both a 2 year old iMac Pro and even the refurb 2019 regular iMac I bought last summer. There's no reason for the base model to be over $2000 and should at the very least come with a 2TB SSD, which a company like Apple can get for well under $200. For the price they charge, I'd expect about 10 Thunderbolt 3/USB-C ports, and nearly as many USB A connectors.

 

[konqerror]

I work in the music business and spend a lot of my time in tracking and mixing studios, sometimes crossing over into the area of film scoring and dubbing (which is by far the most lucrative part of the industry).

Bar one studio which seems to be talking about buying a new Mac Pro in order to keep a client happy (at a loss), everybody has started looking towards Hackintoshes.

So you work in the music business and "everybody" is looking into pirating software. Either you're lying, or you guys get 100% of what you deserve from P2P filesharing.

 

[Blue Fox]

Everyone complaining about Apple not using the Ryzen processors based off these Geekbench results, but if you look at the Processor test scores on their site, the Intels are consistently getting higher scores with lower clock speeds and fewer cores.

 

[BOOMBA]

So you work in the music business and "everybody" is looking into pirating software. Either you're lying, or you guys get 100% of what you deserve from P2P filesharing.

that's actually a valid point, about stealing music and making a hackintosh.

I'm building a PC (dropping the Mac Pro after 20+ years, although I just bought the 16 inch MBP) to build a threadripper PC for Rendering, but I am going to suck it up and run Windows.
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Everyone complaining about Apple not using the Ryzen processors based off these Geekbench results, but if you look at the Processor test scores on their site, the Intels are consistently getting higher scores with lower clock speeds and fewer cores.

... and more COST, HEAT...

 

[Passingby]

Nope.
Totally wrong.
A workstation isn’t defined by benchmarks.

That’s the problem with geek’s forums: they all seem to believe a workstation is like their gaming computer.

I didn't say a workstation is defined by benchmarks, so calling someone 'totally wrong' for something they didn't say is illogical.

A workstation is defined by this : Can you get your work done as efficiently and happily as possible. Not benchmarks, real world apps. In many use cases, the top spec iMac or a decent gaming PC will indeed beat the new Mac Pros. That's down to some apps really liking single core performance. That's also down to the fact that PCs (Windows or Linux) have much higher GPU performance, even with the same graphics cards.

It's tough living on macOS and in a highly controlled eco-system that is entirely dependent on what Apple allows you to have in your system. If that's your choice, fine. Don't judge others for wanting more options, affordability and openness. Their computers are workstations if that's what they choose to call them, even if it is an $1000 Linux system just for Blender.
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Everyone complaining about Apple not using the Ryzen processors based off these Geekbench results, but if you look at the Processor test scores on their site, the Intels are consistently getting higher scores with lower clock speeds and fewer cores.

The Intels and Ryzens are both awesome. Corporations use tribalism to polarise customers because it's good for marketing and they don't care if people beat each other up. Corporate profit. Buy whatever you want. If I could buy that secret auction only i9-9990XE then I would. If AMD produced an easily overclockable 5Ghz chip I would buy that too.

 

[Zen_Arcade]

Only because of the thermal and battery constraints on the iPhone. If you added the A13 to a Mac Pro enclosure with the same giant heat sink, it would outperform the Xeon for many tasks in sustained workloads.

And with the higher TDP, you could easily add more cores as well, to also easily outpace the Mac Pro for multi core scores too.

And it's obviously as easy as you make it out to be, which is why Apple hasn't done it.

 

[CE3]

You were going to anyway. 😂

I might have considered the base model or the 12 core down the road, but I naively assumed it would be significantly more powerful than my current configuration. And yes, my usage doesn’t require the extreme expandability the Mac Pro offers.

 

[zubikov]

The 27" iMac with SSD and user-upgraded RAM is a good desktop for most people. And the 16" MacBook Pro is close enough in performance for those who need to be portable, and it's much easier to sell, too.

Agree. The early 2019 27" iMac w/ the i9-9900, max SSD and a DIY RAM upgrade is arguably the best price-to-performance we got from Apple hardware in years. The processor is still the best single core performance of all macs, it actually stays cool and doesn't get throttled.

 

[Kan-O-Z]

The big difference here will be the upgradeability. The iMac Pro wont be upgradeable whereas you can swap in new CPU/motherboard and video and keep the Mac Pro for a long time.

 

[haddy]

And you don’t have to buy a $5,000 monitor or $1,000 stand when you buy an iMac Pro.

Yeah but it's monitor and stand that I really like

 

[Adoniram]

Yikes... I agree with others that the base model is largely overpriced. I just took possession of an HP 7540 with a Xeon E-2286M (8 cores). That is among the very best in mobile CPUs, in terms of workstations. Total price was ~$2900 with a 4K monitor, class 50 SSD, T2000 GPU, 64 GB of RAM, etc etc etc. So half.

Geekbench results with highly strict enterprise security actively running in the background:
Single: 1237 (23% higher than base Mac Pro)
Multi: 7728 (2% higher than base Mac Pro)
results here

I know some people will simply prefer MacOS, but the $3100 price difference is hard to grasp, especially when you consider that laptops are generally more expensive per flop, and provide additional portability. The high end Mac Pros will outshine nearly everything, but this base model seems a bit of an anomaly...

 

[konqerror]

Yikes... I agree with others that the base model is largely overpriced. I just took possession of an HP 7540 with a Xeon E-2286M (8 cores). That is among the very best in mobile CPUs, in terms of workstations. Total price was ~$2900 with a 4K monitor, class 50 SSD, T2000 GPU, 64 GB of RAM, etc etc etc. So half.

Geekbench results with highly strict enterprise security actively running in the background:
Single: 1237 (23% higher than base Mac Pro)
Multi: 7728 (2% higher than base Mac Pro)
results here

I know some people will simply prefer MacOS, but the $3100 price difference is hard to grasp, especially when you consider that laptops are generally more expensive per flop, and provide additional portability. The high end Mac Pros will outshine nearly everything, but this base model seems a bit of an anomaly...

Run your laptop at 100% CPU 24/7 and see how long it lasts. Can you put 1 TB of RAM in your laptop? Can you put an expansion card in your laptop?

Also Geekbench shows the limitations of synthetic benchmarks. Your CPU doesn't have the second AVX-512 unit (it doesn't have AVX-512 at all), so the server processors will do 2x vector FLOPS per cycle. That's critical for numerical applications, but Geekbench dumps in desktop stuff like AES and HTML5.

Throw anything memory-heavy at it. Your laptop has dual channel DDR4-2666. The Mac Pro Xeon W has 6 channels of DDR4-2666/2933, a factor of 3 in memory bandwidth.

Another bus vs car comparison.

 

[Adoniram]

Run your laptop at 100% CPU 24/7 and see how long it lasts. Can you put 1 TB of RAM in your laptop? Can you put an expansion card in your laptop?

Also Geekbench shows the limitations of synthetic benchmarks. Your CPU doesn't have the second AVX-512 unit (it doesn't have AVX-512 at all), so the server processors will do 2x vector FLOPS per cycle.

Another bus vs car comparison.

100% CPU 24/7? Yes, that's what it's built for (since you don't seem familiar with mobile workstation builds).
1 TB? No, but if I needed 1 TB, I wouldn't be buying a base Mac Pro either, so pointless comparison.
Expansion? Yes I have several free M.2 slots, and two open RAM slots.

Base Mac Pro has 4 sticks of 8 GB of RAM, so only 32 GB in an unknown number of channels, not the 6 channels you mentioned (saw you added that in an edit). It maxes out at 768 GB, and operates at 2666 MHz (same as my laptop).
source

Your point about AVX-512 is valid, but only a few processes and programs ever leverage it. These are not servers, and the majority of programmers don't leverage AVX-512 as its not prolific, so another largely meaningless comparison.

Upgrade-ability: Most machines will never see a huge CPU upgrade because it'll be years down the line and the state-of-the-art will no longer fit in that socket. RAM is possible, but my laptop can do that. GPU: This is probably the most practical upgrade. Ok, I concede the Mac Pro has better practicality for GPU upgrades. Is it worth $3100 over a mobile workstation that also gives:
Portability, comparable processing power, a longer warranty, CUDA cores? I can buy a second workstation in 2-3 years for the money I saved, with a better GPU, and still break even.

My only point in this was to compare base model to other high end workstations. The base model is a poor value.

 

[Williesleg]

Well now it makes sense that apple is putting virtio drivers in Catalina. Pretty soon they'll just be a software and services company.

 

[konqerror]

100% CPU 24/7? Yes, that's what it's built for (since you don't seem familiar with workstation builds).

I am familiar. I have had multiple Dell portable workstations and killed several. They are nothing more than the normal corporate laptop with discrete graphics.

Any laptop with a H series (non-U/Y) CPU or discrete graphics is automatically a workstation by PC vendor marketing. By that count, a 15/16 Macbook Pro is a workstation.

Dell particularly, you have to run the fan on high, making irritating whirring noises, or else they will thermally throttle, particularly when the case warms. (Regulations on maximum touch temperatures) Go try it.

My only point in this was to compare base model to other high end workstations. The base model is a poor value.

As said, nobody buys the base model. Lenovo wants $3900 for a base model workstation with a 500 GB mechanical hard drive, 8 core CPU and a Nvidia P620. The point is to give you low-end options for stuff you don't need.

 

[Adoniram]

I am familiar. I have had multiple Dell portable workstations and killed several. They are nothing more than the normal corporate laptop with discrete graphics. Dell particularly, you have to run the fan on high, making irritating whirring noises, or else they will thermally throttle, particularly when the case warms. (Regulations on maximum touch temperatures) Go try it.



As said, nobody buys the base model. Lenovo wants $3900 for a base model workstation with a 500 GB mechanical hard drive, 8 core CPU and a Nvidia P620. The point is to give you low-end options for stuff you don't need.

Your experience is rather unique... I've had several mobile workstations, and have yet to kill one of them. Believe me, I'd rather have a tower, but I have to travel enough that the laptop is required. For me, it's a no-brainer. But... the fans at 100% can get annoying. Which is why I have my Sennheisser cans at work, and my Sony MX3s for travel...

Regarding the base model... I think you'd be surprised how many people buy the base model. A good metric might be watching Geekbench scores accumulate over time?