Do you hope for RDNA 2 as BTO this year?

[Darajavahus]

Right away sorry for my poor English.
Since AMD stated that RDNA 2 based graphics cards will come out before the consoles, which probably will come out November, and we know it's +50% performance the same power I really hope we get it as BTO this years.

MacOS Big Sur even has references in its code for third-gen Navi, so they are working on it, I mean it could be only for Mac Pro or iMac Pro but hopefully not, I could get iMac Pro long time ago but it really bothers me that it got to consume two times as much power just at ide and over three times at sleep (4.68W at sleep, and 60W vs 31W at idle, why?).

I just ordered the i7 with 5500XT, and I would sell it and get the RDNA 2 when they add it.
Am I the only one that could not bring themselves to pay more for Radeon Pro 5700 XT than a year old Rx 5700 XT which is also 28% more TFLOPs because it doesn't have thermal and power constraints like Pro, I mean I like that Pro is more efficient but that's why I was excited for Navi2, and the 16GB VRAM right now is not useful for most people besides some cases and "future-proofing" with VRAM with mid-range, about to be low range, GPU is pointless, and RDNA 2 would be the best thing for the last intel mac for its longevity and if you need Bootcamp and If you care about games because it's the same architecture as next-gen consoles so games optimized for this architecture gonna be coming out for years and years.

Sorry for my poor English, but I'm tired after trying to make a decision for over a week, still gonna be an upgrade from my late 2012 iMac, just mad that the GPU still will not be as many times bigger upgrade as many times higher the display resolution, and I wouldn't be even as mad if they would just add a second fan and for GPU used 5600, 5600 XT, 5700 instead and just 5700 XT as BTO or like 5700 XT 8GB and 5700 XT 16GB for BTO (5300M nad 5500M for the 21.5") because come on 5500XT is so close to 580...

 

[mlykke]

I wouldn't expect the iMac to be upgraded with RDNA2. Apple knows about these things way in advance compared to us consumers and if they were planning to launch with RDNA2 they would most likely just wait 1-2 months longer before the refresh. There is a small chance the iMac Pro will be updated, but not sure they would use RDNA2 in that machine.

The graphic card in the new iMac's are awesome compared to previous generations and a huge upgrade if your machine is more than a few years old. I personally have ordered the i7 with the 5700 XT Pro.

 

[assisterah]

If this would ever happen, it would be the case for BTO options for iMac Pro and Mac Pro to distinguish the “pro” lines.

To my speculation, one of the reasons apple did not upgrade the iMac Pro along with 2020 iMac is to wait for these upgrades, of course assuming they are not planing to kill the iMac Pro line all along.

Currently the iMac Pro stands as a poor candidate when competing with the new iMac. Only way to keep the line differentiating from iMac line is to give it more unique features: miniLED display, new xeons, and RDNA2 graphics. Along with superior cooling then we are talking about a proper “pro” machine people would buy. Keep in mind ASi transition isn’t happening soon on these high end platforms, so a refresh on iMac Pro could happen before holiday season at earliest.

But what do I know…

 

[AMP12345]

Now that announcement is official today and given the thermal limits of the chips they announced I'm going to guess that the Mac Pro will get a BTO 6800 Pro or 6900 Pro in the near future though maybe not till early 2021. With 250W as the power consumption on the 6800 non XT I could maybe see that being added to the top option on the 27" iMac but I'm not sure.

 

[timerickson]

I'm hoping we hear about this on Nov 17!

 

[Koudspeel]

I surely hope they will add the Radeon RX 6800 XT as a BTO option to the regular iMac 27".

To my speculation, Apple will discontinue the iMac Pro as it was just a stop-gap untill the Mac Pro was finally released. Apple no longer has the incentive to update the iMac Pro, as it will only take away from the Mac Pro sales.

Talking about Apple Silicon.. I'm skeptical about the idea that Apple is able to to match or outperform the current GPU offerings by AMD (although Apple could surprise us in this department). Thus Apple releasing one last AMD GPU option to give themselves some more time to perfect their own GPU's.

What do you guys think?

 

[CWallace]

I think the iMac Pro on Intel is End of Life (I could see the larger ASi iMac being the "Pro" model).
Apple might offer Navi 22 or 23 on the 27" Intel iMac depending on how hot it runs.
As for the Apple GPU, I expect it to be highly-optimized for macOS and macOS applications. So even if it is not crushing synthetic benchmarks like a "general purpose" dGPU, it will offer excellent performance for macOS and macOS applications.

 

[padams35]

If RDNA2 comes in 2020 it will be on the iMac Pro. (There is a certain logic to selling a 'pro' Intel machine for people who still need all-in-one intel after the mainstream iMacs go apple silicon, and the current iMac Pro is getting old).

Also the announced cards all have even higher power requirements. That calls for either the improved iMac Pro cooling system or else a delay into 2021 for lower power cards to be developed/released.