iFixit Shares 2019 Mac Pro Teardown: 'A Masterclass in Repairability'

[deconstruct60]

1) The Mac Pro is definitely not year-old technology; the CPUs were launched on paper in June and weren’t shipping in quantity until July or Aug. The Navi-based Vega II was announced in June along with the Mac Pro and is also brand new. The W5700X is announced but not shipping yet, it’ll be a nice option when available.

Vega II is not Navi based. the baseline for these cards is a year old.
https://www.amd.com/en/products/specifications/compare/professional-graphics/8291,8286
https://www.anandtech.com/show/1356...ct-mi60-mi50-accelerators-powered-by-7nm-vega
[ the MI50 has been bumped up to 32GB as of late. ]


It then got "downsided" and shipped again. Radeon VII ( stripped of Infinity Fabric , VRAM capacity , and downshifted fp64 performance. )
https://www.anandtech.com/show/13923/the-amd-radeon-vii-review


Apple's Vega II is a bit in the middle of those. But that was announced in June (with the Mac Pro).
Vega II has Infinity Fabric ( although slightly slower than the MI50-60).


the W5700X is Navi based and it isn't shipping yet. Apple appears to be at least 3-4 months behind on the driver curve so probably will be a couple months into next year for that. ( yes there are some Navi drivers now, but Windows/Linux respectively earlier too.

GPU wise Apple (and AMD) are a bit late. Navi was suppose to be earlier had major hiccup in Fall 2018 ... so it slid significantly deeper into 2019. By the time it trickled down the Mac uses it was very late this year.

 

[Marx55]

Two SSD modules in RAID?

 

[throAU]

So.... its like a PC then. Except with proprietary SSDs that are unrecoverable in case of SSD problem... and 2-3x the price for equivalent (or better) performance...

I mean aussie pricing.... 10 grand for an rx580, 32 GB of RAM, 256 GB of SSD and an 8 core?


🤣

 

[astrorider]

What exactly are you going to do with a backup when you can't boot the Mac Pro??? You simply fail to appreciate the consequences of a total failure of the boot SSD!
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Just allow booting from other drives, plug in your clone/backup, and boot from it: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT208198

 

[Unregistered 4U]

Making disposable hardware is not particularly green earth of them.

ALL hardware is disposable. When someone replaces the memory in a MacPro, will they responsibly recycle the modules they’re removing? When you decide to update the graphics cards, will folks responsibly recycle the old ones?

Never have I ever come across any IT procurement professional who bought the most expensive gear from vendor, all buy basic then aftermarket!

Maybe it’s only because I‘ve worked in large organizations, but no one buys anything aftermarket. They have a contract with Dell or IBM or whoever and everyone gets outfitted with the standard configuration. And, when it’s time for an upgrade, they swap out the whole system. Parts are only for repairs, not for upgrades.

 

[sideshowuniqueuser]

Ok here's your brick of an iPhone that weighs 10 lbs and is 8"x6"x4"

Just a removable battery would be fine, thanks.

 

[Unregistered 4U]

What propaganda? I'm the guy who actually has to carry the stuff. 10-20 lbs reduction in total weight matters.

You’ve bought into the egghead propaganda that things that are more massive WEIGH more. Don’t be such a scientific sheep! /s

 

[0x0x0x0]

Maybe it’s only because I‘ve worked in large organizations, but no one buys anything aftermarket. They have a contract with Dell or IBM or whoever and everyone gets outfitted with the standard configuration. And, when it’s time for an upgrade, they swap out the whole system. Parts are only for repairs, not for upgrades.

chances are your guys were ordering baseline config desktops because even at 10 servers that you plan to push performance-wise and keep for longer than the typical two year churn, the aftermaket/vendor price difference is *huge*!
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Just allow booting from other drives, plug in your clone/backup, and boot from it: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT208198

So to summarise the thread you've been dragged into: SSD tied to T2 is great because of "security", but if it fails, just plug in an external drive and boot form that... I'm guessing your "secure" data is on that removable too 🤣 Or you've just successfully argued against T2 tying to the SSD, or at least agreed that it's utterly worthless in the circumstances! Well done! 🤣

 

[sideshowuniqueuser]

Does anyone know if the CPU is upgradeable?

 

[Lalatoon]

I think Apple has done something wonderful with Mac Pro with regards to modularity. The boot drive tied to T2 is not an issue since you can add some. Being an SSD, they rarely fail on their own and if they do then I guess you have to ask for Apples assistance I have a 5 year old EVO Samsung in external enclosure which i bring with me all the time and it is still working without an issue. So I don't see the SSD boot drive failing in the next 5 to 10 years. Unless they made it poorly which is highly unlikely

 

[Unregistered 4U]

I think Apple has done something wonderful with Mac Pro with regards to modularity.

I have to say, knowing Apple, I thought they used the word modular (and never upgradable) to describe it because it was going to be some tinkertoy thing where you connect proprietary modules to achieve the power you want. I’m SO glad it didn’t end up being that
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chances are your guys were ordering baseline config desktops

Well, yes, that’s how desktops were bought, but also all the servers for the data center. We bought what we bought (contracted with HP or Dell), replaced parts that failed and always spec’d out the next system. No one was allowed to “upgrade” a server. If you needed more than the server you had, you had to move your app onto new hardware and we retired the old.

I can see how, if you’re not large enough to have a contract with a big supplier, it might make sense to buy onesie twosie from whichever vendor has the lowest price that day. But, that’s not going to be how the majority of Mac Pro’s are sold. They’ll be sold with a given configuration with parts available for replacing. When the enterprise standard is set to be upgraded, those will be new machines and the old ones will go back to the vendor.

 

[CalMin]

Flip side: it's more likely to be worth stealing.

A rather compact box containing 8K edits of a $100,000,000 movie (or some comparable scenario) is a tempting target for theft. If that box "walks off" then it d@mn well better have not-"repairable" storage.

I suspect it would be behind some pretty decent security if that was the case, but sure, in that scenario go ahead and encrypt. Let's just not force T2 encryption on all users so that most people can't swap out components when needed.
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T2 includes not just security, but their DSP encode/decode for HEIC/HEVC, H.264, H.265, etc, and much more.

True, but encryption doesn't have to be implemented by default to prevent users swapping out their SSDs.
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disagree totally. the intellectual property on high-end workstations is often locked-down tighter than anything else. have you seen a server room of a movie studio or production facility? cameras, guards, biometrics, the works. you must have strong crypto when transporting or working with files. it's a studio requirement..

That's my point. With all that security, it's probably safe from thieves. But OK, if the machine has valuable data on it, and you are afraid of theft, then flip the encryption switch. Apple doesn't need to tie it to the hardware so that no-one can ever swap out their hard drives. Many of these machines will be in secure environments.

 

[ActionableMango]

Does anyone know if the CPU is upgradeable?

It seems extremely likely.

According to the article, the CPU it is removeable, not soldered. Nobody has mentioned the T2 is locked to the CPU, like it is to the SSD. So I don't see anything standing in the way.

 

[0x0x0x0]

I can see how, if you’re not large enough to have a contract with a big supplier, it might make sense to buy onesie twosie from whichever vendor has the lowest price that day. But, that’s not going to be how the majority of Mac Pro’s are sold. They’ll be sold with a given configuration with parts available for replacing. When the enterprise standard is set to be upgraded, those will be new machines and the old ones will go back to the vendor.

Actually quite the contrary, the more you buy, the more leverage you have, your guys were just taken for a ride! I remember sitting down with a vendor and showing them that at their prices we would get every 7th machine free if we bought base config plus aftermarket! Another vendor ended up selling us 32GB 2400T LRDIMMs at about GBP100 each four years ago! But yup, if you want to p1$$ away your money, that's your prerogative---but a competent IT team is worth its weight in gold in any co.

 

[2010mini]

What sort of machine are you thinking of there? Do you have a link so I can see a similarly specced Windows machine? I assumed they would cost a lot *less* than the Mac but I don’t know where to look.

That would be in the custom built to spec world. Bizon is one. Digital Storm is another... But the key word is custom. Buyers of the MP has this advantage: getting a high end workstation with the OS and hardware made by the same company.

 

[DeepIn2U]

+1 on this. SSD security is important on a laptop because it gets schlepped around with you and is easily lost or stolen. The Mac Pro will most likely live in an office, studio or production environment and is less likely to be misplaced or subject to theft.

T2 security is great, but not a requirement for a desktop in the way it is for a laptop or even an iMac.

The security of T2 is not simply to ward off physical theft .... its for FIRMWARE, hardware hijacking, and data (trojan's and ransomware). Your office would not mean anything in terms of ransomware hitting your entire company.

Anyone else with an iMac Pro super happy their 8/10/12 core has been worth the money they've spent after a full year, and those with a base sub-18 Core Mac Pro a little bit miffed of the price they've paid?

 

[2010mini]

I disagree, completely, with the basic premise that there is a single “group” of customers who are likely/able to buy a Mac Pro.

I don’t know which subset of actual potential customers you’re thinking of but I can’t imagine any that configure it BTO and never upgrade it later.

I freelanced for Tommy Hilfiger’s design house for a spell. They BTO all their Macs/PCs. And replaced them when they needed better models.

I know it seems weird. But In that market, upgrading components later and risking said component not working with their software means millions of revenue potentially lost in down time. In some of these circles their rigs have a 3-5 year lifespan as primary before being replaced and sent to a secondary position.

 

[dantroline]

A Ryzen based Mac Pro mini would be amazing. It will never happen because it would smoke the current Mac Pro for much less money.

Keeping in mind the only thing stopping a purchase of a Threadripper is software. It's Mac or the next level hardware with an aesthetically awful OS like Windows. Still, for Windows the software ecosystem is easily on par with Apple for the most part.

I really don't want to mess around with a hackintosh, and the problems it brings. I have been using Macs since the G4 PB so certainly don't have a problem paying some premium for the MacOS experience. The problem with new MP is that it's already year+ old technology at a time when AMD is pushing boundaries with Ryzen and Nvidia with graphics in both raw performance and $/performance areas.

With that said, I have priced out a Ryzen box for Linux. As a programmer, the new MP is definitely not for me. Since I'm not an A/V professional, Apple doesn't consider me a good customer I guess.

Not every Hackintosh is an experiment, only the first of a given configuration.

 

[Unregistered 4U]

Actually quite the contrary, the more you buy, the more leverage you have, your guys were just taken for a ride!

You didn’t have supplier management, legal and contractual professionals defining the engagement between companies? IT did that work? Because, the value of the entire contract is more than just dollar value of hardware.

I agree with the other poster that most companies these days will want to single source the hardware. So, when something goes wrong, you just go back to that single source for remediation. It’s like buying a Mac vs. building a hackintosh.

 

[Stephen.R]

I freelanced for Tommy Hilfiger’s design house for a spell.

If someone needs a Mac Pro to design ****ing clothing, I am a chimpanzee.

 

[mdriftmeyer]

Vega II is not Navi based. the baseline for these cards is a year old.
https://www.amd.com/en/products/specifications/compare/professional-graphics/8291,8286
https://www.anandtech.com/show/1356...ct-mi60-mi50-accelerators-powered-by-7nm-vega
[ the MI50 has been bumped up to 32GB as of late. ]


It then got "downsided" and shipped again. Radeon VII ( stripped of Infinity Fabric , VRAM capacity , and downshifted fp64 performance. )
https://www.anandtech.com/show/13923/the-amd-radeon-vii-review


Apple's Vega II is a bit in the middle of those. But that was announced in June (with the Mac Pro).
Vega II has Infinity Fabric ( although slightly slower than the MI50-60).


the W5700X is Navi based and it isn't shipping yet. Apple appears to be at least 3-4 months behind on the driver curve so probably will be a couple months into next year for that. ( yes there are some Navi drivers now, but Windows/Linux respectively earlier too.

GPU wise Apple (and AMD) are a bit late. Navi was suppose to be earlier had major hiccup in Fall 2018 ... so it slid significantly deeper into 2019. By the time it trickled down the Mac uses it was very late this year.

True on Vega II, but these aren't Radeon VII, but a modified version and until we see if NAVI 2.0 for RDNA 2.0 gets HBM2 never mind I hope HBM2e the bandwidth on these for Metal is much better than Navi.

 

[PickUrPoison]

Vega II is not Navi based. the baseline for these cards is a year old.
https://www.amd.com/en/products/specifications/compare/professional-graphics/8291,8286
https://www.anandtech.com/show/1356...ct-mi60-mi50-accelerators-powered-by-7nm-vega
[ the MI50 has been bumped up to 32GB as of late. ]


It then got "downsided" and shipped again. Radeon VII ( stripped of Infinity Fabric , VRAM capacity , and downshifted fp64 performance. )
https://www.anandtech.com/show/13923/the-amd-radeon-vii-review


Apple's Vega II is a bit in the middle of those. But that was announced in June (with the Mac Pro).
Vega II has Infinity Fabric ( although slightly slower than the MI50-60).


the W5700X is Navi based and it isn't shipping yet. Apple appears to be at least 3-4 months behind on the driver curve so probably will be a couple months into next year for that. ( yes there are some Navi drivers now, but Windows/Linux respectively earlier too.

GPU wise Apple (and AMD) are a bit late. Navi was suppose to be earlier had major hiccup in Fall 2018 ... so it slid significantly deeper into 2019. By the time it trickled down the Mac uses it was very late this year.

Yeah Vega II is 7nm but GCN 5.1 not Navi... do’h!! My bad.

But MI50/60, though launched on paper in Nov 2018 to steal the thunder from NVidia’s Titan RTX, did not ship for months after that. In fact I’m not sure when it shipped in any quantity, maybe you know?

The cut-down Radeon VII launched in Feb., again not sure if MI50/60 shipped before or after that. In any case, I think it’s a real stretch to say a product is a year old based on when it’s predecessor, with no display outputs was announced.

Anyway, I think we can agree that the dual Vega 2 is at or near the top of the heap (and at $5K it better be). Of course depending on your requirements, NVidia might have a better solution for you.

btw do you know the double precision performance of Vega II? I haven’t seen it spec’d anywhere, test should be rolling out soon though. 7 TFlops like mi50/60?

 

[RammyXX]

The market size for Mac Pro has shrunk drastically. Many pros have moved to iMac, MacBook Pro, iMac Pro or even the mini.

Many pros had to move to iMac/Pro, MacBook Pro or Mac mini because Apple neglected the Mac Pro for years. The market size shrunk because people had to look for alternatives.

I’ve yet to see a pro effectively make the case that the extra $50/month—the difference between $3K and $6K over a five year life—takes the Mac Pro from affordable to unaffordable.

I don't know why it's so hard to accept that some people just don't want to spend $6000 on a Mac Pro. Especially considering those $6000 don't get you a whole lot.
You sound like one of those commercials on TV, "Only $50 per month more for five years!". You're still paying twice as much for the new Mac Pro compared to the old models.

 

[Substance90]

Well, at that price it's to be expected so no patting on shoulders, sorry.

 

[PickUrPoison]

Many pros had to move to iMac/Pro, MacBook Pro or Mac mini because Apple neglected the Mac Pro for years. The market size shrunk because people had to look for alternatives.

I don't know why it's so hard to accept that some people just don't want to spend $6000 on a Mac Pro. Especially considering those $6000 don't get you a whole lot.
You sound like one of those commercials on TV, "Only $50 per month more for five years!". You're still paying twice as much for the new Mac Pro compared to the old models.

No, pros moved away from Mac Pro when mainstream desktop CPUs became powerful enough to do the job they needed doing without having to buy Mac Pro.

A photographer would rather have a 5K Retina iMac. Audio guys use MBP and iMac (and Mac Pro, and they love the 2013 cylinder btw). Software devs prefer MBP for portability, iMac also suits their requirements and if they need lots of cores or memory there’s iMac Pro (or Mac Pro). Most of the folks that left Mac Pro are going to stay with iMac, iMac Pro, MBP and mini.

Once CPUs became “fast enough”, especially with quad core on MBP, that satisfied many requirements. Many use cases don’t need much GPU and certainly don’t need a tower with slots they’ll never use. The market for Xeon workstations with ECC memory is very limited, and that’s true even in the PC world.

And believe me, I get that some people don’t want to spend $6K on a Mac Pro. Some don’t even want to spend $3K 🤷‍♂️

My point is that $50 a month is a complete non-issue for the target market. Pros—whether consultants, one/two-person shops, small/medium businesses, or corporate/enterprise—have no trouble at all spending $50 a month extra (over what you would prefer to pay) to buy Mac Pro—if that’s the tool they need.

Why? Because they’ll save far more than that $50/month, which is more like $35-40 after the tax deduction anyway. Those folks are the target market, not the home consumer, enthusiast, hobbyist or tinkerer.

I think that’s understandable. What do you think?