Multi monitor connections that utilize hdmi is in professional use. Half of my workstation computers use HDMI, the other half use VGA sadly...but that's what I get when I work with early 1990 computers.
Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
Intel Debuts New Xeon-W Chips Possibly Destined for iMac Pro
- Thread starter MacRumors
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
Multi monitor connections that utilize hdmi is in professional use. Half of my workstation computers use HDMI, the other half use VGA sadly...but that's what I get when I work with early 1990 computers.
AMD’s Epyc pummels Intel’s new Xeon-W workstation CPUs
https://www.semiaccurate.com/2017/08/29/amds-epyc-pummels-intels-new-xeon-w-workstation-cpus/
I saw this earlier today and it floored me. Compared to the Xeon-W CPU's mentioned in the OP: AMD's upcoming workstation CPU's have more PCI-e lanes, more memory bandwidth, and more cores, for LESS money. WOWZA.
Could you imagine if Apple offered this as a CPU option on the iMac Pro? Phew!
https://www.semiaccurate.com/2017/08/29/amds-epyc-pummels-intels-new-xeon-w-workstation-cpus/
I saw this earlier today and it floored me. Compared to the Xeon-W CPU's mentioned in the OP: AMD's upcoming workstation CPU's have more PCI-e lanes, more memory bandwidth, and more cores, for LESS money. WOWZA.
Could you imagine if Apple offered this as a CPU option on the iMac Pro? Phew!
AVX2 who cares? Nothing AVX2 throws out there is $/perf going to touch Threadripper, never mind Vega OpenCL optimized Pro stacks. Seriously, if your selling point for an insanely overpriced CPU w/ less performance than Threadripper in nearly every metric is AVX2 then you have already lost.
By the way, if and when Apple goes AMD Zen based solutions they will be building their own AM4 systems and putting in Thunderbolt 3 seeing as it's dirt cheap, and coming 2018 the royalty is tossed out. In short, Apple can customize their board now, drop in Threadripper 1950x, toss in Vega Pro [already waiting for Apple custom ASIC version] and not a single person will miss Xeon, plus they'll save $500-$1k to boot.
True... Xeons and ECC memory aren't cheap. Apple overbuilds their "pro" workstations. They select high-priced parts.
But remember that the iMac Pro is an all-in-one... which is not the form-factor most "pros" would want anyway.
Your "rules" don't mention anything about the iMac Pro cramming a bunch of heat-generating parts inside a monitor... and that it's essentially a disposable computer. Shouldn't that count against the iMac Pro? Not unless you're handy with a heatgun to perform upgrades.
So even if the Hackintosh components cost more than the iMac Pro... at least you can put them in a standard PC case with adequate airflow and upgradability.
Plus with a Hackintosh you can choose the video card(s) and monitor(s) you want... and have multiple PCIe SSDs inside the computer... and other internal drives and expansion cards too. You can install anything you want. And again... you don't need to have everything crammed into an unnecessarily thin case.
Besides... the biggest reason someone builds a Hackintosh is to save money and choose the parts they want... not to spend as much as a "real" Mac with the exact same parts.
Someone can follow you your "rules" to build a Hackintosh that will be similar to the iMac Pro... but they might not get all the way. Fair point.
Then again... the iMac Pro is an all-in-one with little to no expandability. That should be taken into consideration too.
Last edited:
Funny how some of the vocal minority wants Apple to downgrade to AMD Ryzen. Ewww. Worse performance and no Thunderbolt support. Using Vega instead of the upcoming Volta Quadros was bad enough already.
It'll be nice to see benchmarks and real-world performance of these new Xeon chips.
I'd be curious to know how the new 8-core 16-thread Xeon compares to the 16-core 32-thread Ryzen Threadripper. They're both in the same price-class... $1,100 and $1,000 respectively. You can't forget price/performance ratio.
And speaking of price... what's the deal with that 4-core 8-thread Xeon at the bottom of the chart? Is that any faster than an i7-7700K at a similar price??
Xeon don't automatically mean "better"
Just like Ryzen doesn't automatically mean "ewww"
You're right about Thunderbolt support though. AMD doesn't have it. But there was something about Intel open-sourcing Thunderbolt to increase adoption. So maybe we'll see something in the future.
"But next year, Intel says that it is going to make the Thunderbolt 3 specification available on a non-exclusive, royalty-free basis. This will enable third parties to integrate the interface into their own silicon, opening the door to, for example, AMD systems with Thunderbolt 3 support and cheaper chips for the device end of the cable."
LINK
Fan noise is only fan noise.
And a good indicator of heat generated by workload.
My MacPro 5.1 sings to me all the time about how hard she is working. 12 cores all at 3.46 and 64GBs of RAM.
Will I buy the new Mac Pro ? NO!
Will I buy an iPhone for £1K ? NO!
Will I buy any new Mac ever ? NO!
Last edited:
Either I'm thick-headed or this makes no sense. Eh, maybe both.
The heat spreader is not soldered to the die like they used to, they're using thermal compound which doesn't transfer head as well
Hmm. What to do with those 16 lanes freed up from only 1 GPU? More Thunderbolt 3 ports?
From what I can tell, a single TB3 connection can use up to 4 PCIe 3.0 lanes.
Those concerns are irrelevant when Mac products have always run the CPU at clock speed. It's just AMD shills spreading nonsense around the social media to help the underdog company gain some followers.Either I'm thick-headed or this makes no sense. Eh, maybe both.
They had to wait for Vega so they might as well wait for the W-series. I'm positive these are the CPUs the iMac Pro will be using.
People keep saying this, and yet I see so many iMacs in universities, laboratories, video production houses, animation studios, etc. etc. etc.
Your "rules" don't mention anything about the iMac Pro cramming a bunch of heat-generating parts inside a monitor... and that it's essentially a disposable computer. Shouldn't that count against the iMac Pro? Not unless you're handy with a heatgun to perform upgrades.
So you really think that IBM, Nike, South Park Digital Studios, et. al. just truck their iMacs down to the local Genius Bar when they have a problem?
I know for a fact IBM and Nike have extensive on-site IT support teams capable of repairing and upgrading their Macs on-site and Apple does offer an Enterprise level AppleCare that includes on-site repair and upgrades.
Unlikely. With Xeon you're paying for quality (Intel uses the best-binned parts) and the ability to use ECC memory (via the controller chipset).
Well the iMac Pro will have 4 TB3 ports compared to the 2 on the iMac in addition to four USB 3 ports. It will also have 10Gb Ethernet so not sure if that needs any additional lanes over 1Gb Ethernet.
Yes... people use iMacs. Big companies use iMacs.
And then they complain when they have to use a heatgun to melt the glue around the iMac screen to perform an upgrade or maintenance.
People also keep saying they want Apple to go back to the traditional tower form-factor for their "pro" computers.
So that's why I don't think the iMac Pro is gonna scratch that itch.
People like the iMac for their simplicity. But people like(d) the Mac Pro for power and upgradability.
The iMac Pro is stuck in this weird middle ground.
So... Xeon = quality?
And a regular i7 processor is trash?
Last edited:
I don't recall any servers I have ever managed having the heatsink soldered to the CPU, Intel or otherwise. All of them had thermal paste.
Was this an Apple-centric idea? I've never had any heat concerns.
Yeah... I'm not so excited about the iMac Pro at this price point. You certainly do see a lot of "professional" people using all-in-one computers. But that's also often just because that's what the I.T. department decided to purchase (or some department head decided on it without having a lot of technical reasons behind the decision).
I really feel like the iMac Pro concept was just put out there because Apple knew it really screwed up with the last Mac Pro cylinder, and needed to have something to get "Pro money" out of, faster than it could develop a worthy replacement for the Mac Pro.
Even now, I see a lot of graphics artists sticking with the older Mac Pro towers, even if it means buying hacked graphics cards off eBay to keep the video relatively modern in them. They just won't spend thousands on a cylinder shaped workstation that requires a second external enclosure to handle additional drives, and has absolutely no upgrade path for the video.
At least some of these people will break down and get budget approval to spend $5K on a new iMac Pro, just because they're not willing or able to switch to a Windows machine, and are running on borrowed time with the older Mac Pro towers at this point.
But make no mistake .... a new Mac Pro that's truly expandable is *REALLY* what the pro and enthusiast market wants.
I really feel like the iMac Pro concept was just put out there because Apple knew it really screwed up with the last Mac Pro cylinder, and needed to have something to get "Pro money" out of, faster than it could develop a worthy replacement for the Mac Pro.
Even now, I see a lot of graphics artists sticking with the older Mac Pro towers, even if it means buying hacked graphics cards off eBay to keep the video relatively modern in them. They just won't spend thousands on a cylinder shaped workstation that requires a second external enclosure to handle additional drives, and has absolutely no upgrade path for the video.
At least some of these people will break down and get budget approval to spend $5K on a new iMac Pro, just because they're not willing or able to switch to a Windows machine, and are running on borrowed time with the older Mac Pro towers at this point.
But make no mistake .... a new Mac Pro that's truly expandable is *REALLY* what the pro and enthusiast market wants.
So... Xeon = quality?
And a regular i7 processor is trash?
When Intel sorts their i7s and i9s, they will pull from the best for Xeons. They won't take then all, of course, so no, the i7s will not be trash - those i7s becomes i5s.
When Intel sorts their i7s and i9s, they will pull from the best for Xeons. They won't take then all, of course, so no, the i7s will not be trash - those i7s becomes i5s.
Ah... so you're talking about binning from the factory. I understand that.
I thought you meant the chips that reach the end-user.
I am curious about that bottom Xeon 4-core 8-thread chip. It's got a 3.6GHz base and 3.9GHz boost.
Surely the i7-7700K at a similar price with 4.2GHz base and 4.5GHz boost would be faster, no?
Last edited:
Yes I expect it will be. Xeons are often not the fastest in their class even with similar core counts to the "consumer" chips as they need to be reliable and stable so a slightly lower clock speed helps with that.
Keep in mind that better binned parts will also run “cooler” under heavy/constant loads.
Overall TDP for Xeons is higher than regular i7 chips but that measurement takes into account constant use of 80% of capacity from all cores not sporadic use of 100% capacity in consumer/prosumer machines.
The key for the “pro” performance in the new iMac pro is really the cooling system Apple has designed. If it works, professionals that run heavy/long workloads will be pretty happy with the price/performance equation. Throttling has been a constant complaint in regular iMacs under heavy loads.
Overall TDP for Xeons is higher than regular i7 chips but that measurement takes into account constant use of 80% of capacity from all cores not sporadic use of 100% capacity in consumer/prosumer machines.
The key for the “pro” performance in the new iMac pro is really the cooling system Apple has designed. If it works, professionals that run heavy/long workloads will be pretty happy with the price/performance equation. Throttling has been a constant complaint in regular iMacs under heavy loads.
I hear ya'. I'm always a little shocked when I see newly released motherboards with a VGA, but no DVI, or HDMI, but at the most, only one Thunderbolt port or only one Thunderbolt header. And only one Gb Ethernet connector.
I think your math is wrong. It is 29.6 total Ghz for the 8 core vs 41.4 total Ghz for the 18 core. That is a theoretical 40% perf. improvement.
Admittedly achieving even 40% will require parallel code, but this is common in the use cases for such machines.