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Mac Pro Now Starts With 512GB of Storage and Radeon Pro W5500X Graphics
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I dont know why, but i love this comment?
Just shows where Apples priorities lie
I really hope Apple designs M# chips with more RAM. The M1 Ultra tops out at 128 GB unified memory, while the Intel Mac Pro has up to 1.5 TB RAM + 128 GB VRAM
The really funny part is that the Macintosh that they used in the on stage demo was a 512k because the 128k didn't have the memory to do the demo.
Criminal? That’s a pretty serious exaggeration, as it literally means that you think Apple’s executives should be doing serious jail time for selling an Intel Mac Pro in 2022. I’m sure you’re not suggesting that. (It’s just that over exaggeration presses a nerve of mine. It’s like the people who use “literally” as an exaggeration or intensifier, though I get the impression that some of those people may not actually understand what “literally” means and may have literally only heard it used as an exaggeration.)
Besides, I’ve known my share of prosumer and pro users over the years who’d prefer a “stable” platform that does the work they want it to over having the latest and greatest. It’s about working with a known factor vs dealing with 1.0 bugs. I’m sure many of those are interested in a top of the line Intel Mac Pro, while they might be somewhat wary of what the Apple Silicon Mac Pro might change (least of all, losing support for non-Mac x86 software). There likely aren’t many (then again, it’s a Mac Pro, there aren’t many buyers for these things in the first place), but I’m sure there are people who would choose this over a future Apple Silicon Mac Pro. Heck, maybe they just really need an upgrade now and can’t afford to wait for the Apple Silicon Mac Pro.
They’re already on an annual cycle (roughly) with the A series chips. I don’t expect every new numbered M series chip to be a dramatic upgrade over the previous year than I do the A series chips or the S series chips in the Apple Watch (both of which increment annually, roughly speaking).
The pricing of the iPod Touch drives that point home…
And they have a corporate policy of keeping current technology tied to ongoing projects for safety and security.
Let’s look at archicad deployment as an example. Archicad does not recommend changing hardware OR versions mid-project. You can get wonky, unrecoverable changes if you do. Is that Graphisoft’s fault? Probably. But as a BIM client you can’t afford to muck up your project half way to completion with time based monetary penalties.
This MacPro is for you…
Huh, I don’t follow?
Let’s compare the current iPod Touch to an unlocked iPhone SE. Apple does a lot to be able to reduce the MSRP of the iPod Touch. The screen is still out of an iPhone 5 series phone (or the original SE, for that matter). Chip is still an (underclocked) A10 Fusion. The iPod Touch is probably mostly margin, but why shouldn’t it be? Apple certainly doesn’t sell nearly as many of them as they did back during the iPod Touch’s peak.
I wonder if the this means the supposed Ice Lake Mac Pro refresh has been cancelled and Apple will instead go directly to an Apple ARM Mac Pro? There's been references to the Ice Lake Mac Pro in previous betas, but with the 2 year timeline to transition to ARM almost up, Apple ARM chips proving to meet or exceed Intel's best, and now the Cascade Lake Mac Pro receiving a minor spec bump to tide things over, there doesn't seem to be much room for an Ice Lake Mac Pro.
This is less of a spec bump and more of that sort of “what was previously an upgrade option is now standard” thing Apple does with the Mac Pro from time to time, where the Mac Pro itself doesn’t get any faster/better, but the entry level price point does (or rather, it’s a price cut of the upgrade options combined with a discontinuance of the former entry level option).
512GB of storage for a Desktop Pro machine is skimping.
Apple this week upgraded its base model Mac Pro to include 512GB of storage and AMD's Radeon Pro W5500X graphics for the same $5,999 starting price. Previously, this configuration included 256GB of storage and Radeon Pro 580X graphics. These changes apply to both the tower and rack versions of the Mac Pro.
As we previously reported, Apple has also made AMD Radeon Pro W6600X graphics available as a $300 upgrade option for the Mac Pro.
Released in December 2019, the Mac Pro continues to use Intel's Xeon processors, but Apple confirmed during its "Peek Performance" event on Tuesday that an Apple silicon version of the high-end desktop computer is planned. Apple did not provide a release timeframe or any additional details about the future Mac Pro.
Bloomberg's Mark Gurman has previously reported that an Apple silicon version of the Mac Pro will have two chip options, including one with a 20-core CPU and a 64-core GPU and the other with a 40-core CPU and a 128-core GPU.
Article Link: Mac Pro Now Starts With 512GB of Storage and Radeon Pro W5500X Graphics
I think the hip kids today would say “Lolllllllllllllls” ?
Most will buy a studio instead of an AS Pro because there has never been a Mac with the kind of performance that the studio has. This product serves a tremendous swath of the professional market. Only the highest of high end will be needing the AS Mac Pro.
I would assume that's exactly the point?
As much as I love what they're doing with the M1 processor series? It's still in its early stages, and Mac OS has some odd memory leak problems with it. My MBP 16" M1 Max can't stay up and running for over a week or two at a time, or else Mac OS starts running extremely slowly and I get behavior like the top menu bar of the Finder vanishing completely, right-mouse clicks no longer working, etc.
Right now, a "tried and true" Intel based Mac will run Mac OS more stably without the need for regular reboots.
Beyond that, you can't really get a good performing Windows session running on an M1 based Mac. (Even with something like Parallels, an Intel based Mac won't have to do a bunch of code translation between Intel and ARM processor format.)
The funny thing is that the Studio starts for the price of an Afterburner card with the same ProRes performance (I think?) as an Afterburner card.
But I am pretty sure the PowerMac G5 was the last Mac to be replaced by Intel even if it was the first x86-64. And the PowerMac G5 was already 64 bit so it really wasn't a big deal.
If you are doing 3D physics modeling of a electrical, optical, mechanical, etc. structure depending on the dimensions of the structure and the resolution you need to get a converging solution 128GB or even 256GB of main RAM memory isn’t a lot. I’ve crashed a 128GB PC due to insufficient memory plenty of times trying to simulate a simple diffraction grating in Lumerical and Comsol. I tried to model a long photonic waveguide in a rectangular spiral shape in Lumerical once and it required 1.5 TB of main memory or the solution was no go. If you are lucky and your structure is periodic you can get away with just simulating an individual cell and applying Floquet or Bloch boundary conditions to get the result for the full structure. But if the structure is not periodic or does not have some symmetry that allows you to ignore one of the dimensions you are cooked.
Apple this week upgraded its base model Mac Pro to include 512GB of storage and AMD's Radeon Pro W5500X graphics for the same $5,999 starting price. Previously, this configuration included 256GB of storage and Radeon Pro 580X graphics. These changes apply to both the tower and rack versions of the Mac Pro.
As we previously reported, Apple has also made AMD Radeon Pro W6600X graphics available as a $300 upgrade option for the Mac Pro.
Released in December 2019, the Mac Pro continues to use Intel's Xeon processors, but Apple confirmed during its "Peek Performance" event on Tuesday that an Apple silicon version of the high-end desktop computer is planned. Apple did not provide a release timeframe or any additional details about the future Mac Pro.
Bloomberg's Mark Gurman has previously reported that an Apple silicon version of the Mac Pro will have two chip options, including one with a 20-core CPU and a 64-core GPU and the other with a 40-core CPU and a 128-core GPU.
Article Link: Mac Pro Now Starts With 512GB of Storage and Radeon Pro W5500X Graphics
Maximum backward compatibility for years to come on your software. If the price of software is more than the cost of hardware, here you go! If the price of the hardware is more than your software, then maybe give the new Studio a try???
I have a feeling the Mac Pro isn’t targeted at you, theirs a room full of linked computers making a supercomputer for your use..