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How will Apple update the Mac Pro?


  • Total voters
    236

pat500000

Suspended
Jun 3, 2015
8,523
7,515
I voted "It's dead, RIP"

Not that I want that to be true. But I believe the signs point that direction.

Personally, I miss the way Apple used to fill various segments.

You used to be able to buy at your exact level of need. Now the gaps are huge. And then there's even gaps above the highest buying level.

So, now you buy below your needs, or above your needs, or in many cases there isn't even an option that can perform your needs.

It's an unfortunate situation for people who prefer Apple.

I remember buying my PowerPC G3 233-DT with A/V.

I wanted to work with video, and I considered the software I'd be using, the video source, and found a Mac with the right mix of hardware. It had composite video inputs, DVD, and a G3 processor.

Lots of other options were available. But that one hit exactly on my intended usage.

But, today, if my needs were very specific, I'd have to buy higher than my needs, or possibly find that nothing Apple had would fit my needs.

It's harder today to just say I need exactly these features with nothing more and nothing less, and then go buy a Mac. Most likely close to impossible, depending on your needs.
After that trolling website update, its a no brainer that tim was bsing when he said that desktop is important.
 

macs4nw

macrumors 601
Most likely they'll just eliminate the Mac Pro completely.

But, if they're creative enough, they might still be able to make a boatload of money off the fanboys of thin and small segment of the Apple users.

Tim will walk out on stage, hold out his hand (which looks empty) and announce that Apple has produced the most advanced super computer in the world.

Introducing the Mac Pro Atom. The supercomputer smaller than a single molecule of water.

Tim twitches his fingers, and the screen behind him on the wall begins flashing random bits of information.

Tim states that in that brief flicker, that the new Mac Pro Atom has just calculated the meaning of life.

Available today, for the modest price of $10,000, the new Mac Pro Atom is already revolutionizing the world.

Due to our new and improved manufacturing techniques, there is an endless supply and the new Mac Pro Atom arrives immediately in your hand the moment you pay.

As an additional benefit, the new Mac Pro Atom will finally establish your superiority among your peers. The new Mac Pro Atom only reveals itself to those who are geniuses and actual Pro users.

Those of you who see nothing in my hand are inferior and not fit to inhabit this earth. You know who you are.

Get the new Mac Pro Atom today. Only a fool would miss the opportunity.

Tim walks off the stage. Everyone looks around uncomfortably while maintaining a facade of superiority and immediately hits the buy now button on the Apple Watches.

At once everyone holds out their hands and seems to be acknowledging a device in their palms. Fingers twitching, everyone excitedly makes their way out of the room proclaiming to have seen the light.

Alas, nobody dares to exclaim that they see nothing. For nobody wants to reveal to the crowd that they are inferior to everyone else.
Haven't snickered this hard all day...... thank you!

On topic, it's hard to figure out the new Apple lately, if I were to hazard a guess, an incremental update to the trashcan with suitable CannonLake Xeons, or perhaps AMD Ryzen processors, possibly with Optane storage and memory, but it's entirely possible they'll eventually abandon the Pro market altogether. The amount of profit coming from the entire Mac segment of their business is a paltry 10% give or take, so you can imagine how little of that comes from the MacPro itself.

A sad prospect for loyal Pro users really.
 
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now i see it

macrumors G4
Jan 2, 2002
10,676
22,335
"You will see us do more in the pro area," Cook said. "The pro area is very important to us. The creative area is very important to us in particular."

Apple CEO Tim Cook reassured investors that Apple is still very much focused on its professional customers and has plans to "do more" in the pro area.

tee hee hee. We'll see, we'll see if the king of BS is TC. ... or not.

An optimist might think that Apple has big plans for the mac and these plans are taking a long time to come to fruition for any of ten thousand possible reasons.

A pessimist might think that TC is intentionally driving the Mac into the ground & Apple sees the iPad, iPhone & iOS as its future.

Either way you see it, few people are happy with the direction they've taken their computers… regardless of the update frequency.
 

AidenShaw

macrumors P6
Feb 8, 2003
18,667
4,676
The Peninsula
Yeah, no need to vote. The answer has been given!
Not really.

Some Apple execs admitted that the MP6,1 missed the mark, and said some fuzzy things about a redesign.

And changed the pricing for the existing line (no new tech) from "outrageously expensive" to merely "expensive". "Throw them a bone."

It should have been pretty clear from the interview that nothing has really been decided about the mMP. "Modular" could mean anything from the an updated cMP to a wild LEGO-like snap together system.

Or "modular" could mean that they're going to move the GPUs from PCIe 3.0 x16 connections to bandwidth starved T-Bolt connections to down-clocked weak ATI GPUs in external cabinets.

This reminds me of the parable of the blind men and the elephant. Some are reading very vague descriptions of the mMP, and applying their hopes to those descriptions.

For those putting off Hacks or putting off moving to Windows/Linux - do you really want the status quo for maybe two years, and then maybe be totally underwhelmed by what the amigos create?
 

deconstruct60

macrumors G5
Mar 10, 2009
12,309
3,902
Or "modular" could mean that they're going to move the GPUs from PCIe 3.0 x16 connections to bandwidth starved T-Bolt connections to down-clocked weak ATI GPUs in external cabinets.

Unlikely.

' ...
I ask him what Apple’s philosophy on external GPUs is.

“I think they have a place,” he says, and leaves it at that. ...'
https://techcrunch.com/2017/04/04/apple-pushes-the-reset-button-on-the-mac-pro/

I think Apple may grudgingly enable this, but it seems that this is not a hot issue for them. Once the GPUs on are on the other side of the TB bus and sitting in standard PCI-e physical slots, that is going to hard to keep a AMD ( ATI hasn't existed in years ) GPU only solution. Or even a "build for Macs" solution.

Apple's macOS GPU stack is in enough turmoil as it is with leaving OpenGL/OpenCL/ open standards for Metal anyway. I doubt they want to stack detachable GPUs to the workload.


Modularity here appears to be the ability for Apple to put a new GPU system of their own into a container that they themselves designed. It would be also easier for them to build custom cards at a low resource consuming rate and on a regular basis if just had more flexibility of putting card and cooling into a module slot. No coupling to CPU, industrial design group , Thunderbolt updates , etc. etc. Just a GPU subsystem of their own limited resourced design.
 

jeff7117

macrumors regular
Jul 22, 2009
174
456
Unlikely.

' ...
I ask him what Apple’s philosophy on external GPUs is.

“I think they have a place,” he says, and leaves it at that. ...'
https://techcrunch.com/2017/04/04/apple-pushes-the-reset-button-on-the-mac-pro/

I think Apple may grudgingly enable this, but it seems that this is not a hot issue for them. Once the GPUs on are on the other side of the TB bus and sitting in standard PCI-e physical slots, that is going to hard to keep a AMD ( ATI hasn't existed in years ) GPU only solution. Or even a "build for Macs" solution.

Apple's macOS GPU stack is in enough turmoil as it is with leaving OpenGL/OpenCL/ open standards for Metal anyway. I doubt they want to stack detachable GPUs to the workload.


Modularity here appears to be the ability for Apple to put a new GPU system of their own into a container that they themselves designed. It would be also easier for them to build custom cards at a low resource consuming rate and on a regular basis if just had more flexibility of putting card and cooling into a module slot. No coupling to CPU, industrial design group , Thunderbolt updates , etc. etc. Just a GPU subsystem of their own limited resourced design.

No nvidia option leaves out a major portion of the pro user base who use CUDA for rendering / processing.
 

Joe The Dragon

macrumors 65816
Jul 26, 2006
1,025
474
Unlikely.

' ...
I ask him what Apple’s philosophy on external GPUs is.

“I think they have a place,” he says, and leaves it at that. ...'
https://techcrunch.com/2017/04/04/apple-pushes-the-reset-button-on-the-mac-pro/

I think Apple may grudgingly enable this, but it seems that this is not a hot issue for them. Once the GPUs on are on the other side of the TB bus and sitting in standard PCI-e physical slots, that is going to hard to keep a AMD ( ATI hasn't existed in years ) GPU only solution. Or even a "build for Macs" solution.

Apple's macOS GPU stack is in enough turmoil as it is with leaving OpenGL/OpenCL/ open standards for Metal anyway. I doubt they want to stack detachable GPUs to the workload.


Modularity here appears to be the ability for Apple to put a new GPU system of their own into a container that they themselves designed. It would be also easier for them to build custom cards at a low resource consuming rate and on a regular basis if just had more flexibility of putting card and cooling into a module slot. No coupling to CPU, industrial design group , Thunderbolt updates , etc. etc. Just a GPU subsystem of their own limited resourced design.
now an box like this

http://www.cronologic.de/products/pcie/

or just stacked with an full pci-e link to each module
 

tuxon86

macrumors 65816
May 22, 2012
1,321
477
what CUDA based rendering software for macOS are you talking about this major portion of pros to be using?



---
edit- *rhetorical

What CUDA enabled software could be made available on the Mac if Apple give people the freedom of choosing their own brand of GPU, is a better question to ask.
 
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jeff7117

macrumors regular
Jul 22, 2009
174
456
what CUDA based rendering software for macOS are you talking about this major portion of pros to be using?



---edit- *rhetorical

For the CG/mograph/animation/film/post production crowd. Some of these are also used in architecture/previs.

Octane, Resolve, Nuke, Creative Suite, Redshift, Cycles 4D. The next release of Arnold Render will be GPU accelerated. V-Ray is developing a GPU version of its rendering software.

Almost all of those apps are available in OSX.
 
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EnderBeta

macrumors 6502a
Aug 5, 2016
559
520
Exactly. Third party companies have filled the vacuum Apple created as they dumb down, or discontinue, 'Pro' software.

Apple continues to lock down the hardware too, essentially making their products disposable gadgets, rather than traditional computers that owners can customize to fit their needs with additional third party hardware. Buy an Apple, you get what you bought and that's all it will ever be.

If making the device fit your needs is only about external peripherals and third party software, which also work (sometimes better) with non Apple products, what reason is there to buy Apple products anymore?

Apple abandoned us, so we've moved on. It will nice to have the power of multiple Nvidia GTX1080 in our workstations.
Dual GTX 1080 cards are awesome. I have had two since they came out and they can do max settings 4K gaming. In video editing render times where reduced significantly when moving from two GTX 970 cards.

It is mind boggling to me that Apple isn't supporting the GTX 10X0 series cards in macOS.
 

jeff7117

macrumors regular
Jul 22, 2009
174
456
Dual GTX 1080 cards are awesome. I have had two since they came out and they can do max settings 4K gaming. In video editing render times where reduced significantly when moving from two GTX 970 cards.

It is mind boggling to me that Apple isn't supporting the GTX 10X0 series cards in macOS.

Dual 1080's do indeed rock. Running two here as well.
 

Rustus Maximus

macrumors 6502
Jan 15, 2003
365
466
It is mind boggling to me that Apple isn't supporting the GTX 10X0 series cards in macOS.

Not really Ender, when you ponder which product they sell to which you could add the 1080? In their world Hackintoshes should be hunted down and slaughtered for the unnatural abominations they are. The classic Mac Pro tower is like the old man at the barbershop they hope kicks off soon because they're tired of hearing him yap about how great things were back in his day. And eGPU? ha. They hate that almost as much.

Perhaps the future Mac Pro...perhaps.

Of course by then we could be up to the 1280 or whatever Nvidia decides to call it in two years.
 

EnderBeta

macrumors 6502a
Aug 5, 2016
559
520
Not really Ender, when you ponder which product they sell to which you could add the 1080? In their world Hackintoshes should be hunted down and slaughtered for the unnatural abominations they are. The classic Mac Pro tower is like the old man at the barbershop they hope kicks off soon because they're tired of hearing him yap about how great things were back in his day. And eGPU? ha. They hate that almost as much.

Perhaps the future Mac Pro...perhaps.

Of course by then we could be up to the 1280 or whatever Nvidia decides to call it in two years.
That about sounds like their attitude with Android.

I love your analogy even if it is depressingly true.

The nMPc can't arrive soon enough.
 

developer13245

macrumors 6502a
Nov 15, 2012
771
1,003
Dead... Keep in mind, Apple NO LONGER has the technical expertise to develop a Pro Desktop. That expertise went out the door when Bob Mansfield "retired", but wait.... he came back.. sorta... oh... Now he works on "future projects" directly under Tim Cook - which really is just a snow job for being "shielded" after being shellacked in a battle with the "untouchable" design false god, Jony Ive. But rank and file engineers don't get that protection from the ego maniac Ive - so they languish (the state of ALL Apple Macs has descended to terrible since the rise of the Trash Can, which is also a sign that the organization is damaged). Ive's ego won and the damage is probably irreparable.

Mansfield's downward then ???? 'trajectory' at Apple directly corresponds to the rise of the Trash Can, which is just an embodiment of Jony Ive's ego. But we all knew "Design above all else" was going to fail for heat reasons, and we were RIGHT.

Jony Ive's ego killed the Mac. No, Apple cannot innovate any more - Ive Killed that, and Phil Shriller must have a massive case of BUTT HURT after getting the now admittedly failed Trash Can inserted via his "Can't innovate anymore..." comment - OUCH!!!
 
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