MP 7,1 POLL: The NEW Cheese Grater Mac Pro (nCMP). Hot or Not?

[RetroDan]

I'm not thrilled about the design. However, everything else has me squealing in girlish delight.

1 - I love the expandability. EIGHT PCIe slots? Four of which are double-wide? Hells yes. Apple is clearly opening the door for users to truly customize their 7,1s in whatever way they see fit. And that's a good thing.
2 - Price. No, seriously - consider the base model for the 7,1 and the iMac Pro. The difference between the two at the lowest level is surprisingly small. I was honestly terrified that with the iMac Pro starting at $5k, the 7,1 would start at something like $8-9k. $6k is...surprisingly competitive. And yeah, I know that'll scale up quickly, but it's still more reasonably priced than I imagined.
3 - NOTHING IS ****ING SOLDERED IN PLACE! Oh, sweet merciful Buddha, after the Mac Mini/Macbook/iMac nonsense of the past five years, I was honestly dreading this. But every major component that SHOULD be swappable...IS. Thank you, Robot Zombie Ninja Pirate Jesus, THANK you! I don't have to worry about what I might need in the future with regards to CPU performance, or RAM, or hard drive space.
4 - RAM. Holy skagsuck, an upper limit of 1.5TB? With 12 slots of DDR4? Please excuse me whilst I change my pants, as I just happy'd myself at the thought.
5 - MPX. I know that Apple is gonna charge a premium for their MPX stuff, but I honestly hope to god that this becomes a universal form factor. The MPX allows up to 500W being delivered to a single card, completely obsolescing internal power cables for high-end devices like GPUs. This is a GOOD IDEA, and one I'd love to see the industry adopt.
6 - 1.4kW PSU. Duuuuuuude.

Pretty much the only thing that concerns me is hard drives. They say 'all-flash' and it looks to me like a custom connection. Oh, I know that third parties will come along and make their own hard drives, but I'm not super thrilled about the idea of being locked into Apple's designs, particularly when I have about 10TB of data stored on HDDs. I see what look like two SATA connectors on the board, so maybe I'm being paranoid, but the silence on that subject is not my favorite thing ever.

 

[mrxak]

Haha. I think they even made it look more like a cheese grater on purpose to throw it in our faces vindictively.

Exactly.

 

[ssgbryan]

I keep coming back to 8 cores and PCIe 3.

For those of you that didn't pay attention during Computex - lots of PCIe 4 stuff headed for the doors in the next couple of months.

Stuff I want (need).

I don't know if I could go back to 8 cores.

 

[ZombiePhysicist]

I keep coming back to 8 cores and PCIe 3.

For those of you that didn't pay attention during Computex - lots of PCIe 4 stuff headed for the doors in the next couple of months.

Stuff I want (need).

I don't know if I could go back to 8 cores.

Were any of the PCI4 cards you saw with Xeon Intel?

 

[thirdwaver]

just get a Mac Mini, it will run circles around your 8-core. (i had one, 2008 8-core)

This thing is an absolute overkill for audio.

I have a new Mac mini. It does not run circles around my 8-core. It doesn’t play WoW as well either. And expanding it is nearly impossible. When I say “do audio” I’m talking about 60 tracks with full symphonies. Not mixing down guitar, lead, bass, and drums.

 

[MistrSynistr]

I don’t understand the visual design issues some of you have...it’s literally what every single once of you asked for...a modern updated version of the old cheese grater design Mac Pro.

 

[ZombiePhysicist]

Cool Johnny Ive video from here:

https://www.macobserver.com/cool-stuff-found/wwdc-2019-the-not-shown-jony-ive-new-mac-pro-video/

 

[Kpjoslee]

Were any of the PCI4 cards you saw with Xeon Intel?

According to latest roadmap, intel is going to PCI 4.0 in 2020 with Ice Lake, but immediately moving to 5.0 in 2021 with Sapphire rapids. So likely we might see Mac Pro jumping straight to 5.0 if they actually do the timely updates.

 

[ZombiePhysicist]

According to latest roadmap, intel is going to PCI 4.0 in 2020 with Ice Lake, but immediately moving to 5.0 in 2021 with Sapphire rapids. So likely we might see Mac Pro jumping straight to 5.0 if they actually do the timely updates.

So youre assuming no upgrades for 2 years with the first upgrade being in 2021. Or do you think they will give a small spec bump upgrade in 2020 but with the same PCI 3 architecture?

 

[retta283]

So youre assuming no upgrades for 2 years with the first upgrade being in 2021. Or do you think they will give a small spec bump upgrade in 2020 but with the same PCI 3 architecture?

Considering Apple's update patterns, I don't think there will be any updates in 2002, maybe a late 2021 with 4 or 5.

 

[Kpjoslee]

So youre assuming no upgrades for 2 years with the first upgrade being in 2021. Or do you think they will give a small spec bump upgrade in 2020 but with the same PCI 3 architecture?

They might choose to use Cooper Lake up to 48 cores (14nm, PCIe 3.0), but it might end up testing the thermal limit on CPU so I think it is unlikely. Ice Lake is 4.0 but it seems like it is stopgap product for 10nm maturation.

Instead I think we would get GPU upgrade in 2020, AMD is planning to release Arcturus GPU(Vega successor for high-end) next year.

 

[Flint Ironstag]

My big concern is if it's PCI 3, PCI 5 is now out. It's basically 4x the speed of PCI3. I'd like to poo on apple about it, on the other hand, it's more intel not having a chipset to support the new standard.

So the dilemma is, do i wait a year and hope the new intel chipset and updated mac pro come out with PCI 5. Or, do I fear that intel doesnt update the chipset for a couple of years and by the time apple gets to updating it, it might be 3 years from now (or not ever). So do I just bite the bullet and get it now, or hold off for the much more modern PCI 5 standard?

In all seriousness, who here is bottlenecked by PCIe3 today, and who would have preferred that Apple say "we're waiting until January so we can include PCIe4"?

I had a 2009 cheese grater that I recently upgraded to the higher end Mini. I don't think I can justify 6K for the amount of editing I do nowadays and I suspect a lot of people complaining about this machine aren't people who would use it for it's real purpose.

Please enlighten us as to its real purpose.

I suspect that most systems will be far above the entry-level $6K price. I've spent $60K just for memory upgrades....

You picking up some of these for your folks?

 

[ssgbryan]

In all seriousness, who here is bottlenecked by PCIe3 today, and who would have preferred that Apple say "we're waiting until January so we can include PCIe4"?

Please enlighten us as to its real purpose.

You picking up some of these for your folks?

It isn't just for today The 6,1 had a lifespan of over 2,000 days.

OTOH, lots of folks demoed PCIe 4.0 cards at Computex. Storage is going to be a thing. 4 NMVe blades on a single card kinda storage.

 

[mrxak]

I don’t understand the visual design issues some of you have...it’s literally what every single once of you asked for...a modern updated version of the old cheese grater design Mac Pro.

It looks exactly like a literal cheese grater. That's not really what people had in mind. When they called the old Mac Pro a cheese grater it was just a joke, a term of endearment, not an invitation for Jony Ive to use an actual cheese grater as inspiration for his next design, which he appears to have done here.

I don't think people are going to not buy it because of its looks. They just think it looks a bit silly. If Apple had made a new Mac Pro using something very much like the original case, everyone would've been happy with how it looked. Well, some would complain they didn't update it at all, but those people probably aren't even buying Mac Pros to begin with.

As designs go, it's honestly a lot better than I expected. I still reserve the right to poke fun at Jony Ive for taking "cheese grater" literally, when everyone was really just asking for a regular old tower.

 

[ZombiePhysicist]

It isn't just for today The 6,1 had a lifespan of over 2,000 days.

OTOH, lots of folks demoed PCIe 4.0 cards at Computex. Storage is going to be a thing. 4 NMVe blades on a single card kinda storage.

Those 4blade NVME cards exist today. With 12.5-15GB/sec throughput. Crazy cool stuff.

 

[ssgbryan]

I think it looks great - and I love the insides even more - it is very well thought out.

But it is 8 cores, PCIe 3.0, a 2 year old video card, and only 32 Gb of ram for that $6,000.

Now, if it was a 12 or 16 core, 64Gb of ram, PCIe 4.0, and a WX5100 (workstation version of the 580), then I know what I would be getting myself for Xmas.

 

[zemaker]

Apple design has been hit and miss lately. This is the first Mac Pro design that I have not liked, ever. I am old enough to have purchased most of them since the G3 Blue and White.

 

[ZombiePhysicist]

So here is a question. What if you want to use a traditional pci video card that uses 6pin and/or 8pin power cords, how do you plug them in? Will there be some adapter cable to plug into the new pci slot to draw power into cable form?

UPDATE: Also learned, you need to get the 24 or 28 core machine if you want to have the ability to upgrade to 1.5TB of ram. The lower count machines "only" go to 750GB of ram.

 

[thornslack]

It is a very cool machine. It is very Apple. Down to the 256gb SSD on a 6k entry work station xD. But overall I like the design and the inside is lovely.

 

[x-evil-x]

It’s hot.

As the cool kids would say, it’s fire.

that's so 2016
[doublepost=1559630068][/doublepost]I think it looks really good but those handles on top don't do much for me. They could of easily built in handles into the design that blend much better. The feet look good though. The display looks really good to me but for the price its a laughing mess. The stand is nice looking but for that amount of money its the worst thing apple could of done to make their customers feel ok with the whole package. It will turn people off from even buying this thing. Apple messed up Imo on the display/stand/vesa mount price.

 

[MisterAndrew]

that's so 2016
[doublepost=1559630068][/doublepost]I think it looks really good but those handles on top don't do much for me. They could of easily built in handles into the design that blend much better. The feet look good though. The display looks really good to me but for the price its a laughing mess. The stand is nice looking but for that amount of money its the worst thing apple could of done to make their customers feel ok with the whole package. It will turn people off from even buying this thing. Apple messed up Imo on the display/stand/vesa mount price.

And you’ve carried around the last cheese grater? It wasn’t exactly comfortable to pick up... The design of the new handles is much better.

 

[x-evil-x]

And you’ve carried around the last cheese grater? It wasn’t exactly comfortable to pick up... The design of the new handles is much better.

that's what the wheels are for. I don't think the handles are necessary if they could of build them into the frame.

 

[ZombiePhysicist]

Well the wheels wont help in the rack mounts!

 

[MisterAndrew]

that's what the wheels are for. I don't think the handles are necessary if they could of build them into the frame.

You're going to have to pick it up at times. You're not going to be able to wheel it around everywhere. The handles are part of the frame.

 

[zedex]

Beautiful. Back to extruded aluminium. Both 'form' and 'function' with a tilt in favour of function. I'm absolutely stoked with it. I'm happy to give Apple both praise and credit for reworking the most amazing Mac ever engineered (the 5,1).. It's 96/100 in my book