MP 7,1 POLL: When to buy a revised cheese grater Mac Pro?

[ZombiePhysicist]

I'm soooo ready to get a new Mac Pro but it's crazy pricing has made me pause to wonder if I shouldn't wait for its being revised? What do you guys think?

Here are my concerns. I'm likely going to get the 28 core machine with minimum ram and storage and video card and then upgrade things later. My guess is the upgrade to 28 cores will cost somewhere between $3k to $8k. So the machine will cost somewhere between $9k to $14k (add in another $1500 or so for apple care and taxes).

My worry is literally a year later we may get a machine with PCIe 5, and a year after that PCIe 6. And I also suspect that with AMD putting pressure on intel that the prices may come down significantly. It just seems like Apple chose the wrong time/spec to release this machine, but then again it's been delayed so long that who knows.

The worry is Apple may not update the machine for another 2 or 3 years, and when they do, they might update it to apple ARM based chips (and I need an intel based machine for various virtualization tasks).

So on the one hand they may upgrade it so quickly that I should wait a year or 2. Or on the other hand it might be forgotten and for all we know the last Mac Pro ever. Apple's track record is just to volatile for me to know.

So what do all of you guys think and what will you do?

 

[skippermonkey]

I've been waiting about seven years to upgrade. Nearly went iMac Pro, but actually glad I put it off and waited for the real deal. It's a day-one order for me, but I still need to see what spec I can justify. I could afford to spend £20K, but that would be hard to justify; I suspect about £12K ($15K) is my top end. So I'll need to balance what I need day one, versus what can actually be upgraded (adding a second MPX later on is definitely on the cards). I think a 16- or 24-core model will be the sweet spot in power/price, but it'd be good to see some comparitive benchmarks first.

The imminent arrival of PCIe 4/5/6 is an annoyance, but I wonder what tangible, real-world difference it will make, with an already powerful CPU/GPU combo. I mean, I've been using a 12-core Mac Pro for nine years with PCIe 3 and it works fine; not sure that's the major bottleneck (it's most likely me!). For a long time I only considered upgrading when the new machine was twice as powerful as my existing one; I'm pretty sure this will be.

If Apple does bring out a better, highly updated machine in two or three years (doubt it'll be only one year after launch – look how little the iMac Pro has been updated) then it'll suck, but I'll have had two to three years use out of this new machine. And who's to say I can't take my RAM, GPU and drives out and shove them in a new chassis?

In brief: life's to short to always be worried about what's next. We all know the Mac Pro is basically obsolete the moment you buy one; everything pretty much is these days. But if you can afford one, just buy it, use the crap out of it, and enjoy it.

 

[verdejt]

Personally I'm hoping that sales for the new MacPro are so abysmal that Apple releases an in between machine. I would love something along the lines of the iMac Pro but in a standalone case without a built in display. The amount of heat generated in those machines cooks the video cards and leads to thermal slowdowns. I might invest in a nMP in the interim just to take advantage of TB and other supported features of Catalina. I can't really justify the large price tag of the new MacPro. Not for what I do which is Genealogy, photo editing, Go Pro video editing and lots of desktop publishing for my wife who is a teacher. The iMac pro's price tag is more than I want to spend as well. It seems Apple likes to go the extreme ends of the spectrum. Either you pay huge for a blown out machine or cheap for an anemic machine. No middle ground.

 

[DearthnVader]

Judging from how long it took Apple to get us this machine, I wouldn't think we will be seeing any major upgrades that require a new logic board anytime soon.

It's a matter of R&D+tooling costs on a computer that likely won't sell in high volume. It will likely take at least 3 years for Apple to recover those costs, so I really wouldn't look for any major updates before 2022.

I doubt anyone that needs a pro desktop is going to wait that long.

Look at the time it took Apple just to draw this machine up after they announced that they would be building a new modular Mac Pro.

 

[skippermonkey]

Yeah, I don't think it will get a major redesign/retooling for many years. It needs to make a profit first.

 

[crjackson2134]

Personally I'm hoping that sales for the new MacPro are so abysmal that Apple releases an in between machine.

Keith,
If sales are that abysmal, Apple will probably abandon all efforts to sell a Mac Pro. I doubt they would keep sinking money into a product line that fails to sell. I expect discontinued would be the moniker for the Mac Pro line at that point.

I hope it sells like gang busters, and the buyers find great satisfaction and usability with these machines. If this turns out to be a profitable product for Apple, I can then see them making a Mac Pro (R), for users that need a more economical solution.

 

[ManuelGomes]

The W-3275 costs 4.449,00 USD (recommended price from Intel) so maybe it will be somewhere around this. I'm curious to see what a fully equipped rig will go for.
If you're going for the waiting game again, you'll never get one. Not that I'm trying to convince you, mind you. It's entirely your call of course, but there will always be something better around the corner.

Skipper, don't count on using "old" stuff, next nmMP will be DDR5, PCIe5 probably and the SSD modules will probably also be different. Don't expect a revised mMP again before 2012 or 2022, and by then all this will be available, if all goes well.

I'll wait for the tech stuff to come out, teardowns to see how the lanes were assigned, reviews, performance numbers. Then, I'll jump right in, if it all pleases me.

 

[ilikewhey]

Giving how proprietary this logic board is, adding pcie 4 is definitely gonna cost some hefty r&d cost, I don’t think apple is gonna update this next year,

Real wold difference is abysmal, pcie 3 offers more than enough bandwidth for gpu for at least another 2-4 years

 

[Macintosh IIcx]

Yeah not a chance we will see a substantial upgrade already next year. New cpu socket, 8 channel memory and PCIE requires a massive redesign of that motherboard = expensive R&D. Maybe in 2021? Who knows besides Apple.

If they don’t upgrade it for the next 3 years it is better to get in now and enjoy it while it is current. That is my thinking.

 

[ilikewhey]

adding pcie 4 requires cpu redesign to accomodate the extra bandwidth, meaning new integration of next gen socket and reflow of pcie bandwidth sharing capacity, the good ol day of 2008, 2009, 2010 mac pro getting updates like that are long gone, apple design this unit to long lasting as possible. hence the modular philosophy. and given how low volume this will sell due to the price, highly doubt apple gonna throw money at it for a annual update.

 

[ManuelGomes]

Yep, ICL will get 8ch mem support, new socket hence, and PCIe4. It will be a while until Apple refreshes the mMP

 

[skippermonkey]

EDIT: misread post!

 

[rpmurray]

It will probably be another six years (if ever) before Apple releases an updated Mac Pro. They'll sell the 2019 for the same inflated prices for that whole time even if the prices of all the components drop to half their prices on release. I'm going to wait until people realize that this will be a dead end and start dumping them on eBay and then buy one for a whole lot less. Might even do that with the 2013 model once the 2019 ships.

 

[goMac]

I think there will probably be an upgrade late next year or early 2021, if Intel stays on track with their roadmap.

But there's always going to be another upgrade. There is no magic time to buy a Mac Pro. Especially with PCIe 5.0 coming so quickly on top of 4.0.

Plus, unless you're really focused on having the best CPU, you'll be fine. The GPU is upgradable and no GPU is going to come close to needing PCIe 4.0 for a long while.

 

[skippermonkey]

Hmmm... I think my initial budget is low. Having read a few sites, it's looking more like a $20,000 purchase (£15K). Ulp.

 

[donluca]

None of the above.

My plan is to work with my maxed out 5.1 for as long as it lives (hopefully a good 3-4 years), then get a cheap Mini or whatever will be available which will suit my needs and then, after another good 5 years, get this new Mac Pro for ~1k.

Which is kind of what I did already for the previous iteration.

 

[ZombiePhysicist]

I think there will probably be an upgrade late next year or early 2021, if Intel stays on track with their roadmap.

But there's always going to be another upgrade. There is no magic time to buy a Mac Pro. Especially with PCIe 5.0 coming so quickly on top of 4.0.

Plus, unless you're really focused on having the best CPU, you'll be fine. The GPU is upgradable and no GPU is going to come close to needing PCIe 4.0 for a long while.

This and other similar points are very fair and I get it. If you wait for the upgrade, you never get the machine.

The difference is we had a period of time of what, around 8 years where PCIe 3 was not updated (around 2011 to 2019), and now suddenly the PCI spec is getting updated about every year. 4 is out. 5 is ratified. 6 is announced (and at the current pace has a decent chance of being ratified in a year or 2). Each offering not a minor performance update, but a literal doubling of bandwidth. So we're talking 4-8x the speed of PCIe 3 in just a year or two. For keeping the machine for a decently long time, say 5-8 years, it seems worthwhile to consider what are known bumps coming considering the amount needed to buy into this model.

My 5,1 Mac Pro really needs to be updated. It's slowly deteriorating, and frankly my 12 core machine really could use a significant boost in speed for what I'm doing. I haven't been this flustered to get a new Mac, I don't think, ever. Mostly because Apple's future plans with the machine a seemingly impossible to predict. I'm not sure if we have a consensus here yet, but it seems that most are betting on apple not updating this machine regularly (maybe in 2 to 3 years (certainly the iMac Pro not being updated in about 2 years speaks to this)) and in which case, then I think I agree, if I know that to be the case, then buying in now would make sense. But I cannot say I have high confidence one way or the other.

 

[ZombiePhysicist]

Lol. This is interesting. So far, the poll is split 50/50 between getting this version or waiting for the next iteration. Good to see my complete indecision and paralysis is also felt by the broader community.

 

[MIKX]

The developmental changes of the cMP model range from the 1.1 to the 5,1 comes to mind.

I don't ever want to own a 1,1 again . . . or a 2,1 for that matter.

Having said that, I would be in my mid 80's ( agewise) before the nuMP reaches optimum development to justify the current. slap in the face ( for the likes of us ) price. .

Assuming that the 2019 model lures enough professional houses back to Mac OS then future model refinement seems plausible.

Looking at the numbers of loved, working 4,1 ~ 5,1 cMPs that are still out there - a 'diluted', reasonably priced nuMP would seem to be a possibllity. I would certainly consider US$4,000 'reasonable'.

 

[DPUser]

Here's hoping for an upgrade in about 2-3 years, causing some early 7,1 rich consumer adopters to feel the "need" to dump their 8 core vanity Mac Pro for the latest and greatest overkill, allowing me to pick one up on the cheap and drop in a fatty 28-or-so core used eBay CPU.

Just dreaming of the glory that was the 4,1.

 

[ZombiePhysicist]

What gets me about the entry 8 core is how limIted it “seems”. For example, how much more can the 8core Xeon process than the 8 core in the MacBook Pro? It seems to make sense for most people to upgrade past the base model.

 

[AidenShaw]

What gets me about the entry 8 core is how limIted it “seems”. For example, how much more can the 8core Xeon process than the 8 core in the MacBook Pro? It seems to make sense for most people to upgrade past the base model.

Sounds like a good project for Bare Feats or one of the other good tech sites (Tom, Anand) to address.

It needs to use something more than garbage benchmarks like GeekBench.

Pose the question as "how long does it take the 8 core MBP, the 8 core iMac, and the 8 core 7,1 to process an 8 hour multi-core render job?".

In other words, look at thermal throttling, not brief sprints.

 

[skippermonkey]

I'm still rocking a 2.93Ghz dual hexacore (12-core) 5,1. Anyone have any idea what kind of performance increase I'd get with the 16-core or 24-core variant? (I'm assuming the 28-core will be out of my price range.) I mean, I'm hoping it's at least twice as powerful, but I've no real idea. This rig is nearly a decade old, after all, so every part of the 7,1 should be faster...

 

[ZombiePhysicist]

I'm still rocking a 2.93Ghz dual hexacore (12-core) 5,1. Anyone have any idea what kind of performance increase I'd get with the 16-core or 24-core variant? (I'm assuming the 28-core will be out of my price range.) I mean, I'm hoping it's at least twice as powerful, but I've no real idea. This rig is nearly a decade old, after all, so every part of the 7,1 should be faster...

I suspect that a 12core 5,1 would do a decent job of keeping up with the new 8core, at least processor wise on anything that is multiprocessor heavy.

 

[DPUser]

What gets me about the entry 8 core is how limIted it “seems”. For example, how much more can the 8core Xeon process than the 8 core in the iMacPro? It seems to make sense for most people to upgrade past the base model.

Exactly.