Possible Upcoming Mac Pro Reference Discovered in OS X El Capitan

[navaira]

Intel generally charges more per ULV CPU than their desktop CPUs. I was not referring to the price of the desktop itself nor Apple's pricing model

Well, what I meant was that the buyer pays for the CPUs at the end. It is Apple's choice to buy more expensive CPUs, and it is Apple's choice to price the machines the way they do. If you're not referring to the price of the desktop or Apple's pricing model, my remark is of course irrelevant so feel free to ignore it.

 

[milo]

If you check Geekbench, the 2009 Mac Pro still beats every Mac that isn't a Mac Pro in terms of multi-core 64-bit performance. That includes all the latest iMacs! That's what made me realize how lame those i7s are for workstation use. I knew Xeon had an advantage, but I didn't realize it was that big. No wonder they cost a fortune.

Which mac pro? The top of the line MP are way ahead of any other mac but the base models have been slower than the high end iMac and laptops for years now. In some cases slower than the quad minis back when they were still available.

When Apple is shipping a machine that starts at $3000 and is still outperformed by consumer models, they're doing something wrong. They either need to boost performance in the base model or start pricing lower.

There's nothing wrong with i7, there are quad i7s that are as good as the base quad xeon and even better. Not to mention that now there are six and eight core i7, Apple just has never used them. i7 only falls behind when you need even more cores or more PCIe lanes.

To make it slimmer, cooler and quieter. You assume the market is full of people who value what we nerds value.

How many consumers actually value "slimmer" in a desktop computer? Or even cooler? This is one thing where apple seems to have a fetish for design but I'm skeptical that much of the public would choose style over performance (for the same price, if not lower).

Agreed. Too bad Apple couldn't throw the pro market some decent bones. They've got plenty of money to R&D that market to new heights and without blinking. The frustrating part is that they pretended to do this when the macpro came out.

And the funny thing is that for them to take the previous mac pro design and just update it to the newest chips and ports would have been a relatively modest R&D hit. Way less than designing something like a laptop, iMac, or even the round MP design they ended up with. It's a small part of their market yet instead of taking the simple path and ending up with a machine that was more expandable, potentially performed better, and probably cheaper to build and sell, they over designed a box that practically nobody was asking for.

 

[kwikdeth]

There's nothing wrong with i7, there are quad i7s that are as good as the base quad xeon and even better. Not to mention that now there are six and eight core i7, Apple just has never used them. i7 only falls behind when you need even more cores or more PCIe lanes.

dont mean to nit-pick but the only 6 & 8 core i7s are on the LGA1366 & LGA2011 sockets which basically makes them the same as the xeons in mac pros. There are no 6- or 8-core variants on the LGA115x socket which is what is (was?) in the imacs.
The E5 in the baseline mac pro is basically an i7-4820 with ECC memory support.

 

[jnpy!$4g3cwk]

Which mac pro? The top of the line MP are way ahead of any other mac but the base models have been slower than the high end iMac and laptops for years now. In some cases slower than the quad minis back when they were still available.

All the Xeon-based Mac Pro models have ECC, the E5 Xeons have 40 PCIe 3.0 lanes, 4 memory channels, and the dual-CPU Xeons add QPI as well. Necessarily, they will be slightly slower per-core than the 4790K. So what? IMHO, every higher-end CPU should have ECC, and you know what? The new mobile Xeon E3's are moving exactly in that direction (albeit not with as much bandwidth+I/O as an E5). If Apple ignores the new mobile Xeons, then you will have something to complain about.

There's nothing wrong with i7, there are quad i7s that are as good as the base quad xeon and even better. Not to mention that now there are six and eight core i7, Apple just has never used them. i7 only falls behind when you need even more cores or more PCIe lanes.

Which is what you need in a Pro machine.

How many consumers actually value "slimmer" in a desktop computer? Or even cooler? This is one thing where apple seems to have a fetish for design but I'm skeptical that much of the public would choose style over performance (for the same price, if not lower).

Agreed, especially about slimmer. Cooler is always nice, electricity is valuable. But, for the moment, GPU power consumption dominates anyway. One of these days, powerful GPUs will drop to 45W TDP; it is just taking a little while longer than CPUs. Back on size: actually, I prefer a 2U/3U/4U rackmount form factors myself for a Pro machine.

 

[milo]

All the Xeon-based Mac Pro models have ECC, the E5 Xeons have 40 PCIe 3.0 lanes, 4 memory channels, and the dual-CPU Xeons add QPI as well. Necessarily, they will be slightly slower per-core than the 4790K. So what? IMHO, every higher-end CPU should have ECC, and you know what? The new mobile Xeon E3's are moving exactly in that direction (albeit not with as much bandwidth+I/O as an E5). If Apple ignores the new mobile Xeons, then you will have something to complain about.

The question is how many of those things give improvements that are apparent to the user? Even PCIe lanes which have lots of potential uses have a number tied up with the second GPU which much software doesn't even use. Those extra features are nice but they still aren't going to make the slower mac pros outperform the faster consumer macs.

Which is what you need in a

Pro machine.

I'd agree with that, but you're not getting more cores in the base MP. And what am I getting out of those extra PCIe lanes? A second internal SSD or more TB ports would be fantastic but instead the only option is a second GPU which is of no benefit to me. And another way to get more PCIe lanes is dual CPU, which apple used to do but backed away from.

Back on size: actually, I prefer a 2U/3U/4U rackmount form factors myself for a Pro machine.

Agreed. Rack mount option would be nice, and I don't feel like the MP needs all those 3.5 bays. Some 2.5 plus at least a couple PCIe SSD slots would be nice.

 

[SoyCapitanSoyCapitan]

Xeons have always been useless for creatives, especially now that you can get so many cores on a single CPU.

ECC memory is useless for creatives. Only really good for computationally intensive scientific applications.

12 cores are pretty much useless in real world applications. I have 12 core Mac Pro tower (because it's cheap now, otherwise I wouldn't) and have checked the task managers of OSX and Windows. I have never seen any of the mainstream video or photo editing apps max out even on six cores when it comes to real world use. After Effects 2015's new rendering engine barely uses 4 cores.

3D rendering can use all those cores, but more and more that type of rendering work is being done on multiple GPUs and GPGPU-based render farms.

So this makes Apple's traditional view a workstation very out of date. In their current version they kept the mostly useless Xeon and ECC memory and they got rid of the always useful PCIE and SATA slots.

Whoever came up with that idea has never used a workstation in their life for anything more than surfing and Office.

 

[Xteec]

How many consumers actually value "slimmer" in a desktop computer? Or even cooler? This is one thing where apple seems to have a fetish for design but I'm skeptical that much of the public would choose style over performance (for the same price, if not lower).

The general public's idea of computer "performance" is does it run Facebook and email and chat.

When normal people buy a desktop (the few that still do in 2015) they want ease of setup, ease of maintenance and yes does it look good and is it quiet.

They don't know or care about whether it's a 2gig or 4 gig graphics card. Or if its Skylake or broadwell. They are focused on tasks and whether the computer can do that task. And most normal people are not cutting 4K videos in final cut or rendering 3D graphics. Once the computer is fast enough to do that task they are not going to pay more for faster parts that allows it to do tasks that they never perform.

But they will pay more for aesthetics. Especially Mac buyers. Hate to say it but Macs are nowadays fashionable products and attract that type of buyer.

For those coming late to this convo it was about why Apple chooses to use lower power chips in desktops when they can be more expensive.

 

[ManuelGomes]

This machine, not being an all-rounder by any means, should be interesting to a vast audience.
Some hate the simplistic design, other love it.
As usual, no single design will fit or get the love of everyone.

 

[jnpy!$4g3cwk]

Xeons have always been useless for creatives, especially now that you can get so many cores on a single CPU.

I'm not following you. If you are talking about Xeon E5's such as currently used in the Mac Pro, the 1620v3 has (only?) four very fast cores, and costs (only?) $300.

ECC memory is useless for creatives. Only really good for computationally intensive scientific applications.

I'm really not sure why "creatives" would not care about system integrity and reliability/availability/maintainability concerns. Surely nothing is more annoying than having your system go flaky some Saturday night when your big project is due Monday morning?

12 cores are pretty much useless in real world applications. I have 12 core Mac Pro tower (because it's cheap now, otherwise I wouldn't) and have checked the task managers of OSX and Windows. I have never seen any of the mainstream video or photo editing apps max out even on six cores when it comes to real world use. After Effects 2015's new rendering engine barely uses 4 cores.

Except, as you go on to say, when you want to render your output.

3D rendering can use all those cores, but more and more that type of rendering work is being done on multiple GPUs and GPGPU-based render farms.

So this makes Apple's traditional view a workstation very out of date. In their current version they kept the mostly useless Xeon and ECC memory and they got rid of the always useful PCIE and SATA slots.

Whoever came up with that idea has never used a workstation in their life for anything more than surfing and Office.

I'm confused. You have a "traditional workstation" now, and, apparently, like it much better than the new form factor. What is it that you want exactly?

For those coming late to this convo it was about why Apple chooses to use lower power chips in desktops when they can be more expensive.

This machine, not being an all-rounder by any means, should be interesting to a vast audience.
Some hate the simplistic design, other love it.
As usual, no single design will fit or get the love of everyone.

Which machine?

 

[kwikdeth]

This machine, not being an all-rounder by any means, should be interesting to a vast audience.
Some hate the simplistic design, other love it.
As usual, no single design will fit or get the love of everyone.

Hey from a design perspective I think the cMP is amazing. It is beautiful. But to me it literally is a Porsche of the computer world - iits very pretty but its of little to no use to me other than looking good. I need tools. Apple no longer wants to provide me those. So used towers and hackintoshes it is.

 

[SoyCapitanSoyCapitan]

I'm not following you. If you are talking about Xeon E5's such as currently used in the Mac Pro, the 1620v3 has (only?) four very fast cores, and costs (only?) $300.



I'm really not sure why "creatives" would not care about system integrity and reliability/availability/maintainability concerns. Surely nothing is more annoying than having your system go flaky some Saturday night when your big project is due Monday morning?



Except, as you go on to say, when you want to render your output.



So this makes Apple's traditional view a workstation very out of date. In their current version they kept the mostly useless Xeon and ECC memory and they got rid of the always useful PCIE and SATA slots.

Whoever came up with that idea has never used a workstation in their life for anything more than surfing and Office.

I'm confused. You have a "traditional workstation" now, and, apparently, like it much better than the new form factor. What is it that you want exactly?



Which machine?

All these questions you are asking are a waste of time. We just don't need Xeons or ECC memory for the creative market. Our computers don't get flaky because of lacking them. If anything, OS bugs and the lack of network connections faster than gigabit Ethernet causes most of the loss of productive time in busy companies. We shouldn't need to wait for ridiculously expensive server CPUs to have 10gigabut Ethernet, but the computer industry giants either stiffed us or didn't think of our needs properly.

 

[jnpy!$4g3cwk]

All these questions you are asking are a waste of time. We just don't need Xeons or ECC memory for the creative market. Our computers don't get flaky because of lacking them. If anything, OS bugs and the lack of network connections faster than gigabit Ethernet causes most of the loss of productive time in busy companies. We shouldn't need to wait for ridiculously expensive server CPUs to have 10 gigabit Ethernet, but the computer industry giants either stiffed us or didn't think of our needs properly.

I'm getting one requirement -- 10 Gbps Ethernet. Anything else?

EDIT: BTW, I agree with you that a high-end Mac Pro should have 10 Gbps Ethernet, but, realize that these parts are still not dirt cheap like 1 G is now. Depending on what you want, $150-$300 in parts alone. And, while I would prefer SFP+ form factor, chances are that a lot of people would feel uncomfortable with anything not RJ-45.

I need tools. Apple no longer wants to provide me those. So used towers and hackintoshes it is.

Which tools are you talking about?

 

[jnpy!$4g3cwk]

We just don't need Xeons or ECC memory for the creative market.

How much does it hurt you to use Xeons w/ ECC? Impossible to discern the price difference between the latest Xeon E3 and the fastest i7-6700K.

http://ark.intel.com/compare/88195,88173,88174

And, the performance difference is about 3%, single core or multi-

http://www.cpu-monkey.com/en/cpu-intel_core_i7_6700k-518

We shouldn't need to wait for ridiculously expensive server CPUs

This is a marketing question I can't answer. Why would a company charge a lot for ECC when the price difference is negligible? I can't answer that, except that I do see ECC coming back as a feature in both desktop and mobile workstations. (That is, not mass-market.)

 

[deconstruct60]

Which mac pro? The top of the line MP are way ahead of any other mac but the base models have been slower than the high end iMac and laptops for years now. ...

When Apple is shipping a machine that starts at $3000 and is still outperformed by consumer models, they're doing something wrong. They either need to boost performance in the base model or start pricing lower.

In single core it has been a couple of years but in multicore it hasn't been so long. Xeon E5 v4 got trapped in the same 14nm transition logjam that tripped up the desktop Gen 5 and 6 ( Broadwell and Skylake) transitions. There has been a schedule slip due to some bugs of E5 v4 (Broadwell ) which is part of the delay. Apple doesn't really have much control over that. Intel isn't offering discounts. And Apple is highly unlikely going to eat lower profit margins. Especially if simply bumping up $500 to the 6 core option to differentiate (which happens to put more money in Apple's pocket. Ditto so a large extent with Intel... goosing folks to 6 core is a money grab. )

Apple skipping Xeon E5 generations may not give them much bargaining power, but what seems to be missing is kicking Intel in the shins on the clocking of the Xeon E5 1620 models. The clocking on 1620 v3 was actually backwards. The microarchitecture improvements basically got washed out by the back-sliding on clock. Whether that is corrected in 1620 v4 or not is up in the air.

In short, there is overlap between the 1620 and the mainstream Core i7 series now because Intel put it there.


Apple could have bumped the base Mac Pro lower if they had bumped the GPUs at some point over the last two years. If they kept the D300 around at lower prices ( due to better pricing from AMD for aging implementation) then could have pushed the base entry price down. There isn't really a part to fix the CPU overlap issue though in the interium time period.

 

[jnpy!$4g3cwk]

Xeon E5 v4 got trapped in the same 14nm transition logjam that tripped up the desktop Gen 5 and 6 ( Broadwell and Skylake) transitions. There has been a schedule slip due to some bugs of E5 v4 (Broadwell ) which is part of the delay. [...]

In short, there is overlap between the 1620 and the mainstream Core i7 series now because Intel put it there.

If I had my druthers, Apple would produce a desktop computer based on the E3 line, with a single GPU, and, bring back the Xserve line as 2U/3U/4U servers with E5 options.

 

[Derived]

Mac Pro: The world's most advanced bathroom trash can.

Oh man, the last time that joke was still funny was...well, never.

 

[deconstruct60]

If I had my druthers, Apple would produce a desktop computer based on the E3 line, with a single GPU, and, bring back the Xserve line as 2U/3U/4U servers with E5 options.

The latter is not going to happen. Apple s best at selling Personal computers. Computers that people buy to use themselves. Computers that are largely bought by organizations to be stuff in a "data center" away from people.... isn't a personal computer. Even in the desktop workstation space is really is more so a 1-to-1 mapping of user to computer.

There is relatively narrow usage of rack mounted to move equipment from place to place in rugged contexts where still might end up with a single user at each stop. But that isn't a broad market.

some folks want Apple to be the new IBM along the lines of the old mindset "Nobody got fired for buying IBM. They are rich and powerful so they'll be around for a long time ... safe. " Apple is rich, but there aren't about being everything for everybody. Being everything for everybody is tanking IBM over the last 2 decades. Dell and HP have drama issues too.
Telling Apple they should on the path those folks are on probably isn't going to get much traction at Apple HQ.

Xeon E3 is limited to the same performance range as the iMac. Apple commit significant fratricide on the iMac? .... again not going to happen any time soon.

The Mac Pro has a price point and a performance space which the Xeon E5 1600 series fits much better than the E3. The 2600 options are a bit whacked on $/performance but they also don't form the bulk of the Mac Pro line up. What Apple has used in the 2600 range should drop into the 1600 product line up over time.

 

[jnpy!$4g3cwk]

The latter is not going to happen.

Oh, I'm aware of that, although I don't think it is really a cost issue. Apple could use a couple of MB's from Supermicro with little or no modification. For marketing reasons, Apple doesn't want a real professional product lineup. I don't get it, but then, I don't understand marketing.

Xeon E3 is limited to the same performance range as the iMac. Apple commit significant fratricide on the iMac? .... again not going to happen any time soon.

Another thing I don't get-- the iMac. Just not a smart form factor to me. I just don't get putting a fairly high-end/hot CPU/GPU in the back of a monitor. The only thing I can figure out is that there are a huge number of people out there who are phobic about cables.

 

[Xteec]

Another thing I don't get-- the iMac. Just not a smart form factor to me. I just don't get putting a fairly high-end/hot CPU/GPU in the back of a monitor. The only thing I can figure out is that there are a huge number of people out there who are phobic about cables.

Don't underestimate how many people that is. I was talking to someone just the other day and that was the main attraction of the iMac. Most people just want to do task x with minimum fuss. Only we nerds like to ooo and ahh over the details.

Apple's existing desktops actually are great for a large amount of people. They just don't happen to serve the xMac crowd which causes us to question how good their existing products are.

The 2014 iMac definitely runs too hot and throttles. However the 2015 one is better. And the next one will be better. The overall design is sound and good for the market it wants to reach. By no means is that me but I can see how it suits a lot of people.

 

[milo]

When normal people buy a desktop (the few that still do in 2015) they want ease of setup, ease of maintenance and yes does it look good and is it quiet.

And I'm still skeptical that "slimmer" specifically is much of a factor for the average consumer. While there are many consumers who don't need much in the way of performance, I have my doubts that an iMac update that was a little thicker but upped performance (and particularly had the potential to be more price competitive) wouldn't generally be received positively by the public.

I'm really not sure why "creatives" would not care about system integrity and reliability/availability/maintainability concerns. Surely nothing is more annoying than having your system go flaky some Saturday night when your big project is due Monday morning?

That's the sales pitch. But there are still plenty of users without ECC whose systems are perfectly stable, and users with ECC who still have it go flaky. ECC is supposed to be a big deal but it's hard to find any example of users being able to tell the difference. I do agree with you about the xeon core stuff. Logic Pro does use all available cores, and Xeon provides more than i7.

In single core it has been a couple of years but in multicore it hasn't been so long. Xeon E5 v4 got trapped in the same 14nm transition logjam that tripped up the desktop Gen 5 and 6 ( Broadwell and Skylake) transitions. There has been a schedule slip due to some bugs of E5 v4 (Broadwell ) which is part of the delay. Apple doesn't really have much control over that. Intel isn't offering discounts. And Apple is highly unlikely going to eat lower profit margins. Especially if simply bumping up $500 to the 6 core option to differentiate (which happens to put more money in Apple's pocket. Ditto so a large extent with Intel... goosing folks to 6 core is a money grab. )

The quad xeon chip costs about $300, the six about $600. I just don't buy that Apple has no choice but to charge $3000 and $3500 for machines with those chips. Yes, Intel has dragged their feet on their high end chips but Apple could still do better. And as you said, GPU prices should have dropped in two years, I'd say the same about SSD and other components.

 

[jnpy!$4g3cwk]

And I'm still skeptical that "slimmer" specifically is much of a factor for the average consumer. While there are many consumers who don't need much in the way of performance, I have my doubts that an iMac update that was a little thicker but upped performance (and particularly had the potential to be more price competitive) wouldn't generally be received positively by the public.

Slimmer is boring. The ability for small fry, whether ordinary consumers or small business marketing, to create professional-looking videos, has been and is a big draw. OTOH, now that teenagers can create 4K videos of skateboarding, what is next? Planned obsolescence is difficult to pull off when everything is already professional quality.

That's the sales pitch. But there are still plenty of users without ECC whose systems are perfectly stable, and users with ECC who still have it go flaky. ECC is supposed to be a big deal but it's hard to find any example of users being able to tell the difference.

ECC is a big issue to me because it has much broader implications than faster diagnosis of your flaky MBP (though I've been through that twice myself). ECC is almost free now, despite long-standing industry attempts to try to artificially differentiate it. The big issue to me is that things that are almost free and could be free, should be free. Like Gigabit Ethernet. Silly not to include it on any and every product that has an RJ-45. Well, ECC falls into the broader category of data path protection, which is still an important part of reliable computing. Prediction: eventually cell phones and tablets will have ECC because it will be almost free and it contributes to data path integrity. Until now, we were starved for performance, but, that is a solved problem. Reliable computing will be a big part of the next two decades. As will energy efficiency.

I do agree with you about the xeon core stuff. Logic Pro does use all available cores, and Xeon provides more than i7.

I don't understand marketing, but, if I were the decider, I would make all the i7's E3's instead. For a "workstation" I think the single socket is OK -- right now you can go all the way from a 4-core 1620v3 all the way to an 18-core 2699v3.

And yes, I would bring back the Xserves-- unless Apple decides to switch to a Linux base.

 

[LarryC]

No, this is Apple that we are talking about, the new mac pro may be a desktop, but that doesn't matter. It will only be 1/8th of an inch at its widest point and 1/64th of an inch on the outside edges. The monitor will be extra. It will be too thin to have any type of interface built-in, and according to apple, it won't need any.

 

[kwikdeth]

Don't underestimate how many people that is. I was talking to someone just the other day and that was the main attraction of the iMac. Most people just want to do task x with minimum fuss. Only we nerds like to ooo and ahh over the details.

which is funny, because most of the new mac pros ive seen in the wild look like Medusa due to the number of cables and adapters plugged into the back. its completely opposite Apple's design ethos in their other markets. an ethos the tower mac pro followed more closely....

 

[dragje]

which is funny, because most of the new mac pros ive seen in the wild look like Medusa due to the number of cables and adapters plugged into the back. its completely opposite Apple's design ethos in their other markets. an ethos the tower mac pro followed more closely....

True, but the machine itself is great, doesn't make noise when calculating video renders and pretty fast as well. But.... I'm waiting for the big update...

 

[jnpy!$4g3cwk]

But.... I'm waiting for the big update...

What's the ETA on that?

Broadwell, or, wait for Skylake/Purley?