A $5,000, non-upgradeable stopgap? Abandon ship.
Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
MP 7,1 Waiting for Mac Pro 7,1 A1991 (no more)
- Thread starter Mago
- Start date
-
- Tags
- macpro 2016
- Sort by reaction score
Put the guts a remote box (not in the display) and the iMac Pro would be a decent trash-can replacement, even if it's not upgradeable. But I don't want 500W worth of heat and fan noise 18" from my face all the d*mn time I'm using it.
What I do want from an iMac, paradoixically, is a low power version without any fans - ideally with an OLED display. But that's as a large-screen laptop replacement, not a workstation.
Yes, a modular version will limp out of Cupertino one day, but I barely come here anymore due to the bitter lameness of it all.
What I do want from an iMac, paradoixically, is a low power version without any fans - ideally with an OLED display. But that's as a large-screen laptop replacement, not a workstation.
Yes, a modular version will limp out of Cupertino one day, but I barely come here anymore due to the bitter lameness of it all.
Nah, because I'll wait and see what the Mac Pro looks like and make a decision then. My old Mac Pro will hang on until then. I'm not in any immediate need for a new desktop.
I've worked at a lot of places that use maxed-out iMacs though, and haven't really been concerned with tower Macs, and I can see them picking up some of these. A lot of people aren't concerned with upgrades because they use computers until they're ready to replace.
The iMac has the power and profile to fit my needs, but I have no idea whether or not the Mac Pro will fit my needs *better*, and the fact that Apple is getting serious about eGPUs further throws additional variables into my calculations. It'll be interesting to see how things pan out.
Again, you and fuchsdh are not the only people on this planet that are potential buyers, and before you ask me, no, us 3 are not the only potential buyers in this planet.
I've seen alot of people asking for an iMac Pro and 5'000 is nothing for a company
Apple didn't say "stopgap" at all. The thought was whether they could use an iMac to fill the desktop pro space as a (if not the only ) solution. By count the most pro users are already using MBP and iMac .... Mac Pro was a distant follower to those. Apple was looking for an iMac to increase the flow that customers were already doing off the Mac Pro to the iMac. they could do a larger capture with an iMac Pro.
This is one of the reasons there is no new Mac Pro ... they probably weren't working on one. Stopgap suggests that they hurriedly slapped together the iMac Pro to fill the slot. All the stuff presented today say ... a big no to that. ( there is a not yet shipping Intel and AMD processors they need that won't show up until later. They don't need more time purely to flush out the design and ramp work. )
Not necessarily. The 5K, very high gamut screen actually does cost money.
Lowball the screen at $800 and take half of that and use to put into a larger case and a bigger power supply to power 1-2 more PCI-e cards and you'd end up with something less expensive. If there is room for SATA drive could throw at Fusion Drive at it instead of the 1TB SSD. Chop another $100-200 off. If there are user updatable parts they can play the game of not fully putting in the "top end" parts to shave off costs (e.g., just 3 DIMM slots filled on the original base MP 2013). the iMac Pro does open up that they don't strictly need a desktop solution. If that opens the deskside door again then that is back to perhaps a middle ground between 2012 and 2013 Mac Pro. It just isn't going to show up any time soon. I'd say late 2018 about a year after the iMac Pro settles down after entry.
In High Sierra page there is mention about External GPUs. But there is a paragraph note: Planned for Spring 2018.
It tells you a lot. A LOT. My information may be correct. Apple may really be planning on partnership with GPU company for External cases to create modular Mac Pro. The scalability would go over whole Apple Thunderbolt ecosystem. Not Only Mac Pro would benefit from this, but also every computer with Thunderbolt 3.
It tells you a lot. A LOT. My information may be correct. Apple may really be planning on partnership with GPU company for External cases to create modular Mac Pro. The scalability would go over whole Apple Thunderbolt ecosystem. Not Only Mac Pro would benefit from this, but also every computer with Thunderbolt 3.
which means Apple isn't in the desperate time crunch that folks have been yelping about. ("Apple has to slap together something to stuff into the 2010 case super fast or the whole before the end of 2017 or the whole Mac Pro universe will dry up and evaporate') ..... well no.
Not everyone is going to be happy with the iMac Pro. Some people are. They aren't going to loose everyone immediately.
If Apple updated the Mac Mini in the fall ( headless 21.5" iMac like in parts ) and did iMac Pro .... their story about revised Mac Pro in 2018 has some credibility. If the Mini ( only other LCD panel-less device) remains stuffed in a corner ... then would create some doubt.
Well, let's not forget it's Apple we're talking about here... overpriced and underpowered.
Im referring to this post: https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/waiting-for-mac-pro-7-1.1975126/page-192#post-24475479
And this part:
Apple dependent upon a 3rd party a primary modules is completely at odds with Apple's basic methodology. That doesn't make any sense at all. Not even the slightest.
Spring 2018 would far more so help iMac Pro fill more of the void until Apple could do a late 2018 Mac Pro. external GPU isn't the whole problem. There are x4 - x16 cards in a variety of domains that would be useful inside of an updated Mac Pro that could take 1-2 standard PCI-e cards. ( stop wrestling over the main GPU card and start looking at the secondary cards that folks put in. ).
Spring 2018 isn't surprising because this going to take an OS GPU driver stack significant update. Apple isn't going to have to flush that out and getting the rest of High Serra out the door. Get the base OS out there. It is "High Serria" like "Snow Leopard" was to "leopard" ... get a far more stable macOS out there and *then* make major changes. That's why they'd kick it to the Spring.
MS put tons more effort into TBv3 GPU support than Apple has. Windows had a better aligned baseline design previously and MS did all the extra work. Apple hasn't. They have dumped a ton of resources into Metal and now Metal 2. They have alot of catching up to do outside of that narrow space.
Hopefully there is an option to skip converting to APFS for folks who don't want that risk factor too this Fall. ( I suspect that won't be fully flushed out until Spring either. )
You are overcomplicating something extremely simple.
AMD partners with Apple and delivers Vega GPUs as external dies for small form factor external expansion for Mac. The GPUs are soldered, Apple way, to the External enclosures. You buy whole package. Is this that hard to imagine?
I honestly believe the Mac Mini is no longer something Apple cares about. I expect it to be discontinued once they run out of stock / parts.
I believe it does. Apple will not sacrifice design for maximum performance. By offering full support for eGPUs, they can (better) appease the folks who need more GPU performance while still maintaining their design ethos.
If they are building iMac Pro, be prepared for Mac Mini Pro.
It appears to be the trend lately in Apple ecosystem.
TBv3 makes the return of that iMac feature (target display mode) possible. With TBv2 port can't really drive a 5K display. Is that a priority development action item? Not sure. ( didn't see it on some screen grabs of the major features slide )
Probably not. There is going to be a highly custom cooling system to make this work. How they are covering 500W inside basically the same case even with double fans is probably with some highly coordinated tap dancing ( if it even works on long sustain workloads). They are still trying to hide a single exhaust vent behind the pedestal arm. ... although it seems they have moved the RAM DIMMs out of that zone to make the hole bigger. ( so is there a cut out on the back panel to get to them. If not ... I think they'll loose more folks over no RAM access than over GPU access. )
No. Extremely doubtful they will deatch the screen from the economies of scale with the rest of the 27" iMac models.
Folks can plug in a bigger 2nd screen.
It looks like you want a cylindrical Mac Pro, just admit it. Too bad Apple is discontinuing it for that instead of updating it (and optimally getting rid of Intel, ECC, and workstation/server-priced gpu/ram).
I'd rather have a Mac Pro Mini instead of an iMac Pro or a Mac Mini Pro for desktop computing, that's for sure. For experiments and serious power, nothing is good enough; not the HP Z8x0, not the Dells, not the old Mac Pro, not the Cylinder, not the modular Mac Pro.
Last edited:
It's not about justifying it - it's about putting it in context.
If you want more performance, you can pay for it in the PC world, but at similar configurations, the iMac Pro is not overpriced compared to a mainstream OEM PC (Dell / HP / Lenovo).
I think it will. The Mac Pro is the flagship. I liken it to Mercedes allowing the A45 to be faster, more raucous and more expensive than the C63.Not necessarily. The 5K, very high gamut screen actually does cost money.
the iMac Pro does open up that they don't strictly need a desktop solution. If that opens the deskside door again then that is back to perhaps a middle ground between 2012 and 2013 Mac Pro. It just isn't going to show up any time soon. I'd say late 2018 about a year after the iMac Pro settles down after entry.
[doublepost=1496695976][/doublepost]
As long as they don't do what they did with the MacBook Air Superdrive…..
I think this hints at the Mac Pro starting outside of my price range. I'm sure it will be powerful, but $5000 for an iMac? Yikes. In another thread I said that hardware in a self built PC would still most likely be out of my price range, so no los for me.
But man, a mid range desktop would be fantastic.
The new iMacs and the Apple external GPU enclosure tempt me, though. Especially as my 3d app of choice, Cinema 4d, has demonstrated a truly AMD/nVidia cross platform GPU renderer in their custom implementation of AMD ProRender at NAB.