Sidebar Sidebar
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)

Basically: Say goodbye to CUDA, Vulkan, OpenCL, OpenGL on mac Platform, and say hello to Metal 2 ;). This is from this moment on the go-to API here.
Jack Burton said:
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.
Click to expand...
Which API was used?
 
  • Like
Reactions: Zarniwoop
The thing that's surprising to me about the $5K price point, even for Apple, is that its a good distance above a "well equipped" iMac. Add the top processor, 32GB RAM and 1TB SSD and you're still "only" at about $3700 on the iMac. Good lord, that's already an expensive computer, but you still have $1300 in space between it and the iMac Pro. I guess we don't know for sure what the 1600 chips will look like, but if i9 is any indication there was a 6 core that you could plug in and maybe drop the price $400-500, but I'm guessing the lower clock rates on that compared to the 4core iMac made it less favorable?
 
The iMac Pro colour is nice. I wonder how they keep it cool? The HP Z820/840 has 12 cooling fans, lots of space, and giant CPU heatsinks. I guess it would have taken some ingenuity to get optimal cooling in the small iMac space. Then again, Clevo laptops have desktop CPUs so it is doable.
 
CWallace said:
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.
Click to expand...

We'll see. I think apple needs to decide if they want to keep the Mac Mini tracking the MBP 13" and entry 15" models or to switch to tracking the iMac 21.5" model.

If Apple brings back function key MBP's with so-DIMMs then that would put the Mac Mini back on track to its roots. If the MBP path becomes uniformly soldered on RAM and SSDs then the Mini has major alignment problems with its target market.

If Apple switches to headless iMac there might be some traction. Apple still has a major problem getting desktop traction in the sub $999 zone. They can keep whistling in the dark about that but it will eventually bite them in the butt just like Chromebooks did.


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.
Click to expand...

bull. They have not does this before. This isn't about design versus max performance. it is about leaving out a major chunk of the system to outside 3rd parties. If Apple did anything with the MP 2013 they pulled too much system components internal not fewer. Taking ownership of ALL the GPUs is not a 3rd party delegation; not even in the slightest. Furthermore, eGPUs are primarily a laptop issue not a Mac Pro issue. eGPU in the Mac Pro space is largely a dubious AMD vs Nvidia pissing match. It doesn't get to the actual root cause problem because it isen't really GPUs.

The are a variety of 3rd party x4 - x16 PCI-e cards that hook to infrastructure that folks have sunk lots of money into. Dropping one of the cards into a Mac Pro allows them to hook up to huge financial boat anchor effectively. external PCI-e boxes aren't the best first cut at those poroblems. Apple could have a Mac Pro with one (maybe two ) slots and cover most of that problem space. For the folks with a substantive collection of those cards they could go off into the external PCI-e box space. But stuff like Sonnet's

http://www.sonnettech.com/product/xmacminiserver.html

and

http://www.sonnettech.com/product/xmacproserver/index.html


With the Mini , iMac and iMac Pro they'd have 3 levels of desktops. That opens a door for something that isn't desktop footprint minimized. Personally I suspect the top end iMac Pro ( 18c and "max" Vega GPU) is going to run into the same kinds of issues the 12C + dual D700 ran into. The very top end of the iMac Pro probably needs to be dialed back and dropped into another system for which it will work better.
 
wallysb01 said:
The thing that's surprising to me about the $5K price point, even for Apple, is that its a good distance above a "well equipped" iMac. Add the top processor, 32GB RAM and 1TB SSD and you're still "only" at about $3700 on the iMac. Good lord, that's already an expensive computer, but you still have $1300 in space between it and the iMac Pro. I guess we don't know for sure what the 1600 chips will look like, but if i9 is any indication there was a 6 core that you could plug in and maybe drop the price $400-500, but I'm guessing the lower clock rates on that compared to the 4core iMac made it less favorable?
Click to expand...
Xeon versions of HEDT Intel CPUs will cost few hundred bucks more. Expect 1200$ for 8 core CPU, and around 1700$ for 10 core.
AidenShaw said:
Because ISVs don't like to rewrite their applications for Apple's "API of the week".
Click to expand...
Machine Learning market is different than what we have seen before. It adapts more willingly to what is on market.

P.S. There can always be software written specifically for Apple ecosystem.
 
It's kind of sad that after all this time they still haven't changed the industrial design of the iMac at all other than this new color. The bezels look pretty horrendous these days.
 
  • Like
Reactions: c0ppo and Aldaris
wallysb01 said:
The thing that's surprising to me about the $5K price point, even for Apple, is that its a good distance above a "well equipped" iMac. Add the top processor, 32GB RAM and 1TB SSD and you're still "only" at about $3700 on the iMac. Good lord, that's already an expensive computer, but you still have $1300 in space between it and the iMac Pro. I guess we don't know for sure what the 1600 chips will look like, but if i9 is any indication there was a 6 core that you could plug in and maybe drop the price $400-500, but I'm guessing the lower clock rates on that compared to the 4core iMac made it less favorable?
Click to expand...

i9 doesn't support ECC and that's important for many of the disciplines the iMac Pro is being aimed at (and will sell to). i9 is now Intel's attempt to stave off Ryzen.

SnoFlo said:
The iMac Pro colour is nice. I wonder how they keep it cool? The HP Z820/840 has 12 cooling fans, lots of space, and giant CPU heatsinks. I guess it would have taken some ingenuity to get optimal cooling in the small iMac space. Then again, Clevo laptops have desktop CPUs so it is doable.
Click to expand...

Per Apple's statements, the new cooling system offers some 80% more cooling performance than the current iMac. I expect as we get closer to release we will hear more details about how it actually works.
 
  • Like
Reactions: SnoFlo
AidenShaw said:
What's "on the market" is called "CUDA".
Click to expand...
TensorPU uses CUDA? ;)

Not everything uses CUDA. And if it uses CUDA, you have AMD HIP on market to convert it for AMD friendly API. It translates 99.96% CUDA code to OpenCL, without any intervention of Developer. I do not see a problem. If it is coded for OpenCL, it can be easily ported to Metal 2.
 
H2SO4 said:
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.
Click to expand...

That is the goofy, deeply misguide thinking that got the Mac Pro painted into the corner it is stuck in now. The Mac Pro is not the "flagship" of the Mac product line up. Not strategically. Not symbolically.

Focus upon being the demonstration, braggadocios product is exactly what got the focus off being a useful tool. There is going to be a limit to what Apple can do with a 500W limit inside of a iMac container. The Mac Pro can be what can do with a 600-750W budget and a somewhat bigger container with higher internal storage capacities It is simply filling a different tool role. A more expensive tool for more expensive jobs. There is no "more important" pissing contest there.


[doublepost=1496695976][/doublepost]
As long as they don't do what they did with the MacBook Air Superdrive…..
Click to expand...

Apple retired optical drives over time because they actually were not an essential system component. I have no clue how GUI focused macOS can not have a GPU as an essential system component. No graphics, not graphics user interface. That is pretty much a hard core essential component. Hand waving that out to a 3rd party responsibility is goofy. It doesn't fit Apple's historic profile at all.
 
I have just interesting bit of information. Can anyone somehow confirm that Metal 2 supports ONLY AMD GPUs?
 
  • Like
Reactions: Mago
koyoot said:
I have just interesting bit of information. Can anyone somehow confirm that Metal 2 supports ONLY AMD GPUs?
Click to expand...

The developer kit comes with an AMD Radeon RX 580 8GB graphics card, but Metal runs on nVidia powered Macs as well as those with only Intel iGPUs so I assume Metal 2 will, as well.
 
Well, I'm back to considering an iMac. Sweet mercy, this has been one crazy month for computers. Thread ripper. X299. new MacBook airs, MacBooks, MacBook pros, iMacs. This is just nuts.
 
Apple officially is saying "In addition to the new iMac Pro, Apple is working on a completely redesigned, next-generation Mac Pro architected for pro customers who need the highest-end, high-throughput system in a modular design, as well as a new high-end pro display."
 
  • Like
Reactions: Zarniwoop and n0-0ne
koyoot said:
Xeon versions of HEDT Intel CPUs will cost few hundred bucks more. Expect 1200$ for 8 core CPU, and around 1700$ for 10 core.
Click to expand...


CWallace said:
i9 doesn't support ECC and that's important for many of the disciplines the iMac Pro is being aimed at (and will sell to). i9 is now Intel's attempt to stave off Ryzen.
Click to expand...

This hasn't been true of the Core -X series vs E5-1600 Xeon series before.

Ie:

E5-1660 v4, 8 core, 3.2-3.8GHz, $1113

i7-6900K, 8 core, 3.2-3.7GHz, $1089

That's $24.

The idea behind the i7-X vs the i9-X naming is mostly marketing. We had 10 core i7s last generation, but now that's its >10 it has to be i9? That might be a marketing ploy in reaction to Ryzen, but so what? I don't think it means Intel will deviate from its previous price structuring of -X vs E5-1600.
 
weezerr said:
You are pre-ordering this $5k iMac then?
Click to expand...
i'll almost definitely be buying one.. that thing is sweet..
[doublepost=1496705181][/doublepost]
BB8 said:
It's kind of sad that after all this time they still haven't changed the industrial design of the iMac at all other than this new color. The bezels look pretty horrendous these days.
Click to expand...
nah, they changed it.. imac pro is different than the current iMacs

iMac pro (via keynote):
Screen Shot 2017-06-05 at 7.23.09 PM.png


-------------------------------

27" retina (via ifixit):
(this one is looking from the front whereas the other is from the back.. still obvious though, a fair amount of design changes have happened)

pYHRZpMG6v3p6uIL.huge.jpeg


-----
edit-- but..right, the outer housing appears to be the same..
or Is the same.

that said, for me personally, the bezel is fine.. i'm currently using an imac in a dimmed room on a black desk with dark walls behind.. i don't see the bezels at all when using but i do see the silver chin..
the darker grey shell will probably have the whole computer disappearing from my sight (when the display is on) and i'll just have floating pixels in front of me.
of course, ymmv
 
Last edited:
During today's iMac Pro presentation, they briefly showed a photo of an HP workstation (Z840?), while the presenter mentioned the drawbacks, including "you can't run macOS on it".
Hasn't someone actually bought an HP Z840 workstation and been able to install macOS Sierra on it?
That is: with fully functional hardware support?
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back