MP 7,1 Waiting for Mac Pro 7,1 A1991 (no more)

[AidenShaw]

Does anyone else not give a crap about how much power it uses? I have had lightbulbs that use more power. It is a computer for crying out loud. Now if I am limited to how much power I have available that is a different story.

I care about power draw for my laptop, for sure. (At least when it's on battery - when connected to the mains I don't care.)

I also care about idle power draw for my desktop - most of the time the system isn't doing much, and having the entire system (including spun-down expansion disks) under 100 watts is good - although that's still about 2 KwH per day.

But when I'm cranking all cores at 100% doing something - let it pull what it wants. (Within reason, of course. My servers are on 208 volt 3 phase 90 amp power strips - but for a standard 120v 15 amp American outlet about 1400 watts is the max permitted.)

And the post that started this tangent is quite absurd. It's OK for an AMD CPU to use 160 watts while video encoding, but "alarming" for an Intel CPU to use 215 watts for the same task - even though the Intel CPU is 25% faster.

Anyway, it seems that most of the effort put into reducing computer power consumption is directed at reducing the idle consumption - which I think is a good thing.

 

[William Payne]

I care about power draw for my laptop, for sure. (At least when it's on battery - when connected to the mains I don't care.)

I also care about idle power draw for my desktop - most of the time the system isn't doing much, and having the entire system (including spun-down expansion disks) under 100 watts is good - although that's still about 2 KwH per day.

But when I'm cranking all cores at 100% doing something - let it pull what it wants. (Within reason, of course. My servers are on 208 volt 3 phase 90 amp power strips - but for a standard 120v 15 amp American outlet about 1400 watts is the max permitted.)

And the post that started this tangent is quite absurd. It's OK for an AMD CPU to use 160 watts while video encoding, but "alarming" for an Intel CPU to use 215 watts for the same task - even though the Intel CPU is 25% faster.

Anyway, it seems that most of the effort put into reducing computer power consumption is directed at reducing the idle consumption - which I think is a good thing.

I agree about the idle deal. But for me I kind of expect my computer to use more power then having my lights on.

 

[AidenShaw]

I agree about the idle deal. But for me I kind of expect my computer to use more power then having my lights on.

I installed an 8.5 Kw PV solar array on the house, so electricity is free.

 

[William Payne]

I installed an 8.5 Kw PV solar array on the house, so electricity is free.

I would like to look into solar one day. Not to be "off the grid" or "Green" but I can see advantages in being somewhat self sustaining.

 

[AidenShaw]

I would like to look into solar one day. Not to be "off the grid" or "Green" but I can see advantages in being somewhat self sustaining.

We're not "off the grid" - during the day the panels feed into the grid (and we're paid daytime rates for the power). At night, we draw from the grid (and pay nighttime rates for the power).

 

[William Payne]

We're not "off the grid" - during the day the panels feed into the grid (and we're paid daytime rates for the power). At night, we draw from the grid (and pay nighttime rates for the power).

Yip sounds like you have what I would like to look into doing.

 

[wallysb01]

This is an absolute beast of a chip and I'm totally baffled by the fuss with the power draw. Its 30-35% faster than the AMD 1800x while drawing ~30% more power. Imagine that. So you're paying the same amount of money (in power) for the same work, but you get it done faster.... time is money too, sooo... And as Aiden points out, lots of users won't even see the power cost. And even if they did, it would be just a small fraction of the over all operational costs, while the computer doing the work is often one of just a couple (or even the only) revenue generators. Which all gets us back to time being the BFD, not power.
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We're not "off the grid" - during the day the panels feed into the grid (and we're paid daytime rates for the power). At night, we draw from the grid (and pay nighttime rates for the power).

Sounds like a good deal given day time power is usually more expensive than night time power. Did you ever run a cost analysis on getting a battery?

 

[vailr]

An iMac Pro with an Intel 18 core CPU seems unlikely (to my way of thinking) to be able to be adequately cooled, simply due to constraints of the "all in one" form-factor.
Apple may want to re-consider limiting the iMac Pro to a maximum 6 or 8 core CPU, and save any higher wattage/multi-core CPU configurations for the newer (yet to be finalized) modular MP.

 

[Kpjoslee]

An iMac Pro with an Intel 18 core CPU seems unlikely (to my way of thinking) to be able to be adequately cooled, simply due to constraints of the "all in one" form-factor.
Apple may want to re-consider limiting the iMac Pro to a maximum 6 or 8 core CPU, and save any higher wattage/multi-core CPU configurations for the newer (yet to be finalized) modular MP.

Xeons are higher binned and more conservatively clocked then HEDT processors so may not be much of a problem, if iMac Pro's cooling does its job.

 

[balamit]

An iMac Pro with an Intel 18 core CPU seems unlikely (to my way of thinking) to be able to be adequately cooled, simply due to constraints of the "all in one" form-factor.
Apple may want to re-consider limiting the iMac Pro to a maximum 6 or 8 core CPU, and save any higher wattage/multi-core CPU configurations for the newer (yet to be finalized) modular MP.

I believe the Xeons will be at lower frequency the i9s.
Also what what I can read different socket too.

 

[deconstruct60]

An iMac Pro with an Intel 18 core CPU seems unlikely (to my way of thinking) to be able to be adequately cooled, simply due to constraints of the "all in one" form-factor.

There is nothing inherent in "all in one" that prohibits cooling. As long as you move enough cubic feet of air though the system you can cool it. That's the primary mechanism for cooling.

The mainstream 27" iMac using one fan to cool a 70-90W processor and a 40-100W GPU. The upper bound of those two is about 190W ( there is other stuff which is cooled also so that is a conservative number). The iMac Pro chucks the space for a 3.5" drive to put another fan. Let's say about as big as the the single fan in the 27" iMac. So assigned fan one to primarily cooling the CPU+RAM and fan two to primarily cooling the GPU and the rest.

If Apple had keep the same single fan and the same size input and output air vents, then that would have been a constraint of the older iMac 27" form factor. The iMac is different. Two fans and about doubled the in/out air vents. (well the output isn't doubled, but probably noisier. More air through about 40% bigger hole.)


The 18 Core Xeon "E5 v5" that is likely coming probably has a 140-150W range. That is a bump up from the 70-90W , but in the range of 60W ( which is smaller than the GPU coverage the fan was providing.) Similar with the shift to the second fan. If you drop 70-90W of the CPU and add it to the GPU budget you can grow the GPU from 80-100W up into the 170-190W range.

The 10-14 x86 cores and the 54 CU-unit GPU should reasonably fit if the GPU is down clocked into the 170W range. What probably won't do long sustained if the max core, max RAM , max GPU , max HBMv2 configuration.

Apple may want to re-consider limiting the iMac Pro to a maximum 6 or 8 core CPU, and save any higher wattage/multi-core CPU configurations for the newer (yet to be finalized) modular MP.

The next generation of the mainstream core i7 CPU packages (Coffee Lake ) are jumping to 6 core at 70-80W. 6 core is going to be 'doable' with just the single fan iMac 27". 6 core isn't going to be very 'pro' or highly exclusive in a year.
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I believe the Xeons will be at lower frequency the i9s.

Most of the i9's don't have posted frequencies so isn't going to be hard to be the same as the an unknown frequency.

Also what what I can read different socket too.

Skylake-X ( core i9 ) and Skylake-W ( "Xeon 1600 v5" presuming they stick with that name . ) will be the same socket. Just like -E and -EP were in previous generations. There will be other 6-18 core CPU offerings in the Platinum,Gold,Silver,Bronze range with different sockets, but those aren't the workstation targeted ones.

 

[koyoot]

T
The 18 Core Xeon "E5 v5" that is likely coming probably has a 140-150W range. That is a bump up from the 70-90W , but in the range of 60W ( which is smaller than the GPU coverage the fan was providing.) Similar with the shift to the second fan. If you drop 70-90W of the CPU and add it to the GPU budget you can grow the GPU from 80-100W up into the 170-190W range.

The 10-14 x86 cores and the 54 CU-unit GPU should reasonably fit if the GPU is down clocked into the 170W range. What probably won't do long sustained if the max core, max RAM , max GPU , max HBMv2 configuration.

TDP? Thermal heat is equal to power draw consumed by a particular unit.

If under load 7900X, 10 core CPU consumes 80W more, than 6950X, which two independent reviews show, then it draws nearly 190W! How come?

7600K draws 70W under load, alone. Which is in line with its TDP. All the rest of its platform consumes 21W. 7700K draws 95W, which is in line with its TDP. Which also shows that it is in line with power consumption of platform tested for those CPUs.

There is a question of efficiency of X299 platform. But how much higher power draw of the platform itself would have to be, to result in 80W higher power consumption for 7900X vs 6950X?

18 core will only draw more. There are people saying today, that the Xeon CPUs will be clocked lower, than HEDT parts. Not in todays world, where they have to compete with AMD. Lowering core clock will not give you any meaningful advantage over AMD. IPC is 7% on average higher than Zen architecture. So the power draw will remain high.

There is however good news about Xeon's. There is a rumor that the parts will be soldered, which will result in better heat dissipation, and very likely - also lower power consumption(slightly...).

That is what I am concerned about in context of iMac Pro.

Also, this begs again the question. Was actually the heat output, and power draw of the higher core count/clock CPUs the reason why Apple not updated the MP 6.1?

Declocking GPUs is easy to maintain them within certain power envelope(Radeon Pro Vega in iMac Pro...). So I am sorry but it is not exactly "good reason", why not to update it.

 

[CWallace]

Also, this begs again the question. Was actually the heat output, and power draw of the higher core count/clock CPUs the reason why Apple not updated the MP 6.1?

The "thermal corner" of the MP 6.1 was GPU, not CPU. The Haswell CPUs required a new logic board due to their new socket, but TDP was similar or better than Ivy Bridge. It was the hotter newer-generation GPUs that unbalanced the thermal core, which was designed around all three sides having similar thermal loads.

 

[Chancha]

The "thermal corner" of the MP 6.1 was GPU, not CPU. The Haswell CPUs required a new logic board due to their new socket, but TDP was similar or better than Ivy Bridge. It was the hotter newer-generation GPUs that unbalanced the thermal core, which was designed around all three sides having similar thermal loads.

In retrospect, this design choice was dumber than dumb. Any update to the machine literally would be dragged by either CPU or GPU being less heat-efficient than the other. How could they possibly think this wasn't an issue, of that this issue was worth risking for whatever gain they had in mind.

 

[CWallace]

In retrospect, this design choice was dumber than dumb. Any update to the machine literally would be dragged by either CPU or GPU being less heat-efficient than the other. How could they possibly think this wasn't an issue, of that this issue was worth risking for whatever gain they had in mind.

Apple seemed to feel that the future was two (cooler) GPUs working in parallel to provide more performance whereas the industry went with a single more powerful (and hotter) GPU.

 

[wallysb01]

In retrospect, this design choice was dumber than dumb. Any update to the machine literally would be dragged by either CPU or GPU being less heat-efficient than the other. How could they possibly think this wasn't an issue, of that this issue was worth risking for whatever gain they had in mind.

I'm not sure why there is any retrospect needed for knowing that design was dumb.

 

[filmak]

In retrospect, this design choice was dumber than dumb. Any update to the machine literally would be dragged by either CPU or GPU being less heat-efficient than the other. How could they possibly think this wasn't an issue, of that this issue was worth risking for whatever gain they had in mind.

They thought that underclocking will work for ever...

 

[koyoot]

What do you guys think of this concept for High performance computer:

http://www.corsair.com/en-eu/landing/one

Small form factor, liquid cooling. Just put there MacOS, Apple branding, and I am actually sold.

 

[CWallace]

With the iMac Pro taking the place of the current Mac Pro, I expect the new one is going to offer dual CPUs, dual GPUs, multiple SSDs and 256GB and up of memory. As such, I think we're going to be looking at a mini-tower configuration more akin to the 2012-era model than a small form factor chassis like the 2013 edition.

 

[AidenShaw]

What do you guys think of this concept for High performance computer:

http://www.corsair.com/en-eu/landing/one

Small form factor, liquid cooling. Just put there MacOS, Apple branding, and I am actually sold.

With the iMac Pro taking the place of the current Mac Pro, I expect the new one is going to offer dual CPUs, dual GPUs, multiple SSDs and 256GB and up of memory. As such, I think we're going to be looking at a mini-tower configuration more akin to the 2012-era model than a small form factor chassis like the 2013 edition.

Why not both, and more? Look at the Z-series

It's quite easy if you base the systems on modular components.

 

[PortableLover]

Why not both, and more? Look at the Z-series

View attachment 704537

It's quite easy if you base the systems on modular components.

This, apple have got multiple ipad models and multiple iphone models, so why not multiple mac pro models?

 

[CWallace]

Apple cannot be bothered to update the Mac Mini, so I don't see them putting serious resources into creating a Mac Mini Pro - especially one that would require liquid cooling for the CPU and GPU.

As for multiple tower options, Apple has not done that since the Quadra days. Each Power Mac and Mac Pro has always been a single case design during their active sales life and I expect that to continue.

 

[wallysb01]

Apple cannot be bothered to update the Mac Mini, so I don't see them putting serious resources into creating a Mac Mini Pro - especially one that would require liquid cooling for the CPU and GPU.

As for multiple tower options, Apple has not done that since the Quadra days. Each Power Mac and Mac Pro has always been a single case design during their active sales life and I expect that to continue.

But 'modular' has to mean something, right? Duel CPUs and Duel GPUs doesn't really leave much room for anything 'modular'. I mean 256GB of RAM and up? How many of these machines do you want to sell? 10?

 

[CWallace]

But 'modular' has to mean something, right? Duel CPUs and Duel GPUs doesn't really leave much room for anything 'modular'. I mean 256GB of RAM and up? How many of these machines do you want to sell? 10?

I guess it depends on how we define "modular".

Are we talking separate external components that connect via cables or a common bus? Something like the Acer Intros, Wibtek Q7 or John Fitch's modular "Jonathan" concept.

Or are we talking about something like the 2009-2012 Mac Pro where you the inside of the case was segmented into separate areas or "modules" (CPU + Memory | GPU and Expansion Cards | HDD Bays | Optical Bays).

Personally, I think Apple is talking about the latter.

 

[vailr]

Maybe Apple's huge foreign currency backlog is preventing much wanted "true innovation"?
If the President and Congress were able to get tax laws re-written and recoup some of the multi-billions of foreign earnings currently "in limbo" overseas, maybe then we could get a new KabyLake Mac Mini Pro, an i7 MacBook Pro with 64 Gb DDR4 & standard function keys, a modular & upgradable MacPro that takes standard PC GPU cards, etc., etc.