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

[JesperA]

But I guess my point is - I don't see them building something that *isn't* special or revolutionary or at least unique in some way. That's just how they've always done things. However, as well all know, this is sort of a commodity space...it's mostly about what's inside.

I agree, though i really really wish they didn't, it works great for the consumer space but as you alluded to, for a workstation the inside matter most. If Apple weren't so "proud" they could have made an cMP V2, slightly slimmer (remove 5.25" and 3.5" bays, would make some people mad but hey), about the size of the Dell Precision 5820 is a nice size, single or dual socket, 3-4 16x PCI slots, if they had gone this route instead of the nMP, or reversed route after they realised its limitations they could have launched an updated Mac Pro at every single new CPU and GPU architecture launch. Now, when the modular Mac Pro launches, the nMP will be 5 years old, launching 1 year after Intels CPU and AMD GPU launch, thats crazy how Apple really let themselves go when it comes to their workstation platform.


On another note, does macOS still "only" support 64 CPU threads? The current enterprise CPU:s are close to the limit, even for a single socket Mac Pro, easily exceeding 64 CPU threads in dual socket platforms.


A shame Apple probably never will let go of hardware + software bundle, atleast they could create an enterprise license for hardware allowing running macOS, then we could build pretty sexy machines on our own that could be running macOS (when hackingtosh are not an option)

http://wccftech.com/asus-ws-c621e-sage-dual-xeon-workstation-motherboard/

 

[Derived]

I think it’s still limited to that, although I’m not sure if that’s the case in HS. Definitely getting close to the point where that’s not going to be enough anymore.

They probably could’ve used the nMP design quite well if they had just made it a little bigger, and if they had given it a proper power supply, about double what it currently has. Hell, even liquid cooling could’ve been used. I think the biggest problem was that you couldn’t get the heat out, and there wasn’t enough power to go around. But, on the other hand...now we might get the machine that many wanted, something much closer to the cMP. Although something like the nMP would be nice as a Mac Mini replacement. Fill it with consumer parts instead, make it smaller, cheaper. Would be cool. And sexy. Actually, I’m not sure why they haven’t done this.

 

[Peace]

I think it’s still limited to that, although I’m not sure if that’s the case in HS. Definitely getting close to the point where that’s not going to be enough anymore.

They probably could’ve used the nMP design quite well if they had just made it a little bigger, and if they had given it a proper power supply, about double what it currently has. Hell, even liquid cooling could’ve been used. I think the biggest problem was that you couldn’t get the heat out, and there wasn’t enough power to go around. But, on the other hand...now we might get the machine that many wanted, something much closer to the cMP. Although something like the nMP would be nice as a Mac Mini replacement. Fill it with consumer parts instead, make it smaller, cheaper. Would be cool. And sexy. Actually, I’m not sure why they haven’t done this.

One word.

iMac

 

[JesperA]

One word.

iMac

Alot of words.

People keep saying that over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over again to people, don't know why its not clear that some people wants a headless Mac, not a Mac with a screen built into it.

I bet alot of people would love a nice little box with a 6 core Coffee Lake CPU (regular version like the i7-8700k, not the mobile parts), a decent GPU (Vega 56/64, GTX 1060-1080), regular DIMMs (not so-dimm), etc etc.

The Mac Pro concept (****** Mac Pro concept but would work great as a headless Mac that is more powerful than a Mac Mini but not quite as extreme as the Mac Pro)

 

[goMac]

People keep saying that over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over again to people, don't know why its not clear that some people wants a headless Mac, not a Mac with a screen built into it.

Heh.

Who knows what a new Mini might bring ("not so Mini" rumors?) But Apple doesn't care about that crowd. Mostly cause that crowd is gamers. And Apple doesn't care about that. Not on the Mac at least.

It's kind of a mess but at least a Mac Mini with eGPU could fit that niche though. Especially if they bring back the quad core one.

 

[mattspace]

I bet alot of people would love a nice little box with a 6 core Coffee Lake CPU (regular version like the i7-8700k, not the mobile parts), a decent GPU (Vega 56/64, GTX 1060-1080), regular DIMMs (not so-dimm), etc etc.

yup, but that would threaten to cannibalise sales that would otherwise go to iMacs, which means Apple would have lower orders, and higher cost per order on screens (because most of them probably won't buy Apple monitors), lower margins on the product etc.

But that's just Apple's institutional cowardice - refusing to provide meaningful product choices on the Mac, because they're not actually confident in the choices they make.

 

[DeepIn2U]

Heh.

Who knows what a new Mini might bring ("not so Mini" rumors?) But Apple doesn't care about that crowd. Mostly cause that crowd is gamers. And Apple doesn't care about that. Not on the Mac at least.

It's kind of a mess but at least a Mac Mini with eGPU could fit that niche though. Especially if they bring back the quad core one.

Yet that would seem to contradict the Special Event 2016 presentatoin with Industrial Light and Magic former lead at showing off AR on OSX. I honestly, feel/hope, that development cycles where taken away to concentrate on iPhone X, iMac Pro because they where loosing the Pro market, and MacBook, MacBook Pro development.

 

[vailr]

People keep saying that over ... and over again to people, don't know why its not clear that some people wants a headless Mac, not a Mac with a screen built into it.

I bet a lot of people would love a nice little box with a 6 core Coffee Lake CPU (regular version like the i7-8700k, not the mobile parts), a decent GPU (Vega 56/64, GTX 1060-1080), regular DIMMs (not so-dimm), etc etc.

Whoa there!
That'd require using up too many of Steve Job's (secret) stash of dilithium crystals, in order to make that happen.

 

[goMac]

Yet that would seem to contradict the Special Event 2016 presentatoin with Industrial Light and Magic former lead at showing off AR on OSX. I honestly, feel/hope, that development cycles where taken away to concentrate on iPhone X, iMac Pro because they where loosing the Pro market, and MacBook, MacBook Pro development.

AR that they demoed working great on an iMac...

Honestly, I feel like the software teams are starting to get it on the Mac. But that's different than the hardware teams.

 

[kaisdaddy]

I'm choosing to be cautiously optimistic until there's an actual announcement. If the folks at Apple are truly as contrite as the appeared to be in that small press conference, maybe it means that they're paying attention to what the pro market wants and needs.

 

[pat500000]

Dang it. They need to hurry with this mac pro. I'm waiting to use this gift cards for this mMP. Last time I'll buy gift cards.

 

[mattspace]

If you haven't heard it so far, Ep244 of accidental tech podcast has a great discussion about what seems to have, to some of us, gone wrong with the philosophy of Apple's hardware design on the Mac.

Most interesting points from Siracusa being that the cheesegrater was designed first and foremost to be a heat exchanger, to be able to cope with almost any sort of thermal load internally, rather than operating on the edge of the envelope for the stock components, and from Marco that someone in Apple seems to dislike computers as a concept, and so tries to design computers in such a way as to hide or de-emphasise thier computer-ness.

 

[askunk]

PCI-Express 4.0 is officially out.

https://pcisig.com/sites/default/files/newsroom_attachments/PCIe 4.0 Blog.pdf
[doublepost=1509102090][/doublepost]Good podcast, mattspace I had a listen also to the 217 (old Mac Pro discussion after the April Press Conf.)

Here are the links to save you some time:

http://atp.fm/episodes/244

http://atp.fm/episodes/217

 

[ManuelGomes]

PCIe 5.0 in the works too. This is insane

 

[Mago]

how everyone is making up a definition for "modular" and then getting angry at Apple before we even know what the hell it means

When the nMP6,1 was launched, they stated it as a modular design.

. I think it's quite clear they've learned their lesson, and it's also pretty obvious they wouldn't have used that word if it merely referred to how it was assembled on the production line as some have so ridiculously asserted.

I bet you 10$ they 've learn no lesson and continue with their plan (as closed as possible macs)


Meanwhile:http://wccftech.com/amd-launches-15...cs-absolutely-incredible-performance-numbers/

AMD's Ryzen APU outperforms Intel in every respect, specially power consumption.

And this is just the APU for everyone, Its rumored Apple commissioned they own custom specs APUs to be introduced both in the MBP, rMB, 21" iMac 4k and Mac mini early next year. The same it could pave the way to full AMD line as the next logical step are a Ryzen/Vega32 iMac 27 and full AMD Threadripper-Epyc/Vega64-Vega20 Mac Pro for mid 2018. (none of this are leaks, just my own speculation)

Vega20 is AMD first GPU reponse to nVidia's P100/V100 with similar fp64 and superior fp16 compute capabilities, Vega32 is the replacement for Polaris based GPU and are just Vega chips with the half core count but keeping HBM2.

I'm not a neither AMD/Radeon fan (as Koyoot), those used to read my post knows I'm nVidia hardcore fan, while not so much Intel fan (most due their letarg launching actual platform improvements not pale nip/tucks), but the Information I handle clearly points to Apple fully switching to AMD, maybe an move to even made harder to build hackintosh as with custom AMD chips they actually can fully lock the platform -they may order custom apple-only CPU extensions, as well security enclave all thie will made hell impossible to build a hackintosh with the user's safety as moto).

Reasons Apple has to switch away Intel, not just to get cheaper parts, but to get away with Intel chronograms, it really hurts Apple release timeline, and every time Apple releases a new Mac the next month Intel releses an new CPU making the Mac seems already outdated.

 

[singhs.apps]

I think, whether for better or worse, it's very hard for Apple to release something "Normal" - we all think of the cMP in that way, but at the time it wasn't quite. It was far better constructed, better designed and more easy to mess around with than pretty much any PC tower at the time. Of course, that's long since changed. But I guess my point is - I don't see them building something that *isn't* special or revolutionary or at least unique in some way. That's just how they've always done things. However, as well all know, this is sort of a commodity space...it's mostly about what's inside.

I still think the nMP was a cool design, and had its place. If it was extensible, might've even made a great lower-end machine to keep on with. But, at this level, really what matters is power, stability, ability to handle working 24x7 for years at a time. I think maybe they spend too much time beating their heads against the wall trying to figure out how to make something that differentiates itself from HP, Dell, Lenovo black boxes. I think they still could, but I hope this time they lean far more towards what's needed and less in the direction of "changing the world" - that's sort of always been their strong suit, and this is perhaps the one segment in tech where that's not really helpful or useful.

I find it funny how everyone is making up a definition for "modular" and then getting angry at Apple before we even know what the hell it means. I think it's quite clear they've learned their lesson, and it's also pretty obvious they wouldn't have used that word if it merely referred to how it was assembled on the production line as some have so ridiculously asserted. If anything, the fact that they're willing to go back to the drawing board should be seen as a big positive...they're not going to make the same mistake twice...they'd have to be the stupidest company in the world to do that.

And, also...to the people who keep insisting they don't need pro parts...don't buy one. This isn't a gaming box. If you need a fast desktop, the iMac or iMac pro are what they provide. It's getting silly that after nearly a decade of the Mac Pro, people still think it's possible or even necessary for them to build a machine with consumer CPUs, only consumer GPUs, no ECC RAM, etc. Not going to happen. If they do it right, this will be a machine, as it always was, for serious work. I think it's about time we stop whining about the "xMac" - either the Mac Mini will get ditched for something entirely new in that space, or nothing will happen and you can keep buying the iMac or saving up for the Pro.

Word for word...

 

[JesperA]

https://www.servethehome.com/intel-optane-900p-ssd-released-aic-u-2-form-factors/

https://www.servethehome.com/intel-stratix-10-fpga-now-shipping-10-tflops/

2 new awesome stuff that we cant put into the latest Mac Pro thanks to Apple:s awesome design choices, depending on Apple:s mood, maybe not even in the 2018 Mac Pro

 

[0990848]

Its rumored Apple commissioned they own custom specs APUs to be introduced both in the MBP, rMB, 21" iMac 4k and Mac mini early next year. The same it could pave the way to full AMD line as the next logical step are a Ryzen/Vega32 iMac 27 and full AMD Threadripper-Epyc/Vega64-Vega20 Mac Pro for mid 2018. (none of this are leaks, just my own speculation)

Apple will switch to their own CPUs/GPUs before they switch to AMD. In other words, neither will happen for a long time and Intel will be used until 2020 at the least.

 

[ixxx69]

Heh.

Who knows what a new Mini might bring ("not so Mini" rumors?) But Apple doesn't care about that crowd. Mostly cause that crowd is gamers. And Apple doesn't care about that. Not on the Mac at least.

It's kind of a mess but at least a Mac Mini with eGPU could fit that niche though. Especially if they bring back the quad core one.

xMac has little to do with gamers. It has to do with 90% of the current Mac Pro market would be better of with such a machine as @JesperA describes.

yup, but that would threaten to cannibalise sales that would otherwise go to iMacs, which means Apple would have lower orders, and higher cost per order on screens (because most of them probably won't buy Apple monitors), lower margins on the product etc.

But that's just Apple's institutional cowardice - refusing to provide meaningful product choices on the Mac, because they're not actually confident in the choices they make.

I know it's an utter waste of time to try to speak rationally about such things, but has nothing to do with cannibalization or margins on Apple's end, and everything to do with...
1. How Apple approaches products. The xMac simply isn't an interesting product to them and there isn't sooo much money to be made that they'd do it despite that... to Apple, the xMac is where computers were, not where they're headed.
2. It's just as much about Apple suppliers... Intel, Nvidia, AMD all make big bucks peddling the "workstation/server" parts to users that would be just as well or even better off with "consumer" parts.

 

[Mago]

Apple will switch to their own CPUs/GPUs before they switch to AMD. In other words, neither will happen for a long time and Intel will be used until 2020 at the least.

Neither Apple will ever use Qi wireless charging, they will use long range wireless charging, neither apple will never release an Alexa like home assistant, Neither Apple will ever use an stylus on the iPhone or iPad (Pencil support is coming to iPhone'18 and Macs) neither will back to use AMD gpus (remenber MBP/iMac2010 GPU gate), even Apple will never launch a Mac at WWDC keynote...

C'mon. I'm tired on all these "Apple psychoanalysts' that believe Apple its like a person, Apple its a business, they will do what ever, even sell Jobs relics on each iPhone if this gives they more money.

My analysis is not based on plain rumors, but on market movements, and by some time there are indicators on Apple switching x86 cpus from Intel to AMD, and sir, I believe this is the actual reason for the Mac Pro and mac mini delays, at some point Apple decided to ditch Intel on these machines and rebuild on AMD shinny new CPUs (now faster and more efficient than Intel) .

I dont know exactly when we will see those AMD macs, but 2018 is the year and the iMac Pro likely the last Intel Based Mac.

 

[singhs.apps]

Pencil will eventually make its way into the Mac. It is inevitable

More power to Apple then...

 

[Aldaris]

Pencil will eventually make its way into the Mac. It is inevitable

More power to Apple then...

The pencil is really awesome for what it is. I for one would love to be able to use my iPad Pro/pencil as a tablet interface with Mac (mainly for the additional power:being limited by layers on iOS Pixelmator sucks).

 

[singhs.apps]

The pencil is really awesome for what it is. I for one would love to be able to use my iPad Pro/pencil as a tablet interface with Mac (mainly for the additional power:being limited by layers on iOS Pixelmator sucks).

Not to mention all that screen real estate of the 5k iMacs. If apple creates an iMac like the surface pro but with the innards of the iMac Pro I will buy it along with the nMP ( assuming it’s worth it )
Or if it comes with just a screen and a pencil then too it maybe worth considering.

For years I held out on buying an iPad because I knew a stylus on the iPad with a larger screen was inevitable.

 

[0388631]

Alot of words.

People keep saying that over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over again to people, don't know why its not clear that some people wants a headless Mac, not a Mac with a screen built into it.

I bet alot of people would love a nice little box with a 6 core Coffee Lake CPU (regular version like the i7-8700k, not the mobile parts), a decent GPU (Vega 56/64, GTX 1060-1080), regular DIMMs (not so-dimm), etc etc.

The Mac Pro concept (****** Mac Pro concept but would work great as a headless Mac that is more powerful than a Mac Mini but not quite as extreme as the Mac Pro)

This looks great. But what are those slots for in the fourth image? Readers for various memory cards?

 

[BB8]

Who buys the Mac Mini anymore? I bet almost no one in its original market, i.e. people who wanted to switch to Mac on the cheap. It doesn't really make sense as a HTPC anymore either. That basically just leaves the server farm crowd, which is evidently not a niche Apple is interested in.

The reason there isn't a new Mac Mini yet is because they are reimagining the product. I think the "not so mini" rumors are right. Making the Mac Mini smaller or the same doesn't change its fundamental audience problem.