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MP 7,1 Waiting for Mac Pro 7,1 A1991 (no more)
- Thread starter Mago
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There is not much foundation to base that on.
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Not 100% True even in the slightest. The iMac Pro was highly likely a priority over any Mac Pro follow on. The question of whether they could cover a significant enough chunk of the Mac Pro user base with one probably did get posed and examined in detail. However, the iMac Pro is not purely a Mac Pro 'killer'; not is it purely a Mac Pro stop gap.
Most likely is that Apple has more Mac product ideas then they have people to persue those ideas. So if only have 1-3 design teams available for Mac which product gets the resource allocation is really the primary root cause of the single tracking of product release here.
HP introduced the HP Z1 back on 2012 ( http://h20435.www2.hp.com/t5/The-Ne...rst-27-inch-All-in-One-Workstation/ba-p/76681 ) . They did a gen 2 in 2014 ( https://arstechnica.com/information...ds-on-with-hps-z1-g2-the-ultimate-all-in-one/ ) . The did a G3 update in 2016 (
[ NOTE: HP's Z1 G3 is a llitle odd in that it stepped down to a 24" display. 4K but still down. It won't be surprising if they pop out with a 27" 5K model in 2018. And match the move to Intel W that the iMac Pro did. ]
The notion that Apple was completely oblivious that they did not have any competitors in the "pro workstation" all in one business until about a year or so ago is comical. Absolutely comical.
The iMac Pro is not a tit-for-tat response to the Z1 (and others Dell Precision 5270 ) . Apple pushed higher than the old Xeon E3 class with Intel W. And holding firm on non-pop open mechanicals. It is moving the iMac class of machine into a more "Pro" (higher performance ) range and subcomponents. ECC RAM, "Pro" graphics, larger performance envelope, etc.
The same way the single CPU package and dual CPU package need to share same infrastructure with the Mac Pro 2009-2012, these two products are likely bound by the same "too small of a market" forces. They are going to need to share a high number of expensive component parts to get scale/volume. They are not going to share the case this time though (which really isn't a super high cost component anyway).
The iMac Pro has to make compromises on total power consumption and the Mac Pro doesn't have to hit the same bar. Some folks will want the no wires solution of Mac Pro. It has a more than enough workload reach for a large group of folks. The Mac Pro is more aimed at a couple different other class of pro users.
a. large sunk costs in peripherals/cards/etc. ( e.g., highly vertical market custom card for data capture/creation, very high internal storage capacity needs , compute card, etc. ). Sunk costs on monitors too.
b. local/remote monitor needs and racked/embedded systems. (e.g., some folks put Macs in rack/box and cover it up. )
c. high, flexible power budget.
iMac Pro doesn't hit those. Respectively in order.
a. Thunderbolt is useful, but it is not a panacea. Cards in the x8 and x16 are just a faster/better return is simply slot them internally. Zero is limiting. One slot isn't.
b. dual edge sword all-in-one means monitor takes up no extra space on desk. Also means if want to put computer farther away the monitor goes too. Apple isn't going into the deadicates rack system market, but having something that isn't rack hostile would be a plus. Mac Minis can fill that only to some extent.
c. the more shift the iMac Pro away from the volume saving synergies with the iMac more, the more you leave it on "too small to do" island. it will get picked off like the XServe , XRaid , and classic Mac Pro. The iMac Pro bow waving off the iMac. That is more than safe since the iMac basically is the prime driver of Mac desktops. if iMac dies in water the whole Mac desktop line is in very bad shape (i.e. like doomed. ). The Mac Pro is likely going to bow wave a bit on the iMac Pro ( not the other way around. ). The product in that secondary position is the Mac Pro, not the iMac Pro.
Apple needs a "pro" workstation option in the $2,799-3,599 range that isn't an iMac. The Mac Pro would be reasonable way of getting after that volume. With some configures it can over a reach that overlaps with iMac Pro and go beyond what the iMac Pro can cover. [ Starting 100% above the three standard iMac Pro configurations would a deeply flawed move. ]. Apple generally allows overlap in pricing range when that is in the BTO zone rather than standard pricing zone. A partial viewer of the iMac Pro as just extended out the iMac's BTO options isn't really at odds with a Mac Pro starting slightly under ( perhaps at 4-6 and limited RAM and not a relatively large SSD. ]
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While not an xMac , the Mac Mini going vertical has decent possibility. The desktop footprint wouldn't change much. ( the Mac Pro has a smaller one. 6.6' radial as compared to the 7.7" squared for the Mac mini. Vertical could be slightly smaller but use more vertical space on the desk.
An mini xMac that is primarily aimed at being a iMac fratricide device is probably definitely a no go. However, a BTO option of a vertical Mac Mini would probably overlap with some of the lower half of the 21.5" iMac range. Nothing in the 27" range though. Those BTO Mac Mini could creep into the $1500 range ( although probably driven by large SSD ).
xMac as a headless mid-upper range iMac? No. Way too much fratricide potential there with relatively highly price sensitive buyers. However, a headless/monitor-less and keyboard/touch less entry level MBP 15" possibly.
In the $4999 and up zone of the iMac Pro there isn't a much of the highly price sensitive fratricide potential. Folks have money but more highly specialized needs. So more so buying what they need to fit their market rather than primarily just "cheaper".
The Mac Pro is 'single digit' percentage of the Mac market. ( Apple said as much in their April pow wow about the pro solutions they were contemplating. ). Mac Pro is probably far closer to 1% than it is to 9%. The iMac Pro is going to make what is left over only smaller. So if was 2% now perhaps looking at 1%. If try to split 1% again into two (or more) towers then basically have something that rounds to 0%. 0% extremely likely means cancelled. Certainly mean put on relatively low resource allocation budget ( which is where the Mac Pro has been since 2009 time frame. )
HP/Dell/Lenovo sell into 90% of the classic form factor PC market. So if the HP840 class systems are 1% of that then still have about 1% of overall market. Apple has less than 10%. 1% of 10% is basically zero. So Apple isn't going to offer a broad spectrum shoot gun blast of products at the market because less than 10% of the market won't support that.
Folks aren't crazy to ask for it. They are a bit more than a bit myopic when stop looking at where macOS is positioned in the market. it isn't the bulk of the personal computer market at all. Even less with the growth of iOS/Android. Apple has to pick 'smarter' than the mainstream vendors. Which means what customers are moving to buying and how much gets regularly bought matters. Stagnant and shrinking products aren't going to get resources allocated to them.That isn't going to get a high return on investment for limited resources allocated.
Intel and AMD has split off single and 2+ socket development. Those markets have some widening gaps that customers are driving two distinct pools. The Z840 is aimed at the 2 (and up) crowd. Apple is probably done with the 2+ ( the 1 socket had the driving volume all along). Folks could more heavily lobby for 8 DIMM slots in a new Mac Pro but greater than 1 socket is probably a lost cause.
Sort of like this?
This is my more "conservative" concept, redoing the classic Cheesegrater Mac Pro... and making it a vertical air chamber where cool air is suck from the bottom and vented upwards, following natural laws of convection...
The main PCB or Logic board is vertical on the left side. And, then on the bottom chamber where there are 4-5 PCIE slots, the slots are connected via a proprietory connection from the main logic board to allow GPU's and PCIE cards to be inserted down flat (slots are perpendicular to the horizon or tabletop)... and the bottom part is open, except for the slots so there is airflow (not sure if that is clear on the drawing or this explanation. But, picture PCIE slots only occupying the bottom, if that makes sense....)
The top chamber is where HDD/SDD storage can be installed using standard 3.5" or 2.5" storage... similar to cMP except there are six slots instead of four....
Further storage expansion is available in the bottom chamber on the main logic board where 3 NVME/M.2 style SSD's can be installed...
That is what a vacuum cleaner is. If placed deskside on the floor what you'd have would a vaccum cleaner that doesn't more and sucks dirt into electrical parts instead of a HEAP filtered bag. It sounds like a Dyson because it is one.
if go back to desk side and/or extremely large fans (plural ) then front to back will be part of the system ( maybe not all, but at least some. )
Can we stop with the Cheesegraters? It's not going to be a Cheesegrater. They're not firing back up the Cheesegrater case factory. I doubt it's even going to be a full tower. And it's definitely going to be a brand new design/look.
Just.... stop...
Just.... stop...
Sound trumpets! Let our bloody colours wave! And either victory, or else a grave.
heh, if Apple releases a 2018 cMP, it would be one of the first times i might start thinking "holy crap..wtf Apple?!!"..
pretty much opposite of what many posters here would feel like, i imagine.
The cheesegrater is still Apple's best machine so there...
...other than the fact that Apple broke decades of precedents and said "we screwed up".
...and the fact that Apple pre-announced the modular Mac Pro (but without any dates or even hints to the specs).
...and the fact that the IMac Pro was pre-announced at the same time.
I really do believe that the Amigos were shocked by big customers saying "OMG No!" to the IMac Pro and the mMP "mea culpa" was an almost panic reaction to that. "Yikes! 2.0" - except that Apple realized "Yikes!" before the customers. "Yikes! 2.0" caught the Amigos by surprise.
The whole scene was so "un-Apple"....
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What would a "2018 cMP" really be?
I don't think that a giant aluminum cheese grater with sharp and fragile handles is in the picture. That design was for a bygone era, and Apple milked that "cash cow" long past its "sell by" date.
If a "2018 cMP" is a tower (mid, large or both) with standard PCIe slots, standard ATX+ power supplies, standard UEFI BIOS that would be nice - but the moniker "cMP" would need to be refreshed.
Unfortunately, Apple could easily have had a new tower like that on the market already - so the possibility that they are hacking together a proprietary system that will disappoint everyone seems to be high.
As BB8 said last night, "I have a bad feeling about this".
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oh..
i meant literally a 5,1 with updated innards.
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if they make a box_ish tower with more traditional personal workstation stylings/assembly then that's different.
that said, i don't think they're going to go that route either.. i think we'll see something more radical (for lack of better word).
or, if i personally was given the choice--
very unique and well thought out & solidified as a whole.. except it has an Achilles' heel (ie- nMP)
-or-
safe/conservative/traditional design that works as you'd expect based off the countless other similar computers out there.
..i'd want them to make the first one.. i'd rather they make nMPv2 (not meaning another cylinder exactly) than them to make cMPv2 (not meaning a cheesegrater exactly)
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Ummm... something like the drawing I did in post #7179, maybe?
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I did another revision from my drawing on post #7179....
I made it even simpler, I think....
The main thing about this design is not the boring box, chamber, or even positive airflow design... but, the materials and build quality that Apple has done with their unibody design in notebooks but in a bigger small midtower case. The whole thing is made of solid, thick aluminum on all sides. There is a feeling of "this thing will last forever" in it. To compare, the thickness of the aluminum is 4x thicker than that of the cMP cheesegrater one. So, those bent legs will be harder to do in this case's case....
Let's not forget: circa June 2005, during Apple's first widespread prototype test use of Intel processors, machines were sold to beta test developers.
Only maybe 1,000 or 1,500 made: mid-towers, no "cheese grater" design, just used a standard PC chassis & Intel motherboard with a special Apple bios firmware.
At the end of the set time period, weren't they required to be returned back to Apple?
Only maybe 1,000 or 1,500 made: mid-towers, no "cheese grater" design, just used a standard PC chassis & Intel motherboard with a special Apple bios firmware.
At the end of the set time period, weren't they required to be returned back to Apple?
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The also said the 2013 Mac Pro worked well for some customers and didn't work well for other. The size and the scope of the others along with the technology trajectory shifts.
Apple has said we screwed up numerous times in the past.
a. The clusterf*cked mobile me roll out.
" ... “It was a mistake to launch MobileMe at the same time as iPhone 3G, iPhone 2.0 software and the App Store,” Jobs writes in an email to Apple employees. “We all had more than enough to do, and MobileMe could have been delayed without consequence.” ... "
https://www.cultofmac.com/495868/today-in-apple-history-steve-jobs-acknowledges-mobileme-failure/
( and no it isn't credible that Jobs didn't know that email wouldn't leak out to the press and users. )
and
https://www.macrumors.com/2011/05/07/steve-jobs-reaction-to-mobileme-launch-and-other-anecdotes/
b. AntennaGate ....
c. Mac Pro 2013 hints
MP 2012 isn't "New".
https://www.macrumors.com/2012/06/12/apple-admits-new-mac-pro-isnt-all-that-new/
Essentially the should have something new but didn't but just wait y'all we'll have something in 18 months so ... we are working really hard.
https://www.macrumors.com/2012/06/1...c-pro-and-imac-designs-likely-coming-in-2013/
How the " well we really should have something but aren't finished so come back more than a year more now " story new and earth shattering? This the same stuff from five years ago.
So no, this isn't foundational.
The vast majority of the "doesn't work for me" folks who would look and scoff at the iMac Pro probably also looked and scoffed at the 2013 Mac Pro. Think about it. How many folks on this forum have said "The MP 2013 is great but this iMac Pro that's just wrong". Apple (at some level ) knew those folks were there years ago. It isn't a sudden "aha we discovered when tried to replace the MP 2013 with the iMac Pro that there was a disconnect.". It was already there.
couldn't be June 2012 all over again could it??????????
Again delusional as foundational as users having a sudden "freak out" over preview of the iMac Pro. In the April meeting Apple said this:
"
Notebooks are by far and away our most popular systems used by pros.
Second on the list is iMacs — used by pros, again by the people who use professional software day in, day out, not just casually.
Third on the list is Mac Pro. Now, Mac Pro is actually a small percentage of our CPUs — just a single digit percent. However, we don’t look at it that way.
...
At the same time, so many of our customers were moving to iMac that we saw a path to address many, many more of those finding themselves limited by Mac Pro through a next generation iMac. And really put a lot of our energy behind that.
"
https://techcrunch.com/2017/04/06/t...-john-ternus-on-the-state-of-apples-pro-macs/
Apple has a much larger than the Mac Pro market with the iMac. The move to make that "more Pro" with an iMac Pro market is absolutely not going to freak any of the pro folks in the iMac camp out at all. ( same thing for the MBP folks). More than likely have been some customers who have been asking for more horsepower for their iMacs. It is in no way a "screw up" to enable the direction a significant number of your customers are moving in. There is almost nothing in Apple's talk that says they screwed up the resource allocation priorities
.
except....
" ...
But at what moment in the product cycle did you think: ‘Oh… This is maybe not the end all, be all.’ Did that happen six months ago? Where did you get the telemetry that told you that?
Craig Federighi: I’d say longer than six months ago. But I think we designed ourselves into a bit of a thermal corner, if you will. ... "
Even in April this wan't breaking news for Apple execs. I suspect they knew they had designed themselves into a corner after all the D700 repairs came trickling in. They probably then moved to thinking that the next iteration of AMD product ( or somehow uncorking something with Nvidia ) would solve the problem... so waited and it didn't. They probably tried to apply the lessons learned to the iMac Pro project and back- burnered the next steps on Mac Pro. iMac Pro also didn't receive GPU "miracle" either, but less constrained.
Someone has probably been tracking how many folks are still "circling the airport" in 2008-2012 boxes. Probably also talked to folks who had MP 2013 and said wouldn't want to go with iMac Pro. The early preview pow wow talks are oriented toward continuing to get folks to circle the airport and/or extend their MP 2013 service lifetimes ( if normally on a 3-4 year cycle. ). Want them to stick around until can free up resources to finish off something to hit that market that is left over after the iMac Pro firmly seats itself.
Are there enough folks left over to have a viable product? if yes, proceed. if no, we're done.
From the discussion from apple it appears they think there is enough. It is small so not a "as many resources as you need" priority but not cancelled either. There is nothing about panic there.
if Apple is going to target deskside so that at least some of those handles are on the floor... that could easily be back. If it is sized small enough for the literal desktop to be the primary target then the handles can disappear but those handles are as much feet as handles in the deskside placement. It still probably would be raised off the floor. The OCD "everything has to be symmetric" design rule then applied. Maybe Apple design is past OCD but I wouldn't bet on it.
Aluminum. What Mac isn't aluminum these days? Paint (and possibly color )? yes. Not primarily Al? Unlikely.
The MP 2013 got some plastic in the airflow area because that is where they put the RF. I highly doubt Airflow and RF are going to be coupled to each other again.
amd epyc can do 1 or 2 cpus with the same number of pci-e lanes. Now mac pro with 1 and 2 cpu trays may just work.
Any ways some needs to make a amd ThreadRipper board with ecc and ipmi.
While "Waiting for Mac Pro 7,1" I decided to visit the DMZ (Divided Mac Zone). After reading this "headline" Phil Schiller Says iPad Pro Can Both Supplement and Replace the Mac, I wrote this:
OK Phil, arrange an iPad Pro v Mac competition.
The arena-The Moscone Center (Your home turf)
The competition will be recorded and the final video placed on YouTube
Rules of the competition:
1. The iPad Pro must perform every task the Mac performs.
2. There must be a fire extinguisher on stage for when the iPad Pro catches on fire!
To save time, you need to install the following apps on the iPad Pro that will be used in the competition:
1. NUKE by The Foundry
2. Davinci Resolve by Black Magic Design
3. Media Composer 8.9.4 by Avid
4. MAYA by Autodesk
5. Houdini 16.5 by SideFX
P.S. To save more time first check the system requirements!
P.S.S Just a heads up. We will be dealing with 6K Dragon and 8K footage!
Glad I had on Kevlar because I was attacked!
OK Phil, arrange an iPad Pro v Mac competition.
The arena-The Moscone Center (Your home turf)
The competition will be recorded and the final video placed on YouTube
Rules of the competition:
1. The iPad Pro must perform every task the Mac performs.
2. There must be a fire extinguisher on stage for when the iPad Pro catches on fire!
To save time, you need to install the following apps on the iPad Pro that will be used in the competition:
1. NUKE by The Foundry
2. Davinci Resolve by Black Magic Design
3. Media Composer 8.9.4 by Avid
4. MAYA by Autodesk
5. Houdini 16.5 by SideFX
P.S. To save more time first check the system requirements!
P.S.S Just a heads up. We will be dealing with 6K Dragon and 8K footage!
Glad I had on Kevlar because I was attacked!
that is some serious moving of the goal posts compared to what was said in the Schiller headline.
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edit--
TC speaking of the iPad Pro-“I think if you’re looking at a PC, why would you buy a PC anymore? No really, why would you buy one?” Cook told the British publication. “Yes, the iPad Pro is a replacement for a notebook or a desktop for many, many people.
Same page as Schiller. Both sounding like dog whistles. If the push back for a "Pro" was not there the "whistles" would have gotten louder. Gone from many, many people to many, many people never like desktops. "We listened to the many many people and decided to discontinue the desktops"!
No really, why would you buy one?” This is from the same company that makes Final Cut Pro. How are you going to go from #3 (behind Avid and Premiere Pro) in feature film editing to #2 or #1 talking/thinking like that? I have never heard of anyone cutting on an iPad Pro. It has been mentioned over and over all the "Pro" apps they used to have and dumped. I will not list them again.
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the 2009-2012 Mac Pro didn't really have two sized trays. It was sized one tray with two configuration. The issue with the 2+ solutions from both Intel and AMD is that they have a 2 socket tax on them. After apple applies their tax on top that single usage doesn't make much sense. The top end E5 used in the 2013 Mac Pro that was really in the E5 26xx class, it didn't really make sense. It was in the "stratosphere" price zone (where CPU cost about as much as a whole entry level Mac Pro) where didn't have to make sense. However, doing that baseline across the whole product range would run into the issue.
The EPYC are in the 150W range too. So doubling them up pushes the envelope significantly. Putting that 300W package into the same airflow thermal zone as a 150W isn't exactly a good match.
The lane thing is relatively immaterial at this point. There is enough on both Intel W and AMD side to do a logical progression from the 2013 Mac Pro. It isn't about building a HP z840 clone.
Interestingly, the iMac Pro has been thoroughly adopted by the iMac forum. Rightly so in my opinion. It means that the iMac camp sees the iMac Pro as their top of the line computer. It will therefore coexist nicely with a modular MP because the customers are simply different.
mMP will likely be a strategic product and therefore not required to give significant money. The guesses should be what the "strategy" is. I have argued before that this is AR/VR and perhaps ML development for implementation in iOS devices.
Did they not say recently that mMP was for their most demanding customers? I guess up to a large EPYC or 2P Xeon plus up to 3 GPUs to really distinguish it from the iMac Pro. Lowest config plus 5k screen, about the same as an iMac Pro plus 1000 USD. Enthusiast will likely be disappointed.
The iMac Pro exists and is shipping. What are they generally going to say? "boo hiss go away.... Apple added a much faster addition to own sub product area?" If include the iMac Pro this is two upgrades in a single calendar year. Pandemonium.
If the Mac Pro was actually a very real, very viable threat to the iMac line up they'd feel differently. So far there is nothing to support the "perfect" segmentation hypothesis it isn't equally viable for fratricide on both sides. Right now the iMac Pro is going mostly whip the 2013 Mac Pro like an old mule. ... in part because it is old.
Apple give money away on a product? Not their usual modus operandi nor one of their common strategic objectives. Make more (or as much) money that other products?
I suspect the strategy is more along the lines of don't piss off the folks with large sunk costs into specialized equipment investments (especially those that posed to moving forward at some point). Additionally, I think they'd like a "safety net" platform for where the component suppliers can't deliver on power/performance reductions/advances that won't fit in their fully integrated product models.
Apple did an AR demo with the Mac Pro back in June. That isn't new. They put ML hardware into the iPhone.
Those strategies are already being covered.
Apple pushing into the top regions of computational data center zone? Probably not.
Aiming at just one or two magic bullet applications is partially what went wrong with the 2013 Mac Pro. FCPX and LogicX and phewy about anything else? That is exactly how can paint yourself into a corner, because myopically focused on too narrow of an aspect.
The iMac Pro is running downclocked CPUs and GPUs to fit the 500W limit. That is "fast enough" for great many folks and workloads. However, Apple can get a performance bump just by going to two GPUs ( one Display , one Compute ), stepping out of the AMD-vs-Nvidia fan boy wars for the Compute option (which doesn't necessarily need full GUI/boot graphics stack) , and just running all three (CPU , Viz , Compute ) at full speed. They don't need two CPUs to put some distance on sustained compute speed.
Highly unlikely that Apple wants to spend time building bigger and bigger boxes with hotter and hotter components. It is going to be demand inside of some envelope to make it more challenging to do.
If wanted to kill off the Mac Pro as a product I'm hard pressed to come up with a plan to do a better job of it. It is on the edge of being too high now Pushed higher than the iMac Pro is pure death spiral. The notion that the Mac Pro has some kind of "get out jail free" card in terms of volume and relatively market share versus the rest of the Mac product line up is delusional. It doesn't. Pushed into a every tinier corner the Mac Pro will go the way of the XServe and XRaid.
just make a good tower..
scheeschhh..
scheeschhh..