The wierd thing is that their own unprecedented announcement of a new Mac Pro came in, for something that isn’t so important according to some. And then to keep it all under wraps when a better thing would be to get feedback from a wide variety of target users early.
In the Spring of 2013 Apple couldn't sell a new Mac Pro in the EU. They had also 'bet the farm' on Thunderbolt 2 which wasn't going to see light of day until the end of 2013 ( 2014 was the target for volume production). The move to "pre announce" was primarily because the product management was in such a disarray at that point that's primarily all they had; 'talk'.
The other major factor is that they were also pragmatically discontinuing the product "King is dead, long live the King". So similar to the 5-6 month "head's up" on the discontinuation of the XServe for a market segment with many folks with long procurement cycles/timelines, June 2013 was a much about the 'old' Mac Pro is dead as much as there was a new one. This aspect though they have largely already done. The "pow wow" meeting and then iMac Pro shipping pretty much shows that the current design's target has largely shifted to the iMac Pro.
I suppose testing of Mac pros might be underway, while a few units might even be revealed at WWDC. But 5 years between such systems (8 if you count those of us who stayed away from the cylinders) is humongously wasteful.
The iMac Pro is more a bit of a "revision 2.0" of many of the objectives of the 2013 Mac Pro. Still somewhat bad in that it is 4 years. Apple more than likely looks at it as a partial reset on the clock. So they won't be completely panicked on clock time.
Not so much wasteful as uncommunicative.
Well, whatever. Reveal ASAP and let us take a call..wait or jump ship.
If someone has waited 8 years then ASAP isn't really a viable metric. Most folks are working with 3-7 year lifecycles so they'd have made a decision by 8 years. Apple would do more damage if the stumbled into a target past extremely early 2019, but they have already dug hole. More than a decent chance Apple will target components revising later 2018 to make a move. At this point if were ready late 2017 or very early 2018 it is off cycle. ( that was one of the problems with the Mac Pro 2013; jumping onto the back end of a tick-tock cycle. It is probably too risk adverse and a dead ender with the cadence Intel was using at the time. )
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That is true and while the factory would have been under construction prior to WWDC, it's possible that the facility was not staffed nor nothing was being built there until afterwards. Apple likely would have tested the machinery (like the extruder) earlier and in controlled conditions. I am guessing something similar is happening now.
the Factory that the Mac Pro was built in already existed; no new building was built. The production line had largely new components on it, but that happens at just about any 3rd party factiliies that hasn't made Apple stuff before. ( none of the Macs are standard cookie-cutter boxes that generic PC vendors sell .)
Apple themselves noted they do consulting and feedback sessions with current and potential Mac Pro users and I fully expect they have been doing the same with this new model. All of it would be done under NDAs and I imagine that since these people make their living using Mac Pros, honoring that NDA and keeping quiet is something they feel is to their benefit.
Doubtful Apple is taking critiques on Industrial design appearance as feedback. What do you do or want to do ( i.e., function not form ) probably is what they are looking for.
I suspect Apple picks folks who they think are trustworthy. There are numerous current Mac Pro users who would throw them under the bus. The folks who complained about the 2008-2010 models (not big enough, not enough slots , etc. etc. ) who now hold them up just because "better than" then 2013... I doubt they are on the list for NDA.
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I keep hearing (from a few forums) that the Modular Mac Pro will only ship with 1 GPU. But I never hear anybody offer a source. Has this been mentioned in press release, a speech etc?
Largely driven by this April 2017 pow wow meeting...
"...
Craig Federighi:.... and that we thought we could well serve with a two GPU architecture… that that was the thermal limit we needed, or the thermal capacity we needed. But workloads didn’t materialize to fit that as broadly as we hoped.
Being able to put larger single GPUs required a different system architecture and more thermal capacity than that system was designed to accommodate. So it became fairly difficult to adjust. 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 that were 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/
Now that covers why the iMac Pro ships with one GPU, but likely also covers why any new Mac Pro likely would have a single GPU as a standard configuration. It does
not rule out that there would not be build to order (BTO) configurations that would have two GPUs. The "didn't materialize to fit that as broadly" is the limiting factor as a useful for "everybody in the targeted segment".
The iMac Pro still has some thermal limits versus normal mid-upper range GPUs. A "modular" Mac Pro could expand on the iMac Pro limitations to fit more out of the mainstream cases. Higher thermal single GPUs and double GPUs would seem likely to be on the table. Double is useful (not just universally broad ) so enabling that would be good. Single where 300-390W (spike peak ) could be thrown at a single GPU would be good too.
The Metal API hasn't opened any broader dual GPU usage than OpenCL did.
The other driver for the single default GPU is system integration with Thunderbolt. The Mac Pro 2013 (and iMac Pro) don't have any problems with that. A new Mac Pro with a Apple connector(s) mounted on long edge of GPU card (versus the MP 2013 design) could fit the bill. There could be a second empty slot that could be used to fill either a 3rd party GPU or Apple's (that didn't not have to integrate to TB while serving as the "Compute GPU". ). Apple could design their card to fit either, but the 3rd party ones only fit the open standard socket.
The single GPU
only vibe seems more driven by folks trying to map the eGPU solutions that Apple demo'ed for the iMac Pro on the newer Mac Pro also.
"... Available on Macs since 1996, Cinema 4D is a 3D rendering program used for motion graphics, film, and medical visualization. We saw the software demonstrated on an iMac Pro with two external GPU enclosures but were not told which GPUs were housed in those enclosures. EGPUs are clearly a part of Apple's strategy for extremely high-end applications, though. ..."
https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/201...ilable-heres-how-people-are-already-using-it/
That doesn't make much sense. If the modular Mac Pro is saddled with the exact same constraints as the iMac Pro how would Apple differentiate them? 1-2 open slots would substantively differentiate them without "killing" the eGPU option in the Mac ecosystem. Pretty likely Folks who'd want 3-4 GPUs would still need to go down that path.
