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

[ekwipt]

10GbE has awful overhead if you use a network file system, and iSCSI is tricky to set up and is a dog unless you get a converged NIC with offload everything (there's a reason why single port Intel X5nn cards are often north of $300).

And T-Bolt 4 is the light at the end of the tunnel - and the tunnel still looks to be a couple of years long. https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/any-indication-or-hints-of-thunderbolt-4-80gbps.2018706/

Thunderbolt 4 possibly by next year then (2019), seems feasible then?

Not sure what you mean by network file system, but I'm thinking more on the lines for creatives who need fast desk speeds and large storage arrays, like video editors such as myself. You can already get 4 x NVME drives and PCIe switches that can run upwards of 40000 MB/s, so I can see these would fit in well to external exclosures, as well as those that still need even larger disk arrays, you already have Thunderbolt 3 that can handle most tasks.

I know nothing of the needs of data/science/programmer types that need everything to be hooked up to network file systems.

 

[AidenShaw]

Thunderbolt 4 possibly by next year then (2019), seems feasible then?

You can usually add a year or two from first announcement to "shipping in affordable volume" - so let's say that 2020 is an optimistic estimate.

Not sure what you mean by network file system

I mean the typical NAS - where the storage box has an OS (usually embedded Linux) that manages a Linux filesystem on the drives, and serves it to multiple clients using CIFS/NFS/other.network.file.sharing.protocols.

You have all the TCP/UDP overhead on both client and server (especially if they don't have $300+ NICs), and often some limitations in semantics. (Can AppleOSX or NTFS ACLs and security be implemented on a Linux filesystem?)

, but I'm thinking more on the lines for creatives who need fast desk speeds and large storage arrays, like video editors such as myself.

10GbE will be great for the huge archival storage, but not so great for for the work drives that the video editors are reading and writing.

DAS can easily hit 8 to 10 GB/sec - NAS has a hard limit of 1.25 GB/sec (and a typical good implementation will hover around 1.0 GB/sec).

You can already get 4 x NVME drives and PCIe switches that can run upwards of 40000 MB/s, so I can see these would fit in well to external exclosures, as well as those that still need even larger disk arrays, you already have Thunderbolt 3 that can handle most tasks.

I have some 40Gbps links, and the price of a cable is in the MacBook territory, and 40 Gbps switches cost a MacBook per port. (A PCIe switch has little to do with T-Bolt)

I know nothing of the needs of data/science/programmer types that need everything to be hooked up to network file systems.

They're actually quite similar (at the small scale - the DOE systems are unreal). Super-fast DAS for working data, and fast NAS for archival and shared storage. (For example, your TensorFlow program scripts might be stored on a NAS - but your models, temp and outputs are on RAID-0 local NVME drives. (At least that's the way we work.))

 

[ekwipt]

thanks @AidenShaw for the knowledge!

 

[Derived]

I want that to be the case, but I don't think it will be.

Apple's self-identified /self-deluded problem with the 2013 Mac Pro was that they couldn't fit the GPU's in the small enclosure and cool them effectively. What do you really think their answer will be - a bigger tower with more space for cooling, OR, get rid of the graphics cards entirely, put in an ARM-based chip to handle basic display & boot screens, and make...

<jonyive>The most pure expression of an external-graphics-based workstation possible</jonyive>

...so all proper GPUs go into an external, on a strangled thunderbolt3 connection.

Whenever Apple produces a bad answer to a problem, they tend to argue that the problem is at fault. They prefer to eliminate the opportunity for a problem, rather than solve it. "How do we adequately cool graphics cards?" "we eliminated the graphics card".

Do you truly, honestly, really think this is what they'll do? There is quite literally not a chance this will happen. This is ridiculous.

I see this thread is still people making up insane, ludicrous worst-case-scenarios that they then get angry about as if they actually exist...I honestly don't understand it.

At this point I think it's clear they're putting some serious thought into it, even if they did get a late start...all threads that start off with yet another borderline-illegible post about how "no news yet means it's not happening and Apple is doomed" should just be auto-deleted at this point.
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If this pro user is able to or decides to buy a new high spec Mac Pro 7,1 in late 2019 / early 2020 then this pro user will gladly put the budget together to do that. In the meantime, this pro since 1992 user has since sold his trusty but aged 5,1 and 30" ACD for good money and got the new iMP listed in the sig below and is getting work done exponentially faster than ever before.

That means this pro can do what he loves to do and that is *not* spend time on a computer and instead breathes clean air high in the Rockies as he skis, climbs and lives life behind a camera making several hundred thousand a year doing it.

There is a lot of not so clean hot air in this thread and this section of this site and it's really best I no longer participate here to be honest, never really been a computer nerd, just a pro user. I might come back to a Mac Pro if it looks like a worthy investment for my business but as it stands right now, this pro user is kicking ever loving a$$ on his not throttling, manually controlled fan iMac Pro for the time being.

Have a good time debating hour upon hour upon hour what a pro user is and what Apple is going to do next to retain or win back what seems to be a *far* more elite and undefined user base than even the most seasoned "Real-Pro" can hazard a guess who the hell that actually is. Meanwhile, the rest of us pro users will use whatever machine we see fit to produce work and bill out with to earn our living with.

There is a lot of great info here, it has helped me greatly in the past as I constantly battled keeping an aging machine up to date-ish. But the whole nose in the air, self lime-lighting, self labeling "Pro" user club here has gotten to be a bit much to take in recent years and folks, you are just not who you think you are and certainly not important enough to speak to or for what a pro user is and what Apple should be doing next. You have good insights, good knowledge and know what you want, but a lot of you take it way too far and both alienate and offend a lot of pro users.

I hope Apple gives you want you want, because it seems for you, the "Super-Real-Pro, No-Others-Are-Pro" users, Apple had better come up with the goods or there will be virtual online hell to pay.

Good luck with all that.

This is pretty much the best post in the thread.

 

[mattspace]

Do you truly, honestly, really think this is what they'll do? There is quite literally not a chance this will happen. This is ridiculous.

Yes, I do. I would suggest it's far more likely than a machine with open PCI slots that users can install their own choice of GPUs, from either team red or team green, air or AIO water cooled, etc - ie something resembling a cheesegrater.

Realistically, the only scenario in which a PCI slot has a noticeable difference in terms of performance, that most people would encounter, is going to be VR, where eGPU has a real, negative impact on performance. There, the difference between 90FPS, and less than 90FPS, is nausea and vomiting, not an extra second on a render queue.

Personally, I think Apple's treatment of Blueray is going to be a guide to how they'll treat VR, or they might limit their attention to 360 Video, since that can be part of their Final Cut pipeline.

The counter to this is that Apple could come up with a new sort of interconnect to replace Thunderbolt for external graphics / high bandwidth PCI Cards.

I could see Apple building a machine with PCI routed to dedicated (proprietary and licenced) connectors, as part of a "made for Mac Pro" programme, to connect eGPU / PCI Cards via what are essentially PCI extender cables. That gives them the throughput, the flexibility to address edge cases, and more importantly, unburdens them of the responsibility to control noise, cooling, and power delivery to the graphics card(s).

They'd also return to having machine that can address Blackmagic's 8K video IO card, which I imagine is a real thorn in their side - that one of the highest end components for a market they've traditionally dominated, requires a machine they stopped making 6 years ago, and supports nothing since.

That's Apple's "going to the moon" scenario - a capability they have absolutely lost. Apple's stuck right now in the low earth orbit of PCI3 x4, and thunderbolt will never solve that problem, unless it brings its PCI throughput to be in sync with motherboard slots.

 

[joebclash]

It seems the new i9 macbook pro has thermal issues. Does that raise concerns for the design of new mac pro?

 

[Aldaris]

... I really wanted to like the i9 MacBook Pro... was waiting for reviews, this is certainly not helping.

 

[barmann]

At this point I think it's clear they're putting some serious thought into it, even if they did get a late start...all threads that start off with yet another borderline-illegible post about how "no news yet means it's not happening and Apple is doomed" should just be auto-deleted at this point.

Well, it's not completely unreasonable to assume 'no news' means nothing is happening, considering Apple's history of nothing happening, and no news, over the past few years .

What exactly makes you believe Apple puts serious thought into the next MP, when there is not a single shred of evidence to support such a lofty claim ?
And yes, I've read all the 'news' about the matter, and it amounts to bugger all .
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It seems the new i9 macbook pro has thermal issues. Does that raise concerns for the design of new mac pro?

Not too shocking I think ; of more concern is the continuation of lukewarm updates Apple has a habit of doing, without any sign of addressing the real issues .
Ports, magsafe, touchbar model favouritism, keyboard, they just can't adapt to the market and user needs .

 

[Pressure]

It seems the new i9 macbook pro has thermal issues. Does that raise concerns for the design of new mac pro?

This cannot be a serious question. As our favourite chef Gordon Ramsay would say, "are you taking the piss?".

Honestly, what do you expect to get out of that silly question?

 

[zephonic]

It seems the new i9 macbook pro has thermal issues. Does that raise concerns for the design of new mac pro?

Recap: at last year’s round-table Apple’s VP’s specifically acknowledged they had designed themselves into a “thermal corner” with the MP6,1. The fact that they singled that out should be reason for cautious optimism, methinks.
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This cannot be a serious question. As our favourite chef Gordon Ramsay would say, "are you taking the piss?".

Honestly, what do you expect to get out of that silly question?

Your answer is better. I endorse this statement.

 

[Pandanl]

It seems the new i9 macbook pro has thermal issues. Does that raise concerns for the design of new mac pro?

If they go back to a normal case like the cMP I don't see this issue happening on the mMP

 

[ManuelGomes]

That was bound to be an issue, with the ttrMBP and heat output. Take a top of the line CPU, DDR4 instead of LPDDR3 (LPDDR4 still AWOL on Intel) and the same form factor, what would you expect?! Should be a great machine though, and truth be told, it was a demand from the Pros (more cores, more mem), and Apple delivered. But there are no miracles.
But I bet someone will go: why not make the laptop bigger? Come on, really?!!

 

[Biped]

This cannot be a serious question. As our favourite chef Gordon Ramsay would say, "are you taking the piss?".

Honestly, what do you expect to get out of that silly question?

If I can try to rationalize the question..

Apple admitted their design was a failure in terms of TDP, on what was arguably their halo product. This product has been a very visible and public failure.

Apple latest products aimed at the 'pro' consumer, are seemingly showing symptoms of the same problem. Apple's pursuit of aesthetic design resulting in products suffering from thermal throttling.

Gives the appearance of Apple talking out of both sides of its mouth, in relation to 'pro' consumer products. Which consequently gives little hope to those wanting a more functional orientated solution in the future.

Just spitballing.

 

[Chancha]

Recap: at last year’s round-table Apple’s VP’s specifically acknowledged they had designed themselves into a “thermal corner” with the MP6,1. The fact that they singled that out should be reason for cautious optimism, methinks.

And yet they have again designed themselves into the 6-core i9 thermal corner this time. The Touch Bar series chassis design was not anticipating this much heat, from future component iterations that Apple themselves do not control. Sounds exactly like the Trashcan.

 

[zephonic]

And yet they have again designed themselves into the 6-core i9 thermal corner this time. The Touch Bar series chassis design was not anticipating this much heat, from future component iterations that Apple themselves do not control. Sounds exactly like the Trashcan.

This MBP design predates the round-table, though. Again, I am cautiously optimistic.

Also, this seems all the more reason for Apple to ditch x86 in favor of their own CPU designs.

 

[pat500000]

It’s apple fault for desiging the way laptops are. Who said to solder anything? Who cares about thinness. Sure, little lighter might be nice...but current mbps are considered anorexic. Their idiotic designs are causing these problems in all mac line ups.

 

[Synchro3]

This Notebook is not thin and not light, by no means. A friend of mine bought this monstrosity. And it's more 'Pro' than all Mac Book Pro's. And the keyboard will not fail. And no CPU throttling.





2 x M.2 PCI-E-SSD (replacable), 64 GB RAM (up to 128GB), 2 x GTX 1080, 2.5' HDD's (replacable), Thunderbolt 3, 2 x DisplayPort 1.4, HDMI 2.0, USB 3.0, Ethernet etc.

 

[aaronhead14]

This Notebook is not thin and not light, by no means. A friend of mine bought this monstrosity. And it's more 'Pro' than all Mac Book Pro's. And the keyboard will not fail.

View attachment 771333 View attachment 771335

View attachment 771336

2 x M.2 PCI-E-SSD (replacable), 64 GB RAM (up to 128GB), 2 x GTX 1080, 2.5' HDD's (replacable), Thunderbolt 3, 2 x DisplayPort 1.4, HDMI 2.0, USB 3.0, Ethernet etc.

That's disgusting though. There needs to be a balance. That is WAY too gigantic. But the current MBP is way too thin and crappy. If the MBP was just a few millimeters thicker to accommodate better cooling, more ports, a more functional keyboard, and some decent upgradeability, then it would be the perfect laptop. But man, that monstrous beast in those photos is way overkill. Might as well just carry a desktop computer around with you, lol.

 

[pat500000]

This Notebook is not thin and not light, by no means. A friend of mine bought this monstrosity. And it's more 'Pro' than all Mac Book Pro's. And the keyboard will not fail.

View attachment 771333 View attachment 771335

View attachment 771336

2 x M.2 PCI-E-SSD (replacable), 64 GB RAM (up to 128GB), 2 x GTX 1080, 2.5' HDD's (replacable), Thunderbolt 3, 2 x DisplayPort 1.4, HDMI 2.0, USB 3.0, Ethernet etc.

If mbp is anorexic...this is obesity.

 

[joebclash]

This cannot be a serious question. As our favourite chef Gordon Ramsay would say, "are you taking the piss?".

Honestly, what do you expect to get out of that silly question?

Because the mac pro 6,1 had thermal issues I think it is a valid point of discussion. If this hurts your feelings then I'm sorry but this is a discussion board...

 

[koyoot]

It’s apple fault for desiging the way laptops are. Who said to solder anything? Who cares about thinness. Sure, little lighter might be nice...but current mbps are considered anorexic. Their idiotic designs are causing these problems in all mac line ups.

So you will not blame Intel for running too high core clocks, on those CPUs which increase both: power draw and temperatures?

Core i7 8700T, which is 35W version of 8700, and 8700K uses under load 82W of power. And it has LOWER clocks than that Core i9 from MacBook Pro. You cannot cheat physics.

 

[zephonic]

So you will not blame Intel for running too high core clocks, on those CPUs which increase both: power draw and temperatures?

Core i7 8700T, which is 35W version of 8700, and 8700K uses under load 82W of power. And it has LOWER clocks than that Core i9 from MacBook Pro. You cannot cheat physics.

I'm not sure what you are talking about, but the CPU's in the new MBP's are the i7-8750H, i7-8850H, and the i9-8950HK.

Their TDP is rated at 45W, although the 8750/8850 can be downrated to 35W.

The real question is whether the 2016 and 2017 MBP's had similarly extreme throttling issues. Since those CPU's had the same TDP in the same chassis, if throttling wasn't an issue then, it is not unreasonable to assume the problem lies with the new CPU's.

 

[mattspace]

This Notebook is not thin and not light, by no means. A friend of mine bought this monstrosity. And it's more 'Pro' than all Mac Book Pro's. And the keyboard will not fail.

It's thinner, and lighter, than a MBP plus all the external boxes you'd have to add, to bring the equivalent gun to a gunfight. Otherwise, you're turning up with a fish slice.

• external box for extra SSDs
• external box for 2.5" drives
• eGPU one vega 64 (roughly a 1080)
• eGPU one rx580? (roughly a 1080 when combined with the onboard).

reminds me of shoots around 2005 where the onset ingestion / quickcut machine was a guitar roadcase with a powerbook 17" and a bunch of drives and firewire breakout boxes permanently installed in it.

 

[Pressure]

Because the mac pro 6,1 had thermal issues I think it is a valid point of discussion. If this hurts your feelings then I'm sorry but this is a discussion board...

Apple already addressed the limitations of the current Mac Pro 6.1, read the transcript here.

Some of the important bits below.

With regards to the Mac Pro, we are in the process of what we call ‘completely rethinking the Mac Pro.’ We’re working on it. We have a team working hard on it right now, and we want to architect it so that we can keep it fresh with regular improvements, and we’re committed to making it our highest-end, high throughput desktop system, designed for our demanding pro customers.

I think it’s fair to say, part of why we’re talking today, is that the Mac Pro — the current vintage that we introduced — we wanted to do something bold and different. In retrospect, it didn’t well suit some of the people we were trying to reach. It’s good for some; it’s an amazingly quiet machine, it’s a beautiful machine. But it does not address the full range of customers we wanna reach with Mac Pro.

I think one of the foundations of that system was the dual GPU architecture. And for certain workflows, certain classes of pro customers, that’s a great solution. But, to Phil’s point, ‘Pro’ is so broad that it doesn’t necessarily fit all the needs of all the pros.

The way the system is architected, it just doesn’t lend itself to significant reconfiguration for somebody who might want a different combination of GPUs. That’s when we realized we had to take a step back and completely re-architect what we’re doing and build something that enables us to do these quick, regular updates and keep it current and keep it state of the art, and also allow a little more in terms of adaptability to the different needs of the different pro customers.

...But I think we designed ourselves into a bit of a thermal corner, if you will. We designed a system that we thought with the kind of GPUs that at the time we thought we needed, 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.

In retrospect, that was… While that system is going to be fantastic for a huge number of customers, we want to do more.

We did not fully come to terms with our need to do more until later than we’d like, with the implication that the next-generation Mac Pro that many of our customers — well, some of our customers, it’s relatively small in the grand scheme of things, but a very important group of our customers want — until quite a while from now.

I think initially, certainly from a market reception point of view, the current Mac Pro design was well received. It wasn’t that sales fell off at all. But the architecture, over time, proved to be less flexible to take us where we wanted to go to address that audience. In hindsight, we would’ve done that differently. Now we are.

But read the whole transcript, a lot of good tit bits in it.

 

[pl1984]

But I bet someone will go: why not make the laptop bigger? Come on, really?!!

This is a very valid question / recommendation. While thin and light is appreciated it should come at the cost of functionality / reliability. Otherwise why is Apple bothering with anything other than the Apple Watch?