What should 2019 Mac Pro be like?

[BlueTide]

It would be odd if they didn't have support for real FirePros in the new Mac Pro considering for some users, those are the real top end GPUs, and Apple supports them officially for eGPU now.

I don't mind support. I mind if they shove it to everyone.

 

[fuchsdh]

I don't mind support. I mind if they shove it to everyone.

If the Mac Pro comes in configs around previous pricing, I don't imagine they would have workstation cards standard. Apple's never done that.

EDIT: To clarify, I'm talking expensive ECC options. AMD's "workstation" cards cover the Radeons in Apple's iMacs and iMac Pro, but their W-series are the big expensive ones that are more comparable to Teslas and such.

 

[aaronhead14]

Sorry Arron, but this is just complete nonsense. Whoever fed you that was full of it.

Actually it's not. The film/television industry is virtually the only reason Apple created their towers. In the late 1990's and early 2000's, aside from the educational market, the film/television industry was basically Apple's only real customer. Every movie was edited and composited on a Mac. But in people's homes, almost nobody had Macs. Apple built their pro towers for the film/television industry, because that was their big customer. Heck, that was back when Apple heavily invested into FCP and Shake, because that was the industry they were having the most success with.
The average consumer (and average professional) wasn't ever really Apple's target customer until the release of the iPod.
So, don't tell me what's nonsense when I know quite well what's true and what's not. 🙂

 

[goMac]

Actually it's not. The film/television industry is virtually the only reason Apple created their towers. In the late 1990's and early 2000's, aside from the educational market, the film/television industry was basically Apple's only real customer. Every movie was edited and composited on a Mac. But in people's homes, almost nobody had Macs. Apple built their pro towers for the film/television industry, because that was their big customer. Heck, that was back when Apple heavily invested into FCP and Shake, because that was the industry they were having the most success with.
The average consumer (and average professional) wasn't ever really Apple's target customer until the release of the iPod.
So, don't tell me what's nonsense when I know quite well what's true and what's not. 🙂

Desktop publishing and Photoshop (and eventually web design) were all big industries too. They very smartly used stuff like iLife, which was basically lite versions of their software (or lite versions of third party pro software), to leverage their pro experience into the consumer market.

 

[aaronhead14]

Desktop publishing and Photoshop (and eventually web design) were all big industries too. They very smartly used stuff like iLife, which was basically lite versions of their software (or lite versions of third party pro software), to leverage their pro experience into the consumer market.

Photoshop was invented by ILM's John Knoll (and his brother Thomas) for filmmaking.

 

[JazzyGB1]

Actually it's not. The film/television industry is virtually the only reason Apple created their towers. In the late 1990's and early 2000's, aside from the educational market, the film/television industry was basically Apple's only real customer. Every movie was edited and composited on a Mac. But in people's homes, almost nobody had Macs. Apple built their pro towers for the film/television industry, because that was their big customer. Heck, that was back when Apple heavily invested into FCP and Shake, because that was the industry they were having the most success with.
The average consumer (and average professional) wasn't ever really Apple's target customer until the release of the iPod.
So, don't tell me what's nonsense when I know quite well what's true and what's not. 🙂

No he's right, you're talking nonsense.
Apple have made towers since 1992.
Shake didn't even become available for the Mac until 2002.
Music software however was developed quickly on the Mac especially in the late 80's and early 90's as many Macs had built in sound cards as standard (which wasn't common place in computers at that time).
Digidesign released Sound Designer for the Mac in 1987.
MOTU released Digital Performer for the Mac in 1990, Emagic introduced Logic for the Mac in 1992 and as a result Macs were widely adopted to make music - a field in which their use is still ubiquitous today.
In fact up until around 1993, most DAWs ran on an Amiga, Atari ST or Mac.
QuarkXpress was first released for the Mac in 1987.
Photoshop was released exclusively for the Mac in 1990.
So again Macs were extensively used in photo editing and desktop publishing.
So Mac's reputation for being the 'choice of professionals' has everything to do with that and almost entirely nothing to do with Shake.

 

[OS6-OSX]

A "Pro" user (in terms of Apple products and not in general) has always been someone who works in the film/television industry and needs the fastest technology available because they're working with the latest and greatest camera equipment.

A little rewording...
The title "Pro" user (in terms of Apple products and not in general) should be based on someone who works in the film/television industry and needs the fastest technology available because they're working with insanely large files. If Apple made a Mac that could play/process/render (manipulate) endless trks of 8K footage, all other "Pros" would be covered! But not the other way around! 😛

 

[ixxx69]

The average consumer (and average professional) wasn't ever really Apple's target customer until the release of the iPod.
So, don't tell me what's nonsense when I know quite well what's true and what's not. 🙂

You're wrong. You're doubling-down on the nonsense.

Photoshop was invented by ILM's John Knoll (and his brother Thomas) for filmmaking.

No it wasn't. This is more made up talk (seriously, a simple google search will bring up any number of references to how Photoshop was actually developed).

 

[barmann]

Actually it's not. The film/television industry is virtually the only reason Apple created their towers. In the late 1990's and early 2000's, aside from the educational market, the film/television industry was basically Apple's only real customer.

...

The average consumer (and average professional) wasn't ever really Apple's target customer until the release of the iPod.

Apple was in the consumer and prosumer game from the beginning ; when the iPod - a major success for them - was introduced, the company had already been saved by the iMac years earlier .

 

[goMac]

Apple was in the consumer and prosumer game from the beginning ; when the iPod - a major success for them - was introduced, the company had already been saved by the iMac years earlier .

Apple didn't do well with prosumers until around the iMac. By the mid nineties Apple was almost entirely being kept afloat by pros. There were some prosumers buying Mac, but for the most part consumers are prosumers had fled to Windows because no one wanted to buy a computer from a company that might be out of business in a year. So if you were buying Apple, it was because it was essential to your workflow.

Sure, the Apple II and early Mac days were better for Apple and consumers, but arguing that they've always been in the consumers and prosumer game is pretty strong revisionist history. Maybe the closest equivalent is Apple's strong position in education around that time, which was only one of a few strong positions they had left.

I don't think Apple really made any consumer products in the mid nineties. You could try and argue the Performa line was their attempt, but it was a crappy computer line that was really expensive. At a certain point they just kind of gave up and went all in on Power Macs, which were either targeted at pros and business.

I don't think there even was any consumer Mac available when the iMac was introduced. I think it was all pro/some business/some edu only skus available.

 

[Naimfan]

If the next MP does not have the following, Apple shouldn't bother releasing it:

4x PCI-e slots minimum; 3 free (one with GPU from factory)
User-upgradable RAM, storage, and GPU
Sufficient power and cooling for 2 powerful GPUs
Single and dual socket versions
TB3/USB-C
USB-A
512 GB storage minimum

If Apple releases another locked-down, non-field serviceable unit like the tcMP, it'll simply tell prospective customers not to bother with Apple any longer.

 

[fuchsdh]

Apple didn't do well with prosumers until around the iMac. By the mid nineties Apple was almost entirely being kept afloat by pros. There were some prosumers buying Mac, but for the most part consumers are prosumers had fled to Windows because no one wanted to buy a computer from a company that might be out of business in a year. So if you were buying Apple, it was because it was essential to your workflow.

Sure, the Apple II and early Mac days were better for Apple and consumers, but arguing that they've always been in the consumers and prosumer game is pretty strong revisionist history. Maybe the closest equivalent is Apple's strong position in education around that time, which was only one of a few strong positions they had left.

I don't think Apple really made any consumer products in the mid nineties. You could try and argue the Performa line was their attempt, but it was a crappy computer line that was really expensive. At a certain point they just kind of gave up and went all in on Power Macs, which were either targeted at pros and business.

I don't think there even was any consumer Mac available when the iMac was introduced. I think it was all pro/some business/some edu only skus available.

The iMac was from the start targeted at low-cost, regular consumers, even if it was still a comparatively pricey computer (it was basically a $2K computer, adjusted for inflation.) The pitch was for a consumer-focused, internet-ready all-in-one. (What's weird is that they shipped the education "molar" G3 all-in-one right before the iMac, but it was $300 more. You could argue that since it was a more rough-and-tumble and serviceable machine it was still a better buy, but the fact that Apple discontinued it quickly suggests that was a misstep.)

I don't think their lack of presence in the consumer market was for lack of trying, though. They just had a bundle of obstacles against them, many self-inflicted, others out of their control. Clones could run MacOS on cheaper, sometimes better hardware than Apple itself, and their product line was a mess and often expensive. Even having lived through it I cannot remember which X was a rebadged Y and the various iterations thereof.

I think part of the problem when people talk about turn-of-the-century Apple is there's this narrative that iMac or at the latest iPod "saved" Apple, but the single products were small in comparison to the massive reorganization Jobs did that allowed those products to succeed (and which Cook probably doesn't get enough credit, for all the complaining about him as a bean counter now.) Apple was still on shaky financial ground into 2003 (and man, it's kind of amazing to re-read their earnings reports from those years... selling a grand total of 1 million iPods and Macs in a quarter...)

But to the early stuff... lol at Apple dominating film and video work in the 1990s. They were education, desktop publishing and graphic design back then. The whole point was that Final Cut Pro along with iMovie were Apple skating to where the puck was going with NLEs and doing well for themselves from the start.

 

[goMac]

The iMac was from the start targeted at low-cost, regular consumers, even if it was still a comparatively pricey computer (it was basically a $2K computer, adjusted for inflation.) The pitch was for a consumer-focused, internet-ready all-in-one. (What's weird is that they shipped the education "molar" G3 all-in-one right before the iMac, but it was $300 more. You could argue that since it was a more rough-and-tumble and serviceable machine it was still a better buy, but the fact that Apple discontinued it quickly suggests that was a misstep.)

Sure, but before the iMac was introduced, Apple literally had no consumer SKUs left. A consumer could buy an expensive Power Mac if they chose to, but Apple had pulled out of the consumer market.

The last "consumer" Mac that had existed before the iMac was the Power Mac 6500, and that was just a rebadged pro/business machine, and it wasn't really even in a consumer price range.

I don't think their lack of presence in the consumer market was for lack of trying, though. They just had a bundle of obstacles against them, many self-inflicted, others out of their control. Clones could run MacOS on cheaper, sometimes better hardware than Apple itself, and their product line was a mess and often expensive. Even having lived through it I cannot remember which X was a rebadged Y and the various iterations thereof.

Again, the day before the iMac was introduced they literally had no consumer machines. Not a single one. They were selling pro hardware to consumers, but at pro price points. Literally the line had been flatted to only the Power Mac G3. You could buy a Power Mac G3, or you could buy nothing.

That's why the iMac was so shocking. It was pro-ish grade hardware at a consumer price point, which Apple had not had in a while.

That doesn't even get into the initial Rhapsody strategy, which also basically abandon the consumer market. Rhapsody was supposed to go against Windows NT. There was no consumer version planned. The plan at that point was basically allowing Rhapsody software to be cross platform on legacy Mac OS (which would have continued) and Windows 95.

 

[aaronhead14]

No it wasn't. This is more made up talk (seriously, a simple google search will bring up any number of references to how Photoshop was actually developed).

Umm, what? Are you performing your Google searches in an alternate dimension? Photoshop was absolutely developed by John Knoll (and his brother Thomas), who was (and still is) one of the main visual effects guys at Lucasfilm's Industrial Light and Magic (ILM). He made Photoshop so he could manipulate images for people in his own line of work.

Do you really think a VFX guy was like, "I'mma invent this software and then not use it because I'm inventing it for other people and not me"? No. That didn't happen. He made the software for himself, a filmmaker.

 

[JayKay514]

If the next MP does not have the following, Apple shouldn't bother releasing it:

4x PCI-e slots minimum; 3 free (one with GPU from factory)
User-upgradable RAM, storage, and GPU
Sufficient power and cooling for 2 powerful GPUs
Single and dual socket versions
TB3/USB-C
USB-A
512 GB storage minimum

If Apple releases another locked-down, non-field serviceable unit like the tcMP, it'll simply tell prospective customers not to bother with Apple any longer.

I would agree with this, and certainly the 2019 MP should be backwards-compatible to these standards.

But we know that as a flagship computer, by Apple's standards that would basically be the 2013 cylinder Mac Pro architecture (or basically, a current Asus x99 motherboard) in the body of the Classic Mac Pro (tower). They would get hammered in the press for recycling old tech if they only met older standards.

I would predict this:

Design parameters:

• Similar to 2013 MP, low noise, optimized cooling, lower power use;
• Similar to 2012 MP, expandable, more user-configurable, powerful, cutting-edge speed / interconnects.

This would mean:

• PCIe 4.0 standard, unless they are waiting for the 5.0 standard due in Q2 2019. PCIe 4.0 doubles 3.0's bandwidth to a total of 16 GT/s per lane. Obviously, backwards compatible to current cards.
• 5 full-size / height PCIe slots + 1 backplane slot for various expander/connector brackets, or 3D glasses/VR connector headers, etc. There should be full free access to all slots - the case latch mechanism blocked slots in the old Mac Pro - and should be freely reconfigurable in terms of lanes.
• Move completely to PCIe M.2 format for internal drives, with at least 1 populated, up to 4 user-installable slots. Compatible with SATA, NVME, and Optane SSDs at different price points / BTO.
• Possibly: Quad spring-loaded slots for 2.5" SATA SSDs - pop in/out like SD cards with latching action. Taking up less room / using less energy. Unpopulated except for BTO / lowest price point model. Can be an optional module for later user installation; other modules could be optical disc reader/writers, etc - connects directly to MB, no need for SATA cabling / awkward installation as on classic Mac Pro.
• Single CPU socket, but with multiple tiers of cores (quad, 8, 10, 12, 16, 24, etc.) at different price points; passive cooling with large heat sink for lower cores, possibly liquid cooling for high-core-count models. Thermal envelope similar to classic Mac Pro.
• 4 DIMM slots, ships with higher-density RAM (1x 32GB minimum, expandable to 512GB)
• Choice of AMD video cards (as supported in current 10.13.4 OS), number only limited by power requirements / size. (
• Possibly TB4 (dependent on PCIe 4.0) but multiple TB3 ports (6 would be good). TBD; Would these use the new USB-C port form factor or classic TB (same as Mini DisplayPort?)
• Optional combo USB-A / eSATA connector bracket (connects to motherboard header)
• Large asymmetrical fans (1-2) similar to 2013 MP, designed to reduce airflow noise, large enough for slower speeds with larger air volume; vertical cooling
• Shockmounting to reduce any mechanical vibration noise (for anything like CD readers, the fans; all disks should be solid-state)
• Dual port 10 gigabit Ethernet; latest WiFi and Bluetooth standards;
• Case could incorporate antennas to enable WiFi beam-forming;
• In theory, an eSIM card to enable direct connection to LTE, maybe with an external antenna backplate connector - useful for remote / location shooting, or for areas without high-speed wired Internet

Space savings:

When you look at the classic Mac Pro, a huge amount of the internal volume is given to physical spinning disk media - the optical drive cavity, the 4x drive sleds. If we reduce that all to maybe half to 2/3 of the old optical drive cavity, and make that a slot for an optional module for SSDs or 1x optical drive, we can save a lot of space.

The second largest single area in the 2010-2012 MP was the dual CPU + 4 DIMMs per CPU tray. By moving to a single CPU and 4 DIMMs, we can reduce that to a single daughtercard or arrange that more efficiently for cooling - maybe 1/4 of the old space.

That leaves space for the 5 + 1 PCIe slots which will be slightly taller than the Classic Mac Pro area, but that extra space is saved from the reductions elsewhere.

So overall, it would be maybe 2/3 to 1/2 the internal volume of the classic Mac Pro; obviously larger than the 2013 cylinder, but still quite compact, and could use some of the same techniques for passive / managed cooling.

 

[ixxx69]

Umm, what? Are you performing your Google searches in an alternate dimension? Photoshop was absolutely developed by John Knoll (and his brother Thomas), who was (and still is) one of the main visual effects guys at Lucasfilm's Industrial Light and Magic (ILM). He made Photoshop so he could manipulate images for people in his own line of work.

Do you really think a VFX guy was like, "I'mma invent this software and then not use it because I'm inventing it for other people and not me"? No. That didn't happen. He made the software for himself, a filmmaker.

Yes, those are the two who developed it. It's everything else you've got wrong.

It was Thomas, who was not a filmmaker ,who started developing the app as part of his PHD. Knoll, who was barely out of college himself, was working for ILM in image processing, and encouraged Thomas to keep developing it, suggesting various tools to add, etc, and then they started shopping it around before licensing it to Adobe who marketed it for photo editing and image creation. You're trying to change the narrative that somehow Photoshop was developed by/for ILM work, which isn't the way the brothers describe it.

You know Aaron, I tried to bail you out at the beginning - you could have just said, "yeah, someone fed me some BS - my bad".
[doublepost=1524782063][/doublepost]

Sure, but before the iMac was introduced, Apple literally had no consumer SKUs left. A consumer could buy an expensive Power Mac if they chose to, but Apple had pulled out of the consumer market.

The last "consumer" Mac that had existed before the iMac was the Power Mac 6500, and that was just a rebadged pro/business machine, and it wasn't really even in a consumer price range.



Again, the day before the iMac was introduced they literally had no consumer machines. Not a single one. They were selling pro hardware to consumers, but at pro price points. Literally the line had been flatted to only the Power Mac G3. You could buy a Power Mac G3, or you could buy nothing.

That's why the iMac was so shocking. It was pro-ish grade hardware at a consumer price point, which Apple had not had in a while.

That doesn't even get into the initial Rhapsody strategy, which also basically abandon the consumer market. Rhapsody was supposed to go against Windows NT. There was no consumer version planned. The plan at that point was basically allowing Rhapsody software to be cross platform on legacy Mac OS (which would have continued) and Windows 95.

More lunancy.

Okay, I'm out. This is just ridiculous. Sorry, I guess I'm still adjusting to this new world order we live in where everyone just makes **** up and the truth is whatever you want it to be.

 

[Christian Schumacher]

But to the early stuff... lol at Apple dominating film and video work in the 1990s. They were education, desktop publishing and graphic design back then. The whole point was that Final Cut Pro along with iMovie were Apple skating to where the puck was going with NLEs and doing well for themselves from the start.

Apple hardware was necessary to run Avid Media Composer which couldn't be installed on Windows back in the day. Avid who? The famous non-linear editing solution for film and television of which Apple took most everything from?

 

[filmak]

512 GB storage minimum

Yes, but an SSD one please, I don't think you would like to see a 5400rpm HD instead, would you?
🙂

 

[fastlanephil]

Again, the day before the iMac was introduced they literally had no consumer machines. Not a single one. They were selling pro hardware to consumers, but at pro price points. Literally the line had been flatted to only the Power Mac G3. You could buy a Power Mac G3, or you could buy nothing.

Don’t forget about the clones, especially the Power Computing line. I had a Powerbase 180 for seven years before buying one of their (buzzing) fruity iMacs. The Powerbase 180 wasn’t pretty but it was almost half the price of what comperable product Apple was selling at the time. Plus Apple offered steep educational discounts which helped create the gray market. They advertised gray market Macs in the back of the major Mac magazines.

 

[goMac]

Don’t forget about the clones, especially the Power Computing line. I had a Powerbase 180 for seven years before buying one of their (buzzing) fruity iMacs. The Powerbase 180 wasn’t pretty but it was almost half the price of what comperable product Apple was selling at the time. Plus Apple offered steep educational discounts which helped create the gray market. They advertised gray market Macs in the back of the major Mac magazines.

Yeah, I never bought a clone, but it's another reason Apple had stopped targeting the consumer market.

Apple's plan was that they would handle pros and clones would handle consumers, until the clones started building cheaper pro machines... and then Apple threw a fit.
[doublepost=1524855736][/doublepost]

More lunancy.

Okay, I'm out. This is just ridiculous. Sorry, I guess I'm still adjusting to this new world order we live in where everyone just makes **** up and the truth is whatever you want it to be.

Don't know what to tell you. I was around for all of this. If Apple had a consumer Mac pre-iMac I'd love to know what it was.

The G3 AIO might come close, but it was sold only to schools, which is why they fetch a premium in the collectors market. The Power Mac G3 had a desktop variant along with it's tower variant, but both were at least at the prosumer end of the price scale. Maybe you could make the case that because the 9600 was cut they were actually backing away from pros but I think that's a stretch.

For reference, here were what actual consumer machines were selling for back then, while Apple hovered around the $2000 mark for their entry level:
https://www.cnet.com/news/average-pc-price-below-1300/

Even getting third party software arranged for the iMac launch was a problem because there was practically no consumer software for the Mac, so Apple had to go around and convince everyone to hop back into the consumer market. Half the third party software Apple promised never even ended up shipping, but it turned out ok in the end.

 

[AidenShaw]

512 GB storage minimum

At first glance I read this as "at least 512 GiB RAM supported" 😉

Probably because 512 GiB is a minimum for RAM in the workstation space, and it's laughably small for internal storage.

Anyway - IMO the MP7,1 should have 8 DIMM slots at least. (The Z8 supports 3 TiB of RAM.)

 

[JesterJJZ]

I met John Knoll at ILM once. Very inspiring.

 

[deconstruct60]

....
Don't know what to tell you. I was around for all of this. If Apple had a consumer Mac pre-iMac I'd love to know what it was.
.....

For reference, here were what actual consumer machines were selling for back then, while Apple hovered around the $2000 mark for their entry level:
https://www.cnet.com/news/average-pc-price-below-1300/

the bulk of the line up was over the $2K mark, but even from the beginning the Mac always hovered around that high; over $2K. Apple's more competitive consumer stuff was at the $2K level, but it wasn't all exclusively over $2K.


everymac.com has a listing of all Macs. Archives are handy well the "All Year" index and pulled out some snapshots from a couple of years.


1993-94
Quadra 605 $900-1,300
https://everymac.com/systems/apple/mac_quadra/specs/mac_quadra_605.html
Quadra 630 $1,280
https://everymac.com/systems/apple/mac_quadra/specs/mac_quadra_630.html
LC 575 $1,700 ( with monitor)
https://everymac.com/systems/apple/mac_lc/specs/mac_lc_575.html

1996
4400 $1,500
https://everymac.com/systems/apple/powermac/specs/powermac_4400_160.html
Performa 6260 $1,600
https://everymac.com/systems/apple/mac_performa/specs/mac_performa_6360_160.html

1997
Power Macintosh 5400/180 $1,500
https://everymac.com/systems/apple/powermac/specs/powermac_5400_180.html

1998
G3 all-in-one $1,499
https://everymac.com/systems/apple/powermac_g3/specs/powermac_g3_233_aio.html

1999
G3 iMac $1,199
https://everymac.com/systems/apple/imac/specs/imac_266.html

That G3 All-in-one to iMac is a drop but second iteration on the PPC 750 and simplified.

Through the whole 90's prior to the iMac introduction Apple always had something in their line up that was lower than $2K. The iMac pushed the envelope, but it was also at the tail end of the decade ( which left lower justification for sticking to the over $2K price points for entry level specs. ) The notion that iMac was some sudden approximately $1,000 reversal in pricing strategy isn't grounded.

The real problem was that Apple needed to stop muddling after too many variations of just high mark up products and get behind a smaller number that were better focused.

Even getting third party software arranged for the iMac launch was a problem because there was practically no consumer software for the Mac, so Apple had to go around and convince everyone to hop back into the consumer market. Half the third party software Apple promised never even ended up shipping, but it turned out ok in the end.

This is so contrived. The "pro systems" were not saving the Mac all by themselves. There was consumer software title flight, but that was far more so because Apple was imploding ( who was going to buy out the remnants ... Sun , IBM , etc. ). The real issue was to stop the flight; not bring in 15 formerly Windows only titles. If MS had declared Office and Explorer dead on the Mac then the Mac would be dead. Period.

You could see the "Apple is dying" effect in the bookstores with a computer section. The Apple/Mac section was steadily shrinking. The extensive "cultification" of Macs wasn't helping either.

 

[scoobs69]

If the next MP does not have the following, Apple shouldn't bother releasing it:

4x PCI-e slots minimum; 3 free (one with GPU from factory)
User-upgradable RAM, storage, and GPU
Sufficient power and cooling for 2 powerful GPUs
Single and dual socket versions
TB3/USB-C
USB-A
512 GB storage minimum

If Apple releases another locked-down, non-field serviceable unit like the tcMP, it'll simply tell prospective customers not to bother with Apple any longer.

I would add at least 1 additional user upgradable NVMe slot, and at least 3 additional 3.5" drive bays.

 

[fuchsdh]

I would add at least 1 additional user upgradable NVMe slot, and at least 3 additional 3.5" drive bays.

They're simply not going to release a 2019 pro Mac that is filled with space for spinning rust.